Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Neo

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. 

NEO (νέω, νήθω, κλώθω). To spin, or twist a number of separate fibres of wool or flax into a single thread. The practice of spinning afforded universal occupation to the women of ancient Greece and Italy, as it does to the modern population of the same countries, in which every peasant woman spins her own thread, with the same simple machinery as was employed by the females of the heroic ages, the distaff (colus) and spindle (fusus). The annexed illustration (Neo/1.1), representing Hercules with the distaff and spindle of Omphale, from an ancient mosaic in the Capitol at Rome, will elucidate the manner in which the process is conducted, and explain the terms employed to describe the different steps in the operation. The loaded distaff (colus compta, or lana amictus) was fixed to the left side of the spinner, by running the end of the stick through the girdle (cingulum), instead of which the modern women use their apron strings. A number of fibres (stamina) are then drawn down from the top with the left hand (ducere lanam. Ov. Met. iv. 34.), and fastened to the spindle, which is then set twirling with the thumb and finger, as boys spin a teetotum (stamine nere. Ov. Fast. ii. 771. pollice versare. Met. iv. 34. versare pollice fusum. Met. vi. 22. Compare Tibull. ii. 1. 64.) The rotatory motion of the spindle, as it hangs suspended (wood-cut, p. 192.), twists these fibres into a thread (filum), which is constantly fed from above by drawing out more fibres from the distaff as the twist tightens (ducere stamina versato fuso. Ov. Met. iv. 221.). When the length of the thread has grown so long that the spindle nearly touches the ground, the portion made is taken up and wound round the spindle, and the same process is again resumed, until other lengths are twisted, and the spindle is entirely covered with thread, so that it can contain no more, when the thread is broken from the distaff (rumpere supremas colos. Val. Flacc. vi. 645.), and the whole rolled up into a ball (glomus) ready for use. Compare Cattul. lxiv. 312 — 318., where the operation is described in detail.

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  Neo/1.1