Scobis
Scobis sawdust, was sprinkled over the floor, especially in dining-rooms, so that the dust and any impurities might be swept up with it (Hor. Sat. 2.4, 81; Juv. 14.67; cf. Plin. Nat. 36.184). In smarter houses the sawdust was dyed with saffron or vermilion (Petron. 68). Heliogabalus is said to have had his portico strewn with gold dust, or gold filings (scobe auri), and to have regretted that he could invent nothing more costly for the purpose, (Lamprid. Elagab. 31; for this scobis=ῥίνημα from metal-working, cf. Plin. Nat. 34.111; Blümner, Technologie, 4.256).
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.