pero

• a kind of boot made of raw hide, worn chiefly by soldiers and wagoners (cf. caliga): crudus, Verg. A. 7, 690: alto per glaciem perone tegi, Juv. 14, 186; Ap. Met. 7, 18, 3; Sid. Ep. 4, 20: perones effeminati, Tert. Pall. 5.

• a long laced boot of raw hide (for soldiers and wagoners), V., Iu.

PEROThe boots worn by shepherds and labourers in rough and muddy weather were usually of untanned leather and made at home. The Greek ἀρβύλη was of this kind. for the epithet πηλοπατὶς is given to it (Hipp. Art. 828), and it was used by travellers, hunters, and country-folk. It was apparently a low boot, or, at any rate, not so high as the ἐνδρομίδες, which were worn by horsemen and hunters and covered the calves. The ἀρβύλη in Eur. Hippol. 1189 is merely a boot of this kind (see Monk ad loc.). The Roman pero was much the same; it was of untanned leather (crudus, Verg. A. 7.690), worn by ploughmen (peronatus arator, Pers. 5.102) and by country-folk in general (Serv. ad Verg. l. c.). Cato (in Fest. p. 142) says that they were used by the old Romans. Sidonius Apollinaris describes the boots worn by Sigismer, a royal youth of Gaul, as being made with the hair remaining upon them (Ep. 4.20, primi pedes perone setoso talos adusque vinciebantur) but it seems unlikely that these were identical with the perones of classical times. On the monuments, among the many varieties of boot shown, several roughly answer to the description given above, but no satisfactory identification seems possible. (Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. d. Antiq. s. v. Arbylé; Mayor on Juven. 14.186.)

(ἀρβύλη). The shoe of the ordinary Roman citizen. See calceus.