In CLASSIC art generally, rivers are personified as half-prostrate figures reclining upon an urn, and marked by certain attributes; e. g. of the Nile, a hippopotamus; of the Tiber, a wolf suckling Romulus and Remus; other rivers by the flora or by certain cities of their banks, &c. (Consult Didron, Iconographie Chrét.; Martigny, &c.)
Roan. (1) A kind of leather much used for bookbinding; it is of sheepskins tanned with sumach. (2) Said of a bay or sorel horse marked with grey.
Robigalia, R. Roman festivals held every year on the sixth of the calends of May (25th of April), in honour of the god Robigus, to preserve the wheat from mildew.
Roborarium (robur, strength). An enclosure within a wooden palisade.
Fig. 588. Robur. Prison at Rome.
Robur, R. The subterranean dungeon of a prison (carcer), in which criminals were executed. In Fig. [588] the character of the robur is clearly seen; it is that of the prison of Ancus Martius and Servius Tullius at Rome, of which some ruins still remain.
Rochet, Chr. (Lat. rochetum; Anglo-Saxon roc, a loose upper garment). A short surplice without sleeves, open at the sides; imitated from a linen outer garment of the same name, much worn by women in the 14th century. Chaucer says,—
“There is no clothe sytteth bette
On damoselle than doth rokette.”