Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Amites

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

AM'ITES. A pair of shafts, and particularly applied to the two long poles, like those of a sedan-chair, which projected from the front and back of a BASTERNA, so as to form a double pair of shafts for the beasts which bore it. (Pallad. vii. 2. 3.) The illustration (Amites/1.1) represents a conveyance common in many parts of Europe during the middle ages, which, though not from any known Greek or Roman model, is introduced because it represents to the eye a precisely similar contrivance to what is mentioned by Palladius. Compare BASTERNA.

2. Strong poles of timber inserted horizontally between two upright posts, for the purpose of making a fence to confine cattle within their enclosures. Columell. ix. 1. 3.

3. The two parallel rods upon which each side of a clap-net is stretched when laid flat upon the ground, and by which they are made to rise up and fall over the bird which has alighted between them; from which it may also be applied to the net itself. Pallad. viii. 12. Hor. Epod. 2. 33.

That the ancients were acquainted with clap-nets there is no doubt; for they are represented in the Egyptian tombs, and constructed precisely upon the same principles as those now used by our bird-catchers. (Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians), vol. iii. p. 37.) They are distinctly alluded to by Plautus (As. i. 3. 61. — 72.); and by Manilius (Astr. v. 371 — 373.), where he describes the various ways of taking birds; Aut nido captare suo, ramove sedentem, Pascentemve super surgentia ducere lina: in which passage the last words graphically depict the rising up of the clap-nets over the bird that is feeding on the seeds which the fowler has thrown down on the ground (area) between them, as described by Plautus. Lastly, Palladius (l. c.) says that an owl was employed together with the amites, as a call bird, to which use it is still put by the modern Italians. All these circumstances seem sufficient to authorise the interpretation given; though it should not be concealed that Festus (s. v.) and the scholiast on Horace (l. c.) make the word synonymous with ancones, or varae, and explain it by the gloss furculae aucupatoriae, which is received by Doering, Orelli, and the commentators generally. But it is not probable that the Romans would have invented three different words to express one and the same thing; nor is it easy to conceive how birds could be caught by nets erected upon poles, which they could so easily fly over; and the general analogy of the word, by a comparison with its other meanings, should not be neglected, both of which apply to poles placed in a horizontal and parallel position, as distinct from those which are set upright, or stuck in the ground.

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  Amites/1.1