Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Puteus

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. 

PUT'EUS and -UM (φρέαρ). A well; artificially dug in the ground, and supplied from its own spring of water, of which examples are given s. GIRGILLUS, and s. PUTEAL. Cic. Hor. Plin. &c.

2. A pit sunk in the earth for storing grain, as we do potatoes. Varro, R. R. i. 57. 2.

3. An air or vent hole in the water course of an aqueduct, of which a sufficient number were formed at regular intervals throughout its whole length. When the duct was a subterranean one, the vent holes were constructed like the shaft of a tunnel; when there were two or more separate courses of water conveyed by the same aqueduct, one over the other, the vent holes of the lower ones were formed at the sides of the channels, above the level of the flowing water; but when there was only a single course, the opening was made in the top, as exhibited by the annexed illustration (Puteus/3.1), representing a portion of the Alexandrian aqueduct at Rome, in which A shows the channel (specus), through which the water flows, and B the puteus or vent hole in question. Vitruv. vii. 8.

• 
  Puteus/3.1