moenia

Latin

Etymology

A plurale tantum, from Old Latin moene, from Proto-Indo-European *móyni, from *mey- (“to strengthen”). Cognate with mūrus (“wall”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmoe̯.ni.a/, [ˈmoe̯niä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈme.ni.a/, [ˈmɛːniä]

Noun

moenia n pl (genitive moenium); third declension

1. city walls, town walls, defensive walls, fortifications, ramparts, bulwarks
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.6–7:

     [...] genus unde Latīnum, Albānīque patrēs, atque altae moenia Rōmae.

     [...] from which came the Latin race, the Alban fathers, and the walls of high Rome.
     (The epic saga related in the opening lines of the Aeneid spans from ancient Troy to imperial Rome. Rome, built upon seven hills, was literally and figuratively “high” or “lofty,” and surrounded by defensive walls. Yet translations differ of the accusative plural “walls” [moenia] and genitive singular “of high Rome” [altae Romae], interpreted variously as “high walls” or “high Rome.” See: Latins (Italic tribe), Alban people, Servian Wall, Seven hills of Rome.)

   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 4.825–826:

     inde premēns stīvam dēsignat moenia sulcō;
     alba iugum niveō cum bove vacca tulit

     From there, pressing the plow handle, he marks out the city walls with a furrow; a white cow with a snow-white bull bore the yoke.
     (Romulus uses a plow to mark where the defensive walls of Rome are to be built.)

2. in general: walls, enclosure

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, “pure” i-stem), plural only.

Case	Plural
Nominative	moenia
Genitive	moenium
Dative	moenibus
Accusative	moenia
Ablative	moenibus
Vocative	moenia

Derived terms

• mūniō

References

• “moenia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “moenia”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• moenia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to advance to the walls protected by a covering of shields: testudine facta moenia subire (B. G. 2. 6)
    
• “moenia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “moenia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin