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

3868 CRATER. CRIMEN.
place in the te'yapov was in the most honourable cups from a crater, and pour it into the sea.
part of the room, at the farthest end from the en- (Thucyd. vi. 32; Diodor. iii. 3; Arrian, Anab.
trance, and near the seat of the most distinguished vi. 3; Virg. Aen. v. 765.) The name crater was
among the guests. (Od. xxi. 145, xxii. 333, com- also sometimes used as synonymous with TerMTov,
pared with 341.) The size of the crater seems to situla, a pail in which water was fetched. (Naev.
have varied according to the number of guests; pzpud Non. xv. 36; Hesych. s.. Kpavrpes.)
for where their number is increased, a larger crater The Romans used their crater or craterac for the
is asked for. (11. ix. 2020) It would seem, at samne purposes for which it was used in Greece;
least at a later period (for in the Homeric poems but the most elegant specimens were, like most
we find no traces of the custom), that three craters other works of art, made by Greeks. (Virg. Aen. i.
were filled at every feast after the tables were re- 727, iii. 525; Ovid, Fast. v. 522; Hor. Carn.
mnoved. They must, of course, have varied in size iii. 18. 7.) [L. S.]
according to the number of guests, According to CRATES (,racpaos), a hurdle, used by the
Suidas (s. v. Kpaerp) the first was dedicated to ancients for several purposes. First, in war, espeHermes, the second to Charisius, and the third to cially in assaulting a city or camp, they were placed
Zeus Soter; blut others called them by different before or over the head of the soldier to shield off
names; thus the first, or, according to others, the the enemy's missiles. (Amm. Marc. xxi. 12.) From
last, was also designated the tcpaTr7p &?yaoe 5ai- the pluztei, which were employed in the same way,.uovos, the crater of the good genius (Suidas s. v. they differed only in being without the covering of
A.yaOoD Aaial.ovos: compare Athen. xv. p. 692, raw hides. A lighter kind was thrown down to
&c.; Aristoph. Vesp. 507, Pax, 300), KcpaTip make a bridge over fosses, for examples of which
v-yLelas and se'av,7rTrpls or eA-rcyv7rrpeov, because see Caesar, B. G. vii. 81, 86. By the besieged
it was the crater from which the cups were filled (Veget. iv. 6) they were used joined together so
after the washing of the hands. (Athen. xv. p. 629, as to form what Vegetius calls a metella, and filled
f. &c.) with stones: these were then poised between two
Craters were among the first things on the em- of the battlements; and as the storming party
bellishment of which the ancient artists exercised approached upon the ladders, overturned on their
their skill. Homer (I1. xxiii. 741, &c.) mentions, heads.
among the prizes proposed by Achilles, a beauti- A capital punishment was called by this name,
fully wrought silver crater, the work of the ingeni- whence the phrase sub crate necari. The criminal
ous Sidonians, which, by the elegance of its work- was thrown into a pit or well, and hurdles laid.nanship, excelled all others on the whole earth. upon him, over which stones were afterwards
In the reign of Croesus, king of Lydia, the Lace- heaped. (Liv. i. 51, iv. 50; Tacit. Cermanz. 12.)
daemonians sent to that king a brazen crater, the Crates called ficariace were used by the country
border of which was all over ornamented with people upon which to dry figs, grapes, &c., in the
figures (Ccoita), and which was of such an enor- rays of the sun. (Colum. xii. 15, 16.) These, as
mous size that it contained 300 amphorae. (Herod. Columella informs us, were made of sedge or
i. 70.) Croesus himself dedicated to the Delphic straw, and also employed as a sort of matting to
god two huge craters, which the Delphians believed screen the fruit from the weather. Virgil (Georg.
to be the work of Theodorus of Samos, and Hero- i. 94) recommends the use of hurdles in agriculture
dotus (i. 51) was induced by the beauty of their to level the ground after it has been turned up
workmanship to think the same. It was about with the heavy rake (rastrum7). Any texture of
01. 35, that the Samians dedicated six talents (the rods or twigs seems to have been called by the
tenth of the profits made by Colaeus on his voyage general name crates. [B. J.]
to Tartessus) to Hera, in the shape of an immense CRE'PIDA ( p-1orlis), a slipper. Slippers were
brazen crater, the border of which was adorned worn with the pallium, not with the toga, and
vith projecting heads of griffins. This crater, which were properly characteristic of the Greeks, though
HIerodotus (iv. 152) calls Argive (from which we adopted from them by the Romans. Hence Suemust infer that the Argive artists were celebrated tonius says of the Emperor Tiberius (c. 13), Depofor their craters), was supported by three colossal siteo patrio iabitu redegit se cad pallium et crepidas.
brazen statues, seven cubits long, with their knees As the cothlurnus was assumed by tragedians, beclosed together. cause it was adapted to be part of a grand and
The number of craters dedicated in temples stately attire, the actors of comedy, on the other
seems everywhere to have been very great. Livius hand, wore crepidae and other cheap and common
Andronicus, in his Equus Trojanusi represented coverings for the feet. [BAXEA; Soccus.] Also
Agamemnon returning from Troy with no less than whereas the ancients had their more finished boots
3000 craters (Cic. ad Famn. vii. 1), and Cicero and shoes made right and left, their slippers, on
(in Verr. iv. 58) says that Verres carried away the other hand, were made to fit both feet indif.
from Syracuse the most beautiful brazen craters, ferently. [Isid. Orig. ix. 34.) [J. Y.]
which most probably belonged to the various tem- CREPITA'CULUM. [SiSTRUM.]
ples of that city. But craters were not only de- CRE'TIO HEREDITA'TIS. [HERES.]
dicated to the gods as anathemata, but were used CRIMEN. Though this word occurs so freon various solemn occasions in their service. Thus quently, it is not easy to fix its meaning. Crimen
we read in Theocritus (v. 53, compare Virgil, is often equivalent to accusatio (Ka'T-ryopia); but it
Eclog. v. 67): —"I shall offer to the Muses a crater frequently means an act which is legally punishfull of fresh milk and sweet olive-oil." In sacri- able. In this latter sense there seems to be no
fices the libation was always taken from a crater exact definition of it by the Roman jurists, Ac(Demosth. De Fals. Legat. p. 431, c. Lept. p. 505, cording to some modern writers, crimina are either
c. Mid. p. 531, c. Macart. p. 1072; compare Bekk. public or private; but we have still to determine
Aneccdot. p. 274. 4), and sailors before they set out the notions of public and private. There was a
on their journey used to take the libation with want of precise terminology as to what, in common