Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Repositorium

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. 

REPOSITO'RIUM. A piece of furniture employed by the Romans for bringing up to table the various dishes comprised in a course (Plin. H. N. xviii. 90.), and which was placed with its contents upon a table in the dining-room (Pet. Sat. lx. 4.). It consisted of a large covered box or case (whence theca repositorii. Pet. Sat. xxxix. 3.), either round or square, and sometimes made of choice woods inlaid with tortoise-shell, and enriched by ornaments of silver (Fenestella ap. Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 52. Pet. Sat. xxxv. 2.). The whole case was moreover divided into a number of separate stories, one above the other, each of which held a separate tray (ferculum) furnished with dishes like the dinner baskets in which a French or Italian restaurateur sends out a ready-dressed dinner to his customers. This is clear from Petronius (Sat. xxxvi. 1. and 2. Compare xxxv. 1. and 2.), where a repositorium is placed upon the table, and after the first division has been removed, another tray containing a different course of entrées is exposed to view  — superiorem partem repositorii abstulerunt. Quo facto, videmus infra, scilicet in altero ferculo, altilia, &c.  — which passage distinctly points out the difference between a repositorium and a ferculum, and proves the inaccuracy of those scholars who make the two words synonymous.