Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Schola

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. 

SCHOL'A (σχολὴ). Literally means rest from bodily labour, which affords an opportunity for mental recreation or study; whence the term is transferred to the place where teachers and their pupils assemble for the purpose of instruction, our school (Cic. Or. ii. 7. Suet. Gramm. 16. Auson. Idyll. iv. 6., and LUDUS); and to a room in which philosophers and literati assemble together for conversation and discussion. Plin. H. N. xxxv. 37. xxxvi. 4. § 5.

2. Schola alvei. Schola labri. The vacant space on the floor of the thermal chamber (caldarium) in a set of baths, which surrounds the warm water bath (alveus); or the circular basin (labrum) situated at the opposite end of the room, where the bathers, who were waiting to use either of these vessels, might sit or stand until their turn came. (Vitruv. v. 10. 4.) We might translate it the waiting or resting place, which fully expresses the primary as well as secondary notion of the word schola. In the annexed illustration (Schola/2.1), representing the circular end of the thermal chamber in the baths at Pompeii, with its labrum in the centre, the schola labri is the passage round the basin; and a reference to the wood-cut, s. LABRUM 1., which exhibits the bathers standing round the vessel, will further elucidate the matter, by showing how that vessel was occupied by one set of bathers, while the others were compelled to stand by until they could find a vacant place at their disposal.

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  Schola/2.1