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Abstract: Latin literature includes six different color-terms to convey the concepts of multiple or changing colors: bicolor, decolor, discolor, multicolor, omnicolor and versicolor. Each color-term expresses a different aspect of many-coloredness. The terms concolor and unicolor are used to describe the opposite situation: a homogeneous quality of color. This article examines the use of these terms by a wide array of Roman authors, including poets, orators, historians and naturalists, showing the complexity of the Romans' conception of color.
Latin color-terms that mean "multicolored" deserve a concerted examination of their meaning within their literary context. Romans used six different color-terms, each with a prefix attached to the root word color, to convey the concepts of multiple or changing colors: bicolor, decolor, discolor, multicolor, omnicolor and versicolor. Each color-term expresses a different aspect of having more than one color at one time, which can, depending on context, be positive, negative or neutral in meaning. In contrast, the terms concolor and unicolor are used to describe the opposite situation: a homogeneous quality of color. This group of color-terms is peculiar to Latin, with no real parallels in Greek, and they express a range of active meanings, suggesting more than the English word "multicolor" would imply: they also reveal how the Romans observed change in objects, whether it be from life to death, sickness to health, beauty to ugliness. Studying these terms as they were used by Roman poets, orators and historians helps reveal not only how Romans described natural phenomena and personal appearance, but also how they conceived of such issues as race, social and political corruption, and human nature in general.
The discussion of Latin color-terms was first taken up by Jacques André in his monumental study Étude sur les Termes de Couleur dans la Langue Latine (1949). In each of his chapters he examines the color-terms by hue, listing philological equivalents in Greek, Sanskrit and modern French, but he relegates those terms that do not refer to a specific hue to a list in his concluding chapter. More recently, schol-arly attention has often turned to in-depth studies of single colors, such as Robert J. Edgeworth's series of articles in Glotta: "What Color is 'Ferrugineus?'" (1978), "Does 'Purpureus' mean 'Bright'?" (1979), "Luteus: Pink or Yellow?"...
