The Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia. In the western provinces of the Roman Empire it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty, perhaps through a confusion with the pileus, the felt cap of manumitted (emancipated) slaves of ancient Rome. Accordingly, the Phrygian cap is sometimes called a liberty cap; in artistic representations it signifies freedom and the pursuit of liberty.
Phrygian 
late 15c., "native of Phrygia," region in ancient Asia Minor; Phrygian mode in ancient Greek music theory was held to be "of a warlike character." Phrygian cap (1796) was the type adopted by freed slaves in Roman times, and subsequently identified as the cap of Liberty
Antiquity[edit]
In Antiquity, the Phrygian cap had two connotations: for the Greeks as showing a distinctive Eastern influence of non-Greek "barbarism" (in the classical sense) and among the Romans as a badge of liberty.[1] The Phrygian cap identifies Trojanssuch as Paris in vase-paintings and sculpture, and it is worn by the syncretic Persian saviour god Mithras and by the Anatolian god Attis who were later adopted by Romans and Hellenic cultures. The twins Castor and Pollux wear a superficially similar round cap called the pileus.
The Phrygian cap is sometimes associated with the headdress that was worn by King Midas to hide the donkey ears given to him as a curse by Apollo, although according to Ovid, Midas hid his ears beneath a purple turban.[2] Phrygians, however, were shown wearing the distinctive peaked cap in illustrations on Greek vases,[3] and such images predate the earliest surviving literary sources: a mid-6th-century Laconian cup depicts the capture of Silenus at a fountain house, by armed men in Eastern costume and pointed caps.[4]
In vase-paintings and other Greek art, the Phrygian cap serves to identify the Trojan hero Paris as non-Greek; Roman poets habitually use the epithet "Phrygian" to mean Trojan. The Phrygian cap can also be seen on the Trajan's Column carvings, worn by the Dacians, and on the Arch of Septimius Severus worn by the Parthians.
In the later parts of Roman history, the god Mithras — whose worship was widespread until suppressed by Christianity — was regularly portrayed as wearing a Phrygian cap, fitting with his being perceived as a Persian god who had "come out of the East".
The Macedonian, Thracian, Dacian and 12th-century Norman military helmets had a forward peaked top resembling the Phrygian cap called Phrygian type helmets.
In late Republican Rome, the cap of freedmen served as a symbol of freedom from tyranny. A coin issued by Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger in Asia Minor 44–42 BC, showed one posed between two daggers[5][6] During the Roman Empire, the Phrygian cap (Latin: pileus) was worn on festive occasions such as the Saturnalia, and by emancipated slaves, whose descendants were consequently considered citizens of the Empire. This usage is often considered the root of its meaning as a symbol of liberty
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