serrācum (sarrācum), -ī [2/n]: cart; wagon
Why should an entire post be devoted to a single word? Serrācum, like plaustrum, is most often defined as a cart or wagon. It would be perfectly legitimate to leave it at that since it occurs infrequently. However, in ‘exploring’ vocabulary – especially everyday objects about which the Romans said little – the noun serves as an example of being circumspect when you read very specific definitions for which there is a dearth of evidence.
[i] There is some debate as to whether this type of cart was fundamentally different from the plaustrum.
In Vitruvius’ discussions on machines and implements he distinguishes between the plaustrum and the serrācum but without specifying what that distinction is:
portātiōnēsque eōrum nōn essent, nisi plostrōrum [ = plaustrōrum] seu serracōrum per terram, nāviculārum per aquam inventae essent māchinātiōnēs.
- ...and their transportation would not exist, unless the mechanisms of wagons or carts across land, and of small boats across water, had been invented.
[ii] It is suggested that its use was for transporting heavier payloads although we must be wary of assuming absolute distinctions when attested evidence is limited. Juvenal describes the traffic chaos caused by goods vehicles:
longa coruscat / serrācō veniente abiēs, atque altera pīnum / plaustra vehunt
- A long fir-tree sways as the cart approaches, and other wagons carry a pine tree
His reference to a long / tall fir-tree suggests that a larger, sturdier vehicle would be required, its bulk emphasised by the swaying motion. However, the choice of nouns may simply be adhering to the poetic metre
sēr-rā- | cō vĕ-nĭ- | ēn-t'ă-bĭ- | ēs, āt- | qu'āl-tĕ-ră | pī-nūm
plāus-tră vĕ- | hūnt ...
Juvenal is less concerned with specific function than with the creation of an overall effect. Describing the dangers of such freight traffic with high, bulky and precarious payloads, he continues:
nūtant altē populōque minantur. | they totter on high and threaten the people
nam sī prōcubuit quī saxa Ligustica portat axis / et ēversum fūdit super agmina montem, | for if the axle which carries Ligurian stones [ = marble] has broken and poured an upturned mountain on the crowds
quid superest dē corporibus? | what remains of the bodies?
[iii] The description of the devastating Antonine Plague from 165 – 180 AD does imply that mass transportation of human bodies would require a flatbed vehicle on four wheels to maximise stability. After all, nobody would have wished plague victims to be strewn over the streets:
Tanta autem pestilentia fuit ut vehiculīs cadāvera sint exportāta sarrācīsque. (Historia Augusta)
- ...and the plague was so great that bodies were carried out on carts and wagons
[iv] The following is a comment by Quintilian on a lost fragment of Cicero’s speech In Pisōnem:
An cum dīcit in Pīsōnem Cicerō 'cum tibi tōta cognātiō serrācō advehātur', incīdisse vidētur in sordidum nōmen, nōn eō contemptum hominis quem dēstrūctum volēbat auxisse?
- Or when Cicero, in his speech against Piso, says 'when all your relations are carted in a serrācum', does he appear to have fallen back on a vulgar word, and not rather to have increased thereby his contempt for the man whom he wanted to ruin?
i.e. the noun is used pejoratively to convey social distinction; a vehicle that is normally used for the transportation of heavy goods is transporting people.
[v] The following two quotations refer to Boötes. Derived from Ancient Greek Βοώτης [Voótis], “the herdsman”, it is a large constellation in the northern sky.
Referring to the stars, Ovid describes them as plaustra i.e. as a yoked ‘team’ of carts being driven by ‘the herdsman’:
Tē quōque turbātum memorant fūgisse, Boōtē, quamvīs tardus erās et tē tua plaustra tenēbant. (Ovid)
- They say that you also fled in confusion, Boötes, even though you were slow and your wagons held you back.
Juvenal, however, portrays the stars in the same way as the slow, swaying wagon carrying a fir tree through crowded streets (see [ii] above). His use of serrāca is less elevated, emphasising the slow passage of time.
sīderibus dubiīs aut illō tempore quō sē / frīgida circumagunt pigrī serrāca Boōtae.
- when the stars are fading or when the cold carts of sluggish Bootes wheel round.
To conclude, we can see that a single word can be:
- open to multiple interpretations
- used both literally and metaphorically
- subject to overly confident and specific definitions
