Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Arca

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

ARCA (κιβωτός). Any large and strong box or chest in which clothes, money, or any kind of property was kept (Cato, R. R. ii. 3. Cic. Parad. vi. 1. Juv. xi. 26. Suet. Cal. 49); a clothes trunk, money chest, &c. The example (Arca/1.1) here introduced is a very remarkable specimen of a money chest, discovered in the atrium of a house at Pompeii; and which, with great apparent reason, is believed to have been a chest in which the quaestor kept the public monies. It stands upon raised pedestals coated with marble; the frame is of wood, lined inside with bronze, and plated outside with iron. It is described in detail in Gell's Pompeiana, vol. ii. pp. 30 — 31.

2. A common wooden box in which the remains of such persons as could not afford the expense of a funeral and regular coffin were carried to the place of sepulture. Hor. Sat. i. 8. 9. Lucan. viii. 736. Caii Dig. ii. 7. 7.

3. A coffin in which a corpse was deposited entire, in the earth or in a tomb, when not reduced to ashes on the funeral pile (Plin. H. N. xiii. 27. Val. Max. i. 1. 12.). The illustration (Arca/3.1) shows the plan and elevation of an original coffin of baked clay (Uggeri, Capo di Bove, pl. 19.). The shaded part in the plan is a raised sill for the head of the corpse, and the round hole in it is a cavity for receiving aromatic balsams, which were poured in through a corresponding orifice seen on the side of the shell in the upper figure. The whole was covered by a lid.

4. A dungeon cell in a private house where slaves were confined. Cic. Milo, 22.

5. A wooden caisson, employed when laying foundations under water. It was a square box without top or bottom, sunk into the ground, from the interior of which the water was pumped out, the void being then filled in with stone or other materials, of which the foundation was composed. Vitruv. v. 12. 3.

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  Arca/1.1
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  Arca/3.1