These vehicles were extremely sophisticated, especially when compared to what people had to deal with in the Middle Ages. The above examples show how the Romans harnessed their animal-drawn vehicles.
These appear to be dated from the First or Second Centuries CE. Here is a mosaic showing a tow-pole secured to a team of seahorses by means of a cross beam! This cross beam would have been called a jugum or a furca despite its obvious resemblance to a patibulum.Īnd here is a mosaic where no cross beam is present. The Tow-pole of a Carriage, Wagon or Chariot a tormentor - an agent or indirect object of a curse and still another! - the ever-erect phallus of Priapus.ī.1. There are actually different ancient quotidian meanings of the word crux, such as: - the tow-pole of a carriage, wagon or chariot - a term of reproach - torture, trouble, misery, destruction, etc.
(See also Part 1) Another sense of the word crucify, not noted in the dictionaries, is to smear someone or make him dead to rights figuratively, as in, "they crucified the whistleblower in the mainstream media, starting with Fox News." And the Urban Dictionary has noted that a new slang term for crucifying someone is to beat up on him. Another modern sense of crux is in the modern use of the word crucify, which now typically means 'to torture, torment'. Now the idea of crux meaning a central point or feature of a matter seems to derive right out of the crux interpretum, which means a cross (ways) of the interpreters, a passage in a text where interpreters do not agree. The Language Log quotes a rock climbers' dictionary thus:Ĭrux - The most crucial, difficult part of the climb. [Probably short for Mediaeval Latin crux (interpretum), torment (of interpreters), from the Latin crux, cross. A puzzling or apparently insoluble problem. The basic, central, or critical point or feature: the crux of the matter the crux of an argument. Because the Romans NEVER CRUCIFIED the way we think they did!įrom The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:Ĭrux (kruks, krooks) n., pl. In this part I will talk about the modern English use and the ancient Greco-Roman uses of the word crux that have nothing to do with the actual punishment of crucifixion. Part 3 - Crux - Modern English Use and Ancient Quotidian Meanings