Ferculum
Ferculum (from fer-o) is applied to any kind of tray or platform used for carrying anything. Thus it is used to signify the tray or frame on which several dishes were brought in at once at dinner (Petron. 35; Plin. Nat. 28.26); and hence fercula came to mean the number of courses at dinner, and even the dishes themselves. (Suet. Aug. 74; Serv. ad Verg. A. 1.637; Juv. 1.94 (with Mayor's note), 11.64; Hor. Sat. 2.6, 104; Mart. 3.50, 9.82, 11.31.)
The ferculum was also used for carrying the images of the gods in the procession of the circus (Suet. Jul. 76), the ashes of the dead in a funeral (Suet. Cal. 15), and the spoils in a triumph (Suet. Jul. 37; Liv. 1.10); in all which cases it appears to have been carried on the shoulders or in the hands of men. This is shown in the annexed cut from the Arch of Titus, where
Roman soldiers are carrying on a ferculum the Golden Candlestick. The most illustrious captives were sometimes placed on a ferculum in a triumph, in order that they might be better seen. (Senec. Herc. Oet. 110.)
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.