Prelum
Prelum part of the oil and wine press [TORCULAR]. The name is also given to other presses, as (1) that used in making paper (Plin. Nat. 13.77; cf. LIBER): (2) the press for clothes used at the end of the fuller's process [FULLO], when the clothes were sprinkled (Sen. Q. N. 1.3, 2) and laid in presses, whence they were taken out ready to send home (Amm. Marc. 28.4, 19). The prela in Mart. 2.46, 3; 11.8, 5; Claud. Epithal. Pal. 101, are similar presses in the houses for keeping the clothes smooth and ready for wear. The Greek name was ἶπος (Poll. 10.135; cf. 7.41); and a later synonym was pressorium (Ammian. l.c.; Blümner, Technologie, 1.173).
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.