lautumiae

Forms

lautumiae f pl (genitive lautumiārum); first declension^[1] It is also spelled lātomiae and lātumiae.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek λατομίαι (latomíai, “stone quarries”).^[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it in the Poenulus, where a speaker would rather spend his life in the quarries or the mill, and in the Captivi.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a stone quarry, especially one used as a prison.^[1][2] Varro says that the prison at Syracuse is called latomiae, and Cicero speaks of the Syracusan quarries in the Verrines.^[2] In Rome it was a district on the north-eastern side of the Capitol with quarries and a prison, where Livy has leaders of the Aetolians thrown.^[1][2] In British Medieval Latin it is a quarry, stone-cutting or masonry, a prison and a punishment;^[3] Beleth explains the word from Greek words for stone and cutting.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of quarries as a punishment.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the quarries of Syracuse.^[2][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of the prison in Rome.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stone quarry, especially one used as a prison.^[1][2]
2. Lautumiae, a district of Rome by the Capitol, with a prison.^[1][2]
3. (Medieval Latin) Stone-cutting, masonry.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de