They were
composed of large flat slabs of stone ([Greek: keramos,[20]]) peculiarly
adapted for walking, one or two of which, when taken up, left an opening
of easy access into the house, as in Luke v. 19, and were perpetually
used in Greece as missile weapons, in the event of a hostile attack or
sedition in the city, by parties of old men, women, and children, who
used, as a matter of course, to retire to the roof as a place of
convenient defense. By such attacks from the roof with the [Greek:
keramos] the Thebans were thrown into confusion in Plataea (_Thucydides_
ii. 4.). So, also, we find the roof immediately resorted to in the case
of the starving of Pausanias in the Temple of Minerva of the Brazen
House, and in that of the massacre of the aristocratic party at Corcyra
(_Thucydides_ iv. 48):--[Greek: Anabantes de epi to tegos tou oikematos,
kai dielontes ten orophen, eballon to keramo].
[Footnote 20: In the large buildings, that is: [Greek: keramos] also
signifies earthen tiling, and sometimes earthenware in general, as in
_Herodotus_ iii. 6 [where it is used of earthen jars of wine.] It
appears that such tiling was frequently used in smaller edifices. The
Greeks may have derived their flat roofs from Egypt. Herodotus mentions
of the Labyrinth of the Twelve Kings, that [Greek: horophe de panton
touton lithine], but not as if the circumstance were in the least
extraordinary [_Herodotus_ ii.
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