TY´MPANUM
TY´MPANUM (
τύμπανον).
1. A small drum carried in the hand. Of these, some resembled in all respects
a modern tambourine with bells. Others presented a flat circular disk on the
upper surface and swelled out beneath like a kettledrum, a shape which
appears to be indicated by Pliny when he describes a particular class of
pearls in the following terms:--“Quibus una tantum est facies, et ab
ea rotunditas, aversis planities, ob id tympania vocantur”
(
H. N. 9.109). Both forms are represented in the cuts
below. Fig. 1 is from a painting found at
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Tympanistriae.
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Pompeii (
Mus. Borbon. tom. vii. tav. 37); fig. 2 is from a
fictile vase (Millin,
Peintures de Vases Antiques, pl. 56),
and here the convexity on the under side is distinctly seen. Tympana were
covered with the hides of oxen (Ovid,
Ov. Fast.
4.342;
Stat. Theb. 2.78) or of
asses (Phaedr. 4.2, 4), were beaten with the hand (Ovid,
Ov. Met. 4.30; see cuts), and were much
employed in all wild enthusiastic religious rites (
Aristoph. Lys. 1387), especially the
orgies of Bacchus and of Cybele (Catull. 64.262; Claud.
de Cons.
Stilich. 3.365; Lucret. 2.618; Catull. 63.8;
Verg. A. 9.619;
Suet.
Aug. 68; compare Lobeck,
Aglaophamus, pp. 630,
652), and hence Plautus (
True. 2.7, 49) characterises an
effeminate coxcomb as “Moechum malacum, cincinnatum, umbraticolam,
tympanotribam.” According to Justin (
41.2), they were used by the Parthians in war to give the signal for
the onset.
2. A solid wheel without spokes for heavy waggons (
Verg. G. 4.444), such as is shown in the cut on page 433. These
are to this day common in the rude carts of Southern Italy and Greece, and
Sir C. Fellows (
Excursions in Asia Minor, p. 72), from whose
work the figure below is copied, found them attached to the farm vehicles of
Mysia. “The wheels are of solid blocks of wood, or thick planks,
generally three, held together by an iron hoop or tire; a loud creaking
noise is made by the friction of the galled axle,” a suggestive
commentary on the “stridentia plaustra” of Virgil
(
Georg. 3.536). [PLAUSTRUM;
SARRACUM.]
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Solid wheel, or Tympanum.
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3. Hence wheels of various kinds, a sort of crane worked by a wheel for
raising weights (Lucret. 4.903;
Vitr. 10.4) [MACHINA], a wheel for drawing water (
Vitr. 10.14) [ANTLIA;
ROTA], a solid toothed wheel forming part of the machinery of a mill
(
Vitr. 10.9,
10), and the like.
4. An architectural term signifying the flat surface or space within a
pediment, and also the square panel of a door (
Vitr.
3.3,
4.6).
5. A wooden cudgel for beating malefactors, and also a beating post to which
they were tied when flogged; hence the Greek verbs
τυμπανίζειν and
ἀποτυμπανίζειν are formed (Schol.
ad
Aristoph. Pl. 476;
Ep. to
Hebrews, 11.35; Pollux, 8.70).
[
W.R]
