Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Claviger

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

CLA'VIGER (κορυνήτης). Armed with a club; or with a mace. The club is well known as one of the weapons used by Hercules, whence he is distinguished by the epithet claviger (Ov. Met. xv. 22.); but in early times, and amongst many of the nations of antiquity, it was employed in warfare, as by the Dacians, on the Column of Trajan, and by the rustic inhabitants of Latium in their contests with the Trojans, in the miniatures of the Vatican Virgil, from one of which the annexed figure (Claviger/1.1) is copied. The example under CLAVA, 4. shows the club in its improved form of a mace; and illustrates the word claviger, in the sense of a mace-bearer.

2. (κλειδοῦχος). Bearing a key; an epithet given by the Romans to Janus, because he was supposed to be the guardian and overseer of all men's doors (Ovid, Fast. i. 228. Macrob. Sat. i. 9.); and by the Greeks to Cupid (Wink. Mon. Ined. 32.), which implied that he had the power of opening and shutting the abodes of Love; but more especially to Hecate triformis, as the goddess who kept the keys of Hades, and who is represented in the annexed engraving (Claviger/2.1), from a small bronze statue.

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  Claviger/1.1
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  Claviger/2.1