Listening for licia: A Reconsideration of Latin licia as Heddle-Leashes

Abstract

The semantic field of Latin licium and its plural form licia is undoubtedly wide, with the term applied to thread both generally and in specific legal, medical and magical usage as well as in relation to weaving, and this paper does not aim to survey Latin usage of this term comprehensively. Rather, it focuses on one of the uses of licia in Latin literary sources, namely those where licia appears to denote heddle-leashes. Two much-discussed passages occur in Augustan poetry where licia may be used in this sense: Vergil’s Georgics 1.285 and Tibullus elegy 1.6.79. Both passages have been subject to considerable discussion in the past, and in both cases, ambiguity still remains. In the case of sources from late Antiquity, such as the fifth appendix to Claudian’s Carmina minora and Isidorus’ Origines 19.29.7, there is wider agreement that licia is indeed used to describe heddle-leashes, but scholars have hesitated to allow such late evidence influence the interpretation of earlier, poetic passages.