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 use—

"aemin men gar son eti kai nun tantion, o kanon, oi kalathiokoi, to skiadeion." —Aristophanes, Thesmoph., 821. [Footnote: "For now our loom is safe, our weaving-beam, our baskets and umbrella."]

It occurs frequently on vases, and is in shape like that now used.
It could be put up and down.

"ta d' ota g'an son, nae AL', exepetannuto osper skiadeion, kai palin xunaegeto." —Arist. Eq., 1347. [Footnote: "But your ears, by Jove, are stretched out like a parasol, and now again shut up."]

Which the Scholiast explains, ekteinetai de kai systelletai pros ton katepeigonta kairon. [Footnote: "Are opened and shut as need requires."] For a man to carry one was considered a mark of effeminacy, as appears from the following fragment of Anacreon:—

  "skiadiskaen elephantinaen phorei gunaixin autos."
  Athenaeus, lib. xii., cap. 46, Section 534.
[Footnote: "He carries an ivory parasol, as women do."]

Plutarch makes Aristides speak of Xerxes as sitting under a canopy or Umbrella looking at