basterna

Forms

basterna f (genitive basternae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Wiktionary considers an Etruscan source probable.^[1] Some scholars, as the TLL reports, have compared bastum¹ (“stick, packsaddle”) and a Greek verb meaning “to carry”,^[2] and Niermeyer derives it from that noun.^[4] A Latin glossary likewise traces it to the Greek verb for “to carry”, while Isidore of Seville explained it as “quasi viae sternax”, something spread out for the road.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Historia Augusta (4th/5th century AD):^[3] in the Life of Elagabalus the emperor gives away quadrigas, equos stratos, mulos, basternas et raedas “four-horse chariots, saddled horses, mules, litters and carriages”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It was a closed litter carried by mules.^[6] Ammianus and Palladius mention it,^[2][6] Servius explains the old pilenta as vehicles “like the basternae we see now”,^[2] and Jerome offers dormitoria or basternae as a rendering of the Septuagint's covered vehicles in Isaiah.^[2] Glossaries describe it as the vehicle in which noble Roman women and girls were carried, made entirely of leather, borne by men or donkeys and without wheels.^[2] For Isidore it is a travelling vehicle laid with soft straw and carried by two animals.^[5]

Medieval Latin kept the sense of a litter;^[4] Köbler records it in Gregory of Tours.^[3]

Timeline

• 4th/5th century AD – The Historia Augusta lists litters among the presents of Elagabalus.^[2][6][3]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it to render the covered vehicles of the Septuagint.^[2][3]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus mentions it.^[2][6][3]
• c. 400 AD – Servius compares the ancient pilenta to the litters of his own day.^[2][3]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville describes it as a litter on soft straw carried by two animals.^[5][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A closed litter or sedan chair carried by mules or other animals, used especially by women of rank.^[6][2][5][4]

Word family

• basternarius

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
5. ^ a b c d Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press