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Article

Vulgar Latin  

Roger Wright

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 April 2018
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Linguistics
The language of the Roman Empire, spoken and written, was Latin. Like all languages spoken over a wide area for a long time, it varied greatly. Since the arrival of sociolinguistics in the 1960s, it has been accepted that such variation is in no way unnatural or sinister, and the flexibility it implies is often an advantage rather than a problem. But standardization of the Latin language was taken seriously, particularly within the traditions established by Aelius Donatus in the 4th century and Priscian in the 6th, with the result that eventually features of the language that did not accord with the precepts of these authorities were regarded as not just different but wrong. The concept of Vulgar Latin has been defined in a variety of different ways, but József Herman’s definition, as a label for all those features of Latin that we know existed, but which were not recommended by the grammarians, is probably the most useful; its meaning has thus usually been defined in opposition to that of another concept of dubious value, Classical Latin, the Latin of the grammarians (see grammar, grammarians, Latin).

Article

Vulgate  

J. H. D. Scourfield

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Latin Literature

Latin version of the Bible. The first Latin translations of Scripture (Vetus Latina, Old Latin) began to appear in the 2nd cent. ce. By the late 4th cent., the situation was chaotic: some books existed in more than one version, while some versions were subject to considerable local variation. An attempt to impose order was made in the early 380s by Pope Damasus, who commissioned Jerome to revise the Latin text of the Gospels, and perhaps of the whole of the Bible, in the light of the Greek. The gospel revision was completed in 384, and during his early years in the Holy Land (386–c.390) Jerome went on to produce Latin versions of the Psalter (the ‘Gallican Psalter’) and of other books of the OT (Old Testament) on the basis of the LXX (see septuagint). But around 390 Jerome became convinced of the need for a translation of the OT based on the Hebrew text used in Jewish communities, from which the LXX sometimes differed significantly. This immense undertaking, which occupied him for some fifteen years, resulted in a completely new translation of the Hebrew books of the OT, carried out on the basis of the original and with the aid of the Greek versions of Aquila and Symmachus. At the request of friends, and with the assistance of an interpreter, he also translated from the Aramaic the books of Tobit and Judith, which he did not recognize as part of the canon.

Article

wages  

Paul C. Millett

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
06 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Wages, payment in cash or kind in return for labour services, are attested as early as the *thētes (landless labourers) of the Iliad and Odyssey. Homeric references point to the depressed status of the thēs: uncertain of receiving promised pay (Il. 21. 441 ff.) and, lacking protection of the oikos (household), they ranked even lower than slaves (Od. 11. 489 ff.). With significant exceptions, precariousness remained the characteristic of the wage-labourer through antiquity, dependent on availability of casual employment (e.g. at harvest time, on public building projects, in service as a *Mercenary ). The divisions between different types of *Labour were fluid, with *Peasants , *Artisans , and slaves (see slavery ) potentially doubling up as wage-labourers. In late 5th-cent. Athens, the *Metic Simias hired himself out along with his four slaves to work on the *Erechtheum . Roman law made special provision for the hiring out of slaves. In Athens, those looking for work gathered each day on a hill overlooking the *Agora .

Article

wall of Antoninus  

Ian Archibald Richmond, Sheppard S. Frere, and Martin Millett

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Wall of Antoninus, a Roman frontier-wall 59 km. (37 mi.) long, running from Bridgeness on the Forth to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, built for *Antoninus Pius (SHAAnt. Pius 5. 4) in ce 139–42 by Q. *Lollius Urbicus. The wall was of turf, standing upon a cobbled foundation 4.5–5 m. (c. 15–16 ft.) wide and systematically built in long sectors by Legions II, VI, and XX (see legion), who marked their work by inscribed slabs (RIB 2139, 2173, 2184–6, 2193–4, 2196–200, 2203–6, 2207–8, 2199, 3507). Seven metres (23 ft.) or more in front of the wall lay a ditch, approaching 12 m. (39 ft.) wide and not less than 3.6 m. (11½ ft.) deep. Forts occur at Carriden (1.7 ha.), Inveravon, Mumrills (2.9 ha.), Falkirk, Rough Castle (0.6 ha.), Castlecary (1.5 ha.), Westerwood (0.9 ha.), Croy Hill (0.8 ha.), Bar Hill (1.4 ha.), Auchendavy (1.2 ha.), Kirkintilloch (1.3 ha.), Cadder (1.1 ha.), Balmuildy (1.7 ha.), Bearsden (1.2 ha.), Castlehill (1.4 ha.), Duntocher (0.2 ha.), and Old Kilpatrick (1.8 ha.). Minor structures are signalling platforms, occurring at high points, and fortlets (0.04 ha.), one of them at the passage of the northward road at Watling Lodge, near Falkirk. Thus, the Antonine wall is structurally an advance upon Hadrian's turf wall (see wall of hadrian) in its economy of material and rubble foundation, allowing better drainage, while its garrison was distributed in small close-spaced forts instead of large forts and milecastles.

Article

wall of Aurelian  

Ian Archibald Richmond and Janet DeLaine

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
The city wall of Rome, constructed by *Aurelian in 271–5 ce in anticipation of a sudden barbarian inroad (SHA Aure. 21. 9, 39. 2; Aurel. Vict.Caes.35; Malalas, Chron. 12. 299), and completed by Probus (Zos. 1. 49). The original wall, about 6.5 m. (21 ft.) high to the battlements, extended for 18.8 km. (11½ mi.) with 381 projecting rectangular towers at intervals of 100 Roman ft. (29.6 m.; 32.4 yds.), except along the river. The wall was usually solid but in places had an internal gallery or was treated as a revetment. It frequently incorporated earlier structures, such as the terrace wall of the horti Aciliani (muro torto), the Castra Praetoria, the Amphitheatrum Castrense, private houses and tenements, and the tomb of *Cestius Epulo. It enclosed most of the fourteen regions (see regio) but only a relatively small part of Trastevere. The gates, mostly named from the principal roads, were portae Flaminia, Pinciana, Salaria, Nomentana, ‘Chiusa’, Tiburtina, Praenestina-Labicana, Asinaria, Metrobia, Latina, Appia, Ardeatina, Ostiensis, Portuensis, Aurelia-Pancraziana, Septimiana, Aurelia-Sancti Petri.

Article

wall of Hadrian  

Ian Archibald Richmond, Sheppard S. Frere, and Martin Millett

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

Wall of Hadrian, a frontier-wall (see limes) of Roman *Britain, running for 80 Roman miles (118 km.; 73 mi.) from Wallsend-on-Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway. The frontier then followed the Cumbrian coast south to St Bees Head. Erected under the governor A. *Platorius Nepos in c. ce 122–6, it was first designed to start at Pons Aelius, Newcastle upon Tyne, the eastern 67 km. (42 mi.) being in stone (3 m. (10 ft.) thick and perhaps 4.2 m. (13½ ft.) high) and the western 46 km. (31 mi.) in turf (6 m. (19½ ft.) broad at the base and some 4.2 m. (13½ ft.) high). Six metres (19½ ft.) in front of the wall ran a V-shaped ditch (generally 8.2 m. (26½ ft.) wide and 3 m. (10 ft.) deep). Recent work at various locations suggests that the berm between wall and ditch was fortified with a forest of sharpened stakes set in the ground. Fortified gateways (milecastles), with towered gates to the north, occurred every Roman mile (1,481 m.; 1,620 yds.) and there were intermediate turrets (observation towers) every third of a mile (494 m.; 540 yds.). North of the barrier were three outpost forts at Bewcastle, Netherby, and Birrens. As construction progressed, changes came. The stone wall was reduced to 2.5 m. (7½ ft.) in width, and extended 6 km. (4 mi.) eastwards to Wallsend, and 6 km. westward (replacing the Turf Wall).

Article

wall of Servius  

Ian Archibald Richmond and Tim Cornell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Wall of Servius, the city-wall of republican Rome, traditionally assigned to King Servius *Tullius, actually belongs to 378 bce. It is of Grotta Oscura tufa, built in headers and stretchers, 4.5 m. (15 ft.) thick and at least 8.5 m. (28 ft.) high, retaining an earth bank or terrace, and is comparable to the contemporary wall of *Pompeii II. The masons' marks, with Hellenistic affinities, suggest Greek contractors. The wall was some 11 km. (7 mi.) long and its course, dictated by contours, enclosed an irregular area, estimated at 426 ha. (Beloch, Röm. Gesch.208), and embracing the *Quirinal, *Viminal, Oppian, Caelian (see caelius mons), *Aventine, and fortified Capitoline hills (see capitol). There is dispute about the course between the last two points (Coarelli, 13 ff.), and about the relation of the wall to the *Palatine fortification. The names of the gates are well known, but the location of some is debated and their structure is uncertain. In the 2nd cent. bce the wall was heightened to some 16 m.

Article

war, art of, Greek  

John F. Lazenby

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography

War, art of, Greek, Before the second half of the 5th cent. bce, when some of the *sophists are said to have studied the art of war, the Greeks seem to have made no attempt to systematize military theory. The only such works to have survived are *Xenophon(1)'s essay on the duties of a cavalry officer, his fictional account of Cyrus' organization of his army in the Cyropaedia, and the treatise on siege-craft by *Aeneas Tacticus. We are thus largely left to deduce the Greek art of war from the warfare itself.

Early wars, *Thucydides(2) says (1. 15. 3–5), were between neighbours, and even the exception he mentions—the 8th-cent. bce Lelantine War—seems just to have been a series of such conflicts; see greece (prehistory and history), Archaic age. They were also clearly fought for territory, involving a relatively straightforward strategy, and this remained true even when the object was no longer territorial aggrandizement but hegemony, for ravaging could usually compel confrontation, and, if the invaders won, the acceptance of a more or less subordinate relationship.

Article

war, art of, Roman  

Jonathan Coulston

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
The earliest Roman battle-order was probably the spear-armed and javelin-armed Italic form of the *hoplite*phalanx, a single, close-order infantry formation. In the 4th cent. bce this was replaced by the more flexible manipular organization (see manipulus) whereby the *legion was drawn up in three lines of maniples behind a screen of light infantry (*velites) and with cavalry on the wings. Each line was supported by, and could fall back upon, the line behind. All were spear-armed initially, but by the 2nd cent. bce the first two (hastati, principes) had javelins (pila) whilst the third had spears (hastae).From the late 3rd cent. three maniples were grouped into a *cohort by taking one maniple from each line. First a tactical expedient, by the 1st cent. bce this became a permanent organization, coinciding with the equipping of all legionaries with pila.

Article

warfare, attitudes to, Greek and Hellenistic  

Michel Austin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Homer'sIliad, a poem about war, does not glorify war: it celebrates martial prowess but also portrays the sufferings caused by war, and *Ares, god of war, is rebuked by Zeus as the most hateful of all the gods, to whom strife, wars, and slaughter are forever dear (Il. 5. 890 f.). The same ambivalence pervades Greek attitudes to warfare. War in Greece was a recurring phenomenon, and conflicts multiplied in numbers and scale as larger power blocks emerged. Greek history divides according to major conflicts: the *Persian Wars, the *Peloponnesian War and its sequels, the rise of *Macedonia, *Alexander(3) the Great's conquest of Asia and the wars of the successor kingdoms (see diadochi; ptolemy(1); seleucids). These provide the subject-matter of much of Greek historical writing. There were also innumerable local wars, less prominent in the record. ‘War is the father of all things’ (Heraclitus, DK 22 B 53). It shaped the institutions, society, and economy of the Greek world. Military function and social and political *status were closely related (Arist.

Article

war, rules of  

Jakob Aall Ottesen Larsen and Simon Hornblower

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Law
  2. Roman Law
These, like much other international law (see law, international), depended on custom and showed a constant conflict between the higher standards of optimistic theory and the harsher measures permitted by actual usage, while passion and expediency frequently caused the most fundamental rules to be violated. Thus, the temptation to profit from a surprise at times led to the opening of hostilities without a declaration of war. Probably the law most generally observed was that of the sanctity of *heralds, for heralds were essential to communications between belligerents. Nor did Greeks frequently refuse a defeated army a truce for burying its dead, for the request of such a truce meant an admission of defeat and was usually followed by retreat. Beyond this there were few restraints except humanitarian considerations and the universal condemnation of excessive harshness: Thucydides’ indignation at the massacre at Boeotian Mycalessus seems partly prompted by the victims’ status as (Greek) non-combatants: 7. 29–30. Plundering and the destruction of crops and property were legitimate, and were carried on both by regular armies and fleets, and by informal raiding-parties and privateers, and even the sanctity of temples was not always respected. Prisoners, if not protected by special terms of surrender, were at the mercy of their captors, who could execute them or sell them into *slavery (see booty).

Article

water  

Johan Harm Croon and Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Water, in the mostly arid Mediterranean climate, by its local availability shaped patterns of settlement and, as erratic rainfall, determined harvest-fluctuations and food-shortages (see famine; food supply). In agriculture, although dry-farming was the norm in ancient Greece and Italy, *irrigation was by no means unknown (e.g. at Hellenistic Sparta: SEG 40. 348. For the Persian empire see ai khanoum). The use of hydraulic technology to increase the *water supply was an early concern of the *polis; some of the most spectacular installations (e.g. on *Samos) were the work of the Archaic tyrants (see also tyranny; theagenes (1) for *Megara); Rome pioneered raised *aqueducts. Communal fountains were a social focus (e.g. Eur.Med.68–9, about *Corinth's Pirene); in Roman times they were civic status-symbols liable to lavish architectural embellishment (see nymphaeum). Apart from drinking and *sanitation, ancient cities needed water for reasons of personal health (directions about baths figure in the Hippocratic On Regimen and Health 6.

Article

water supply  

Richard Allan Tomlinson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture
  2. Roman Material Culture
The preferred source of water in Classical Greece is a natural perennial spring. Failing this, rainwater has to be conserved in cisterns, or raised from wells.Improvement of natural water supplies leads to the construction of fountain houses where water is fed through spouts (normally decorated in the form of a lion's head) into drawbasins; such constructions are usually placed behind architectural façades with a roof to shade (and keep cool) the drawbasins. These already existed in the 6th cent. bce (Enneakrounos at Athens, built by *Pisistratus). Pirene at Corinth was successively improved from Archaic to Roman times. The use of terracotta pipes and built or rock-cut conduits to lead water from a spring to a locality where it was needed develops from the Archaic period (see aqueduct).Cisterns may be rock-cut, but generally have to be lined with cement to retain water. They may be fed from rainwater trapped on roofs, or on the ground surface, led into settling tanks for cleaning before storage. Cisterns under the courtyards of houses in *Delos are reached by well heads, hollowed cylinders of marble, usually decorated (see puteal).

Article

wealth, attitudes to  

John Davies

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
Classical societies developed a range of responses to the universal ambition of individuals to amass property and possessions. One extreme response, characteristic of societies where the wealthy had retained or regained preponderant influence in public affairs, was to impose little or no restriction on accumulation: early Hellenistic Sparta and late republican Rome were examples. Conversely, Greek colonies were often founded on an ‘equal and like’ basis, and Roman colonial foundations regularly assigned the same land-area to each colonist. However, few colonies remained egalitarian for long (Diod. Sic. 5. 9. 4–5 for an exception, Lipara; see aeoliae insulae). See colonization, greek and roman.More normally, attitudes oscillated unsystematically within such extremes. Amassing wealth, possessing it, and spending it aroused differing responses, and varied also with the nature and the status of the gainful activity (Cato, Agr. pref.; Cic.Off. 1. 150 ff. and 2. 52 ff.). Greeks saw the rich as potentially hubristic, extravagant, profiteering, and soft, probably dishonest if newly wealthy and lucky rather than worthy if of longer standing, but also as prudent and as potentially generous and magnanimous benefactors (cf. Arist.

Article

wealth, Roman attitudes towards  

Gloria Vivenza and Neville Morley

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
20 November 2017
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman History and Historiography
Roman attitudes to wealth were complex and sometimes ambivalent. Wealth was an essential basis for political and social life, but also a topic of extensive debate, which focused on the proper uses of wealth and the proper ways of attaining it. These moral, philosophical, and literary debates had practical implications for how the Romans spent their wealth and how they acquired it.Wealth was a central theme in Roman politics and society. The citizen body was divided between different census classes on the basis of property holding, and access to political office and status depended on a formal assessment of personal wealth.1 Furthermore, winning election to office required considerable resources. Neither a long family tradition of public service nor individual political genius was enough, and Julius Caesar’s debt problems, partly due to his political campaigns, are well known. Conversely, a homo novus like Cicero, with no political tradition in his family, could engage in politics if he had .

Article

weighing instruments  

Frederick Norman Pryce, Mabel L. Lang, and David William John Gill

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture: Bronze Age
  2. Greek Material Culture
  3. Roman Material Culture
The balance (σταθμός, libra, bilanx) of two pans at equal distance from the point of suspension is an invention of the earliest times; in Mycenaean tablets (see mycenaean language) it is the symbol for the largest unit of weight, and Homer is familiar with its use, which persisted through antiquity. The steelyard, in which the rod is unequally divided, the object to be weighed being suspended from the short arm against a sliding counterweight on the longer, does not appear before Roman times (statera: originally statera campana, from an alleged Campanian origin; see campania); but from its greater convenience it became the most popular form of balance. There may be alternative positions for the fulcrum, and two different scales can be marked on the bar. Inscriptions can guarantee the standard. Trutina is a pan-balance for large masses; momentana and moneta are for small objects, or coins. Weighing instruments were only as accurate as the weights used, and it seems that some error was created by using worn items. See weights.

Article

weights  

Frederick Norman Pryce, Mabel L. Lang, and David William John Gill

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture: Bronze Age

Weights of the Greek bronze age are usually flattened cylinders of stone or metal, incised circles on the upper surface indicating the unit of measurement. Other forms are the duck and the bull's head. An octopus weight from Minoan Cnossus weighs 29 kg. (64 lb.) and the average weight of nineteen copper ingots from Agia Triada is 29.132 kg. (64 lb. 4½ oz.) Several standards appear to have been current, extant Minoan weights (see minoan civilization) having been related to the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Phoenician systems. Mycenaean texts from *Cnossus, *Pylos, and *Mycenae (see mycenaean language) allow an approximate table of values to be created:

The typical weight of historic Greece is a square plaque of lead with a badge, and sometimes the denomination, the name of the issuing city, or other official guarantees on the top in relief. The principal types on the most widespread series of Attic weights are the astragalos (stater), dolphin (mina), amphora (one-third stater with half-amphora as one-sixth), tortoise (one-fourth stater with half-tortoise as one-eighth). There were many other forms, as caprice or local custom dictated. Roman weights show less variety, the common form being a spheroid of stone or metal, with flattened top and bottom; the denomination is generally expressed in punctured characters on the top.

Article

West, Western Greeks  

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Reception
Modern expressions for the Greeks of Italy and Sicily, cf. magna graecia. (But ‘western Greece’ can mean the western part of Greece proper.).

Article

wetlands (bog, marsh)  

Giusto Traina

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 April 2019
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Ancient Geography

The most common words to designate a marsh, a swamp, or a bog are helos in ancient Greek and palus in Latin; beside these terms, less common words were also employed. Literary and epigraphic texts give evidence for marshlands in the countryside, in the coastal areas, and also close to urban agglomerations. The sources often give evidence for drainage activity, but cases of extensive drainage are rare. In fact, they were possible only at public expense, by employing free or slave labor. On the other hand, several territories were characterized by a sort of marsh economy. Although rarely portrayed in literature, and despite the risk of malaria, marshy areas presented some economic potential: fishing, hunting, salt extraction, and farming. In many respects, the negative image of wetlands is a modern invention. The contrast between the rational order of the Roman countryside and the “barbaric” medieval landscape was introduced by the Enlightenment, and must be treated with caution.

Article

widows  

Thomas A.J. McGinn

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Gender Studies

While the task of defining the term “widow” is straightforward, the phenomenon of widowhood is more complex. Qualified above all by demographic and socio-economic factors, as well as conditioned by legal rules, the status of widow in classical antiquity was far from monolithic. The evidence for Greece, that is, above all Athens in the late 5th and 4th centuries bce, and Rome, with the main focus on the period from c. 200 bce to c. 250 ce, shows that neither society developed an independent legal category for such women. This means that they typically enjoyed or were denied the same basket of rights that held for most adult female citizens. It is even disputable whether widowhood was understood in either society as a distinct social category. Largely because men tended to be older than women at first marriage, husbands typically predeceased their wives, so that widows outnumbered widowers by a wide margin. Widows were often a source of tension and suspicion, functioning as lightning rods for the praise and blame of women in general. Losing a husband to death often entailed a reduction in available economic resources, though this was not inevitably true, and, where it was true, its implications could vary from culture to culture or even within a culture. Remarriage was an option much more available to upper-class widows than to the sub-elite.