Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

SELLA. SELLA. 1015
The sella curulis appears from the first to have of honour to distinguished persons by the magisbeen ornamented with ivory, and this is commonly trates and people in provincial towns. There are
indicated by such expressions as czrule eburl; Nu- examples of this in an inscription found at Pisa,
midae sculptile dentis opus; and EiraqvTrisvos Li- which called forth the long, learned, rambling
opos (Hor. Ep. i. 6. 53; Ovid. exPont. iv. 9. 27); dissertation of Chimentelli (Graev. Thes. Antiq.
at a later period it was overlaid with gold, and Roms. vol. vii. p. 2030), and in two others found
consequently we find 8L'gpousr ErXpSous, Saporvous at Pompeii. (Orell. Inscr. n. 4048, 4044.) In
IcaTaXprroUs, TbV q)spov lTb KeXpUow sjAeros, re- another inscription we have BISELLIATUS HONOR
curring constantly in Dion Cassius, who frequently, (Orell. 4043); in another (Orell. 4055), conhowever, employs the simple form LtcppoL &pXIcoi. taining the roll of an incorporation of carpenters,
In shape it long remained extremely plain, closely one of the office-bearers is styled COLLEGI BIresembling a common folding (plicatilis) camp stool SELLEARIUS. (Compare Orell. 4046, 4047.)
with crooked legs. These last gave rise to the Two bronze bisellia were discovered at Ponipeii,
name &?yKvAdrovs Uippos, found in Plutarch (Ma- and thus all uncertainty with regard to the form of
fius, 5); they strongly remind us of elephants' the seat has been removed. One of these is enteeth, which they may have been intended to imi- graved above. (Mus. Borbon. vol. ii. tav. 31.)
tate, and the emperor Aurelian proposed to con- III. SELLA GESTATORIA (Suet. Ner.26, Vitell.
stract one in which each foot was to consist of an 16; Amm. Marc. xxix. 2) or FERTORIA (Caeenormous tusk entire. (Vopiscus, Fis'rm. 3.) lius Aurelian. i. 5, ii. 1), a sedan used both in
The form of the sella curulis, as it is commonly town and country (Tacit.Ann. xiv. 4; Suet. Claud.
represented upon the denarii of the Roman fa- 25), by men (Tacit. IHist. i. 35, iii. 85; Juven.
milies, is given in p. 520. In the following cut are vii. 141; Martial. ix. 23), as well as by women.
represented two pair of bronze legs, belonging to (Tacit. Ann. xiv. 4; Juv. i. 124, vi. 532; hence
eellae curules, preserved in the museum at Naple snauiiebris sella, Suet. Otlo, 6.) It is expressly dis(Mauseo Borbonico, vol. vi. tav. 28); and a sells tinguished from the LECTICA (Suet. Claud. 25;
curulis, copied from the Vatican collection. Martial, x. 10, xi. 98; Senec. brev. vit. 12), a
portable bed or sofa, in which the person carried
lay in a recumbent position, while the sella was a
portable chair in which the occupant sat upright,'{5 A i5 iid~ but they are sometimes confounded, as by Martial
(iv. 51). It differed from the cantedra also, but in
what the difference consisted it is not easy to determine. [CATHEntRA.] The sella was sometimes
entirely open, as we infer from the account given
by Tacitus of the death of Galba (tHist. i. 35, &c.),
-9~ ~ dIo~~~~~~ h\ lbut more frequently shut in. (Juven.i. 126; Suet.
Ner. 26, Vitell. 16, Ot1w, 6.) Dion Cassius (lx.
2) pretends that Claudius first employed the
/2 -4~ ~ covered sella, but in this he is contradicted by
Suetonius (Octav. 53), and by himself (xlvii. 23,
lvi. 43). It appears, however, not to have been
introduced until long after the lectica was common,
since we scarcely, if ever, find any allusion to it
II. BISELLIUM. The word is found in no clas- until the period of the empire. The sellae were
sical author except Varro (L. L. v. 128, ed. MUller), made sometimes of plain leather, and sometimes
according to whom it means a seat large enough to ornamented with bone,. ivory, silver (Lamprid.
contain two persons. We learn from various in- Elagab. 4), or gold (Claud. Honor. Cons. iv. 583),
scriptions that the right of using a seat of this according to the rank or fortune of the proprietor.
kind, upon public occasions, was granted as a mark They were furnished with a pillow to support the
head and neck (cervical, Juv. vi. 532, and Schol.),
when made roomy the epithet laxa was applied
____ __Ad~~~ (Senec. de Const. 14), when smaller than usual
they were termed sellulae (Tacit. Hist. iii. 85);
) (-X\ ha g Elf 3-fL the motion was so easy that onle might study without inconvenience (Plin. Ep. iii. 5), while at the
same time it afforded healthful exercise. (Senec.
Brev. vit. 12; Galen. de Tulend. T7al. vi. 4; Caelius
Aurelian. i. c.)
_ \IV. SELLAE of different kinds are mentioned
iincidentally in ancient writers, accompanied by
epithets which serve to point out generally the
purposes for which they were intended. Thus we
read of sellae baelnares, sellae tonsoriae, sellae obstetriciae, sellaefa7iniliaricae v. pelrtsae, and many
others. Both Varro (L. L. v. 128) and Festus
(s. v.) have preserved the word seliquastrum. The. —-I S_ S — former classes it along with sedes, sedile, soliuae,
sellae, the latter calls them "sedilia antiqui gene-D is," and Arnobius includes them among common
articles of furniture. No hint, however, is given
by any of these authorities which could lead us to