PE´RGULA
PE´RGULA was a kind of annexe to a house, whether at
the top or the side. We find it therefore resembling (1) our verandah,
roofed but open at the sides: hence used as a painter's studio (
Plin. Nat. 35.84; Lactant. 1.22, 13; Cod.
Theod. 13.4, 4). Being not very different from a
taberna, or booth, it was also used to express the same things,
viz.: a shop for selling wares (Auson.
Epist. 4.6) and a
school (
Juv. 11.137; Suet.
de
Gram. 18), both being in open sheds or verandahs; and so we find
“
magistrales pergulae”
(Vopisc.
Saturn. 10). But (2) the pergula was
also raised above the
[p. 2.369]ground-floor, like a covered
balcony, resting on the top of the tabernae ( “tabernae cum pergulis
suis,”
C. I. L. 4.138; or quite on the top of the house, not as an
upper room, but an erection with roof and open sides on the house-top, and
used for painting (Tertull.
adv. Valent. 7;
Dig. 9,
3,
8.12), or as an observatory where astrologers taught (
Suet. Aug. 94). (3) An
arbour or trellised walk with open ends (
Plin. Nat. 14.11, 19.69;
Col. 4.21); whence the modern Italian
pergola. This sense is illustrated by the word
pergulana (a vine trained over a trellis;
Col. 3.2.) (4)=the
cella
lupanaria, partly open to the street (Plaut.
pseud. 1.2, 78). All these uses probably came from
pergo, in the sense of something continued
or projecting forward from the main building. (Marquardt,
Privatl. 93.)
[
L.S] [
G.E.M]
