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

FORFEX, FORNACALIA. /4$
so as to form an acute angle overhead, as is seen
in the entrance to the pyramid of Cheops and in
the ruins of Mycenae; and gradually brought nearer
to the forms which we now employ. (See woodcut,
p. 125.) (Plat. De Leg. xii. p. 292. ed. Bekker;
Died. Sic. ii. 9.) [J. Y.]
F —ORI. [NAvIs; CIRCUS, p. 283, b.]
FORMA, dim. FORMULA, second dima. FORMELLA (Trros), a pattern, a mould; any contrivance adapted to convey its own shape to some
plastic or flexible material, including moulds for.......'~ making pottery, pastry, cheese, bricks, and coins.
The moulds for coins were made of akind of stone,
which was indestructible by heat. (Plin. I<. N.
xxxvi. 49.) The mode of pouring into them the
\ melted metal for casting the coins will be best
understood from the annexed woodcut, which represents one side of a mould, engraved by Seroux
also sculptured over the fountains, as among the
Greeks; thus at Rome, there were the fountains
of Ganymedeand Prometheus, and the Nymphaeum
of Jupiter. (Stieglitz, Archliiol. d. Baukunst, vol. ii.
pt. 2. pp. 76, 79; Hirt, Lehire der Geb iude, pp. 399,
403.) [P. S.]
FORCEPS (7rvpdcypa), tongs or pincers, need
no further explanation here, as they were used in
antiquity for the same purposes as they are in
modern times. They were invented, as the etymology indicates, for taking hold of what is hot
(forvum, Festus, s. v.; Servius, ad yViyy. Georg.
and therefore attributed to Vulcan and the Cyelopes. (Virg. II. cc.; Hom. II. xviii. 477, Od.
iii. 434; Callim. in Del. 144; forcipe czrva, Ovid,
Alet. xii. 277.) [INcus; MALLEUS.]
FORES. [JANvUAJ..
FORFEX, dinm. FORFICULA (;a1s5, dim.
pa[totov), shears (Serv. in Virg. Aen. viii. 453),
used, 1. in shearing sheep, as represented in the d'Agincourt.. Moulds were also employed in making
annexed woodcut, which is taken from a carnelian walls of the kind, now called Iise, which were
built in Africa, in Spain, and about Tarentum.
(Varro, De Re Rust. i. 14; Pallad. i. 34; parietes
formacei, Plin. HI. A. xxxv. 48.) The shoemaker's last was also calledformca (Hor. Sat. ii. 3.
106) and tentipelliun (Festus, s. v.), in Greek
eaXo'7rovs. (Plato, Conyiv. p. 404, ed. Bekker.)
The spouts and channels of aquaeducts are called
formnae, perhaps from their resemblance to some of
the moulds included in the above enumeration.
(Frontin. De Aquaeduct. 75, 126.) [J. Y.]
in the Stosch collection of antique gems at Berlin; FO'RMULA. [ACTIO.]
2. in cutting hair (Eurip. Orest. 954; Schol. in loc.; FORNACA'LIA, a festival in honour of
Brunck, Anal. iii. 9; Virg. Catal. vii. 9; ferro Fornax, the goddess of furnaces, in order that the
bidenti, Ciris, 2] 3); 3. in clipping hedges, myrtles, corn might be properly baked. (Festus, s. v.) This
and other shrubs (a/AXL-rol!tvPlwJIoJes, Hierocles, ancient festival is said to have been instituted by
ap. Stob. Serm. 65.) Numa. (Plin. H. N. xviii. 2.) The time for its
In military manoeuvres the forfex was a tenaille, celebration was proclaimed every year by the Curio
i. e. a body of troops arranged in the form of an Maximus, who announced in tablets, which were
acute angle, so as to receive and overcome the op- placed in the forum, the different part which each
posite body, called a Cuneus. (Gell. x. 9; Amnm. curia had to take in the celebration of the festival.
Marc. xvi. 11.) Those persons who did not know to what curia
In architecture the term DasIfr denoted a con: they belonged, performed the sacred rites on the
struction which was probably the origin of the arch Quirinalia, called from this circumstance the Stul(Macculloch's West. Islacnds, i. p. 142, iii. p. 49), tortum fericre, which fell on the last day of tlhe
consisting of two stones leaning againlst each other Fornacalia. (Ovicid, Fasti, ii. 527; Varro, De Ling.
h N