Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Exedra

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

EXED'RA (ἐξέδρα). An assembly room, or hall of conversation; a large and handsome apartment, sometimes covered in (Vitruv. vi. 3. 8.), and sometimes open to the sun and air (Vitruv. vii. 9. 2.), constituting one of the dependencies to a gymnasium, or to a private mansion of the first class. It was, in reality, a place fitted up for the reception of a party of savans to meet and converse in (Vitruv. v. 9. 2. Cic. N. D. i. 6.), as the philosophers were accustomed to do in the Greek Gymnasium and the Roman Thermae. For this purpose, it was frequently constructed with a circular absis (Plut. Alcib. 17.), in which rows of {{SEDES|seats0} were arranged for the company; and, in fact, is so delineated in a bas-relief of the Villa Albani (Wink. Mon. ined. 185.), representing a scientific discussion between several philosophers. Consequently, in our ground-plan describing the ruins of the GYMNASIUM at Ephesus (s. v.), the name of exedra is assigned to each of the two divisions at the bottom of the lateral corridors, which terminate with a similar absis.