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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Voulgaroktonou, post: 8221799, member: 84047&quot;]And this I quote from the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, on the Toupha:</p><p><font size="6"><b>Toupha </b></font></p><p>(του̑φα, also τουφίον), tuft of hair from exotic animals used to decorate the helmets of cavalrymen and imperial crowns. The <i>Strategikon of Maurice</i> (<i>Strat.Maurik.</i> 1.2.10, 12B.4) refers to small <i>touphai</i> atop helmets; the passage is repeated in the <i>Taktika of Leo VI</i> (6.2). According to Kosmas Indikopleustes (Kosm. Ind. 11.5), officers ornamented their horses and standards with the so-called <i>touphai</i> made from the tail hairs of the Indian yak (<i>agriobous</i>); this <i>toupha</i> remained stiff and did not bend.</p><p><br /></p><p>The crown (or helmet?) on the equestrian statue of Justinian I in the Augustaion (P. Lehmann, <i>ArtB</i> 41 [1959] 39.57; cf. C. Mango, ibid. 351–58) was surmounted by a <i>toupha</i>; when it fell off in the 9th C., it was replaced by a daring master roofer (<i>skalotes</i>) who from the roof of Hagia Sophia shot a cord attached to an arrow and then walked along the tightrope to reach the statue; Emp. Theophilos rewarded him with 100 nomismata (Leo Gramm. 227.3–11). <a href="https://www-oxfordreference-com.uc.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780195046526.001.0001/acref-9780195046526-e-5543?rskey=OHQSZl&amp;result=5542#" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www-oxfordreference-com.uc.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780195046526.001.0001/acref-9780195046526-e-5543?rskey=OHQSZl&amp;result=5542#" rel="nofollow">Clavijo</a> (ed. Lopez Estrada 44.19–20) described the <i>toupha</i> on this statue as so big it resembled a peacock&#039;s tail.</p><p><br /></p><p>The term was subsequently extended to denote the headgear itself: thus Constantine VII (<i>De cer.</i> 188.10) equated <i>touphai</i> with tiaras, as did <a href="https://www-oxfordreference-com.uc.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780195046526.001.0001/acref-9780195046526-e-5640#" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www-oxfordreference-com.uc.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780195046526.001.0001/acref-9780195046526-e-5640#" rel="nofollow">Tzetzes</a> (<i>Hist.</i> 8.297–301), adding that this kind of <i>typha</i> surmounted the equestrian statue of Justinian. A 12th-C. historian (Zon. 3:566.16–567.2) says that <i>toupha</i> was a vernacular word for tiara; he derives it from the verb <i>typhoomai</i>, meaning “to be filled with insane arrogance.”[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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