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

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Propertius had long before expressed himself in almost
the same vein as Pausanias:
Nam quis equo pulsas abiegno nosceret arces, . . .
We may conclude then that the story of a military horse
owes its existence only to the long association of the breach
in the walls and the admission of the steed, as if the latter
had forced an entrance.
Professor Murray suggests that " the stratagem of
the Wooden Horse may represent only a brilliant afterthought
of what ought to have been done," or, if real, " may
refer to a siege tower of the Assyrian type."**
Consideration of Pliny's statement may be dismissed with
the criticism in Daremberg et Saglio : On ne trouve, ni dans
Homere, ni autre part, rien qui justifie cette etrange inter-
pretation de la legende.*®
CAPREOLI, Wild Goats ;
®^
transj., The Gable Beams of
THE TesTUDO and MuSCULUS, ALSO THE BRACES
IN THE Catapult and Scorpion.
Caesar speaks of the beams of the musculus joined by the
gently sloping capreoli: Has (trabes) inter se capreolis
molli fastigio coniungunt.*®
An instance of the use of the term in connection with
the testudo is found in Vitruvius : Supra trabes (testudinis)
conlocentur capreoli cardinibus alius in alium conclusi.*^
Columella mentions the capreoli as a two-pronged
weeding instrument: capreolis, quod genus bicornis ferra-
menti est, terra commoveatur.** Although in this case the
figure is that of inverted horns, it seems clear that the
metaphor in the structural capreoli is not from the horns
of a single goat, but from the interlocked horns of two
" Prop, iii, I, 25.
"G. Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic, p. 35.
'"Daremberg et Saglio, s. v. aries. The writer of the article on oppugnatio
prefers Pausanias's rationalistic view.
"Caes. Civ. ii, 10, 3.
"Vitr. X, 14, 2. In x, 10, 4, Vitruvius speaks of the capreoli in the
catapult.
" Colum. xi, 3, 46.