Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Cultrarius

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

CULTRA'RIUS. The minister or servant of an officiating priest, who despatched the victim at a sacrifice, by cutting its throat with a knife (culter), as contradistinguished from popa, who knocked it down with a blow of the axe (securis) or mallet (malleus). (Suet. Cal. 32. Inscript. ap. Grut. 640. 11.) The illustration (Cultrarius/1.1), from a very beautiful marble bas-relief discovered at Pompeii, represents an old woman and a Faun about to offer up a pig in sacrifice, the former in the character of a priestess, the latter as a cultrarius, cutting its throat.

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  Cultrarius/1.1