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UMBRACULUM.
The satied vittae, as well as the infulae, were made of avoo!, and hence the epithets lanea (Ovid. Fast. iii. 30) and mollis. (Virg. Ed. viii. 04.) They were white (niveae, Virg. Georg. iii. 487 ; Ovid. Met. xiii. 643 ; Stat. Theb. iii. 466), or purple (puniceae, Prop. iv. 9. 27), or azure (caeruleae) when wreathed round an altar to the manes. (Virg. Aen. iii. 64.)
Vitta is also used in the general sense of a string for tying up garlands (Plin. //. N. xviii. 2 ; Isidor. xix.,31. 6), and-wftae loreae for the leathern straps or braces by which a machine was worked. (Plin. //. A7, xviii. 31.) [W. R.]
ULNA (wAeprj), properly the fore-arm from the shoulder to the wrist, is also used for the whole arm, and even for the whole span of both anus ; and hence, as a measure of length, it ap pears to be used with different significations. In the chief passages in which it occurs (Virg. Buc. iii. 105, Georg. iii. 355 ; Ovid, Melam. viii. 750 ; Hor. Epod. iv. 8) there is nothing to determine its length, except, perhaps, in the last quoted passage, where, however, we may easily suppose the exag geration of caricature. Servius, however, in his j note on the first of these passages, says that it was the space between the outstretched hands, that is, the same as the Greek opyvia of six feet ; and this is evidently its meaning in Pliny (H.N. xvi. 40. s. 76, 32. s. 57), where it is important to observe that crassitude refers to the circumference of the trunk, not to its diameter. Later writers use it as equivalent to the cubit or a modification of it, and hence the modern ell. (Pollux, ii. 140 ; Solin. 54.) [P. S.]
ULTROTRIBUTA. [censor, p. 265, a.]
UMBELLA. [umbraculum.]
UMBILICUS. [libbr.]
UMBO. [clipeus ; toga, p. 1136, b.]
they seem not to have been carried generally by the ladies themselves, but by female slaves who held them over their mistresses. The daushters
UMBRACULUM, UMBELLA (trKidSeiov, GKidfiiov, (TKfaStV/cTj) a parasol, was used by Greek and Roman ladies as a protection against the sun,
UNCIA/ 1213
of the aliens (/.leVoj/roi) at Athens had to carry parasols after the Athenian maidens at the Pana-thenaea, as is mentioned under hydriaphoria. The parasols of the ancients seem to have been exactly like our own parasols or umbrellas in form, and could be shut up and opened like ours. (Aristoph. Equit. 1348 ; Schol. ad loc.; Ovid. Ar. Am. ii. 209.) They are often represented in paintings on ancient vases: the annexed woodcut is taken from Millin’s Peintures de Vases Antiques, vol. i. pi. 70. The female is clothed in a long Chiton or Diploidion [tunica, p. 1172, b.], and has a small Himation, which seems to have fallen off her shoulders.
It was considered a mark of effeminacy for men to make use of parasols. (Anacreon, ap. Athen. xii. p. 534, a.) . The Roman ladies used them in the amphitheatre to defend themselves from the sun or some passing shower (Mart. xiv. 28), when the wind or other circumstances did not allow the velarium to be extended. To hold a parasol over a lady was one of the common attentions of lovers (Mart. xi. 73; Ovid. /. c.}, and it seems to have been very common to give parasols as presents. (Juv. ix. 50.)
Instead of parasols the Greek women in later times wore a kind of straw hat or bonnet, called &oia. (Pollux, vii. 174 ; compare x. 127 ; Theocr. xv. 39.) The Romans also wore a hat with a broad brim (petaszts) as a protection against the sun. (Suet. Aug. 82; Dion Cass. lix. 7.) See Paci-audi, de Umbcllae gestatione, Rom. 1752; Becker, Charikles, vol. ii. p. 73.
UNCIA (byida, ovyida, ovyyia), the twelfth part of the As or libra, is derived by Varro from unus, as being the unit of the divisions of the as (L.L. v. 171,-Miiller). It was subdivided into 2 semunciac, 3 duellae, 4 sicilici, 6 sextulae, 24 scrupula, and 144 siliquae. The values of the Uncia and its subdivisions, in terms of our own weights, will be found in the Tables.
In connecting the Roman system of weights and money with the Greek, another division of the uncia was used. When the drachma was introduced into the Roman system as equivalent to the denarius of 96 to the pound [denarius ; drachma] the uncia contained 8 drachmae, the drachma 3 scrupula, the scrupulum 2 oboli (since 6 oboli made up the drachma}, and the obolos 3 siliquae (KepariaJ. Therefore the uncia was divided into 8 drachmae, 24 scrupula, 48 oboli, 144 siliquae. In this division we have the origin of the modern Italian system, in which the pound is divided into 12 ounces, the ounce into 8 drams, the dram into 3 scruples, and the scruple into 6 carats. In each of these systems 1728 Keparia, siliquae, or carats make up the pound.
The uncial system was adopted by the Greeks of Sicily, who called their obol irpa (the Roman libra}, and divided it into twelve parts, each of which they called oyKia or ovyida (the Roman uncia}. In this system the oyKia was reckoned equal to the xaA/cot/s. [litra ; nummus, pp. 813,814.]
Muller considers that the Greeks of Sicily, and also the Romans themselves, obtained the uncial system from the Etruscans. (Etmsher, i. p. 309.)
The Romans applied the uncial division to all kinds of magnitude. [As.] In length the uncia was the twelfth of a foot, whence the word inch, in area the twelfth of a jugerum, in content the twelfth of a sextarius, in time the twelfth of an
