fetial
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈfiːʃəl/
ipa: /ˈfiʃəl/
Forms: form: fecial
Etymology: From Latin fētiālis (“priest who sanctioned treaties and demanded satisfaction from enemies before formal declarations of war”).
The root of the Latin word is thought to be Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do, place, put”), also the source of the verb Latin faciō (“to do; to build, construct; to appoint”). The nominalized form of this verb, Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁tis (“act of putting, placement”), would have developed into an Italic noun *fētis (unattested, but conjectured to mean something like "statute, treaty" or "prescription, law", developing to mean "body of priests"), which was combined with the adjective-forming suffix -ālis to yield Latin fētiālis.
The unadapted Latin forms fetialis (singular) and fetiales (plural) are also used in English, sometimes with italicization, sometimes without.
Senses: examples: text: [P]erhaps the shadowy fetials were never actually an independent priesthood but were senatorial priests assigned diplomatic functions. If fetials were originally senators, this would explain the parallel fetial and senatorial function in "international relations" and account for the continuity between fetials and later senatorial legates.
ref: 2005, Richard E. Mitchell, “The Definition of Patres and Plebs: An End to the Struggle of the Orders”, in Kurt A[rnold] Raaflaub, editor, Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders, 2nd expanded and updated edition, Malden, Mass.; London: Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, pages 142–143:
glosses: Of or relating to a fetial (member of the Roman college of priests who acted as representatives in disputes with foreign nations); (by extension) ambassadorial, heraldic.
examples: text: The institution of a college of heralds and the fecial law, were proofs of a people considerably advanced in the cultivation of the law of nations as a science; and yet with what little attention they were accustomed to listen to the voice of justice and humanity, […]
ref: 1832, James Kent, “Lecture I. Of the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations.”, in Commentaries on American Law, 2nd edition, volume I, New York, N.Y.: O. Halsted, →OCLC, part I (Of the Law of Nations), page 6:
text: With the Fetial Law we are only imperfectly acquainted, but it seems to have been simply a law peculiar to the Romans, and regulating their conduct towards foreigners, and not properly an international law common to other nations, and determining on general principles their respective rights and duties.
ref: 1848, Archer Polson, Thomas Hartwell Horne, “Section II. History of the Law of Nations.”, in Principles of the Law of Nations, with Practical Notes and Supplementary Essays on the Law of Blockade and on Contraband of War. … To which is Added, Diplomacy. By Thomas Hartwell Horne, …, London: John Joseph Griffin and Co., 53, Baker Street; Glasglow: Richard Griffin and Co., page 8:
text: Religion played a central role in the making and application of fetial law. Thus, according to Frank, fetial law was based upon “the oath of good faith that was spoken upon the making of the treaties as well as the oath of innocence taken when war was declared”.
ref: 2006, J. Craig Barker, “Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on the Protection of Diplomatic Personnel”, in The Protection of Diplomatic Personnel, Hampshire; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate; republished Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2016, →ISBN, page 30:
text: It is interesting that centuries later Servius, in his commentary on the Aeneid, located in this same conflict a change in the fetial ritual for declaring war, whereby a piece of fictive enemy land was created in the Circus Flaminius (near the temple of Bellona), into which the fetiales (fetial priests) could throw their spears.
ref: 2007, Edward Bispham, From Asculum to Actium: The Municipalization of Italy from the Social War to Augustus (Oxford Classical Monographs), Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 55:
glosses: Concerned with declarations of war and treaties of peace.