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TABERNA´CULUM

TABERNA´CULUM, TENTO´RIUM (κλισίη, σκηνή), a tent. The former of these words was no doubt originally applied to a shed or hut of boards (cf. Fest. s. v. tabernacula; TUGURIUM); but it became the ordinary term for a tent (Cic. Brut. 9, 37; Caes. B.C. 1.81; Liv. 22.42). These were made of skins stretched from wooden supports, like our canvas tents; hence the name tentoria, which, as we may gather from Festus (s. v. contubernales), is put concisely for tentoriae pelles. The tent-maker was called tabernacularius (Grut. 6428; Henzen, 6101). Constant supplies of hides for this purpose were drawn from the provinces by armies in the field (Cic. Ver. 2.2, 5, coria; in Pis. 36, 87, pellium nomine). Campaigning was “sub pellibus durare” (Liv. 5.2): during winter the soldiers were either in towns, or, if they held a permanent camp in remote and uncivilised countries, they were lodged in huts of wood, turf or stones [CASTRA]: to keep them in tents during the winter was a mark of severity (Tac. Ann. 13.35; cf. Caes. Gal. 3.29: Long ad loc.). The word papilio, “pavilion,” may be, as Rich thinks, intended to describe the look of a tent with its curtains looped up. [For the size of Roman tents and their arrangements, see CONTUBERNIUM; Marquardt, Staatsverw. 2.427.]

The κλισίαι of Homer were not tents, but wooden or wattled huts; that of Achilles (larger no doubt than the ordinary κλισίη, and with separate rooms, but of like material) was of fir-planks and thatched with reeds (Il. 24.451), and εὔπηκτος, which implies carpenter's work (ib. 675). [See Buchholz, Hom. Realien, 2.340.] In later Greek warfare (where any shelter is required) we find generally tents of skins, like those of the Romans, which are usually called σκηναί (Xen. Anab. 1.5, 12; cf. σκηνοοράφος, Zonar. p. 1655; Ael. VH 2.1), but also διφθέραι (Xen. Anab. 1.5, 10); διφθέραι with iron tent-pegs (Arr. Anab. 4.19): wooden huts were also used and termed σκηναί, which explains the burning of the σκηναί, as too troublesome to carry, in Xen. Anab. 3.2, 27: so Droysen takes it, but it is also possible that wooden framework for the διφθέραι may have been burnt. (See Droysen, Kriegsalterth. § 11=Hermann-Blümner, Lehrbuch, 2.13.) [For the augural tabernaculum, see AUGURIA; TEMPLUM ad init.]

[G.E.M]

hide References (11 total)
  • Cross-references from this page (11):
    • Xenophon, Anabasis, 1.10
    • Xenophon, Anabasis, 1.5
    • Xenophon, Anabasis, 3.2
    • Homer, Iliad, 24.451
    • Caesar, Gallic War, 3.29
    • Cicero, Against Verres, 2.2.5
    • Tacitus, Annales, 13.35
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 5, 2
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 22, 42
    • Arrian, Anabasis, 4.19
    • Aelian, Varia Historia, 2.1
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