Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

116 A.RA. ARA.
land; or by the owner of the lower land against the limited sense of all altar for burnt-offerings.
the owner of the higher land, in case the latter did In Latin ara and altare are often used without
any thing to his land by which the water flowed any distinction, but properly ara was lower than
from it into the lower land in a different way from altare: the latter was erected in honour of the
what it naturally would. In the absence of any superior gods, the former in honour of the inferior,
special custom or law to the contrary, the lower heroes and demigods. Thus we read in Virgil
land was subject -to receive the water which flowed (Ecl. v. 65): -
naturally from the upper land; and this rule of
"En quattuor aras:
law was thus expressed, —ager inferior szuper'io?'i
law was thus'expressed,- ager inferior superiori Ecce duas tibi, Daphni; duas, altaria, Phoebo."
seorvit. The fertilising materials carried down to
the lower land were considered as an ample com- On the other hand, sacrifices were offered to the
pensation for any damage which it might sustain infernal gods, not upon altars, but in cavities
from the water. Many difficult questions occurred (sclobes, scrobiculi, /30OpoL, XdKicKo) dug in the
in the application to practice of the general rules ground. (Festus, s. v. Altaria.)
of law as to aqua pluvia; and, among others, this As among the ancients almost every religious
question,-What things done by the owners of the act was accompanied by sacrifice, it was often
land were to be considered as preventing or alter- necessary to provide altars on the spur of the ocing the natural flow of the waters? The conclusion casion, and they were then constructed of earth,
of Ulpian is, that acts done to the land for the pur- sods, or stones, collected on the spot. When the
poses of cultivation were not to be considered as acts occasion was not sudden, they were built with
interfering with the natural flow of the waters. regular courses of masonry or brickwork, as is
Water which increased from the falling of rain, or clearly shown in several examples on the column
in consequence of rain changed its colour, was con- of Trajan at Rome. See the left-hand figure in
sidered within the definition of aqlua pluvia; for the woodcut annexed. The first deviation from
it was not necessary that the water inl question this absolute simplicity of form consisted in the
should be only rain water, it was sufficient if there addition of a base, and of a corresponding projecwas any rain water in it. Thus, when water tion at the top, the latter being intended to hold
naturally flowed from a pond or marsh, and a per- the fire and the objects offered in sacrifice. These
son did something to exclude such water from two parts are so common as to be almost uniform
coming on his land, if such marsh received any types of the form of an altar, and will be found in
increase from rain water, and so injured the land of all the figures inserted underneath.
a neighbour, the person would be compelled by
this action to remove the obstacle which he had
created to the free passage'of the water.
This action was allowed for the special pro- fI
tection of land (ager): if the water injured a town r
or a building, the case then belonged to flumina and
stillicidia. The action was only allowed to prevent i t — ldamage, and therefore a person could not have
this remedy against his neighbour, who did any L. -
thing to his own. land by which he stopped the
water which would otherwise flow to that person's
land and be profitable to it. The title in the
Digest contains many curious cases. (Dig. 39. Altars were either square or round. The latter
tit. 3;~ Cic. Pro Jllsuren. 10, Topic. 9; Bo'thius, form, which was the less common of the two, is
Comment. in Cic. Top. iv. 9.) [G. L.] exemplified in the following figures.
AQUA'RII, were slaves who carried water for
bathing, &c. into the female apartments: they were
~also called aquarioli, and were held in great contempt. (Juv. vi. 332; Festus, s. v. and Miiller's
Note; Hieron. Ep. 27; Jul. Paul. iii. 7.) Becker If GENSLI V
imagines that the name was also applied to slaves X PViVSuLoiE
who had the care of the fountains and ponds in \okrs
gardens. (Gallus, vol. i. p. 288.) The aquaii 1were also public officers who attended to the aqueducts under the aediles, and afterwards under the
curatores cquarum.. (Cic. ad Fam. viii. 6; Zeno,
Cod. Just. xi. tit. 42; AQUAEDUCTUS.) [P. S.] --
A'QUILA. [SIGNA MILITAAaIi.]
-ARA (3wo'&s, o-Xadpa, raVT 9pLOv), an altar.
Altars were in antiquity so indispensable a part of In later times altars were ornamented with festhe worship of the gods, that it seemed impossible toons and garlands of flowers; and the altar repreto conceive of the worship of the gods without sented in the next cut shows the manner in which
altars. Thus we have the amusing syllogism in these festoons were suspended. They were also
Lucian, El y&p crl0 /goUioL, dell miai aEio''XlA adorned with sculpture; and some were covered
Is!V Elrl /ooqoi, EIseb tip? ca aeoi (Jupiter Trag. with the works of the most celebrated artists of
c. 51). In reference- to the terms, icP o's properly antiquity. The first cut above exhibits a specimen
signifies any elevation, and hence we find in of the elaborate style, the outline of an Etruscan
IHoiner lEpbs 8coAs, but it afterwards came to be altar, in contrast with the unadorned altar. If an
applied to an elevation used for the worship of the altar was erected before a statue of a god, it was
gods, and hence an altar.'EoXapa rwas used in always to be lower than the statue before which it