Pileus (hat)

Apulian red figure depicting a conical pileus hat, third quarter of the 4th century BC, Louvre

The pileus (Ancient Greek: πῖλος, pîlos; also pilleus or pilleum in Latin) was a brimless felt cap worn in Ancient Greece, Etruria, Illyria (especially Pannonia),[1][2][3][4] later also introduced in Ancient Rome.[5] The pileus also appears on Apulian red-figure pottery.

The pilos together with the petasos were the most common types of hats in Archaic and Classical era (8th–4th century BC) Greece.[6] In the 5th century BC, a bronze version began to appear in Ancient Greece and it became a popular infantry helmet. It occasionally had a horsehair crest.[7] The Greek pilos resembled the Roman and Etruscan pileus, which were typically made of felt.[8] The Greek πιλίδιον (pilidion) and Latin pilleolus were smaller versions, similar to a skullcap.

Similar caps were worn in later antiquity and the early medieval ages in various parts of Europe, as seen in Gallic and Frankish dress.[8] The Albanian traditional felt cap, the plis, worn today in Albania, Kosovo and adjacent areas, originated from a similar felt cap worn by the ancient Illyrians.

A pointed version called pileus cornutus served as a distinguishing sign for the Jewish people in the Holy Roman Empire for five centuries (12th–17th centuries).[9]

  1. ^ Wagner, Hendrik (2021). Das spätantike Rom und die stadtrömische Senatsaristokratie (395–455 n. Chr.): Eine althistorisch-archäologische Untersuchung. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 375. ISBN 9783110727630. Zu erkennen an der „illyrischen Kappe", dem sog. pileus Pannonicus, bekannt u. a. von der bekannten Tetrarchengruppen in Venedig und dem Ambulatio-Mosaik von Piazza Armerina. Auch auf den Sarkophagen tragen die Soldaten, die Petrus Oder Paulus in Haft nehmen, diese Kopfbedeckung (z. B. lunius-Bassus-Sarkophag).
  2. ^ Cleland, Liza; Davies, Glenys; Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd (2007). Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z. Routledge. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-203-93880-5. Pannonia and Illyria also appear to have been especially associated with hats. Plautus (...) lampoons an Illyrian hat so big the wearer looks like a mushroom. The pilleus Pannonicus, a pill-box hat adopted from Pannonia by Roman soldiers in the late third century AD, came to be worn almost exclusively by the late imperial military.
  3. ^ Rocco, Marco (2012). L'esercito romano tardoantico: persistenze e cesure dai Severi a Teodosio I. Studi e progetti: scienze umanistiche. Libreria Universitaria. p. 557. ISBN 9788862922302. Soprattutto durante il periodo degli imperatori-soldati prevalgono nettamente gli influssi delle province illiriche, che si esplicano nell'ampia diffusione del pilleus pannonico, delle ring-buckle belts e della tunica a maniche lunghe chiamata dalmatica.
  4. ^ Campbell, Duncan B. (2012). Spartan Warrior 735–331 BC. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-1849087018.
  5. ^ "pileus", Encyclopædia Britannica
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lee was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Ober, Jesse (2012). "A Brief History of Greek Helmets". AncientPlanet Online Journal. 2: 15. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  8. ^ a b Yarwood, Doreen (1 January 2011). Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Costume. Courier Corporation. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-486-43380-6. The Greek pilos... Carolingian dress.
  9. ^ LUBRICH, NAOMI (2015). "The Wandering Hat: Iterations of the Medieval Jewish Pointed Cap". Jewish History. 29 (3/4): 203–244. doi:10.1007/s10835-015-9250-5. ISSN 0334-701X. JSTOR 24709777. S2CID 159821873. Retrieved 6 May 2022.