The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary
Why bother to reconstruct the pronunciation of a dead language such as Latin? Why include a chart of key dates from Roman history in a Latin dictionary? We've done both of these things in the Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary (POLD).
Well, pronunciation and history come together in a story told by Cicero which demonstrates that Latin v was pronounced like u in the first century BC. When the Roman politician and general Crassus was setting out on the ill-fated expedition against the Parthians in which he and his army were to be annihilated at Carrhae (53 BC), a seller of Caunean figs was crying out 'Cauneas!' Cicero observes that it would have been a good thing for Crassus if he had heeded the omen, i.e. 'Cave ne eas!' (= beware of going). This story makes no sense unless we presume that the v of cave was similar in sound to the u of Cauneas.
The anecdote is related by Cicero in his book on divination (2.84). Cicero naturally gets an entry in our Latin writers section while Crassus features in our section on Historical and Mythological names. And Brundisium, the port he was setting out from, is of course on one of our maps.
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The Latin word for arms in the sense of weapons, arma, is in some cases indistinguishable from that for shoulder, armus. So in Virgil's Aeneid (4.11), when Dido exclaims of Aeneas, with whom she is falling irretrievably in love, 'Quam forti pectore et armis!' does she mean 'What a great-hearted warrior he is!' or 'What a strong chest and shoulders he's got!' I am afraid that even our dictionary cannot lead you to the right answer here, no doubt because there isn't one!
By the way, can you scan the Latin words and see what metre Virgil was writing in? If not, have a look at our section on the metres of Latin verse.
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While it was Julius Caesar who in essence created the modern calendar, the Roman way of giving the date (fully described in POLD) was incredibly unwieldy. The Latin for March 26 is 'ante diem vii Kalendas Apriles', i.e. seven days before the Kalends (1st) of April'. For this to work you have to follow the Romans in counting inclusively, i.e. you have to include the 26 March and 1st April to arrive at the number 7!
Whoever thought of simply giving the month with a number (i.e. just saying 'March 26th') conferred a great benefit on civilization. That's one thing the Romans can't claim credit for.
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Did you know that a Roman grammaticus was a teacher of children between the ages of around 12 to 15? His job title is just one of dozens of words where the new boxed notes in POLD provide more historical or cultural information about aspects of everyday Roman life. Unsurprisingly, given this job title, a grammaticus spent his time teaching grammar, but did you also know that the modern English word 'glamour' is derived directly from an old Scots pronunciation of the word 'grammar'?
In Scots, 'glamour' originally meant a magical spell or enchantment, possibly because of an association between grammar and Latin, a language which the uneducated from the middle ages on treated with suspicion since they did not understand it. The new edition of POLD contains dozens of new boxed notes which aim to demystify the grammar of particular words, together with a stylishly redesigned summary of the endings of Latin words - so no need for the old 'glamour' here, but maybe just a hint of its 21st century meaning?
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Swearing in Latin - Did you know that the oath 'By Castor!' (ecastor!) is the oath used exclusively by women in the early comic poets Plautus and Terence? 'By Pollux!' (edepol!) is used by both sexes. (Castor and Pollux are the Gemini, i.e. the heavenly twins.) The revised POLD has greatly extended its coverage of words used by these early Latin writers as well as the words used in silver and medieval Latin. There are, in fact, about 1,500 new entries in these areas.* * *
The new POLD is, of course, primarily designed for those who want to read or write Latin or even compose poetry in the language. But it goes far beyond that objective in its coverage. It has a great deal to offer to anyone with an interest in Roman history or classical civilization. It is an indispensable vade mecum (literally, 'go with me') for the study of Latin and the Roman world generally.