Brundisium

Forms

Brundisium n sg (genitive Brundisiī or Brundisī); second declension^[1] Many manuscripts have Brundusium, which Lewis & Short consider less correct.^[2][3] Greek writers have Brentesion,^[4][1] the Digest has Brentesium,^[3] and Paul the Deacon's epitome of Festus gives a form Brenda.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek Βρεντέσιον (Brentésion),^[1][2] which is said to come from the local word for a stag's head;^[1] Köbler gives it as Messapic brention or brunda.^[5] Hesychius glosses βρένδον (bréndon) as “stag”, and the name was explained by the harbour, which reaches round the town like a stag's antlers.^[2]

Ancient writers knew this explanation: Isidore of Seville says that the Greeks built Brundisium and that it was named because brunda means a stag's head, the site of the town showing horns, head and tongue.^[6]

It is the source of Italian Brindisi.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ennius is the first to name it,^[5][3][7] as the town on the Calabrian coast that is now Brindisi.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Brundisium had a large and excellent harbour,^[2][3] and it was the Romans' chief naval station in the Adriatic and their usual point of departure for Greece and the East.^[2][3] Caesar, Cicero, Livy and Horace name it.^[3][9] The adjective Brundisīnus and the noun Brundisīnī, its inhabitants, are found in Cicero, Caesar and Varro.^[3][9]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius names the town.^[5][3]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar names it in his account of the civil war.^[3][5]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville explains the name as Greek for a stag's head.^[6][5]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. Brundisium, a town and harbour on the coast of Calabria, modern Brindisi.^[8][2][3]

Word family

• Brundisīnus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.