Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Ferculum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

FER'CULUM. In a general sense, that on which anything is borne; a contracted form for FERICULUM; especially a tray, on which a number of dishes were brought up at once from the kitchen into the eating room (Pet. Sat. 36. 2. Id. 39. 1. Suet. Aug. 74.); whence the same word frequently implies the dishes displayed upon it, constituting what we term a course or remove. Hor. Sat. ii. 6. 104. Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 47. Juv. i. 94.

2. A sort of portable platform borne by a number of men upon their shoulders, in solemn processions and other pageants, upon which any object of attraction was placed in order that it might be exposed to the general gaze from an elevated position; as, for example, the images of the gods at the Circensian procession (Suet. Jul. 76. Compare Cic. Off. i. 36.); the spoils of conquered nations at a triumph (Suet. Jul. 37.); and even the captives themselves, when of sufficient consequence, were subjected to this cruel exposure. (Senec. Herc. Oet. 110.) The illustration (Ferculum/2.1), from a bas-relief on the Arch of Titus, represents eight Roman soldiers at the triumph of that emperor, after the conquest of Jerusalem, carrying the spoils of the temple, the "table of gold" (1 Kings, vii. 48.) and trumpets on a ferculum; another bas-relief on the same arch represents a group transporting the golden candlestick in the same manner; a frieze shows a statue of the River Jordan personified, similarly transported; and a sarcophagus of the Pio-Clementine Museum affords an example of three captives, two males and a female, borne aloft upon a ferculum of the same description, by six supporters.

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  Ferculum/2.1