Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

---

Flabellum

（ῥιπίς, ῥιπίδιον). A fan (Terent. Eun. iii. 5, 50). The fans of the Greek and Roman ladies were made with the leaves of the lotus plant, of peacock's feathers (Prop.ii. 24, 11), or some expen

Flabella.

sive material, painted in brilliant colours (Mart.iii. 82). They were not constructed to open and shut, like ours, but were stiff, and had a long handle, the most convenient form for the manner in which they were used—viz., for one person to fan another, a slave always being employed for the purpose, known as flabelliger (Plaut. Trin. ii. 129). The left-hand figure in the illustration represents a fan of lotus leaf, from a Pompeian painting; the right-hand one, of peacock's feathers, from a painting discovered at Stabia. See Uzanne, Les Ornements de la Femme (Paris, 1892).