A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

Tiara. (From a Coin in the British Museum.)

TĪBĬA (αὐλός), a pipe, the commonest musical instrument of the Greeks and Romans. It was very frequently a hollow cane, perforated with holes in the proper places. In other instances it was made of some kind of wood, especially box, and was bored with a gimblet. When a single pipe was used by itself, the performer upon it, as well as the instrument, was called monaulos. Among the varieties of the single pipe the most remarkable were the bagpipe, the performer on which was called utricularius or ἀσκαύλης; and the ἀυλὸς πλάγιος or πλαγίαυλος, which, as its name implies, had a mouth-piece inserted into it at right angles. Pan was the reputed inventor of this kind of tibia as well as of the fistula or syrinx [[Syrinx]]. But among the Greeks and Romans it was much more usual to play on two pipes at the same time. Hence a performance on this instrument (tibicinium), even when executed by a single person, was called canere or cantare tibiis. This act is exhibited in very numerous works of ancient art, and often in such a way as to make it manifest that the two pipes were perfectly distinct, and not connected, as some have supposed, by a common mouth-piece. The mouth-pieces of the two pipes often passed through a capistrum. Three different kinds of pipes were originally used to produce music in the Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian modes. It appears, also, that to produce the Phrygian mode the pipe had only two holes above, and that it terminated in a horn bending upwards. It thus approached to the nature of a trumpet, and produced slow, grave, and solemn tunes. The Lydian mode was much quicker, and more varied and animating. Horace mentions “Lydian pipes” as a proper accompaniment, when he is celebrating the praise of ancient heroes. The Lydians themselves used this instrument in leading their troops to battle; and the pipes employed for the purpose are distinguished by Herodotus as “male and female,” i.e. probably bass and treble, corresponding to the ordinary sexual difference in the human voice. The corresponding Latin terms are tibia dextra and sinistra: the respective instruments are supposed to have been so called, because the former was more properly held in the right hand and the latter in the left. The “tibia dextra” was used to lead or commence a piece of music, and the “sinistra” followed it as an accompaniment. The comedies of Terence having been accompanied by the pipe, the following notices are prefixed to explain the kind of music appropriate to each: tibiis paribus, i.e. with pipes in the same mode; tib. imparibus, pipes in different modes; tib. duabus dextris, two pipes of low pitch; tib. par. dextris et sinistris, pipes in the same mode, and of both low and high pitch. The use of the pipe among the Greeks and Romans was three-fold, viz. at sacrifices (tibiae sacrificae), entertainments (ludicrae), and funerals. The pipe was not confined anciently, as it is with us, to the male sex, but αὐλητρίδες, or female tibicines were very common.

Woman Playing on two Pipes, Tibiae. (From a Vase in the British Museum.)

TIMĒMA (τίμημα). The penalty imposed in a court of criminal justice at Athens, and also the damages awarded in a civil action, received the name of Τίμημα, because they were estimated or assessed according to the injury which the public or the individual might respectively have sustained. The penalty was either fixed by the judge, or merely declared by him according to some estimate made before the cause came into court. In the first case the trial was called ἀγὼν τιμητὸς, in the second case ἀγὼν ἀτίμητος, a distinction which applies to civil as well as to criminal trials. Where a man sought to recover an estate in land, or a house, or any specific thing, as a ring, a horse, a slave, nothing further was required, than to determine to whom the estate, the house, or the thing demanded, of right belonged. The same would be the case in an action of debt, χρέους δίκη, where a sum certain was demanded. In these and many other similar cases the trial was ἀτίμητος. On the other hand, wherever the damages were in their nature unliquidated, and no provision had been made concerning them either by the law or by the agreement of the parties, they were to be assessed by the dicasts. The following was the course of proceeding in the τιμητοὶ ἀγῶνες. The bill of indictment (ἔγκλημα) was always superscribed with some penalty by the person who preferred it. He was said ἐπιγράφεσθαι τίμημα, and the penalty proposed is called ἐπίγραμμα. If the defendant was found guilty, the prosecutor was called upon to support the allegation in the indictment, and for that purpose to mount the platform and address the dicasts (ἀναβαίνειν εἰς τίμημα). If the accused submitted to the punishment proposed on the other side, there was no further dispute; if he thought it too severe, he made a counter proposition. He was then said ἀντιτιμᾶσθαι, or ἑαυτῷ τιμᾶσθαι. He was allowed to address the court in mitigation of punishment. After both parties had been heard, the dicasts were called upon to give their verdict. Sometimes the law expressly empowered the jury to impose an additional penalty (προστίμημα) besides the ordinary one. Here the proposition emanated from the jury themselves, any one of whom might move that the punishment allowed by the law should be awarded. He was said προστιμᾶσθαι, and the whole dicasts, if (upon a division) they adopted his proposal, were said προστιμᾷν.

TINTINNĀBŬLUM (κώδων), a bell. Bells were of various forms among the Greeks and Romans, as among us.

TĪRO, the name given by the Romans to a newly enlisted soldier, as opposed to veteranus, one who had had experience in war. The mode of levying troops is described under [Exercitus]. The age at which the liability to military service commenced was 17. From their first enrolment the Roman soldiers, when not actually serving against an enemy, were perpetually occupied in military exercises. They were exercised every day, the tirones twice, in the morning and afternoon, and the veterani once. The state of a tiro was called tirocinium; and a soldier who had attained skill in his profession was then said tirocinium ponere, or deponere. In civil life the terms tiro and tirocinium were applied to the assumption of the toga virilis, which was called tirocinium fori [[Toga]], and to the first appearance of an orator at the rostrum, tirocinum eloquentiae.

TĪRŌCĬNĬUM. [[Tiro].]

TĬTĬI SODĀLES, a sodalitas or college of priests at Rome, who represented the second tribe of the Romans, or the Tities, that is, the Sabines, who, after their union with the Ramnes or Latins, continued to perform their own ancient Sabine sacra. To superintend and preserve these, T. Tatius is said to have instituted the Titii sodales. During the time of the republic the Titii sodales are no longer mentioned, as the sacra of the three tribes became gradually united into one common religion. Under the empire we again meet with a college of priests bearing the name of Sodales Titii or Titienses, or Sacerdotes Titiales Flaviales; but they had nothing to do with the sacra of the ancient tribe of the Tities, but were priests instituted to conduct the worship of an emperor, like the Augustales.

TĬTĬES or TĬTĬENSES. [[Patricii].]