I have read this in the dative (tribusviris), upon which occasion the translation given was "to the magistrates", but I am not quite ecstatic about that, with a "magistrate" (magistratus) being more of a civic official than the leader of a tribe (one of the three original Roman Tribes?) in ancient Rome. Is there a better translation...I am thinking maybe, "(to the) chieftains", or "(to the) tribal leaders" (or even "to the warlords"), as the etymology (tribus + vir) would seem to suggest?
Best translation for "tribusvir"
- Thread starter Michael Zwingli
- Start date
"To the triumvirs."
This tribus is the dative of tres; nothing to do with the noun tribus, us.
For more detail see: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=triumviri
This tribus is the dative of tres; nothing to do with the noun tribus, us.
For more detail see: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=triumviri
You can't possibly use it in the singular for obvious reasons, at least in the tresviri variant.
!:? Oh my, it seemed so "obvious" to me! So, am I to gather that tribusviris is an alternate form of triumviris?
Yes, quite obviously. Also, should I gather from the translation as "magistrates", that there were, perhaps, three magistratus in any period of time in Rome?
I think magistratus is just a general word for civil officers.
Yes. Different grammatical constructions/literal meanings, but same thing.
Ah! I had rather thought that it represented a more particular role. I was of the thought that the magistrates were those responsibility of carrying the facsies during instances in which the Roman state was to project it's power. Must read more Roman history...
Actually, with the interest that I have in etymology, I should have realized the error in my thought. Tribus + vir would nout yield tribusvir, as tribus would lose it's nominal suffix in the process, and only the stem would remain. I rather suspect the result would be something like tribivir.
Unless it wasn't a "real" compound but two originally distinct words written as one, like aquaeductus, senatusconsultum, and indeed triumvir and tresviri.
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If am not sure if this is the reason for your hypothesis but the -us in tribus is not the same -us you find in second declension masculine substantives, -ibus is an ending of its own. In this case you can't just remove the -us and use an i to connect the two words.
Ah, sorry Michael.
I was, indeed, indicating tribus "a tribe", as in my original surmization, rather than the dative of tres. This Latin tribus derives from tri- the stem of tres (acknowledging that there were originally three "tribal groups" in Latium), and a derivative of IE verbal root bʰuh₂ "to grow/to become", which is seen in Greek φῠ́ω (intransitively, "to arise", "to grow"), φῡλή ("tribe") φῠ́σῐς ("origin"/"nature") and apparently in such Latin compounds as probus, superbus and tribus.
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The abbreviation "IIIvir" sometimes shows up, but I'd imagine it would be pronounced as triumvir.
Yes, presumably.