Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Coctilis

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

COC'TILIS, sc. later. A brick hardened by burning, as contradistinguished from one dried by the sun. Varro, R. R. i. 14. Plin. H. N. vii. 57.

2. Murus coctilis. A wall built of bricks hardened by the fire. Ovid. Met. iv. 58.

3. Coctilia or Cocta ligna (ξύλα κάγκανα). Dried or scorched wood, chopped into small pieces, and prepared by hardening over the fire sufficiently to dry up the moisture contained in it, without reducing it to charcoal (Ulp. Dig. 32. 55.), in order that it might burn readily and briskly, and not throw out a quantity of smoke. It was sold by measure (Valerian ap. Trebell. Claud. 14.), and not by weight, like other kinds of fire-wood, in particular warehouses at Rome, called tabernae coctiliciae; and the preparing, as well as the selling of it, was a particular trade, to which, as we are told, the father of the Emperor Pertinax belonged. Jul. Cap. Pertinax, 3.