Gradus
1.
A set of bed-steps, consisting of several stairs (Varro,
L. L. v. 168),
which were
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Gradus. (From the Vatican Vergil.)
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requisite for ascending the highest couches. See
Lectus.
2.
A flight of steps leading to the
pronaos of a temple (
Ad
Att. iv. 1). In Greek temples there were usually but three steps, but Roman
architects added a dozen or more, dividing them into several flights. The number of steps,
however, was always uneven, so that a person ascending, and commencing with the right foot
(
pes dexter), might place the same one on the topmost step when he
entered the porch, to enter with the left foot being illomened (Vitruv. iii. 4.4;
Petron. 30).
3.
The seats on which the spectators sat in a theatre, amphitheatre, or circus. See
Amphitheatrum.
4.
The parallel ridges, like steps, on the inside of a dice-box (
fritillus), for the purpose of mixing
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Gradus in a dice-box. (Rich.)
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the dice when shaken, and giving them a disposition to rotate when cast from it
(Auson.
Profess. i. 28).
5.
A studied and feminine arrangement of the hair, when artificially disposed in parallel
waves or gradations rising one over the other, like steps (
Quint.xii. 10.47), the same as now termed “crimping.” Nero is
said to have had his head always dressed in this manner (
Suet.
Nero, 51); and a statue representing that emperor in the character of
Apollo Citharœdus (given under
Nero) has the
hair parted in the centre, and regularly crimped on both sides, like a girl's.
6.
As a measure of length (
βῆμα), the
gradus was half a pace (
passus), and contained 2 1/2 feet, Greek
and Roman respectively. The Greek
βῆμα, therefore, was
rather more and the Roman
gradus rather less than 2 1/2 feet English.
