Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Pistillum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PISTILLUM or PISTILLUS (ὑπέρον). Our pestle; an instrument with a bluff head (Hieron. Ep. 69. n. 4.) used with a mortar (mortarium, Plaut. Aul. i. 3. 17.), for kneading, mixing, and stirring things round (Virg. Moret. iii. 102. and the Greek proverb ὑπέρου περιστοφή); whereas the pilum was a larger implement, used with an action of pounding and braying in a deep vessel termed pila. The example (Pistillum/1.1) represents an original pestle found amongst some ruins of Roman building, excavated when making the approaches to London Bridge, and resembling in every respect those now in use; but an epigram (ap. Sympos. 85.) implies that the Romans also made pestles with a double head, one at each end, like our dumb bells; and the two words pistillum and pilum, as well as the Greek names which correspond with them, are frequently interchanged with each other without regard to the accurate notion they contained.

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  Pistillum/1.1