Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Nodus

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. 

NODUS. A knot; by which certain articles of apparel were tied on the top of the shoulder, instead of being fastened with a brooch (fibula Virg. Aen. vi. 301.). The example (Nodus/1.1) represents two Roman soldiers in their military cloaks, the one on the left fastened by a nodus, the other with a fibula, from a group on the Column of Trajan. The rustic at p. 429. playing the monaulos, has an exomis fastened in the same way, which was also the ordinary costume of the Greek and Roman mariners (Plaut. Mil. iv. 4. 44.); and the barbarians on the columns are frequenly represented with their cloaks (saga) tied by a knot like the above figure. From these instances it will be readily understood that the practice was especially characteristic of the poorer classes, who could not afford an ornamental fastening; hence it is assigned to the ferryman Charon to describe his poverty and occupation — sordidus ex humeris modo dependet amictus. Virg. l. c.

2. A knot; by which the girdle (cingulum) was tied under the bosom (Virg. Aen. i. 320.); as in the annexed example (Nodus/2.1), from a small ivory carving of Diana, draped in the manner described by Virgil in the passage just cited — nodo sinus collecta fluentes. Hence the word is also applied to the embroidered girdle of Venus. (Mart. vi. 13.) See CESTUS.

3. A knot; by which the band was tied round a tuft of hair (cirrus, corymbus, crobylus), produced by drawing the hair back from the roots all round the head into a mass at the occiput, as shown by the annexed example (Nodus/3.1), from a bas-relief of the Vatican; a fashion frequently adopted by the young women and youths of Greece, and common to some of the German tribes. Mart. Spect. iii. 9. Ep. v. 37. 8. Tac. Germ. 38.

4. The knot or thong by which the common leather amulet (bulla scortea) was tied round the neck of poor people's children. (Juv. v. 165.) See the illustration s. BULLA 2.

5. A thong attached to a spear, for the purpose of discharging it with greater power when used as a missile (Sil. Ital. i. 318.); more commonly termed AMENTUM; where see the illustration.

6. The knot by which each mesh of a net is fastened; whence the mesh itself. Manil. v. 664.

7. A wood-bud on the branch of a tree (Columell. Arb. iii. 4.); whence the knot produced by cutting off the minor shoots from the parent branch (Liv. i. 18.); and thence, in a special sense, the club of Hercules, which is always represented as covered with knots. Senec. Herc. Oet. 1661. CLAVA, 3.

• 
  Nodus/1.1
• 
  Nodus/2.1
• 
  Nodus/3.1