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 p921  Piscina

Article by Philip Smith, B.A., of the University of London
on p921 of

William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.:
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

PISCI′NA, properly a fish-pond, either of salt-water or of fresh (see the passages in Forcellini and Freund) denotes also any kind of reservoir, especially those connected with the aqueducts and the baths (Aquaeductus, p114A; Balneae, p189B, 191a.)

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Thayer's Note:

The meanings of the word piscina have continued to fan out over the centuries. For example, from using the word to signify a pool in the baths, many modern Romance languages took the further small step to having it or its derivatives mean a swimming pool. More to the point here, two Christian uses of the Latin term should be noted:

• Piscina was used in the earliest Christian times to mean the pool in which baptism was received by immersion, as in the famous paleochristian baptistry in Nish (Serbia).

  By a further extension, the term piscina is used by modern archaeologists for ponds and basins, presumably used for ritual purposes, found in and near non-Christian sanctuaries, such as the Etruscan piscina in Veii (6c B.C.).

• In the Catholic and Anglican tradition, a piscina is a special water system that drains directly to the ground rather than passing into a common sewer. Such, for example, are the sink for the first rinsing of vessels and cloths used at Holy Communion on which there remain traces of consecrated wine, and the pipe system that purges consecrated water from a baptismal font.

Both these meanings are covered in a brief article in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

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