Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Scamnum

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. 

SCAM'NUM. A bed-side step or stool (Ov. A. Am. ii. 211.), of an intermediate size between the scabellum and gradus (Varro, L. L. v. 168.), which was used when the bedstead was of a middle size, between the highest and lowest. (Isidor. Orig. xx. 11. 8.) Hence the expression (scandere lectum, means strictly to get into bed by the assistance of this contrivance. The example (Scamnum/1.1) is taken from a bas-relief; the legs upon which the stool is raised indicate the increased height, serving the purpose of an extra step, and if compared with the illustrations s. SCABELLUM, 1. and GRADUS, 1. will at once demonstrate the accurate distinctions between those three words and the objects expressed by them.

2. A foot-stool; of a higher and consequently more dignified character than the common one (scabellum, suppedaneum), consisting of a double step, so that the feet could rest at different elevations, as in the annexed illustration (Scamnum/2.1), from a marble bas-relief in which it is appropriately placed under the feet of Jupiter to indicate the majesty of the god, and the grandeur of the throne on which he sits. The epithet cavum, the hollow foot-stool, applied by Ovid (A. Am. i. 162.) to this object may be intended to describe the incavation formed by cutting away the step in front, as in the example; or to its being actually hollow underneath, like the preceding specimen.

3. A seat formed with a step below for the feet to rest upon, as in the annexed example (Scamnum/3.1) from a Pompeian painting. It is this property which, accurately speaking, constitutes the difference between a scamnum and a subsellium; though the distinction is not strictly preserved. Ov. Fast. vi. 305. Mart. v. 41.

4. In the technical language of the agricultural people, a balk, or long line of earth between two furrows left unbroken by the plough (Columell. ii. 2. 25. Plin. H. N. xviii. 49. § 2.); also a tract of the same character left between the ridges that are made with the hoe. Columell. iii. 13. 2.

5. In the technical language of land-surveyors (agrimensores), the breadth of a field, as opposed to striga, its length. Auct. R. Agrar. pp. 46. 125. 198. ed. Goes.

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  Scamnum/1.1
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  Scamnum/2.1
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  Scamnum/3.1