Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Tegula

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. 

TE'GULA (κέραμος). A flat roofing-tile, usually made of baked clay, but in very sumptuous buildings of marble or bronze, and sometimes gilt. (Plaut. Mil. ii. 6. 24. Cic. Terent. Ov. Plin. Liv.) The two sides were made to slope a little inwards, in order that the smaller end of one tile, when laid upon the roof, might fit into and overlap the larger end of another one below it; and also with raised edges, to prevent rain-water from penetrating the lateral interstices, and to catch the sides of the ridge tiles (imbrices), placed over them in the manner shown by the wood-cuts s. IMBREX and IMBRICATUS. The illustration (Tegula/1.1) represents two tegulae, of baked clay, with the maker's stamp upon them, from ancient originals.

2. In the plural, tegulae is often put for a tiled roof, as we say the tiles; but the expression per tegulas (Terent. Eun. iii. 5. 40. Cic. Phil. ii. 18. Aul. Gell. x. 15. 1.), as descriptive of an entrance or exit effected through the tiles, does not mean through the roof by displacing the tiles, but through the open space in the centre of an atrium or peristylium, enclosed by the tiled roof which covered the colonnade surrounding its four sides, as is clearly explained by the annexed restoration (Tegula/2.1) of an interior of one of the houses at Pompeii, showing the colonnade round the quadrangle, with the roof and tiles which cover it, and over them, in the background, three windows of the upper story.

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  Tegula/1.1
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  Tegula/2.1