CONTUBERNA´LES
CONTUBERNA´LES (
σύσκηνοι). This word, in its original meaning, signified men who
served in the same army and lived in the same tent. It is derived from
taberna (afterwards
tabernaculum), which, according to Festus, was the original
name for a military tent, as it was made of boards (
tabulae). Each tent was occupied by ten soldiers (
contubernales), with a subordinate officer at their
head, who was called
decanus, and in later
times
caput contubernii. (Veget.
de Re
Mil. 2.8, 13; compare
Cic. pro
Ligar. 7, 21; Hirt.
Bell. Alex. 16;
Drakenborch on
Liv. 5.2.) [
CASTRA p. 381
b.]
Young Romans of illustrious families used to accompany a distinguished
general on his expeditions, or to his province, for the purpose of gaining
under his superintendence a practical training in the art of war, or in the
administration ot public affairs, and were, like soldiers living in the same
tent, called his
contubernales. (
Cic. pro Cael. 30, 73,
pro Planc. 11, 27;
Suet. Jul.
42; Tacit.
Agr. 5; Frontin.
Strateg.
4.1, 11; Plutarch,
Plut. Pomp. 3.)
In a still wider sense, the name
contubernales
was applied to persons connected by ties of intimate friendship and living
under the same roof (
Cic. Fam. 9.2;
Plin. Ep. 2.13); and hence when a free man and
a slave, or two slaves, who were not allowed to contract a legal marriage,
lived together as husband and wife, they were called
contubernales; and their connexion, as well as their place of
residence,
contubernium. (
Col. 12.1,
3,
1.8; Petron.
Sat. 57, 6;
Tac. Hist. 1.43,
3.74;
Dig. 50,
16,
220.) Cicero (
Cic. Att. 13.28) calls Caesar the
contubernalis of Quirinus, thereby alluding to the
fact that Caesar had allowed his own statue to be erected in the temple of
Quirinus (comp.
ad Att. 12.45, and
Suet. Jul. 76).
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