CAM´ARA
CAM´ARA (
καμάρα), or
CAM´ERA, properly signifies any arched or vaulted covering, and
anything with such a covering: Herodotus, for instance, calls a covered
carriage
καμάρα (1.199). [See the first
illustration under
CARPENTUM]
It is chiefly used in the two following senses:--
1. Arched roof or covering
An arched roof which might be (
a) a mere
open trellis-work with creeping plants trained over it, like the covered
walks called
berceaux in French. Of this kind
was probably the
καμάρα under which
Alexander slept during his last illness in a park (
παράδεισος) near Babylon (Arrian,
Arr. Anab. 7.25.3); though Liddell and
Scott explain it as a tester-bed. (
b) An
arched or vaulted ceiling formed by semicircular bands or beams of wood,
over the intervals of which a coating of lath and plaster was spread,
resembling in construction the hooped awnings in use among us. (
Vitr. 7.3;
Cic.
ad Q. Fr. 3.1, § 1; comp.
Plin. Nat. 16.156.) Under the emperors
camarae were gilded (id. 33. §
§ 52, 57), or filled with plates of glass (id. 36.189; cf.
Stat. Silv. 1.5,
42; Marquardt, 7.642). In one passage
camara seems to be used as equivalent
to
lacunar, the sunken panel of a roof between
the beams (Propert. 4.2, 10 [=1, 50]). (
c) More
rarely a barrel vault in solid stone-work, like that of the Tullianum at
Rome. (
Sal. Cat. 55, quoted under
CARCER)
2. Small boats.
Small boats used in early times by the
[p. 1.350]people
who inhabited the shores of the Euxine and the Bosporus, and called
καμάραι from their having a broad
arched deck. They were made with both ends alike, so as to work in
either direction without turning; and were put together without iron.
They continued in use until the age of Tacitus, by whom their
construction and uses are described. (
Strab.
xi. p.495; Eustath.
ad Dionys. Perieg. 700;
Aul.
Gel. 10.25;
Tac. Hist. 3.47.) For other uses of the word, see the
Lexicons.
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