From postmaster  Thu Feb 17 23:55:25 1994
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Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 21:55:22 -0700
To: eff-board, eff-staff
From: John Perry Barlow <barlow@eff.org>
Subject: Tesserea
Status: RO

Many of you probably saw this gem in Dave Banisar's crypto broadside, but,
since Mitch for one did not, I'm passing it on again.

I swear, you couldn't make this stuff up.

Tesserea n. Lat. (pl. tessereae).

Literally, "four-cornered".  Used to refer to four-legged tables, chairs,
stools, etc.  Also, a single piece of mosaic tile; a single piece of a
mosaic.  _Pol._: An identity chit or marker.  Tessereae were forced on
conquered peoples and domestic slaves by their Roman occupiers or owners.
Slaves or Gauls who refused to accept a tesserea were branded or maimed as
a form of identification.

>From Starr's History of the Classical World and the Oxford Unabridged.