Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Casa

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

CASA. Generally a cottage; understood in the same latitude of meaning which we apply to that word in our own language; for instance: —

1. A cottage proper (Vitruv. ii. 1. 3. and 5. Pet. Sat. 115. 6.); the first regular effort in building of the pastoral ages, and which continued afterwards as the constant model for the residence of a village population. Of this description was the thatched cottage of Romulus on the Capitoline hill (casa Romuli, Vitruv. ii. 1. Pet. Fragm. 21. 6.), and those of the aboriginal inhabitants of Latium, of which the illustration (Casa/1.1) here introduced may be regarded as an authentic and highly curious example. It is copied from an earthenware vase, now preserved amongst the Egyptian and other antiquities in the British Museum, but originally employed as a sepulchral urn, which was discovered in the year 1817 amongst several others in the form of temples, helmets, &c., at Marino, near the ancient Alba Longa, imbedded in a sort of white earth under a thick stratum of volcanic lava (the Italian peperino), which flowed from the Alban mount before its eruptions became extinct; previously to which period these vases must in consequence have been deposited there, an irresistible proof of their great antiquity. Visconti, Lettera al Sigr. Giuseppe Carnevali, sopra alcuni Vasi sepolcrali rinvenuti nella vicinanza della antica Alba Longa. Roma. 1817.

2. A small country-house (Mart. Ep. vi. 43.); built, as we should say, in cottage fashion, upon a far less grand or magnificent scale than the regular villa or country mansion, as represented in the annexed engraving (Casa/2.1), from a painting at Pompeii, which affords a good idea of the small Roman country-house, with its courtyard, outbuildings, and live stock. When Martial (Ep. xii. 66.) used the words domus and casa as convertible terms, it is purposely and pointedly, in order to insinuate that the domus or town-house was but a poor and ill-built one; i. e. no better than a casa or cottage.

3. A bower or rustic arbour, made of osiers and branches, and sometimes covered with vines, as in the example (Casa/3.1) from the ancient mosaic of Praeneste. Tribull. ii. 1. 24.

4. A sort of wigwam or hut which the soldiery sometimes formed with branches of trees, as a substitute for a tent. Veget. Mil. ii. 10.

• 
  Casa/1.1
• 
  Casa/2.1
• 
  Casa/3.1