Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Columbarium

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

COLUMBA'RIUM (περιστερεών). A dove-cote or pigeon-house; which probably differed very little from those of the present day, with the exception of being frequently built upon a much larger scale; for as many as five thousand birds were sometimes kept in the same house. Varro, R. R. iii. 7. Pallad. i. 24.

2. Columbaria (plural); the pigeon-holes, or separate cells in the cote for each pair of birds. Varro, R. R. iii. 7. 4. and 11. Columell. viii. 8. 3.

3. Columbaria (plural); the niches or pigeon-holes in a sepulchral chamber, in which the ashes of the dead contained in jars (ollae) were deposited. (Inscript. ap. Spon. Miscell. Er. Ant. 19. p. 287. Ap. Fabretti, p. 9.) Each of these were adapted for the reception of a pair of jars, like doves in their nests, as exhibited by the annexed illustration (Columbarium/3.1), copied from a sepulchral vault near Rome. The lids of the jars are seen above, and the names of the persons whose ashes they contained are inscribed underneath, against the face of the wall, into which the jars themselves are sunk. All the four walls of the sepulchre were covered with niches of this description, which sometimes amounted to one hundred and more. See SEPULCRUM COMMUNE, and illustration.

4. Columbaria, plural (τρύπηματα). The oar-ports, through which the oars projected from the inside of a vessel (Isidor. Orig. xix. 2. 3. Compare Festus. s. Navalis Scribia); so called because they resembled the niches in a dove-cote, as plainly shown by the illustration (Columbarium/4.1), representing two oar-ports on the side of a vessel, in the Vatican Virgil. This also accounts for the meaning of the word columbarius in a fragment of Plautus, where it signifies a rower, accompanied with a sentiment of depreciation.

5. Columbaria, plural (ὀπαί). The cavities or holes in the walls of a building which form a bed for the heads of the tie-beams (tigna) to lie in. (Vitruv. iv. 2. 4.) See the illustration to MATERIATIO, letters d, d, d.

6. Columbaria (plural). Openings formed in the axle of a particular description of tread-wheel (tympanum), for raising water. The axle, in question, was a hollow cylinder, and the water raised by the revolutions of the wheel was conveyed into the axle through these apertures, and then discharged from its extremity into the receiving trough (Vitruv. x. 4.); but the whole process will be better understood by a reference to the article TYMPANUM, 5.

• 
  Columbarium/3.1
• 
  Columbarium/4.1