ARMA´RIUM
ARMA´RIUM (
locus,
ubi
quarumcunque artium instrumenta ponuntur, Isidor. 15.5), a
cupboard, set upright in the wall of a room, for food, clothes, books,
money, and household utensils in general. Tradesmen appear to have kept
their stock in armaria; Jahn gives a representation of one in a cutler's
shop, and there is another, from a shoemaker's shop, figured in the
Pitture d'Ercolano, i. p. 187. The armarium was generally
placed in the atrium of the house. (
Dig. 33, tit.
10, s. 3; Cato,
Cat. Agr. 11,
3; Plaut.
Capt. 4.4, 10,
Ep. 2.3, 3,
Men. 3.3, 8;
Cic.
Cluent. 64, 169,
Cael. 21,
52; Petron.
Sat. 29;
Plin. Nat. 29.101; Hieron.
Ep. 22.) The same name was given to a cupboard for holding
books (
Plin. Ep. 2.17,
8), and to the divisions of a library. (Vitruv.
vii.
Praef. § 10; Vopisc.
Tac. 8;
Dig. 32, tit. 1, s. 52, § §
3, 7.) We find
armarium distegum mentioned as a kind
of sepulchre in an inscription (Orelli,
Inscript. No. 4549).
[
W.S]
