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LAUTUMlAE.
20 ; Sen. Epist. 107) ; also calculi, because stones were often employed for the purpose. (Gell. xiv. 1.) Sometimes they were made of metal or ivory, glass or earthenware, and they were various and often fanciful in their forms. The object of each player was to get one of his adversary’s men between two of his own, in which case he was entitled to take the man kept in check (Ovid, II. cc.; Mart. xiv. 17), or, as the phrase was, alli-gatus (Sen. Epist. 118). Some of the men were obliged to be moved in a certain direction (ordi?ie)9 and were therefore called ordinarii; others might be moved any way, and were called vagi. (Isid. Orig. xviii. 67) ; in this respect the game resembled chess, which is certainly a game of great antiquity.
Seneca calls the board on which the Romans played at draughts, tabula latruncularia (Epist. 118). The spaces into which the board was divided were called mandrae. (Mart. vii. 71.) The abacus, represented at page 1, is crossed by five lines. As five men were allowed on each side, we may suppose one player to arrange his five men on the lines at the bottom of the abacus, and the other to place his five men on the same lines at the top, and we shall have them disposed according to the accounts of ancient writers (Etymol. Mag. s. v. Htffaoi: Pollux, ix. 97 : Eustath, in Horn. I. c.), who say that the middle line of the five was called Upa ypdwrj. But instead of five, the Greeks and Romans often had twelve lines on the board, whence the game so played was called duodecim scripta. (Cic. de Orat. i. 50 ; Quintil. xi. 2 ; Ovid, Art.Amat. iii. 363.) Indeed there can be little 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, Reisebesclir. nacJi Arabien^ vol. i. p. 1 72.)
Besides playing with draughtsmen only, when the game was altogether one of skill, the ancients used dice (tesserae, kv§oi) at the same time, so as to combine chance with skill, as we do in back gammon or tric-trac. (Ter. Adelpli. iv. 7. 23 ; Isid. Orig. xviii. 60 ; Brunck, An. iii. 60 ; Becker, Gallus, vol. ii. p. 228, &c.) [ J. Y.]
LATUS CLAVUS. [clavus latus.]
LAUDATIO FUNEBRIS. [FuNus,p.559a.]
LAURENTALIA. [larentalia.]
LAUTIA. [legatus.]
LAUTUMIAE, LAUTO’MIAE, LATO’-MIAE, or LATU’MIAE (XiQoro^iai or Aaro/Jcu, Lat. Lapicidinae), are literally places where stones are cut, or quarries ; and in this sense the word arofjLiai was used by the Sicilian Greeks. (Pseudo-Ascon. ad Cic. c. Verr. ii. 1. p. 161, ed. Orelli ; compare Diodor. Sic. xi. 25 ; Plant. Poenul. iv. 2. 5, Capt. iii. 5. 65 j Festus, s. v. Latumiae.) In particular, however, the name lautumiae Avas given to 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. (Aelian. V. PI. xii. 44 ; Cic. c. Verr. v. 55.) Cicero, who had undoubtedly seen it himself, describes it (c. Verr. v. 27) as an immense and magnificent work, worthy of kings and tyrants. It was cut to an immense depth into the solid rock, so that nothing could be imagined to be a safer or stronger prison than this, 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. (Compare Thucyd. vii. 87.) The
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LECTICA.
whole was a stadium in length, and two plethra in width. (Aelian. 7. c.) It was not only used as a prison for Syracusan criminals, but other Sicilian towns also had their criminals often removed to it.
The Tullianum at Rome was also sometimes called lautumiae. [carcer.] [L. S.]
LECTFCA (KXivt], KXwiSiov, or <£ope?oi/) was a kind of couch or litter, in which persons, in a lying position, were carried from one place to another. They may be divided into two classes, viz., those which were used for carrying the dead, and those which served as conveniences for the living.
The former of these two kinds of lecticae (also called lectica funebris, lecticula, lecttis funebris, feretrum or capulum), in which the dead were carried to the grave, seems to have been used among the Greeks and Romans from very early times. In the beauty and costliness of their ornaments these lecticae varied according to the rank and circumstances of the deceased. [funus, p. 55.9 a.] The lectica on which the body of Augustus was carried to the grave, was made of ivory and gold, and was covered with costly drapery worked of purple and gold. (Dion Cass. Ivi. 34 ; compare Dionys. Ant. Rom. iv. 76 ; Corn. Nepos, Att. 22. §2 ; Tacit. Hist. iii. 67.) During the latter period of the empire public servants (lecticarii) were appointed for the purpose of carrying the dead to the grave without any expense to the family to whom the deceased belonged. (Novell. 43 and 59.) Representations of lecticae funebr’es have been found on several sepulchral monuments. The following woodcut represents one taken from the tombstone of M. Antonius Antius Lupus.
(Compare Lipsius, Elect, i. 19 ; Scheffer, De Re Vehicular^ ii. 5. p. 89 ; Grater, Inscript. p. 954. 8 ; Bottiger, Sabina, vol. ii. p. 200 ; Agyafalva, Wanderungen durch Pompeii.}
Lecticae for sick persons and invalids seem likewise to have been in use in Greece and at Rome from very early times, and their construction probably differed very little from that of a lectica funebris. (Liv. ii. 36 ; Aurel. Vict. De Vir. III. c. 34.) We also frequently read that generals in their camps, when they had received a severe wound, or when they were suffering from ill health, made use of a lectica to be carried from one place to another. (Liv. xxiv. 42 ; Val. Max. ii. 8. § 2 ; i. 7 ; Sueton. Aug. 91.)
Down to the time of the Gracchi we do not hear that lecticae were used at Rome for any other purposes than those mentioned above. The Greeks, however, had long been familiar with a different kind of lectica (Kivy or </>ope?oi>), which was introduced among them from Asia, and which was more an article of luxury than anything to supply an actual want. It 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 (cwAuw). It ap-
