Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Circulus

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

CIR'CULUS (κύκλος). A circle; thence, applied to various things which have a circular figure: as —

1. The hoop of a cask (cupa), by which the staves are bound together, as in the example (Circulus/1.1) from Trajan's Column. Pet. Sat. 60. 3. Plin. H. N. xiv. 27. Id. xvi. 30.

2. A particular kind of cake or biscuit, made in the form of a ring. Varro, L. L. v. 106. Vopisc. Tac. 6.

3. A circular dish, upon which food was brought up and placed upon the table (Mart. Ep. xiv. 138.), as shown by the illustration (Circulus/3.1), from the Vatican Virgil; whereas many dishes were only handed round to the guests, without being deposited on the dining table.

4. The broad belt in the sphere, which contains the twelve signs of the zodiac, and represents the sun's track through them, as seen in the annexed example (Circulus/4.1), from a Pompeian painting. Aul. Gell. xiii. 9. 3.

5. An imaginary circle in the heavens, or which astronomers describe on the celestial globe, for the purpose of marking out certain regions of the sky, and explaining the course of the planets, as seen in the illustration (Circulus/5.1), from a statue of Atlas bearing the heavens on his shoulders. Varro, L. L. vi. 8. Cic. Somn. Scip. 3. Ovid. Met. ii. 516.

• 
  Circulus/1.1
• 
  Circulus/3.1
• 
  Circulus/4.1
• 
  Circulus/5.1