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[German version] (θάλαμος/ thálamos). According to the earlier archaic perception a non-specific term for various rooms inside of a Greek house; according to more recent definition a bedroom of the master of the house or the women's apartments (cf. Hom. Il. 6,321; Hom. Od. 10,340 et passim), usually on the upper floor of a Classical Pastas or Prostas house (House [II] B) and therefore also according to Greek understanding belonging absolutely to the private sphere (Private sphere and public sphere). The ancient terminology is unclear; thalamos can also be the term for a weapo…

[German version] The plan layout of Greek  temples. An amphiprostylos is an ante temple ( Ante) without perimeter hall, which in front of the pronaos as well as on its rear side has an even number of columns each which are spread across the entire width of the building (cf. Vitr. De arch. 3,2,4). In comparison to the   prostylos , where the rows of columns decorate just the entrance and not the rear as well, the amphiprostylos is the form occurring less frequently. The most famous example is the temple of Nike on the Athenian Acropolis. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography H. Knell, Grundz…

[German version] (περίπτερος; perípteros). Colonnaded temple with only a single circle of columns (Temple), in contrast to the dipteros. The term appears in the Latin form for the first time in Vitruvius (3,2,1 et passim). The peripteros rises from a stepped base (Krepis [1]; Stylobate), in the 5th cent. BC with canonical 6×13 columns (in the 6th cent. BC other concepts can be found, esp. elongated forms, primarily in western Greece). It is the standard form of the Greek temple. The regularity of the column positions (Spacing, i…

[German version] The water basin in the  atrium of the Roman house in which rainwater from the  compluvium, the opening of the atrium, was collected and which was often part of a  cistern. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography E. M. Evans, The Atrium Complex in the Houses of Pompeii, 1980 R. Förtsch, Arch. Komm. zu den Villenbriefen des jüngeren Plinius, 1993, 30f.

[German version] From Latin ceno; originally the dining room on the upper floor of the Roman  house. From time to time the term cenaculum includes the entire upper floor (Varro, Ling. 5,162; Fest. 54,6); the rooms described as cenacula were for accommodating guests of an inferior rank or slaves. They could also be the object of a lease; cenaculum became in this context synonymous with shabby housing. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Georges, 1, 1067, s.v. c. (sources) G. Matthiae, s.v. Cenacolo, EAA 2, 467 (bibliography).

[German version] Greek ἀ(ι)ετός/ a(i)etós (architectural inscriptions: [1. 33f.]); Latin fastigium, fronton; triangular front, framed by the horizontal and raking cornices, of the saddleback roof of a typical Greek columned building; sacred architecture, the gable field (tympanon, for the terminology see: Vitr. De arch. 3,5,12; 4,3,2) is frequently decorated with sculptures; cf.  architectural sculpture. The pitch and hight of a gable in  proportion to the columns and the entablature provide some indicati…

[German version] (ναΐσκος/naḯskos, ‘little temple’). A small temple-shaped building without a surrounding peristyle. In the technical terminology of classical archaeology the term is used for small free-standing architectural structures (e.g. well houses; wells) as well as (occasionally) for specially designed cella constructions within a temple (e.g. in the temple of Apollo at Didyma), occasionally also synonymous with naós (Cella). Also used of tomb reliefs with seemingly architectural wall ends, which protruded because of their spatially deepened surroundings. Höcker…

[German version] The headquarters or commander's office of a Roman legion camp or fort, located at the heart of the facility as its administrative and religious centre, at the intersection of the two main streets (Cardo, Decumanus). The principia consisted of an open courtyard with a sanctuary for the standards, enclosed by the grouping of the legion's administrative buildings, arsenal and assembly rooms for the officers. Castra; Praetorium Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography A. Johnson, Roman Forts of the 1st and 2nd Century AD in Britain and the German Provinces, 1983  H. von …

[German version] (παστάς; pastás). Transverse hall that in the Greek house (with fig.) connects the courtyard with the residential block behind it; an extension of the porch (prostas) issuing from the courtyard in older residential buildings, e.g. the houses of Priene, into a type of corridor and therefore a typologically determining element of the more modern, late Classical residential dwellings like those of Olynthus. The pastas house forms the nucleus of later, large-scale peristyle houses. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. Hoepfner, E.L. Schwandner, Haus und St…

[German version] Apart from defensive and protective installations (Fortifications) and funerary architecture, towers are found in Graeco-Roman architecture primarily in domestic constructions, particularly in rural areas. They were used there partly as representational buildings, but also as safe places of refuge in period of crisis and also as well ventilated places for storing agricultural produce which were difficult for pests to reach. The significance of 'Greek tower farmsteads' as a type of…

[German version] Stone theatre on the Campus Martius in Rome (Rome III.), begun by L. Cornelius [I 7] Balbus on the occasion of his triumph over the Garamantes in 19 BC and dedicated in 13 BC (Suet. Aug. 29,5; Cass. Dio 54,25,2). Significant remains survive in modern Rome in the area around the Piazza Paganica, some of them unexcavated. The theatre, which was rebuilt several times and after the fire of AD 80 probably entirely reconstructed, held an audience of about 8000 and was therefore the smal…

[German version] The term central-plan building (CB) describes an edifice -- either detached or integrated into an architectural ensemble - with main axes of equal or nearly equal lengths, so that none is dominant. The basic shapes of a CB are a circle, a square, or a regular polygon, sometimes with an additional projection to set off the entrance. According to this definition, the Greek  tholos is a centralized building, as are various other examples of circular  funerary architecture ( Tumulus; …

[German version] [1] Technical term in history of art and architecture (from Latin spolium, 'arms stripped from an enemy, booty'). Technical term of archaeology and art history, denoting parts of earlier buildings or monuments reused in constructive or decorative contexts. Scholars long saw the use of spolia in architecture and decoration as a symptom of decline in architecture, of the dissolution of the Classical Orders (Column) and of a lack of imagination and technical ability in respect of architectural …

[German version] (Στασικράτης; Stasikrátēs). A Hellenistic architect recorded only in Plutarch (Plut. Alexander 72; Plut. Mor. 335c ff.); probably confused by Plutarch with Deinocrates or miswritten and identical with him (Deinocrates [3], also with bibliogr.). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

[German version] (αἴθουσα; aíthousa). In Homer (Od. 17,29; 18,102; 22,466; Il. 6,243; 20,11, the term for the entrance hall of a  house, which is adorned with columns and joined to the court gate. The portion located in front is called   prothyron (Il. 24,323; Od. 3,493). Entrance halls of this type can already be found on palaces of the 2nd millennium and in the early Greek house architecture; they then become a common element on Greek  temples. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography F. Noack, Homer. Paläste, 1903, 53 H. L. Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments, 1950, 415-422 H. Drerup, A…

[German version] (Greek δίπτερος; dípteros: two-winged; building equipped with double pterón = gallery or perambulatory). Technical term for a Greek  temple with a frontage of at least eight columns, whose  cella is enclosed on all sides by at least two, on the ends even three rows of columns; the term is only known from Vitruvius (3,1,10; 3,2,1; 3,2,7; 3,3,8; 7 praef. 15), but not elsewhere in Greek architectural terminology. In comparison with a  peripteros with its simple set of columns, the dipteros ─…

[German version] (τελεστήριον/ telestḗrion; teletḗ ). In Greek usage a general term for a temple of mysteries or a chapel of devotion for the Eleusinian gods, named after the Telesterion in the sanctuary of Demeter in Eleusis (on the building there see Eleusis [1] C.; cf. also Mysteries B.2.). Besides the site at Eleusis there is evidence of telestḗria in the Attic town of Phlya, the Heraion at Argos [II 1] and the Kabeirion at Thebes [2]. In Eleusis the Telesterion changed from a small megaron-shaped temple between the early 6th cent. and the late 5th…

[German version] This architecturally designed sea mark, Greek φάρος/ pháros, Lat. pharus, had its precursors in the open fires mentioned as early as Homer (Od. 10,30 et passim). These were raised on pillars or struts, and marked the entrances of harbours (Piraeus, 5th cent. BC; Harbours, docks) or (rarely) dangerous coastal features (at the same time, misleading coastal fires had been a means used by pirates from time immemorial to cause ships to be stranded, with the aim of plundering them; Navigation;…

[German version] Latin for shell, snail (Greek κόγχη/ kónchē), also describes shell-shaped vessels or large drinking-bowls as well as the snail-shaped horn of Triton (Verg. Aen. 6,171; Plin. HN 9,9). In early Christian literature concha designates the upper half-dome of the  apse and the water basin used for baptisms and baths. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography G. Matthiae, s.v. Conca, EAA 2, 779.

[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] Tunnel-building is encountered in Classical Antiquity in two fundamental contexts: water supply or irrigation/drainage and - less often - road-building (Roads and bridges, construction of). Tunnels built in the context of siegecraft or military defences in fortifications (undermining city defences, such as in the Persians' attack on Barce: Hdt. 4,200; underground countermines as a defensive measure against siege ramps: Caes. B Gall. 6,24; escape or rescue tunnel) should - for a de…

[German version] There are repeated references in Roman written sources (Varro, Rust. 3,1,10; Plin. HN 36,184, among others) to the decorative floor covering made from irregular variously coloured small marble stones found in buildings. It must be distinguished from mosaic (cf. Pavimentum). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W. Müller-Wiener, Griech. Bauwesen in der Ant., 1986, 109-110.

[German version] Architectural term, recorded in Vitruvius (4,8,6), describing Italo-Roman temples (Temple) in which the side columns of the porch continue as half-columns on the central wall around the cella, and thus form a  'false' peristyle without a true ambulatory (Greek pterón) (Peripteros). The best-known examples are the Maison Carrée in Nîmes (Nemausus [2]) and the Ionic temple in the Forum Boarium in Rome. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Ch. Balty, Études sur la Maison Carrée de Nîmes, 1960 (on this type)  R. Amy, P. Gros, La Maison Carrée de Nîmes (Gallia S…

[German version] Steep crag at the southeast of the Capitol (Capitolium) in Rome; named after Tarpeia. Place of execution, where delinquents accused of various crimes were thrown from the rock to their deaths. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Richardson, 377 f. s. v. Tarpeia Rupes.

(θόλος/ thólos, fem.; Lat. tholus) rotunda; here, the term will refer to the monopteros as well. [German version] I. Greece In the architecture of the ancient Greek world, the circular shape of the tholos was always a peculiarity that stood out optically. Overall, the tholos was rather rare in Antiquity and was used as a striking and deliberately used architectural type. Building designs and details were not developed in a canonical way and the functions of the tholoi were varied: cult building; heroon/funerary building, memorial, treasurey, banquet/assembly hall; at tim…

[German version] Latin term for ‘arch’. As a technical term in ancient architecture, fornix describes the arch of a vault, the vault itself, or the masonry arch of a bridge or aqueduct; also arched gaps in masonry walls for doors and  windows (cf. also  vault and arch construction). A cellar vault or cellar floor may also be meant; the dirt and alleged disreputability of cellars are presumably the origin of the new meaning of the term fornix in the 1st cent. AD as ‘brothel’ (e.g. Hor. Ep. 1,14,21 and passim) or as a label for any form of misconduct. Presumably because of this negati…

[German version] According to Tac. Ann. 14,22,2 and Plin. HN 3,109 one of the emperor Nero's (Nero [1]) villas downstream from a chain of lakes created by damming the Anio (cf. Frontin. Aq.}} 93). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography F. Cavalliere (ed.), Sublaqueum-Subiaco. Tra Nerone e S. Benedetto, 1995.

[German version] Collective term for underground architecture. In modern terms hypogaeum is mainly a part of  funerary architecture, in which case hypogaeum refers to architecture below the earth's surface and not that which is built above ground and then covered with earth in the sense of the tumulus with a tomb chamber inside; moreover heroa, which are closely related to tombs in character (e.g. that of  Calydon) as well as structures for special cult facilities (e.g. the nekromanteion of  Ephyr…

[German version] Large quantities of purposefully worked, quarried stone were first required by the ancient cultures of Italy and Greece in the Mycenaean Period (2nd half of the 2nd millennium BC), and subsequently not until beginning in c. 600 BC with the onset of major projects for the construction of temples and infrastructure. It is a common feature of the two phases, widely separated in time, that the quarry used, that is to say the origin of the stone, was ideally located in the immediate vicinity (Corinth), seldom further th…

[German version] (Εὐθυντήρια; euthyntḗria) Rare ancient Greek architectural technical term; according to IG II2, 1668, l. 15-18 ( syngraphe of Philo's arsenal), euthynteria described the levelled top of the foundations, the base for the rising walls of a building; from the euthynteria rose the  orthostates. Modern archaeological terminology customarily uses the term euthynteria in a more general sense in Greek columned buildings, referring to the top and thus the first levelled layer of the foundations, which is just proud of the soil level and upon which the  krepis rises. Höcker, …

[German version] A term transmitted by Vitruvius (3,3,13), a term, that however is not documented in Greek architectural inscriptions, for the swelling of the  column, which is to express the tension of this architectural part under the load of the entablature. Together with the  inclination and the  curvature, the entasis forms the most important element of the  optical refinements in Greek column construction; the entasis turns up in an extreme form in the archaic architecture of Western Greece …

[German version] An artificial hill, like modern rubbish dumps, to the south of the mons Aventinus in Rome, a heap of rubble dating from classical times measuring about 30m in height and a good 1000m in circumference. It consists for the most part of shards (lat. testa, testaceum -hence the name) of container amphorae (Earthenware vessels) which accumulated as breakages in the nearby port and storage facilities. The greater part of the shards, which were brought there via a ramp, originate from around AD 140 to 250. As a complete archaeologi…

[German version] The most northern of the seven great hills of Rome; in classical antiquity it was actually called collis rather than mons. It has been inhabited since the Iron Age; the Sabines are said to have settled there under Titus Tatius. The Quirinal was mainly a residential area up until the late Imperial era, with a mixed social structure in the west but a more impoverished one in the east. (The poet Martialis [1] describes very vividly the conditions in which he lived here on the 3rd floor of a block of fla…

[English version] The polis of Poseidonia, founded in the late 7th cent. BC by colonists from Sybaris, was transformed into a Roman veterans colony named Paestum ( P.) in 274/3 BC, with profound consequences for its urban profile and the social composition of its populace. Early in the Roman Imperial period, it began to fall increasingly into decline, firstly because of the new north-south major travel routes which now bypassed it, and secondly because the plain to the south of Salerno, already ment…

[German version] (τροχίλος; trochílos). Cavetto moulding, a concavely curved element in a Classical Attic/Ionic column base separating the upper and lower convex shaped tori (Torus); also current in Archaic/Ionic architecture as a formative element of representational column bases (Column II. B.3. with ill.). The contours of the trochiloi of the column bases in the archaic Temple of Hera on Samos [3], turned on a lathe and of remarkably varied shape, are famous. Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography Ebert, 26 (terminology and etymology)  Ch. Höcker, Sekos, Dipteros, Hyp…