Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Ovum

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. 

OVUM. An egg; applied specially to a number of conical balls, like eggs, which were placed on the top of a slab supported by columns, on the barrier (spina) of a race-course (circus), in order to inform the spectators of the number of circuits round the goals which had been run in each race. As a single race comprised seven circuits round the course, and the eagerness and interest taken by the populace in these exhibitions amounted to a sort of phrenzy, some contrivance became necessary for showing the number of rounds that had been made, in a manner which would at once preclude the possibility of dispute. This was effected by the plan shown in the annexed illustration (Ovum/1.1), representing seven egg-shaped balls supported upon four columns, as they appear upon the spina of a Roman bas-relief, on which a chariot race is sculptured. The form of the object was selected in honour of Castor and Pollux; and one of these eggs was either put up immediately that each round was completed by the leading chariot, until the whole courses had been run; or the entire number of seven eggs were put up at the commencement of each race, and one taken down, as each circuit was made. Considerable doubt and contradiction exist representing which of these two methods was adopted; but the object and effect would be the same in either; perhaps, the practice varied at different periods, or in different towns. Liv. xli. 27. Varro, R. R. 1. 2. 11. Cassiodor. Var. Ep. iii. 51. Dio. xlix. p. 417.

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  Ovum/1.1