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  • A mammothreptus is a hefty volume, a huge tome

    Mammothretus is a word that designates bulky book, fat, heavy and of little value. The origin of this word is very curious. It comes from the Greek via Latin.

    The Spanish Royal Academy defines  “mamotreto” (latin mammotrectus/mammothreptus)  as "hulk, very bulky book or file, especially irregular and deformed".

    Sebastian de Covarrubias, in his Treasury of the Castilian language (1611) defines it as "Big book in volume about  frivolous materials and of little fruit." Equivalent also therefore a “huge tome”.

    It is considered that derives from the late Latin "mammotrectus" and this from "mammothreptus" which comes from the late Greek μαμμόθρεπτος.

    The Greek-latin  word literally means "raised at the teat", "suckling longer due", "sucker", without the connotation it has in colloquial and vulgar, and also "raised by his grandmother" (if you drift of μἀμμη, mamme, mother, grandmother, and θρεπτὁς, threptos, fed, bred, of τρέφειν, trefein, feeding) and perhaps better "raised by a nurse".

    In any case concerns a fat kid, beefy, big guy, that is whether by excess breast and for a long time and as if he is raised with much attention, as  usually do grandmothers and nurses.

    Now, what has happened for that  this word, that appoints  a chubby child, pass  to refer to a tome, too fat, heavy and often of little value?

    It cites and documents the following explanation. In the fourteenth century, a certain Giovanni Marchesini, Franciscan friar, gave this name to his biblical interpretation manual "Mammotrectus super Bibliam ", a glossary about 1,300 terms to help young friars. There is a manuscript of 1375 and since then  it was printed many times in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

    The term would mean "food" or "nurse" of the Bible. The title could come from  a passage of St. Augustine in his "Enarrationes in Psalmos", In eumdem Psalmum 30, Sermo 2, 12 [v 15.]:

    If you look at the man and want to imitate him and depend on him, still want to feed on milk, and you become a mammothreptus, as is said of the children who breastfeed for a long time, so you should not …. The nurses will do this to mammothreptis , put something bitter on her nipples, so that children do depart upset with chest and feel to the table. So say, "I said, waited on you, Lord, Thou art my God"

    Si attendis adhuc hominem, et cum quaeris imitari, et ex illo pendere, adhuc lacte vis nutriri; et fies mammothreptus, quales dicuntur pueri qui diu sugunt, quod non decet… Faciunt enim hoc nutrices mammothreptis, ut aliqua amara ponant in papillis suis, quibus offensi parvuli ab ubere resiliant, et ad mensam inhient. Ergo dicat; Ego autem in te speravi, Domine, dixi: Tu es Deus meus.

    What Giovanni Marchesini  will  mean is that just as children need mother's milk, the young monks need the elementary and primary food of his manual or dictionary. The dictionary is like a mother or wet nurse.

    He self  explains in the preface that so as in the same way that the teacher directs the steps of the nursery, so his work can be called "Mammotrectus":

    And because it creates custom the work of the teacher who directs the steps of the nursery, may be called Mamotreto

    “et quod morem gerit talis decursus pedagogi qui  gressus dirigit parvulorum,  Mammotrectus poterit appellari”.

    Although this "mammotrectus" was fatter than other manuals used by the students, yet the term didn’t  had the meaning of "big book" that then acquired in student jargon.

    But one "big book" does not have to be heavy or dull. No doubt thousands of Argentines and Spanish people remember with sympathy and affection the famous encyclopedia and educational television series "The Big Book of Petete ". Even the book of Marchesini ,  that gives rise to this word,  should be useful for many generations of monks, judging by the many impressions he had.
     

     

  • A bed of roses

    The historical reality and people´s fantasy have made Sybaris a city steeped in luxury and pleasure; Sybarite is the adjective that designates its inhabitants, but the term came to refer to exquisite people with refined tastes or to those who were delivered to the luxury and pleasure.

    Ancient people themselves and then some Renaissance put some reservation to the things that were told of the "Sybarite people", the inhabitants of Sybaris; we must put it as well.

    Perhaps to better understand what was said about them, we should interpret it as the "stories" or “tales” that nowadays we tell children or even adults. To this, it will certainly help us to relate one of the ancient Sybarite stories with one of the most famous contemporary tales.

    Seneca the Younger (4 BC – 65 AD) stated in his dialogue De Ira, II, 25.2 the tale, certainly known and repeated a thousand times in Antiquity, of a really delicate Sybarite man:

    Mindyriden aiunt fuisse ex Sybaritarum ciuitate qui, cum uidisset fodientem et altius rastrum adleuantem, lassum se fieri questus uetuit illum opus in conspectu suo facere; idem habere se peius questus est, quod foliis rosae duplicatis incubuisset.

    It is said that there was a certain Mindyrides, from the city of Sybaris, who once, when he saw a farmer digging and lifting a hoe, complained of feeling tired and forbade him to work in his sight; and he himself complained of feeling very bad because he had slept in a bed of roses and one of the petals had folded.

    Without doubt this is the source, or maybe the result, of the expression "a bed of roses".

    Also Claudius Aelianus (175? -235? AD) Latin professor of rhetoric who insisted on publishing his work in Greek (it was called μελίγλωττος / melíglôttos = honeyed tongue), and who wrote a Ποικίλη ἱστορία, Several Stories, Weird Stories, collects this cartoon or story about Sybarite people. He says in his Stories, in his Latin version Ninth Book, 24:

    Smindirides Sybarita adeo in luxuriam delitiemque prolapsus est; ut cum omnes Sybaritae delitiis vacarent, vitaque diffluerent, hic omnes longe post tergum relinqueret. Proinde quodam tempore in rosarum foliiss recumbens experegefactus dixit se postulas ex nimia lecti duritie inflactas habere.

    Smindyrides the Sybarite advanced to so high degree of luxury that, although the Sybarites themselves were very luxurious and made the pursuit of pleasure and delight of life their only occupation, yet he surpassed all of them. On a time being laid to sleep on a bed of roses, as soon as he awaked, he said that the hardness of his bed had raised huge blisters on him.

    No doubt the story or tale went on running in the Middle Ages and even later, in written texts or in oral tradition.

    This Sybarite story has an obvious reflection in the famous tale published by the well-known Danish author Hans Christian Andersen "The Princess and the Pea", in which an unknown girl confirms her royal ancestry and status as princess because lying on a bed of twenty mattresses she could not sleep due to the trouble that a pea that was under them caused her. So delicate the little princess was!

    Andersen said that he had heard the story as a child and then took the memory. Its structure and social intention is different from the story about Smindyrides the Sybarite, but the bottom line is the same and the relationship, known or forgotten in Europe, is evident.

    Among similar stories or tales it is quoted one of the Indian story collection of the eleventh century called Kathásaritságara (The Ocean of rivers of legends): a young man gets up from a bed of seven mattresses and feels hurtful because under the first or lower one there was a hair that bothered or disturbed his dream.

    Any relation has also got an Italian tale in which a jasmine petal wounded in its fall the delicate skin of a sensitive Italian woman.

    So, somehow, it turns out still more curious that it is not quoted as precedent or similar the story about Smindyrides the Sybarite.

    However, we can quote a fragment from a lecture by a curious character, the Spanish Pablo of Ballester, Orthodox bishop in Mexico, who was shot to death in 1984 by a general who alleged mental disorders. Pablo of Ballester was a professor of Classical Greek at the Autonomous University of Mexico and headmaster of the Hellenic Cultural Institute and famous lecturer.

    Ballester says in his book Lectures I, Great Greek World, edited by Cruz. O Publications SA, Mexico, 1996, page 102:

    Near those latitudes was the wonderful city of Sybaris, the finest in the whole world but yes! in the whole world! of all ages! … Let me say (I promise that is the last time) what happened in Sybaris one night when a scream was heard, a woman let out a scream that woke everybody in Sybaris. They said:

    – What is it? What is going on?
    – Well, it's the princess who shouted
    – And why has the princess shouted?

    They all ran to the palace. The princess had cried because- like every Sybarite person- she slept on a bed of rose petals and one petal was bent when she went to sleep! So… she almost breaks the side … The Sybarite people, such a springy civilization, so refined, weren´t they? As they were able to resent a rose petal when it was folded…

    Obviously Ballester made a logical mix: the story about Smindyrides the Sybarite with the tale of The Princess and the Pea by Andersen.
     

  • The Latin is one but the forms of talk it were many

    Latin is a language that has maintained a remarkable unity as a written language for over 25 centuries. In many of these centuries, in reality along most of them, remained only as a written language.

    But from the spoken Latin, the official language of the vast Roman Empire,  came   many different languages, so-called Romance languages, more than twenty, some missing or in danger of collapsing, (Italian, Sicilian, Spanish or Castilian, portugues, Asturian, French, Occitan, Catalan, Romanian, Sardinian, Romansh, etc..). This diversity is explained as Latin dialect variations due to the action of local substrates,  of the actual differences in pronunciation depending of the territory and the insulation of the peoples or groups.

    But in Rome itself and Italy and in each of the territories is different the Latin of the scholars as one  of the illiterate and is different at one moment  or another in history. Of course, its pronunciation varied in time and space. All these issues are the subject of several linguistic disciplines that analyze the issue.

    The differences in the pronunciation of Latin are therefore as old as Latin itself and so we have numerous references from the very ancient times. I will cite two or three curiosities, one refers to Hispania, which illustrate the issue and suggest some questions.

    Emperor Septimius Severus (146-211) was born in Leptis Magna in North Africa, near Tripoli in Libya today. He spoke Latin with a special accent that identified him as an African and could not leave it along  his life, despite his Latin, the result of the study with tutors and education, was perfect. In the Historia Augusta, Spartianus, Vita Severii, 19, 7-10 we read:

    His clothing was of the plainest; indeed, even his tunic had scarcely any purple on it, while he covered his shoulders with a shaggy cloak. He was very sparing in his diet, was fond of his native beans, liked wine at times, and often went without meat.  In person he was large and handsome. His beard was long; his hair was grey and curly, his face was such as to inspire respect. His voice was clear, but retained an African accent even to his old age.  After his death he was much beloved, for then all envy of his power or fear of his cruelty had vanished.

    Hic tam exiguis vestibus usus est ut vix et tunica eius aliquid purpurae haberet, cum hirta chlamyde umeros velaret. cibi parcissimus, leguminis patrii avidus, vini aliquando cupidus, carnis frequenter ignarus.  ipse decorus, ingens, promissa barba, cano capite et crispo, vultu reverendus, canorus voce, sed Afrum quiddam usque ad senectutem sonans.  ac multum post mortem amatus vel invidia deposita vel crudelitatis metu.

    Shortly before it had commented Spartianus another anecdote that reveals the difficulties of generalization of Latin in North Africa. He  tells us in Historia Augusta, Vita Servii, 15.7:

    When once his sister of Leptis went to visit him, and she  could barely speak Latin, the emperor reddened of much embarrassment; granted to her son the “laticlava” toga and herself  many gift, and ordered she to return home with his son, who  died after a short life.

    cum soror sua Leptitana ad eum venisset vix Latine loquens, ac de illa multum imperator erubesceret, dato filio eius lato clavo atque ipsi multis muneribus redire mulierem in patriam praecepit, et quidem cum filio, qui brevi  vita defunctus est.

    The second anecdote directly affects Spanish, older Hispanics, as is documented by some peculiarity in the tone or slight accent of Latin of the Hispanics, especially in Baetica, present Andalusia.
    Cicero, in his speech Pro Archia poet, 26 (In defense of the poet Archias, 26) says:

    Especially so since Metellus was so keen to have his deeds written about that he even gave an audience to poets of Cordoban birth, though their style sounded coarse and outlandish.
    (Note: he refers to the facts rof Metellus  in the Sertorian War)

    qui (Metellus) praesertim usque eo de suis rebus scribi cuperet, ut etiam Cordubae natis poetis, pingue quiddam sonantibus atque peregrinum, tamen auris suas dederet..

    But above all, it is revealing an appointment referred to the Emperor Hadrian in the already quoted above Historia Augusta, Vita Hadriani, 3.1.

    Hadrian (76-138) was born on January 24, probably in Italica, near modern Seville, as Trajan,(he was his nephew),  from an old family settled here in Italy. Other sources say he was born in Rome. In any case, their relationship to Hispania and Italic is absolute.

    He held the quaestorship in the fourth consulship of Trajan and the first of Articuleius, and while holding this office he read a speech of the Emperor's to the senate and provoked a laugh by his somewhat provincial accent. He thereupon gave attention to the study of Latin until he attained the utmost proficiency and fluency

    Quaesturam gessit Traiano quater et Articuleio consulibus, in qua cum orationem imperatoris in senatu agrestius pronuntians risus esset, usque ad summam peritiam et facundiam Latinis operam dedit.

    It seems  that in the Baetica then, as in Andalusia today, was a remarkable peculiarity in the pronunciation. This important issue poses some questions: if these peculiarities are due as early as the first century, how spoken in Andalusia (Andalucía) in the fourth century? What about the VI and VII?, And considering that the Muslim invaders in 711 and later were  few in number, how it was spoken in Al-Andalus in the VIII, IX, X, XI centuries?

    Since then, the language of the Andalusian is not at all a "Castilian" degraded, as sometimes even claim illustrious ignorants.

  • The deep caves surprise and attract devout and believer men

    Some natural areas, whether by their hidden beauty, by their silence or by their depth that sink in the bowels of the earth, seem to emanate a strong attraction to humans. Of these places the caves have a special force. Not surprisingly the man dwelt in them during the long night of their childhood as a species.

    It is not uncommon to locate underground caves or chasms in which there has been any religious practice from ancient times.   There are caves in the Iberian Peninsula where archaeological votive remains are accumulated  from the Iberian period, ceramic vessels offerings, and medieval remains.

    Some of these caves even in modern times still lead  regular meetings, usually annual, of many devotees and pilgrims to celebrate the "virgin" or deity of the place.

    Many of them are sanctuaries where even today seeks the healing of a disease, elimination of pain or health generic search.   This has been happening since the remote antiquity and this is true throughout the Mediterranean, from Spain to Greece, from Italy to North Africa.

    Often with offerings in the form of cups or cup shaped, are votive offerings offered by the believer  with foot shapes, hands, arms, legs, heads,…. referring to the painful whose health is implored. They are hanging on the walls or on the roof of the temples.

    The term "votive  offering"  is originted from Latin "ex voto", made by a promise.

    In the caves are logically venerated  underground deities and to them are offered sacrifices, gifts, offerings.  

    Who can resist relate, for example, the veneration of the saint Saturius, in Soria (Spain), in a mythical cave beside the Douro River, the father Douro, with the worship of Saturn, Roman god of the deep terrestrial? Well still two thousand years later, there are hundreds, thousands of people who visit the cave of Saint Saturius , whose feast is celebrated every year on the first days of October.

  • Nec nominetur (let it not even be named!)

    There are issues, persons and situations for which it is better not to talk about them.

    Known is the prestige and mark of culture that   the proper use of a synthetic  Latin phrase  gives to a sentence, to a thought, to an affirmation. There are many such phrases that many centuries of Latin culture have passed  to us  in the West, till  the point that there are many dictionaries or indexes of Latin phrases to help us to find the appropriate to the particular context.

    Nec nominetur is one of those Latin phrases, although not the most common. Literally it means " let it not even be  named, let id not quoted " .  Its origin is in the letter  (epistula) that Paul addressed the people of Ephesus (Turkey), (Ephesians, 5,3-4)  where we read the  whole sentence:

    But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becometh saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which are not befitting: but rather giving of thanks.

    In Latin (the Jew Paul speaks and writes Greek language):

    “Fornicatio autem, et omnis immunditia, aut avaritia nec nominetur in vobis, sicut decet sanctos;  aut turpitudo, aut stultiloquium, aut scurrilitas, quæ ad rem non pertinet; sed magis gratiarum actio” 

    The meaning of the words of St. Paul refers, then, precisely and specifically the need for the early followers of Jesus to stay away from these vices and the use of improper or unsuitable phrases.

    However, once removed from that context, the "nec nominetur" takes on a more general value, or better, several values and meanings that silence imposed the material silence or the mental reservation or real disgust for make something that is rejected, or the desire not to know the truth.

    Its significant nuances can go, then, from the conspiratorial “let it not be cited” "to the recommended  "do not mention it", "do not name it to me" or the more imperative "better not to stir it." .

    In any case it is the silence that seems to deny or attempt to deny the reality of what everyone knows otherwise because the knowledge of the matter is the circumstantial prerequisite for "nomination".

    The phrase, of very specific meaning in the text of St. Paul, is enriched, then, in its nuances depending on the context in which it is used, but all agree on  the refusal of recognize (re-learn) what is already known.

  • The first evidence of education of a deaf person

    Well known is that infanticide and the exposure of children are admitted to practice in Greece and Rome either for religious reasons (disability as a punishment or consequence of the anger of the gods) or for reasons of political and cultural tradition.

    The Greek polis and ancient societies need strong men to frequent exercise of warfare. The community  excludes the invalid, the not-valid.

    On the other hand the Greek cities always tried to avoid the excessive  overgrowth of citizens for not sharing the land and maintain the relationship between wealth of the city and number of citizens. Plato in his Laws, V, 737e  considered as ideal the quantity of 5.040 citizens in  his ideal city.

    In Greek thought and culture is very important also the beauty and physical perfection.

    This explains why the legislators themselves as Lycurgus, Plato and Aristotle  dictate and theorize about the size of cities and punished in their laws or in their proposed constitutions  eugenic practices  or search of genetic health of future generations.

    In this context, children born with some physical malformation were simply eliminated.

    Thus Plutarch tells us in his Lycurgus, XVI , 1-2:

    Offspring was not reared at the will of the father, but was taken and carried by him to a place called Lesche, where the elders of the tribes officially examined the infant, and if it was well-built and sturdy, they ordered the father to rear it, and assigned it one of the nine thousand lots of land; but if it was ill-born and deformed, they sent it to the so-called Apothetae, a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taÿgetus, in the conviction that the life of that which nature had not well equipped at the very beginning for health and strength, was of no advantage either to itself or the state. (Plutarch, Lycurgus : Bernadotte Perrin, Ed.)

    “Τὸ δὲ γεννηθὲν οὐκ ἦν κύριος ὁ γεννήσας τρέφειν, ἀλλ´ ἔφερε λαβὼν εἰς τόπον τινὰ λέσχην καλούμενον, ἐν ᾧ καθήμενοι τῶν φυλετῶν οἱ πρεσβύτατοι καταμαθόντες τὸ παιδάριον, εἰ μὲν εὐπαγὲς εἴη καὶ ῥωμαλέον, τρέφειν ἐκέλευον, κλῆρον αὐτῷ τῶν ἐνακισχιλίων προσνείμαντες· (2) εἰ δ´ ἀγεννὲς καὶ ἄμορφον, ἀπέπεμπον εἰς τὰς λεγομένας Ἀποθέτας, παρὰ Ταΰγετον βαραθρώδη τόπον, ὡς οὔτε αὐτῷ ζῆν ἄμεινον ὂν οὔτε τῇ πόλει τὸ μὴ καλῶς εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς πρὸς εὐεξίαν καὶ ῥώμην πεφυκός.”

    Plato in his  Republic, V, 460b and c,   is inspired in Sparta’s way of life to recommend the infanticide.

    Aristotle in his Politics, Book VII, 1335b (16.15) says:

    “About the exposure and parenting, there should be a law prohibiting the nurture of any defective person”.

    Περὶ δὲ ἀποθέσεως καὶ [20] τροφῆς τῶν γιγνομένων ἔστω νόμος μηδὲν πεπηρωμένον τρέφειν,

    and recommends  abortion as the best measure.

    In Rome the law and custom  guarantee to the paterfamiias  the right of life and death over their children, who can recognize them or not at birth, so that the fate of those born with a physical defect is not better than in Greece. Children with congenital deformity  are thrown into the Tiber or exposed at the  “Lactaria” column.

    Aristotle in his History of Animals, Book IV,9,15-16 (537a) refers to the phenomenon of the voice:

    Viviparous quadrupeds utter vocal sounds of different kinds, but they have no power of converse. In fact, this  power, or language, is peculiar to man. For while the capability of talking implies the capability of uttering vocal sounds, the converse does not hold good  Men that are born deaf are in all cases also dumb; that is, they can make vocal sounds, but they cannot speak. (trans. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson)

    Hippocrates considered that a malformation  is the result of a disease, but this opinion  in no way altered the cruel custom of eliminating  the disabled persons.

    Lucretius in his  De Rerum Natura, L. V, 1052-1055 says:

    A task not easy is in any wise to teach and to persuade the deaf concerning what
    is needful for to do    .

    Nec ratione docere ulla suadereque surdis, quid sit opus facto, facilest:

    In view of these testimonies is easy to assume the social rejection that a handicap  occurred in the ancient world. It's no wonder that a text of Pliny the Elder was certainly striking already in antiquity itself. 

    Pliny tells about  the education of a deaf boy as a painter. It is the first case of education of a disabled boy about what  we have historical record and the first deaf person whose name we know:Quintus Pedius. He was the son of Roman senator and orator Quintus Pedius Publicola, His paternal grandfather was the consul Quintus Pedius; his paternal grandmother was Valeria, , relative, perhaps sister, also of the senator and orator Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus. His grandfather and Emperor Augustus were cousins on his mother. So this boy was from a good family.

    Messala  advised and Augustus authorized the education as a painter, but unfortunately he died young. This is what  Pliny says  in his  Natural History 35, 7, 21:

    I must not omit, too, to mention a celebrated consultation upon the subject of painting, which was held by some persons of the highest rank. Q. Pedius, who had been honoured with the consulship and a triumph, and who had been named by the Dictator Cæsar as co-heir with Augustus, had a grandson, who being dumb from his birth, the orator Messala, to whose family his grandmother belonged, recommended that he should be brought up as a painter, a proposal which was also approved of by the late Emperor Augustus. He died, however, in his youth, after having made great progress in the art. (John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.)

    “… et principum virorum non omittendum de pictura celebre consilium, cum Q. Pedius, nepos Q. Pedii consularis triumphalisque et a Caesare dictatore coheredis Augusto dati, natura mutus esset. in eo Messala orator, ex cuius familia pueri avia fuerat, picturam docendum censuit, idque etiam divus Augustus comprobavit; puer magni profectus in ea arte obiit”.

    Then it took many centuries to the social acceptance of the measures of reintegration of people with disabilities. In the history of education and deaf education has played an important role Spain, considered the cradle of deaf education through the work of the Benedictine  Pedro Ponce de León (1513? -1584) Born in Sahagún (León), which was based on the proposals of Girolamo Cardano (born in 1501) who thought that the hand signs could help the deaf to communicate. The language and numbering signs were known from antiquity, but  they were not applied to the communication of the deaf.
    Unfortunately there are still many places in the world where it is still very insufficient attention to these people and the reasons or injustices come to be the same as in Antiquity.
     

  • Claudia made her wool (Claudia lanam fecit)

    Certainly one of the first achievements of the men was making clothes for weather protection sometimes warm sometimes cold. In oldest archaeological deposits appear bone needles with a hole and slot on one end through which a fiber input, a strip of skin, a thread later. Making yarn of animal hair or wool or vegetable fiber was early and very important. It was a great human work.

    At least in the Greek and Roman world, which we try, it was a female occupation and responsibility in line with the social role of women.

    Of course, the social role of Greek or Roman woman (there are important differences between them) today is not acceptable in our society, although it is fair that has started to change a few years ago, but this change is not yet over, because western countries and many others have achieved legal equality, but there it is not a complete real equality in them.

    In any case, the facts of each society must be analyzed and evaluated in context and anachronistic judgments were incorrect (from gr. ἀνα  = upwards, against,  and χρόνος = time). Wow this warning to better understand and appreciate the following anonymous epitaph (from Greek ἐπὶ = on and τάφος = grave) of a matron  called  Claudia, in  half of the second century BC, which synthesizes the ideal Roman matron of the early days of the Roman Republic.

    Worldguest, stan, listen, let the stone speak.
    Is the small graved unbeatiful voice of a
    Woman once beatiful.
    The name her parents named her is Claudia.
    She loved her husband with a thankful love
    And bore him two sons: of these two, one
    She left on earth, one she lost to earth.
    With gente words, with perfect dignity
    She armored her haouse.She spun a lifethread.
    It is said. Go.
    (Janet Lembke: Old Latin poetry from its beginnings to 100 B.C.;  University of California Press, 1973)

              HOSPES, QUOD DICO PAVLLVM EST, ASTA AC PELLEGE.
              HEIC EST SEPVLCRVM HAV PVLCRUM PVLCRAI FEMINAE
              NOMEN PARENTES NOMINARVNT CLAVDIAM.
              SVOM MAREITVM CORDE DEILEXIT SOVO.
              GNATOS DVOS CREAVIT. HORVM. HORVM ALTERVM
              IN TERRA LINQVIT, ALIVM SVB TERRA LOCAT.
              SERMONE LEPIDO, TVM AVTEM INCESSV COMMODO.
              DOMVM SERVAVIT. LANAM FECIT. DIXI. ABEI.
                     ( Carmina Latina Epigraphica, -CLE- 52)

    Note: Read it also in Latin, although not fully understood; it is the only way to appreciate not only the pace but also the phonetic resources served by the author. I used only capital letters to get a little closer to the original text of the tombstone; the same reason explains the use of the V as well as our consonant and vowel U. It  should be read and pronounced always as "W".

    Well, in this epitaph are collected and topically praised  the main virtues virtues that should adorn Roman matrons: she  is beautiful, loving, good mother who raises children, with pleasant conversation and stylish. The last line is the epitome of this ideal matron: she kept  her home, which we interpret as a reference to his honesty, and she made  his own wool.

    The expression "Lanam fecit" and the idea in it hidden is a legacy  of the Greek world, in which the work of the wool is associated with feminine virtue from the Iliad and Odyssey. Recall the work of the beautiful and chaste Penelope, unraveling at night what she wove during the day, awaiting the return of her husband Odysseus and avoiding the many suitors who beset her and her palace.

    Moreover, work carding and weaving wool dresses is a topic of funerary epigraphy and of Latin literature in its intention to compare  the relaxation of the customs against the  ancient morality.

    The same objective intended narratives such as the death of Lucretia who was  dishonored by King Tacitus as Livy tells us in his  Ab urbe condita, I, 57, or the story of Regulus, a prisoner of the Carthaginians who dies bravely, collected by numerous authors.

    This epitaph reflects that existing topic   in society and helps strengthen it. But this does not mean that the really-century matrons make  their wool or draw up their dresses exclusively  or preferably. It is rather an expression of their hard work and  containment against overspending, vices prevalent in society when the conquests contribute at the same time to Rome enormous wealth and resources.

    In any case, we can see in this short epitaph the enormous capacity of synthesis and the expressive force of the Latin language. It is therefore lapidary  (from lat.lapis, stone ) and solemn  language, suitable for all kinds of inscriptions and not just funeral.
     

  • Nothing dries more quickly than a tear

    This Latin phrase, prior Greek, has had remarkable success judging by the frequency with which it is used or cited. His immediate sense seems to refer to how quickly we forget the pain or frustration, whether in body or in spirit, a fact which the evidence seems to deny in many situations.

    The phrase seems to have  been originated in Greece, but we cant say it's a popular statement or it’s created by a thinker or a poet. It is attributed to Apollonius of Rhodes, but at least there is another candidate Apollonius.

    The phrase is mentioned in the anonymous work, attributed to Cicero, "Rhetorica ad Herennium, 2.31 to 50: " commiserationem brevem esse oportet, nihil enim lacrima citius arescit " (should that  commiseration be brief, because nothing dries faster than a tear) and  also in the works of Cicero "Partitiones Oratoriae, 17, 57" and in" De inventione, 1.109 ", which is awarded to the" rhetorician Apollonius "without further specification.

    Also Quintilian in his Institutiones Oratoriae, 6.1.27 says “ numquam tamen debet esse longa miseratio, nec sine causa dictum est nihil facilius quam lacrimas inarescere”  (Commiseration  should never be long, as not without reason it is said that nothing is dry before a tear). And Quintus Curtius, 5,5,11 insists "ignorant quam celeriter lacrimae inarescant" (do not know how quickly the tears dry).

    The phrase perhaps became to the popular and general domain, but the quotes from the Latin rhetoricians make us suspect that its meaning was less general  and transcendent. Maybe its context is the teaching of public speaking, of the oratory,  and with this maxim the master intends to curb the excesses of passion and feeling that some disciples put in the epilogues of his speeches. Too much passion can make the listener or viewer to disconnect or unhook the speaker, because the full sentence of Cicero in fact  said: "Nothing dries faster than tears, especially when spilled at the misfortunes of others" (Lacrima nihil  citius arescit, praesertim in alienis malis).

    The appointment went through the Middle Ages, and is used, for example, by Peter Abelard in his "Ethics. Know thyself "and through the Modern Age: as a curiosity we will say that in the edition in the year 539 in Cologne  of " Ad Herennium", Gybertus Longolius  reconstructs the original Greek sentence as" oύδέν θάσσον ξηραίνεσθαι δακρύου "(Ouden zâsson xeraíneszai dakrúou).

    It comes to the Contemporary Age, in which, for example,  dozens of blogs using it with both senses.

    General De Gaulle, for example, seems to know the sentence, because he  paraphrases it: with regard to the independence of Algeria after the French occupation and the long hard war, told a general in a critical tone "shed much blood ...", to which that the great De Gaulle replied saying  "nothing dries faster than blood."

    Not true,  the tears dry faster, but it is curious that De Gaulle knew the words of Apollonius or Cicero. I do not think many generals or current professional politicians have to like reading Greek and Latin classics even if sporadic, but anything is possible and there is always honorable exceptions.
     

  • Sandals or soles for horses (hiposoleae)

    “Hiposolea” is a technical term used in archeology or ancient history to refer to the “sandals”, soles or protections that the ancient Greeks and Romans placed to the equine, horses or mules, in their hooves or paws

    The term “hiposolea” is formed from the Greek word ἱππὁς, meaning "horse" and the Latin word " solea" meaning  "sandal, sole”.

    "Solea" in turn is derived from "solum", “ soil” , and generally lower something. The  term “sole”is  derived also from  "solum”, part of the shoe that is in contact with the "floor." So says Varro in De re rustica, 1, 47

    "…then  the ground (foot) of man is the ruin of the grass and the foundation of a way"

    "Exitium herbae Solum et enim hominis semitae fundamentum".

    Several texts and some archaeological and artistic evidence revealing the existence of protections for the hooves or for the feet of the horses. They were made of metal, usually iron, and also of esparto, leather, wicker  or reed. They were subject with ribbons or cords to the legs, so that placement or removal should be easy, as is clear from the text of Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, 23.2  that tells us how a muleteer  stops on midway trip to  supply footwear to  the mules of the imperial yoke;  the horseshoe operation would require more time and sufficient technical means:

    Suspecting once, during a journey, that his mule-driver had alighted to shoe his mules, only in order to have an opportunity for allowing a person they met, who was engaged in a law-suit, to speak to him, he asked him, " how much he got for shoeing his mules?" and insisted on having a share of the profit. (Alexander Thomson, Ed.)

    Mulionem in itinere quodam suspicatus ad calciandas mulas desiluisse, ut adeunti litigatori spatium moramque praeberet, interrogavit quanti calciasset, et pactus est lucri partem.

    The feet of horses and mules should be protected from abrasive stone floors or if a disease of the hoof. Horse sandals may also favore  pulling force of quadrupeds. It is used for pack animals rather than military cavalry. In any case we must consider the importance that  caring for the horses hooves must have for ancient peoples and transcendence that was the adoption of the shoe for it.

    I quote two texts that speak of these "hiposoleas" and the extravagance of Emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea. Says Pliny, Naturalis Historia, XXXIII, 49, 140:

    …and it was in our own age that Poppæa, the wife of the Emperor Nero, ordered her favourite mules to be shod even with gold!

    … nostraque aetate Poppaea coniunx Neronis principis soleas delicatioribus iumentis suis ex auro quoque induere iussit.

    And Suetonius, Nero, 30, 3:

    It is said, that he never travelled with less than a thousand baggage-carts; the mules being all shod with silver, and the drivers dressed in scarlet jackets of the finest Canusian cloth, with a numerous train of footmen, and troops of Mazacans, with bracelets on their arms, and mounted upon horses in splendid trappings. (Alexander Thomson, Ed)

    Numquam minus mille carrucis fecisse iter traditur, soleis mularum argentéis, canusinatis mulionibus, armillata phalerataque Mazacum turba atque cursorum.

    But horses hiposoleae or sandals are not exactly  horseshoes, which are also a metal protection adapted to the hooves, but fastened with nails. For some time it was thought that the sandals were the antecedent of the horseshoes, but  which neither the classical sources and archaeological evidence give news  before  the ninth century BC.

    Now, it turns out that there are numerous findings of "horseshoes" in various Celtic and some Roman contexts.  Arises, then, the unresolved issue of whether there were horseshoes in Roman times; question still not fully resolved.

    Although some excavations, especially old, offer little scientific guarantees, it seems undeniable the appearance of horseshoes at Celtic sites in central Europe and the British Isles and the Celtiberia Hispania, especially in the provinces of Soria and Guadalajara.

    The Romans soon came in contact with these people. Did you meet horseshoes? Why they did not accept these to protect their animals?

    In any case it is not possible to accept the natural transition from "solea" sandal, to the horseshoe, but the coexistence in different cultural contexts. It would be right at the end of the Roman Empire when it is imposing horseshoe use, which requires a good technique and good workers, until finally prevail in the Middle Ages. No doubt new excavations and careful studies give us valuable information about it.
     

  • What does “leap-year” mean? Where does the term “twice sixth year” come from?

    Translator´s Note that may help English- speaking readers to understand this text better: leap-year in Latin and modern Latin languages is called “bi sextum” year, like “twice sixth” year. This, as you will check later, is essential to be taken into account before starting to read this article in order to be able to understand it properly.

    The knowledge of the Roman calendar is really difficult, what, at this point,  readers have surely already realized as you read previous articles. Its important religious function, its primitive lunar nature, its first duration of ten months and later twelve, the influence of neighboring people such as the Etruscans, forced the Romans to make several reforms in their calendar which remained curiously archaic elements.

    Particularly complex, as it has also been seen in another article, is the naming system they had for the days of the month. It should be remembered now that article that was already published and entitled Kalendae, Idus, Nonae: a very complex way to name the days of the month https://www.antiquitatem.com/en/ides-march-calendar-month-caesar-eve .

    Let us briefly remember that the month is divided into three parts and they set the moments or time markers that make this division: the kalends that call on day 1 of each month, the nones that call on day 5 of the months of January, February, April, June, August, September, November and December and on day 7 of the months of March, May, July and October, and the ides that point on the 13th of the months whose nones fall on day 5 and that point on the 15th of those whose nones fall on day 7. Precisely Caius Iulius Caesar, Julius Caesar, was killed on the Ides of March, I mean, on the 15th of March, in 44 BC. The other days were called counting the remaining to the next moment or milestone.

    We must also remember how in the calendar reformed by Julius Caesar, of solar character, the year has 12 months of different lengths, and a total of 365 days. In order to correct the gap or discrepancy with the tropical or solar year a day is added every four years.

    Well, that day is added in February, behind the 24th, precisely because at that time the festivities called "Terminalia" finished, with which they celebrated the end of year (remember that in the beginning the year began in March) .

    In the Roman naming system of the days of the month the 24th was "the sixth day before the Kalends of March”, in Latin, "ante diem VI (sextum) Kalendas Martias". The day added now every four years is called "ante diem bis VI sextum Kalendas Martias", which means the "twice sixth day before March 1st." From this name "bis sextum" comes the word "leap" year (in Latin languages “twice sixth” year). For example, in Spanish it is called “año” (year) “bisiesto” (two times sixth).

    This is interesting but definitely complicated. As it usually happens with many words, we go on using them with a specific meaning, although they have lost the original reference that gave them meaning and sense, reducing them to a mere label word.