TURBO
TURBO (
στρόβιλος,
βέμβιξ), anything that, turns round with a
whirring noise: hence (1) a top (Cic.
de Fato,
16, 42;
Verg. A. 7.378,
Tib. 1.5,
3; Pers. 3.51). In all these
passages the top is a “whipping-top,” except in the passage of
Cicero, where the argument (see
Gel. 7.2) appears
to imply a top which, set going, is left to spin of itself, like a
“humming-top.” In Greek there seem to be distinct words for
the two kinds of tops (cf. Grasberger,
Erziehung, 1.77-80):
βέμβιξ is clearly a whipping-top (
Aristoph. Birds 1461; Cleobul. ap.
D. L. 1.82); and it is equally plain that we must
take
στρόβιλος in Plat.
Rep.
iv. p. 436 E and
Plut. Lys. 12 to be, like
our humming-tops, spun by a string, without the lash to keep it going. We
find in Homer (
Hom. Il. 14.413) the form
στρόμβος, which may be either, as far
as the sense of the passage guides us, but would naturally be taken as =
στρόβιλος. Κῶνος is given by Photius
and Hesychius as a synonym of
στρόβιλος:
but our only description of it refers to the religious use mentioned below
(3). The dictionaries give “top” as the meaning of
ῥόμβος, citing
Eur.
Hel. 1362, where, however, it is clearly not a top, and its use
is religious. We doubt if it was ever an equivalent either of
βέμβιξ or
στρόβιλος.
(2) Turbo is also used (Cat. 64, 314) for the whorl (
σφόνδυλος) of a spindle, for which the usual name is
verticillus [
FUSUS]. In the five passages of Pliny, which the
dictionaries quote for this use of the word (as also in
Ov. Met. 1.336), a more careful examination
will show that
turbo is there used merely to
express a conical shape.
(3) The precise form of the instrument used in religious mysteries and
witchcraft, and spoken. of as
turbo, rhombus,
κῶνος and
ῥόμβος, is a more difficult puzzle. A comparison of the
authorities in Latin and Greek leads us to the conclusion that all four are
the same thing, which was called
κῶνος
because of its shape and
ῥόμβος because of
the sound which it made. It is described by Clement of Alexandria
(
Protrept. 2.17=p. 16) and Arnobius as being used in the
mysteries of Dionysus: it was attached by a string and whirled in the air
with a rushing noise, as the Scholiast explains (
κῶνος: ξυλάριον οὗ ἐξῆπται τὸ σπαρτίον καὶ ἐν ταῖς τελεταῖς
ἐδονεῖτο ἵνα ροιζῇ), with which agrees the passage of
Euripides mentioned above, where the
ῥόμβοι of the Bacchanals are “whirled round in the
air.” Similarly in the magic use we find the
rhombus turned to the accompaniment of the incantation (
Prop. 2.28,
35) by
means of strings attached to it (cf. “staminea,” Id. 3.6, 26;
“licia,”
Ov. Am. 1.8,
7).
The uses of the turbo in Hor.
Epod. 17.7 and the rhombus in
Mart. 9.30
[p. 2.907]are clearly identical. Similarly the metal
ῥόμβος in Theocr.
Id. 2.30 is whirled round while the incantation is sung; but
in this instance the
ἵυγξ is bound on it
(cf.
Xen. Mem. 3.1. 1,
17). To this refers the mention in Photius,
ῥόμβος ὃν ἔχουσιν οἱ ἐπιθειάζοντες ὡς
τύμπανον, a misunderstanding of which, and of the Schol.
ad.
Apollon. 1.1139, has led to the strange
idea that the
ῥόμβος was sometimes a drum
or a tambourine. We may take Photius to mean that the sorcerers used both
the rhombus and the tympanum in their conjuring, as in fact the witch in
Theocritus does (2.36), and as the Bacchanals did.
Mr. Andrew Lang has argued with great ingenuity that the
ῥόμβος or
κῶνος in the mysteries resembled the Australian
turndun, which is whirled round by a string, making
a rushing noise, and is used in sacred rites (
Custom and
Myth, pp. 29 ff.). The shape, however, in Greece we must imagine to
have been that of a cone or “peg-top,” not pointed at both ends
like the turndun or “bull-roarer.” That in its first origin the
ῥόμβος or
κῶνος was a weather-charm seems to us very probable. But we
think it less likely that it had to do with raising the wind, which indeed
is seldom prayed for, than with attracting the sun. It is possible that a
symbolical figure may in some religious uses have been bound upon it, as the
ἴυγξ was in some magical practices,
and it is easily conceivable that the same method might be employed to draw
the heavenly bodies and to draw human beings. There is, no doubt, the
simpler explanation that it was used in the mysteries as a plaything merely
to represent the childhood of Dionysus (cf. Lobeck,
Aglaophamus, p. 700); but then we lose all clue to its magic
use, and all connexion with the similar customs which Mr. Lang has adduced.
[
G.E.M]
