Pileus (hat)

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Ancient Greek red-figure plate from Apulia, third quarter of the 4th century BC, Louvre.

The pileus (Greek πῖλος - pilos, also pilleus or pilleum in Latin) was a brimless, felt cap worn in Illyria, Epirus and Ancient Greece[1] and later copied by Ancient Rome. The Greek πιλίδιον (pilidion) and Latin pilleolus were smaller versions, similar to a skullcap.

The pileus was especially associated with the manumission of slaves. who wore it upon their liberation.[citation needed] It became emblematic of liberty and freedom from bondage.[citation needed] During the classic revival of the 18th and 19th centuries it was widely confused with the Phrygian cap which, in turn, appeared frequently on statuary and heraldic devices as a "liberty cap."[citation needed].

History

Odysseus wearing pileus depicted in a 3rd-century BC coin from Ithaca
Ancient Greek terracotta statuette of a peasant wearing a pilos, 1st century BC.

Greece

The pilos (Greek: πῖλος, felt[2]) was a common conical travelling hat in Ancient Greece. The pilos is the brimless version of the petasos. It could be made of felt or leather. Their pilos cap identifies the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, in sculptures, bas-reliefs and vase-paintings; their caps were already explained in Antiquity as the remnants of the egg from which they hatched.[3] The pilos appears on votive figurines of boys at the sanctuary of the kabeiri at Thebes, the Kabeirion.[4]

In warfare, the pilos type helmet was often worn by the peltast light infantry, in conjunction with the exomis, but it was also worn by the heavy infantry .[5] The pilos cap was sometimes worn under the helmet by hoplites, but usually they preferred to not use a helmet along with the cap before the 5th century for reasons of mobility.

The pilos helmet was made in the same shape as the original cap. It probably originated from Lakonia and was made from bronze. The pilos helmet was extensively adopted by the Spartan army in the fifth century BC and worn by them until the end of the Classical era.

Pileus between two daggers, on the reverse of a denarius issued by Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March

Rome

In Ancient Rome, a slave was freed in a ceremony in which a praetor touched the slave with a rod called a vindicta and pronounced him to be free. The slave's head was shaved and a pileus was placed upon it. Both the vindicta and the cap were considered symbols of Libertas, the goddess representing liberty.[6]

This was a form of extra-legal manumission (the manumissio minus justa) considered less legally sound than manumission in a court of law.[citation needed]

One 19th century dictionary of classical antiquity states:

Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus (πίλεον λευκόν, Diodorus Siculus Exc. Leg. 22 p. 625, ed. Wess.; Plaut. Amphit. I.1.306; Persius, V.82). Hence the phrase servos ad pileum vocare is a summons to liberty, by which slaves were frequently called upon to take up arms with a promise of liberty (Liv. XXIV.32). The figure of Liberty on some of the coins of Antoninus Pius, struck A.D. 145, holds this cap in the right hand.[7]

Gallery

  • Ancient Greek pilos type helmet, 450 - 425 BC.

  • Odysseus wearing the pilos. Ancient Greek red-figure situla from Apulia, ca. 360 BC, Museo Nazionale Archaeologico, Naples.

  • Odysseus wearing a pilos, an exomis and a chlamys.

  • Castor wearing a pilos-like helmet, Attic red-figure calyx-krater, ca. 460–450 BC.

  • The pileus particularly identifies the Dioscuri (here on a colossal statue of late Antiquity in the Campidoglio, Rome).

  • John Wilkes depicted by Hogarth with the cap of Liberty on a pole, as it was sometimes carried in public demonstrations during the 18th century.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ↑ πῖλος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon,on Perseus
  3. ↑ John Tzetzes, On Lycophron, noted by Karl Kerenyi's The Heroes of the Greeks, 1959:107 note 584.
  4. ↑ Walter Burkert. Greek Religion, 1985:281.
  5. ↑ Connolly, P. (1981) Greece and Rome at War. Macdonald Phoebus, London, pp. 70.
  6. ↑ Cobb, T.R.R. (1858). An inquiry into the law of Negro slavery in the United States of America. Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson. p. 285, 285n2. 
  7. ↑ Yates, James. Entry "Pileus" in William Smith's A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (John Murray, London, 1875).

Sources

Further reading

  • Sekunda, Nicholas and Hook, Adam (2000). Greek Hoplite 480-323 BC. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-85532-867-4

External links

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