Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Paries

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. 

PAR'IES (τοῖχος). The wall of a house, or other edifice, as contradistinguished from murus, the wall of a town. These were made of various materials, and constructed in many different ways; amongst which the following are distinguished: —

1. Paries craticius. A wall made of canes and hurdles, covered with a coating of clay, something like our lath and plaster; used in early times for an external wall, and subsequently for a partition in the interior of a house. Vitruv. ii. 8. 10. Pallad. i. 9. 2.

2. Paries formaceus. A kind of walling now termed pisé, made of very stiff clay, rammed in between moulds as it is carried up, of very frequent occurrence at the present day in France, and in ancient times amongst the inhabitants of Africa, Spain, and the southern parts of Italy. Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 48.

3. Paries latericius. A wall made of bricks; which was constructed in many different patterns, as the art of building progressed and declined. When the arts were in the greatest perfection, the bricks used were very large and thin, and of considerable size, resembling our tiles (see LATER), and were laid in regular even courses throughout. During the intermediate periods the bricks diminished in surface, but increased in thickness; and the walls were commonly constructed with a mixture of different sized bricks laid in alternate courses, so as to produce a pleasing pattern to the eye, although it was frequently concealed by a coating of stucco laid over it, of which the annexed example (Paries/3.1), representing the structure employed in the entrance gate to Pompeii, will afford a distinct notion. It shows the admixture of thick and thin bricks, as well as the external cement still remaining on some part of it, which has been divided into rustic work to imitate a stone wall. During the decadence the bricks were smaller and thicker, like the largest ones in the example, and frequently of irregular sizes. Caes. B. C. ii. 15. Vitruv. ii. 8. 16.

4. The different methods adopted in forming walls of stone are explained and illustrated s. CAEMENTICIUS and STRUCTURA.

5. Paries solidus. (Cic. Top. 4.) A blank wall, without any opening in it, as contradistinguished from

6. Paries fornicatus. A wall perforated with arched openings, as in the annexed example (Paries/6.1), representing part of the Imperial palace on the Palatine hill. The object of this was to save consumption of material without diminishing solidity by the lightness thus given to the entire structure. Cic. Top. 4.

7. Paries communis. The common or partition wall between two contiguous edifices, which was common to both of them. Cic. Top. l. c. Ov. Met. iv. 66.

8. Paries intergericius or intergerivus. (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 49. Festus, s. v.) Same as the preceding.

9. Paries directus. A wall of partition within an edifice, separating one chamber from another. Cic. l. c.

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  Paries/3.1
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  Paries/6.1