CALLIS
CALLIS defined by Isidor.
Orig. 15.16, 20, as
“iter pecudum inter montes angustum et tritum, a callo pecudum
tritum:” cf. Serv.
ad
Verg. A. 4.405 In the
lex
Agraria (
C. I. L. 300), § 26, we find
“quod quisque pecudes in calleis viasve publicas itineris causa
induxerit,” where Mommsen notes that
calleis corresponds to what are now called
tratture. Suetonius (
Suet. Jul. 19）
says that when Caesar and Bibulus were made consuls, “provinciae
minimi negotii, id est, silvae callesque,” were decreed to them,
which can hardly mean, as Mommsen (
Hist. 4.203)
takes it to be, “provinces in which the governor should find no other
employment than the construction of roads and other such works of
utility.” In
Tac. Ann. 4.27, the
MS. reads, “quaestor, cui provincia vetere ex mori calles
evenerat,” which is defended by Orelli, and taken to mean the charge
of the mountain-pastures in the southern Apennines; but most scholars adopt
the conjecture of Lipsius,
Cales, regarding
Cales, the oldest Latin colony in Campania, as the residence of the
quaestor classicus in charge of South Italy. (Cf.
Mommsen,
Staatsr. 2.536, note; and Nipperdey
ad loc.）
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