Dialis

Forms

Diālis (neuter Diāle); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is probably from Latin diēs (“day”) with the suffix -ālis; de Vaan lists ⟨diālis⟩ “of Jupiter”, in the title of the priest flāmen Diālis, among the derivatives of that noun,^[2] which goes back to Proto-Italic *diē- and Proto-Indo-European *di-eu- (“god of the clear sky, clear sky”).^[2] The OLD derives it from Diespiter, another name of Jupiter, with -ālis,^[3] and Lewis and Short from the Dis- of that name;^[4] Wiktionary takes it to stand for unattested *dīvālis, from dīvus (“divine, god”).^[1]

Varro already explained the priest's title as coming from Jupiter, whose old name was Diovis.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it from Varro and Cicero on, in the phrase flāmen Diālis;^[2] the OLD's first citation is an inscription naming the insignia of a flamen Dialis.^[3] Varro calls the priest's surname obscure and explains it from Jupiter.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs above all to the title flāmen Diālis, the priest of Jupiter, the most distinguished of the flamens,^[4][3] and it could stand alone as a noun for the priest himself, as in Ovid and Tacitus.^[6][3] It also qualified things that belonged to that priest: Livy has the apex Dialis, the priest's cap, and Suetonius the Diale flaminium, his office.^[3][6][7]

Apuleius uses it once in a wider sense, “of the air, heavenly”, of the ways of the sky that an eagle leaves.^[3][6]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro discusses the title flamen Dialis and derives it from Jupiter.^[5][4][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses the word.^[2][7][8]
• 59 BC–AD 17 – Livy writes of the apex Dialis, the priest's cap.^[3][8]
• 43 BC–AD 18 – Ovid uses Dialis alone for the priest.^[6][8]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus also uses Dialis as a noun.^[6][4][8]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius calls the priest's office the Diale flaminium.^[6][7][8]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it in the sense “aerial, heavenly”.^[3][8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of Jupiter: flāmen Diālis, the priest of Jupiter at Rome; also, as a noun, the priest of Jupiter.^[3][4][6]
2. Of or belonging to the flamen Dialis: apex Diālis, his cap;^[3][6] Diāle flāminium, his office.^[3][6]
3. Aerial, heavenly.^[3][6]

Related words

• dies
• Diespiter
• Iuppiter
• divus
• flamen¹

Usage notes

Gaffiot has a separate rare adjective diālis “lasting one day”, from dies, used in a pun on Dialis that Macrobius quotes from Cicero.^[6] Georges gives the joke as “ante flamines, nunc consules diales fiunt” (“once flamens, now consuls are made for a single day”), quoted by Macrobius from Otacilius Pitholaus, or from Cicero.^[7] De Vaan also lists novendiālis “lasting nine days” among the derivatives of diēs.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de