CANDELABRUM, a Latin word signifying properly a candlestick (from candela, a candle), but more frequently employed to mean a support for a lamp. There were, per haps, no articles of furniture in which the ancients combined the beautiful with the useful to so large an extent as in their candlesticks and lamps. Candelabra usually stood on the ground, and were of considerable height—from 4 to 8, or even 10 feet. The most common were of wood; but metals of all kinds, including the precious metals, were used for their construction, and sometimes they were even adorned with gems. The candelabra found at Herculaneum and Pompeii are mostly of bronze. In the temples and palaces of the emperors, they were frequently of marble, and of great size and rich ness. They have usually a capacious cup at the top, either for the purpose of contain oil enough to feed a large flame, or that they might be used for burning incense. Though varying greatly in details, a general design runs through the forms of the can delabra of antiquily. 'They have all a foot or feet, a shaft, and a plinth on which a lamp is placed, or which is furnished with a socket for a candle. The base often consists of
three feet of a lion, goat, griffin, or other animal real or imaginary. Sometimes a figure was introduced either into the body of the shaft, or placed on the top of it, in either case supporting the superincumbent portion of the C. on its bead. Sometimes a figure was substituted for the shaft altogether, the receptacle for the oil being placed in one hand. In others, the shaft is a sliding one, like that of a music-stand, the object being, of course, to raise or depress the light at pleasure.
In addition to the various kinds of candelabra which, from their height, seem to have stood on the floor, the ancients had others intended to be placed on a table. These con sisted either of a pillar or of a tree, and from the capital of the former, or the branches of the latter, lamps were suspended, as in the accompanying illustration, which we copy from Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. The C., in this instance, including the stand, is only 3 ft. high. From the size of the- stand in proportion to the rest of the C., it would seem to have been used for some other purpose.