PILL´EUS
PILL´EUS or
PILL´EUM. The
art of making felt by beating hair or flocks of wool into a compact mass
seems to be at least as old as the art of weaving. It was practised in
antiquity by the peoples of Greece and Italy, and in fact seems to have been
known over the greater part of both Europe and Asia. No details of the
processes of manufacture itself have come down to us, though the products
are frequently mentioned by Greek and Roman writers from the earliest time.
The art (
ἡπιλητική, Plato,
Polit. p. 280 C;
ars
coactilaria, Capitol.
Pertin. 3, 3) was a recognised
industry for a “maker of woollen felt” (
lanarius coactilarius, Orelli, 4206 [
I. R. N. 6848]
lanarius coactor, Gruter, 648, 3) and is
mentioned in Roman inscriptions.
Felt was put to a large number of different uses, such as to provide not only
a covering for the sheds of military engines (Aen. Tact. 33), but also
garments (cf. Plato,
Polit. l.c.; Pliny,
Plin. Nat. 8.191), as Caesar's soldiers did
when they were in need of arrow-proof jerkins (
B.C. 3.44).
Boots or socks [UDONES] were also made from felt.
By far the most important use of it, however, was to provide a covering for
the head in the shape of hats and caps. Among the Greeks and Romans of the
classical period it was most unfashionable to wear anything, except perhaps
a helmet, when out-of-doors, at any rate in a town. Doubtless this was
partly due to the prevailing custom of taking a siesta or remaining in the
shade during the hottest time of the day, but the reason Lucian puts in the
mouth of Solon seems still more plausible. Anacharsis had complained that,
wishing not to appear a stranger at Athens, he had left his hat at home and
was feeling the heat (
de Gymn. 16,
τὸν
γὰρ πῖλόν μοι ἀφελεῖν ἔδοξεν, ὡς μὴ μόνος ἐν ὑμῖν
ξενίζοιμι τῷ σχήματι), and Solon explains that it was
their gymnastic training which enabled the Greeks to do without any
head-gear.
The practice, however, of going bare-headed was, as we shall see, far from
universal, and apparently characteristic of the well-to-do and leisured
rather than of the labouring classes, who for the most part wore caps. Even
the upper classes, when hunting or travelling, or otherwise exposed to rough
weather, resorted to them, as did sickly or delicate folk. The general name
for all such hats was
τῖλος or
κυνῆ, both words being applied not only to caps
[p. 2.427]of felt and skin respectively, but even to
helmets of metal.
In Homer
πῖλος is used of the felt which
lined the helmet (
κυνέη) of hide which
Odysseus wore. Elsewhere the
κυνέη is of
bronze, or, if nothing else, strengthened and protected with it (cf. Liddell
and Scott, s. v.); but in the Odyssey we find Laertes wearing a
κυνέη of goatskin while working on the farm
(
Od. 24.231). This was probably not far
different from the
τῖλος ἀσκητὸς which
Hesiod recommends for rainy weather (
Op. 546), and indeed
peasants of every period wore caps of this kind often of skin, but also of
felt. (Cf.
Athen. 6.274: the
Romans wore
προβατέων δερμάτων πίλους
δασεῖς).
They were like a fez, of a conical or sugarloaf shape, with a crown like the
end of an egg, and were loose enough to be dragged over one's ears to keep
off the cold or rain (Hesiod,
l.c.). A sower in the
painting of a cylix of Nicosthenes in the Berlin Museum (Catalogue, No.
1806; cf. Gerhard,
Trinkschalen u. Gefäse, Taf. 1;
Blümner,
Leben u. Sitten, iii. fig. 48) is
represented in a hat of this description. The celebrated cylix by Sosias in
the same collection (Catalogue, No. 2278;
Mon. d. I. 1.24,
25; Blümner, ib. iii. fig. 22) shows the wounded Patroclus, who has
taken off his helmet, wearing a skull-cap of felt, which unmistakably acts
as a lining, reminding one irresistibly of the
πῖλος in the
κυνέη of Odysseus.
This sugar-loaf or fez-like shape of felt cap seems to have been known as the
πιλίδιον (=
pilleolum), though modern archaeologists are in the habit of
giving it the name
πῖλος, which, when we
consider the very general way in which this word is used, can scarcely be
said to have classical warrant.
The cap itself was worn universally by artisans and sailors, along with the
ἐξωμίς, and accordingly appears with
it in art as their characteristic costume; and, in the case of
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Odysseus offering wine to the Cyclops.
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mythological persons, is worn by Hephaestus and Daedalus as
craftsmen and by Charon and Odysseus as seafarers (cf. preceding cut from a
statuette in Winckelmann's
Mon. Ined. 2.154). In the case of
Odysseus, we are told by Pliny that Nicomachus was the first to give him the
πῖλος (
H. N. 35.109,
“Ulixi primus addidit pilleum” ); but Schöne
maintains (
Hermes, 6.125) that this was to
represent him feigning to be mad, and not necessarily as a sailor. However
this may be, it is difficult, with the evidence of vase-paintings of the
perfect Attic style before us, to believe that there can have been any
novelty in giving him a cap at such a late date.
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Sailors with πιλίδιον. (From a
vase-painting.)
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The
πιλίδιον or fez-shaped
πῖλος was frequently worn with a band, which
made it fit tighter on the head. Below the band there is naturally a piece
of the edge left free, and by a perfectly natural process this becomes a
brim. As a result we see on the monuments hats with brims of every
conceivable width, from those that are little more than a fez, with a band
tied round, to the broadest of wide-awakes.
Those with the incipient brim are frequently seen on the monuments as worn by
warriors, but it is in most cases difficult to say if it was really of felt
and not of bronze. Both were worn, for we hear of
πῖλοι Λακωνικοὶ ἢ Ἀρκαδικοί, which were doubtless of
felt, as were the
πῖλοι, which protected
the Spartans at Pylos so badly from the Athenian arrows (
Thuc. 4.34,
3: cf. Iwan
Müller,
Handbuch, iv. p. 254); while,. on the other
hand, a
πῖλος χαλκοῦς is mentioned in
Aristophanes (
Aristoph. Lys. 562). A
good instance of a
πῖλος worn by a warrior
which might possibly be felt is the relief from a tomb in
Bullet. de
Corr. Hell. pt. 7 (cf. Blümner, ib. i. fig. 6), while
brazen
πῖλοιο are worn by the
soldiers on the frieze from Xanthus in the British Museum (Nos. 32 and 37).
[p. 2.428]
The wide-awake was known by the distinctive name of
πέτασος, and the fashion of wearing it came from Thessaly
along with the
χλαμύς, which it accompanies
almost as invariably as the
ἐξωμὶς does
the
πιλίδιον, the two forming the
characteristic costume of the Athenian youth when serving in the cavalry.
Many of the
ἔφηβοι in the Panathenaic
procession on the Parthenon frieze wear this dress, which is also one of the
commonest in Greek vase-paintings of the perfect style, a figure from one of
which is given in the accompanying cut.
From the earliest time the
πέτασος was the
constant attribute of Hermes in art, though frequently its brim is so narrow
that it scarcely deserves its name. In Greek art of the later part of the
fifth century Hermes' hat is occasionally winged, in later times more
frequently and in Roman art invariably so. In early art it is only the
κυνέη αἵδου worn by Perseus that is
winged. From a passage in the
Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles,
where Ismene wears a
θετταλὶς κυνῆ, which
can only mean a
πέτασος, it would seem as
if women occasionally wore it when travelling.
The
πέτασος, as worn by travellers and
hunters, had not only a band which fastened it tightly round the head, but a
strap which passed under the chin, and enabled the wearer, who, not being
accustomed to it, naturally felt its weight, to let it hang down his back.
This is very frequent in works of art, often doubtless because it enables
the artist to show the outline of the head more sharply. The Hermes on the
celebrated drum of a column from the temple of Artemis at Ephesus is a
familiar instance of the fashion.
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ZZZ
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The brim of the
πέτασος was usually not even
all round, but cut into various convenient or fantastical shapes, of which
examples from ancient vase-paintings are here given, after Blümner,
the most common being one of
quatrefoil shape, in
which the two side leaves, if one may use the term, could be used as lappets
tied over the ears by a chin strap. The brim could also be turned up behind,
at one or both sides, giving it quite as many picturesque forms as a
sombrero or other modern felt hat.
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ZZZ
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In Hellenistic times a Macedonian variety of the
πέτασος, called
καυσία, was
worn, but chiefly as an emblem of power [
CAUSIA].
The
pilleus, which was practically identical
with the conical
πῖλος, was worn by the
Etruscans, and frequently appears both on men and women on their monuments.
(Cf. for this and other detailed information, Helbig in
Sitzungsberichte der phil. Classe der Münchener
Akad., 1880, pp. 487-554.)
It must have been used in very early times at Rome, for it was the
characteristic headgear of the Pontifices, Flamines, and Salii on solemn
occasions. It is, however, even better known as the symbol of Liberty,
occurring as such on many coins, but especially on the denarius of Brutus
and L. Plaetorius Cestianus, where it is
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represented on the reverse standing between two daggers, s with
the inscription EID. MAR. below (cf.
D. C. 47.25). This use must not be con founded
with the pair of
pilei surmounted by twin stars
which also appear on coins, but as the attributes of Castor and Pollux
(
pilleati fratres, Catullus,
37,
2). The symbol is
doubtless derived from the fact that it was the garb of slaves who had been
freed, on leaving the temple (cf.
Serv. ad
Aen. 8.564: “(Feronia) etiam libertorum dea est in cuius
templo capite raso pilleum accipiunt” ). Hence
pilleum capere (Plautus,
Amph. 462) means to
gain freedom. Saturninus raised a
pilleum in modum
vexilli (
V. Max. 8.6,
2) as a signal for the slaves to take up arms,
and
vocare ad pilleum (
Liv. 24.34,
9; Sen. Ep. 47;
Suet. Tib. 4) was a recognised expression for
raising a revolt. Gladiators on being discharged were given the
pilleus, two years after they had received the
rudis (Ulpian,
Coil. leg.
mos. tit. 11, leg. 7). It was in fact so well understood to be a
symbol of recovered liberty that foreign kings like Prusias (
Liv. 45.44), who wished to display themselves as
liberti of the Roman people, appeared in
public with shaven head wearing the
pilleus
(cf. Plut.
de Alex. fort. 2, 3). So too, after the death of
Nero, the whole plebs wore it (
Suet. Nero
57), just as they were accustomed to, during the Saturnalia (
Mart. 11.6,
4;
14.1,
2). Among other
customs connected with the
pilleus is the
curious one of selling slaves whom the master did not wish to warrant with
it on (
Gel. 7.4,
1).
The meaning of
pilleus was a very general one,
like
πῖλος, not confined to felt caps
alone. Thus, Suetonius (op.
Serv. ad Aen.
2.683) says that the
apex tutulus
and
galerus worn by the
[p. 2.429]priests were all
pillei.
Pilleolum, however, like
πιλίδιον, was the specific name for ordinary caps. [
APEX] As to caps of skin, apart
from the
galerus, Vegetius tells us that
soldiers, when not using their helmets, wore
pillei
pannonici of skin (
Milit. 1.20), and Polybius (
v. supra loc. cit.) mentions the same. Caps of cloth
made from old cloaks (Statius,
Stat. Silv.
4.9,
13, “usque adeone
defuerunt caesis pillea suta de lacernis” ) seem to have been the
pillei worn at the Saturnalia; and Martial sends a friend one as a present,
with the jocular regret that he cannot afford to give away the whole cloak
(xivr. 132).
The Romans, like the Greeks, seldom wore any covering on the head, though
this is truer of the upper than the lower classes. Horace, for instance,
speaks of a tribesman carrying his slippers along with his cap on the way to
a feast ( “ut cum pilleolo soleas conviva tribulis,”
Ep. 1.13, 15); and Nero used to wear one as a disguise at
night (
Suet. Nero 26). In Imperial times the
custom of using hats became much more common; and Augustus in his later life
never went out of doors without a
petasus
(
Suet. Aug. 82), and Caligula allowed
them to be worn in the theatre as a protection against the sun (
D. C. 59.7). Even in Cicero's time messengers wore
the Greek
petasus (
ad Farm.
15.17, 1), which, as well as the
causia, is
mentioned in Plautus, so that the Greek forms must have been well known,
even if not worn, at Rome.
There does not seem to be anything to show that the
pilleus differed in shape from the
πιλίδιον, except the fact that those shown on Etruscan
monuments are longer and more peaked than the Greek forms. The varieties
seen on coins with the
virga and chin-straps
are the ceremonial caps of priests, rather than those worn in every-day
life. [
APEX]
(Becker-Göll,
Charikles, 3.262, and
Gallus, iii. p. 224; Hermann-Blümner,
Privatalterth. p. 180; Marquardt,
Privatleben, p. 554; Iwan Müller,
Handbuch, iv. pp. 405, 805, 879, and 929; Daremberg and
Saglio, arts.
Causia and
Cilicium; Helbig in
Sitzungsberichte d. Bayr. Akad. d.
Wissensch., Hist. phil. Klasse, 1880, iv. p. 487;
Blümner,
Technologie, i. p. 211 f.; Yates,
Textrinum Antiquorum, pp. 388-411; Blümner
in Baunmeister,
Benkmäler, art.
κοπφβεδεξκυνγ.)
[
W.C.F.A]