Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Hamus
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.
HA'MUS (ἄγκιστρον). A fish-hook, made of various sizes, and in form and character precisely like our own. Plaut. Cic. Hor. Ov.
2. (ἄγκιστρον). The Greeks applied the same name to a hook on the top of a bobbin (πηνίον), round which the thread for making the woof in weaving was wound (Plato, Rep. x. p. 616. c.); and probably the Romans likewise, though the word is not found in any remaining passage with this meaning; but the hook itself is plainly shown in the annexed engraving (Hamus/2.1), representing Leda's work-basket, from a painting at Pompeii, which contains two bobbins, each furnished with a hook of this description, and four balls of spun thread ready for winding on a bobbin.
3. The thorn of a briar (Ov. Nux. 115.); whence applied to the hook of the weapon called harpe (Ov. Met. iv. 719), attributed to Perseus and Mercury, which exactly resembles the thorn of a briar, as shown by the annexed example (Hamus/3.1), from a Pompeian painting: it also demonstrates to conviction the incorrectness of the usual translation given to the passage quoted — ferrum curvo tenus abdidit hamo — "up to the hilt."
4. An iron hook or thorn, of which several were set in a frame to form a brush or comb with which tow, oakum, or unwrought flax was carded and pulled into even flakes. Plin. H. N. xix. 3.
5. The hook or ring by which each plate in a flexible coat of mail was joined to its neighbour when they were merely linked together, instead of being sewn on to a substratum of linen (Virg. Aen. iii. 467.); as explained and illustrated s. LORICA, 6.
6. A surgical instrument, the precise nature of which is not ascertained. Celsus, vii. 7. 15.
7. A kind of cake, the nature of which is unknown. Apul. Met. x. 219.
-
Hamus/2.1 -
Hamus/3.1
