In the ancient world, headgear was a primary way of identifying with a glance, the status, trade, gender, ethnic background, and religion of an individual. One could often spot a craftsman in their conical felt hat (in Greek, a πῖλος, in Latin a pileus or pilleus) or recognize a farmer from their wide-brimmed caps used to keep the sun off while bringing in the harvest.
While elite Roman men were often seen without hats, women and those of certain social statuses frequently had their heads covered while in public. In the fourth century BCE, a round straw hat with a raised center called a tholia came into vogue among Greek women. Moreover, a Roman woman in mourning used a head scarf called a ricinium that was likely dark in color. During mourning, this scarf replaced the traditional female head covering called a palla and told people who encountered her that she was a widow.
A Hellenistic woman wearing a tholia hat, polychromy ceramic (330-100 BCE), (image via Walters Art Museum)
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Hats were also a way of identifying foreigners in both life and art. The pileus was a hat popular within the area of Phrygia, an Anatolian kingdom which is now part of modern-day Turkey. It was made of either wool or felt and the top slumped forward. This Phrygian cap, as we call it today, was a way of identifying easterners like Amazons, Dacians (of modern Romania and Serbia), or Phrygians. Ancient artists often depicted mythological figures said to be from the eastern Mediterranean in this headware, men like the Trojan Aeneas, Ganymede, or Perseus.
https://hyperallergic.com/436182/before-maga-mithras-phrygian-caps-and-the-politics-of-headwear/