e be any room for the wanton Muse of Comedy,
you may place these seven little books I send you even
in your lowest pigeon-hole.

_Forulus_ or _foruli_ occurs in the following passages. Suetonius, after
describing the building of the temple of the Palatine Apollo by Augustus,
adds, "he placed the Sibylline books in two gilt receptacles (_forulis_)
under the base of the statue of Palatine Apollo"[73]; and Juvenal,
enumerating the gifts that a rich man is sure to receive if burnt out of
house and home, says,

Hic libros dabit, et _forulos_, mediamque Minervam[74].

The word is of uncertain derivation, but _forus_, of which it is clearly
the diminutive, is used by Virgil for the cells of bees:

Complebuntque _foros_ et floribus horrea texent[75].

The above-quoted passage of Juvenal may therefore be rendered: "Another
will give books, and cells to put them in, and a statue of Minerva for the
middle of the room."

The word _loculamentum_ is explained in a passage of Columella, in which
he gives directions for the making of dovecotes:

Let small stakes be placed close together, with planks
laid across them to carry cells (_loculamenta_) for the
birds to build their nests in, or sets of pigeon-holes
made of earthenware[76].

In a second passage he uses the same word for a beehive[77]; Vegetius, a
writer on veterinary surgery, uses it for the socket of a horse's
tooth[78]; and Vitruvius, in a more general way, for a case to contain a
small piece of machinery[79]. Generally, the word may be taken to signify
a long narrow box, open at one end, and, like _nidus_ and _forulus_, may
be translated "pigeon-hole." Seneca, again, applies the word to books in
the passage I have already translated, and in a singularly instructive
manner. "You will find," he says, "in the libraries of the most arrant
idlers all that orators or historians have written--bookcases
(_loculamenta_) built up as high as the ceiling[80]."

_Pegmata_, for the word generally occurs in the plural, are, as the name
implies, things fixed together, usually planks of wood framed into a
platform, and used in theatres to carry pieces of scenery or performers up
and down. As applied to books "shelves" are probably meant: an
interpretation borne out by the _Digest_, in which it is stated that
"window-frames and _pegmata_ are included in the purchase of a house[81]."
They were therefore what we should call "fixtures."

A _pluteus_ was a