CISTA
CISTA,
CISTELLA (
κίστη,
κιστίς) was probably at first
a wicker basket used for holding fruits and vegetables and for country
purposes in general (
Plin. Nat. 15.60;
16.209). These baskets were sometimes square (
Col.
12.54), but more usually cylindrical. Afterwards cista came to
mean a box or casket used for a variety of purposes, but mostly of a small
size; thus distinguished from the
area or chest, and
rarely in the sense of
capsa, a book-box (
Juv. 3.206). A money-box might be so called (
Cic. Ver. 3.85, § 197; Hor. 1
Ep. 17.54); in the former passage it is the private
treasure of Verres himself, opposed to the
fiscus of the province. In the Roman comitia the cista was the
ballot-box into which the voters cast their
tabellae (
Plin. Nat. 33.31;
Auctor
ad Herenn. 1.12.21; Pseudo-Ascon. in
Cic. Div. in Caecil. 7, p.
108, ed. Orelli). The form and material of the voters' cista, evidently of
wicker or similar work, is represented in the annexed cut from a coin of the
Cassia gens. In this sense the cista has often been confounded with the
sitella, but the latter was the urn from
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Cista, voting-basket. (From coin of Cassia Gens.)
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which the names of the tribes or centuries were drawn out by lot.
(Manutius,
de Comitiis Romanis, 100.15, p. 527,
ed. Graev.; E. Wunder,
Dissertatio de discrimine
verborum cistae
et sitellae, in his
Variae Lectiones, p. clviii.)
Another class of cistae, well known from
[p. 1.440]vase-paintings and from a number of specimens in metal actually preserved,
are the toilet-or jewel-cases of Italian ladies. These are mentioned
especially in connexion with the children's trinkets, by which recognition
is so often brought about in the ancient comedies (Plaut.
Cistcll. 4.1, 3, and
passim; Rud. 2.3, 60;
Terent.
Eun. 4.6, 15). In vase-paintings such
cistae are often accompanied by other requisites for the toilet, mirrors,
scent-bottles, &c., and thus leave no doubt as to the use for which
they were intended. The material indicated is usually basket-work, as in the
following specimen from Gerhard's
Etruskische Spiegel (pl.
14.4).
These vases have been found mostly in Magna Graecia, more rarely in Greece
Proper or in Etruria. The metal cistae, on the other hand, come almost
exclusively from Praeneste, where they were produced on a large scale. The
most beautiful of these and the fist to be
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Cista, toilet-basket. (Gerhard.)
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and the first to be discovered (about the year 1737) is the
celebrated Ficoroni cista, now in the Museo
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Scene from the Ficoroni Cista.
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Kircheriano at Rome. Of late years the results of excavation have been
unusually fruitful: in 1866 Schoene described 70 Praenestine cistae
preserved entire, besides fragments; in 1882 M. Fernique reports the number
as reaching 100 (ap. D. and S.). Most of these are in bronze; one of silver
is in the Capitoline Museum or Palace of the
Conservatori. They are mostly covered with ornamental designs
engraved upon the surface of the metal (
graffiti);
but in the few that have been found elsewhere than at Praeneste (e. g. at
Bologna and Vulci) repoussé work occurs. The Praenestine
workmanship is somewhat rough: the bronze plate was first engraved, then
hammered into an oval or cylindrical shape, and finally the feet and rings
or handles were put on without much regard to the pattern underneath them.
They were, it is clear, turned out cheaply as manufactured articles, not
finished artistic products. The Ficoroni cista is of quite exceptional
beauty, and a real work of art; it has been made the subject of several
monographs, the most important of which is that of Otto Jahn (
Die
Ficoronische Cista, 4to, Leipzig, 1852). It is the only cista
with an inscription, NOVIOS PLAUTIOS MED ROMAI
FECID; which shows that, though found at Praeneste, it was not made
there. Among its ornaments the chief place is occupied by a series of scenes
from the Argonautic legend; one of these, the defeat of Amycus king of the
Bebryces, is here given after Jahn; another, the building of the Argo, is
figured in Daremberg and Saglio.
At one time these cistae were referred to the class called
cista mystica (see below) : this name originated with
Visconti, but is now universally rejected as unsuitable (Marquardt, p. 657).
Many articles of the toilet have been discovered in them, such as mirrors,
sponges, hair-pins [
ACUS], and
scent-bottles [
ALABASTRUM],
sufficiently indicating their use in common life. They have been found
mostly in the burial-ground at Praeneste, enclosed in stone coffins or
cinerary urns.
CISTA MYSTICA. The name
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Cista Mystica. (From a painting on a vase.)
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of cistae was also given to the small boxes which were carried in
procession in the Greek festivals of Demeter and Dionysus. These boxes,
which were always kept
[p. 1.441]closed in the public
processions, contained sacred things connected with the worship of these
deities (Ovid,
A. Am. 2.609; Catull. 64.259 ;
Tib. 1.7,
48, “et
levis occultis conscia cista
sacris,” where, as in the class of cistae above described,
wicker-work is sufficiently indicated as the material). The mysterious
secret is half revealed by numerous pictures, and by the coins
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Cista. (British Museum.)
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called CISTOPHORUS; on these the cista
is represented as half open, with a serpent creeping out of it. The shape
was sometimes oblong, more frequently cylindrical. A statue of Silenus
sitting upon a large drum-shaped cista, and holding a wine-jug in his hand,
is figured by Daremberg and Saglio. (Compare Marquardt,
Privatl., p. 657 if.; and for a fuller discussion of the
mysteries in which the cista played its part, Fr. Lenormant in D. and S. i.
pp. 1205-1208; DIONYSIA; MYSTERIA.）
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