Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Rete

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. 

RE'TE and RE'TIS (δίκτυον). A net; in the same general sense as is conveyed by our own word; including both fishing and hunting nets, and, in consequence, all the different kinds which are enumerated in the Classed Index. (Cic. Plaut. Virg. &c.) But sportsmen made use of the term in a more special or technical sense, to distinguish the large net or haye (longo meantia retia tractu. Nemes. Cyneg. 300.), with which they used to surround a wide tract of country, before the operation of beating the covers commenced, in order to prevent the game from dispersing through the open country, and to form an enclosed circle towards which they might be driven, when dislodged by the dogs from the shelter of their thickets. Both the object itself, the manner of setting it, and the purpose for which it was used, may be readily imagined from the annexed illustration (Rete/1.1), copied from a fresco-painting in the sepulchre of the Nasonian family, near Rome, which also contains several other pictures illustrative of hunting scenes.

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  Rete/1.1