Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Pelta

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. 

PELTA (πέλτη). A small and light shield made of the same materials as the cetra (Liv. xxviii. 5.); viz. wood or wicker-work covered with leather, but without any metallic rim. In shape it was sometimes elliptic, like the example borne by one of the female figures in the following page; but more commonly truncated at the top, and indented by one or two semicircular incavations, like the annexed specimens (Pelta/1.1), from ancient monuments, whence it is characterised by the epithet lunata (Virg. Aen. 1. 490. Compare Varro, L. L. vii. 43.); and in this form it is more especially characteristic of the Amazons and Asiatic races (Quint. Smyrn. i. 147 — 149.); for the Thracian shield, to which the name of pelta was also given (Herod. vii. 75.), because made of the same light materials, possessed a square and imbricated figure, like the Roman scutum, but upon a smaller scale. See PARMA, 2. and the right-hand figure in the next wood-cut.

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  Pelta/1.1