In Greece, as Becker tells us in his "Charicles," the Parasol was an indispensable adjunct to a lady of fashion. It had also its religious signification. In the Scirophoria, the feast of Athene Sciras, a white Parasol was borne by the priestesses of the goddess from the Acropolis to the Phalerus. In the feasts of Dionysius (in that at Alea in Arcadia, where he was exposed under an Umbrella, and elsewhere) the Umbrella was used, and in an old has-relief the same god is represented as descending ad inferos with a small Umbrella in his hand, like Vishnu before mentioned.
There was also another festival in which they appeared, though without any mystical signification. In the Panathenæa, the daughters of the Metceci, or foreign residents, carried Parasols over the heads of Athenian women as a mark of inferiority,
"tas parthenons ton metoikon skiadaephorein en tais rompais
aenankazon."
—OElian, V. H., vi. 1.
[Footnote: "They compelled the maidens of the Metceci to act as
umbrella-bearers in the processions.">[
Its use seems to have been confined to women. In Pausanias there is
a description of a tomb near Pharæ, a Greek city. On the tomb was the
figure of a woman—
"themapaina de autae prosestaeke skiadeion pherousa."
—Pausanias, lib. vii., cap. 22, Section 6.
[Footnote: "And by her stood a female slave, bearing a parasol.">[
Aristophanes seems to mention it among the common articles of female use—
"aemin men gar son eti kai nun tantion, o kanon, oi kalathiokoi,
to skiadeion."
—Aristophanes, Thesmoph., 821.
[Footnote: "For now our loom is safe, our weaving-beam, our baskets
and umbrella.">[
It occurs frequently on vases, and is in shape like that now used. It could be put up and down.
"ta d' ota g'an son, nae AL', exepetannuto osper skiadeion, kai
palin xunaegeto."
—Arist. Eq., 1347.
[Footnote: "But your ears, by Jove, are stretched out like a
parasol, and now again shut up.">[
Which the Scholiast explains, ekteinetai de kai systelletai pros ton katepeigonta kairon. [Footnote: "Are opened and shut as need requires.">[ For a man to carry one was considered a mark of effeminacy, as appears from the following fragment of Anacreon:—
"skiadiskaen elephantinaen phorei gunaixin autos."
Athenaeus, lib. xii., cap. 46, Section 534.
[Footnote: "He carries an ivory parasol, as women do.">[