CENTŬRĬO. [EXERCITUS.] CENTUSSIS. [As.] 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. CĔRŪCHI. [NAVIS.] CESTRUM. [PICTURA.] CESTUS. (1) The thongs or bands of leather, which were tied round the hands of boxers, in order to render their blows more powerful (ἱμάντες, or ἱμάντες πυκτικοί). The cestus was used by boxers in the earliest times, and is mentioned in the Iliad; but in the heroic times it consisted merely of thongs of leather, and differed from the cestus used in later times in the public games, which was a most formidable weapon, being frequently covered with knots and nails, and loaded with lead and iron.--(2) A band or tie of any kind, but more particularly the zone or girdle of Venus, on which was represented every thing that could awaken love. [Illustration: Cestus. (Fabretti, de Col. Traj., p. 261.)]