MITRA
MITRA (
μίτρα) means in its first
sense a band of any kind, and accordingly it was (1) the Homeric
μίτρη, a band beneath the
θώρηξ over the lower part of the abdomen [
LORICA p. 78
a], and (2) is equivalent to the
ζώνη
παρθενική, the maiden's girdle [
CINGULUM Vol. I. p. 427), so that the word
ἄμιτρος (Callim.
Diom. 14) means
a young girl, not old enough for a girdle, not yet of a marriageable age.
The word is then used for a band fastening the hair; thence developing into a
regular head-dress for women, with lappets hanging over the ears, apparently
something like a
κρήδεμνον or the
CALAUTICA (
Serv. ad Aen. 9.616; see
 |
|
Paris, with Phrygian mitre. (Aegina Marbles.)
|
COMA Vol. I. p. 449, and the
woodcuts on that page): but it does not seem to have been worn either in
Greece or at Rome by women of a respectable class. (See Serv.
l.c. and the passages cited by Professor Mayor on
Juv. 3.66.) Cicero speaks indignantly of the
mitella being worn by effeminate young men
(
pro Rabir. Post. 10, 26).
As an Asiatic head-dress it was sometimes shaped like a turban, as in the
mosaic of the battle of Issus, sometimes in a peaked form, as in the woodcut
from the Aeginetan sculptures representing Paris; also with lappets (the
redimicula of Verg.
l.c.), as is well shown in a vase-painting ap. Baumeister,
Denkm. fig. 1318: from this Asiatic head-dress the
episcopal mitre was a very late development. In the LXX. in Ex. 28.33 and
some other passages the word
μίτρα renders
the priestly cap which is commonly called
κίδαρις. It is noticeable that the ecclesiastical mitre of the
Middle Ages is by some ecclesiastical writers called a
Phrygium. (Marriott,
Vestiarium Christ. p.
220.) [
TIARA]
[
W.S] [
G.E.M]
