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OSCILLA

Volume 15 · 122 words · 1815 Edition

small images of wax or clay made in the shape of men or women, and consecrated to Saturn, to render him propitious. The word is sometimes used to signify a kind of masks scooped from the bark of trees, and worn by the performers of comedy in the ruder ages of Rome. In this sense we find it in Virg. Georg. ii. 386. It also signifies little heads or images of Bacchus, which the country men of old hung upon trees, that the face might turn every way, out of a notion that the countenance of this god gave felicity to themselves, and fertility to their vineyards. An allusion to this opinion and custom is also found in Virgil, Georg. ii. 383.