CELLA
CELLA1. In its primary sense, cella means a store-room ( “Ubi quid conditum esse volebant, a celando cellam appellarunt,” Varro, L. L. 5.162), of which the following were the principal descriptions:--Cella penaria or penuaria, where all kinds of provisions (penus) were stored, especially those of which a stock was laid in for a long time (Varro, l.c.; Cic. de Sen. 16, 56; Verr. 2.2, 5; Suet. Aug. 6; Gel. 4.1; Dig. 32, 9, 3); cella promptuaria, promptuarium, or promum, the larder, where meat and other things required for immediate consumption were kept (Plaut. Amph. 1.1, 4; Cat. Agr. 11, 3; Tert. Resurr. 27, Ux. 2.4 (promum); Apul. Apol. p. 309); cella olearia, the magazine of an olive-yard in which the oil was stored, and which, according to the treatises on farming, ought to be lighted from the south, that the oil might not be chilled in winter, while the cella vinaria should have a northern aspect, to avoid excessive heat and great changes. of temperature (Cato, Cat. Agr. 13, where the equipment of the cella olearia is described; Varro, R. R. 1.13; Pallad. 1.20; Columella, 1.6, 12.50; Vitr. 1.4, 2, 6.6, 3). The cella vinaria described in the above-cited authors is the store-room of a vineyard, in which the new wine was kept in dolia or cupae, while older wine was put into amphorae and matured in the apotheca. The cella vinaria was partly under-ground (Becker-Göll, Gallus, iii. pp. 51, 422). The cella vinaria of a wine-merchant was discovered in 1789 under the walls of Rome. It was raised a little above the level of the ground, and divided into three compartments, the first ornamented with arabesques and a mosaic pavement, the second unpaved and containing a row of very large dolia two-thirds imbedded in sand, while the third was a narrow gallery, 6 ft. high and 18 ft. long, with various earthenware vessels, also partially sunk in the sand and ranged in double rows against each wall.
The slave to whom the charge of these stores was intrusted was called cellarius (Plaut. Capt. [p. 1.391]iv, 2, 115; Sen. Ep. 122; Orelli, Inscr. 5732, 6287), a rationibus cellae (Orelli, 2891), or promus (Col. 12.3.9; Hor. Sat. 2.2, 16), and sometimes promus condus and procurator peni (Plaut. Pseud. 2.2, 14), who had under him a subpromus (Plaut. Mil. Glor. 3, 2, 24). This answers to our butler and housekeeper.
Under the empire all the provisions required for a Roman camp were preserved in a cellarium (Cod. Theod. 1, 10, 3; Marquardt, Röm. Alterth. v. p. 225).
2. Any number of small rooms clustered together like the cells of a honeycomb (Verg. G. 4.164; Aen. 1.433), and the niches of a dovecote or poultry-house (Col. 8.8, 3) were also termed cellae. Hence the name was applied to the dormitories of slaves and menials (Cic. Phil. 2.27, 67; Hor. Sat. 1.8, 8; Becker-Göll, Gallus, i. p. 276), to the bedrooms of an inn (Petr. Sat. 29; 77, 4), and to the vaults of a brothel (Petron. 8, 4; Juv. 6.128). The price of each female was inscribed: hence cella inscripta means a brothel (Mart. 11.45, 1). Cella was also used of a poor man's garret (Mart. 7.20, 21; 8.14, 5). Hence the phrase pauperum cellae denotes the small apartments of affected simplicity to which the rich Roman of the empire sometimes retired to take refuge from the ennui of luxury (Sen. Ep. 18, 7; 100, 6; Cons. ad Helv. 12: cf. Mart. 3.48; Becker-Göll, Gallus, i. p. 115). Cell ostiarii (Vitr. 6.10 ; Petron. 29), or janitoris (Suet. Vitell. 16), is the porter's lodge.
3. In the baths the cella caldaria, tepidaria, and frigidaria, were those which contained respectively the warm, tepid, and cold bath. [BALNEAE]
4. The interior of a temple--that is, the part included within the outside shell, σηκός (see the lower woodcut in ANTAE)--was also called cella (Vitr. 3.1; Cic. Phil. 3.12, 30). [TEMPLUM]