Fax

“A torch. In the annexed woodcut, the female figure is copied from a fictile vase. The winged figure on the left hand, asleep and leaning on a torch, is from a funeral monument at Rome. The other winged figure represents Cupid as Lethaus Amor. In ancient marbles the torch is sometimes more ornamened than the examples now produced, but it always appears to be formed of wooden staves or twigs, either bound by a rope drawn round them in a spiral form, as in the middle figure blow, or surrounded by circular bands at equal distances, as in the two exterior figures. The inside of the torch may be supposed to have been filled with flax, tow, or other vegetable fibres, the whole being abundantly impregnated with pitch, rosin, wax, oil, and other inflammable substances.” — Smith, 1873.

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