Puellulas -

Bona regina puellulas pauperes vestimentis donavit. (The good queen gave clothes to the poor little girls.)

The earliest clear example appears in the plays of Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184 BCE), the master of Roman comedy. In his play Poenulus (The Little Carthaginian), a character refers to puellulas in a scene involving young female slaves. Here, the diminutive underscores both their youth and their vulnerability. Plautus uses puellulas to tug at the audience’s heartstrings—or to mock a character’s exaggerated sympathy. puellulas

“Quas ego in alio navi video puellulas…”
(“Those little girls I see on the other ship…”) Bona regina puellulas pauperes vestimentis donavit

The diminutive signals pity. These are not grown women; they are children in need of rescue. The earliest clear example appears in the plays

In Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), the word appears in a more ambiguous light. The narrator describes young servant girls—puellulas—in a scene of magical seduction. The diminutive here borders on the erotic, common in Roman love poetry where smallness equates to desirability (think Catullus’ passer – sparrow, or puella as a term for a beloved mistress).

Apuleius plays with this tension: Are these puellulas innocent children or objects of adult desire? The word’s ambiguity is deliberate, exposing Roman anxieties about age, power, and gender.