CRATES
CRATES (
ταρσός,
γέρρον), a hurdle, used by the ancients in many
different ways, especially, as among ourselves, for agricultural purposes.
Thus
textae crates are the wattled hurdles of which
sheep-folds are made (Hor.
Epod. 2.45);
vimineae crates are bush-harrows, like those now in use
(
Verg. G. 1.95,
104;
Plin. Nat. 18. §
§ 180, 186;
AGRICULTURA p. 63a). The name was also applied to any wooden frame
composed of bars with interstices,--our
crate,
grate; and the interstices might be filled up with mats of straw,
rushes or fern (
Col. 12.15). The following
special senses may be noticed:--
1.
Crates were used by the country people upon
which to dry figs, grapes, &c. in the rays of the sun, or to screen
growing fruit from the weather (
Col. 12.16;
Cat. Agr. 48); or for spreading manure
(
Cat. Agr. 10; Varr.
R. B.
1.22).
2. A rack for provisions, like that figured under CAUPONA; cf.
CARNARIUM (
Juv. 11.82).
3. Among military terms we find
crates used in
forming the roadway of Caesar's bridge over the Rhine (
Caes. Gal. 4.17); for parapets or breastworks
(
pinnae loricaeque ex cratibus, ib. 5.40); as
fascines for crossing ditches (ib. 7.79, 81, 86 ;
B.C. 3.46
and 80;
Tac. Ann. 1.68, where Orellius
observes, after Walther, that the ditches were not filled up, as by modern
fascines, but bridged over); as mantlets or wooden screens for sheltering
the advance of troops under cover (
Amm. Marc.
21.12). From the
plutei, which were
employed in the same way, they differed only in being without the covering
of raw hides:
plutei and
crates are again coupled,
Liv.
10.38.
4. By the besieged they were used joined together so as to form what Vegetius
calls a
metella, and filled with stones: these
were then poised between two of the battlements; and, as the storming-party
approached upon the ladders, overturned on their heads (Veget.
Mil. 4.6). 5. In poetry, the wicker-work of shields is so
called (
Verg. A. 7.633;
Sil. Ital. 5.522;
cratem
trilicem,
V. Fl. 3.199).
A capital punishment was called by this name, whence the phrase
sub crate necari. The criminal was either thrown
into a pond or well, and drowned under a hurdle (
Liv.
1.51; Tacit.
Germ. 12); or crushed by the weight
of stones heaped upon it (
Liv. 4.50; Plaut.
Poen. 5.2, 65). Cf. Humbert, ap. D. & S.
[
B.J] [
W.W]
