inglés
WORDS CONCERNING TO ROMAN EDUCATION
"ALUMNUS"
ENGLISH WORD: “alumnus/a”.
CURRENT MEANING: in English this word has a different meaning from ours. It´s used to refer to a graduate or former student of a specific school, college or university.
ORIGIN: the newborn child who was fed by his mother received the name of alumnus “who is fed”. It comes from the Latin verb alere “to feed”, “to grow”. In metaphorical sense, alumnus wants to say “who is intelectually fed”.
"DISCIPLE"
ENGLISH WORD: “disciple”, “discipline”.
CURRENT MEANING: person who learns from someone in a school. Somebody who follows a particular learning. We understand by discipline the set of rules and laws that govern an organization.
ORIGIN: it sends us to Latin verb discere “to learn”. The discipulus is “who learns”.
Teacher with three discipuli. Relief found near Trier. Photo of casting in Pushkin museum, Moscow.
"CALCULUS"
ENGLISH WORD: “calculus”, “calculator”, “calculate”.
CURRENT MEANING: this term refers to the mathematical counting operation. It also can refer to the small stones that turns up in the kidneys.
ORIGIN: the Latin term calculus meant “small stone”, particularly those used to teach children to count in school.
Reconstruction of a roman abacus, made by the RGZ Museum in Mainz. The original is bronze and is held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in Paris.
ENGLISH WORD: “pedagogue”, “pedagogy”.
CURRENT MEANING: person with abilities to educate and teach the children.
ORIGIN: the paedagogus was a preceptor or tutor used in Rome by the well-to-do, it used to be a slave of Greek origin, whose main mission was to go with children to school and help them in their early learning. Etymologically it alludes to παῖς, παιδός “child” and ἄγω “lead”.
"PALESTRA"
ENGLISH WORD: “palestra”, “palaestra”.
CURRENT MEANING: palestra used as noun is very rare and only to refer to a public place in ancient Greece or Rome devoted to sports training, a gymnasium or a wrestling school.
ORIGIN: it comes from the Greek παλαίστρα passing to Latin palaestra, and it makes reference to a public place where athletic exercises as the fight, the boxing etc, were taught and practiced. In English this noun keeps only the ancient significance.
Palestra. Herculano.
"TABLET"
ENGLISH WORD: “tablet”.
CURRENT MEANING: it´s a small computer which we useby touching the screenwith our fingers or with a feather also known as stylus.
ORIGIN: it comes from the Latin word tabella with the meaning of a writing support used in ancient times. The word stylus comes from the Latin word stylus with the meaning of a pointed instrument used by the Romans for writing upon their tabellae; today we can use the same instrument upon the tablets.
A slave brings to his master the tabellae to write. Detail from the sarcophagus of Roman lawyer Valerius Petronianus (315-320 a. C). Archaeological Museum in Milan. Picture by Giovanni Dall’Orto.
"DECATHLON"
ENGLISH WORD: “decathlon”, “pentathlon”.
CURRENT MEANING: an athletic contest for men in which each athlete competes in ten or five different events for two days, following an established order and getting a single classification.
ORIGIN: compound from the Greek numeral δέκα “ten” and the noun ἆθλον “fight”.
Mosaic showing Roman entertainments from the 1st century. Jamahiriya Museum. Tripoli, Libia.