Crumena
βαλλάντιον
Crumena (βαλλάντιον or βαλάντιον), a purse. It was a leathern bag. slung round the neck (Plaut. Asin. 3.3, 67; Truc. 3.1, 7); and usually hung down behind, which exposed it to the attacks of the cut-purse
(βαλλαντιοτόμος, sector zonarius, Plaut. Trin. 4.2, 20). Hence we find a master walking behind the slave who carries his purse, that he may keep an eye upon it (Id. Pseud. 1.2, 37). Crumenae were of different shapes. A bronze lamp engraved in Rich and in D. and S. shows a flat bag not unlike a postman's, closed with a flap: we also find mention of συσπαστὰ βαλλάντια, round pouches with strings to draw (Plat. Symp. 190 E; Ath. xi. p. 783 f; cf. ARYBALLOS).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.