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[German version] I. Ancient Orient and Egypt Because of the state of preservation of buildings, roofing methods in the ancient Near East can generally only be inferred from pictorial representations. Depictions on cylinder seals and remains of beams ('Temple C' in Uruk; end of the 4th millennium BC) are early evidence for flat roofs as the normal roofing method for public and private buildings in southern Mesopotamia and other parts of the Near East. In mountainous parts of the Near East, the existence…

(στοά; stoá). [German version] [1] Structure Ancient description for a long covered walkway, gallery or portico resting on columns and structurally enclosed at the back. The earliest examples in Greek architecture occur around 700 BC; the derivation of its style is unclear: features recalling the early Greek architecture of the Geometric Period can no more be substantiated than connections with Oriental tent construction. In the Archaic Period the stoa was largely restricted to sanctuaries; here, as i…

[German version] ('Temple of peace'). A square (Forum) in Rome, designed and consecrated in AD 71 - after the capture of Jerusalem - under Vespasianus in analogy to the Fora of Caesar and Augustus whose nearly square, column-encircled court leads to a temple on the south-eastern side. The space between the TP and the Forum Augustum was probably kept open originally - a measure intended to avoid a direct ideological-political analogy between the Fora of Caesar and Augustus on the one hand and this …

[German version] Modern technical term of scholarship devoted to ancient architecture; it describes the krepidoma observable in some Doric peripteral temples from the middle of the 6th cent. BC (e.g. temple of Apollo of  Corinth = earliest evidence; Aphaea Temple of  Aegina;  Parthenon; great temple of  Segesta) and rarely also in Ionic buildings (e.g. temple of Apollo of  Didyma) -- and resulting from this -- the arrangement ascending to the entablature. This phenomenon mentioned by Vitruvius (3,4,5), as wel…

[German version] Modern technical term, commonly used since the 17th cent. in the history of art and architecture (from French frise), which, as an architectonical term, designates that part of the stone entablature that rests on the architrave ( Epistylion) in Greek column construction. The frieze of Doric buildings consists of an alternating sequence of  metope and  triglyphos (the whole of which is in Greek building inscriptions referred to as τρίγλυφος, tríglyphos [1. 29-30]), the frieze of Ionian buildings, which can (in contrast to that of the Doric order) b…

[German version] Term used by Pollux (3,154 and 9,43), Athenaeus (12,518d) and other late sources for the open courtyard, often strewn with sand, of the Greek gymnasium; cf. also Palaistra. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

[German version] Ancient name for a dḗmos / district of Athens ( Athens II.7), stretching from north of the Athenian agora to the Academy; originally a swampy plain crossed by the Eridanus [2], in which lay the Athenian potters' district, but above all, the chief cemetery of the city since the sub-Mycenaean period. In the 6th cent. BC, it developed into the central necropolis of Athens, crossed by various roads, and divided by the Themistoclean Wall (479/8 BC); the Dipylon Gate la…

[German version] (Ἥραιον; Hḗraion). General term for sanctuaries of the goddess  Hera; more important Heraia are found, among others, in  Argos,  Olympia,  Paestum, Perachora and on the island of  Samos. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

[German version] (νεώρια/ neṓria, neut. pl.; Lat. navalia, neut. pl.). There is no evidence of dockyards as permanent structural establishment for  shipbuilding in the early Greek period; shipbuilding took place as a specialized part of the   materiatio at places chosen on an ad hoc basis in each case close to coasts or harbours (Pylos [1]; cf. Hom. Od. 6,263-272). At the latest since the early 6th cent. BC, as a feature of the autonomy of the Greek  polis, dockyards were part of the infrastructure of the navy ( navies) in the same way as…

[German version] One of the seven hills of the city of Rome (Rome III A with map 1), between the Mons Quirinalis and the Esquiliae. In the early Imperial period an elegant residential quarter (Mart. 7,73,2); at the turn of the 3rd/4th cents. AD in the northeastern part of the hill enormous thermae were built, founded by the emperor Diocletianus (Thermae [1 II D]). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Richardson, 431, s. v. V. (with sources).

(Παρθενών; Parthenṓn). [German version] I. Function Temple-shaped building on the Acropolis of Athens (II.1. with map; Temple); named after the 12 m high chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos by Phidias inside the building (Gold-ivory technique with fig.), which was mentioned by Pausanias (1,23,5-7) and others. The cultic purpose of the Parthenon is a subject of lively controversy in archaeological research. However, to date it has remained impossible to find evidence for a cult of Athena Parthe…

[German version] (Ἱππόδαμος; Hippódamos) of Miletus. Greek architect, town planner and author of writings on political theory; the ‘Hippodamian system’, which was erroneously named after him, a right-angled urban grid, was already known in archaic times in the colonies in the West and in Ionia ( Insula;  Town planning). H.'s lifetime and period of activity is uncertain; the rebuilding of  Miletus (479 BC), which was destroyed in the Persian Wars, is connected to him as well as the building of the c…

[German version] Ancient Latin technical term (Varro, Rust. 3,5,13; Vitr. De arch. 4,1,2; 4,2,5 et passim) for part of the corbel block on the geison of Doric Greek temple rafters. A Greek analogue of this special technical term is unknown. The individual components of the block were probably collectively called the geíson. The mutulus is the overhanging plate with usually 3 × 6 drops ( guttae), which appears in a regular sequence above the metope triglyph frieze and supports its rhythm. The length of the mutulus is equivalent to the measure of the triglyph ( tríglyphos …

[German version] Modern technical term of archaeological construction research; what is described here is the noticeable slight inwards pitch of the  columns in the outer column circle in some Doric peripteral temples of the classical period (e.g.  Parthenon); together with the  entasis, the increased diameter of the corner columns and the  curvature, it is one element of the  optical refinements in Greek column construction. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography D. Mertens, Der Tempel von Segesta und die dor. Tempelbaukunst des griech. Westens in klass. Zeit…

[German version] In Rome, together with the Curia, the assembly place of the Roman Senate ( Senatus ) at the Comitium (Forum [III 8] Romanum); beyond this specific location in the City of Rome and independent of it, a general term for a place where the Senate met. Assembly buildings Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Richardson, 348.

[German version] Representative  altar complex on the   campus martius near the Via Flaminia in  Rome; together with the  Ustrinum and the mausoleum of Augustus, it is possibly a part of the  Horologium Augusti. Finds since 1568, systematic excavations at the ancient site under the Palazzo Fiano at the Via in Lucina in 1903 and 1937/38. With its details in dispute, the opening of the reconstruction, which was relocated to the banks of the Tiber near the Augustus mausoleum (by using cas…

[German version] (Angiportus). Lane; synonymous with vicus. According to Vitr. De arch. 1,6,1, a narrow lane or side street in contrast to platea and via, sometimes a cul-de-sac in Roman city layouts. Larger houses had a rear entrance accessible from the angiportum. Cf.  Town planning;  Roads;  Construction of Roads Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. H. Groß, s. v. Angiportus, KlP 1, 352.

[German version] A rostrum (Greek βῆμα/ bêma; Latin plural rostra,) is an elevated podium, a pulpit (early Christian  ámbōn, Lat. ambo), or a type of stand, shaped in a variety of forms, which raises the speaker above his audience. This is useful not only from an acoustic point of view, but also lends importance to the protagonist acting on the podium, as it 'lifts' him in a significant way over his surroundings. Rostrum-like devices must already have been present in the archaic Greek citizen communities, as in all larger communities of colonists which had to decide…

[German version] I. Nomenclature and definition Roman triumphal arches (TA) as a free-standing monument were originally called fornix . Around the beginning of the Common Era the word ianus came into use, followed with increasing regularity by arcus. The term arcus triumphalis came into use in the 3rd cent. AD, leading in the early 19th cent. to the problematic modern concept of 'triumphal arches'. This refers to an imposing arch structure, generally free-standing, but sometimes also to an arch that spans a roadway and connects two bui…

[German version] Theatre on the Campus Martius in Rome; probably already begun under Caesar and completed by Augustus in 17 BC for the Saecular Games ( Saeculum III), but dedicated only in 13 or 11 BC in the name of the nephew and first - early deceased - 'heir' of Augustus, M. Claudius [II 42] Marcellus. It was built on the place on which a large wooden temporary theatre was customarily constructed only for performances, and so takes its place in a tradition which was well-known in the Rome of the time. The complex, wh…