Pilos, the Freedom Cap

Ancient History, Modern Politics

There is a cap that you have all seen at least once in your life. Be it modern or be it ancient, there is a cap worn by freemen and revolutionaries, typically red, and typically bent forward at its peak. It is an ancient symbol that finds its roots in the early iron-age and possibly further beyond than even that, and this is its story.

The classical aged Greeks called this cap the Pilos. It was a popular piece of headware made of either felt or leather, but most typically felt. It was a conical cap with no bend in it worn by freemen. A metal helmet existed of the same name shape but made of bronze and worn by warriors with their softer felt hat underneath their metal twin. It is argued whether or not the hat yet carried the connotations of freemen with it that it would later definitively have. However it is not unreasonable to assume through the varied depictions of the divine twins that involve the pilos in both Greek and Roman artwork of the deities, which were meant to guide warriors and commoners, that the cap was already associated with freemen from an earlier age.

Greek statue wearing a pilos.

Interestingly the Greeks were not the only ones of the iron age to carry such hats. As it turns out all Aryan tribes as well as Anatolians wore a similar cap, but instead of being a perfect conical shape, it had a slight bend forward at its peak and typically had came down further to cover the ears and nape of the neck. Unlike the Greeks, the Aryans and Anatolians nobility also wore variants of their own caps called Tiara, which we now associate with crowns universally. This is not as surprising for the Aryans, as their name for themselves as a group was the same word they used to refer to nobility, but it is surprising for the Anatolians. From proximity to the Greeks, though the groups were distinguished in language and culture, still the Greeks began to refer to all these bent forward caps as Phrygian caps, as the Phrygians bordered the Greeks. These similar caps worn by several distantly related people points to an older common origin.

Roman statue of a captured prisoner wearing his Phrygian cap.

Eventually the Greeks would take with them their religion, their language, their culture, and customs to Sicily and the Southern Italian peninsula. Through trade interactions, settlement, and eventual conquering by the Romans, many Greek customs had been transferred to Roman culture. Of importance to the topic, the Greeks transferred the common practice of wearing the Pilos, which the Romans called the Pileus. It came to be associated with the manumission of slaves in court. Through a legal ritual in which the head of the former slave was shaved, and an undyed Pileus was placed upon their scalps, the man was made free with the full rights granted to freemen.

By this time in the late Republican era of the Romans, the Roman Goddess of freedom, Libertas, had begun to be depicted with the Pileus and from there the cap was definitively associated with freedom and liberty.

In some form or another, the cap existed throughout the antiquity period of European history and well into the middle ages as well as the age of enlightenment through common use and iconography.

Coming closer to the modern age, the Bretons of France had begun a revolt against heavier taxes and the nobility, wearing several of these bent forward Phrygian caps. The event became the bonnets-rouges uprising, despite there being caps of multiple colors worn by the revolutionaries.

Later in French history, the bonnet rouge began once more to become associated with those peasants that prior to the French Revolution began to stoke their anti-nobility sentiments and their future fight for democracy. In the heat of the revolution, nobility that feared for their lives began to even wear the red cap in an attempt to show their solidarity for the movement and keep their heads attached to their bodies.

The symbolism became stronger and stronger and began to spread outside of France as it once had spread throughout the Roman territories. The personification of France itself, Marianne, began to be depicted with the bonnet rouge, solidifying once more the connotations between the cap and freedom. American revolutionaries began to wear the red cap as well as depicting the personification of America itself, Columbia, with the red cap. ‘Til this very day, the U.S. Army’s war office seal still has a red cap on a spear with the words “This we’ll defend” inscribed above the red cap meant to represent freedom.

Today the origins of the freedom cap as it is called now have been lost to many. To those who know its ancient origins as far as we can trace them, it represents something stronger than the modern conception of freedom which has been separated from its sense of duty.

From all the ancient civiliations that bore the freedom cap to the modern civilizations that still bear its forgotten meaning, the symbolism of freedom has become engrained into the cap whether the wearer knows why or not. This symbol of freedom has become a unifying symbol, one which identifies not only the beliefs of the person but their unity to the group with which they belong. Many such symbols exist. I’m certain if you stopped and thought of the cultural icons of today you could think of certain hats or flags which have become indicitive of not just movements but a greater group of people. Symbolism is integral to the unity of groups. It is the banner by which men are united and show their attachment and solidarity with one another.

As people change, and nations change, and the symbols they use change with them, one thing will never change, and that is the power of symbolism in whatever it is used to unify. You too should use this ancient power which has shown its head in more times than can be counted, for it is the power that will be required to unify men for the future you wish to see under a symbol that represents what it is you fight for. No matter what images you use, or what you fight for, it is your fight you choose and your images you create. As always brothers, I am here with you in the abyss.