Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Cera

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

CE'RA. Wax; and thence used to designate things made of wax; as the waxen masks or likenesses of a man's ancestors, which the Roman families of distinction preserved in cases placed round the atrium (Ovid. Fast. i. 591. Juv. viii. 19.), as shown by the example (Cera/1.1), from a sepulchral bas-relief, which represents a wife bewailing the death of her husband, whose likeness is placed in a small case against the wall of the apartment where the scene is laid.

2. A set of tablets for writing on with the style (stylus), made of thin slabs or leaves of wood, coated with wax, and having a raised margin all round to preserve the contents from friction. They were made of different sizes, and varied in the number of their leaves, whence the word in this sense is applied in the plural (Quint. x. 3. 31. and 32. Juv. i. 63.), and the tablets themselves are distinguished by the number of leaves they contained; as cerae duplices, a tablet with two slabs only, like the bottom figure on the left-hand of the engraving; cerae triplices (Mart. Ep. xiv. 6.), a tablet containing three leaves, one between the two outsides, like the top figure in the engraving (Cera/2.1); cerae quintuplices (Mart. Ep. xiv. 4.), one with five leaves, or three centre ones and two outsides, like the right-hand figure at the bottom of the wood-cut, all of which examples are copied from paintings at Pompeii. When the singular number is used, as prima, secunda, extrema cera (Hor. Sat. ii. 5. 53. Cic. Verr. ii. 1. 36. Suet. Jul. 83.), it indicates the first, second, or last page of the tablets.

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  Cera/1.1
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  Cera/2.1