Delphi Complete Works of Varro

by Marcus Terentius Varro

  48. To the same region is assigned the Subura, which is beneath the earth-wall of the Carinae; in it is the sixth chapel of the Argei. Junius writes that Subura is so named because it was at the foot of the old city (sub urbe); proof of which may be in the fact that it is under that place which is called the earth-wall. But I rather think that from the Succusan district it was called Succusa; for even now when abbreviated it is written SVC, with C and not B as third lus, Parilia for Palilia; possibly association with Carinae furthered the change. Etymology entirely uncertain. The neuters quod and in eo, referring to Subura, mutually support each other. letter. The Succusan district is so named because it succurrit ‘runs up to’ the Carinae.

  49. To the second region belongs the Esquiline. Some say that this was named from the king’s excubiae ‘watch-posts,’ others that it was from the fact that it was planted with aesculi ‘oaks’ by King Tullius. With this second origin the near-by places agree better, because in that locality there is the so-called Beech Grove, and the chapel of the Oak-Grove Lares, and the Grove of Mentis and of Juno Lucina — whose territories are narrow. And it is not astonishing; for now this long while, far and wide, Greed has been the one and only mistress.

  50. The Esquiline includes two hills, inasmuch as the Oppian part and the Cespian part of the hill are called by their own old names even now, in the sacrifices. In the Sacrifices of the Argei there is the following record:

  Oppian Hill: first shrine, on the Esquiline, beyond the Beech Grove; it is on the left side of the street along the wall.

  Oppian Hill: third shrine, this side of the Esquiline Grove; it is in a booth on the right-hand side of the street.

  Oppian Hill: fourth shrine, this side of the Esquiline Grove; it is on the right-hand side of the street among the potteries. Cespian Hill: fifth shrine, this side of the Poetelian Grove; it is on the Esquiline.

  Cespian Hill: sixth shrine, at the temple of Juno Lucina, where the sacristan customarily dwells.

  51. To the third region belong five hills, named from sanctuaries of gods; among these hills are two that are well-known. The Viminal Hill got its name from Jupiter Viminius ‘of the Osiers,’ because there was his altar; but there are some who assign its name to the fact that there were vimineta ‘willow-copses’ there. The Quirinal Hill was so named because there was the sanctuary of Quirinus; others say that it is derived from the Quirites, who came with Tatius from Cures to the vicinity of Rome, because there they established their camp.

  52. This name has caused the names of the adjacent localities to be forgotten. For that there were other hills with their own names, is clear from the Sacrifices of the Argei, in which there is a record to this effect:

  Quirinal Hill: third shrine, this side of the temple of Quirinus.

  Salutary Hill: fourth shrine, opposite the temple of Apollo, this side of the temple of Salus. Mucial Hill: fifth shrine, at the temple of the God of Faith, in the chapel where the sacristan customarily dwells.

  Latiary Hill: sixth shrine, at the top of Insteian Row, at the augurs’ place of observation; it is the only building.

  The altars of these gods, from which they have their surnames, are in the various parts of this region.

  53. To the fourth region belongs the Palatine, so called because the Pallantes came there with Evander, and they were called also Palatines; others think that it was because Palatines, aboriginal inhabitants of a Reatine district called Palatium, settled there; but others thought that it was from Palanto, wife of Latinus. This same place certain authorities think was named from the pecus ‘flocks’; therefore Naevius calls it the Balatium ‘Bleat-ine.’

  54. To this they joined the Cermalus and the Veliae, because in the account of this region it is thus recorded:

  Germalian: fifth shrine, at the temple of Romulus, and Velian: sixth shrine, on the Velia, at the temple of the deified Penates. Germalus, they say, is from the germani ‘brothers’ Romulus and Remus, because it is beside the Fig-tree of the Suckling, and they were found there, where the Tiber’s winter flood had brought them when they had been put out in a basket. For the source of the name Veliae I have found several reasons, among them, that there the shepherds of the Palatine, before the invention of shearing, used to vellere ‘pluck’ the wool from the sheep, from which the vellera ‘fleeces’ were named.

  55. The Roman field-land was at first divided into tris ‘three’ parts, from which they called the Titienses, the Ramnes, and the Luceres each a tribus ‘tribe.’ These tribes were named, as Ennius says, the Titienses from Tatius, the Ramnenses from Romulus, the Luceres, according to Junius, from Lucumo; but all these words are Etruscan, as Volnius, who wrote tragedies in Etruscan, stated.

  56. From this, four parts of the City also were used as names of tribes, the Suburan, the Palatine, the Esquiline, the Colline, from the places; a fifth, because it was sub Roma ‘beneath the walls of Rome,’ was called Romilian; so also the remaining thirty from those causes which I wrote in the Book of the Tribes.

  57. I have told what pertains to places and those things which are connected with them; now of these things which are wont to be in places, I shall explain those which deal with immortals and with mortals, in such a way that first I shall tell what pertains to the gods. The first gods were Caelum ‘Sky’ and Terra ‘Earth.’ These gods are the same as those who in Egypt are called Serapis and Isis, though Harpocrates with his finger make a sign to me to be silent. The same first gods were in Latium called Saturn and Ops.

  58. For Earth and Sky, as the mysteries of the Samothracians teach, are Great Gods, and these whom I have mentioned under many names, are not those Great Gods whom Samothrace represents by two male statues of bronze which she has set up before the city-gates, nor are they, as the populace thinks, the Samothracian gods, who are really Castor and Pollux; but these are a male and a female, these are those whom the Books of the Augurs mention in writing as “potent deities,” for what the Samothracians call “powerful gods.”

  59. These two, Sky and Earth, are a pair like life and body. Earth is a damp cold thing, whether Eggs the flock that is feather-adorned is wont to give birth to, Not to a life, as Ennius says, and Thereafter by providence comes to the fledglings Life itself, or, as Zeno of Citium says, The seed of animals is that fire which is life and mind.

  This warmth is from the Sky, because it has countless undying fires. Therefore Epicharmus, when he is speaking of the human mind, says That is fire taken from the Sun, and likewise of the sun, And it is all composed of mind, just as moistures are composed of cold earth, as I have shown above.

  60. United with these, Sky and Earth produced everything from themselves, because by means of them nature Mixes heat with cold, and dryness with the wet.

  Pacuvius is right then in saying And heaven adds the life, and Ennius in saying that The body she’s given Earth does herself take back, and of loss not a whit does she suffer. Inasmuch as the separation of life and body is the exitus ‘way out’ for all creatures born, from that comes exitium ‘destruction,’ just as when they ineunt ‘go into’ unity, it is their initia ‘beginnings.’

  61. From this fact, every body, when there is excessive heat or excessive moisture, perishes, or if it survives, is barren. Summer and winter are witnesses to this: in the one the air is blazing hot and the wheat-ears dry up; in the other, nature has no wish to struggle with rain and cold for purposes of birth, and rather waits for spring. Therefore the conditions of procreation are two: fire and water. Thus these are used at the threshold in weddings, because there is union here, and fire is male, which the semen is in the other case, and the water is the female, because the embryo develops from her moisture, and the force that brings their vinctio ‘binding’ is Venus ‘Love.’

  62. Hence the comic poet says, Venus is his victress, do you see it?

  not because Venus wishes vincere ‘to conquer,’ but vincire ‘to bind.’ Victory herself is named from the fact that the overpowered vinciuntur ‘are bound.’ Poetry bears testimony to bot
h, because both Victory and Venus are called heaven-born; for Tellus ‘Earth,’ because she was the first one bound to the Sky, is from that called Victory. Therefore she is connected with the corona ‘garland’ and the palma ‘palm,’ because the garland is a binder of the head and is itself, from vinctura ‘binding,’ said vieri ‘to be plaited,’ that is, vinciri ‘to be bound’; whence there is the line in Ennius’s Sota:

  The lustful pair were going, to plait the Love-god’s garland.

  Palma ‘palm’ is so named because, being naturally bound on both sides, it has paria ‘equal’ leaves.

  63. The poets, in that they say that the fiery seed fell from the Sky into the sea and Venus was born “from the foam-masses,” through the conjunction of fire and moisture, are indicating that the vis ‘force’ which they have is that of Venus. Those born of this vis have what is called vita ‘life,’ and that was meant by Lucilius:

  Life is force, you see; to do everything force doth compel us.

  64. Wherefore because the Sky is the beginning, Saturn was named from satus ‘sowing’; and because fire is a beginning, waxlights are presented to patrons at the Saturnalia. Ops is the Earth, because in it is every opus ‘work’ and there is opus ‘need’ of it for living, and therefore Ops is called mother, because the Earth is the mother. For she All men hath produced in all the lands, and takes them back again, she who Gives the rations, as Ennius says, who Is Ceres, since she brings (gerit) the fruits.

  For with the ancients, what is now G, was written C.

  65. These same gods Sky and Earth are Jupiter and Juno, because, as Ennius says, That one is the Jupiter of whom I speak, whom Grecians call Air; who is the windy blast and cloud, and after wards the rain; After rain, the cold; he then becomes again the wind and air. This is why those things of which I speak to you are Jupiter: Help he gives to men, to fields and cities, and to beasties all.

  Because all come from him and are under him, he addresses him with the words:

  father and king of the gods and the mortals.

  Pater ‘father’ because he patefacit ‘makes evident’ the seed; for then it patet ’is evident’ that conception has taken place, when that which is born comes out from it.

  66. This same thing the more ancient name of Jupiter shows even better: for of old he was called Diovis and Diespiter, that is, dies pater ‘Father Day’; from which they who come from him are called dei ‘deities,’ and dius ‘god’ and divum ‘sky,’ whence sub divo ‘under the sky,’ and Dius Fidius ‘god of faith.’ Thus from this reason the roof of his temple is pierced with holes, that in this way the divum, which is the caelum ‘sky,’ may be seen. Some say that it is improper to take an oath by his name, when you are under a roof. Aelius said that Dius Fidius was a son of Diovis, just as the Greeks call Castor the son of Zeus, and he thought that he was Sancus in the Sabine tongue, and Hercules in Greek. He is likewise called Dispater in his lowest capacity, when he is joined to the earth, where all things vanish away even as they originate; and because he is the end of these ortus ‘creations,’ he is called Orcus.

  67. Because Juno is Jupiter’s wife, and he is Sky, she Terra ‘Earth,’ the same as Tellus ‘Earth,’ she also, because she iuvat ‘helps’ una ‘along’ with Jupiter, is called Juno, and Regina ‘Queen,’ because all earthly things are hers.

  68. Sol ‘Sun’ is so named either because the Sabines called him thus, or because he solus ‘alone’ shines in such a way that from this god there is the daylight. Luna ‘Moon’ is so named certainly because she alone ‘lucet’ shines at night. Therefore she is called Noctiluca ‘Night-Shiner’ on the Palatine; for there her temple noctu lucet ‘shines by night.’ Certain persons call her Diana, just as they call the Sun Apollo (the one name, that of Apollo, is Greek, the other Latin); and from the fact that the Moon goes both high and widely, she is called Diviana. Prom the fact that the Moon is wont to be under the lands as well as over them, Ennius’s Epicharmus calls her Proserpina. Proserpina received her name because she, like a serpens ‘creeper,’ moves widely now to the right, now to the left. Serpere ‘to creep’ and proserpere ‘to creep forward’ meant the same thing, as Plautus means in what he writes:

  Like a forward-creeping beast.

  69. She appears therefore to be called by the Latins also Juno Lucina either because she is also the Earth, as the natural scientists say, and lucet ‘shines’; or because from that light of hers in which a conception takes place until that one in which there is a birth into the light, the Moon continues to help, until she has brought it forth into the light when the months are past, the name Juno Lucina was made from iuvare ‘to help’ and lux ‘light.’ From this fact women in child-birth invoke her; for the Moon is the guide of those that are born, since the months belong to her. It is clear that the women of olden times observed this, because women have given this goddess credit notably for their eyebrows. For Juno Lucina ought especially to be established in places where the gods give light to our eyes.

  70. Ignis ‘fire’ is named from gnasci ‘to be born,’ because from it there is birth, and everything which is born the fire enkindles; therefore it is hot, just as he who dies loses the fire and becomes cold. From the fire’s vis ac violentia ‘force and violence,’ now in greater measure, Vulcan was named. From the fact that fire on account of its brightness fidget ‘flashes,’ come fulgur ‘lightning-flash’ and fulmen ‘thunderbolt,’ and what has been fulmine ictum ‘hit by a thunderbolt’ is called fulguritum.

  71. Among deities of an opposite kind, Lympha ‘water-nymph’ is derived from the water’s lapsus lubricus ‘slippery gliding.’ Juturna was a nymph whose function was iuvare ‘to give help’; therefore many sick persons, on account of this name, are wont to seek water from her spring. From springs and rivers and the other waters gods are named, as Tiberinus from the river Tiber, and Velinia from the lake of the Velinus, and the Commotiles ‘Restless’ Nymphs at the Cutilian Lake, from the commotus ‘motion,’ because there an island commovetur ‘moves about’ in the water.

  72. Neptune, because the sea veils the lands as the clouds veil the sky, gets his name from nuptus ‘veiling,’ that is, opertio ‘covering,’ as the ancients said; from which nuptiae ‘wedding,’ nuptus ‘wedlock’ are derived. Salacia, wife of Neptune, got her name from salum ‘the surging sea.’ Venilia was named from venire ‘to come’ and that ventus ‘wind’ which Plautus mentions:

  As that one said who with a favouring wind was borne Over a placid sea: I’m glad I wend.

  73. Bellona ‘Goddess of War’ is said now, from bellum ‘war,’ which formerly was Duellona, from duellum. Mars is named from the fact that he commands the mares ‘males’ in war, or that he is called Mamers among the Sabines, with whom he is a favourite. Quirinus is from Quirites. Virtus ‘valour,’ as viritus, is from virilitas ‘manhood.’ Honos ‘honour, office’ is said from onus ‘burden’; therefore honestum ‘honourable’ is said of that which is oneratum ‘loaded with burdens,’ and it has been said:

  Full onerous is the honour which maintains the state.

  The name of Castor is Greek, that of Pollux likewise from the Greeks; the form of the name which is found in old Latin literature is Polluces, like Greek Πολυδεύκης, not Pollux as it is now. Concordia ‘Concord’ is from the cor congruens ‘harmonious heart.’

  74. Feronia, Minerva, the Novensides are from the Sabines. With slight changes, we say the following, also from the same people: Pales, Vesta, Salus, Fortune, Fons, Fides ‘Faith.’ There is scent of the speech of the Sabines about the altars also, which by the vow of King Tatius were dedicated at Rome: for, as the Annals tell, he vowed altars to Ops, Flora, Vediovis and Saturn, Sun, Moon, Vulcan and Summanus, and likewise to Larunda, Terminus, Quirinus, Vertumnus, the Lares, Diana and Lucina; some of these names have roots in both languages, like trees which have sprung up on the boundary line and creep about in both fields: for Saturn might be used as the god’s name from one source here, and from another among the Sabines, and so also Diana; these n
ames I have discussed above.

  75. This is what has to do with the immortals; next let us look at that which has to do with mortal creatures. Amongst these are the animals, and because they abide in three places — in the air, in the water, and on the land — I shall start from the highest place and come down to the lowest. First the names of them all, collectively: alites ‘winged birds’ from their alae ‘wings,’ volucres ‘fliers’ from volatus ‘flight.’ Next by kinds: of these, very many are named from their cries, as are these: upupa ‘hoopoe,’ cuculus ‘cuckoo,’ corvus ‘raven,’ hirundo ‘swallow,’ ulula ‘screech-owl,’ bubo ‘horned owl’; likewise these: pavo ‘peacock,’ anser ‘goose,’ gallina ‘hen,’ columba ‘dove.’

  76. Some got their names from other reasons, such as the noctua ‘night-owl,’ because it stays awake and hoots noctu ‘by night,’ and the lusciniola ‘nightingale,’ because it is thought to canere ‘sing’ luctuose ‘sorrowfully’ and to have been transformed from the Athenian Procne in her luctus ‘sorrow,’ into a bird. Likewise the galeritus ‘crested lark’ and the motacilla ‘wagtail,’ the one because it has a feather standing up on its head, the other because it is always moving its tail. The merula ‘blackbird’ is so named because it flies mera ‘unmixed,’ that is, alone; on the other hand, the graguli ‘jackdaws’ got their names because they fly gregatim ‘in flocks,’ as certain Greeks call greges ‘flocks’ γέργερα. Ficedulae ‘fig-peckers’ and miliariae ‘ortolans’ are named from their food, because the ones become fat on the ficus ‘fig,’ the others on milium ‘millet.’

  77. The names of water animals are some native, some foreign. From abroad come muraena ‘moray,’ because it is μύραινα in Greek, cybium ‘young tunny’ and thunnus ‘tunny,’ all whose parts likewise go by Greek names, as melander ‘black-oak-piece’ and uraeon ‘tail-piece.’ Very many names of fishes are transferred from land objects which are like them in some respect, as anguilla ‘eel,’ lingulaca ‘sole,’ sudis ‘pike.’ Others come from their colours, like these: asellus ‘hake,’ umbra ‘umbra,’ turdus ‘wrasse.’ Others come from some physical power, like these: lupus ‘sea-bass,’ canicula ‘dogfish,’ torpedo ‘electric ray.’ Likewise among the shellfish there are some from Greek, as peloris ‘sunset shell,’ ostrea ‘oyster,’ echinus ‘sea-urchin’; and also native words that point out a likeness, as surenae, pectunculi ‘scallops,’ ungues ‘razor-clams.’