But if no poet, in smart affected style, has told us in rhyme /the Story of the Parasol/, many poets of all times have recalled the use of it in precious verses, which appear to serve as landmarks for history, and as references to discoveries of archæology. In ancient Greece, in the time of the festivals of Bacchus, it was the custom, not then confounded with fashion, to carry a Sunshade, not so much to extenuate the ardour of the sun, but as a sort of religious ceremonial. Paciaudi, in his treatise /De Umbellæ Gestatione/, shows us on the carriage on which the statue of Bacchus is placed a youth seated, the bearer of a Sunshade, a sign of divine majesty. Pausanias, in his /Arcadics/, mentions the Sunshade in describing the festivals of Alea in Argolis, whilst later on, in the /Eleutheria/, we see the Parasol also. Lastly, after having painted for us, in a marvellous description of Alexandria on a holiday, the hierophants, bearers of emblems and the mystic vase, the Monads covered with ivy, the Bassarids with scattered hair wielding their thyrsus, Athenæus suddenly shows us the magnificent chariot of Bacchus, where the statue of the god, six cubits high, all in gold, with a purple robe falling to his heels, had over his head a Sunshade ornamented with gold. Bacchus alone, of all the gods, had the privilege of the Sunshade, if we rely on the evidence of ancient monuments, earthen vases, and graven stones drawn from the museums of Stosch and other archæologists. As a result of their frequent relations with the Greeks after the death of Alexander the Great, the Jews appear to have borrowed from the Gentiles, in the celebration of their Feast of Tabernacles, the use of the Sunshade. The subjoined medal of Agrippa the Old, struck by the Hellenised Jews, in some sort supports this, although Spanheim, in a passage relating to this medal, says he has hesitated a long while as to the signification of the symbols which it represents. Do the ears of corn mark the fertility of the governed provinces, or do they refer to the Feast of Tabernacles? As for the tent on the obverse, it is little probable that it represents a tabernacle according to Moses' rite, since the roofs of these tabernacles, far from being pointed, were flat and cloven in the midst, so as to allow rain, sun, and starlight to pass through. It must then be the Sunshade, the emblem of royalty; this at least seems probable. The Parasol played among the Greeks a very important part, as well in the sacred and funeral ceremonies as in the great holidays of nature, and even in the private life of the noble ladies of Athens.