Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Antenna

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

ANTEN'NA (ἐπίκριον). The yard-arm of a ship; which was made of a single piece of fir when the vessel was a small one, but of two pieces braced together for those of a larger size. Hence the word is often met with in the plural number, while the sail attached to it is at the same time expressed by the singular — antennis totum subnectite velum (Ovid, Met. xi. 483.). Small yards of a single piece are represented in several of the wood-cuts, illustrative of ancient shipping in different parts of this work; and the yard introduced at p. 36. s. v. ANQUINA shows distinctly the manner in which the two pieces were joined together for the larger kinds. The yard itself is taken from a bas-relief on a tomb at Pompeii; the details of the sail and truss by which it is fixed to the mast, from two terra-cotta lamps of Bartoli.