postliminium

Forms

postlīminium n (genitive postlīminiī or postlīminī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin post- + līmen (“threshold”) + -ium.^[2][3] Lewis and Short explain it as properly a return behind one's threshold, that is, to one's home.^[4] The TLL notes that the original idea is not evident, but holds that the ancients' view of a compound of post and līmen should be accepted.^[5]

Ancient authors already discussed the word: Quintus Scaevola, Priscian and Justinian's Institutes took it as a compound of ⟨post⟩ and ⟨limen⟩, while another ancient authority derived it from ⟨post⟩ alone.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Quintus Scaevola and Cicero on.^[5] In Cicero's De oratore it is a legal term: a man sold by his father or by the people, or handed over by the pater patratus, has no postliminium, no right to resume his former status on returning.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Roman law it was the return to one's own country and the resumption of the civic rights and privileges that had been held in suspension during captivity or exile.^[2][4] From this it came to mean recovery or restoration in general: Fronto writes of Polycrates' letter telling of the loss and the recovery (postliminium) of his ring.^[2]

The ablative postliminio became an adverb, “so as to restore the former state”, “back again”: in Apuleius someone is told that he will at once turn back postliminio into “my Lucius”, and postliminio mortis meant “back from death”.^[2] In poetry it appears only in Prudentius and Rutilius Namatianus.^[5] Ecclesiastical Latin used it for a return home.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the legal right of return.^[2][3]
• 100–170 AD – Fronto uses it of the recovery of a lost ring.^[2]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses the ablative postliminio, “back again”.^[2]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it in verse.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) Postliminy: the return home from captivity or exile and the resumption of one's former civic rights and status.^[2][4]
2. (transferred) Recovery, restoration.^[2]
3. postliminio: so as to restore the former state, back again;^[2] postliminio mortis, back from death.^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A return home.^[6]

Usage notes

It is found mostly in the ablative singular, rarely in the plural;^[5] Cicero has the genitive postlimini.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson