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