The manufacture of hats and caps,[1350] though a less important branch of industry than among the northern nations of modern times, afforded nevertheless employment to a pretty numerous class of persons. At Athens it was not fashionable in fine weather to wear a hat at all, chiefly, perhaps, because the practice was supposed to hasten the approach of grey hairs;[1351] but in those seasons of the year when sudden showers were looked for, cautious persons seldom went abroad without their broad-brim, which being furnished with a long skin thong was suffered to fall back and hang over the shoulders. If they happened to be caught by the rain when not thus provided, they threw, like Strepsiades in the Clouds, a corner of their mantle over the head. These hats were of various shapes,[1352] and manufactured of very different materials; sometimes square or lozenge-formed, like our college-caps: sometimes round with broad leaf[1353] and low basinet crown; sometimes peaked atop with rim curling all round like the bell of the Egyptian lotos. There was another modification of the hat,[1354] fashioned like a limpet-shell, and without a brim, chiefly worn by fishermen and poor operatives, and sometimes also by travellers.[1355] ----- Footnote 1350: Poll. vii. 171. The President Goguet, however, imagines the Greeks had no hats. v. 440. Nightcaps. Sch. Vesp. 10. Arist. Cf. Antich. di Ercol. t. viii. p. 47. Gitone, Il Cost. Ant. e Mod. di tut. i Pop. t. i. p. 102. pl. 16. Footnote 1351: Aristot. de Gen. Animal. v. 1. p. 355. Footnote 1352: Dion Chrysost. ii. 67. Footnote 1353: Poll. x. 164. Athen. i. 12. Footnote 1354: Poll. vii. 124. x. 127, 138. Solerius, de Pileo. c. viii. p. 167. Footnote 1355: Solerius, de Pileo. c. viii. p. 167. ----- The cynic, Menippos, however, when making his round through Thebes, in the costume of a Fury, wore a broad-brimmed Arcadian hat, on which were represented the twelve signs of the zodiac.[1356] Among the Macedonians, who in all things affected magnificence, the hats of the courtiers and nobles were purple,[1357] like the tiara of the Persians,[1358] which, however, was furnished with side-flaps, resembling a peacock’s wings. The most common material was felt, though they were likewise made of leather. Caps were ordinarily manufactured of dog, or sheep, or lamb skin.[1359] ----- Footnote 1356: Bœttiger. Furies, p. 29, sqq. Footnote 1357: Plut. Eumenes. § 8. Footnote 1358: Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 63. Cf. Poll. iv. 154. Footnote 1359: Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 269. Poll. iv. 139. -----