Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Testudo

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. 

TESTU'DO (χέλυς, χελώνη). In its primary notion, a tortoise; whence the name is given to a particular stringed instrument (Cic. N. D. ii. 57. Hor. A. P. 394.) forming a variety of the lyra; that is, when the simply lyre (see the wood-cuts s. v.), had been improved by the addition of sounding bottom, over which the chords were drawn to increase the fulness of their tone. It was so termed because the idea was believed to have first occurred to Mercury, the fabled inventor of the instrument, upon his observing a tortoise-shell on the sands of Egypt, with the skin of the belly dried up into thin strings across it, which were found to emit different notes when tried with the fingers. (Serv. ad Virg. Georg. iv. 464.) Hence the form of the sounding-board was made to imitate the shell of a tortoise, as in the annexed example (Testudo/1.1), which is carried by Mercury in a Pompeian painting. It was sounded with the fingers, and the plectrum, in the manner described and illustrated s. CANO, 2. The distinction above drawn, though doubtless an accurate one, is not, however, strictly observed, for the poets frequently apply the term indifferently to any stringed instrument, such as the lyra and cithara.

2. A ceiling formed by four sides, converging to a centre (Vitruv. v. 1. 6.), as distinguished from the vault (camara), and the dome (tholus); whence the name is also used to designate an appartment covered by a ceiling of the kind described. (Varro, L. L. v. 161. Cic. Brut. 22.) The form of the four sides rising to a point at the top is cleverly expressed by the two cross-lines in the centre of the annexed illustration (Testudo/2.1), which are intended to represent the roof of an atrium, on a fragment of the marble plan of Rome, preserved in the Capitol.

3. A shed formed of planks, covered with untanned hides, and placed upon wheels, so that it could be moved to any position required for the protection of the men while digging trenches and making their approaches up to the walls of a besieged town (Vitruv. x. 15. and 16. Caes. B. G. iii. 42. and 40.); or for covering those who worked the battering-ram (testudo arietaria. Vitruv. x. 13. 2.) which is exhibited by the annexed wood-cut (Testudo/3.1), from a bas-relief on the arch of Septimius Severus.

4. A shed which soldiers formed over head with their shields to protect themselves from the missiles of the enemy, more especially whilst they advanced up to the walls of a fortified place, in order to scale them. (Caes. B. G. ii. 6. Tac. Hist. iii. 27. Id. iv. 23.) It was effected by raising the shields over the head and shoulders and fitting them closely under each other, so that the whole formed a compact covering like the shell of a tortoise, or the pent of a shed, over which everything would slide off without injuring the men below (Liv. xliv. 9.) The pent was produced by the outer rank stooping whilst those before them gradually stood more and more erect. The whole of these details are clearly illustrated by the annexed wood-cut (Testudo/4.1), which represents a body of Roman soldiers on the column of Antoninus, formed into a testudo, and advancing to the escalade of a German fortress.

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  Testudo/1.1
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  Testudo/2.1
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  Testudo/3.1
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  Testudo/4.1