Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Sarracum

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. 

SARRA'CUM. A particular kind of wagon or cart, of foreign origin, but adopted into Italy (Sisenn. ap. Non. s. Carra, p. 195. Capitolin. M. Antonin. 13.), where it was commonly employed by the agricultural population as a conveyance for themselves and families (Cic. Fragm. in Pis. ap. Quint. viii. 3. 21.), and for transporting the produce of their farms to market. The circumstance of its being mentioned by the Roman authors in connexion with the plaustrum (Juv. iii. 254.), or as a quasi synonynme with it (Id. v. 23.), indicates that it must have had considerable resemblance to that particular conveyance, though at the same time with some difference from it; hence the inducement for proposing the figure exhibited by the annexed illustration (Sarracum/1.1) as a genuine example of a sarracum. It is copied from a painting representing a group of country people in the market-place of Herculaneum, and possesses two principal qualities which characterize a genuine plaustrum: viz. a thick platform of boarding placed upon a pair of solid wheels (tympana) instead of radiated ones (rotae), but differs from it in the essential particular, that it has a regular body with close sides affixed to the platform instead of a mere basket placed upon it, or an open railing, or nothing at all, as was usual with that kind of wagon, and will be perceived by referring to the article and illustration s. PLAUSTRUM.

• 
  Sarracum/1.1