Author details/dating: M. Tullius Cicero ob. BCE 43

Instrument Cited: Lituus

Citation Reference: Div. I, 17, 30

Citation Content: An example of Cicero’s antiquarian interests is his etymology of Lituus, the staff marking the augural office. This wand, which was crooked and at the top slightly curved, took its name from its likeness to the trumpet lituus with which was sounded the charge to battle. 17. “And whence, pray, did you augurs derive that staff, which is the most conspicuous mark of your priestly office? It is the very one, indeed, with which Romulus marked out1 the quarter for taking observations when he founded the city. Now this staff is a crooked wand, slightly curved at the top, and, because of its resemblance to a sound tool lituus, derives its name from the Latin word meaning ’the trumpet with which the battle-charge is sounded.’ It was placed in the temple of the Salii on the Palatine hill and, though the temple was burned, the staff was found uninjured. XVII Quid? Lituus iste vester, quod clarissumum est insigne auguratus, unde vobis est traditus? Nempe eo Romulus regiones direxìt tum, cum urbem condidit. Qui quidem Romuli lituus, id est incurvum et leviter a summo inflexu bacillum, quod ab eius litui, quo canitur, similitudine nomen invenit, cum situs esset in curia Saliorum, quae est in Palatio eaque defiagravisset, inventus est integer. The lituus of Romulus, that is, a bowed and slightly bent stick, which got its name from the likeness of the (sound tool) lituus on which it is sung, when it was situated in the court of the Salii, which is in the Palace, and having carved it, was found intact

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