Figurative uses of animal names in Latin and their ... - mura di tutti

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Greeks of the term ram to an instrument, no part of which
was originally like the animal, points conclusively to the
butting as the true reason for the transfer.
In English, the term, ram, aside from its military and
naval applications, is used to designate several devices for
battering, crushing, butting, or driving by impact. Among
them may be mentioned the following as found in The
Century Dictionary
1. The weight or monkey of a pile-driving machine.
2. The piston in the large cylinder of a hydraulic press.
3. A hooped spar used in ship-building for removing
timbers by a jolting blow on the end.
4. In metal working, a steam-hammer used in forming
a bloom.
5. An hydraulic lifting-machine.
In no case is there a use of the term ram that is derived
from the shape of the device.
EQUUS, Horse; transf., A Battering iNSTRUMENT(f).
The statement of Pliny®" that the horse as a battering
instrument was invented at Troy, equum (qui nunc aries
appellatur) in muralibus machinis, Epeum ad Troiam (in-
venisse dicunt), is merely tradition, going back ultimately
to the story of the Wooden Horse in the Odyssey
Xinrov Koafiov aeurov
Sovpareov, rbv 'Ettcw? hroiqaev trw ''A.Orjvri?^
The idea of the aries is due to a critical spirit such as
Pausanias later manifested in describing the so-called
Wooden Horse at Athens. Any person of common sense,
as he implies, would know that the Trojans were not such
fools as to do what the story ascribes to them, and that in
reality Epeus's invention was a wall-breaking device :
:
itttto?
he 6 ica\ov/i€vo^ hovpeio'i, aveuceirai ^^aXxoO?. xal on fiev ro
"jToirjua ro 'ETretou fii)j(^dv7}na rp/ e? hiaXvaiv tov reixovi, olSep
ocTTK fii] traa-av hri^epei rots ^pv^lv evijdeiav Xeyerai Se e; re
eKelvov TOV Xinrov a>? r&v '^Wrivtov evhov ej(pi rois apiarovi, . . .'^
"Plin. Nat. vii, 56. S7f (202). Cf. also Varro L. L. vii, 38.
" Od. viii, 492-493.
" Pans, i, 23, 10.