Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Palus

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. 

PA'LUS (πάσσαλος). In a general sense, any pale or stake driven into the ground as a support or fixture for other objects to rest upon; and especially a pale, set up for the exercise and practice of gladiators and the Roman soldiery, which they were made to attack with a discharge of missiles from a distance, or with wooden swords at close quarters, in order to learn the exercise, and acquire the habit of taking a just aim at any particular part of the body required. Juv. vi. 247. Veg. Mil. i. 11. Id. ii. 23.