[651] Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, London 1809, pl. 51.
Figures 6 and 7, [Plate X.], are from coins engraved in Carelli’s Nummi Veteris Italiæ (plates 58 and 65). Figure 7 is a coin of Suessa in Campania.
To these illustrations might have been added others from ancient gems, good examples of which may be found in the second volume of Mariette’s Traité des Pierres Gravées, folio, Paris, 1750.
Besides the application of felt as a covering of the head for the male sex in the manner now explained, it was also used as a lining for helmets. When in the description of the helmet worn by Ulysses we read
Μέσσῃ δ’ ἐνὶ πῖλος ἀρήρει[652],
we may suppose πῖλος to be used in its most ordinary sense, consequently that the interior of the helmet was a common skull-cap.
PLATE IX.
[652] Homer, Il. x. 265. Eustathius, in his commentary on this passage, says, that the most ancient Greeks always wore felt in their helmets, but that those of more recent times, regarding this use of felt as peculiar to Ulysses, persuaded the painters to exhibit him in a skull-cap, and that this was first done, according to the tradition, by the painter Apollidorus. The account of Pliny, who, together with Servius (in Æn. ii. 44), represents Nicomachus, and not Apollidorus, as having first adopted this idea.
Being generally thicker than common cloth, felt presented a more effectual obstacle to missile weapons. Hence, when the soldiers under Julius Cæsar were much annoyed by Pompey’s archers, they made shirts or other coverings of felt, and put them on for their defence[653]. Thucydides refers to the use of similar means to protect the body from arrows[654]; and even in besieging and defending cities felt was used, together with hides and sackcloth, to cover the wooden towers and military engines[655].