[German version] Male garment of a rectangular cloth (felt or loden) with a triangular or circular section cut out, sometimes also with hood. Worn as a shawl or cape and fixed at the right shoulder with a buckle or fibula (Pins), thus leaving the right side of the body uncovered. The sagum originally came from Gaul (Diod. Sic. 5,30,1: σάγος/ ságos; Varro, Ling. 5,167; Caes. B Gall. 5,42,3: sagulum) but was also worn by Germans and Iberians and in Italy and North Africa. It belonged to the garb of slaves and workers and to the battle dress of Roman navy and infan…

[German version] (ἡ ἔρημος/ érēmos, ἡ ἐρημία/ erēmía, τὰ ἔρημα/ érēma; Lat. deserta, regio deserta). In geographical terms the arid desert zones were part of the marginal areas of the Ancient World (North Africa, the Middle East with Syria, Palestine, Arabia). Politically and to a greater extent economically they, had close relationships to the Graeco-Roman cultural sphere. A large part of the east-west trade devolved over long-distance routes across the Arabian deserts. Desert towns such as Ḥatra [1], Palmyr…

[German version] As a stone monument with or without inscription, the cippus was used in particular for territorial delineation. Made as a free-standing sculpture, it marked burial sites and was linked as reference to the dead to magical ideas and should not be confused with steles. The basic form was phallic, 30-50 cm high and it was represented in diverse ways especially in Etruria ( Etruscan Archaeology). Mostly onions, spheres or eggs top a pillar or cylinder. Special regional types in the 6th…

[German version] (κίτρος, cedar). This genus of Rutaceae consists of about 20, or rather a narrower spectrum of seven to eight species of evergreen trees and shrubs from subtropical and tropical Asia. The name citrus (κίτρος, κίτριον; kítros, kítrion) originally referred to conifers with aromatic wood, such as Callitris articulata. However, after Alexander's campaigns it was transferred to the species Citrus medica, which had been cultivated in Media and Persia for some time (μῆλον μηδικόν; mêlon mēdikón, κίτριον in Theophr. Hist. pl. 4,4,2; κεδρόμηλα ( kedrómēla) in Dioscurides…

[German version] Procuring information about the political and military situation of the enemy played an important part in Greek and Roman warfare (cf. Thuc. 6,32,3 f.). Aside from statements made by deserters,  prisoners of war, or even merchants (cf. Caes. Gall. 4,20,3 f.) and travellers, army commanders and politicians made use of the knowledge gained by spies. In Greek texts, spies are referred to as κατάσκοποι/ katáskopoi, although the distinction between espionage and military intelligence is murky (Hdt. 7,145 f.; Thuc. 6,63,3). In Caesar, spies ( speculatores) are disti…

[German version] (τρικλίν[ι]ον; triklín[i]on). Roman dining room, or in the narrower sense, a group of three couches (Latin lectus; klínē ), on each of which three guests could take their places. Their arrangement around a central round or rectangular table was the typical Roman furnishing for the dining room (cf. ill.). The couches could be built of stone, so that their location is recognizable in the floor plan of the house; however, they were frequently movable. Mattresses, cushions and blankets provided the necessary comfort. Where there was no constructed substructure, a triclini…

[German version] Mussels, fish, game and poultry were decided delicacies to the Greeks: for all of them  Archestratus [2] can provide the best source (Ath. 2,62c, 3,932d-e) and a good method of preparation (Ath. 9,384b). Hellenistic gastronomy reached Rome in the context of Roman conquests in the east, bringing with it not only new products (such as spices), but also food-related habits that were from then on inseparable from the sophisticated lifestyle of the upper classes: e.g. the use of garum, a sauce obtained by rendering fish intestines and small fish in salt (Gp. 20,46). The lex Fan…

[German version] ( luxuria; Greek τρυφή; tryphḗ). In the centre of the Latin terminology around luxury, the noun luxus stands together with its derivatives luxuria and luxuries. The word luxus denotes first a crossing of the line or an excess, a spontaneous un-wished-for growth, especially an excess in lifestyle. The connotation here is clearly negative, whereas magnificentia has rather the meaning of ‘splendour’ and ‘expenditure’. The general term luxury encompasses other terms, such as lautitia, apparatus, sumptus. Luxury is considered a vice in Latin literature, beca…

[German version] In Antiquity, harvested grain was prepared for storing in two steps: threshing served to extracted the grain from its husks, whereas winnowing separated the grains from chaff, straw, bad seeds or weeds. Not all kinds of grain are suitable for threshing; spelt ( far) had to be roasted and pounded. There were various methods of threshing wheats (πυρός/ pyrós, Latin triticum, siligo): the ears could be trodden out by animals (τρίβειν/ tríbein, πατεῖν/ pateîn, Latin exterere), usually cattle, or various kinds of implements could be dragged across the harvest…

Just as today, the donkey was in many regions of the Mediterranean one of the most often used domestic animals of antiquity. It was ridden, burdened with a packsaddle or hitched in front of a cart and was one of the most commonly used sources of living mechanical energy. As for many material possessions, the literary and archaeological sources for the use of donkeys are sparse and archaeozoology is only slowly beginning to offer interesting evidence. [German version] A. Systematic zoology, origin and domestication This genus of ungulates ( Equidae) belongs to the family of Perissoda…

[German version] I. Ancient Near East and Egypt Salt (Sumerian mun; Akkadian ṭabtu; Hittite puti; Hebrew mælaḥ; Egyptian sm.t) played an important role in all ancient Near Eastern cultures and in Egypt. In often high temperatures, the supply of salt was essential to life: salt was therefore part of workers' ordinary rations in Mesopotamia and Egypt (Rations). It was esp. used to season foods and to preserve meat and fish. In medicine, too, salt was used internally and externally. Salt was an important ingredient…

I. Architecture [German version] A. Definition The circus was the biggest of all Roman places of leisure and was initially and mainly used for races with chariots drawn by teams of four or two ( quadrigae or bigae). The canonical circus consisted of a long, comparatively narrow racetrack ( c. 450 × 80 m; arena, from harena-, ‘sand’), on both ends of which three cones ( metae) on a platform served as markers for turning. The track led round a barrier that marked the central axis ( euripus, Greek εὔριπος ( eúripos), ‘water ditch’; later also spina-, ‘backbone, spine’) and that was decorate…

[German version] I. Definition a) A riddle is an encrypted formulation, related to the figurative speech of metaphor and posing a question; its answer (= solution) requires - indeed, provokes - the memory and imagination of the person addressed; an analogical inference is generally helpful to finding the answer [1. 261]. The person who poses the riddle has superior knowledge; hence the addressee concedes expertise to that person or authority (e.g., the seer or oracle); at the same time, the guesser …

[German version] Initially the term B. refers, from a Greek perspective, to groups speaking foreign languages. ‘Hellenes-Barbarians’ fit as ‘asymmetrical alternative terms’ [5. 218-229] into a pattern well known in ethnology:  foreigners who are different are termed B. and distinguished from one's own culture by means of a value judgement based on strongly ethnocentric and hellenocentrically determined concepts. The antithesis is more frequently comprehensible, with the ancient image of B. having …

(οἶνος/ oînos; Lat. vinum). [German version] I.Egypt and Ancient Near East Archeological finds (excavations, pictorial representations in tombs) as well as Egyptian and Roman texts contain a plethora of information about the growing, production and use of wine in Egypt from the Early Period to the Ptolemaic-Roman Period. Wine (Egyptian jrp; Coptic ērp; Old-Nubian orpj/ē; cf. in Sappho 51 ἔρπις/ érpis [9. 46], probably an old foreign cult word [7. 1169]) was grown primarily in Lower Egypt or the Nile Delta and in the oases, clearly because of the favourab…

[German version] I. General ‘Multilingualism’ refers to two different things: on the one hand the ability of an individual to use several languages, on the other hand a situation where, within a social group, several languages are used (linguistic contact). As a result, research into multilingualism can look at multilingual individuals or a multilingual society; accordingly, points of contact arise to psycho- and neurolinguistics on the one hand or to sociolinguistics and historical linguistics (des…

I. Greece [German version] A. Definition and general remarks Literary activity (LA) is defined as any form of interaction between authors or interpreters of their work (e.g. Rhapsodes, actors) and others participating in their processes of production or reception (e.g. patrons, audience, readers). Three types of occasions are characteristic of LA from the Homeric period (late 8th cent. BC) to the last phase of the Hellenistic period (1st cent. BC): symposia ( Banquet II. C., for an audience of invited g…

[German version] A. Preliminary remarks The study of communication ‘deals with the problems of interhuman communication and all related phenomena’ [1]. It has a broad agenda which cannot be considered here in all of its diverse aspects. This article focuses on the eminent aspect of linguistic communication whose widespread manifestations can only receive selective attention. Ancient theories of signs and philosophical theories of communication ( Philosophy of language), for instance, will not be addressed. Hadot, Pierre (Limours) [German version] B. The spread of Greek an…

[German version] A. Term On one hand, the Greek term  παιδεία ( paideía), like παίδευσις ( paídeusis; Aristoph. Nub. 986,1043), describes an  education that comprises both intellectual and ethical teaching as a process (Aristoph. Nub. 961; Thuc. 2,39,1), but on the other hand also education as an asset and as the result of the teaching process (Democr. 180; Pl. Prt. 327d; Grg. 470e; Resp. 378e; Aristot. Pol. 1338a30). Today, a distinction is usually made between education = teaching by means of theoretical ins…

[German version] I. Ancient Near East Music played a significant role in all areas of life of the Ancient Near East, but textual and iconographical evidence is mainly limited to its role in court life and the cultic-religious sphere. The making of music (Sumerian ‘nam-nar’, Akkadian ‘nārūtu’), already a highly specialized area as early as the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, belonged to the fundamental values of civilization. The particular occasion determined the musical form (more than 100 Sumeri…