Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Lychnus

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. 

LYCH'NUS (λύχνος). Properly a Greek word which in that language signifies any portable light, including also the stand or case, a candlestick or lamp for instance, in which it was placed. (Herod. ii. 62. 133. Aristoph. Nub. 56.) But the Romans appear to have adopted the word in a more special sense, to indicate a light or lamp suspended from the ceiling, as in the annexed example (Lychnus/1.1), from a painting discovered in the villa Negroni at Rome; for the lychnus is expressly mentioned as a pendant light by most of the writers who use the term. Ennius ap. Macrob. Sat. vi. 4. dependent lychni laquearibus; copied by Virgil, Aen. i. 730. Lucret. v. 296. pendentes lychni; Stat. Theb. i. 521. tendunt vincula lychnis, &c.

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  Lychnus/1.1