Nomenclātor
（
nomenculator). A sort of usher; a slave kept by great personages,
whose business it was to make himself acquainted with the names and persons of every one who
was in the habit of attending his master's levees, so that when the great man met any of them
out of doors, the nomenclator, who accompanied him, announced their names, and enabled him to
address them personally, or pay them some little appropriate compliment; for to pass a client
without notice, even inadvertently, might be regarded as an affront, and possibly be resented
at the next elections (
Ad Att. iv. 1;
Epist. i. 6, 50-52). In
great houses, where the acquaintances and hangers-on were very numerous, the nomenclator
arranged the order of precedence among the guests, announced the name of each dish as it was
served up, and enumerated its peculiar excellences (Pet.
Sat. 47, 8;
Plin. Ep. 19;
Pliny ,
Pliny H. N. xxxii. 21). The name is
properly written
nomenculator, as is shown on the evidence of glosses and
MSS. See Mart. x. 30, 30;
Suet. Aug. 19;
Calig. 41;
Claud. 34.
