dis manibus
Imre Z. Ruzsa
somewhere (I forgot where) I read "dis manibus" traslated as "in the
hands of gods". This looks like nonsense,
but
(1) indeed, the plural dat.-abl of manes and manus is the same. Is
there a purely grammatical way to
distinguish between them?
(2) Is there any way to interpret "dis" adjectivally, say as a form of
divus or of Dis?
(3) Why is there no conjunction between dis and manibus?
Thanks in advance.
Imre Ruzsa
Matthew Montchalin
|(2) Is there any way to interpret "dis" adjectivally, say as a form of
|divus or of Dis?
Sure. Diuus can be monosyllabic in the ablative plural. It is a long
vowel.
Robert Stonehouse
The word is 'manes' with a long A, nothing to do with hands. The
concepts involved are very unclear. Lewis and Short are not good on
this (see Austin on Aeneid 6.743 against them) but I'll pick up some
of their quotations.
In some sense, Manes are underworld gods: Cicero Leg. 2.9.22 'deorum
manium iura sacra sunto', 'Let the dues of the underworld gods be
respected'. They seem to be the underworld representation of the
dead themselves, and maybe they need not ever be anything else.
There is no singular form, and so when a single dead person is
meant, you still get 'Dis Manibus' in the plural, which tends to
deepen the confusion.
Earlier Roman tombstones begin HSE ('Hic Situs Est'), 'Here lies
..' with the name of the deceased in the nominative. This seems to
follow the Greek form ('keitai'). About the beginning of the Empire
it changes and you find DM ('Dis Manibus') in the dative with the
name of the deceased in the genitive. Perhaps one could translate
'To the deceased soul of ...'. This is exclusively Roman, perhaps
really older than the other, but just not surviving from such an
early time. It expresses to whom the tomb is dedicated: a dedicatee
would usually be in the dative.
'Manes' can be used for the inhabitants of the underworld as a
group: Virgil Georgics 1.242-3 about the poles of the night sky:
'Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum /
sub pedibus Styx atra videt Manesque profundi'
'This pole is always above our heads; but the other /
black Styx under our feet beholds, and the souls far below.'
Exceptionally, 'manes' seems to be used of physical remains:
Propertius 2.13.31-2:
'deinde, ubi suppositus cinerem me fecerit ardor, /
accipiat Manis parvula testa meos'
'Then, when heat placed underneath shall have turned me into ash, /
let a little urn receive my remains'.
But perhaps we can treat this as a transferred use of the ordinary
meaning.
DM is so usual as a heading at the top of the stone that it
sometimes seems to get detached from the meaning of the rest. I know
of one tombstone where the name of the deceased is in the ablative.
(Warning! I ramble a bit here, perhaps not without wishful
thinking.)
Roman Inscriptions of Britain no. 1065:
DM.REGINA.LIBERTA.ET.CONIUGE. /
BARATES.PALMYRENUS.NATIONE. /
CATVALLAUNA.AN.XXX.
To the underworld gods. For Regina, his freedwoman and wife, /
Barates, a Palmyrene by origin, /
for a Catuvellaunian. Aged 30.
(Underneath is Palmyrene script, translated as 'Regina, freedwoman
of Barates. Alas.')
This is from South Shields on Tyneside, an unexpected place to find
a soldier from Palmyra, the desert city in Syria now Tadmur. He
himself seems to draw attention to the diverse origins of himself
and his wife. (Having two nouns in the ablative confuses things.)
Maybe he was not very conversant with Latin usage. It is pointed out
that he can't spell 'Catuvellauna', but I defend him. This month on
the Shakespeare newsgroup we are reading 'Cymbeline'. Now, he is the
same as Cunobelinus of Camulodunum (who is the nearest thing known
to Old King Cole of Colchester) king of the Catuvellauni and of
southern Britain from Colchester to Dorchester. In Shakespeare, one
of his sons goes under the Welsh name of Cadwal. So I suggest
Barates spelt 'Catvallauna' not as the Romans spelt it, but as his
wife did, who actually was one.
(Presumably, before enslavement, she was an aristocrat - not the
queen, of course, but that was her name.)
It is a fine tombstone, showing her as a Roman matron, seated, with
her work-box on one side and her jewel-box on the other. People
assume an auxiliary soldier could not possibly have paid for such a
thing, and he must have been a rich merchant. But his own tombstone
was found at Corbridge (if it is the same man, of course) - a far
simpler affair (RIB 1171):
DM /
BARATHES.PAL /
MORENUS.VEXILA /
VIXIT.ANOS.LXVIII
'To the underworld gods. /
Barates Pal- /
myrene reservist /
lived 68 years'
(Deceased's name in the nominative this time.)
'VEXILA' stands for 'vexillarius', the normal word for a soldier who
has served his time and is a member of the reserve 'sub vexilla',
under a flag. It seems perverse in this one case to translate it as
meaning a wealthy merchant supplying flags to the army.
So I suggest he was proud of her and spent a lot of money when she
died. Perhaps more than he could afford, but these stones were
mass-produced and distributed so that the local mason had only to
carve the face and add the inscription.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Frank Van Heden
Manes signify : the souls of the deceiced, the underworld
Dis manibus figures on an inscription and means : to the gods of the
undeworld.
Dii manes (nom.) is also used bij Cicero in Leges 2, 22
Frank
Imre Z. Ruzsa heeft geschreven in bericht
<3B20FB3F...@math-inst.hu>...
Matthew Montchalin
|Manibus is the dative not of "manus" (hand) but of "manes" (m. pl.).
|Manes signify : the souls of the deceiced, the underworld
|Dis manibus figures on an inscription and means : to the gods of the
|undeworld.
|Dii manes (nom.) is also used bij Cicero in Leges 2, 22
Surely I'm not the only one who has nailed up a blanket over a window
(for want of shutters, and since I had no curtains)? And then, with the
room completely dark, and barely any light at all coming through from the
*edges* of the blanket (and this is the important thing), have someone
else on the outside come walking by, and go past the window.
Okay, this is the amazing part:
An observer on the inside of the room will see an *inverted* image
like a shadow, pass the OPPOSITE direction! Truly a spooky thing
to see. :) Surely a sign that there are "manes" in the area,
walking the other direction that the person on the outside travels.
But anyway, the Latin 'manes' was a word that I always took to be
connected with the verb 'manere' - signifying what's left of these
people, and how they stay around after the other people, living,
pass by. The shadow of someone passing by on the outside is met
with the shadow of something inside, and which moves in the opposite
direction.
Imre Z. Ruzsa
>
>
> About the beginning of the Empire
> it changes and you find DM ('Dis Manibus') in the dative with the
> name of the deceased in the genitive. Perhaps one could translate
> 'To the deceased soul of ...'. This is exclusively Roman, perhaps
> really older than the other, but just not surviving from such an
> early time.
Many thanks for the explanation and interesting examples.
I am a mathematician, just interested in reading about antiquity and Latin
language,
without any formal training in these fields. So maybe you admit a more
basic question.
If the Romans were content with just writing DM, this shows that the
meaning and interpretation
was clear to them. Is it clear to us? Do we also find examples where the
words are fully written? If so,
are there variants?
Thanks a lot
Imre
Robert Stonehouse
It is rare to find them fully written, but looking through a British
Museum book on Roman monuments I find they have an example. The
wording confuses me, but I copy from the photograph:
DIS.MANIBUS.SERVIUS.CORNELIUS
DIADUMENUS.CORNELIAE SERVA
NDAECONIUSUAE.CARIS.VIX.ANN.LX
ET CORNELIAE.ONESIME.VERNE.SUA
VIX.ANN.VIIII.MEN.V.DIE.XXVIII
which I take to be:
Dis Manibus. Servius Cornelius Diadumenus Corneliae Servandae
coniugi suae carissimae, vixit annis LX; et Corneliae Onesimae
vernae suae, vixit annis VIIII mensibus V diebus XXVIII
To the underworld gods. Servius Cornelius Diadumenus to Cornelia
Servanda his dearest wife, lived 60 years, and Cornelia Onesima his
home-born slave, lived 9 years 5 months 28 days.
Corrections invited! It looks odd they should both be commemorated
on the same relief, and so much detail given to the slave. (It does
fill up the space neatly, but the earlier lines are a trifle
crowded.) The figure of the deceased is shown resting on a bed,
which has the slave's name carved on it, COR.ONESIME.
Perhaps Diadumenus liked the little girl more than his dearest wife?
Or perhaps he suddenly thought that his wife had not been
commemorated yet, and here was a chance? Or perhaps the mason was a
bit careless and, having two names, put the wrong one on?
(The book points out that the figure is distinctly male - a case
where a mass-produced tombstone was used, when it did not quite fit
the circumstances. Also that the names suggest the two old people
had themselves been slaves.)
By 'variants', do you mean the letters DM might mean sometimes one
thing and sometimes another? It would be contrary to the usual Roman
practice in abbreviating, which depended heavily on having formulae
that never varied. So, for example, you can see
"q.d.e.r.f.p.d.e.r.i.c." and immediately (or not so immediately for
me) read "quid de ea re fieri placeret, de ea re ita censuerunt",
"what should be done in this matter, concerning this matter they
decided as follows".
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Imre Z. Ruzsa
>
> Perhaps Diadumenus liked the little girl more than his dearest wife?
> Or perhaps he suddenly thought that his wife had not been
> commemorated yet, and here was a chance?
My guess would be that the little girl was perhaps an illegitimate child of
his.
> By 'variants', do you mean the letters DM might mean sometimes one
> thing and sometimes another?
No, I just thought that perhaps there were variants in orthography, dialect,
or sooner and later versions.
Many thanks again.
Imre Ruzsa
Robert Stonehouse
>> Perhaps Diadumenus liked the little girl more than his dearest wife?
>> Or perhaps he suddenly thought that his wife had not been
>> commemorated yet, and here was a chance?
>
>My guess would be that the little girl was perhaps an illegitimate child of
>his.
She is described as 'verna', which would mean she was a slave of
his. I doubt if that is compatible with her being his daughter. Of
course, slaves could not marry; but if he had a daughter while he
was a slave, she would belong to his owner.
...
ew...@bcs.org.uk
Robert Stonehouse
him and Servanda while they were still slaves? (That may be what you
meant, in which case I apologise for misunderstanding.)
The little girl's name, Cornelia Onesima, is not a slave's name but
a freedwoman's. Onesima would be her slave name (as Servanda would
be her mother's) and they took their patron's Roman name in
addition, as was usual on manumission.
The patron (formerly their owner) was Servius Cornelius. The freed
man gets both those names to add to his slave name Diadumenus, and
the two women get only the second (Cornelia) as was usual for Roman
women.
If that is right, then I ought to translate
ET CORNELIAE.ONESIME.VERNE.SUA
as 'and to Cornelia Onesima his daughter born in slavery'.
But I am not sure 'verna' can bear that meaning.
It can mean a native of a place. Perhaps Diadumenus means to
emphasise that, though they all came out of slavery where family
relations legally did not exist, she was in fact really his
daughter.
ew...@bcs.org.uk