Disputatio:Ultimi Philippinarum

Latest comment: abhinc 13 annos by Roch01A in topic minari Hispanis

Preliminary vocab recensere

Few considerations that may need improvement:

  • Captain => Tribunus Centurio
  • Leutenant => Centurio Locum Tenens
  • Cabo (private?) => Optio Manipularius
  • The town of Baler => Baler, -is (for the moment)
  • I have latinised the names of the soldiers, but not the surnames and turned the Ñ into nn
  • Gun => Sclopetum, -i
  • Ammunition/bullets => glans ignita (vide hoc) Munitio, -nis
  • Cannon =>Cannone, -is ([1])

And other that will emerge as I keep on writting...--Xaverius 22:10, 8 Maii 2007 (UTC)Reply


In the infantry, a captain is the CO of a company, and a company is roughly a hundred soldiers (ideally often a few more), so a captain should (as the word conveniently indicates) be a centurio. At the next level down, maybe some flexibility is needed. A company's XO is ordinarily a first lieutenant, but a company breaks down into platoons, and the officer who leads a platoon is a 2nd lieutenant, for which one might suggest decurio, unless that should be reserved for 'sergeant' (see below). (How to distinguish between 1st & 2nd lieutenants?) A platoon breaks down into two or more squads; I have no idea what to call their leaders, but my dictionary says each platoon is itself a manipulus or an armatorum globus. IacobusAmor 03:14, 9 Maii 2007 (UTC)Reply

My eighteenth-century dictionary makes these distinctions:

general: imperator; dux; strategus; administrator belli. [A general commands an army = exercitus; militum copiae.]
colonel: legionis tribunus; chiliarchus [not classical]. [A colonel commands a regiment = legio.]
colonel of horse: turmae equestris, vel equitum praefectus
colonel of foot: peditum praefectus
major of a troop: legatus
captain of the king's guards: praetorii, vel satellitum, praefectus
captain of grenadiers or light horse: expeditae, vel leviter armatorum equitum; turmae praefectus
captain of a company: ordinum ductor
captain of horse: turmae equitum ductor
captain over ten men: decurio
captain of a hundred: centurio
captain of a thousand: chiliarchus [not Classical]; tribunus militum
lieutenant: locum tenens; vicarius; optio
sergeant: lictor; apparitor; accensus
sergeant of a company of foot (i.e., platoon?): decurio; coactor agminis
sergeant major: decurionum primarius
corporal: manipularius; decurio

Modern armies may have five levels of generals (from five stars to one: general of the army, general, lieutenant general, major general, brigadier general) and some countries have marshals and field marshals, etc. Elsewhere, my old dictionary says a company of soldiers = cohors; manus; militum globus. For 'batallion', it has agmen; 'battalion of foot', phalanx; 'square', agmen quadratum; 'the middle battalion, consisting of 8000 among the ancients', phalanx, gis, f. [not a classical use]. Maybe somebody'd like to do more research on these and other military terms and work the lot up into an article. Because the Romans excelled in military matters, Latin must have a rich vocabulary for military concepts. IacobusAmor 03:14, 9 Maii 2007 (UTC)Reply

See also legio ix website where among other things they have an interesting page of military commandsRafaelgarcia 16:54, 12 Maii 2007 (UTC)Reply
I agree when you tell roman people should have had a rich vocabulary for military concepts but i suppose those concept are obsolete: we can't make a relation between the power of a decurio and the power of a sergeant or a lieutenant or someone else. when we translate a latine text with centurio or decurio, we use centurion or decurion (in french) and not general or colonel... I mean we have to look for some new vocable. If you know some vocable about the military world or some others, please add it to lexicum meum -- Thoma D. 15:44, 3 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply
Re "when we translate a latine text with centurio or decurio, we use centurion or decurion (in french) and not general or colonel."—Well, obviously, as we do too (in English). IacobusAmor 13:17, 7 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply
Re "I mean we have to look for some new vocable."—The tradition here in Vicipaedia is to look for attested terms, even if in "new" Latin texts (from the past few hundred years). IacobusAmor 13:17, 7 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply
By the way, your chart indicates that in France, captains outrank majors; however, in the United States, majors outrank captains. IacobusAmor 13:17, 7 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply
Also, in the United States, the title of commandant refers to a function, rather than a rank: the current Commandant of the Marine Corps is General James T. Conway; the current Commandant of Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) is Brigadier General Robert L. Caslen, Jr.; the current Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis) is Captain Margaret D. Klein (note that a captain in the navy ranks higher than a captain in the army). IacobusAmor 13:17, 7 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply
Ranks missing from your chart are sergeant major (in the United States more or less equivalent to warrant officer), airman, and probably others. In the United States, a "five-star general" is equivalent to a European marshall or field marshal and is known as a general of the army, but other high titles have been used, and Lieutenant General George Washington has posthumously been promoted to the rank of general of the armies of the United States. IacobusAmor 13:17, 7 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply
when i told about looking for new vocable, i was thinking about other words and not about creating new words (to look for and not create) - i know about majors and captains, sometimes our two languages are not using the same way to translate (i've watched some episods of JAG in english and i know the translators had problems to translate the ranks: Sarah MacKenzy is Major and, in french, Lieutenant-Colonel, that goes not with the moove of the mouth, so, sometimes, in french, she's Ltd-Colonel, and sometimes, Major, but majors exist in the french army (i think in "Gendarmerie")) - in the same way i know you don't have commandant as a rank but you have Major in the American armee (Major is not a major but a lieutenant-colonel, and a commandant is not really a commandant but a major) - I got a problem with those generals: i saw "general of the army is only used in time of war" (WP in english: General (United States)) and, in France, a Général d'Armée is a five-star general (we begin with 2 stars for the Général de Brigade) and is like a four-star general in the US army but a Maréchal got 7 stars (and not 6). The Maréchal Pétain has been, during the First WW, Général de Brigade (**), Général de Division (***), Général de Corps d'Armée (****), Général d'Armée (*****), Chef d'Etat-Major général (rank specially created for him), Général en chef des Armées françaises and Maréchal (1918) (*** * ***); in 1918, Foch was Commandant en Chef des troupes alliées, Généralissime. Among those words, some are ranks, others distinctions, others functions and (even in french), sometimes, i can't know who's who. -- Thoma D. 08:15, 9 Iulii 2007 (UTC)Reply

ammunition recensere

The word first appears in French as a derivative of munition, which in turn reflects Latin munitio, so we may have no need to invent a new term for it. IacobusAmor 03:14, 9 Maii 2007 (UTC)Reply

De nomine "Baleris" recensere

Baler was founded in 1609 as Kinagunasan But I still cannot find a Latin name, grrrrr--Xaverius 22:24, 8 Iunii 2007 (UTC)Reply

Commentarius "languesco,-ere,languidus" recensere

Care Roch01A, nexum ad commentarium languesco,-ere,languidus [sic] nuper fecisti. Cur putas nobis oportere talem commentarium habere? IacobusAmor 11:44, 23 Iunii 2009 (UTC) Quoque: fero, (te)tuli, latus tollo, sustuli, sublatus --Roch01A 01:02, 27 Maii 2010 (UTC)Reply

minari Hispanis recensere

Care Jacobe: Mea opinione "Minari Hispanis" debet esse sententia simplicius significans "esse dirae curae Hispanis" Propter hoc oportet nos dicere: "Minari Hispanos tribus agminibus" ob complexitatem (usum casus ablativi instrumentalis) et clarificationem sententiae. --Roch01A 01:29, 27 Maii 2010 (UTC)Reply

Secundum Cassell's, propria loquendi ratio est minari alicui rem, Anglice 'to threaten someone with something'. (The people threatened are dative, and the thing they're threatened with is accusative.) Exemplum apud Ciceronem est minari alicui crucem 'to threaten someone with crucifixion'. Ergo Anglica sententia 'to threaten the Spaniards with three armies' = minari Hispanis tria agmina. But that concept seems a little odd. IacobusAmor 02:04, 27 Maii 2010 (UTC)Reply

Meus dictionarius "Elementary Latin Dictionary Lewis" sic profert etiam usum acc V. with acc: quodcumque minabitur arcus (threatens to strike) opinor hunc esse sensum proprium nostrae rationis, haud inflictionem poenae quamdam. --Roch01A 03:09, 27 Maii 2010 (UTC)Reply

Revertere ad "Ultimi Philippinarum".