Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Fuscinula

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. 

FUSCIN'ULA. Diminutive of FUSCINA. A carving-fork and eating-fork. (Vulg. Exod. xxvii. 3.) The absence of any express name for articles of this description amongst the genuine old Greek and Latin authors now remaining to us, has induced a very general belief that the ancients were unacquainted with this convenient piece of table furniture; though it is well authenticated that the use of it was introduced into Europe from Italy, where it was in common use long before other nations had learned the advantage of such a luxury. (Coryate, Crudities, p. 60. London, 1776.) But the two specimens (Fuscinula/1.1) here exhibited are sufficient to establish the fact of forks being employed by the ancients at least partially, and for the same purposes as they now are, although the positive name by which they were called may not have been discovered. The first represents a two-pronged silver fork found in a ruin on the Via Appia (Caylus, Recueil, iii. 84.); the other, with five prongs, one of which is broken off, resembling our silver forks, in a tomb at Paestum, and is now preserved in the Museum at Naples. The authenticity of the first has been doubted by those who are unwilling to admit that the ancients were acquainted with such contrivances (Beckman, Hist. of Inventions, ii. pp. 407 — 413. London, 1846.); and it is certainly possible that Count Caylus may have been imposed upon by the person from whom he purchased it; though the tasteful character of the article affords an evidence of its genuineness, corresponding as it does with the usual style of ancient manufactures, in which the arts of design were universally exerted to embellish even the commonest utensils employed for the most ordinary purposes of daily life; but the fork from the Paestan tomb will not admit of suspicion. This same tomb abounded in objects of antiquarian interest, and has furnished more than seven illustrations for these pages, several of them unique in their kind; the spear with an ansa, at p. 38.; the gridiron, p. 212; the fire-dogs, s. VARAE; the war truncheon, s. PHALANGA; the helmet, greaves, belt, and breast-plate s. BUCCULAE, OCREA, CINGULUM, 4., LORICA, 1.; besides several others of more common occurrence. Whether the Romans really used the word now under illustration to designate an eating-fork, may, however, be a matter of dispute; for it certainly has no classic authority to rest upon. The Greek κρεάγρα undoubtedly corresponds with the Latin harpago, a flesh-hook; furca, fuscina, furcula and furcilla are all applied in the passages where they occur to instruments of much larger dimensions than eating-forks; but the precise meaning conveyed by diminutives in the Latin language is very varied and arbitrary. Certainly, furcula or furcilla might have been appropriately used for a two-pronged fork, like the top figure, and fuscinula, or fuscinella (which occurs as a cognomen ap. Grut. Inscript. 1141. 1.), for one with a greater number of prongs, like the lower one.

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  Fuscinula/1.1