Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Solium

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. 

SOL'IUM (θρόνος). In the original and strict meaning, a square high-backed chair, with closed sides for arms, as if cut out from a block of solid wood, which was employed in early times for the king to sit in, that his person might have some protection against any sudden or secret violence from behind. (Serv. ad Virg. Aen. i. 506.) The example (Solium/1.1), which agrees exactly with the above description of Servius, represents the chair used by Latinus in the Vatican Virgil.

2. A chair of state, like our throne, upon which the gods, kings, and great rulers sat. (Virg. Aen. x. 116. Cic. Fin. ii. 21. Ov. Fast. vi. 353.) It differs from an ordinary chair (cathedra), in being made of more valuable materials and costly workmanship. In works of art it is mostly represented with a back, arms, and cushions, frequently covered with rich drapery; but always with a foot-stool in front (scabellum, scamnum) to indicate its height. The example (Solium/2.1) shows the solium of Venus in a painting of Pompeii.

3. A large arm-chair, in which the Roman lawyer used to sit and receive the clients, who came to consult them (Cic. Leg. i. 3. Id. Or. ii. 55.); whence the expression, a subselliis in otium soliumque se conferre (Id. Or. ii. 33.), means to retire from court to chamber practice; that is, from active pleading in court, where the advocates sat upon benches (subsellia), to the comparative leisure of attending consultations in an arm-chair (solium) at home.

4. Solium eburneum. An ivory chair (Claud. Laud. Stil. 199.); meaning thereby the Curule seat, which was decorated with ivory; — only a pompous expression for SELLA CURULIS.

5. A receptacle for the dead body, like what we now call a sarcophagus, that is, of an imposing character, made of valuable marbles (Suet. Nero, 50.), and enriched by sculpture; especially used as a deposit for kings and great personages (Curt. x. 10. Flor. iv. 11. 11.), of which the annexed illustration (Solium/5.1) affords a remarkable specimen, from an original in which the body of L. C. Scipio Barbatus was deposited.

6. The seat at the bottom of a circular warm-water bath, on which the bather sat and washed himself (Suet. Aug. 82. Festus, s. v.), usually made of the same substance as the bath itself (Pallad. i. 41.), but sometimes of wood (Suet. l. c.), and even of silver. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 54.) See the illustration s. BAPTISTERIUM, at the bottom of which a similar seat is exhibited. But in some of the above passages, as well as others (Celsus, vii. 26. 5. Sidon. Apoll. Ep. ii. 2., solii capacis hemicyclium), the word is used for the bath itself.

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  Solium/1.1
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  Solium/2.1
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  Solium/5.1