The Greeks received the fan from Egypt and Assyria through the Phœnicians, who were the traders between the east and the west. In the sarcophagus of Amanthus (Cyprio-Phœnician), representing a train of horsemen, footmen, and chariots, the horses’ heads are adorned with a pleated fan crest, similar to that which was used by the Persians; the figure in the first biga carries a parasol. Thus Perrot and Chipiez in their description of this monument: ‘The parasol which shades the head of the great person in the first biga is the symbol of Asiatic royalty: the fan-shaped plume which rises above the heads of all the chariot horses, is an ornament that one sees in the same position in Assyria and Lycia, when the sculptor desires to represent horses magnificently caparisoned.’
This remarkable example is of the highest interest as showing that the pleated form—in this instance, doubtless, rigid, and fixed to a short handle, also seen in both Egyptian and Assyrian monuments—has been employed from a very remote period.[23]
The earliest Greek fans were, doubtless, branches of the myrtle, acacia, the triple leaves of the Oriental plantain, and also the leaves of the lotus, which latter, together with the myrtle, were consecrated to Venus, were symbols of the dolce far niente, and therefore peculiarly appropriate to this instrument of reposeful ease. The myrtle bough was also used by the Romans, as we learn from Martial, iii. 82, serving at the same time as fan and fly-flap—
‘Et aestuanti tenue ventilat frigus
Supina prasino concubina flabello;
Fugátque muscas myrteâ puer virgâ.’
| Terra Cotta Statuettes. | British Museum. |