excubiae

Forms

excubiae f pl (genitive excubiārum); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin excubō (“to lie out, keep watch”) + -ia, and grammarians state that it is used only in the plural.^[2][3][1] The verb is ex- with cubō (“to lie”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *kubā̆je/o- (“to be lying”); because of the /b/ and its restriction to Italic and Celtic, a PIE origin of the root is uncertain.^[4] Cognate with Faliscan cupat (“lies”) and Middle Welsh kyscu (“to sleep”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,^[5] but Plautus already uses it in the prologue of the Casina, of a lying out away from home.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It means a keeping of watch or guard, a vigil, and is far more frequent in this sense, as in Cicero's “if these arms, these cohorts on the Capitol, these watches and guards”.^[6] Virgil calls a perpetual fire the eternal watch of the gods, and Pliny the Elder says that cranes keep watch at night.^[6] As a concrete noun it is a body of guards: Varro says that the Esquiline was named from the king's guards, and Tacitus and Suetonius use it of guards.^[2][6]

Döderlein distinguishes excubiae, sentinels before a palace as guards of honour, from statiōnēs, outposts at a gate, and vigiliae, night patrols in the streets.^[7] In medieval Latin it can mean night offices in church, a funeral service, castle-guard, or labour service, and it also appears in the singular.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of lying out away from home.^[2][6][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of the king's guards.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of watches and guards.^[6][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the eternal watch of the gods.^[6][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of guards.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The keeping of watch or guard, a vigil.^[2][6][9][1]
2. A body of men keeping watch, a guard, sentinels.^[2][6][1]
3. (Medieval Latin) Night offices; a funeral service; castle-guard; labour service.^[8]

Related words

• excubō
• cubō
• vigilia

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson