Clavis
（
κλείς, dim.
κλειδίον). A
key. In Homer the
κλείς is not a key in the modern meaning of
the word, but rather a hook (having a leathern thong) which passed through the door from the
outside and caught the bolts (
ὀχῆες), so as to shoot
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Iron Egyptian Key. (Wilkinson.)
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them home or draw them back as required (
Od. xxi. 6 Od., 46-50). In some
passages of Homer the word signifies simply a bolt (
Od. i. 442; xxi. 241; L. and S. s. v.). In course of time locks and
keys were made, much like those of modern times. Locks were used in Egypt at an early period,
and were originally of wood, probably like those now used there, which are opened by a key
furnished with several fixed pins, answering to a similar number that fall down into the
movable tongue, into which the key is introduced, when they fasten or open the lock. At
a later time we find iron keys in Egypt, consisting of a long straight shank, with three or
more projecting teeth, like the one figured in preceding column. The earliest mention of a
key, like our own, which could be taken out of the lock, is in the Book of Judges (iii. 23,
25).
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Copper Key found at Hissarlik. (Schliemann.)
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Schliemann found keys of copper and bronze in the remains of the cities in the Troad. The
accompanying cut represents a copper key, found close by the so-called Treasury of Priam in
the ruins at Hissarlik.
The cut below represents a curious bronze key, with a ring for suspension, found in the
ruins of Novum Ilium. “It has the shape of the so-called quadrangular images of
Hermes, with an altar-like base forming one piece with the body, to which a quadrangular
projection is fixed on the back, with a hole corresponding to the lockbolt”
(Schliemann,
Ilios, pp. 620, 621).
Pliny (
Pliny H. N. vii. 198) ascribes the
invention of keys to Theodorus of Samos; and the ancient writers speak of Carian, and
especially of Laconian keys, because originally made by the Lacedaemonians. We learn from
Aristophanes that the
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Bronze Key found at Novum Ilium. (Schliemann.)
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Laconian key had three teeth (
τρεῖς γομφίους),
probably like the Egyptian key figured above. Keys are mentioned by Aeschylus and Euripides;
and Lysias, in his speech on the murder of Eratosthenes, speaks of the wife shutting the door
and taking the key with her (
τὴν κλεῖν ἐφέλκετια, c. 4),
so that the husband was shut up in his chamber. In this case the door must have been locked
from the outside.
Many Roman keys have been found much like our own, the larger ones usually of iron and the
smaller of bronze; but there were also keys made of wood and gold in use in later times.
Besides these there was the
βαλανάγρα, a key or hook, which
was passed through a hole in the door-post, and raised the
βάλανοι or bolts of the lock, as in the Egyptian locks described above (
Herod.iii. 155). It must have been a lock of this kind which the robber
in Apuleius (
Met. iv. 10) opens, by passing his hand through the hole,
qua clavi immittendae foramen patebat. Roman keys, both of bronze and iron,
have been found which were never intended to turn, the stems being square, and the webs,
consisting of from one to five or six teeth, rising from a bar bent at an acute angle to the
stem; which teeth would serve the purpose of elevating pegs, as in the Egyptian locks.
The street-door was usually fastened inside by bolts (
pessuli) and a
bar (
sera), but it also had a key which the
ianitor
of the house kept. The cut given below represents a key found at Pompeii, and now in the
Museum of Naples, the size of which indicates that it was used as a door-key. The tongue with
an eye in it, which projects from the extremity of the handle, served to suspend it from the
wrist of the
ianitor. The rooms of the
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Door-key found at Pompeii.
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house were also opened inside with keys. The doors often had locks both inside and
outside. This is evident from
Plaut. Most. ii. 1,
57, where a Laconian key is mentioned for locking the door from the outside, compared
with verse 78—
“Clavim cedo atque abi intro atque obclude ostium,
Et ego hinc [i. e. foris] obcludam.”
When a Roman woman first entered her husband's house, the keys of the store-rooms were
handed to her. Hence the form of divorce, in the Twelve Tables, was that the husband took away
the keys (
claves ademit, exegit,
Cic.
Phil. ii. 28, 69); and the wife, when she separated from the husband,
sent him back the keys (
claves remisit, Ambros.
Plin. Ep. 65). But the keys of the winecellar were not intrusted to
the wife, and Fabius Pictor related a story of a married woman having been starved to death by
her relatives because she picked the lock of the closet in which the keys of the wine-cellar
were kept (
Plin. H. N. xiv. 89).
A skeleton key was known as
clavis adultera (Sall.
Iug.
12).
