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

374 CUPA. CURATOR.
ii. p. 640. No. 1 1), which are copied in the an- dolihin, and used for the same purpose, namely, to
nexed woodcut. receive the fresh must, and to contain it during the
process of fermentation. The inferior wines were
drawn for drinking from the cupa, without being
bottled in amphlorae, and hence the term vinum2 de.c"pa (Varr. ap. Non. ii. 1 13; Dig. 18. tit. 6. s. 1.
Q62'F. TIBAV T~ RTI.~QJ I~ 4). The phrase in Horace (Sat. ii. 2. 123), clpa
i potare mayistra, if correct, would mean, to make
ME NO LA N i the wine vessel the sole magister bibendi; Bentley
CVLT R AR1. OSSA adopts cupa in this passage, as another form of
HEIC.SITA. SVN't' copa, a hostess, a word connected with caupo: this
word occurs in Suetonius (NAer. 27), and one of
Virgil's minor poems was entitled Copa or Cupa.
(Charis. i. p. 47, Putsch.) In the passage of
~A7~~ < ~~Horace, however, the reading cupa is only conjectural: the MSS. give culpa, out of which a
good sense can-be made. (See the notes of Heindorf, Orelli, and Diintzer.)
The cupa was either made of earthenware, like
the dolimns, or of wood, and covered with pitch. In
the latter case, pine-wood was preferred (Plin.
HP. N. xvi. 10. s. 18). It was used for other
~- m purposes, such as preserved fruits and corn, forming rafts, and containing combustibles in war,
The name culter was also applied to razors (Cic. and even for a sarcophagus. (See the passages
De Off: ii. 7; Plin. vii. 59; Petron. Sat. 108), cited by Forcellini, s. v.) [Comp. DOLIUMa; VIand kitchen knives (Varro, ap. Non. iii. 32). That NUM.] [P. S.]
in.these cases the culter was different from those CURA. [CURATOR.]
above represented, and most probably smaller, is CURATE'LA. [CURATOR.]
certain; since whenever it was used for shaving or CURA'TIO. [CURATOR.]
domestic purposes, it was always distinguished CURA'TOR. Up to the time of pubertas,
from the common culter by some epithet, as cultes every Roman citizen, as a general rule, was incatonsorius, cutter coquinaris. Fruit knives were also pable of doing any legal act, or entering into any
called cultri; but they were of a smaller kind contract which might be injurious to him. The
(cultelli), and made of bone or ivory (Colum. xii. time when pubertas was attained, was a matter of
14, 45; Plin. xii. 25; Scribon. c. 83). Colu- dispute; some fixed it at the commencement of: the
mella, who gives (iv. 25) a very minute descrip- age of procreation, and some at the age of fourteen.
tion of af eld vinitoria, a knife for pruning vines, (Gaius, i. 169.) In all transactions by the impubes,
says that the part of the blade nearest to the it was necessary for the auctoritas of the tutor to
handle was called culter on account of its similarity be interposed. [AUCTORITAS; TUTOR.] With
to an ordinary culter, the edge of that part form- the age of puberty, the youth attained the capacity
ing a straight line. This culter according to him'of contracting marriage and becoming a paterwas used when a branch was to be cut off which familias: he was liable to military service, and
required a hard pressure of the hand on the knife. entitled to vote in the comitia; and consistently
The name culter, which was also applied to the with this, he was freed from the control of a tutor.
sharp and pointed iron of the plough (Plin. tI. N. Females who had attained the age of puberty bexviii. 18. 48), is still extant in English, in the form came subject to another kind of tutela. [TUTELA.]
coulter, to designate the same thing. [ARATRUM.] With the attainment of the age of puberty by a
The expression in cultrum or in czltro collocatus Roman youth, every legal capacity was acquired
(Vitruv. x. 10, 14) signifies placed in a perpendi- which depended on age only, with the exception
cular position. [L. S.] of the capacity for public offices, and there was no
CULTRA'RIUS. [CULTER.] rule about age, even as to public offices, before the
CU'NEUS. [ExERCITUS; THEATRUM.] passing of the lex Villia. [AEDILES.] It was,
CUNIYCULUS (urovoyoos). A mine or pas- however, a matter of necessity to give some legal
sage underground was so called from its resemblance protection to young persons who, owing to their
to the burrowing of a rabbit. Thus Martial (xiii. tender age, were liable to be overreached; and
60) says, consistently with the development of Roman jurisC Gaudet in effossis babitare cuniculus antris, prudence, this object was effected without interMonstravit tacitas hostibus ille vias." fering with the old principle of full legal capacity
being attained with the age of puberty. This was
Fidenae and Veii are said to have been taken accomplished by the lex Plaetoria (the true name
by mines, which opened, one of them into the of the lex, as Savigny has shown), the date of
citadel, the other into the temple of Juno. (Liv. which is not known, though it is certain that the
iv. 22, v. 19.) Niebuhr (Hist. Romn. vol. ii. law existed when Plautus wrote (Pseudolus, i. 3.
p. 483) observes that there is hardly any anthen- 69). This law established a distinction of age,
tic instance of a town being taken in the manner which was of great practical importance, by formrelated of Veii, and supposes that the legend arose ing the citizens into two classes, those above and
out of a tradition that Veii was taken by means of those below twenty-five years of age (sninores viginti
a mine, by which a part of the wall was over- quinque annis), whence a person under the lastthrown. [R. W.] mentioned age was sometimes simply called m.inor.
CUPA, a wine-vat, a vessel very much like the The object of the lex was to protect persons under