CĒRA (κηρός), wax. For its employment in painting, see PICTURA;
and for its application as a writing material, see TABULAE and
TESTAMENTUM.
CĔRĔĀLĬA, a festival celebrated at Rome in honour of Ceres, whose
wanderings in search of her lost daughter Proserpine were represented
by women, clothed in white, running about with lighted torches.
During its continuance, games were celebrated in the Circus Maximus,
the spectators of which appeared in white; but on any occasion of
public mourning the games and festivals were not celebrated at all,
as the matrons could not appear at them except in white. The day
of the Cerealia is doubtful; some think it was the ides or 13th of
April, others the 7th of the same month.
CĔRĔVĪSĬA, CERVĪSĬA (ζύθος), ale or beer, was almost or altogether
unknown to the Greeks and Romans; but it was used very generally by
the surrounding nations, whose soil and climate were less favourable
to the growth of vines. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians
commonly drank “barley wine;” and Diodorus Siculus says that the
Egyptian beer was nearly equal to wine in strength and flavour. The
Iberians and Thracians, and the people in the north of Asia Minor,
instead of drinking their beer out of cups, placed it before them in
a large bowl or vase, which was sometimes of gold or silver. This
being full to the brim with the grains, as well as the fermented
liquor, the guests, when they pledged one another, drank together
out of the same bowl by stooping down to it, although, when this
token of friendship was not intended, they adopted the more refined
method of sucking up the fluid through tubes of cane. The Suevi and
other northern nations offered to their gods libations of beer, and
expected that to drink it in the presence of Odin would be among the
delights of Valhalla.
CĒRŌMA (κήρωμα), the oil mixed with wax (κηρός) with which wrestlers
were anointed; also the place where they were anointed, and, in later
times, the place where they wrestled.