| Popis: |
This article analyzes the semantica development of vicarious between the III cent. BC and the II cent. AD, with the purpose of linking the most ancient technical meanings of the word to its subsequent non-technical meanings (stating with Cicero). While the most common technical, including juridical, meanings of vicarious (‘substitute for a servus’, and, in an official function, a ‘proxy’) are regularly listed in lexicons, the meaning of vicarious as a ‘sacrificial substitute’, in a magical-religious context, has so far received little attention. This meaning appears in a devotional of the third cent. BC reported by Macr. Sat. 3,9,9-13. Most of the occurrences of vicarious in the period under consideration actually seem linked to this last meaning, which is taken up and multiplied by school declamation. Indeed, vicarius becomes a terminus technicus specific to declamation, referring to acts of self-sacrifice that commonly occur in school controversiae. |
