COLUMBA´RIUM
COLUMBA´RIUM (
περιστερεών,
περιστεροτροφεῖον), a
dove-cote, or pigeon-house. An account of pigeons with their
columbaria is given under
AGRICULTURA pp. 79, 80.
The word is also used to denote the following objects, which derive their
name from their resemblance to a dovecote :--
1. A sepulchral chamber. [
FUNUS]
2. In a machine used to raise water for the purpose of irrigation, as
described by Vitruvius (
10.9), the vents through
which the water was conveyed into the receiving trough were termed
columbaria. This will be understood by referring to
the woodcut at p. 129. [
ANTLIA]
The difference between that representation and the machine now under
consideration consisted in
[p. 1.489]the following
points:--The wheel of the latter is a solid one (
tympanum), instead of radiated (
rota); and was worked as a treadmill, by men who stood upon
platforms projecting from the flat sides, instead of being turned by a
stream. Between the intervals of each platform a series of grooves or
channels (
columbaria) were formed in the sides
of the tympanum, through which the water taken up by a number of scoops
placed on the outer margin of the wheel, like the jars in the cut referred
to, was conducted into a wooden trough below (
labrum
ligneum suppositum, Vitruv.
l.c.).
3. The cavities which receive the extreme ends of the beams upon which a roof
is supported (
tignorum cubilia), and which are
represented by triglyphs in the Doric order, were termed
columbaria by the Roman architects; that is, whilst they
remained empty, and until filled up by the head of the beam. The
corresponding Greek term was
ὀπαί (from
ὀπή,
a hole), and hence the space between two such
cavities--that is, in the complete building, between two triglyphs--was
called
μετόπη, a metope. (
Vitr. 4.2; Marquez,
Dell' Ordine
Dorico, 7.37.)
4.
Columbaria (
τρυπήματα), the oar-ports, apertures in the side of a vessel
through which the oars were passed. (Isid.
Orig. 19.2, 3;
Festus, p. 169 M.) [
NAVIS]
[
A.R] [
J.H.F]
