Note 863 — Chapter VIII · THE CALATA COMITIA
Reading edition
Kindred words are calendae, Calabra, calator. As late as Plautus (Pseud. 1009; Merc. 852; Rud. 335) a common use of calatores was to designate slave messengers; cf. Fest. ep. 38; Corp. Gloss. Lat. ii. 95. 42: δοῦλοι δημόσιοι. This use became obsolete, but the word continued to apply to certain assistants of the sacerdotes; Serv. in Georg. i. 268; Corp. Gloss. Lat. ii. 96. 3; iv. 214. 1; v. 275. 1; 595. 34, 63; 563. 66; CIL. vi. 712, 2053. 5; 2184-90, 3878; x. 1726; also the inscr. recently discovered in the Forum; cf. Holzapfel, in Jahresb. f. Altwiss. 1905. 263, 265 ff.; Warren, in Am. Journ. of Philol. xxviii (1907). 249-72. In all the known instances they were freemen, often freedmen; Saglio, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dict. i. 814. For other citations, see Samter, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iii. 1335 f. They correspond to the lictors of the magistrates.