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On this page: Sagarii

SAGITTA.

nature,, that is, either civil or natural. The civil .saeculum, according to the calculation of the Etrus­cans, which was adopted by the Romans, was a space of time containing 310 lunar years. The natural saeculum, upon the calculation of which the former was founded, expressed the longest term of human life, and its duration or length was ascertained according to the ritual books of the Etruscans, in the following manner: the life of p, person, which lasted the longest of all those .who were born on the day of the foundation. of a town, constituted the first saeculum of that town ; and the longest liver of all who were born at the time •when the second saeculum began, again determined the duration of the second saeculum, and so on. (Censorin. de Die Nat. 17.) In the same manner that the Etruscans thus called the longest life of a man a saeculum, so thcv called the longest exist-

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ence of a state, or the space of 1100 years, a sae-cular day ; the longest existence of one human race, or the space of 8800 years, a saecular week, &c. (Pint. Sulla, 7 ; Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, i. p. 137.) It was believed that the return of a new eaeculivni was marked by various wonders and signs, which were recorded in the history of the Etruscans. The return of each saeculum at Home was announced by the pontiffs, who also made the necessary intercalations in such a manner, that at the commencement of a new saeculum the begin­ning of the ten months' year, of the twelve months' year, and of the solar 3rear coincided. But in these arrangements the greatest arbitrariness and irregularity appears to have prevailed at Rome, as may be seen from the unequal intervals at which the ludi saeculares were celebrated. [ludi sae-culares.] This also accounts for the various ways in which a saeculum was denned by the an­cients : some believed that it contained thirty (Censorin. /. c.), and others that it contained a hundred years (Varro, de Ling. Lat. vi. 11 ; Fest. s. v. Saeculares ludi) ; the latter opinion appears to have been the most common in later times, so that saeculum answered to our centmy. (See Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, i. p. 275, &c.) [L. S.]

SAGARII, the sellers or makers of the saga or soldiers' cloaks. [sagum.] They formed a col­legium at Rome, and, like many of the other trade-corporations, worshipped the imperial family, as we see from inscriptions. (Dig. 14. tit. 4. s. 5. § 15 ; 1 7. tit. 2. s. 52. § 4 ; -and the inscription in A. W. Zumpt, De Augustalibtis, Berol. 1846, p. 17.) . SAGITTA (6tffr6s, 16s • Herod, ro^vaa), an arrow. The account of the arrows of Hercules (Hesiod, Scut. 130—135), enumerates and de­scribes three parts, viz. the head or point, the shaft, and the feather.

I. The head was denominated apSis (Herod, i. 215, iv. 81), whence the instrument, used to ex­tract arrow-heads from the bodies of the wounded, was called apSioO'hpa. [forceps.] Great quan­tities of flint arrow heads are found in Celtic bar­rows throughout the north of Europe, in form ex­actly resembling those which are still used by the Indians of North America. (Hoare's Anc. Wilt­shire, South, p. 183.) Nevertheless, the Scythians .and Massagetae had them of bronze. (Herod. ILcc.} Mr. Dodwell found flint arrow-heads on the plain of Marathon, and concludes that they had be­longed to the Persian army. (Tour through Greece, vol. ii. p. 159.) Those used by the Greeks were commonly bronze, as is expressed by the epithet

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SAGITTA.

"fitted with bronze," which Homer applies to an arrow. (//. xiii. 650, 662.) Another Homeric epithet, viz. " three-tongued" (rpiy\(&xtv^ II. v. 3.93), is illustrated by the forms of the arrow­heads, all of bronze, which are represented in the annexed woodcut. That which lies horizontally

was found at Persepolis, and is drawn of the size of the original. The two smallest, one of which; shows a rivet-hole at the side for fastening it-to the shaft, are from the plain of Marathon. (Skelton, Illust. of Armour at Goodrich Court, i. pi. 44.) The fourth specimen was also found in Attica. (Dodwell, L c.) Some of the northern nations, who could not obtain iron, barbed their arrow­heads with bone. (Tacit. Germ. 46.)

The use of barbed (aduncae, hamafae), and poi­soned arrows (venenatae sagiitae) is always repre­sented by the Greek and Roman authors as the characteristic of barbarous nations. It is attri­buted to the Sauromatae and Getae (Ovid. Trist. iii.-lO. 63, 64, de Ponto, iv. 7. 11, 12) ; to the Servii (Arnolcli, Chron. Slav. 4. § 8) and Scythians (Plin. //. N. x. 53. s. 115), and to the Arabs (Pollux, i. 10) and Moors. (Hor. Cam. i. 22. 3.) When Ulysses wishes to have recourse to this in­sidious practice, he is obliged to travel north of the country of the Thesprotians (Horn. Od. i. 261— 263) ; and the classical authors who mention it do so in terms of condemnation. (Horn. Plin. //. cc.s Aelian, //. A. v. 16.) The poison applied to the tips of arrows having been called toocicum (ro^ucbv), on account of its connection with the use of the bow (Plin./7.N. xvi. 10. s. 20 ; Festus, s. v.; Dioscor. vi. 20), the signification of this term was afterwards extended to poisons in general. (Plant. Merc. ii. 4. 4 ; Hor. Epod. xvii. 61 ; Propert. i. 5. 6.)

II. The excellence of the shaft consisted in being long and at the same time straight, and, if it was of light wood, in being well polished. (Hes. Scut. 133.) But it often consisted of a smooth cane or reed (Arundo donaoa or phmgmites, Linn.), and on this account the whole arrow was called either arundo in the one case (Virg. Aen. iv. 69— 73, v. 525 ; Ovid. Met. i. 471, viii. 382), or calamus in the other. (Virg. bug. iii. 12, 13 ; Ovid. Met. vii. 778 ; Hor. Carm. i. 15. 17 ; Juv. xiii, 80.) In the Egyptian tombs reed-arrows have been found, varying from 34 to 22 inches in length, They show the slit (yAu^iy, Horn. II. iv. 122, Od. xxi. 419) cut in the reed for fixing it upon the string. (Wilkinson, Man. and Oust. d'C. vol. i p 309.)