| architectural painting | A type of wall painting, which created the optical illusion of either a wall opening or the effect of looking through a window; popular in imperial Rome.
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| aulos | In music, a reed woodwind instrument similar to the oboe, usually played in pairs by one player as the double aulos; used in Greek music.
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| barrel vault | A ceiling or vault made of sets of arches placed side by side and joined together.
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| divining | Predicting the future by "reading," or interpreting, the entrails of an animal or the behavior of birds; practiced by ancient Roman priests and religious leaders.
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| forum | In Rome and many Roman towns, the public place, located in the center of the town, where people gathered to socialize, transact business, and administer the government.
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| groined vault, or cross vault | A ceiling or vault created when two barrel vaults, set at right angles, intersect.
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| keystone | The central stone at the top of an arch that locks the other stones in place.
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| mosaic | An art form or decoration, usually on a wall or a floor, created by inlaying small pieces of glass, shell, or stone in cement or plaster to create pictures or patterns.
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| mural | A wall painting, usually quite large, used to decorate a private or public structure.
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| natural law | In Stoicism and later in other philosophies, a body of laws or principles that are believed to be derived from nature and binding on human society and that constitute a higher form of justice than civil or judicial law.
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| Neo-Platonism | A philosophy based on Plato's ideas that was developed during the Roman period in an attempt to reconcile the dichotomy between Plato's concept of an eternal World of Ideas and the ever-changing physical world; in the fifteenth-century Renaissance, it served as a philosophical guide for Italian humanists who sought to reconcile late medieval Christian beliefs with Classical thinking.
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| oculus | [AHK-yuh-lus] The circular opening at the top of a dome; derived from the Latin word for "eye."
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| pantomime | In Roman times, enormous dramatic productions featuring instrumental music and dances, favored by the masses; later, a type of dramatic or dancing performance in which the story is told with expressive or even exaggerated bodily and facial movements.
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| satire | From the Latin, "medley"-a cooking term; a literary genre that originated in ancient Rome and that was characterized by two basic forms: (a) tolerant and amused observation of the human scene, modeled on Horace's style, and (b) bitter and sarcastic denunciation of all behavior and thought outside a civilized norm, modeled on Juvenal's style. In modern times, a literary work that holds up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn.
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| syncretism | [SIN-kruh-tiz-uhm] The combining of different forms of religious beliefs or practices.
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| vault | A ceiling or roof made from a series of arches placed next to one another.
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| voussoir | [voo-SWAR] A carved, wedge-shaped stone or block in an arch.
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