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COLUMNA.
liquids. Thus we find it employed in the making of olive-oil to receive the juice of the berry when pressed out by the prelum. Such cola were made of hair, broom or rushes (Virg. Geory. ii. 242 ; Colum. It. E. xii. 19). Those that were used as articles of luxury for straining wine were frequently made of some metal, such as bronze or silver (Athen. p. 470, d.) Various specimens of cola have been found at Pompeii. The preceding woodcut shows the plan and profile of one which is of silver (Mus. Borb. vol. viii. 14. fig. 4, 5).
The Romans filled the strainer with ice or snow (cola nivaria) in order to cool and dilute the wine at the same time that it was cleared. [N ix.] [ J. Y.]
COLUMBARIUM, literally a dove-cote or pigeon-house, is used to express a variety of objects, all of which however derive their name from their resemblance to a dove-cote.
1. A sepulchral chamber. [FuNUS.]
2. In a machine used to raise water for the purpose of irrigation, as described by Vitruvius (x. 9), the vents through which the water was conveyed into the receiving trough, were termed Columbaria. This will be understood by referring to the woodcut at p. 100. [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 (labrmn ligneum suppositum, Vitruv. I. c.).
3. The cavities which receive the extreme ends of the beams upon which a roof is supported (tig- norum cubilia), and which are represented by triglyphs in the Doric order, were termed Colum baria by the Roman architects ; that is, whilst they remained empty, and until filled up by the head of the beam. The corresponding Greek term was oirai (from ott^, a hole), and hence the space between two such cavities, that is, in the com plete building, between two triglyphs, was called ^eroTTT?, a metope. (Vitruv. iv. 2 ; Marquez, Del? Online Dorico, vii. 37.) . [A. R.]
COLUMEN, which is the same word as cul- men, is used in architecture, either generally for the roof of a building, or particularly for a beam in the highest part of the slope of a roof. By this description Vitruvius seems to mean either the col lar-beam^ or the king-post, but more probably the latter, as he derives columna from columen (Vi truv. iv. 2. § 1. Schn^ Festus). [P. S.] .
COLUMNA (ki&v) dim. kiovis, Ki6viov, klovi-ffKos’ ffTvos, dim. oruA/s, crrvXiokos), a pillar or column.
The use of the trunks of trees placed upright for supporting buildings unquestionably led to the adoption of similar supports wrought in stone. Among the agricultural Greeks of Asia Minor, whose modes of life appear to have suffered little change for more than two thousand years, Sir C. Fellowes observed an exact conformity of style and arrangement between the wooden huts now occupied by the peasantry, of one of which he has
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COLUMNA.
given a sketch (Journal, p. 234 ; see woodcut), and the splendid tombs and temples, which were hewn out of the rock, and constructed at the expense of the most wealthy of the ancient inhabitants. We have also direct testimonies to prove that the ancients made use of wooden columns in their edifices. Pausanias (vi. 24. § 7) describes a very ancient monument in the market-place at Elis, consisting of a roof supported by pillars of
oak. A temple of Juno at Metapontum. was supported by pillars made from the trunks of vines. (Plin. H. N. xxiv. 1.) In the Egyptian architecture, many of the greatest stone columns are mani-* fest imitations of the trunk of the palm. (Herod, ii. J69.)
As the tree required to be based upon a flat square stone, and to have a stone or tile of similar form fixed on its summit to preserve it from decay, so the column was made with a square base, and was covered with an abacus. [abacus.] Hence the principal parts of which every column consists are three, the base, the shaft, and the capital.
v 2
In the Doric, which is the oldest style of Greek architecture, we must consider all the columns in the same row as having one common base (podium}, whereas in the Ionic and Corinthian each column has a separate base, called o-ireipa. [SriRA.] The capitals of these two latter orders show, en comparison with the Doric, a greater degree of complexity and a much richer style of ornament; and the character of lightness and elegance is further obtained in them by their more slender shaft, its height being much greater in proportion to its thickness. Of all these circumstances some idea may be formed by the inspection of the three accompanying specimens of pillars selected from
