pilleus

• pīleus

From the same Proto-Indo-European source as Proto-Slavic *pьlstь (“felt”), Old High German filz, Ancient Greek πῖλος (pîlos, “felt”), Albanian plis (“felt”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpɪl.le.ʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpil.le.us]

pilleus m (genitive pilleī); second declension

1. a felt cap worn at the Saturnalia, and given to freed slaves
2. (figuratively) liberty, freedom
   • c. 4 BCE – 65 CE, Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium 47.18:

     Dīcet aliquis nunc mē vocāre ad pilleum servōs et dominōs dē fastīgiō suō dēicere, quod dīxī, “Cōlant potius dominum quam timeant”.

     Someone will now say that I’m calling slaves to freedom and casting down masters from their lofty position, because I said, “[Slaves] should honor their master rather than fear him.”

   • 27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita 24.32:

     Posterō diē, servī ad pilleum vocātī, et carcere vīnctī ēmissī.

     The next day, slaves were summoned to freedom, and those bound in prison were released.

Second-declension noun.

• Catalan: pella
• French: peille
• Italian: peglia, Peglio (toponym)
• Occitan: pelha

• “pilleus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pilleus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "pilleus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “pilleus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pilleus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pilleus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin