Columbarium
（
περιστερεών, περιστεροτροφεῖον). A dove-cote or
pigeon-house.
The word is also used to denote the following objects, which derive their name from their
resemblance to a dove-cote:
1.
A sepulchral chamber. The word was metaphorically applied to a subterranean vault provided
with rows of small niches, lying one above the other, and intended for the reception of the
urns containing the ashes of the dead. These large burial-places were built by rich people
whose freedmen were too numerous to be interred in the family burial-place. They were also
erected by the Caesars for their slaves and freedmen. Several of these still
exist—for instance, that of Livia, the consort of Augustus, who built one for her
freedmen on the Appian Way. Common burialplaces, in which a niche could be bespoken
before
 |
|
Columbarium. (Villa Rufini.)
|
hand, were sometimes constructed by private individuals on speculation for people
who were too poor to have a grave of their own. Columbaria were usually built by religious or
mercantile societies, or by burial clubs for their own members. In such cases the members
contributed a single capital payment and yearly subscriptions, which gave them the right to a
decent burial and a niche in the vault. The names of the dead were inscribed on marble
tablets over each niche. See Lanciani,
Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent
Discoveries, pp. 129-133
(Boston, 1888).
Each of the niches contained a pair of urns, with the names of the persons whose
ashes they contained inscribed over them. The use of the word, and mode of occupation, is
testified in the following inscription:
L. Abucius
Hermes in hoc ordine ab imo ad summum columbaria ix. ollae xviii. sibi posterisque
suis.
2.
A machine used to raise water for the purpose of irrigation. As described by Vitruvius, the
vents through which the water was conveyed into the receiving trough were termed columbaria.
(See
Antlia.) The difference between that
representation and the machine now under consideration consisted in the following points: The
wheel of the latter is a solid one (
tympanum) instead of radiated (
rota), and was worked as a treadmill by men who stood upon platforms
projecting from the flat sides instead of being turned by a stream. Between the intervals of
each platform a series of grooves or channels (
columbaria) were formed
in the sides of the tympanum, through which the water taken up by a number of scoops placed
on the outer margin of the wheel, like the jars in the cut referred to, was conducted into a
wooden trough below.
3.
The cavities into which the extreme ends of the beams upon which a roof is supported (
tignorum cubilia), and which are represented by triglyphs in the Doric
order, were termed columbaria by the Roman architects; that is, while they remained empty,
and until filled up by the head of the beam.
4.
The apertures in the sides of a vessel, through which the oars passed ( Fest. p. 169,
Müll.).
