‘Lambere quae turpes prohibet tua prandia muscas,
Alitis eximiae cauda superba fuit.’
The same author, III. lxxii. 10-11, says of Zoilus that when overcome by the heat, a pleasant coolness is wafted about him with a leek-green flabellum.
The Romans also adopted the tail of the yak, but this last, which appears to have been imported from India, was not so commonly used as the tabellæ, a species of fan of square or circular shape, formed of precious wood or very finely cut ivory, referred to by Ovid in the third book of his Amores. ‘Wouldst thou,’ he exclaims, ‘have an agreeable zephyr to refresh thy face? This tablet agitated by my hand will give you this pleasure.’ Those also were the fans the young Roman exquisites carried when accompanying their mistresses along the Via Sacra, fanning them gallantly, representations of which appear on vases in the Louvre.[26]
Propertius, also, in the fourth book of his Elegies, represents Hercules as seated at the feet of Omphale, fan in hand.
FROM AN ETRUSCAN VASE.
(British Museum.)
| An Eastern Potentate taking tea. finely painted in gouache on gold ground, French, c. 1780. stick modern. | Mrs Hungerford Pollen |