in Architecture, a round pillar made to support and adorn a building, and composed of a base, a shaft, and a capital. See Architecture.

Columns, denominated from their use.—Astronomical column is a kind of observatory, in the form of a very high tower built hollow, with a spiral ascent to an armillary sphere placed on the top, for observing the motions of the heavenly bodies.

Chronological Column, that which bears some historical inscription digested according to the order of time; as by lustres, olympiads, fasti, epochs, annals, and the like. At Athens there were columns of this kind, on which was inscribed the whole history of Greece, digested into olympiads.

Funeral Column, that which bears an urn in which are supposed to be inclosed the ashes of some deceased hero, whose shaft is sometimes overspread with tears and flames, the symbols of grief and of immortality.

Gnomonic Column, a cylinder on which the hour of the day is represented by the shadow of a style.

Historical Column is that whose shaft is adorned with a basso relievo, running in a spiral line its whole length, and containing the history of some great personage. Such are the Trajan and Antonine columns at Rome.

Hollow Column is that which has a spiral staircase in the inside, for the convenience of ascending to the top; as the Trajan column, the staircase of which consists of a hundred and eighty-five steps, and is illuminated by forty-three little windows, each of which is divided by tambours of white marble. The Monument or fire-column at London has also a staircase, but it does not reach to the top. These kinds of columns are also called columnae, coelidae, or cochleae.

Indicative Column is that which serves to show the tides, &c. along the sea coasts. Of this kind there is one of marble at Grand Cairo, on which the overflows of the Nile are expressed. By this they form a judgment of the succeeding seasons; when the water, for instance, ascends to twenty-three feet, it is a sign of great fertility in Egypt.

Instructive Column is that raised, according to Josephus (lib. i. cap. 3), by the sons of Adam, on which were engraven the principles of arts and sciences. Baudelot tells us, that the son of Peisistratus raised another of this kind, of stone, containing the rules and precepts of agriculture.

Itinerary Column is a column with several faces, placed in the cross ways in large roads, serving to show the different routes by inscriptions thereon.

Locatory Column, at Rome, according to Festus, was a column erected in the herb market, which had a cavity in its pedestal, in which young children abandoned by their parents out of poverty or inhumanity were exposed to be brought up at the public expense.

Legal Column. Among the Lacedemonians there were columns raised in public places, on which were engraven the fundamental laws of the state.

Limitrophous or Boundary Column, that which shows the limits of a kingdom or country conquered. Such was that which, Pliny says, Alexander the Great erected at the extremity of the Indics.

Manubriary Column, from the Latin manubria, spoils of the enemy; a column adorned with trophies built in imitation of trees, on which the spoils of enemies were anciently hung.

Memorial Column, that raised on occasion of any remarkable event, as the Monument of London, built to perpetuate the memory of the burning of that city in 1666. It is of the Doric order, fluted, hollow, with a winding staircase, and terminated at the top with waving flames. There is also another of the kind, in form of an obelisk, on the banks of the Rhine, in the Palatinate, in memory of the famous passage of that river by the great Gustavus Adolphus and his army.

Menian Column, any column which supports a balcony or meniana. The origin of this kind of column Suetonius and Ascanius refer to one Menias, who having sold his house to Cato and Claccus, consuls, to be converted into a public edifice, reserved to himself the right of raising a column on the outside, to bear a balcony, whence he might see the shows.

Military Column, among the Romans, a column on which was engraven a list of the forces in the Roman army, ranged by legions in their proper order, with the design of preserving the memory of the number of soldiers, and of the order observed in any military expedition. They had another kind of military column, which they called columna bellica, standing before the temple of Janus, at the foot of which the consul declared war by throwing a javelin towards the enemy's country.

Milliary Column was a column of marble raised by order of Augustus in the middle of the Roman forum, and whence, as a centre, the distances of the several cities and stations of the empire were reckoned, by other milliary columns disposed at equal distances on all the great roads. This column was of white marble, the same with that which is now seen on the balustrade of an edifice in the capitol at Rome. Its proportion is massive, being a short cylinder, the symbol of the globe of the earth. It was called milliarium aureum, as having been gilt, at least the ball, by order of Augustus. It was restored by the emperors Vespasian and Hadrian, as appears by the inscriptions.

Sepulchral Column was anciently a column erected on a tomb or sepulchre, with an inscription on its base. Those over the tombs of persons of distinction were very large; those for the common people, small. The latter are called stelle and cippi. Statuary Column, that which supports a statue. Such was that erected by Pope Paul V. on a pedestal before the church of Santa Maria at Rome, to support a statue of the Virgin, which is of gilt brass. This column was dug up in the temple of Peace; its shaft is a single block of white marble, forty-nine feet six inches in height, and five feet eight inches in diameter, of the Corinthian order.

The term statuary column may likewise be applied to Caryatides, Persians, Termiini, and other human figures which perform the office of columns, and which Vitruvius calls telamones and atlantes.

Triumphal Column, a column erected among the ancients in honour of a hero, the joints of the stones, or courses of which, were covered with as many crowns as he had performed military expeditions. Each crown had its particular name, as valerius, which was fitted with spikes, in memory of having forced a palisade; muralis, adorned with little turrets, or battlements, for having mounted an assault; navalis, of prows and beaks of vessels, for having vanquished at sea; obdationis, or grammatinis, of grass, for having raised a siege; oceanis, of myrtle, which expressed an ovation, or little triumph; and triumphalis, of laurel, for a grand triumph.