Le facies di letum: riflessioni sull’uso di letum dal lessico poetico al suo utilizzo in prosa

Abstract

The contribution investigates the occurrences of the term letum - in poetry and in Latin prose -, it also analyzes and distinguishes its uses in: letum caused by a weapon, letum by poison, letum by suicide. The sources indicate that the term occurs in passages where the authors describe a particular type of death: bloody, lethal, due to laceration or contamination of vital points of the body, such as the neck, the guts, the chest. From its occurences, letum seems to be connected to a specific psychological state, made of timor mortis, of furor, of hatred and envy. Letum also seems to have left traces in Roman collective consciousness, to express a particularly heinous kind of death. The term alone, even after a long time, is enough to call to mind this awful kind of death