Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

CONTURERNIUM.

117

CORXU.

bulae). Each tent was occupied by ten sol-
diers (contubcrnales), with a subordinate
officer at their head, who was called decanus,
and in later times caput corUubemii. Young
Romans of illustrious families used to accom-
pany a distinguished general on his expedi-
tions, or to his province, for the purpose of
gaining under his superintendence a practical
training in the art of war, or in the adminis-
tration of public affairs, and were, like sol-
diers living in the same tent, called his con-
tubcrnales. In a still wider sense, the name
contubcrnales was applied to persons con-
nected by tics of intimate friendship, and
living under the same roof; and hence, when
a free man and a slave, or two slaves, who
were not allowed to contract a legal mar-
riage, lived together as husband and wife,
they were called contubcrnales; and their
connection, as well as their place of residence,
contubernium.

CONTUBERNIUM. [Contubernales.]
CON YEN IRE IN MANUM. [matrimo-
nium.]

CONVENTUS, was the name applied to
the whole body of Roman citizens who were
either permanently or for a time settled in a
province. In order to facilitate the adminis-
tration of justice, a province was divided into
a numoer of districts or circuits, each of which
was called concentus, forum, or jurisdictio.
Roman citizens living in a province were en-
tirely under the jurisdiction of the proconsul;
and at certain times of the year, fixed by the
proconsul, they assembled in the chief town
of the district, and this meeting bore the
name of concentus (o-woSos). Hence the ex-
pressions—concentus agere, peragere, convo-
eare, dimittere. At this conventus litigant
parties applied to the proconsul, who selected
a number of judges from the conventus to try
their causes. The proconsul himself pre-
sided at the trials, and pronounced the sen-
tence according to the views of the judges,
who were his assessors {consilium or consi-
liarii). These conventus appear to have
been generally held after the proconsul had
settled the military affairs of the province ; at
least, when Caesar was proconsul of Gaul, he
made it a regular practice to hold the con-
ventus after his armies had retired to their
winter quarters.

CONVIVlUM. [Symposium.]

CO PHI XL'S (k6(#>ivo9, Engl, coffin), a large
kind of wicker basket, made of willow
branches. It would seem that it was used
by the Greeks as a basket or cage for birds.
The Romans used it for agricultural pur-
poses, and it sometimes formed a kind of
portable hot-bed. Juvenal, when speaking
of the Jews, us'js the expression cophinus et

foenum (a truss of hay), figuratively to desig-
nate their poverty.

CORBIS, dim. CORBULA, CORBICLLA, a
basket of ve y peculiar form and common use
among the Romans, both for agricultural and
other purposes. It was made of osiers twisted
together, and was of a conical or pyramidal
shape. A basket answering precisely to this
description, both in form and material, is still
to be seen in everyday use among the Cain-
panian peasantry, which is called in the lan-
guage of_the country " la corbella."

CORBITAE, merchantmen of the larger
class, so called because they hung out a
corbis at the mast-head for a sign. Thej
were also termed onerariae; and hence Plau-
tus, in order to designate the voracious ap-
petites of some women, says, " Corbitam cibi
comcsse possunt."

CORNU, a wind instrument, anciently
made of horn, but afterwards of brass. Like

Cornu. (Bartholin! do Tibiife.)

the tuba, it differed from the tibia in being a
larger and more powerful instrument, and

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LIT(Cl\n/7/.-COJlMCINVM

Altar of Juliui Victor. (Bartoli, 1 iut. Am., p. /tj.J