Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Pulvinar

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. 

PULVI'NAR or POLVI'NAR. May be translated by our terms pillow, bolster, cushion, as best suits the purpose for which it is applied. But the term conveys a notion of greatness and grandeur, and is to be understood, when strictly used, as indicating a cushion of large size and costly materials, such as would be used for beds and couches on which the body reclines, rather than for chairs and seats, or for a sitting posture. Pet. Sat. 135. 5. Senec. Ira, iii. 37. And woodcuts. pp. 374. 375.

2. Hence the word is principally used to designate the splendid couches with cushions and squabs, upon which the images of the gods were laid at the feast of the Lectisternium, to partake, as it were, of the banquet spread before them (Cic. Phil. ii. 43. Id. Dom. 53. Liv. xxx. 21.); as exhibited by the annexed woodcut (Pulvinar/1.1) from a terra cotta lamp.

3. In the circus, a spot where couches of the same description were laid out for those deities whose statues were carried in solemn procession at the Circensian festival. Festus s. Thensa. Suet. Aug. 45. Id. Cal. 4.

4. A bed of state, or marriage bed; but with especial reference to those of the divinities (Catull. lxiv. 47.), and of the Roman emperors, to whom divine honours were paid. Suet. Dom. 13. Juv. vi. 132.

• 
  Pulvinar/1.1