PLU´TEUS
PLU´TEUS signified in general any kind of upright,
unroofed protection or shelter, and was hence used in the following special
significations. 1. A fixed breastwork, whether of planking or of wicker
work, and sometimes covered with hides to prevent it from catching fire.
These breastworks,
mantlets, or
blinds were used to shelter combatants
on board
ship (
῀παραρρύματα),
Caes. Civ. 3.24:
on
towers, where they sheltered the soldiers in the various
tabulata, or stories, the battlements or shelter on
the top being, strictly,
pinnae (
Caes. Gal. 7.25):
on
ramparts, as in
Caes. Gal. 7.41
and 72. In the latter passage the plutei include the whole breastwork of
loricae and pinnae and the vallum behind them, the whole shelter in fact
placed on the agger, and the
commissurae
pluteorum are the points where this work of wood and wattles rose
from the earthen agger. 2. A movable
[p. 2.440]shelter for
the besiegers, distinguished from the
vineae
and
musculi by being unroofed (
Liv. 21.61,
34.17;
Fest. s.v.
Amm. Marc. 21.11; Isid.
Or. 18.18). It is particularly described in Veget. 4.15, as
being semicircular (in the form of an apse), of wicker work covered with
hides, and with three wheels, one in the forepart or middle of the curve,
and two at the extremities: it was thus rolled towards the walls, the
working party advancing under its cover (cf. Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 2.530). 3. The board at the side of a bed [
LECTUS p. 18]. 4. Some kind of
shelf for holding busts and other ornaments (
Juv.
2.7), or books (Sidon. Apoll.
Ep. 2.9): it probably
had a high ledge to prevent the article placed there from falling off, and
so gained its name. Some refer the “
pluteum caedit” of Pers. 1.106 to a bookshelf or a
desk, but it is probably merely the ordinary pluteus of the reading couch
[
LECTUS p. 19]. 5. A low
wall like a breastwork, closing up spaces between columns (
Vitr. 4.4).
[
W.S] [
G.E.M]
