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ThePhrygian cap (/ˈfrɪdʒ(iː)ən/ ⓘFRIJ-(ee)-ən), also known asThracian cap[1][2][3] andliberty cap, is a softconicalcap with the apex bent over, associated inantiquity with several peoples inEastern Europe,Anatolia, andAsia. The Phrygian cap was worn byThracians,Dacians,Persians,Medes,Scythians,Trojans, andPhrygians after whom it is named.[4] The oldest known depiction of the Phrygian cap is fromPersepolis inIran.
Although Phrygian caps did not originally function as liberty caps, they came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty first in theAmerican Revolution and then in theFrench Revolution,[5] particularly as a symbol ofJacobinism (in which context it has been also called aJacobin cap). The original cap of liberty was the Romanpileus, the felt cap of emancipated slaves of ancient Rome, which was an attribute ofLibertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. In the 16th century, the Roman iconography of liberty was revived in emblem books and numismatic handbooks where the figure of Libertas is usually depicted with apileus.[6] The most extensive use of headgear as a modern symbol of freedom in the first two centuries after the revival of Roman iconography was made in the Netherlands, where it became popular headdress.[7] In the 18th century, the traditional liberty cap was widely used in English prints, and from 1789 also in French prints; by the early 1790s, it was regularly used in the Phrygian form.
It was adopted in place of a crown on the coats of arms of theArgentina,Cuba, andNicaragua republics as a symbol of their struggle for liberation and independence. It thus came to be identified as a symbol of republican government. A number of national personifications, including France'sMarianne and the United States'Columbia are commonly depicted wearing the Phrygian cap.
Protagonists of theBelgian comic seriesThe Smurfs wear white Phrygian caps. It is the national female headdress of the CaucasianIngush people,[8] who call it akurkhars.
What came to be labelled as the Phrygian cap was originally used by several Iranian peoples, including theScythians, theMedes, and thePersians. From the reports of the ancient Greeks, it appears that the Iranian variant also was a soft headdress and called atiara.
The Greeks identified one variant with their eastern neighbors and labeled it the "Phrygian cap", although it was actually worn by nearly all Iranian tribes, from theCappadocians (Old PersianKatpatuka) in the west to theSakas (OPers.Sakā) in the northeast. This and other variants can be observed in the reliefs at Persepolis. All seem to have been made of soft material with long flaps over the ears and the neck, but the form of the top varies. The famous "upright (orthē) tiara" was worn by the king. Members of the Median upper class wore high, crested tiaras.[9]
By the 4th century BC (earlyHellenistic period), the Phrygian cap was associated withPhrygianAttis, the consort ofCybele, the cult of which had by then become hellenized. The cap appears in depictions of the mythological kingsMidas andRhesus of Thrace, the legendary bardOrpheus and other Thraco-Phrygians portrayed in Greekvase-paintings and sculpture.[10] Such images predate the earliest surviving literary references to the cap.[citation needed]
By extension, the Phrygian cap also came to be applied to several other non-Greek-speaking peoples ("barbarians" in the classical sense). Most notable of these extended senses of "Phrygian" were theTrojans and other westernAnatolian peoples, who in Greek perception were synonymous with the Phrygians, and whose heroesParis,Aeneas, andGanymede were all regularly depicted with a Phrygian cap. Other Greek earthenware of antiquity also depictAmazons and so-called "Scythian" archers with Phrygian caps. Although these are military depictions, the headgear is distinguished from "Phrygian helmets" by long ear flaps, and the figures are also identified as "barbarians" by their trousers. The headgear also appears in 2nd-century BCBoeotianTanagra figurines of an effeminateEros, and in various 1st-century BC statuary of theCommagene, in eastern Anatolia. Greek representations ofThracians also regularly appear with Phrygian caps, most notablyBendis, the Thracian goddess of the Moon and the hunt, andOrpheus, a legendary Thracian poet and musician.[citation needed]
While the Phrygian cap was of wool or soft leather, in pre-Hellenistic times the Greeks had already developed a military helmet that had a similarly characteristic flipped-over tip. These so-called "Phrygian helmets" (named in modern times after the cap) were usually of bronze and in prominent use in Thrace, Dacia, Magna Graecia, and the rest of the Hellenistic world from the 5th century BC up to Roman times. Due to their superficial similarity, the cap and helmet are often difficult to distinguish in Greek art (especially inblack-figure orred-figure earthenware) unless the headgear is identified as a soft flexible cap by long earflaps or a long neck flap. Also confusingly similar are the depictions of the helmets used by cavalry and light infantry (cf.Peltasts of Thrace andPaeonia), whose headgear – aside from the traditionalalopekis caps of fox skin – also included stiff leather helmets in imitation of the bronze ones.[citation needed]
The Greek concept passed to the Romans in its extended sense, and thus encompassed not only to Phrygians or Trojans (which the Romans also generally associated with the term "Phrygian"), but also the other near-neighbours of the Greeks. OnTrajan's Column, which commemoratedTrajan's epic wars with theDacians (101–102 and 105–106 AD), the Phrygian cap adorns the heads of Dacian warriors. The prisoner, accompanying Trajan in the monumental, three-meter-tall statue of Trajan in the ancient city ofLaodicea, is wearing a Phrygian cap. Parthians appear with Phrygian caps in the 2nd-centuryArch of Septimius Severus, which commemorates Roman victories over theParthian Empire. Likewise with Phrygians caps, but forGauls, appear in 2nd-century friezes built into the 4th-centuryArch of Constantine.[citation needed]
The Phrygian cap reappears in figures related to the first- to fourth-century religion ofMithraism. Thisastrology-centricRoman mystery cult (cultus) projected itself withpseudo-Oriental trappings (known asperserie in scholarship) in order to distinguish itself from both traditional Roman religion and from the other mystery cults. In the artwork of the cult (e.g. in the so-called "tauroctony"cult images), the figures of the god Mithras as well as those of his helpersCautes and Cautopates are routinely depicted with a Phrygian cap. The function of the Phrygian cap in the cult are unknown, but it is conventionally identified as an accessory of itsperserie.[citation needed]
Early Christian art (and continuing well into theMiddle Ages) build on the same Greco-Roman perceptions of (Pseudo-)Zoroaster and his "Magi" as experts in the arts of astrology andmagic, and routinely depict the "three wise men" (that followastar) with Phrygian caps.[11]
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In lateRepublican Rome, a soft felt cap called thepileus served as a symbol of freemen (i.e. non-slaves) and was symbolically given to slaves uponmanumission, thereby granting them not only their personal liberty, but alsolibertas – freedom as citizens, with the right to vote (if male). Following theassassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE,Brutus and his co-conspirators instrumentalized this symbolism of thepileus to signify the end of Caesar'sdictatorship and a return to the (Roman) republican system.[12]
These Roman associations of thepileus with liberty andrepublicanism were carried forward to the 18th century, until when the pileus was confused with the Phrygian cap, then becoming a symbol of those values in the wake of Medieval Italian uses of the Phrygian cap, most notably inVenice.[13]
In Venice, the Phrygian cap was used by theDoge instead of a crown as a symbol of Republican liberty, from the Middle Ages until 1797. The symbol of Libertas as a female figure holding the Phrygian cap upon a spear appeared in the 1500’s in the Apotheosis of Venice, a major painting by Paolo Veronese in the Ducal palace, iconography that would later be reused in French and American art and coinage.
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In 1675, the anti-tax and anti-nobilityStamp-Paper revolt erupted inBrittany and north-western France, where it became known as thebonnets rouges uprising after the blue or red caps worn by the insurgents. Although the insurgents are not known to have preferred any particular style of cap, the name and color stuck as a symbol of revolt against the nobility and establishment.Robespierre would later object to the color but was ignored.
The use of a Phrygian-style cap as a symbol ofrevolutionary France is first documented in May 1790, at a festival inTroyes, adorning a statue representing the nation, and atLyon, on a lance carried by the goddessLibertas.[15] To this day the national allegory of France,Marianne, is shown wearing a red Phrygian cap.[16]
By wearing thebonnet rouge andsans-culottes ("without silk breeches"), the Parisian working class made their revolutionary ardor and plebeian solidarity immediately recognizable. By mid-1791 these mocking fashion statements included thebonnet rouge as Parisian hairstyle, proclaimed by the Marquis de Villette (12 July 1791) as "the civic crown of the free man and French regeneration”. On 15 July 1792, seeking to suppress the frivolity,François Christophe Kellermann, 1st Duc de Valmy, published an essay in which the Duke sought to establish thebonnet rouge as a sacred symbol that could be worn only by those with merit. The symbolic hairstyle became a rallying point and a way to mock the elaborate wigs of the aristocrats and the red caps of the bishops. On 6 November 1793 theParis city council declared it the official hairstyle of all its members.
Thebonnet rouge on a spear was proposed as a component of the national seal on 22 September 1792 during the third session of theNational Convention. Following a suggestion by Gaan Coulon, the Convention decreed that convicts would not be permitted to wear the red cap, as it was consecrated as the badge of citizenship and freedom. In 1792, whenLouis XVI was induced to sign a constitution, popular prints of the king were doctored to show him wearing thebonnet rouge.[17] The bust ofVoltaire was crowned with the red bonnet of liberty after a performance of hisBrutus at theComédie-Française in March 1792.
During the period of theReign of Terror (September 1793 – July 1794), the cap was adopted defensively even by those who might be denounced as moderates or aristocrats and were especially keen to advertise their adherence to the new regime. The caps were often knitted by women known astricoteuses, who sat beside theguillotine during public executions in Paris and supposedly continued knitting in between executions.[18][failed verification] The spire ofStrasbourg Cathedral was crowned with abonnet rouge in order to prevent it from being torn down in 1794.
In 1814, theActe de déchéance de l'Empereur decision formally deposed theBonapartes andrestored the Bourbon regime, who in turn proscribed thebonnet rouge,La Marseillaise andBastille Day celebrations. The symbols reappeared briefly in March–July 1815 during "Napoleon's Hundred Days", but were immediately suppressed again following the second restoration ofLouis XVIII on 8 July 1815.
The symbols resurfaced again during theJuly Revolution of 1830, after which they were reinstated by the liberalJuly Monarchy ofLouis Philippe I, and the revolutionary symbols—anthem, holiday, andbonnet rouge—became "constituent parts of a national heritage consecrated by the state and embraced by the public."[19]
| 20centimes withMarianne on obverse | |
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| Obverse: Marianne wearing the Phrygian cap of liberty. | Reverse: Face value and French motto: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité". |
| This coin was minted from 1962 to 2001. | |
The republican associations with thebonnet rouge were adopted as thename and emblem of a French satirical republican and anarchist periodical published between 1913 and 1922 byMiguel Almereyda that targeted theAction française, a royalist, counter-revolutionary movement on the extreme right.
The anti-tax associations with thebonnet rouge were revived in October 2013, when a French tax-protest movement called theBonnets Rouges used the red revolution-era Phrygian cap as a protest symbol. By means of large demonstrations and direct action, which included the destruction of many highway trucking tax portals, the movement successfully forced the French government to rescind the tax.
In the 18th century, the cap was often used in English political prints as an attribute ofLiberty.[20] In Blackburn, England, on 5 July 1819, female reformers such asAlice Kitchen attended their first reform meeting and presented the chairman, John Knight, with a "most beautiful Cap of Liberty, made of scarlet silk or satin, lined with green, with a serpentined gold lace, terminating with a rich gold tassel.[21]
In the years just prior to theRevolutionary War, Americans copied or emulated some of those prints in an attempt to visually defend their "rights as Englishmen".[20] Later, the symbol of republicanism and anti-monarchical sentiment appeared in the United States as the headgear ofColumbia,[22] who in turn was visualized as a goddess-like female national personification of the United States and ofLiberty herself. The cap reappears in association with Columbia in the early years of the republic, for example, on the obverse of the 1785Immune Columbia pattern coin, which shows the goddess with a helmet seated on a globe holding in a right hand a furled U.S. flag topped by the liberty cap.[22]
Starting in 1793, U.S. coinage frequently showed Columbia/Liberty wearing the cap. The anti-federalist movement likewise instrumentalized the figure, as in a cartoon from 1796 in which Columbia is overwhelmed by a huge American eagle holding aLiberty Pole under its wings.[22] The cap's last appearance on circulating coinage was theWalking Liberty Half Dollar, which was minted through 1947 (and reused on the currentbullionAmerican Silver Eagle).
TheU.S. Army has, since 1778, used a "War Office Seal" in which the motto "This We'll Defend" is displayed directly over a Phrygian cap on an upturnedsword. It also appears on the state flags ofWest Virginia andIdaho[23] (as part of their official seals),New Jersey, andNew York, as well as the official seal of theUnited States Senate, the state ofIowa, the state ofNorth Carolina (as well as the arms of itsSenate,[24]) and on the reverse side of both theSeal of Pennsylvania and theSeal of Virginia.
In 1854, when sculptorThomas Crawford was preparing models for sculpture for theUnited States Capitol, then-Secretary of WarJefferson Davis insisted that a Phrygian cap not be included on aStatue of Freedom, on the grounds that "American liberty is original and not the liberty of the freed slave". The cap was not included in the final bronze version that is now in the building.[25]
Many of theanti-colonial revolutions in Latin America were heavily inspired by the imagery and slogans of theAmerican andFrench Revolutions. As a result, the cap has appeared on thecoats of arms of many Latin American nations. Thecoat of arms of Haiti includes a Phrygian cap to commemorate that country'sfoundation by rebellious slaves.
The cap had also been displayed on certain Mexican coins (most notably the old 8-reales coin) through the late 19th century into the mid-20th century. Today, it is featured on thecoats of arms ornational flags of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Republica Dominicana, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Paraguay.
The Phrygian cap in Latin American and Haitian coats of arms and flags
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In the Belgian comic franchiseThe Smurfs, the eponymous Smurfs are typically depicted wearing Phrygian-like caps.[26]
Announced in November 2022, the official mascots of Paris 2024Olympic andParalympic Games, namedThe Phryges, were based on the cap.[27]
The dictionary definition ofPhrygian cap at WiktionaryClothing generally not worn today, except in historical settings | ||
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