Mr. Rich, in his “Companion to the Latin Dictionary,” under glans, observes that ‘the letters are for firmiter, “Throw steadily,” or Feri Roma (Inscript. ap. Orelli, 4932), “Strike, O Rome!”’ I much prefer Mommsen’s suggestion, that FIR· are the first three letters of FIRMO, in the sense “thrown from Firmum,” and that the allusion is to the siege of that town, whilst occupied by Cn. Pompeius Strabo, during the Social war, in 90 B.C.
The bullet bearing ΕΛΛΕΝΙ, i. e. Ἑλλήνων or Ἑλληνίκων, is said to have been found on the plains of Marathon, but its genuineness is justly doubted.[1] [2]ITAL, i. e. Italicorum, is on glandes which were thrown on the side of the Socii Italici; and those which are inscribed OPITERGIN belonged to the Opitergini, who were warm allies of Cæsar.
3. The names of deities are most probably of those gods and goddesses, whose aid was specially invoked by the combatants on either side, or to whom the missiles were consecrated, as MAR·VLT, Marti Ultori.
4. The names of men in connection with “victory,” of course indicate the wish that those who are named may succeed. The inscription ΑΘΗΝΙΩΝΟΣ ΝΙΚΗ, on μολύβδαιναι found in the campus Leontinus, shows that such bullets were thrown by the slaves in the Servile war in Sicily, 102–99 B.C., for Athenio was a leader in that insurrection. The glandes found near Perusia, which bear the words C·[3]CAESARVS·VICTORIA, were thrown by the besiegers, partisans of Octavianus.
5. The inscriptions, in which the names of deities are used in connection with “Victory,” indicate the gods or goddesses who were believed to be specially interested in favour of each side, or who had been chosen as patrons. Thus ΔΙΟΣ ΝΙΚΗ may have been on the Roman missiles, and ΝΙΚΗ ΜΗΤΕΡΩΝ (otherwise ΝΙΚΗ ΜΑΤΕΡΩΝ) on the Sicilian. That the Deæ Matres were worshipped in the island, appears from the statements of Diodorus Siculus, iv. 79, 80, and Posidonius, in Plutarch, Marcellus, c. 19, independently of the evidence supplied by this inscription. Another of these Sicilian bullets is inscribed with the words ΝΙΚΗ ΜΑΤΕΡΟΣ, from which
- ↑ Some, however, have been found there, which seem to be unimpeachable. See Dodwell’s Tour, ii. 161. Those found at Athens were probably thrown during the siege by Sylla.
- ↑ Ritschl, Pl. viii. nn. 20, 21.
- ↑ In Cæsarus we have the archaic termination of the genitive of the third declension. Thus Cererus, in n. 566, hominus, in n. 200, patrus, in n. 1469, &c.
