among ancient poets, a fine embroidered girdle said to be worn by Venus, to which Homer ascribes the power of charming and conciliating love. The word is also written cestum and ceston, being the same with xestos, a girdle or zone embroidered or wrought with a needle, and is derived, according to Servius, from xestos, pingere; whence also incestus, a term used at first for any indecency by undoing the girdle, but now restrained to that between persons near akin.