Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Torquis

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. 

TORQUIS and TORQUES (στρεπτός). A circular ornament, made with a number of gold threads twisted spirally together, and worn as a collar or neck-chain by the Gauls, Persians, and other races of the north and east. (Isidor. Orig. xix. 31. 11. Cic. Off. iii. 21.) The illustration (Torquis/1.1) is from an original, and fastens itself by two bent ends, which clasp into one another, the torquis unca of Propert. iv. 10. 44.

2. Torquis brachialis. (Vopisc. Aurel. 7.) An ornament made of twisted gold, in the same manner as the last example, but forming many spiral coils instead of single circle, and worn round the lower part of the arm (brachium), between the wrist and elbow, instead of on the neck. The illustration (Torquis/2.1) is from an original.

3. A coupling collar, made of twisted rope, passed round the necks of a pair of oxen (Virg. Georg. iii. 168.), when they were not attached by a yoke (jugum), as in the annexed example (Torquis/3.1), from a marble bas-relief.

4. Poetically, for a wreath of flowers twined round an altar. Virg. Georg. iv. 276.

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  Torquis/1.1
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  Torquis/2.1
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  Torquis/3.1