Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Sipho

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. 

SI'PHO (σίφων). A pipe or tube through which water is made to rise by its own pressure, or by artificial means, into a jet d'eau (Senec. Q. N. ii. 16. Plin. H. N. ii. 66.) The illustration (Sipho/1.1) represents a fountain in the fulling establishment at Pompeii; the tubes still remain projecting from each of the square reservoirs, but the water has been added in the drawing, to show the manner in which it played from them, and fell in an united stream in the labrum, or central basin.

2. A siphon, or pipe, by which liquids are drawn out of casks (Cic. Fin. ii. 8. Pollux, vi. 2. x. 20.), in the same manner as practised at the present day. The invention is of very great antiquity, and of Egyptian origin, for the name of the instrument is traced back to the Egyptian root "sif," to imbibe (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of Ancient Egypt., iii. p. 341.), and is represented in the annexed engraving (Sipho/2.1) from a painting at Thebes. The right-hand figure pours the liquid into three vases placed on the top of a high stand, while the one on the opposite side draws it off by three separate siphons into a larger vessel below. One of the siphons is applied to his mouth in the act of exhausting the air, and the liquid is already flowing through the other two, which are held in his right hand.

3. A double-actioned forcing-pump used also as a fire-engine. (Plin. Ep. x. 35. Isidor. Orig. xx. 6. Ulp. Dig. 32. 7. 12.) A machine of this kind, discovered in the last century at Castrum Novum, near Civita Vecchia, and supposed to have been used for pumping up the water into the public baths of that town, is exhibited on the following page (Sipho/3.1). It is constructed upon the same principle as the Ctesibica machina, described by Vitruvius (x. 7.), but is more simple in its parts; and, since it agrees in all respects with the directions given by Hero (de Spirit. p. 180.), who was a pupil of Ctesibius, we can have no hesitation in receiving it as a model of the original pump invented by Ctesibius with the improvements effected by his pupil. The parts of which it is composed, and their technical names, are as follows: — AA (δύο πυξίδες, modioli gemelli), two cylinders, in which the suckers, B (ἔμβολοι, emboli), and pistons, C (κανόνια, regulae), work alternately up and down; D, a horizontal tube (σώλην) communicating with and connecting the two cylinders, and into the centre of which another upright tube, E, (ἕτερον σώλην ὄρθιος) is inserted. FFFF, on the section below, four self-acting valves (ἀσσάρια, asses), two of which are affixed to the bottom of the two cylinders, and the others to the neck of the upright tube, one on each side of it. The pump was placed, in the same position as shown by the engraving, over the reservoir, with the lower ends of the two cylinders (FF) immersed in the water. The action was precisely similar to that described under the article CTESIBICA MACHINA. The two pistons work simultaneously, but inversely, the one up and the other down. As one rises, the valve at the bottom of the cylinder opens, and allows the water to be drawn in through the aperture thus created, while the one which descends in the other cylinder closes its own valve, and thus forces the water contained in it into the horizontal tube, forcing open the neck valve at its own side, and closing the other one; so that the water, having the communication with the opposite cylinder shut off, is driven into the upright tube (E), and forced out of it, with a continuous stream, through a pipe or a hose, fastened on to its upper end; which is not shown in the engraving, because the top was in a mutilated state when discovered. The adaptation of such a contrivance for fire engines will be readily understood; it, in fact, proceeds upon the same principle as that employed in the construction of such machines amongst ourselves.

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  Sipho/1.1
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  Sipho/2.1
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  Sipho/3.1