Salvete Romani
Anyone know what the Roman attitude to left-handedness was? Were they like the Victorians in my country who forced people to write with their right hand, or was it simply not an issue for them?
Avete
Moderator: Aldus Marius
Indeed all peoples of antiquity were highly superstitious, and seem to have believed that everything (including objects we regard as inanimate) contained an animate spirit with a will of its own that needed to be bribed, cajoled, incanted into cooperative behaviour.
You are also correct that everything unusual and non-conformist was viewed with suspicion, and hence the Romans most certainly viewed everyone sinister (left handed) as sinister (bad, awkward, wrong, unlucky). This usage is in poetic literature (especially Catullus and Ovid) and enters Latin prose in the 1st century AD approximately during the sinister reign of Tiberius.
But there is an important exception. While the Greeks faced north to read auspices (divine the outcome of future events from the flight of birds), and hence had the fortunate, eastern side on their right (where the sun rises), the Romans faced south so that the east was on their left. In this context alone the word sinister had a favourable, well-omened meaning.
Quintus Marius Primus wrote:BTW, think the vocative for Quintus is Quinte
Indeed all peoples of antiquity were highly superstitious, and seem to have believed that everything (including objects we regard as inanimate) contained an animate spirit with a will of its own that needed to be bribed, cajoled, incanted into cooperative behaviour.
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