Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Tabella

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. 

TABEL'LA (πινάκιον, σανίδιον). In a general sense, any small flat board; whence the following specific usages are derived.

1. A small tablet made of wood, with a raised margin round the edges, which was covered with sand, or with a coat of wax, and used by schoolboys as a slate, or for writing on with a metal point (stilus). (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 19. Ov. A. Am. i. 437. iii. 469.) The example (Tabella/1.1) is from a Pompeian painting.

2. A small, or, as we should say, cabinet picture painted on panel, as contradistinguished from a painting on canvass, or upon a wall. (Cic. Fam. vii. 23. Suet. Tib. 43. Juv. xii. 100.); and which might be hung up with a nail on the sides of a room, or over the door, in the manner shown by the annexed illustration (Tabella/2.1), from a painting at Pompeii.

3. A small votive tablet, which used to be hung up in the temples, and before the statue of a divinity, as a grateful acknowledgment by persons who had escaped from any calamity or accident, such as shipwreck, &c., or who had been cured of some malady by the miraculous interposition, as it was believed, of the deity to whom the acknowledgment was made. (Hor. Sat. ii. 1. 33. Cic. Ov. Tibull. Juv. &c.) These tablets contained a rude representation of the supposed miracle, with an inscription recording the circumstances attending it, similar to what is now commonly seen in Roman Catholic churches; or a mere portraiture of the member saved or restored, executed upon a marble slab, and dedicated in gratitude to the protecting power, as shown by the illustration (Tabella/3.1), from a specimen found at Rome, and supposed, from the inscription, to have been dedicated to Hygeia, the goddess of health, by an individual who had arrived safe from a long journey, or who had escaped some disease or accident in the feet.

4. A small tablet employed in voting at the Comitia and in courts of justice. (Cic. Fl. 39. Senec. Ben. iii. 7. Suet. Aug. 33. Caes. B. C. iii. 83.) At the Comitia, two of these tablets were delivered to the voter, one marked with the letters U. R. for uti roga, i. e. I vote as you propose; the other with the letter A, for antiquo, i. e. I vote for the old law, as exhibited by the annexed example (Tabella/4.1), from a coin of the Cassian gens, which represents the voter dropping his tablet into the basket (cista). But in a court of justice three tablets were given to the judges; one marked with the latter A, for absolvo, I acquit, or not guilty; the other with C, for condemno, I condemn, or guilty; and the third with N. L., for non liquet, it is not clear, which was tantamount to no verdict amongst ourselves.

5. Tabella absolutoria. The tablet of acquittal, marked with the letter A, as explained in the last paragraph. Suet. Aug. 33.

6. Tabella damnatoria. The tablet which expressed a verdict of guilty, marked with the letter C, as explained in paragraph 4. Suet. Aug. 33.

7. A small gaming-board; but of what precise description, or for what particular game, is not ascertained. Ov. A. Am. iii. 365. Id. Trist. ii. 481.

8. A small fan (Ov. Am. iii. 2. 28. Id. A. Am. i. 161.), made by stretching a piece of linen over a square frame with a handle attached to it; but the only remaining representations of ancient fans on the fictile vases and Pompeian paintings are made of feathers and lotus leaves, as explained and illustrated s. FLABELLUM.

9. Tabella liminis. The leaf of a wooden door; which was made, like our own, out of a nubmer of separate slabs. Catull. xxxii. 5. and JANUA.

10. A booth, made of boards, and erected by the candidates at the Comitia for the reception of their voters, to shelter them from the heat of the sun or moisture of the atmosphere. Varro, R. R. iii. 2. 1.

11. A particular kind of pastry, so termed for being made in a flat square mould. Mart. xi. 31.

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  Tabella/1.1
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  Tabella/2.1
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  Tabella/3.1
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  Tabella/4.1