Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), M, Molionĭdae, Mortarium

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Mortarium

（ὅλμος, θύεια), in Latin also Pila. A mortar, used in early times for pounding grain, over which act the domestic deity Pilumnus (q.v.) presided. They were made of either wood or stone, and occasionally of baked white clay. Besides its primitive use, the mortar was also employed in pounding drugs, making perfumes, paint, plaster, and drugs, and in some of the processes of ancient metallurgy. The philosopher Anaxarchus was pounded to death in a mortar with iron pestles. See Mola; Pila.

Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

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Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Mortarium