Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Spira

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. 

SPI'RA (σπεῖρα). A circular body forming a succession of twists or coils; whence the following special applications.

1. A coil of ropes. Pacuvius ap. Fest. s. v.

2. An ornament worn by women, which appears to have been a sort of wreath with many pendants to it, twined and interlaced round the head, like the coils and heads of the serpents commonly represented on the edge of Minerva's aegis, and on the head of Medusa. Plin. H. N. ix. 58. Compare Val. Flacc. vi. 396.

3. The string or tie with which the bonnet (galerus) of the Salian priests was fastened under the chin, as exhibited by the annexed wood-cut (Spira/3.1), from a marble bas-relief of Roman sculpture. Juv. viii. 208.

4. A particular kind of biscuit or pastry, made in a spiral form. Cato, R. R. 77.

5. The base of a column (Festus, s. v. Vitruv. iii. 5. Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 56.) which rests upon the plinth (plinthus), or upon a continued basement (podium) instead of a plinth. In its simplest form it consists of a single torus surmounted by an astragal, as in the Tuscan and Roman Doric orders; or of an upper and lower torus, divided by a scotia and fillets (quadrae), and with or without the astragal, as in the annexed example (Spira/5.1), representing a very beautiful and simple specimen, now known as the "Attic base," in which form it was applied to the Ionic and Corinthian orders. The Greek Doric had no spira.

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  Spira/3.1
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  Spira/5.1