Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Auceps

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

AUCEPS (ἰξευτής, ὀρνιθευτής). In a general sense, a fowler or any person who amuses himself with the sport of snaring, netting, and killing birds; but in a more special sense, a slave belonging to the familia rustica, something like our "game-keeper," whose employment consisted in taking and selling game for the profit of his owner; the principal sources of income on some estates being derived from the produce of the woods and fisheries. (Ov. A. Am. iii. 669. Plaut. Trin. ii. 4. 7. Pignorius de Serv. p. 560.) The illustration (Auceps/1.1), from a small marble statue at Naples, represents one of these fowlers returning with his game. He wears a sportsman's hat and boots, a tunic and cloak of skin with the fur on, carries a hunting knife in his right hand, two doves slung to the girdle round his waist, a hare on his left arm, and the end of the noose in which it was caught appears between the fingers. The instruments employed by the ancient fowlers in the pursuit of their sport were gins and snares (laquei, pedicae), a rod tipped with bird lime (arundo, calamus), traps (transennae), clap-nets (amites), a call-bird (avis illex), and cage for the same (cavea); the manner of using all which is described, and illustrated under each head.

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  Auceps/1.1