Scanned text contains errors.
STILUS.
inscription in silver letters. They are inserted into the left foot. The Museo Borbonico possesses some examples of inlaid silver work. There are also instances of it in the collection of bronzes in the British Museum. Many of the examples of bronze works that have reached us exhibit signs of having been gilt, and the writers of antiquity refer "occasionally to the practice. It does not seem to have been employed till taste had much deteriorated; probably when the value and rich ness of the material were more highly estimated than the excellence of the workmanship. Nero commanded a statue of Alexander, the work of Lysippus, to be gilt; but Pliny (//. N. xxxiv. 39. § 6) tells us it was found to injure" the beauty and effect of the work, and the gold was removed. (Winckelmann, GescJt. der Kunst; Meyer, GescJi. der bitdenden Kunste bei den Grieclien; F. Thiersch, Ueber die Epoclien der bildenden Kunst unter den Griechen; K. 0. Muller, flandbuch der Arcliaeo- logie der Kunst, 2nd ed. 1835, 3d ed. with notes by Welcker, 1848.) [L. S.]
STELAE ((m)Acu). [funus, p. 556, b.]
STELLATURAE. [exercitus, p. 505, a.]
STHENIA (<r0eW), a festival with contests celebrated by the Argives in honour of Zeus sur- named Sthenius, who had an altar consisting of a large rock in the neighbourhood of Hermione. (Hesych. s. v. 2J0«/ta: compare Pans. ii. 32. § 7, 34. §6.) Plutarch (de Mus. p. 1140, c.) states that the ird7j or wrestling, which formed a part of the contests at this festival, was accompanied by the flute ; and he also mentions a tradition ac cording to which the festival had originally been held in honour of Danaus, and that it was after wards consecrated to Zeus Sthenius. [L. S.]
STIBADIUM. [mbnsa.]
STILLICFDIUM. [servitutes, p. 1031, b.]
STILUS or STYLUS is in all probability the same word with the Greek crruAos, and conveys the general idea of an object tapering like an architectural column. It signifies,
1. An iron instrument (Ovid. Met. ix. 521 ; Martial, xiv. 21), resembling a pencil in size and shape, used for writing upon waxed tablets. (Plant. Baccli. iv. 4. 63; Plin. PI. N. xxxiv. 14.) At one end it was sharpened to a point for scratching the characters upon the wax (Quintil. i. 1. § 27)5 while the other end being flat and circular served to render the surface of the tablets smooth again, and eo to obliterate what had been written. Thus, vertere stilum means to erase, and hence to correct, as in the well-known precept saepe stiluni vertas. (Ror.Sat. i. 10. 72; Cic. Verr. ii. 41.) The stylus was also termed graphium (Ovid. Amor. i. 11. 23 ; Suet. Jul. 82), and the case in which it was kept graphiarium (Martial, xiv. 21) or yrapld-aria theca. (Suet. Claud. 35.) The annexed cut is
1071
STIPENDIUM.
from a picture found in Herculaneum. (Mus. Borbon. vol. vi. tav. 35.)
2. A sharp stake or spike placed in pitfalls before an entrenchment to embarrass the progress of an attacking enemy. {Bell. African. 31; Sil. Ital. x. 415.) It was intended to answer the same purpose as the contrivances called cippi, lilia, and stimuli by Caesar (B. G. vii. 73).
3. A bronze needle or rod for picking worms oft’ fruit-trees (Pallad. iv. 30. § 20), also a wooden probe employed in gardening operations. (Colu-mell. xi. 3. § 53.)
It bears also the meaning of the stem of a tree or vegetable (Columell. v. 10. § 21, xi. 3. § 46), which is perhaps the primary signification of
(TTVOS. ,… j [W. R.]
STIPENDIARII. The Stipendiariae urbes of the Roman provinces were so denominated, as being subject to the payment of a fixed money tribute, ‘* stipendium," in contradistinction to the vecti- gales, who paid a certain portion, as a tenth or twentieth of the produce of their lands, their cattle, or customs. The word " stipendium " was used to signify the tribute paid, as it was origin ally imposed for and afterwards appropriated to the purpose of furnishing the Roman soldiers with pay (stipendium, Liv. iv. 60; Tacit. Hist.iv. 74). The condition of the urbes Stipendiariae is generally thought to have been more honourable than that of the vectigales, but the distinction between the two terms was not always observed. (Liv. xxxvii. 35.) The word stipendiarius is also applied to a person who receives a fixed salary or pay, as a " stipen diarius miles " (Hirtius, de Bell. Afric. 43), a phrase which is sometimes used to denote a veteran who has received pay for many years, or served in many campaigns. (Veget. de Re Milit. i. 18.) Some MSS. have stipendiosus in the passage last quo ted, which is perhaps a better reading. (Gottling, Gesch. der Rom. Staatsverf. p. 418.) [R. W.]
STIPENDIUM, a pension or pay, from stipem and pendo, because before silver was coined at Rome the copper money in use was paid by weight and not by tale. (Varro, L. L. v. 182. ed. Muller ; Plin. H. N. xxx. 3.) According to Livy the practice of giving pay to the Roman soldiers (ut stipendium miles de puliico acciperei) was not introduced till b. c. 405, on the occasion of the taking of Tarracina or Anxur. He represents the change as the spontaneous and unsolicited act of the senate, but from another passage (iv. 36) we learn that in the year 421 B. c. the tribunes had proposed that the occupiers of the public land should pay their vectigal regularly, and that it should be devoted to the payment of the troops. The concession was probably accelerated by the prospect of the last war with Veii, and made with a view of conciliating the plebs, who without seme such favour would in their then humour have refused to vote for the war. Livy also represents the funds for the payment to have been raised by a tributum or general tax, but as Arnold observes (Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 369 ; compare Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 440), " The vectigal, or tithe, due from the occupiers of the public land, was to provide pay for the soldiers ; and if this were not sufficient, it was to be made good by a tax or tribute levied upon the whole people. This tithe, however, was probably paid very irregularly, and hence the pay of the soldiers would in point of fact be provided chiefly out of the tributum." A few years after this concession (b. c. 403),
