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On this page: Torques – Torus – Toxotae – Trabea – Traditio – Tragoedia

1140 TORQUES.

32.) Under the emperors even free persons were put to the torture to extract evidence from them in cases of majestas ; and although this indignity was confined for the most part to persons in humble circumstances^ we read of cases in which even Roman senators and equites were exposed to it. (Dion Cass. Ix. 15; Suet. Tib. 58; Dig. 48. tit. 18. s. 10. § 1.) For further information see Dig. 48. tit. 18, De Quaestionibus ; Walter, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, pp. 875, 876, Isted.j Rein, Das Criminalrecht der Romer^ p. 542.

TORQUES or TORQUIS (o-Tps7rT(Js), an or­nament of gold, twisted spirally and bent into a circular form, which was worn round the neck by men of distinction among the Persians (Curt. iii. 3 ; Themist. Oral. 24, p. 306, c.), the Gauls (Floras, i. 13, ii. 4), and other Asiatic and northern ra­tions. (Isid. Oriy. xix. 30.) Tore was the name of it among the Britons and ancient Irish, Virgil (Aen. v. 558, 55.9) thus describes it as part of the attire of the Trojan youths :

"It pectore summo Flexilis obtorti per collum circulus auri."

The head in the preceding woodcut is that of a Persian warrior in the mosaic of the battle of Issus, mentioned in p. 431. It illustrates the mode of wearing the torquis, which in this instance ter-

Ornaments of this kind have been frequently found both in France and in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland (Petrie, Trans. of R. Irish A cad. vol. xviii.; A ntiq. pp. 181—184), varying in size and weight, but almost always of the form ex­hibited in the annexed woodcut, which represents a torquis found in Brecknockshire, and now pre­served in the British Museum. The same wood­cut contains a section of this torquis of the size of the original. It shows, as Mr. Petrie observes con­cerning some 'bund in the county of Meath, " four equidistant radiations from a common centre." The torquis in the British Museum is four feet and a half in length. Its hooks correspond well to the following description of the fall of a Celtic warrior: "Torquis ab incisa decidit unca gula." (Propert. iv. 10. 44.) A torquis, which instead of being "bent into a circular form was turned into a spiral, became a bracelet, as is shown in the lowest figure of the woodcut to armilla. A torquis contrived to answer this purpose, is called torquis brachialis. (Vopisc. Aurel. 7.) Such bracelets and torques are often found together, having been worn by the same people.

TRAGOEDIA.

minates in two serpents' heads instead of hooks. It was by taking this collar from a Gallic warrior that T. Maiilius obtained the cognomen of Torquatus. (Cic. de Fin. ii. 22, do Off. iii. 31 ; Gellius, ix. 13; Non. Marc, pp.227, 228, ed. Merceri.)

Torques, whether in the form of collars or brace­ lets, no doubt formed a considerable part of the wealth of those who wore them. Hence they were an important portion of the spoil, when any Celtic or Oriental army was conquered, and they were among the rewards of valour bestowed after an engagement upon those who had most distin­ guished themselves. (Juv. xvi. 60 ; Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 2. s. 10 ; Sidon. Apollin. Carm. xxiii. 424.) The monuments erected to commemorate Roman soldiers and to enumerate the honours which they had obtained, often mention the number of torques conferred upon them. (Maffei, Mus. Veron. p. 218.) [phalera.] [J. Y.]

TORUS^ a bed ; originally made of straw (Plin. H. N. viii. 48. s. 73), hay, leaves, woolly plants (Mart. xiv» 160, 162), sea-weed (de mol-tibtts ulvis, Ovid. Met. viii. 656), also stuffed with wool, and afterwards with feathers (xi. 611), or swans-down (Mart. xiv. 161), so as to be as much raised and as soft as possible. (Virg. Aen. vi. 603; Ovid. Amor. ii. 4. 14.) It was sometimes covered with the hide of a quadruped (Virg. A en. viii. 1/7), but more commonty with sheets or blankets, called Tordlia. (Hor. Sat. ii. 4. 84, Epist. i. 5. 22.) The torus may be observed on the sopha in the first woodcut, p. 308 ; and its appearance there may suffice to explain the transference of its name to the larger semi-circular mouldings in the base of columns, [atticurges ; spira.] [J. Y.J

TOXOTAE (ro&Tai). [dbmosh.]

TRABEA. [toga.]

TRADITIO. [dominium.]

TRAGOEDIA(rpa7^5m), tragedy. i.greek. The tragedy of the ancient Greeks as well as their comedy confessedly originated in the worship of the god Dionysus. It is proposed in this article (1) to explain from what element of that worship Tragedy took its rise, and (2) to trace the course of its developement, till it reached its perfect form and character in the drama of the Attic tragedians, Aesch}rlus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

The peculiarity which most strikingly distin­guishes the Greek tragedy from that of modern times, is the lyrical or choral part. This was the offspring of the dithyrambic and choral odes from which, as applied to the worship of Dionysus, Greek tragedy took its rise. This worship, we may observe, was of a twofold character, corre­sponding to the different conceptions which were anciently entertained of Dionysus as the change­able God of nourishing, decaying, or renovated nature, and the various fortunes to which in that character he was considered to be subject at the different seasons of the year. Hence Muller ob*-serves (Lit. of Greece, p. 288), " the festivals of Dionysus at Athens and elsewhere were all solem­nized in the months nearest to the shortest day, coincidently with the changes going on in the course of nature, and by which his worshippers conceived the god himself to be affected." His mournful or joyous fortunes (ttc^tj), his mystical death, symbolizing the death of all vegetation in winter, and his birth (Plat, de Leg. iii. p. 700 ; Proclus in Gaisford^s Hephaest. p. 383), indi­cating the renovation of all nature in the spring,