Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Catinum

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

CAT'INUM or CAT'INUS. A deep sort of dish, in which vegetables, fish, and poultry were brought to table. (Hor. Sat. i. 6. 115. Ib. ii. 4. 77. Ib. i. 3. 92.) The illustration (Catinum/1.1), which is copied from a series of ancient fresco paintings discovered near the church of St. John in Lateran, at Rome (Cassini, Pitture Antichi, tav. 4.), representing a number of slaves bringing in different dishes at a feast, shows the catinus, with a fowl and fish in it, precisely as described by Horace in the last two passages cited.

2. A deep earthenware dish, in which some kinds of cakes, pies, or puddings were cooked, and served up to table in the same; like our pie-dish. Varro, R. R. 84.

3. A deep dish made of earthenware, glass, or more precious materials, in which pastiles of incense were carried to the sacrifice (Suet. Galb. 18. Apul. Apol. p. 434.), and thence taken out to be dropped upon a small burning fire-basket. (See the illustration to FOCUS TURICREMUS.) The illustration (Catinum/3.1) represents a curious and valuable dish of agate, which was brought from Cesarea in Palestine in the year 1101, and is now preserved as a sacred relic in the sacristy of the cathedral at Genoa, where it goes by the name of the sagro catino. It is devoutly believed in that city that our Saviour partook of the paschal lamb with his disciples out of this identical dish; but the smallness of its size, and the value of its material, sufficiently prove that it was never made to contain food, though it might have been, reasonably enough, employed for the purpose assigned.

4. An earthenware crucible for melting metals. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 21.) The illustrations (Catinum/4.1) represent two originals, one of red, the other of white clay, which were found in an ancient Roman pottery at Castor in Northamptonshire. Artis. Durobriv. pl. 38.

5. A particular member of the forcing pump invented by Ctesibius. (Vitruv. x. 12.) See the conjectural diagram in CTESIBICA MACHINA, in which the Catinum is marked A.

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  Catinum/1.1
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  Catinum/3.1
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  Catinum/4.1