The Latin cogo, which was used, like the Greek πιλέω, to denote the act of compressing, or forcing the separate hairs together, gave origin to the participle coactus, and its derivative coactilis. Pliny (H. N. viii. 48. s. 73.), after speaking of woven stuffs, mentions in the following terms the use of wool for making felt: “Lanæ et per se coactæ (al. coactam) vestem ficiunt,” i. e. “Parcels of wool, driven together by themselves, make cloth.” This is a very exact, though brief description of the process of felting. The following monumental inscription (Gruter, p. 648, n. 4.) contains the title Lanarius coactiliarius, meaning a manufacturer of woollen felt:—
M. Ballorius M. L. Lariseus, Lanarius coactiliarius, conjuga carissimæ B. M. fec.
Helvius Successus, the son of a freed man, and the father of the Roman emperor Pertinax, was a hatter in Liguria (tabernam coactiliariam in Liguria exercuerat, Jul. Cap. Pertinax, c. 3.). Pertinax himself, being fond of money, having the perseverance expressed by his agnomen, and having doubtless, in the course of his expeditions into the East, made valuable observations respecting the manufacture which he had known from his boyhood, continued and extended the same business, carrying it on and conveying his goods to a distance by the agency of slaves. The Romans originally received the use of felt together with its name[594] from the Greeks (Plutarch, Numa, p. 117, ed. Steph.). The Greeks were acquainted with it as early as the age of Homer, who lived about 900 B. C. (Il. x. 265), and Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 542, 546).
[594] Pileus or Pileum (Non. Marc. iii., pilea virorum sunt, Servius in Virg. Æn. ix. 616.), dim. Pileolus or Pileolum (Colum. de Arbor. 25).
The principal use of felt among the Greeks and Romans was to make coverings of the head for the male sex, and the most common cover made of this manufacture was a simple skull-cap, i. e. a cap exactly fitted to the shape of the head, as is shown in [Plate VIII.] fig. 1. taken from a sepulchral bas-relief which was found by Mr. Dodwell in Bœotia[595]. The original is as large as life. The person represented appears to have been a Cynic philosopher. He leans upon the staff (baculus, βάκτρον, σκῆπτρον); he is clothed in the blanket (pallium, χλαῖνα, τρίβων) with one end, which is covered, over his left breast, and another hanging behind over his left shoulder; he wears the beard (barba, πώγων); his head is protected by the simple skull-cap (pileus, πῖλος). All these were distinct characteristics of the philosopher, and more especially of the Cynic[596]. The dog also probably marked his sect. Leonidas of Tarentum, in his enumeration of the goods belonging to the Cynic Posochares [597], including a dog-collar (κυνοῦχον), mentions, καὶ πῖλον κεφαλᾶς οὔχ ὁσίας σκεπανὸν, i. e. “The cap of felt, which covered his unholy head.” This passage may be regarded as a proof, that among the Greeks, though not among the Romans, the cap of felt was worn by very poor men. It also proves that this cap, which was the fess of the modern Greeks, was worn by philosophers, and therefore throws light on a passage of Antiphanes (ap. Athen. xii. 63. p. 545 a) describing a philosopher of a different character, who was very elegantly dressed, having a small cap of fine felt (πιλίδιον ἁπαλὸν), also a small white blanket, a beautiful tunic, and a neat stick. When Cleanthes advanced the doctrine, that the moon had the shape of a skull-cap (πιλοειδῆ τῷ σχήματι, Stobæi Ecl. Phys. 1. 27. p. 554, ed. Heeren), he probably intended to account for its phases from its supposed hemispherical form. A cap of a similar form and appearance, though perhaps larger and not so closely fitted to the crown of the head, was worn by fishermen[598]. In an epigram of Philippus[599], describing the apparatus of a fisherman, the author mentions πῖλον ἀμφίκρηνον ὑδασιστεγῆ, “the cap encompassing his head and protecting it from wet.” Figure 2. in [Plate VIII.] represents a small statue of a fisherman belonging to the Townley Collection in the British Museum. His cap is slightly pointed and in a degree, which was probably favorable to the discharge of water from its surface. Hesiod recommends, that agricultural laborers should wear the same defence from cold and showers (Op. et Dies, 545-547). The use of this cap by seamen was no doubt the ground, on which the painter Nicomachus represented Ulysses wearing one. “Hic primus,” says Pliny (H. N. xxxv. 36. s. 22.), “Ulyssi addidit pileum[600].” For the same reason the cap is an attribute of the Dioscuri; and hence two caps with stars above them are often shown on the coins of maritime cities and of others where Castor and Pollux were worshipped. Figure 3. of [Plate VIII.] is taken from a brass coin of Dioscurias in Colchis, preserved in the British Museum. On the reverse is the name ΔΙΟΣΚΟΥΡΙΑΔΟΣ. Figure 4. represents both sides of a silver coin in the same collection, with the legend ΒΡΕΤΤΙΩΝ. It belongs to Bruttium in South Italy. On the one side Castor and Pollux are mounted on horseback. They wear the chlamys and carry palm branches in their hands. Their caps have a narrow brim. The reverse shows their heads only, and their caps, without brims, are surrounded by wreaths of myrtle. The cornucopia is added as an emblem of prosperity. Figure 5. is from a brass coin of Amasia (ΑΜΑΣΣΕΙΑΣ) in Pontus. It shows the cornucopia between the two skull-caps. Charon also was represented with the mariner’s or fishermen’s cap, as, for example, in the bas-relief in the Museo Pio-Clementino, tom. iv. tav. 35, and the painted vase in Stackelberg’s Grüber der Hellenen, t. 47, 48, which is copied in Becker s Charicles, vol. ii. taf. i. fig. 1, and in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 404.
[595] Tour through Greece, vol. i. pp. 242, 243.
[596] See the articles Baculus, Barba, Pallium, p. 703, in Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
[597] Brunck, Anal. i. p. 223. Nos. x. xi.
[598] Theocrit. xxi. 13.
[599] Brunck, Anal. ii. p. 212. No. v.