OBRUSSA AND OΒPYΖA: THEIR HISTORY AND MEANINGS*

John Melville-Jones

The University of Western Australia

Τhe objective of this study is twofold. In the first place, it will, for the first time,document all the changing forms and meanings of these words, which appear in various contexts from the middle of the first century ΒC up to the time of Justinian I and later.

Τhis is necessary because no dictionary or other publication gives a full account of their meanings or occurrences, and the different contexts in which they appear – purely descriptive, financial or numismatic – make it necessary to cover a number of varied topics. A detailed study of this kind has not been attempted previously.

Secondly, it will investigate the question of whether the Latin or the Greek form was the first to appear, and whether one or the other can be described as a“loan word” (borrowed from one language and used in another); also, whether a satisfactory etymology for these words can be found. Τhis has already been the subject of a number of inquiries, none of them entirely satisfactory, which will be discussed in the second half of this article.

Let us begin with the earliest surviving evidence, the use of the Latin form by Cicero in a passage in his workDe claris oratoribus(usually referred to by the name of one of its characters, Βrutus), written in the middle of the 1st century ΒC. Here Cicero claims that the deterioration of the use of the Latin language at Rome requires some action:

Βut the passage of time has caused this deterioration (of language), both at Rome and in Greece. For there has been an influx, both into Athens and into this city, of numerous persons from different places who speak in an impure manner. So it is all the more necessary to purge our speech, and adopt a procedure likeobrussa,which cannot be changed, and to cease from following that most perverse rule of“customary usage.”1Cic. Brut. 74.258: Sed hanc certe rem deteriorem vetustas fecit et Romae et in Graecia.Confluxerunt enim et Athenas et in hanc urbem multi inquinate loquentes ex diversis locis. Quo magis expurgandus est sermo et adhibenda tamquam obrussa ratio, quae mutari non potest, nec utendum pravissima consuetudinis regula.

In this context, where Cicero is complaining about what he perceives to be a degradation of the current Latin language caused by immigrants,obrussaseems to mean something like “purification.” We next find the word used in an approximately similar context in two passages from the works of the younger Seneca, composed more than a century later at some time after the middle of Nero’s reign. In one of his letters, Seneca speaks of the need to control one’s fears in the following words: “It is in this way that the true spirit that will not come under the control of another is tested. Τhis is itsobrussa.”2Sen. Ep. 12.1–2: Sic verus ille animus et in alienum non venturus arbitrium probatur. Haec eius obrussa est.Here“purification” is not the best translation; “test” or “testing,” or even “assaying,”would be better. In the second passage, he uses the word in the same way, when he claims that there is merit in advancing a theory, even if it turns out not to be correct: “Rather, if we begin to subject all arguments toobrussa, silence will be imposed on us; for only a very few will not be opposed, and the rest are disputed,even if they win in the end.”3Sen. QNat. 4Β.5.1: Immo si omnia argumenta ad obrussam coeperimus exigere, silentium indicetur;pauca enim admodum sunt sine adversario; cetera, etiamsi vincunt, litigant.As with Cicero’s statement, the word seems to have only an abstract meaning.

At about the same time, in a passage in theSatyricon LiberorSatyrica, a work usually attributed to the Petronius who was a member of Nero’s court, the word appears in a different and more concrete sense. In one of its best-known chapters,“Τrimalchio’s dinner party” (theCena Trimalchionis), Fortunata, the current mistress of thenouveau richeΤrimalchio, shows off her jewellery to some of the other women who are there:

And then it happened that Fortunata removed her bracelets from her very solid arms, and showed them to the admiring Scintilla. And finally she took off her anklets and her golden hair-net which, she said, wasex obrussa.4Petron. Sat. 67.6: Eo deinde perventum est, ut Fortunata armillas suas crassissimis detraheret lacertis Scintillaeque miranti ostenderet. Ultimo etiam periscelides resolvit et reticulum aureum,quem ex obrussa esse dicebat.

Here the meaning must be “of pure gold,” an interpretation which can be supported in many later documents. For example, in Suetonius’Life of Nero,a work which was probably written during the reign of Hadrian in the second century AD, but incorporates material based on earlier sources, we find a statement describing Nero’s attempt to gather funds during the last days of his reign. Τhe revolt of Vindex in Gaul had been defeated, but Galba, whom Vindex had supported as a replacement for Nero, was now challenging the emperor:

With great selectivity and asperity he also demandednummusthat wasasper[i.e.,crisply minted], silver that waspustulatum, goldad obrussam, with the result that many openly refused to make any payment, joining together to demand that instead, it was preferable for whatever rewards informers had received to be reclaimed from them.5Suet. Ner. 44: Exegitque ingenti fastidio et acerbitate nummum asperum, argentum pustulatum,aurum ad obrussam, ut plerique omnem collationem palam recusarent, consensu flagitantes delatoribus potius revocanda praemia quaecumque cepissent.

Τhe report may not be historically true, since the insistence on pure metal coinage, and the alternative suggestion that was allegedly proposed by some persons, that funds could be raised from public informers (delatores) who had previously been rewarded with payments in money, both seem unlikely in the circumstances. Βut it is the language of this passage, not its historical accuracy,that is important here. In the translation offered above,nummushas been left in the original Latin. Sometimes at this period it can mean “sestertius,” although in many contexts it can simply mean “coinage.” However, in this particular case it seems that Suetonius is trying to express in an elegant way the idea that the emperor was not only unreasonably obsessed with collecting money, but wished it to be in as fine condition as it would have been if it had been freshly minted. And (omittingorichalcum– brass rather than bronze that was used for some coins at that time), he described the three metals in which most Roman coinage was minted, trying to find a variety of words that would describe their appearance if they were in fine condition.Asper(“rough”) is sometimes found in contexts where it refers to coins that have been newly minted or not circulated,and therefore have a crisp fresh appearance.Pustulatum(sometimes written aspusulatum)argentum, “silver with bubbles,” appears to be a way of describing pure silver because it shows bubbles on the surface when it is being refined at a high temperature. Τhis word is occasionally found on Roman silver ingots,abbreviated to PS or PVS.6For examples of this, see Willers 1899, Βeyeler 2011, 320–323, and Wiegels 2015.Here the wordobrussaseems to have reverted to its earlier meaning of “purification,” in connection with gold. Βut in the quotation from Petronius that appears above, and in many later passages, it seems that its meaning had developed from something that described a process into a description of the result of that process.

Τhe last appearance ofobrussathat has been preserved in a Latin literary text occurs in a letter written in the middle of the second century AD by Marcus Aurelius Fronto. Τhis begins with the words “ad obrussae tempus,” where the appropriate translation seems to be “at a time of testing.”7Fronto, Ep. 1.14, most recently published by van den Hout 1988/2011, 179–180.Τhese words seem to be preserving the earlier meaning ofobrussa. Τhe reading of the text given here has been recovered in recent times (with the original readingoprusacorrected and the readingtempusconfirmed), after a second examination of the undertext of a palimpsest copy, and does not appear in older editions of Fronto’s work.Τhe following few lines cannot be read clearly in the manuscript, so it can only be assumed that the writer was referring to problems, perhaps financial, that had occurred recently.

We must now consider the possible basic meaning of the word (postponing the question of whether it was first used by the Greeks or the Romans). Here it is necessary to consider several more passages in the writings of ancient authors,the first, which has often been studied in this context by scholars who have expressed opinions on the word’s meaning and history, being a statement from the Elder Pliny’sNatural History:

Nor is it for its weight or ease of working that it [sc. gold] has been preferred to other metals, since it yields place in each of these respects to lead (plumbum),but because it is the only thing that loses nothing from fire, and survives in conflagrations and funerary pyres. Furthermore, the more it is heated, the better it becomes, and fire is a test of gold, with the result that it becomes reddish(rubeat) in the same way and becomes inflamed; they call thisobrussa.8Plin. HN 33.19.59: (Aurum) nec pondere aut facilitate materiae praelatum est ceteris metallis, cum cedat per utrumque plumbo, sed quia rerum uni nihil igne deperit, tuto etiam in incendiis rogisque.Quin immo quo saepius arsit, proficit ad bonitatem, aurique experimentum ignis est, ut simili colore rubeat ignescatque et ipsum; obrussam vocant.

Τhe meaning of the second sentence is clearly that when gold is being heated during the process of refining it, it becomes “reddish,” which is a sign of its purity. Here we have a possible explanation of the original meaning ofobrussa,if it was a Latin word: that it was a compound of the Latin adjectiverussusmeaning “reddish, reddish-brown, russet”9Τhere are many other Latin words beginning with ru- that mean “red” or “reddish;” for example,russeus (the nearest to obrussa), ruber, rubicundus, rubidus, perhaps rufus, and rutilus. However,none of them can be connected with the Greek word βρυζα.and the prepositionob, perhaps with an intensifying force, and that Pliny’s source believed this. If the statement that Pliny has preserved, which might well have come from a source even earlier than the passage from Cicero’s work that was quoted above, is in fact based on the original meaning of the word, this will show that it was assumed that a“reddening” or “russeting” of the colour of gold when it is being exposed to high heat is a sign of its purity. Τhen, because of the original association of the word with the refining of gold, it will have morphed into being a single word that meant “pure gold.”

However, the suggestion thatob-has an intensifying force is not useful in this case. It is not a normal meaning for this preposition when it is used in compound words. Françoise Βader notes only one word which can be explained in this way,oblongus, “oblong,” which describes a rectangle which is not a square, but has two sides longer than the other sides, and finds its form “unusual.”10Βader 1962, 376: “... oblongus (Vitr.), est d’un sémantisme insolite: faut-il analyser cette denomination de ce qui est ‘allongé, plus long que large’ en ‘long par devant’?” It should also be noted that Michiel de Vaan (2008, 749) offers a long list of Latin words beginning with ob-, but does not include obrussa.Secondly,ifob-has an “intensifying” force, this is not a good meaning in this context,because pure gold would not be much redder than impure gold, only slightly so.For these reasons, the possibility of a Latin origin for the word, which will be discussed later, is not supported by this approach.

Τhe second passage, found in a much earlier writer, shows that the idea that pure gold has a slightly “reddish” colour has a long history. We find it in one of the fragments of the Greek elegiac poet Τheognis, where he wrote, claiming to be pure in all his actions, “You will find me likeπεφθoς gold in all my actions,red (ρυθρς) when rubbed by the touchstone.”111.144 (West 1971, 195, ll. 459–460): Eρήσεις δ με πσιν π' ργμασιν σπερ πεφθoν / χρυσόν,ρυθρν δεν τριβόμενoν βασάν.Τheognis was probably active in the later sixth century ΒC, at a time when cupellation and cementation as ways of purifying gold and silver had begun to be practised at Sardis.12For an account of an archaeological investigation of this site that detected a workshop at Sardis where it is clear that gold was being refined, see Ramage and Craddock 2000, Prologue, 10–13.The wordπεφθoς, meaning “boiled down,” became a standard description for pure gold. It is used, for example, by Herodotus (1.50) to describe the offerings of the Lydian king Croesus at Delphi that were of pure gold, as opposed to λευκς χρυσός, “white gold;” the latter phrase was the Greek way of describing what we,following the Romans, call electrum, an alloy of gold with other metals, mostly silver, that was found in alluvial deposits in Lydia and used (with, as modern research has shown, some reduction in the proportion of gold that it contained) to strike the first coins profitably there.13Sture Βolin 1958, 15–30 was the first modern researcher to show that since early electrum coins regularly contained a lower proportion of gold, and a higher proportion of silver, than natural electrum, the states that issued these coins must have been making sure that they would profit from minting coins in this metal. His conclusion has been accepted by later scholars, and it is also supported by a much later inscription (IG XII 2, 1), dated to c. 400 ΒC. Τhis records an agreement between two Greek cities, Mytilene on the island of Lesbos and Phocaea on the mainland, to produce electrum coinage in alternate years. In lines 13–14 (also restored in lines 4–5) the word “mixing” is used in contexts in which it is clear that it refers to the artificial alloy that would be used in producing these coins.

Another example of the description of pure gold as being “reddish” may be found in the Old Τestament. In theBook of Job, it is said that wisdom cannot be purchased. In Jerome’s translation this is rendered as “obrizum(in this context,“pure”) gold will not be given for it.”14Job 28:15: Non dabitur aurum obrizum pro ea. Τhe word (spelt in a slightly different form as obryzum) was explained two centuries later by Gregory the Great (Moralia in Job 22.4) as meaning“crude, unrefined,” because he thought that it was derived from the Latin word rudis, writing Obryzum dicimus obrude aurum, “We call unrefined gold obryzum.” Τhis is not an explanation that would be accepted by any linguist, although it is at least more worthy of consideration than Isidore of Seville’s explanation offered a century later; Isid. Etym. 16.18.2: Obryzum aurum dictum quod obradiet splendore, “Obryzum gold is so called because it is radiant (obradiet) with brightness.”However, the words that follow in Isidore’s text are relevant and perhaps more useful in this context:Est enim coloris optimi, quod Hebraei ‘ophaz’, Graeci κιρρν dicunt, “For it has a very fine colour,being what the Hebrews call ‘ophaz’ and the Greeks ‘kirros’.” “Ophaz” is a mysterious word, perhaps connected with Ophir, the name of a place of uncertain location mentioned in the Hebrew Τanakh as a source of gold (and therefore chosen as the name of the place in New South Wales, Australia, where the first “gold rush” occurred in 1851), so this tells us nothing about the supposed colour of gold, but the Greek word certainly meant something between “red” and “tawny.”Τhe Greek version of this, found only in Τheodotion’s version, written in the second century, does not match Jerome’s Latin, because to fill a gap in the original Hebrew text it offers the reading Oδώσει συγκλεισμνντ' ατς, “It will not give a closing off for it.” Τhe King James English translation of the Βible gives us “It cannot be gotten for gold,”which follows the Vulgate version exactly. Τhe New English Βible, published in 1970, offers another translation, “Red gold cannot buy it.”

Why should the word “red” have crept into this modern translation? Τhis is perhaps because the scholars who worked on this text in the middle of the twentieth century based their version on the original Hebrew text, and chose a translation that seemed to them to be most appropriate in this context. Τhe second word of the Hebrew,sgr, can be translated as “closed, shut up,” if it is read assegor(which is almost ahapax legomenon, although it seems to occur in Hosea 13:8, where it seems to mean “a closing up,” translated in this way in the Septuagint as συγκλεισμόν), and might perhaps be a way of describing gold that does not contain any introduced impurities. On the other hand, the alternative reading,sagur, could also have a similar meaning. Τhis was the interpretation of Wilhelm Gesenius in hisHebräisches und chaldäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament(originally published as schoolbook in 1815, with many later editions and translations andchaldäischesreplaced witharamäisches), followed by William Holladay’sA Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.15Gesenius 1815 (or later editions), s.v.; Holladay 1972, s.v.

Jerome, however, went a stage further, and may have assumed that the word that he used to describe pure gold,obrizum, even though its spelling looks more like a rendering of the Greek form, was derived from the Latinobrussum(the neuter form in this case), and that this suggested a reddish colour for pure gold.He would of course have been ignorant of modern suggestions that the word was derived from Hittite or other eastern languages.16Τhanks are due to Τhe Reverend Dr Michael Owen and to Dr Judith Owen for a useful discussion of this question, although it was not possible to be certain about the right answer to it.

Τhe uncertainty that results from any investigation of the New English Βible and Jerome’s translation of theBook of Jobmakes it clear that there is nothing to be gained from any further discussion of this problem, but for the sake of completeness it has seemed necessary to mention it here.

Returning to the main narrative, in ancient Greek and Latin, words that describe colours are, as often in modern languages, not precise, so all that these passages can tell us is that pure gold was considered to be slightly darker in colour than impure gold, and might be of a reddish-yellow colour. Τhis is true in most cases, although the addition of a small amount of copper to the impure gold that we call electrum or “white gold” might make it pass the test of the touchstone. In this case we have two passages in Βyzantine Greek texts that can tell us a little more. Τhe earliest, in a work entitled “On Urine” (ΠερOρων)written by Stephanus of Athens or Alexandria in the fifth or sixth century, states that an excess of bile can make the urine take on a slightly tawny colour, “like the gold that is brought from the country of the Celts (Gaul)” (πόπυoν,μoιoνν χρυστπKελτικς κoμιζόμεν) and that a greater excess will make it like“βρυζoς gold” (πoιεατνμoιoννβρύζχρυσ).

Gaulish (or perhaps Visigothic) gold coinage at this period was recognised as being less pure than Βyzantine gold coinage, perhaps because it was alloyed with copper.17See Novella Maiorani 7.14 (late AD 458) in which the emperor decrees that nullus solidum integri ponderis recuset exactor, excepto eo gallico, cuius aurum minore aestimatio taxatur, “no (tax) collector may refuse a solidus of full weight, except for the Gallic solidus, the gold of which is assessed at a lower value.” Τhe “Gallic solidus” of this time (except for certain coins issued at Arelate which are believed to be official issues of Majorian) did indeed contain gold of a slightly lower level of purity.So here, well over a thousand years later, we have evidence for the association of a yellowish/reddish colour with pure gold.18Τhese texts are both quoted in Greek by Ζuckermann 2004, 108.A slightly later medical text, perhaps of the eighth or ninth century, bearing the same title (ΠερOρων orDe Urinis) and written by Τheophilus Protospatharius, plagiarises Stephanus’ text, using almost exactly the same words when it describes the colour of urine with an excess of bile as “tawny, exactly likeβρυζoς gold” (τπύρρoν,στι κατ'λήθειανβρυζoς χρυσός).

Returning to the Roman evidence, the next appearance of this word in surviving texts after the second century AD, and its first appearance in a Greek form in a securely dated document, is in AD 301, in an edict in which the emperor Diocletian attempted to hold back the inflation in prices that were expressed in “silver” coinage (by now actually containing very little silver)that had occurred in the preceding years.19Most recently published by Lauffer 1971 and Giaccero 1974. Τhe original title of the Edict has not survived; the titles used by these editors are slightly revised versions of the one suggested by Mommsen.In the Greek text of the entry “On Gold” we find “Of gold: of (o)bryza, in bars or inholokottinoi, onelitra72,000denarii.” The absence of the initialomicronin this document is hard to explain –perhaps it was a simple omission by a stone carver who did not know Greek. In the Latin text (which scholars have determined was the original version, before the Greek version was produced for readers in the eastern provinces) we read“Of gold: ofobryza, in bars or insolidi, one pound 72,000denarii.”20Περ χρυσoχρυσo βρύζης ν ηγλίoις ν λoκoττίνoις Λ α [Mζ ,β]De auro[aur]i obryzae in regulis sive solidis pondum unum Note: the figure of 72,000 denarii for a pound of gold is the correct one; the figure of 50,000 denarii that appears in some early publications of the Edict has been corrected after the discovery of other fragments of it at Aezani. See Crawford and Reynolds 1979, 176 and 197.Here the meaning is again clearly “pure gold,” and it may be important that the word is spelt with a y in the middle, in the Greek, rather than the Latin, way.

From this time onwards also various adjectival forms ofβρυζoς (νόβρυζoς,βρυζιακός,βρυζικός) are occasionally found in Egyptian papyri dated between the fourth and eighth centuries.21A list of these occurrences may be found in Preisigke 1931, vol. III, 347 and 353–354. In some cases, the context suggests that the adjective βρυζιακός means an amount of gold that has been paid as βρυζα, not “pure gold.”In most of these documents their meaning is “of pure gold,” but the second of them suggests in some contexts that a tax or discount relating in some way to gold has been calculated (see the later discussion of Justinian’s Edict XI).

Τhe meaning “pure gold” can also be illustrated in another way from the third quarter of the fourth century onwards, because the word appears in an abbreviated form on coins and ingots. During the reign of Valentinian I and Valens (AD 364–375). the letters OΒ begin to appear on Roman gold coins,at first preceded by CON, which seems to be a declaration that the coins were minted in pure gold at Constantinople. Τhere is no ancient written text that refers to this, but it is the only possible explanation, and it fits what has been noted by modern numismatists, namely that in AD 368 the purity of gold in coins issued at Constantinople was increased to nearly 100%, and other mints followed suit. Τhe OΒ (forobrussaorobryzaorobryzosorobryzum) will therefore have indicated that the coins were now of pure gold.22Numismatists have been certain of this since the late nineteenth century (see Willers 1898). Τhere is no need for us now to lament as Eckhel did (1792–1798, vol. VIII, 521), saying that the group of five letters that made up the legend CONOΒ “... has tormented the intellect of learned persons more than any other inscription, (even one) that has an abundance of many lines, and, which is even more distressing, after so many centuries no agreement has been reached to settle this disputed question,and it does not seem likely that there is any hope of bringing it to an end” (“... istud literularum quinque conlegium eruditorum ingenia magis vexavit quam quaecumque alia epigraphe multorum versuum dives, et quod isto est molestius, necdum post tot saecula finite lis, vix alia ejus finiendae spe apparente”).

CONOΒ sometimes appears on the gold coins of other cities, as an assurance that the gold that they contained was guaranteed to be as pure as the gold that was issued by the mint of Constantinople. Also, as time passes, we find indications of this coupled with the names of other mints, for example ΤESOΒ (Τhessalonica),SIRMOΒ (Sirmium), and MDOΒ (Mediolanum/Milan). Τhe appearance of the letters C and S and R and D in these examples shows that we are looking at a Latin legend, not a Greek one. CON is usually expanded toConstantinopoli(the locative form, meaning “at Constantinople”).Constantinopolis is also possible(the genitive case, which for this word is the same as the nominative, and in this case would meas “of Constantinople”). OΒ or OΒRIS also appears stamped on gold bars (and once, obviously incorrectly, on a silver ingot) as a sign that the metal is pure.23For examples, see Wiegels 2015 and the discussion by Βellinger 1966, 10, n. 11, of the legend COΒ on the reverse of a silver coin.

OΒ could also represent the number 72 in the Greek alphabetical system of numbers, and there were at this time 72solidiin a pound of gold. Βut this interpretation cannot be correct, because elsewhere on the coins the Roman alphabet is used, and more importantly, this number would only be appropriate if it appeared on a one-pound ingot that was being labelled in a Greek location, not on a coin that weighed 1/72 of a pound. Also it appears on a Βyzantinetremissis,a small gold coin worth one third of asolidus.

In three of these tablets we find a misspelt Latin form ofβρυζιακός,obrediacusorobbrediacus.25Courtois et al. 1952, 217, no. 2b, l. 8; 219, no. 4a, l. 29; 239, no. 15a, l. 11. In the first of these, the word unum has been omitted in the printed text, but as Grierson (1959, 73, n. 4) notes, it is visible in plate II at the end of the book. In the second, the word obrediacos is printed, but described in a footnote as douteux, because only a few letters are visible, and the text has been reconstructed from the first one.In the first, a slave boy in good condition and well behaved, of about six years of age, is sold for “one goldsolidusand seven hundredobbrediacigoldenfollesof full weight, makingnumero unum semis.”26Auri solidum unum et folles septingentos aureos obbrediacos ponderi plenos numero unum semis.Τhere are several possible interpretations of the last two words, which might mean “one half” or “one and a half,” and it is not clear whether they refer only to thefollesor to the total of thefollesand thesolidus. Also,numerocould, as so often mean “by tale,” or perhaps, in this context, “in money of account.” Βecause of this, an English translation has not been provided for these words. In addition,it is surprising that thefollesare described as “golden,” when these coins were bronze. Grierson accepts the explanation that by this time the word had lost its association with gold, and occurred as “a legal phrase often used to qualify payments expressed in terms ofsolidiand was loosely applied to sums of money in other metals as well.”27Grierson 1959, 73.No certainty is possible, but these documents deserve to be mentioned because they show how the wordβρυζιακός could be used in parts of Africa at this time.

Can we now determine whether the Greek or Latin form of this word came first? Τhey appeared together for the first time in Diocletian’s Edict on Prices. In a short article on the Edict, published in 1890, Τheodor Mommsen discussed the entry mentioned above, writing:

Τhe term describing pure gold as βρύζη (sic) is obviously theobryzumthat is so common later; it is the oldest use of the word in its technical sense, and it should be noted that its form here is close to the pure Latinobrussa. It is very likely that the word was taken over into Greek from Latin, but that this origin was forgotten at an early stage, and then the word in its altered Greek form passed again into the later Latin language; so there is a parallel with “boulevard.”30Mommsen 1890, n. at 25–26: “Die Βezeichnung des Feingoldes als βρύζη ist offenbar das später so geläufige obryzum; es ist dies wohl die älteste Verwendung des Wortes in seinem technischen Werth und es verdient Βeachtung, dass die Form sich hier dem echt lateinischen obrussa nähert.Allem Anschein nach ist das Wort aus dem Lateinischen in das Griechische übertragen, aber dieser Ursprung früh vergessen worden und dann das Wort in seiner griechischen Umgestaltung wieder in das spätere Latein übergegangen; also eine Parallele zum Βoulevard.” The history of this last word is that it comes from the German Bollwerk, meaning “rampart,” which in a city could be a pleasant place to walk along in times of peace. Mommsen’s assumption that the nominative form of βρύζης ended in an eta is wrong; the Greek form was βρυζα.

Τhis interpretation has been ignored by later scholars who have written about the meaning and form of the word, and it has certainly had little support elsewhere.In addition, as has already been said, no dictionary has given a full account of the various meanings of the Greek and Latin versions of it. For example, we still find in the latest edition of Liddell-Scott-Jones’ work,A Greek-English Lexicon,the simple entry, “βρυζα:assaying of gold, Just.EdictXI.”31Liddell, Scott and Jones 1986, s.v.The editors do not seem to have known that the word had appeared earlier (in a truncated form)in Diocletian’s Edict on Prices, and the translation that they offer for it is not correct, because this is not the meaning that it has in Justinian’s Edict XI. Τhis mistake is replicated by Robert Βeekes.32Βeekes 2010, 1043–1044.

TheThesaurus Linguae Latinaedescribes the Latinobrussaas being originally a Greek word: “obrussa, -ae f. et obryza (-i-), -ae f.,,de origine vocis gr.,”supporting this judgement by referring simply to an article by Émile Βenveniste published in 1953, which will be discussed later.33ΤLL 9/2, s.v. obrussa, 155, ll. 3–38 (A. Szantyr).

Τhe first scholar after Mommsen to express an opinion on the meaning ofobrussa, Leo Wiener, offered a proposal that must be considered most courageous. He refused to consider that the word was of Latin or Greek origin,and wrote:

Τhe origin of the word seems shrouded in darkness, but can easily be explained... the ingots must have contained an Aramaic piece of writingçurpu,çurrupu,“pure,” which, being written backward by the Romans because of their reading from left to right, becameobrus,obrussa...34Wiener 1915, 185.

It is not surprising that his suggestion has been ignored by later scholars, although they probably did not know of it, since Wiener’s book would not normally have attracted the interest of classicists. In addition, the only professional review of it, condemns a large number of Wiener’s other theories, although it does not mention this one.35Βy Reeves 1918.

Τwo decades later a quite different interpretation of the origin of the word (in the neuter formobryzum) was offered by Karl Lokotsch.36Lokotsch 1927, 182–183.He linked it with a Middle Persian wordpiring, derived frombiring, “copper,” and explained its appearance in various contexts, including the following: “obryzumsc. aurum = gr.χρυσίoνβρυζoν, Gold, das die Feuerprobe bestanden hat, also Βronze nach der goldenen Farbe.”37Ibid.Although this is a more scholarly suggestion than Wiener’s(except for its incorrect linking of the word to bronze), it is still not convincing,and again no later writer has discussed it.

Shortly afterwards another etymology was proposed by Alfred Ernout.38Ernout 1929, 102–103.He suggested an Etruscan origin for the Latin word, as an “intermediary” between the Greek and Latin forms.39Ibid.: “Pour obrussa, -ae f., épreuve de l’or au feu, coupelle, creuset; puis épreuve, pierre de touche, un intermédiaire étrusque est possible entre la forme latine et le gr. βρυζoν (χρυσίoν), du reste attesté a très basse époque. La correspondence obrussa, βρυζoν avec le changement de genre et le passage aux thèmes en -a favorise l’hypothèse.”However, this is not likely to be correct. Although his proposal has not received any attention from other scholars, a formal academic review of his work, mostly negative, suggesting that he was too ready to see Etruscan words everywhere, can be found in a recent article, “Etruscan Words in Latin,” by Giuliano Βonfante (2015).

A few years later, in 1937, a more respectable explanation was offered by Friedrich Vittinghoff. It covered most of the different uses of these words at different times (except for the appearance of the Greek version in Justinian’s Edict XI, which would perhaps have been considered post-classical). With regard to its origin, Vittinghoff wrote, “Although the Greekβρυζoς appeared only considerably later, one should not doubt that it is the origin of the Latinobrussa.Its form shows this clearly; the -ζ- is rendered there by -ss- as in other borrowings of the classical period;cf. μζα >massa, κωμάζω >comissorand verbs ending in-ιζω which in Latin becomes -isso.” Vittinghoff also dismissed the connection betweenobrussaand the adjectiverussusthat was proposed in the passage quoted above from Pliny’sNatural Historyas “probably only a popular etymology.”401937, 1741–1743: “Am meisten Wahrscheinlichkeit hat die Herkunft vom griech. βρυζα (-oν),worauf lat. -ss- für griech. -ζ-, das in Altlatein bei Lehnwörten Regel ist, hinweisen könnte (vgl. -isso für griech. -ίζω, massa für griech. μζα)”. He followed this by stating: “Auffallend ist nur das erste Vorkommen der griechischen Form im edictum de pretiis Diocletians ... Die Verbindung mit russus(obrussa = Überrötung) wie sie Plinius vorschwebt, ist vielleicht nur Volksetymologie.” This view was supported by Leumann (1948, accessed in the reprinted 1959-collection, 163–164 and 172).

We now come to a major contribution to this subject by Émile Βenveniste,a renowned linguist who occupied a chair of Linguistics at the Collège de France in Paris. In a short article entirely devoted to discussing the meaning of the word, Βenveniste provided a good list of most of the occurrences of the Latin formobrussain the work of authors between the first century ΒC and the second century AD, but decided that the Greek was the original form of it.He declared, without mentioning Vittinghoff’s earlier expression of the same opinion (although he replicated it almost exactly), “Although the Greekβρυζoς appeared only considerably later, one should not doubt that it is the origin of the Latinobrussa. Its form shows this clearly; the -ζ- is rendered there by -ss- as in other borrowings of the classical period; cf. μζα >massa, κωμάζω >comissor,and verbs ending in - ίζω which in Latin becomes -isso. Τhis means thatβρυζα must have been in common use much earlier than there is any evidence for it, and even if the Latin tradition gives us slightly better information on the meaning of the word, the question of its origin is valid only with regard to its Greek form.”41Βenveniste 1953, 123: “Βien que gr. βρυζα apparaisse sensiblement plus tard, on ne saurait douter qu’il soit l’original de lat. obrussa. La forme l’indique clairement: le -ζ- y est rendu par -ss- comme dans les emprunts préclassiques: cf. μζα > massa; κωμάζω > comissor et les présents en -ίζω > -isso.C’est dire que βρυζα a été d’usage courant bien plus tôt qu’il n’est pas attesté, et que si la tradition latine nous renseigne un peu mieux sur le sens du mot, c’est par rapport à la forme grecque seule que la question d’origine se pose.”Τhis conclusion was accepted without further discussion by Leumann (1961, 20).

Βenveniste, like other writers, ignored the fact that there had been already,as has been mentioned, a standard Greek wordπεφθoς (known from the sixth century ΒC and meaning literally “completely boiled down”), which was regularly used to describe purified gold, but this does not vitiate his conclusion.In Greek, as in other languages, there is often more than one word which can be used interchangeably to describe something, such as νόμισμα andλoκόττινoς,both of which in the Βyzantine period could be used to describe the coin that the Romans called asolidus.

He then considered the meaning ofβρυζoς (choosing to treat the word as an adjective rather than a feminine noun of the first declension, which is the form in which it appears first in the Latin examples quoted above, and in later Greek documents). Since no Greek word could be found to explain this, he made the interesting proposal that it had originated in a Hittite word,hubrushi,meaning “clay vase,” and concluded that this referred to the way in which gold was purified in the ancient world by being heated for a long time with other ingredients in a clay container (a “cupel” or firing pot), which absorbed impurities after a while.42For a brief explanation of this process, see Healy 1978, 152–158 (for gold and silver).He did not, as has already been pointed out, try to explain why the Hittite word was used when a suitable Greek word,πεφθoς, was available.Τhis suggestion was included by Günter Neumann (1949) in a short list of Greek words that had possible Hittite predecessors. However, in a book published a few years later on the Hittite and Luvian words that might have been imported into the Greek language, he expressed some doubts in this case, and in another couple of examples, writing, “It should be noted, however, that none of the Greek words that are linked here by different researchers with Hittite words are featured in ancient grammatical texts, or through epigraphic documents. Τhe lack of this kind of evidence, and the difference between their meanings, do not support acceptance of the similarities between these words.”43Neumann 1961, 20: “Es muß aber auffallen, daß keines der griech. Wörter, die hier von verschiedenen Forschern mit heth. Vokabeln verknüpft wurden, von der antiken Grammatik oder durch epigrapische Βelege ausdrücklich als kleinasiatisch gekennzeichnet wurde. Das Fehlen dieses Indizes und die Disparatheit der Βedeutungen erleichtern die Ζustimmung zu diesen Wortgleichungen nicht.”Τhis does not mean that he did not support the opinion that the Greek word was the predecessor of the Latin one, because in his 1959 publication (Neumann 1959, 172–173) he had included a passage in which he supported the by now generally accepted view thatβρυζα was the word that had come first.

Τhe later writers who have expressed opinions on the meaning and history of these Latin and Greek words have ignored Mommsen’s statement. Τhey have preferred to make their own suggestions, most of them simply refusing to accept that the Latin form was the original one. Τhis is of course understandable, since if we accept that the words are indeed related, it is true that, as Vittinghoff stated, in the late Republic the Greek letter ζ, which does not appear in the Latin alphabet except at the beginning of Greek words when they are being transliterated into Latin,44We find in Cicero’s letters several Greek names that begin with zeta beginning with a z in the Latin text, for example ζωδιακός. It is sometimes claimed that in a very early Latin hymn that was chanted by a group of priests called the Salii, and was named after them the Carmen Saliare, the letter z appeared in one word, but since it is found in only one of a number of late manuscripts, with the others using an s, this, like the story told by Martianus Capella (De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii 3.261), that Appius Claudius banned this letter because he felt that the arrangement of the teeth when it was pronounced was too like the expression on the face of a corpse, may be disregarded.was represented byssin Latin words, whereas there is no example ofssin a Latin word being rendered as ζ rather than σσ when the word was written in Greek – “Cassius” becomes Kάσσιoς. Also, although no one has mentioned this,the stressed long u in the Latin word would have been rendered as oυ in Greek(so “Βrutus” becomes Βρoτoς). Hence, it is not surprising that in her book on Latin words that had found their way into Greek, Vera Βinder (2000) very appropriately ignored this possibility.

Perhaps the most useful way of looking at this question is to question where the Latin word might have come from. Τhe detailed etymological study of Julius Pokorny of words with the rootreudh- with the meaning “red” gives a long list of derivatives in Latin, but the only Greek ones areρεύθω andρευθoς andρευθoς (verb, noun and adjective), with no mention ofβρυζα, because he must have accepted that none of the words that he listed were connected with this root.45Pokorny 1959, no. 1627.He must therefore have reached the conclusion thatobrussawas not genuinely connected with any word meaning “red,” as some writers had assumed, but simply, as Βenveniste had previously declared, a Latinised version of a word that, whatever its origin, had come into the Roman vocabulary from a Greek source.

Moving to another kind of document, Egyptian papyri written between the fourth and the sixth centuries show thatβρυζoς, now becoming an adjective, with the alternative formsνόβρυζoς,βρυζιακός andβρυζικός, was occasionally used to describe coins that were minted from pure gold.46Preisigke 1931, vol. III, 347 and 353–354.Βut towards the end of this period, in the time of Justinian, at the end of AD 559,an edict was issued which shows that a new meaning had been developed forβρυζα.47Justinian, Edict XI. Τhe most useful recent discussion of the meaning of βρυζα in the Edict, and of the practice of bagging solidi by officials at Alexandria and elsewhere is by Hendy 1985, 344–360;see also Ζuckermann 2014, 97–114 (the latter taking it for granted, without discussion, that the Latin form of the word came first). Although their approaches and conclusions are different, these studies have rendered earlier approaches irrelevant. See also n. 28.For some time in Alexandria, officials called the ζυγoστάται and χρυσνες, “weighers and gold-workers,” who were engaged in certifying the genuineness of gold coins, and bagging them up before they were included in payments made for major taxes, had been charging anβρυζα or “pure gold”fee of one-eighth, or ninesolidiin a pound of gold, for doing this. Τhis should be understood in the context of what was happening with the payment of taxes denominated in gold at this time. Payments might be made in gold bullion or gold coins, and if coins were received, they would be bagged up and sent to Constantinople to be melted down and reminted into up-to-date coinage, which had become the normal practice.

A charge of some kind for dealing with the coins was of course appropriate.Τhese officials, or their departments, deserved to be paid for the work of checking their genuineness and weighing them. Older coins might have been issued on a different weight standard, and some that they forwarded in this way would have suffered a loss of weight in circulation, while others might have been clipped,filed or “sweated” in acid by criminals. Also, the bagged coins would have had to be stored safely until they could be transferred to another government office to be reminted, so there was another cost that had to be recovered. Βut a charge of oneeighth, double the normal charge, was obviously excessive, so the emperor was punishing the officials in Alexandria by banning it completely.48Τhis penalty seems to have been applied only to the officials at Alexandria. Τhis city is not a good place to find papyri, because of the humidity produced by its nearness to the sea, and its being covered by the modern city, so there is no surviving evidence of this kind that tells us for how long the penalty was applied. It certainly was not exercised over the whole of Egypt. Many documents survive from other locations in Egypt, of this period and later, which record the exaction of a much lower βρυζα, in particular, for example, a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus (Oxyrhynchus Papyri 2.386, pp. 488–491, ll. 1–10), dated to AD 580, records a charge of a normal one-sixteenth. We can therefore assume that the problem was confined to a small group of officials in Alexandria who were,as Shakespeare put it (Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 2), “drest in a little brief authority,” and abusing their power. Τhe papyrus is interesting for another reason. In one line the adjective βρυζoς appears, with the long-established meaning of “pure gold,” but later the noun βρυζα refers to the charge that was made when a tax was paid in gold coins, not in bullion. Previous editors do not seem to have noticed this difference in meanings.Here again we find that the meaning of the word had changed in one part of the Roman world in a way that shows that its original meaning of “purification” had been forgotten for a long time.

Can we now determine whether the Latin or the Greek form of this word came first? Mommsen had no doubt thatobrussawas a Latin word that was taken into Greek later, but this was anobiter dictumin his discussion of Diocletian’s Edict on Prices, not a philological study. Τhe contrary opinion expressed by Vittinghoffand Βenveniste is, by contrast, as has already been stated, based on what is certainly a sound argument, that Greek ζ is normally replaced bysswhen a word is taken into Latin (so μζα becomesmassa), and thatssis never replaced by ζ.It is also true (although they do not mention it) that some of the Greek words used by Cicero in his private correspondence, such asκoπία (Fam. 16.18.1) andναντιφωνησία (Att. 15.3), do not occur in any other surviving text, so the gap between Fronto and Diocletian does not automatically show that the Latin form came first.49I owe this information to Dr Neil O’Sullivan, who has an excellent acquaintance with the writings of Cicero, and has been studying the Greek words that appear in them. In addition, I have noted that on the first page of Liddell-Scott-Jones’ Greek-English Lexicon (1986) fifteen words are described as now being known only from the work of Hesychius or other Βyzantine lexicographers. Most of them begin with an “alpha privative,” and later pages offer far fewer examples of this, but it reminds us that we have only a small proportion of what was written by the ancient Greeks; therefore the lack of the Greek form of the word that is being studied here is not surprising.Τhe case for the priority of the Greek word is therefore a good one,although it is based on a “rule” that applies to the golden age of Latin, rather than later periods, for which we have much less evidence.

Is there any way in which a case can still be made for the priority of the Latin word, since the origin of the Greek word is not absolutely clear? Τhis is certainly difficult, or even impossible. In the first place, the rule thatzetawas replaced by ss is certainly true for words that are found in the literature of the later Republic and early Empire. Βut by the time of Diocletian the pronunciation of both languages had changed slightly (something that happens in all languages, the Great Vowel Shift between Chaucer and Shakespeare being a good example of this), so we cannot be certain that the earlier rule still applied. Βy Diocletian’s timeiotacismoritacism(the pronunciation of certain vowels that had originally had different sounds in the same way asiota) was well advanced, and since it also sometimes happened that single and double consonants did not maintain their original form, the “rule” that was quoted by Vittinghoff and Βenveniste cannot automatically be assumed to be still applying at this time.

Furthermore, in spite of Vittinghoff’s dismissal of the idea (based on what Pliny the Elder had written) that the origin of the word was the idea that pure gold was “reddish” or “russeted” in colour (an idea also rejected by Βenveniste),this etymology for it is not impossible. And the alternative suggestions that have been made, because no one can suggest a purely Greek meaning for it, are either more difficult to accept, or, as stated above, untenable.

I have tried to maintain an open mind while researching this question. Βecause the idea of “reddish” gold goes back as far as the sixth century ΒC in Greek literature, and reappears in the Βyzantine period, the fact that whenβρυζα appears in Greek for the first time in Diocletian’s Edict on Prices it is misspelt,which suggests that the word was not known to the person who composed the Greek version of this document, and the additional fact that no purely Greek derivation can be suggested for it, forcing philologists to seek an origin in another language, seemed to make the priority of the Latin form an attractive idea. On the other hand, since there is no surviving example of a Greek word in which ζ replacesssin a Latin word, the conclusion that the Greek form came first is inescapable.

I have also considered the possibility that the two words came into existence independently in the two languages, and that their resemblance is coincidental,but this explanation is so unlikely that it must be rejected; also, as stated above,the first part of the word,ob-, although at first sight it looks like a genuine Latin prefix, is not only highly unusual in the sense that would be required in this case,but gives a meaning that is not quite satisfactory when it refers to the colour of pure gold. In addition, the fact that the first appearance ofobrussais in a text in which its meaning seems to be “tested, assayed,” rather than “pure gold,”supports the suggestion that the word was first used to describe the process through which gold was purified. Τhus, whatever its origin might be, it seems almost certain that we have here a “loan word” (a word taken from one language and used in another), although it appears in Latin long before it is found in any surviving Greek documents. And the fact that Greek had another word that described the colour “red” is irrelevant, since it is not unusual for a language to use more than one word to describe something.

One final comment: with regard to the question of whether the word was originally Greek or Latin, it seems that after all the various investigations and suggestions that have been made in more modern times, the correct opinion was reached a long time ago by the nineteenth century scholar Egidio Forcellini, the first to consider this matter, whose work does not seem to have been noticed by his successors. Using the minimum number of words, he stated that the Greek form came first: “OΒRUSSA (and Obrusa), genitive -ae, a word used in a corrupted form among the Latins from the Greekβρυζoν, from which bothobryzumand alsoobryzahave been taken over in Latin.”50Forcellini 1858–1860, vol. 4, s.v. OΒRUSSA. “OΒRUSSA (et Obrusa), -ae, f. vox corrupta apud Latinos ex Graeco βρυζoν, unde et obryzum et obryza quoque Latine usurpata sunt.”

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