annona

Forms

annōna f (genitive annōnae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The OLD and Lewis and Short derive it from annus (“year”) with a suffix ⟨-ōna⟩, as in Bellōna and Pōmōna, “the year's produce”.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary instead takes it as a compound, Proto-Italic *atnoznā, with a second element Proto-Indo-European *(s)h₁osnéh₂ (“harvest”), cognate with Proto-Germanic *asnō (“harvest”).^[1] De Vaan traces ⟨annus⟩ to *atno- (“year”) and *h₂et-no- (“which goes, a year”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Plautus as its first author,^[4] who says that if men were honest, food would be cheaper, and that “at this price a dinner is an inheritance without rites”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the year's marketable produce, as in Cicero's Verrines, and the supply of corn and food to Rome or an army, as Cicero's “to have provided for the corn supply”.^[2] It was also the office in charge of it, the praefectus annōnae in Livy, an allotment of cheap or free corn, and the allowance of soldiers and officials.^[2] As early as Plautus it is the price of corn, the market price, and a high price, and Livy uses it of the price of salt.^[2] On Nero's coins Annona is a goddess beside Ceres.^[2]

In medieval Latin it is corn, an annual rent in corn, bread corn, and forage or oats.^[6][1] Church Latin glosses it “grain, crop, yearly produce, rations”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of the price of food.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of produce and the corn supply.^[2][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of the prefect of the corn supply.^[2][4]
• 816/817 AD – In a Carolingian capitulary.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The year's produce.^[2][1][3]
2. The corn supply; the office in charge of it; a corn dole; rations, provisions.^[2][1][7]
3. The price of corn or food, market price; a high price.^[2][1]
4. (personified) Annona, goddess of the corn supply.^[2][1]
5. (Medieval Latin) Corn; an annual corn rent; forage, oats.^[6]

Word family

• annōnārius

Related words

• annus
• frūmentum
• Cerēs

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson