Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Fastigium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

FASTI'GIUM. Strictly the top or crowning part of a pediment, formed by the two converging sides of the roof; whence it came to be used, in a more general sense, for the entire pediment or fronton of a religious edifice, including the whole triangular figure (Fastigium/1.1), consisting of the cornice of the entablature which forms its base, the two converging cornices at the sides, and the tympanum or flat surface, A, within them. Vitruv. iii. 5. 12. and 13. Cic. Orat. iii. 46. Liv. xl. 2.

2. When applied to private houses, it designates a roof rising to a point at the top, in contradistinction to a flat one (Cic. Q. Fr. iii. 1. 4.); or implies that the front of the house was covered by a portico and pediment like the pronaos of a temple; an honour not allowed to individuals, but decreed by the Romans to their Imperial rulers, as a token of divinity. (Cic. Phil. ii. 43. Florus, iv. 2.)

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