Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Mastruca

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. 

MASTRU'CA and MASTRU'GA. A word of foreign origin, probably Phoenician, which designates a coarse and common kind of covering made of the skins of wild animals (Isidor. Orig. xix. 23. 5.), more especially peculiar to the peasantry and common people of Sardinia (Cic. Fragm. pro Scaur. ap. Isidor. l. c. Quint. i. 5. 8.), and of Carthage (Plaut. Poen. v. 5. 33.); both of which were Phoenician colonies. Its form and character is doubtless shown in the annexed figure (Mastruca/1.1) from a mosaic found at Palestrina, representing the rape of Europa, in which the artist skilfully announces the country of his heroine, and the locality where the scene took place, by the introduction of a rustic figure in the mastruca, expressing by his attitude and gestures the greatest alarm at the strange abduction of his young mistress.

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  Mastruca/1.1