Kausia

The kausia or causia (Ancient Greek: καυσία^[1]) was an ancient Macedonian flat hat. A purple kausia with a diadem was worn by the Macedonian kings as part of the royal costume.^[2]

Two 4th and 3rd century BC terracotta statues from Athens depicting Ancient Greeks wearing the kausia.

Name

The name is derived from its keeping off the heat (καῦσις).^[2]

Background

It was worn during the Hellenistic period but perhaps even before the time of Alexander the Great^[3] and was later used as a protection against the sun by the poorer classes in Rome.^[4]

Depictions of the kausia can be found on a variety of coins and statues found from the Mediterranean to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom and the Indo-Greeks in northwestern India. The Persians referred to both the Macedonians and the rest of the Greeks as "Yauna" (Ionians), but made a distinction between "Yauna by the sea" and those "with hats that look like shields" (yauna takabara), probably referring to the Macedonian kausia hat.^[5] According to Bonnie Kingsley the kausia may have came to the Mediterranean as a campaign hat worn by Alexander and veterans of his campaigns in the Indus^[6] but according to Ernst Fredricksmeyer the kausia was too established a staple of the Macedonian wardrobe for it to have been imported from Asia to Macedonia.^[7]

A modern descendant of the hat may be the Pakol: the familiar and remarkably similar men's hat from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Jammu and Kashmir.^[8]

Gallery

Ancient Macedonian soldiers, from the tomb of Agios Athanasios (Greece) wearing the kausia (grave of Agios Athanasios, 4th century BC
Coin of Greco-Bactrian king Antimachus I Theos wearing the Macedonian kausia, c.185–170 BC
Antigonus II Gonatas wearing the kausia and holding a spear, detail of a fresco in Villa Fannius, c. 40 BC, Archaeological Museum of Naples

References

^ Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott. "καυσία". A Greek-English Lexicon – via Perseus.
^ ^a ^b Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Causia This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ Kingsley, Bonnie M. (1984). "The Kausia Diadematophoros". American Journal of Archaeology. 88 (1): 66–68. doi:10.2307/504602. JSTOR 504602. S2CID 193037990.
^ Miles gloriosus. Harvard University Press. 1997. ISBN 9780674574373.
^ Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (2010). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. John Wiley and Sons. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-4051-7936-2.
^ Kingsley, Bonnie M. (1981). The Cap That Survived Alexander. Vol. 85. p. 39. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^ Fredricksmeyer, Ernst (1986). Alexander the Great and the Macedonian kausia. Vol. 116. pp. 215–227. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^ Worthington, Ian; Geoffrey, Nicholas; Hammond, Lemprière (1994). Ventures into Greek history. Clarendon Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-0198149286.

External links

Media related to Kausia at Wikimedia Commons

[1] Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott. "καυσία". A Greek-English Lexicon – via Perseus.

[Harpers_Dictionary_of_Classical_Antiquities-2] Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Causia This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

[3] Kingsley, Bonnie M. (1984). "The Kausia Diadematophoros". American Journal of Archaeology. 88 (1): 66–68. doi:10.2307/504602. JSTOR 504602. S2CID 193037990.

[4] Miles gloriosus. Harvard University Press. 1997. ISBN 9780674574373.

[5] Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (2010). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. John Wiley and Sons. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-4051-7936-2.

[6] Kingsley, Bonnie M. (1981). The Cap That Survived Alexander. Vol. 85. p. 39. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

[7] Fredricksmeyer, Ernst (1986). Alexander the Great and the Macedonian kausia. Vol. 116. pp. 215–227. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

[8] Worthington, Ian; Geoffrey, Nicholas; Hammond, Lemprière (1994). Ventures into Greek history. Clarendon Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-0198149286.

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