Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Labyrinthus

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. 

LABYRIN'THUS (λαβύρινθος). A labyrinth; under which term the ancients understood not only an intricate design containing many passages and windings within a small space, such as we make in our gardens (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 19. § 2.), but more especially a large mass of building connected with innumerable subterraneous caverns, streets, and passages, like the catacombs at Rome for example, out of which it was next to impossible for a person who had once penetrated into them to return back again without a guide. The original of the name is thought to be Greek, and akin to λαύρα, a narrow passage; — a supposition sufficiently probable, since the greater portion of a labyrinth consisted in underground works, though it was surmounted by numerous architectural elevations also of complicated designs, so that a stranger could not find his way about them. Herod. ii. 184. Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 19. § 1 — 4. Virg. Aen. v. 588. Ov. Met. viii. 159. seqq.