Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Radius

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. 

RA'DIUS (ῥάβδος). A pointed rod or wand, employed by professors of geometry, astronomy, or mathematics, for describing diagrams in sand, &c. (Cic. Tusc. v. 23. Virg. Ecl. iii. 40.), as exhibited by the annexed figure (Radius/1.1), representing the Muse Urania, from a Pompeian painting.

2. (ἀκτίς). A ray of light; usually represented by artists as a sharp pointed spike; whence corona radiis distincta (Flor. iv. 2. 91.), a crown ornamented with metal spikes to imitate the rays of the sun, as in the annexed example (Radius/2.1), representing the head of Augustus, on an engraved gem.

3. (ἀκτίς, κνήμη). The spoke of a wheel (Virg. Georg. ii. 444. Ov. Met. ii. 318.); so termed because they radiate from a centre; hence rota radiata (Varro, R. R. iii. 5. 15), a wheel with spokes as contradistinguished from the solid wheel (tympanum) which had none. The latter of the two Greek words bracketed above, κνήμη, means literally the shin bone, and thus suggests a different image for the same object, which is also exemplified by the form of the spokes in the annexed illustration (Radius/3.1), representing an original wheel of ancient workmanship now preserved in the gallery of antiquities at Vienna.

4. A sharp pointed stake or palisade for making a vallum. Liv. xxxv. 3.

5. An instrument used in weaving (Virg. Aen. ix. 476. Ov. Met. iv. 275. vi. 56. Lucret. v. 1352.); which, reasoning from analogy, and the other senses of the word, we may infer to have been the same as the long reed now employed by the Hindoos, serving both the purposes of a shuttle and batten. It is formed like a large netting needle, rather longer than the breadth of the web, which introduces the threads of the weft, and is likewise used to condense them.

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