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

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figitur ferro et falx vocatur ab eo, quod incurva est, ut de
muro extrahat lapides, aut certe caput istius vestitur ferro
et appellatur aries.^*^
The corvus then had three distinct military uses, as is
shown by the operations at Tyre and off Mylae and by the
corvus demolitor, the transfer being due in each instance
to the resemblance to the closed or open mandibles of the
bird.
The comparison with the beak of a bird was prompted by
the shape of the end of the implement; the selection of the
term corvus, however, was due to the fact that the crow is
the most common bird with strong mandibles.
In English, the figurative use of the word crow is common
in the mechanical world in crow-bar. Colloquially we
have such expressions as to crow over, as the crow flies,
and the like.
In alligator-wrench there is present the figure of fixed
gaping jaws and in monkey-wrench, that of a movable jaw.
CORAX, Gk. Kopa^ A Crow :
Battering Device.
transf., A Kind of
Vitruvius speaks of the corax very disparagingly, stating
that it is utterly ineffective: De corace nihil (Diades) puta-
vit scribendum, quod animadverteret earn machinam nullam
habere virtutem.^*®
Vitruvius is quoting an earlier military writer, Diades,
probably through Athenaeus, for the latter refers to the
Kopa^ in the same vein : tov h^ Kopaxa, oii ^rifii elvai d^iov
The corax suggests the corvus demolitor. It seems pos-
sible that the direct transliteration from the Greek in corax
and the epithet in corvus demolitor serve the same purpose,
that of differentiating the battering-crow from the types employed
at Tyre and off Mylae.
'"Veg. iv, 14.
"'Vitr. X, 13, 8.
"' Math. Vett. p. 5.
'