Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

meaning `goings'. He supposed that it became a technical term for `mobilization', and
was followed by an indication of the tower or the gate to tell the citizens where they had
to mobilize. 754 Vetter instead suggested that eftuns refers to the soldiers themselves and
translated eituns as evocati, 'called up'. 755 He argued that the dipinti assign certain parts
of the city walls to citizens liable for military service in every quarter of the town in the
case of emergency. 56 Pisani followed Vetter's view, although he translated eftuns as
exploratores, soldiers chosen to patrol part of the city wall. 757 Prosdocimi countered that
the meaning `soldiers' is too far removed from the supposed root *eito- `to go'. 758 He
prefers to derive eituns from *eid, a stem for words to do with `oath' and interprets
eituns as soldiers who have taken an oath on enrolment, iurati in Latin.
Nissen's idea that the eituns dipinti helped allied soldiers to reach their stations is
not at all plausible. First, they do not provide clear directions for outsiders: for example,
ST 36 and 37, painted on corner pillars, do not indicate which way the soldier had to go.
Conversely, ST 34 was unnecessary because the city wall was visible from the location
of the inscription anyway. Therefore, it is more likely that the inscriptions were painted
for the citizens of Pompeii. Whichever of the etymological interpretations of Buck,
Vetter, Pisani or Prosdocimi is correct, they all agree that the word refers to those
Pompeian citizens liable for military service, so the simplest solution is to take eituns to
mean `a group of soldiers'.
The word amvianud (abl. sing. ) has also caused debate. It has been suggested that
it is a loanword from the Greek äµoobov, which has a range of meanings, including
753
Buck(1904)242.
754
Buck (1922) 113 and 118
ns Vetter (1953) 54-7.
756 Vetter (1927) 5. Vetter spotted that in ST Po 39 the word eituns was followed by set (sunt), which
suggests that it must be a noun.
757
Pisani (1953) 13 A, B, C, D, E.
224