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[German version] Gallery above the tabernae at the Forum Romanum in Rome, named after the Roman censor M. Maenius [I 3], from where spectators could follow the gladiatorial fights. The principle, attested here for the first time, of building the edge construction of a forum in two stories and constructing it as a bleacher, resp. viewing area on the upper floor, became widespread in the 2nd and 1st cents. BC in Roman architecture ( Forum); thereafter, the tiers in the amphitheatre were known as maeniana ( Theatre). Höcker, Christoph (Kissing) Bibliography W.-H. Gross, s.v. M., KlP 3, 864.

(Ἑρμόδωρος; Hermódōros). [German version] [1] Critic of his fellow citizens in a fragment of Heraclitus In a fragment of the philosopher  Heraclitus [1] of Ephesus, the latter criticizes his fellow citizens because they had banished H., the ‘most estimable man’ among them, with the justification that among them ‘no one should be the most estimable’ (Diels/Kranz 22,121 = Str. 14,1,25; Cic. Tusc. 5,105). According to later tradition, H., who went into exile in Italy, was involved in the drawing up of the Twelve …

This item can be found on the following maps: Theatre | | Dark Ages | Alexander | Ionic | Peloponnesian War | Pergamum | Pompeius | Delian League | Education / Culture (Ἁλικαρνασσός; Halikarnassós). [German version] I. Location …

[German version] In Roman culture, aedicula either refers to a cult-related shrine ( Lararium), often in a sepulchral context ( Tombs), which contained urns or pictures of the deceased, or a building structure flanked by columns for the housing of statues or paintings. In the latter case either as an individual building usually placed on a podium as high as a man or as a niche integrated into a façade arrangement. Rear and side walls are without windows, the roof with a flat slope has a gable displaying ornaments. The   …

[German version] (σκευοθήκη; skeuothḗkē). Epigraphically documented Ancient Greek term for a store, arsenal or hall for storing the rigging of warships (esp. IG II2 1668 for a skeuotheke in Peiraeus near Athens). Skeuothekai belong to the Greek publicly funded sphere of useful architecture, which in the 4th cent. BC acquired an increasingly representational character; existing functional buildings of wood were sometimes lavishly rebuilt in stone. Typologically the …

[German version] (Greek e.g. ἑπτὰ θεάματα/ heptà theámata 'seven spectacles': Str. 14,652; 656; 16,738; 17,808, among others; Latin e.g. [ septem] miracula: Plin. HN 36,30; Mart. de spectaculis 1,1; septem opera mirabilia 'seven wondrous works': Hyg. fab. 223; septem spectacula: Vitr. De arch. 7, praef.). In antiquity, magn…

[German version] Monument on the Forum Romanum in Rome, which already in antiquity was associated with various myths of Rome's early history ( Curtius [1]). Probably built in the Augustan period, the lacus Curtius (LC) was among the monuments on the Roman Forum that served as vivid, palpable manifestations of early Roman history and, as such, provided a means by which mythology could be given a role to play in the depiction of historical reality, which so far had been recorded primarily in the form of chronicles. The LC consists of an uneven, paved area (10,15 × 8,95 m), …

[German version] (στυλοβάτης/ stylobátēs, Lat. stylobates). Ancient term belonging to construction technique [1]; in Greek buildings with columns, the term for the surface of the uppermost step of the krepis [1] or the individual slabs of it on which the columns stand (not, as is commonly and mistakenly assumed, the uppermost step of the krepis as a whole). The stylobate was a central objective in planning temples (Building trade). In an archaic Doric temple it is mostly in the (usually very elongated) stylobate that one of the leading proportions of the structure can be found, and thi…

[German version] were an essential element of the water supply and the infrastructure of ancient cities. They brought fresh water over or under ground into the city from springs outside (Roman aqueducts of up to 130 km in length). As an underground network they formed the prerequisite for distributing water within the city. Water supply I C, II C, and E Höcker, Christoph (Kissing)

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[German version] Ancient topographical designation for an area in Rome the precise location of which is unclear or ambivalent. Apparently, S. at first referred to the area in the valley between Oppius and Caelius; S. marks the first of four urban regions (Varro, Ling. 5,48; Tribus). Later, in everyday language S. was used to refer to only one part of this regio IV, and that…

[German version] Lat. term for kitchen. In Greek antiquity, an independent room in the  house with hearth and other infrastructure (smoke outlet, drainage) for preparation of meals was unknown for a long time; generally, the hearth served as a focal point in the main room of a house and was at the same time the centre of social communication. Kitchens in a more narrow sense, as functionally-defined, separate room components, are to be found first in the late Classical houses of Olynthus, then incr…

(Λεωνίδας; Leōnídas). Cf. also Leonides. [German version] [1] Spartan k…

[German version] (Μαυσ(σ)ωλεῖον; Maus(s)ōleîon; Lat. mausoleum). Monumental tomb for the satrap Maussollus of Caria (died 353 BC) and his wife Artemisia [2] (died 351 BC) near the city of Halicarnassus in Lycia, probably only completed during the time of Alexander. It was counted as one of the Wonders of the World and became eponymous for a standard type of representative funerary architecture. Modern archaeology has focused much on the monument, which was frequently discussed and described in ancient literature (Str. 14,656 ff.; Diod. Sic. 16,45; Plin. HN 36, 30-31 and passim). Scan…

[German version] (ἀψίς; apsís). ‘Arch, vault’, Latin apsis or absida, cf. also  exedra. Semicircular, sometimes polygonal, roofed architectural element, normally used as a closure or part of a room. Early proof in Aegean house architecture ( House); houses with an oblong rectangular plan closed at the rear by a semicircular apse can already be found in the lowest layers at Troy (Troy I a), in the entire Aegean Bronze Age and also in the Geometrical architecture of Greece (i.a. Antissa, Lefkandi, Lerna, M…

[German version] An originally swampy area within the City of Rome (with plan 2), between the Capitol, the Palatine and the banks of the Tiber; the naming and the origin of the word (from Etruscan  vel, 'swamp'?) was already disputed in Antiquity (cf. Varro Ling. 5,43). The area was drained as early as the Republican period with the help of the Cloaca maxima , after the Neronic fire (64 AD) further raised and then densely built on as a signif…

[German version] Starting- and finishing-line in the Greek  stadium. The balbis was a stone bump equipped with grooves and let into the ground; starting gates made of wooden posts were anchored into it. The grooves served as places for the feet to rest against when starting. Numerous examples are preserved such as in Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, Ephesus. Artistic representations in sculpture, relief art and vase-painting. In addition, balbis is also a term to describe the line to…

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[German version] I. Ancient Orient and Egypt Ancient Near East and Egypt In Near Eastern archaeology, orthostats are standing stone slabs, which in the Anatolian region originally protected the base of walls from backsplash. From the 9th cent. onwards, esp…

(στάδιον; stádion). [German version] [1] Unit of length (Doric σπάδιον/ spádion). Greek unit of length equal to 6 pléthra ( pléthron ; cf. Hdt. 2,149,3) or 600 pous (foot). Depending on the underlying standard of the foot ( pous), this corresponds to a length of c. 162-210 m; the Attic stadion is equal to 186 m. The stadion for the race at Olympia had a length of 192.3 m, at Delphi 177.3 m, at Epidaurus 181.3 m, and at Athens 184.3 m. 8  stadia correspond approximately to 1 Roman mile ( mille passus) of 1500 m. In Greek literature, larger distances are generally indicated in stádia; if other…