coactor

Forms

coāctor m (genitive coāctōris, feminine coāctrīx); third declension^[1] The spelling coator is found in inscriptions.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin cōgō (“to drive together, collect”) + -tor,^[2][1] formed on its past participle coāctus.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato has it first,^[4] in a sale contract in the De agri cultura, of the man who collects the money.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In Cicero and Horace it is a collector of payments, such as the proceeds of auctions: Cicero mentions how “our collectors” deal with the one-per-cent charge, and Horace imagines being a praeco or a coactor.^[2][5] Inscriptions name a coactor argentarius and a coactor vinarius (of the wine trade).^[2][3] Lewis and Short and Gaffiot also take one inscription's coactor as a fuller.^[5][6]

Tacitus calls the troops at the rear of a column agminis coactores.^[2][5] Seneca uses it figuratively, of someone who needs not only a guide but a helper and, as he puts it, a “compeller”.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of the collector of money in a sale.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions collectors of payments.^[2][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace pairs it with praeco.^[2][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of one who compels.^[2][4]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus calls the rearguard agminis coactores.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A collector of money (of auction proceeds, payments or taxes).^[2][5][6]
2. agminis coactores, the troops bringing up the rear, the rearguard.^[2][5]
3. (figurative) One who compels.^[5][6]
4. A fuller (in an inscription).^[5][6]

Related words

• cōgō

References

1. ^ a b 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.