(lectio), a kind of vehicle borne upon shafts, anciently esteemed the most easy and genteel way of carriage. Du Cange derives the word from the barbarous Latin lectoria, straw or bedding for beasts; but others conceive that it comes from lectus, a bed. Pliny calls the litter the traveller's chamber; it was much in use amongst the Romans, and was borne by slaves kept for that purpose. The Roman lectio made to be borne by four men was called tetraphorum; that borne by six, hexaphorum; and that borne by eight, octaphorum. The invention of litters, according to Cicero, was due to the kings of Bithynia.