terracotta statuette of a peasant wearing a pilos, 1st century BC soldier from
Pella, 4th century BC
Ancient Greece Pilos hat The
pilos (
Greek: πῖλος,
felt) was a typical
conical hat in
Ancient Greece among travelers, workmen and sailors, though sometimes a low, broad-rimmed version was also preferred, known as
petasos. It could be made of felt or leather. The pilos together with the petasos were the most common types of hats in Archaic and Classical era (8th–4th century BC) Greece. Pilos caps often identify the mythical twins, or
Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, as represented in sculptures, bas-reliefs and on ancient ceramics. Their caps were supposedly the remnants of the egg from which they hatched. The pilos appears on
votive figurines of boys at the sanctuary of the
Cabeiri at
Thebes, the
Cabeirion. 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. In various artistic depictions in the middle Byzantine period soldiers are seen wearing pilos caps.
Pilos helmet From the 5th century BC the Greeks developed the pilos helmet which derived from the hat of the same name. This helmet was made of bronze in the same shape as the pilos which was presumably sometimes worn under the helmet for comfort, giving rise to the helmet's conical shape. Some historians theorize that the pilos helmet had widespread adoption in some Greek cities such as
Sparta,
Illyria A so-called "Illyrian cap" was also known as "Panonian pileus" in the period of the Tetrarchy. The 1542 Latin dictionary equated an Albanian hat with a
kyrbasia, and described it as a "tall pileus [hat] in the shape of a cone" (). An Illyrian wearing a pileus has been hesitantly identified on a Roman
frieze from
Tilurium in Dalmatia; the monument could be part of a
trophy base erected by the Romans after the
Great Illyrian Revolt (6–9 BC). A cylindrical flat-topped felt cap made of
fur or
leather originated in Pannonia, and came to be known as the Pannonian cap (
pileus pannonicus). The rod and hat were part of a legal ritual of
manumission. A 3rd-party
adsertor libertatis (liberty asserter, neither slaver or enslaved) would state:
Hunc Ego hominem ex jure Quiritum liberum esse aio (I declare this man is free) while using the "vindicta" (one of multiple manumission types). The legal ritual was explicitly designed to be anti-slavery in the interest of self-empowerment of all members of society, even those legally unable to pursue it directly e.g. the enslaved, and to guarantee that liberty was permanent. In one 19th-century dictionary of classical antiquity it is written: "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." 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 145 AD, holds this cap in the right hand. In the period of the
Tetrarchy, the Pannonian cap (
pileus pannonicus) was adopted as the main military cap of the Roman army, until the 6th century AD; it was worn by lightly armed or off-duty soldiers, as well as workmen.
Later periods and variants Similar caps were worn in later antiquity and the early medieval ages in various parts of Europe, as seen in
Gallic and
Frankish dress, in particular of the
Merovingian and
Carolingian era. ==Gallery==