Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Sera

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. 

SER'A. A padlock; that is, a lock constructed to hang upon a staple, or from the link of a chain, so as to make a fastening upon the same principle as is commonly adopted at the present day. That the sera was not a permanent fixture, but loose and removeable, like a modern padlock, is clear from many passages, in which it is spoken of as being "put on" (apposita. Tibull. i. 8. 76. Ov. Fast. i. 266.) or "taken off" (demta. Ov. Fast. i. 280.; remota, Varro, L. L. vii. 108. Non. s. Reserare, p. 41.), or falling down from its holding (sera sua sponte delapsa cecidit, remissaeque subito fores. Pet. Sat. xvi. 2.); and that it was employed with a chain (catena) is expressly mentioned by Propertius (iv. 11. 26.). When used for fastening doors, it was linked on to a staple, or some such contrivance, inserted in the door-post (postis), whence the expression, inserta posti sera (Ov. Am. ii. 1. 28.), indicates the door being locked; excute poste seram (Ib. i. 6. 2.), on the contrary, describes the process of opening it. The illustration (Sera/1.1) represents a movable iron lock of the character described, which was found, with the key belonging to it, in a tomb at Rome; and the barrel of another specimen, exactly similar in form, is now preserved, with its key rusted in it, amongst the Roman antiquities of the British Museum. The circular plate on the left shows the cap of the barrel, removed from its place for illustration, with its keyhole and the orifice through which a return of the link-rod, now broken off, but originally bent like the right-hand side, would enter when the lock was closed. The example in the British Museum has lost this adjunct altogether.

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  Sera/1.1