Insilia
Insilia from insilire, a part of the loom (only in Lucret. 5.1353). They were supposed to be the treadles, pressed by the weaver's foot; but the epithet levia, smooth or polished, does not suit these; and the insilia are more probably the heddles or leash-rods which open the warp. (Schneider, Index to Scriptores Rei Rusticae, s. v. Tela; Rich, s.v. Munro, ad loc.)
As the word is not found elsewhere, its meaning can only be guessed (Munro: so also Blümner, Technol. 1.143 n.).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.