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

LAUTUMIAE. LECTICA. 671
20; Sen. Epist. 107); also CALCUJLr, because whole was a stadium in length, and two plethra in
stones were often employed for the purpose. (Gell. width. (Aelian. 1. c.) It was not only used as a
xiv. 1.) Sometimes they were made of metal or prison for Syracusan criminals, but other Sicilian
ivory, glass or earthenware, and they were vari- towns also had their criminals often removed to it.
ous and often fanciful in their forms. The object The Tullianum at Rome was also sometimes
of each player was to get one of his adversary's called lautumiae. [CARCER.] [L. S.]
men between two of his own, in which case he LECTI'CA (KXALZf, 1KcXLLs', or epopepoE,) was a
was entitled to take the man kept in check (Ovid, kind of couch or litter, in which persons, in a lying
II. cc.; Mart. xiv. 17), or, as the phrase was, alli- position, were carried from one place to another.
gyatus (Sen. Epist. 118). Some of the men were They may be divided into two classes, viz., those
obliged to be moved in a certain direction (ordine), which were used for carrying the dead, and those
and were therefore called ordinarii; others might which served as conveniences for the living.
be moved any way, and were called vagi. (Isid. The former of these two kinds of lecticae (also
O g. xviii. 67); in this respect the game resem- called lectica funebris, lecticula, lectus funebris,
bled chess, which is certainly a game of great feretrum or capulum), in which the dead were carantiquity. ried to the grave, seems to have been used among
Seneca calls the board on which the Romans the Greeks and Romans from very early times. In
played at draughts, tabula latrauncularia (Epist. the beauty and costliness of their ornaments these
118). The spaces into which the board was lecticae varied according to the rank and circumdivided were called mandrae. (Mart. vii. 71.) The stances of the deceased. [FvNUS, p. 559 a.] The
abacus, represented at page 1, is crossed by five lectica on which the body of Augustus was carried
lines. As five men were allowed on each side, we to the grave, was made of ivory and gold, and was
may suppose one player to arrange his five men on covered with costly drapery worked of purple and
the lines at the bottom of the abacus, and the other gold. (Dion Cass. lvi. 34; compare Dionys. Ant.
to place his five men on the same lines at the top, Roes. iv. 76; Corn. Nepos, A tt. 22. ~ 2; Tacit.
and we shall have them disposed according to the HIist. iii. 67.) During the latter period of the
accounts of ancient writers (Etymol. M1ctg. s. v. empire public servants (lecticarii) were appointed
Ileoxorl: Pollux, ix. 97: Eustath, in Homn. 1. c.), for the purpose of carrying the dead to the grave
who say that the middle line of the five was called without any expense to the family to whom the
lepa?ypd/uy7. But instead of five, the Greeks and deceased belonged. (Novell. 43 and 59.) RepreRomans often had twelve lines on the board, sentations of lecticae funebres have been found on
whence the game so played was called duodecim several sepulchral monuments. The following woodscripta. (Cic. de Orat. i. 50; Quintil. xi. 2; Ovid, cut represents one taken from the tombstone of
Art.AAmat. iii. 363.) Indeed there can be little M. Antonius Antius Lupus.
doubt that the latrunculi were arranged and played
in a considerable variety of ways, as is now the
case in Egypt and other Oriental countries. (Nie- - -.....
buhr, Reisebesclr. nach Arabien, vol. i. p. 172.) I ~ 11VI _
Besides playing with draughtsmen only, when _
the game was altogether one of skill, the ancients
used dice (TESSERAE, KvUtt) at the same time, so
as to combine chance with skill, as we do in backgammon or tric-trac. (Ter. Adelph. iv. 7. 23;
Isid. Orig. xviii. 60; Brunck, An. iii. 60; Becker, (Compare Lipsius, Elect. i. 19; Scheffer, De Re
Gallus, vol. ii. p. 228, &c.) [J. Y.] Vehiculari, ii. 5. p. 89; Gruter, Inscript. p. 954.
LATUS CLAVUS. [CLAvUS LATUS.] 8; Bottiger, Sabina, vol. ii. p. 200; Agyafalva,
LAUDA'TIO FUNEBRIS. [FuNus, p.559 a.] WVanderungen &dsrclb Pompeii.)
LAURENTA'LIA. [LARENTALIA.] Lecticae for sick persons and invalids seem likeLAU'TIA. [LEGATUS.] wise to have been in use in Greece and at Romne
LAUTU/MIAE, LAUTO'MIAE, LATO'- from very early times, and their construction proMIAE, or LAT U'MIAE (XtOoTodlaL or haaroeila, bably differed very little from that of a lectica
Lat. Lapicidinae), are literally places where stones funebris. (Liv. ii. 36; Aurel. Vict. De Vir. Ill. c.
are cut, or quarries; and in this sense the word 34.) WVe also frequently read that generals in
aeroyLiai was used by the Sicilian Greeks. (Pseudo- their camps, when they had received a severe
Ascon. ad Cic. c. Verr. ii. 1. p. 161, ed. Orelli; wound, or when they were suffering from ill health,
compare Diodor. Sic. xi. 25; Plaut. Poenul. iv. 2. made use of a lectica to be carried from one place
5, Capt. iii. 5. 65; Festus, s. v. Latussmiae.) In to another. (Liv. xxiv. 42; Val. Max. ii. 8. ~ 2;
particular, however, the name lautumiae was given i. 7; Sueton. As2g. 91.)
to the public prison of Syracuse. It lay in the Down to the time of the Gracchi we do not hear
steep and almost inaccessible part of the town that lecticae were used at Rome for any other purwhich was called Epipolae, and had been built by poses than those mentioned above. The Greeks,
Dionysius the tyrant. (Aelian. V. tI. xii. 44; Cic. however, had long been familiar with a different
e. Verr. v. 55.) Cicero, who had undoubtedly kind of lectica (KcAlsV or 00ope70o), which was inseen it himself, describes it (c. Verr. v. 27) as an troduced among them from Asia, and which was
immense and magnificent work, worthy of kings more aln article of luxury than anything to supply
and tyrants. It was cut to an immense depth into an actual want. It consisted of a bed or mattress
the solid rock, so that nothing could be imagined and a pillow to support the head, placed upon a
to be a safer or stronger prison than this, though it kind of bedstead or couch. It had a roof consisthad no roof, and thus left the prisoners exposed to ing of the skin of an ox, extending over the couch
the heat of the sun, the rain, and the coldness of and resting on four posts. The sides of this lec.
the nights. (Compare Thucyd. vii. 87.) The tica were covered with curtains (avar;ia). It ap