Wednesday, November 23, 2005

More on 'd.d.'

Caelestis suggests below that the abbreviation stands for 'donum dat/dedit'. I was looking through the epigraphy book mentioned below and have found some confirming evidence. In it is reproduced an inscription from an obelisk in Rome:

IMP.CAESAR.DIVI.F
AVGVSTVS
PONTIFEX.MAXIMUS
IMP.XII.COS.XI.TRIB.POT.XIV
AEGVPTO.INPOTESTATEM
POPVLI.ROMANI.REDACTA
SOLI.DONVM.DEDIT
And here are a few more abbreviations (the second of which lends support to Dennis' suggestion 'dedit') listed in chapter 7 employing the letter 'D':
D: dat
D, D.D: dedit
D, DED, DD: dedicavit
D.D.D: dedit idemque dedicavit
D.D: dono dedit (is dono some sort of predicative dative here? Or is this a parallel construction to one in which we would find the accusative of the person and the ablative of the thing (cf. Allen & Greenough 225d)?)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Re: "dono dedit": if it's inscriptional, it could very well stand for "dono(m) dedit", with coda nasal not spelled. As in "donu danunt Hercole maxsume mereto" from the dedication of the Vertuleii, or "honc oino ploirume cosentiont R[omai" from a Scipionic epitaph.

Dennis said...

A google search turns up lots of dono dedits ... here's one that looks like what you were talking abou, Eric:

hunc librum dono dedit

Further, Hale & Buck list dono among the most common verbs to take a 'dative of tendency or purpose,' just after using the English example 'to give for a gift' (though this wasn't meant to illustrate a Latin example).

Dennis said...

Scratch that last bit about the VERB dono. I don't know where my head was.

I just picked up Lane's Latin Grammar (1898; I picked this up recently for 75 cents) and under The Dative of Purpose or Intention he writes:

1223. A few datives are used to denote what a thing is intended to be. This dative is generally accompanied by a dative of the person interested.

So (a.) domo and muneri: as, emit eam dono mihi, T, Eu. 135, he bought her as a gift for me. centum boves militibus dono dedit, L. 7, 37, 3, he gave the soldiers a hundred oxen as a present.

(emphasis mine)

Etc.

Dennis said...

dono, not domo

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