In architecture the term “label” is applied to the outer projecting moulding over doors, windows, arches, &c., sometimes called “Dripstone” or “Weather Moulding,” or “Hood Mould.” The former terms seem scarcely applicable, as this moulding is often inside a building where no rain could come, and consequently there is no drip. In Norman times the label frequently did not project, and when it did it was very little, and formed part of the series of arch mouldings. In the Early English styles they were not very large, sometimes slightly undercut, sometimes deeply, sometimes a quarter round with chamfer, and very frequently a “roll” or “scroll-moulding,” so called because it resembles the part of a scroll where the edge laps over the body of the roll. Labels generally resemble the string-courses of the period, and, in fact, often return horizontally and form strings. They are less common in Continental architecture than in English.
LABEO, MARCUS ANTISTIUS (c. 50 B.C.-A.D. 18), Roman jurist, was the son of Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, a jurist who caused himself to be slain after the defeat of his party at Philippi. A member of the plebeian nobility, and in easy circumstances, the younger Labeo early entered public life, and soon rose to the praetorship; but his undisguised antipathy to the new régime, and the somewhat brusque manner in which in the senate he occasionally gave expression to his republican sympathies—what Tacitus (Ann. iii. 75) calls his incorrupta libertas—proved an obstacle to his advancement, and his rival, Ateius Capito, who had unreservedly given in his adhesion to the ruling powers, was promoted by Augustus to the consulate, when the appointment should have fallen to Labeo; smarting under the wrong done him, Labeo declined the office when it was offered to him in a subsequent year (Tac. Ann. iii. 75; Pompon, in fr. 47, Dig. i. 2). From this time he seems to have devoted his whole time to jurisprudence. His training in the science had been derived principally from Trebatius Testa. To his knowledge of the law he added a wide general culture, devoting his attention specially to dialectics, philology (grammatica), and antiquities, as valuable aids in the exposition, expansion, and application of legal doctrine (Gell. xiii. 10). Down to the time of Hadrian his was probably the name of greatest authority; and several of his works were abridged and annotated by later hands. While Capito is hardly ever referred to, the dicta of Labeo are of constant recurrence in the writings of the classical jurists, such as Gaius, Ulpian and Paul; and no inconsiderable number of them were thought worthy of preservation in Justinian’s Digest. Labeo gets the credit of being the founder of the Proculian sect or school, while Capito is spoken of as the founder of the rival Sabinian one (Pomponius in fr. 47, Dig. i. 2); but it is probable that the real founders of the two scholae were Proculus and Sabinus, followers respectively of the methods of Labeo and Capito.
Labeo’s most important literary work was the Libri Posteriorum, so called because published only after his death. It contained a systematic exposition of the common law. His Libri ad Edictum embraced a commentary, not only on the edicts of the urban and peregrine praetors, but also on that of the curule aediles. His Probabilium (πιθανῶν) lib. VIII., a collection of definitions and axiomatic legal propositions, seems to have been one of his most characteristic productions.
See van Eck, “De vita, moribus, et studiis M. Ant. Labeonis” (Franeker, 1692), in Oelrichs’s Thes. nov., vol. i.; Mascovius, De sectis Sabinianor. et Proculianor. (1728); Pernice, M. Antistius Labeo. Das röm. Privatrecht im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaizerzeit (Halle, 1873-1892).
LABERIUS, DECIMUS (c. 105-43 B.C.), Roman knight and writer of mimes. He seems to have been a man of caustic wit, who wrote for his own pleasure. In 45 Julius Caesar ordered him to appear in one of his own mimes in a public contest with the actor Publilius Syrus. Laberius pronounced a dignified prologue on the degradation thus thrust on his sixty years, and directed several sharp allusions against the dictator. Caesar awarded the victory to Publilius, but restored Laberius to his equestrian rank, which he had forfeited by appearing as a mimus (Macrobius, Sat. ii. 7). Laberius was the chief of those who introduced the mimus into Latin literature towards the close of the republican period. He seems to have been a man of learning and culture, but his pieces did not escape the coarseness inherent to the class of literature to which they belonged; and Aulus Gellius (xvi. 7, 1) accuses him of extravagance in the coining of new words. Horace (Sat. i. 10) speaks of him in terms of qualified praise.
In addition to the prologue (in Macrobius), the titles of forty-four of his mimi have been preserved; the fragments have been collected by O. Ribbeck in his Comicorum Latinorum reliquiae (1873).
LABIATAE (i.e. “lipped,” Lat. labium, lip), in botany, a natural order of seed-plants belonging to the series Tubiflorae of the dicotyledons, and containing about 150 genera with 2800 species. The majority are annual or perennial herbs inhabiting the temperate zone, becoming shrubby in warmer climates. The stem is generally square in section and the simple exstipulate leaves are arranged in decussating pairs (i.e. each pair is in a plane at right angles to that of the pairs immediately above and below it); the blade is entire, or toothed, lobed or more or less deeply cut. The plant is often hairy, and the hairs are frequently glandular, the secretion containing a scent characteristic of the genus or species. The flowers are borne in the axils of the leaves or bracts; they are rarely solitary as in Scutellaria (skull-cap), and generally form an apparent whorl (verticillaster) at the node, consisting of a pair of cymose inflorescences each of which is a simple three-flowered dichasium as in Brunella, Salvia, &c., or more generally a dichasium passing over into a pair of monochasial cymes as in Lamium (fig. 1), Ballota, Nepeta, &c. A number of whorls may be crowded at the apex of the stem and the subtending leaves reduced to small bracts, the whole forming a raceme- or spike-like inflorescence as in Mentha (fig. 2, 5) Brunella, &c.; the bracts are sometimes large and coloured as in Monarda, species of Salvia, &c., in the latter the apex of the stem is sometimes occupied with a cluster of sterile coloured bracts. The plan of the flower is remarkably uniform (fig. 1, 3); it is bisexual, and zygomorphic in the median plane, with 5 sepals united to form a persistent cup-like calyx, 5 petals united to form a two-lipped gaping corolla, 4 stamens inserted on the corolla-tube, two of which, generally the anterior pair, are longer than the other two (didynamous arrangement)—sometimes as in Salvia, the posterior pair is aborted—and two superior median carpels, each very early divided by a constriction in a vertical plane, the pistil consisting of four cells each containing one erect anatropous ovule attached to the base of an axile placenta; the style springs from the centre of the pistil between the four segments (gynobasic), and is simple with a bifid apex. The fruit comprises four one-seeded nutlets included in the persistent calyx; the seed has a thin testa and the embryo almost or completely fills it. Although the general form and plan of arrangement of the flower is very uniform, there are wide variations in detail. Thus the calyx may be tubular, bell-shaped, or almost spherical, or straight or bent, and the length and form of the teeth or lobes varies also; it may be equally toothed as in mint (Mentha) (fig. 2, 3), and marjoram (Origanum), or two-lipped as in thyme (Thymus), Lamium (fig. 1) and Salvia (fig. 2, 1); the number of nerves affords useful characters for distinction of genera, there are normally five main nerves between which simple or forked secondary nerves are more or less developed. The shape of the corolla varies widely, the differences being doubtless intimately associated with the pollination of the flowers by insect-agency. The tube is straight or variously bent and often widens towards the mouth. Occasionally the limb is equally five-toothed, or forms, as in Mentha (fig. 2, 3, 4) an almost regular four-toothed corolla by union of the two posterior teeth. Usually it is two-lipped, the upper lip being formed by the two posterior, the lower lip by the three anterior petals (see fig. 1, and fig. 2, 1, 6); the median lobe of the lower lip is generally most developed and forms a resting-place for the bee or other insect when probing the flower for honey, the upper lip shows great variety in form, often, as in Lamium (fig. 1), Stachys, &c., it is arched forming a protection from rain for the stamens, or it may be flat as in thyme. In the tribe Ocimoideae the four upper petals form the upper lip, and the single anterior one the lower lip, and in Teucrium the upper lip is absent, all five lobes being pushed forward to form the lower. The posterior stamen is sometimes present as a staminode, but generally suppressed; the upper pair are often reduced to staminodes or more or less completely suppressed as in Salvia (fig. 2, 2, 6); rarely are these developed and the anterior pair reduced. In Coleus the stamens are monadelphous. In Nepeta and allied genera the posterior pair are the longer, but this is rare, the didynamous character being generally the result of the anterior pair being the longer. The anthers are two-celled, each cell splitting lengthwise; the connective may be more or less developed between the cells; an extreme case is seen in Salvia (fig. 2, 2), where the connective is filiform and jointed to the filament, while the anterior anther-cell is reduced to a sterile appendage. Honey is secreted by a hypogynous disk. In the more general type of flower the anthers and stigmas are protected by the arching upper lip as in dead-nettle (fig. 1) and many other British genera; the lower lip affords a resting-place for the insect which in probing the flower for the honey, secreted on the lower side of the disk, collects pollen on its back. Numerous variations in detail are found in the different genera; in Salvia (fig. 2), for instance, there is a lever mechanism, the barren half of each anther forming a knob at the end of a short arm which when touched by the head of an insect causes the anther at the end of the longer arm to descend on the insect’s back. In the less common type, where the anterior part of the flower is more developed, as in the Ocimoideae, the stamens and style lie on the under lip and honey is secreted on the upper side of the hypogynous disk; the insect in probing the flower gets smeared with pollen on its belly and legs. Both types include brightly-coloured flowers with longer tubes adapted to the visits of butterflies and moths, as species of Salvia, Stachys, Monarda, &c.; some South American species of Salvia are pollinated by humming-birds. In Mentha (fig. 2, 3), thyme, marjoram (Origanum), and allied genera, the flowers are nearly regular and the stamens spread beyond the corolla.