[636] Uber die Wägen und Fuhrwerke der Alten, vol. i. p. 342.
In connection with the above quoted expression of Dio Cassius it may be observed further, that besides the causia two varieties of the petasus seem to be alluded to by several ancient authors, viz. the Thessalian, and the Arcadian or Laconian. How they were distinguished, cannot be ascertained, but the passages which mention them will now be produced, that the reader may judge for himself. The Thessalian variety is mentioned by Dio Cassius, by Theophrastus, as above quoted (p. 427), and by Callimachus in the following fragment, which is preserved in the Scholia on Sophocles, Œd. Col. 316.
And about his head lay a felt, newly come from Thessaly, as a protection from wet.—Frag. 124. ed. Ernesti.
The frenzied Cynic philosopher Menedemus, among other peculiarities, wore an Arcadian hat, HAVING THE TWELVE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC WOVEN INTO IT[637]! Ammianus (Brunck, Anal. ii. 384.) represents an orator dedicating “an Arcadian hat” to Mercury, who was the patron of his art, and also a native of Arcadia.
[637] Diog. Laërt. vi. 102. See Gilroy’s Treatise on the Art of Weaving, American edition, p. 446.
Herodes Atticus wore “the Arcadian hat” at Athens, as a protection from the sun; and the language of Philostratus, in recording the fact, shows that the Athenians of his time commonly wore it, more especially in travelling[638]. Arrian, who wrote about the middle of the second century, says, that “Laconian or Arcadian hats,” were worn in the army by the peltastæ instead of helmets[639]. This circumstance shows a remarkable change of customs; for in the early Greek history we find the Persian soldiers held up as the objects of ridicule and contempt, because they wore hats and trowsers[640]. On the whole, it is very evident that “the Arcadian or Laconian hat” was one and the same variety, and that this variety of head-dress was simply the petasus, or hat with a brim, so called to distinguish it from the proper πῖλος, which was the skull-cap, or hat without a brim.
This supposition suits the representations of the only imaginary beings who are exhibited in works of ancient art wearing the petasus, viz. the Dioscuri and Mercury.
[638] Vit. Sophist. ii. 5. 3.
[639] Tactica, p. 12. ed. Blancardi.
[640] Herod. v. 49.