Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Apotheca

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

APOTHE'CA (ἀποθήκη). A store-room or repository for any description of stock. (Cic. Vatin. 5. Id. Phil. ii. 27.) This word contains the elements of the Italian bottega, and French boutique, a shop; but that is a perversion of the original sense; which did not mean a store in which goods were kept for sale, but only for the private use of the owner. Compare TABERNA.

2. In a more special sense by the Romans, a store room for wine in the upper part of the house (whence Horace, Od. iii. 21. 7. descende testa; Plin. Ep. ii. 17. 13. Plin. H. N. xiv. 14. 6. and 7.), where it was kept to ripen in amphorae, or, as we might say, "in bottle;" whereas the new wine in dolia and cupae, or, according to our expression "in the wood," was placed below in the cella vinaria. [CELLA.]