Noctes Atticae

The names of certain weapons, darts and swords, and also of boats and ships, which are found in the books of the early writers.

ONCE upon a time, when I was riding in a carriage, to keep my mind from being dull and unoccupied and a prey to worthless trifles, it chanced to occur to me to try to recall the names of weapons, darts and swords which are found in the early histories, and also the various kinds of boats and their names. Those, then, of the former that came to mind at the time are the following: spear, pike, fire-pike, half-pike, iron bolt, Gallic spear, lance, hunting-darts, javelins, long bolts, barbed-javelins, German spears, thonged-javelin, Gallic bolt, broadswords, poisoned arrows, [*](See McCartney, Figurative Use of Animal Names, p. 47.) Illyrian hunting-spears, cimeters, darts, swords, daggers, broadswords, double-edged swords, small-swords, poniards, cleavers.

Of the lingula, or

little tongue,

since it is less common, I think I ought to say that the ancients applied that term to an oblong small-sword, made in the form of a tongue; it is mentioned by Naevius in his tragedy Hesione. I quote the line: [*](Fr. 1, Ribbeck3, who gives the title as Aesiona. There is of course a word-play on lingula.)

1. Pray let me seem to please you with my tongue,
2. But with my little tongue (lingula).

The rumpia too is a kind of weapon of the Thracian people, and the word occurs in the fourteenth book of the Annals of Quintus Ennius. [*](Ann. 390, Vahlen2; cf. Livy xxxi. 39. 11.)

The names of ships which I recalled at the time are these: merchant-ships, cargo-carriers, skiffs, warships, cavalry-transports, cutters, fast cruisers, or, as the Greeks call them, ke/lhtes, barques, smacks, sailing-skiffs, light galleys, which the Greeks call i(stiokopoi or e)paktri/des, scouting-boats, galliots, tenders, flatboats, vetutiae moediae, yachts, pinnaces, long-galliots, scullers' boats, caupuls, [*](Many of these names, both of weapons and ships, are most uncertain; for some no exact equivalent can be found.) arks, fair-weather craft, pinks, lighters, spy-boats.

That Asinius Pollio showed ignorance in criticizing Sallust because he used transgressus (crossing) for transfretatio (crossing the sea) and trangressi (those who had crossed) for qui transfretaverant (those who had crossed the sea).

ASINIUS POLLIO, in a letter which he addressed to Plancus, and certain others who were unfriendly to Gaius Sallustius, thought that Sallust deserved censure because in the first book of his Histories he called the crossing of the sea and a passage made in ships transgresses, using transgressi of those who had crossed the sea, for which the usual term is transfretare. I give Sallust's own words: [*](Hist. i. 104, Maur.)

Accordingly Sertorius, having left a small garrison in Mauretania and taking advantage of a dark night and a favourable tide, tried either by secrecy or speed to avoid a battle while crossing (in transgressu).

Then later he wrote: [*](ib. i. 105.)

When they had crossed (transgressos), a mountain which had been seized in advance by the Lusitanians gave them all shelter.

This, they say, is an improper and careless usage, supported by no adequate authority.

For transgressus,

says Pollio,

comes from transgredi, 'to step

v2.p.289

across,' and this word itself refers to walking and stepping with the feet.

Therefore Pollio thought that the verb transgredi did not apply to those who fly or creep or sail, but only to those who walk and measure the way with their feet. Hence they say that in no good writer can transgressus be found applied to ships, or as the equivalent of transfretatio.

But, since cursus, or

running,

is often correctly used of ships, I ask why it is that ships may not be said to make a transgressus, especially since the small extent of the narrow strait which flows between Spain and the Afric land is most elegantly described by the word transgressio, as being a distance of only a few steps. But as to those who ask for authority and assert that ingredi or transgredi has not been used of sailing, I should like them to tell me how much difference they think there is between ingredi, or

march,

and ambulare, or

walk.

Yet Cato in his book On Farming says: [*](i. 3.)

A farm should be chosen in a situation where there is a large town near by and the sea, or a river where ships pass (ambulant).

Moreover Lucretius, by the use of this same expression, bears testimony that such figures are intentional and are regarded as ornaments of diction. For in his fourth book he speaks of a shout as

marching

(gradientem) through the windpipe and jaws, which is much bolder than the Sallustian expression about the ships. The lines of Lucretius are as follows: [*](iv. 526.)

1. The voice besides doth often scrape the throat;
2. A shout forth marching (gradiens) doth make the windpipe rough.

Accordingly, Sallust, in the same book, uses progressus, not only of those who sailed in ships, but also of floating skiffs. I have added his own words about the skiffs: [*](Hist. i. 98, Maur.)

Some of them, after going (progressae) but a little way, the load being excessive and unstable, when panic had thrown the passengers into disorder, began to sink.