The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the MonarchyMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
7. This is implied in their very name. The "part" (-tribus-) is,
as jurists know, simply that which has once been or may hereafter
come to be a whole, and so has no real standing of its own in the
present.
8. I. II. Primitive Races of Italy
9. -Quiris-, -quiritis-, or -quirinus- is interpreted by the
ancients as "lance-bearer," from -quiris- or -curis- = lance and
-ire-, and so far in their view agrees with -samnis-, -samnitis-
and -sabinus-, which also among the ancients was derived from
--saunion--, spear. This etymology, which associates the word
with -arquites-, -milites-, -pedites-, -equites-, -velites- --those
respectively who go with the bow, in bodies of a thousand, on
foot, on horseback, without armour in their mere over-garment--may
be incorrect, but it is bound up with the Roman conception of a
burgess. So too Juno quiritis, (Mars) quirinus, Janus quirinus,
are conceived as divinities that hurl the spear; and, employed in
reference to men, -quiris- is the warrior, that is, the full burgess.
With this view the -usus loquendi- coincides. Where the locality
was to be referred to, "Quirites" was never used, but always "Rome"
and "Romans" (-urbs Roma-, -populus-, -civis-, -ager Romanus-),
because the term -quiris- had as little of a local meaning as
-civis- or -miles-. For the same reason these designations could
not be combined; they did not say -civis quiris-, because both
denoted, though from different points of view, the same legal
conception. On the other hand the solemn announcement of the
funeral of a burgess ran in the words "this warrior has departed
in death" (-ollus quiris leto datus-); and in like manner the king
addressed the assembled community by this name, and, when he sat in
judgment, gave sentence according to the law of the warrior-freemen
(-ex iure quiritium-, quite similar to the later -ex iure civili-).
The phrase -populus Romanus-, -quirites- (-populus Romanus quiritium-is
not sufficiently attested), thus means "the community and the
individual burgesses," and therefore in an old formula (Liv. i.
32) to the -populus Romanus- are opposed the -prisci Latini-, to
the -quirites- the -homines prisci Latini- (Becker, Handb. ii. 20
seq.)
In the face of these facts nothing but ignorance of language and of
history can still adhere to the idea that the Roman community was
once confronted by a Quirite community of a similar kind, and that
after their incorporation the name of the newly received community
supplanted in ritual and legal phraseology that of the receiver.--Comp.
iv. The Hill-Romans On The Quirinal, note.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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