Scanned text contains errors.

On this page: Trublion – Trutin a – Tuba

.1170

TRUTINA.

when they were taken out of the water, or to dis­pel the froth from its surface. (Non. Marcell. p. 19, ed. Merceri.) The ladle here drawn was found in the kitchen of " the house of Pansa," at Pompeii.

The trulla vinaria (Varro, L, L. v. 11*8, ed. Muller) seems to have been a species of colander [colum], used as a wine-strainer. (Cic. Verr. iv. 27 ; Hor. Sat. ii. 3. 144.) Though generally applied to these domestic and culinary purposes (Eupolis, p. 174, ed. Runkel) the trulla was found to be convenient for putting bees into a hive. (Col. de Re Rust. ix. 12.) It was also commonly used to plaster walls (Pallad. de Re Rust. \. 13, 15), and thus gave rise to the verb trullissare. [paries.]

Fellows (Exc. in Asia Minor, p. 153) explains the Eastern method of using a kind of colander in washing the hands. It is placed as a cover upon the jar [olla], which receives the dirty water. This may therefore be the tndleum, which the ancients used, together with the basin and ewer, to wash their hands. (Non. Marcell. p. 547, ed. Merceri.) [J. Y.]

TRUBLION. [cotyla.]

TRUTIN A (rpvrdvrj), a general term including both libra, a balance, and statera, a steelyard. (Non. Marc. p. 180.) Payments were originally made by weighing, not by counting. Hence a balance (trutinci) was preserved in the temple of Saturn at Rome. (Varro, L. L. v. 183, ed. Muller.) The balance was much more ancient than the steel­yard, which according to Isidore of Seville (Orig. xvi. 24) was invented in Campania, and therefore called by way of distinction Trutina Campana. Consistently with this remark, steelyards have been found in great numbers among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The construction of some of them is more elaborate and complicated than that of modern steelyards, and they are in some cases much ornamented. The annexed wood­cut represents a remarkably beautiful statera which is preserved in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome. Its support is the trunk of a tree, round which a serpent is entwined. The equipoise is a head of

TUBA.

Minerva. Three other weights lie on the base of the stand, designed to be hung upon the hook when occasion required. (Mus. Capit. vol. ii. p. 213.)

Vitruvius (x. 3. s. 8. § 4) explains the principle of the steelyard, and mentions the following con­ stituent parts of it: the scale (lancida) depending from the head (caput), near which is the point of revolution (centrum] and the handle (ansa). On the other side of the centre from the scale is the beam, (scapus) with the weight or equipoise (aequi- pondiuin), which is made to move along the points (perpuncta) expressing the weights of the different objects that are put into the scale. [J. Y.]

TUBA (o-c*A7ri7£), a bronze trumpet, distin­guished from the cormt by being straight while the latter was curved: thus Ovid (Met. i. 98)

K Non tuba directi non aeris cornua flexL"

(Compare Vegetius, iii. 5.) Facciolati in his Lexi­con (s. v. Tuba) is mistaken in supposing that Aulus Gellius (v. 8) and Macrobius (Sat. vi, 8), who copies him, intend to affirm that the tuba was crooked. The words of the former do not mean that both the lituus and the tuba were crooked, but that both that kind of trumpet which was called a lituus and also the staff of the augur were crooked, and that it was doubtful which of the two had lent its name to the other. [lituus']

The tuba was employed in war for signals of every description (Tacit. Hist. ii. 29 ; Caesar, B. C, iii. 46 ; Hirt. B. G. viii. 20 ; Liv. xxxix. 27), at the games and public festivals (Juv. vi. 249, x. 214 ; Virg. Aen. v. 113 ; Ovid, Fast. i. 716), also at the last rites to the dead (Iiinc tuba, candelae, Pers. iii. 103; Virg. Aen. xi. 191 ; Ovid. Heroid. xii. 140, Amor. ii. 6. 6), and Aulus Gellius (xx. 2) tells us from Atteius Capito that those who sounded the trumpet at funerals were termed siticines, and used an instrument of a peculiar form. The tones of the tuba are represented as of a harsh and fear-inspiring character (fractos sonitus tuba-rum, Virg. Georg. iv. 72 ; tcrrlbilem sonitum aero canoro, Aen. ix. 503), which Ennius (Serv. ad Virg. Aen. ix. 503,; Priscian viii. .18. 103, ed, Krehl) endeavoured to imitate in the line

" At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit."

The invention of the tuba is usually ascribed by ancient writers to the Etruscans (Athenaeus, iv. c. 82 ; Pollux, iv. 85, 87 ; Diodor. v. 40 ; Serv. ad V-irg. Aen. viii. 516 ; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 306), and the epithet Mio-Too-aXiriyicTai (i.e. robber-trumpeters, Photius and Hesych. s. v. and Pollux, L c.} would seem to indicate that they had made it famous by their piracies. It has been remarked that Homer never introduces the traATriyl in his narrative but in comparisons only (II. xviii. 219, xxi. 388 ; Eustath. and Schol.), which leads us to infer that although known in his time it had been^but recently introduced into Greece, and it is certain that notwithstanding its eminently martial character, it was not until a late period used in the armies of the leading states. By the tragedians its Tuscan origin was fully recognized : Athena in Aes­chylus orders the deep-toned piercing Tyrrhenian trumpet to sound (Eumen. 567), Ulysses in Sopho­cles (Aj. 17) declares that the accents of his beloved goddess fell upon his ears like the tones of the brazen-mouthed Tyrrhenian bell (KcaSwos, i. e. the bell-shaped aperture of the trumpet), and similar epithets are applied by Euripides (Phoeniss. 1376