CALO
CALO a slave of the lower kind, usually but not always (cf.
Hor.
Sat. 1.2, 44, i.. 6, 103;
Up. 1.14, 42;
Cic. de Nat.
Deor. 3.5, 11) applied to a soldier's slave. The
derivation given by Festus, s.v. “calones militum servi dicti, qui
ligneas clavas gerebant, quae Graece
κᾶλα vocant,” repeated by Servius
ad
Verg. A. 6.1 and others, is manifestly false:
the word is contracted from
caclo, akin to
cacula, used by Plautus (e.g.
Trin. 721) in the same meaning and derived in the same way by
Festus, with the absurd addition “ad tutelam dominorum.”
Accius, quoted by Fest. p. 146, has the line “calones famulique
metellique caculaeque.” Even under the Republic the number of
slaves following a Roman army was large; under the Empire it sometimes
exceeded the number of the soldiers. Each legion was followed by its own
calones; and to prevent confusion, in case
of an attack, they were organized and subjected to military discipline
(Joseph.
B. J. 3.6; Veget.
R. M. 3.6).
The
calones, though often mentioned with the
lixae (q. v.), must be carefully
distinguished from them.
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