LĂTRUNCŬLI (πεσσοί, ψήφοι), draughts. The invention of a game resembling draughts was attributed by the Greeks to Palamedes; and it is mentioned by Homer. There were two sets of men, one set being black, the other white or red. Being intended to represent a miniature combat between two armies, they were called soldiers (milites), foes (hostes), and marauders (latrones, dim. latrunculi); also calculi, because stones were often employed for the purpose. The Romans often had twelve lines on the draught-board, whence the game so played was called duodecim scripta.
LAUDĀTĬO. [[Funus].]
LAURENTĀLĬA. [[Larentalia].]
LAUTŬMĬAE, LAUTŎMIAE, LĀTOMIAE, Or LĀTUMIAE (λιθοτομίαι, λατομίαι, Lat. Lapicidinae), literally places where stones are cut, or quarries, and more particularly the public prison of Syracuse. It lay in the steep and almost inaccessible part of the town which was called Epipolae, and had been built by Dionysius the tyrant. It was cut to an immense depth into the solid rock, so that nothing could be imagined to be a safer or stronger prison, though it had no roof, and thus left the prisoners exposed to the heat of the sun, the rain, and the coldness of the nights. The Tullianum at Rome was also sometimes called lautumiae. [[Carcer].]
LECTICA (κλίνη, κλινίδιον, or φορεῖον), was a kind of couch or litter, in which persons, in a lying position, were carried from one place to another. Lecticae were used for carrying the dead [[Funus]] as well as the living. The Greek lectica consisted of a bed or mattress, and a pillow to support the head, placed upon a kind of bedstead or couch. It had a roof, consisting of the skin of an ox, extending over the couch and resting on four posts. The sides of this lectica were covered with curtains. In the republican period it appears to have been chiefly used by women, and by men only when they were in ill health. When this kind of lectica was introduced among the Romans, it was chiefly used in travelling, and very seldom in Rome itself. But towards the end of the republic, and under the empire, it was commonly used in the city, and was fitted up in the most splendid manner. Instead of curtains, it was frequently closed on the sides with windows made of transparent stone (lapis specularis), and was provided with a pillow and bed. When standing, it rested on four feet, generally made of wood. Persons were carried in a lectica by slaves (lecticarii), by means of poles (asseres) attached to it, but not fixed, so that they might easily be taken off when necessary. The number of lecticarii employed in carrying one lectica varied according to its size, and the display of wealth which a person might wish to make. The ordinary number was probably two; but it varied from two to eight, and the lectica is called hexaphoron or octophoron, accordingly as it was carried by six or eight persons.
LECTISTERNIUM. Sacrifices being of the nature of feasts, the Greeks and Romans, on occasion of extraordinary solemnities, placed images of the gods reclining on couches, with tables and viands before them, as if they were really partaking of the things offered in sacrifice. This ceremony was called a lectisternium. The woodcut here introduced exhibits one of these couches, which is represented with a cushion covered by a cloth hanging in ample folds down each side. This beautiful pulvinar is wrought altogether in white marble, and is somewhat more than two feet in height.
Pulvinar used at Lectisternium. (From the Glyptothek at Munich.)
LECTUS (λέχος, κλίνη, εὐνή), a bed. The complete bed (εὐνή) of a wealthy Greek in later times generally consisted of the following parts:—κλίνη, ἐπίτονοι, τυλεῖον or κνέφαλον, προσκεφάλειον, and στρώματα. The κλίνη is, properly speaking, merely the bedstead, and seems to have consisted only of posts fitted into one another and resting upon four feet. At the head part alone there was a board ( ἀνάκλιντρον or ἐπίκλιντρον) to support the pillow and prevent its falling out. Sometimes, however, the bottom part of a bedstead was likewise protected by a board, so that in this case a Greek bedstead resembled what we call a French bedstead. The bedstead was provided with girths (τόνοι, ἐπίτονοι, κειρία) on which the bed or mattress (κνέφαλον, τυλεῖον, or τύλη) rested. The cover or ticking of a mattress was made of linen or woollen cloth, or of leather, and the usual material with which it was filled was either wool or dried weeds. At the head part of the bed, and supported by the ἐπίκλιντρον, lay a round pillow (προσκεφάλειον) to support the head. The bed-covers (στρώματα) were generally made of cloth, which was very thick and woolly, either on one or on both sides. The beds of the Romans (lecti cubiculares) in the earlier periods of the republic were probably of the same description as those used in Greece; but towards the end of the republic and during the empire, the richness and magnificence of the beds of the wealthy Romans far surpassed every thing we find described in Greece. The bedstead was generally rather high, so that persons entered the bed (scandere, ascendere) by means of steps placed beside it (scamnum). It was sometimes made of metal, and sometimes of costly kinds of wood, or veneered with tortoise-shell or ivory; its feet (fulcra) were frequently of silver or gold. The bed or mattress (culcita and torus) rested upon girths or strings (restes, fasciae, institae, or funes), which connected the two horizontal side-posts of the bed. In beds destined for two persons the two sides are distinguished by different names; the side at which persons entered was open, and bore the name sponda; the other side, which was protected by a board, was called pluteus. The two sides of such a bed are also distinguished by the names torus exterior and torus interior, or sponda exterior and sponda interior; and from these expressions it is not improbable that such lecti had two beds or mattresses, one for each person. Mattresses were in the earlier times filled with dry herbs or straw, and such beds continued to be used by the poor. But in subsequent times wool, and, at a still later period, feathers, were used by the wealthy for the beds as well as the pillows. The cloth or ticking (operimentum or involucrum) with which the beds or mattresses were covered, was called toral, torale, linteum, or segestre. The blankets or counterpanes (vestes stragulae, stragula, peristromata, peripetasmata) were in the houses of wealthy Romans of the most costly description, and generally of a purple colour, and embroidered with beautiful figures in gold. Covers of this sort were called peripetasmata Attalica, because they were said to have been first used at the court of Attalus. The pillows were likewise covered with magnificent casings. The lectus genialis or adversus was the bridal bed, which stood in the atrium, opposite the janua, whence it derived the epithet adversus. It was generally high, with steps by its side, and in later times beautifully adorned. Respecting the lectus funebris see [Funus]. An account of the disposition of the couches used at entertainments is given under [Triclinium].
LĒGĀTĬO LĪBĔRA. [[Legatus].]