argentaria

Forms

argentāria f (genitive argentāriae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin argentārius (“of silver; of money”), the adjective used as a feminine noun, with taberna (“shop”) understood for a bank and ars (“craft”) for the banker's trade.^[2][3] The adjective is made from argentum (“silver; money”),^[4][5] which goes back to Proto-Italic *argento- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂rǵ-nt-o- (“silver”).^[6] De Vaan compares Old Irish argat (“silver”) and Sanskrit रजत (rajatá-, “silver-coloured; silver”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is in Plautus,^[7] where the Epidicus names the perfume shops, the butchers' stalls and the banks (circumque argentāriās, “and around the banks”).^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is a banker's shop: in Plautus prostitutes and pimps sit around the banks every day, and Livy tells of gilded shields shared out among the owners of the banks to decorate the forum and of a basilica built behind the new banks.^[7][2] Cicero uses it for the business of a banker, of a man who ran a large bank and of a bank that was wound up,^[7][8] and Ulpian of a slave who keeps a bank with his own savings.^[7] Livy also uses it of a silver mine.^[7][8] In medieval Latin it means a silver mine and a money-changer's office,^[9] and later the public treasury or a public exchange, as in a charter of 1287.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of the bankers' shops.^[7][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the business of a banker.^[7][5]
• 59 BC–AD 17 – Livy uses it of banks in the forum and of silver mines.^[7][5]
• 1287 – A charter uses it of the public treasury or exchange.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bank, a banker's shop.^[7][8]
2. The business of a banker, banking.^[7][8]
3. A silver mine.^[7][9]
4. (Medieval Latin) A money-changer's office; the public treasury.^[9][10]

Usage notes

Argentāria was also the name of a town of the Rauraci, near Breisach,^[3][5] and of a town in Dalmatia.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ 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
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b c du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre