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

668 LATER. LATER.
and in which their images were kept and worshipped. It seems to have been customary for religious Romans in the morning, immediately after
they rose, to perform their prayers in the lararium.
This custom is said at least to have been observed
by the emperor Alexander Severus (Lamprid. Al.
Sev. 29, 31), who had among the statues of his
Lares those of Christ, Abraham, Orpheus, and
Alexander the Great. This emperor had a second
lararium, from which the first is distinguished by
the epithet majus, and the images of his second or
lesser lararilm were representations of great and
distinguished men, among whom are mentioned
Virgil, Cicero, and Achilles. That these images
were sometimes of gold, is stated by Suetonius
(Vitell. 2). We do not know whether it was customary to have more than one lararitum in a house,
or whether the case of Alexander Severus is merely Paus. viii. 8. ~ 5), and those which were burnt in
to be looked upon as an exception. [L. S.] the kiln (cocti or coctiles; inreafi, Xen. Anab. ii. 4.
LARENTA'LIA, sometimes written LAREN- ~ 12; Herod. 1. c.). They preferred for the pur.
TINA'LIA and LAURENTA'LIA, was a Ro- pose clay which was either whitish or decidedly
man festival in honour of Acca Larentia, the wife red. They considered spring the best time for
of Faustulus and the nurse of Romulus and Remus. brick-making, and kept the bricks two years before
It was celebrated in December on the 10th before they were used. (Pallad. de Rust. vi. 12). They
the Calends of January. (Festus, s. v.; Macrob. i. made them principally of three shapes; the Ly10; Ovid, Fast. iii. 57.) The sacrifice in this diaz, which was a foot broad, 1 feet long; the
festival was performed in the Velabrum at the tetradoron, which was four palms square, i. e.
place which led into the Nova Via, which was 1 foot; and the penttdoron, which was five palms
outside of the old city not far from the porta square. They used them smaller in private than
Romanula. At this place Acca was said to have in public edifices. Of this an example is prebeen buried. (Macrob. I. c.; Varr. de Ling. Lat. sented in the great building at Treves, called the
v. 23, 24.) This festival appears not to have been palace of Constantine, which is built of "burnt
confined to Acca Larentia, but to have been sacred bricks, each of a square form, fifteen inches in
to all the Lares. (Hartung, Die Religion ler Riz er, diameter, and an inch and a quarter thick." (Wytvol. ii. p. 146.) tenbach's Guide to the Roman Antiquities of Treves,
LARES. See Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biogracp1y p. 42.) These bricks therefore were the pentadora
ssnd Mythlology. of Vitruvius and Pliny. At certain places the
LARGI'TIO. [AMBITUS; FRUMENTARIAE bricks were made so porous as to float in water;
LEGEs.] and these were probably used in the construction
LARNACES (kXpvatces). [FuNus, p. 555, b.] of arches, in which their lightness would be a great
LATER, dim. LATERCULUS (srAMlos, die. advantage. (Plin. HI. N. xxxv. 49; Vitruv. ii. 3.).rXlvOis, 7rXLvO0fo,) a brick. Besides the Greeks It was usual to mix straw with the clay. (Vitruv.
and Romans other ancient nations employed brick 1.. c; Pallad. de Re Rust. vi. 12; Exod. v. 7.) In
for building to a great extent, especially the Baby- building a brick wall, at least crud(o latee, i. e.
lonians (I-Ierod. 179; Xen. Anhab. iii. 4. ~~ 7, 11; with unburnt bricks, the interstices twere filled
Nahum, iii. 14) and Egyptians. In the latter with clay or mud (luto, Col. 1. c.), but the bricks
country a painting on the walls of a tomb at Thebes were also sometimes cemented with mortar.
(Wilkinson's Mllanners and Customs, vol. ii. p: 99) (Wyttenbach, p. 65, 66.) For an account of the
exhibits slaves, in one part employed in procuring mode of arranging the bricks, see Muaus. The
water, in mixing, tempering, and carrying the clay, Babylonians used asphaltum as the cement. (Herod.
or in turning the bricks out of the mould [FoRMA], 1. c.) Pliny (vii. 57) calls the brickfield latestasic,
and arranging them in order on the ground to be and to make bricks lateres ducere, corresponding
dried by the sun, and in another part carrying the to the Greek 7ruvOovs EA;eCYv or EpUe'w. (Herod. i.
dried bricks by means of the yoke [ASILLA]. In 179, ii. 136.)
the annexed woodcut we see a man with three The Greeks considered perpendicular brick walls
bricks suspended from each end of the yoke, and more durable than stone, and introduced them in
beside him another who returns from having de- their greatest public edifices. Brick was so composited his load. mon at Rome as to give occasion to the remark of
These figures are selected from the above-men- the emperor Augustus in reference to his improvetioned painting, being in fact original portraits of ments, that, having found it brick (lateritiam), he
two'ALydrMOL 7rXLV'Oo(popol, girt with linen round had left it marble. (Sueton. Aug. 29.) The Babythe loins in exact accordance with the description lonian bricks are commonly found inscribed with
given of them by Aristophanes, who at the same the characters called from their appearance arrowtime alludes to all the operations in the process of headed or cuneiform. It is probable that these inbrick-makiug (rALe007ro1tua, Schol. i PFind. 01. v. scriptions recorded the time and place where the
20), which are exhibited in the Theban painting. bricks were made. The same practice was enjoined
(Aves, 1132-1152; Schol. ad loc.) by law upon the Roman brickmakers. Each had
The Romans distinguished between those bricks his mark, such as the figure of a god, a plant, or
which were merely dried by the. sun and air (la- an animal, encircled by his own name, often with
hetes crudi, Plin. H. N2. xxxv. 48; Varro, de Re the name of the place, of the consulate, or of the
Rust. i. 14; Col. de Re Rust. ix. 1; 7rXiv0o6s-6', owner of the kiln or the brickfield. (Seroux