Dealbatores
Dealbatores workmen mentioned in the Codex of Justinian (10.64, 1; cf. C. I. L. 4.222), appear to have been simply whitewashers, and not, as some have supposed, workmen employed to cover walls with a coating of white cement or stucco. Dealbare is covering the walls with lime-wash (calce ex aqua liquida dealbentur, Vitr. 7.4, 3). Cicero speaks of columnae dealbatae (Verr. 1.55, 145), and Palladius (1.24, 1) of dealbati parietes. See also Cic. Fam. 7.29; Suet. Galb. 9. (Blümner, Technol. u. Terminol. ii. p. 147; iii. p. 180.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.