Society is in Miss Edith Sichel’s Women and Men of the French
Renaissance (1901). See also J. Favre, Olivier de Magny (1885).
LABEL (a French word, now represented by lambeau, possibly a variant; it is of obscure origin and may be connected with a Teutonic word appearing in the English “lap,” a flap or fold), a slip, ticket, or card of paper, metal or other material, attached to an object, such as a parcel, bottle, &c., and containing a name, address, description or other information, for the purpose of identification. Originally the word meant a band or ribbon of linen or other material, and was thus applied to the fillets (infulae) attached to a bishop’s mitre. In heraldry the “label” is a mark of “cadency.”
In architecture the term “label” is applied to the outer projecting moulding over doors, windows, arches, &c., sometimes called “Dripstone” or “Weather Moulding,” or “Hood Mould.” The former terms seem scarcely applicable, as this moulding is often inside a building where no rain could come, and consequently there is no drip. In Norman times the label frequently did not project, and when it did it was very little, and formed part of the series of arch mouldings. In the Early English styles they were not very large, sometimes slightly undercut, sometimes deeply, sometimes a quarter round with chamfer, and very frequently a “roll” or “scroll-moulding,” so called because it resembles the part of a scroll where the edge laps over the body of the roll. Labels generally resemble the string-courses of the period, and, in fact, often return horizontally and form strings. They are less common in Continental architecture than in English.
LABEO, MARCUS ANTISTIUS (c. 50 B.C.–A.D. 18), Roman
jurist, was the son of Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, a jurist who
caused himself to be slain after the defeat of his party at Philippi.
A member of the plebeian nobility, and in easy circumstances,
the younger Labeo early entered public life, and soon rose to
the praetorship; but his undisguised antipathy to the new
régime, and the somewhat brusque manner in which in the
senate he occasionally gave expression to his republican
sympathies—what Tacitus (Ann. iii. 75) calls his incorrupta libertas—proved
an obstacle to his advancement, and his rival, Ateius
Capito, who had unreservedly given in his adhesion to the
ruling powers, was promoted by Augustus to the consulate,
when the appointment should have fallen to Labeo; smarting
under the wrong done him, Labeo declined the office when it
was offered to him in a subsequent year (Tac. Ann. iii. 75;
Pompon, in fr. 47, Dig. i. 2). From this time he seems to have
devoted his whole time to jurisprudence. His training in the
science had been derived principally from Trebatius Testa.
To his knowledge of the law he added a wide general culture,
devoting his attention specially to dialectics, philology (grammatica),
and antiquities, as valuable aids in the exposition,
expansion, and application of legal doctrine (Gell. xiii. 10).
Down to the time of Hadrian his was probably the name of
greatest authority; and several of his works were abridged
and annotated by later hands. While Capito is hardly ever
referred to, the dicta of Labeo are of constant recurrence in the
writings of the classical jurists, such as Gaius, Ulpian and Paul;
and no inconsiderable number of them were thought worthy
of preservation in Justinian’s Digest. Labeo gets the credit
of being the founder of the Proculian sect or school, while
Capito is spoken of as the founder of the rival Sabinian one
(Pomponius in fr. 47, Dig. i. 2); but it is probable that the
real founders of the two scholae were Proculus and Sabinus,
followers respectively of the methods of Labeo and Capito.
Labeo’s most important literary work was the Libri Posteriorum, so called because published only after his death. It contained a systematic exposition of the common law. His Libri ad Edictum embraced a commentary, not only on the edicts of the urban and peregrine praetors, but also on that of the curule aediles. His Probabilium (πιθανῶν) lib. VIII., a collection of definitions and axiomatic legal propositions, seems to have been one of his most characteristic productions.
See van Eck, “De vita, moribus, et studiis M. Ant. Labeonis” (Franeker, 1692), in Oelrichs’s Thes. nov., vol. i.; Mascovius, De sectis Sabinianor. et Proculianor. (1728); Pernice, M. Antistius Labeo. Das röm. Privatrecht im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaizerzeit (Halle, 1873–1892).
LABERIUS, DECIMUS (c. 105–43 B.C.), Roman knight and
writer of mimes. He seems to have been a man of caustic wit,
who wrote for his own pleasure. In 45 Julius Caesar ordered
him to appear in one of his own mimes in a public contest with
the actor Publilius Syrus. Laberius pronounced a dignified
prologue on the degradation thus thrust on his sixty years,
and directed several sharp allusions against the dictator. Caesar
awarded the victory to Publilius, but restored Laberius to his
equestrian rank, which he had forfeited by appearing as a mimus
(Macrobius, Sat. ii. 7). Laberius was the chief of those who
introduced the mimus into Latin literature towards the close
of the republican period. He seems to have been a man of
learning and culture, but his pieces did not escape the coarseness
inherent to the class of literature to which they belonged;
and Aulus Gellius (xvi. 7, 1) accuses him of extravagance in
the coining of new words. Horace (Sat. i. 10) speaks of him in
terms of qualified praise.
In addition to the prologue (in Macrobius), the titles of forty-four of his mimi have been preserved; the fragments have been collected by O. Ribbeck in his Comicorum Latinorum reliquiae (1873).
LABIATAE (i.e. “lipped,” Lat. labium, lip), in botany, a
natural order of seed-plants belonging to the series Tubiflorae
of the dicotyledons, and containing about 150 genera with
2800 species. The majority are annual or perennial herbs
inhabiting the temperate zone, becoming shrubby in warmer
climates. The stem is generally square in section and the simple
exstipulate leaves are arranged in decussating pairs (i.e. each
pair is in a plane at right angles to that of the pairs immediately
above and below it); the blade is entire, or toothed, lobed
or more or less deeply cut. The plant is often hairy, and the hairs
are frequently glandular, the secretion containing a scent
characteristic of the genus or species. The flowers are borne
in the axils of the leaves or bracts; they are rarely solitary
as in Scutellaria (skull-cap), and generally form an apparent
whorl (verticillaster) at the node, consisting of a pair of cymose
inflorescences each of which is a simple three-flowered dichasium
as in Brunella, Salvia, &c., or more generally a dichasium passing
over into a pair of monochasial cymes as in Lamium (fig. 1),
Ballota, Nepeta, &c. A number of whorls may be crowded at the
apex of the stem and the subtending leaves reduced to small
bracts, the whole forming a raceme- or spike-like inflorescence
as in Mentha (fig. 2, 5) Brunella, &c.; the bracts are sometimes
large and coloured as in Monarda, species of Salvia, &c., in the
latter the apex of the stem is sometimes occupied with a cluster
of sterile coloured bracts. The plan of the flower is remarkably
uniform (fig. 1, 3); it is bisexual, and zygomorphic in the
