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‘Interpreting’ at Vindolanda: Commercial and Linguistic Mediation in the Roman Army

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2012

Rachel Mairs
Rachel Mairs*
Affiliation:
Merton College, University of [email protected]
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Abstract

A fragmentary tablet from Vindolanda (Tab. Vindol. II, 213) contains an occurrence of the verb interpretari (‘interpret’, ‘explain’, ‘mediate’) in an apparently commercial context, relating to the grain supply for the Roman fort. This usage is paralleled in a text on a wooden stilus tablet from Frisia in the Netherlands. ‘Interpreters’ and their activities make rather infrequent appearances in the Latin epigraphic and documentary records. In the Danubian provinces, interpreters (interpretes) are attested as army officers and officials in the office of the provincial governor. ‘Interpreters’, in both Latin and Greek inscriptions and papyri, often, however, play more ambiguous roles, not always connected with language-mediation, but also, or instead, with mediation in commercial transactions.

Keywords

Roman armyVindolandainterpreters/translatorsLatin languagetrade/exchange
Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 43 , November 2012 , pp. 17 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

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References

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