UMBRA´CULUM
UMBRA´CULUM,
UMBELLA (
σκιάδειον,
σκιαδίσκη). Umbrellas and fans are shown on both Assyrian and
Egyptian monuments before the 7th century B.C.,
and it may be assumed that they came to Greece with other articles of
Oriental luxury about that period. By the 5th century, the use of umbrellas
was so established at Athens that they were carried by the daughters of the
aliens (
μέτοικοι) after the Athenian
maidens in the procession at the
PANATHENAEA [p. 327
a]. So far,
indeed, were they from appearing strange or incongruous that on the Eastern
frieze of the Parthenon the god Eros holds the parasol of his mother
Aphrodite.
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Umbraculum. (From a vase-painting.)
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Such umbrellas and parasols appear on vase-paintings, from those of the
perfect Attic style down to the latest South Italian wares. The accompanying
cut from a vase of the latter class (Millin,
Peintures de Vases
Antiques, vol. i. pl. 70) shows a lady wearing a
χιτών [
TUNICA] and small
ἱμάτιον [
PALLA], and holding a parasol over
her bare head. In other paintings ladies sit on chairs shading themselves
with a parasol, while in not a few a slave holds it above his mistress's
head. All these pictures show forms, like those used nowadays, with a
frame-work of ribs (
virgae) which could be
opened and shut (Aristophanes,
Aristoph. Kn.
1347 f.,
τὰ δ᾽ ἐ̂τ᾽ . . . .
ἐξεπετάννυτο, ὥσπερ σκιάδειον καὶ πάλιν ξυνήγετο: cf.
Ovid, Art. Am. 2.209,
“
ipse tene distenta umbracula virgis”
).
The use of umbrellas was almost confined to women, for, as has been explained
in the article
PILLEUS it was
considered effeminate for men to wear a protection against the sun except
when travelling. Some luxurious fops or upstarts, however, like the
περιφόρητος Ἀρτέμων of Anacreon (
Athen. 12.534 a), occasionally
braved public opinion and used them. In Hellenistic times a large straw hat
came into fashion, doubtless as a substitute for the parasol. It is shown on
an immense number of terra-cotta figures from Tanagra, Myrina, and all over
the Greek world. The
θολία which Praxinoa
puts on in the famous toilet scene in Theocritus (
Theoc. 15.39) seems to have been something of this kind (Schol.
in Theocr.
l.c.;
Pollux, 7.174, 10.127; Jahn,
Arch. Beiträge, p.
403).
At Rome the practice of using parasols probably came in with the Greek
fashions which prevailed in the last two centuries of the Republic. The
Roman lady walked with her parasol carried by an attendant slave (
pedisequus or
pedisequa; cf. Claud.
in Eutrop. 1.464,
“[Eunuchi] umbracula gestant virginibus;”
Mart. 14.73,
6),
whose place might be taken by a diligent wooer if he wished to win her good
graces (Ovid,
l.c.). Parasols were in great demand
at the amphitheatre, for the
velum was not
always sufficient to keep off the sun, and it seems to have been the fashion
to adopt the colour--green, &c.--of one's favourite faction on them
(
Juv. 9.50;
Mart.
14.28). [See Paciandi,
de Umbellae gestatione, Rome,
1752; Baumeister,
Denkmäler, art. Sonnenschirm; Iwan
Müller,
Handbuch, pp. 433, 440;
Hermann-Blümner,
Privatalterth., p. 195 f.;
Becker-Göll,
Charikles, 1.201; Blümner,
Leben und Sitten, p. 73; Marquardt,
Privatleben, p. 148; Böttiger (ed. Fischer),
Sabina, pp. 132, 135, 161.]
[
W.S] [
W.C.F.A]
