agger

Forms

agger m (genitive aggeris); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is connected with aggerō (“to carry to, pile up”), from ad- (“to”) and gerō (“to carry”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan notes that the stem ⟨*-ges-⟩ is younger than Proto-Indo-European, so the noun is not an inherited root noun; he derives the simple verb from Proto-Italic *ges-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ǵ-es- (“to carry”), an extension of the root of agō.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucilius, of a siege: aggere in iaciendō, “in throwing up a ramp”, when the sheds have been moved up.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

An agger is first the material piled up for an earthwork, rubble or earth (Caesar), then the work itself: a ramp built by besiegers, a defensive rampart, and in particular the rampart of Rome ascribed to Servius Tullius, on which Horace walks in the sun.^[2][3] It is also a mole or pier, a dam or dyke, and the raised bank of a river (Virgil).^[2] Of land it is a ridge or hill, and the raised bed of a road (Virgil's snake caught on the agger viae); of piles, a funeral mound or pyre, a heap of snow, or a towering wave.^[2]

Döderlein distinguishes the agger, a single line like a dam, from the vallum, a line that encloses a space.^[6] Church Latin glosses it “mound, heap, wall”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of a siege ramp.^[2][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of rubble, ramparts and a mole.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of the Servian rampart.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of dykes, river banks and a raised road.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Material for an earthwork; rubble, earth.^[2][1]
2. A siege ramp; a rampart, earthwork; the Servian rampart of Rome.^[2][1]
3. A mole, pier; a dam, dyke; a river bank.^[2][1]
4. A ridge, hill; a raised road, causeway.^[2][1]
5. A mound, pile, heap; a funeral pyre; a towering wave.^[2][7]

Word family

• aggerō

Related words

• gerō
• congeriēs

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson