This singular form, for their ornamental combs, seems to have been adopted originally from the predilection of the Athenians for whatever bore any affinity to themselves, who boasted of being autochthones or aboriginal. It is sung of the Athenians:
Blithe race! whose mantles were bedeck’d
With golden grasshoppers, in sign that they
Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil
Whereon their endless generations dwelt.
Mr. Michell supposes the Athenians to have imitated in this instance their prototypes, the Egyptians; for as they, he adds, wore their favorite symbol, the Scarabæus, in this manner, so Attic pride set up a rival in the head-dress thus introduced by Cecrops and his followers.[868]
From a very ancient writer,[869] we have similar ornaments
ascribed to the Samians. They also most probably derived this fashion from the early Athenians.[870]
It seems, from the following lines of Asius,[871] that Cicadas were also worn as ornaments on dresses:
Clad in magnificent robes, whose snow-white folds