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

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Pliny informs us that Cato, in order to prevent the assembling
of the people in the Forum, decreed that it be
strewn with murices, probably sharp stones :
mutatis moribus
Catonis Censorii qui sternendum quoque forum muricibus
censuerat.^"'^ These murices may be forerunners of the
military murices.
With an emphasis of such character placed upon the sharp
points, the transition is very easy to the military murex, the
prominent feature of which is the sharp spine-like shaft.
The murex was used also as a means of torture for pris-
oners. The Romans, according to the traditional story, re-
taliated for the cruelty to Regulus by confining Carthaginian
captives in a box bristling with murices, ' spikes :'
Tuditanus somno diu (Regulum) prohibitum atque ita
vita privatum refert, idque ubi Romae cognitum est, nobilis-
simos Poenorum captivos liberis Reguli a senatu deditos et
ab his in armario muricibus praefixo destitutos eodemque
insomnia cruciatos interisse.^"*
In English military parlance the expression crows' feet
is used at times to denote the caltrop.
ASPIS, Gk. cunrk, An Asp ; transf., A Shield.
To Justinian we are indebted for an instance of the use in
Latin of the word aspis, meaning shield :
tes fabricari et vendere arcus, sagittas ;
Prohibemus priva-
aspidas insuper sive
scutaria.^"*
The Thesaurus of Stephanus and the Dictionary of Liddell
and Scott unite with the Auctor Etymologici Magni
in giving precedence to the second meaning. Saalfeld in
his Tensaurus Italograecus and the Thesaurus Ling. Lat.
adopt the reverse order. In Greek, atrirk means shield in
nearly every instance, while in the Latin aspis the order
of frequency is the reverse.
The Auctor E. M. ascribes the change to the method of
locomotion of the animal as it advances in a whirling coil
'"Plin. Nat. xix, I, 6, (24).
""Cell, vii, (vi),4. 4-
'^Novell. lust. 86, 4.