Lituus

The word lituus originally meant a curved augural staff, or a curved war-trumpet in the ancient Latin language. This Latin word continued in use through the 18th century as an alternative to the vernacular names of various musical instruments.

The lituus was a crooked wand (similar in shape to the top part of some Western European crosiers) used as a cult instrument in ancient Roman religion by augurs to mark out a ritual space in the sky (a templum). The passage of birds through this templum indicated divine favor or disfavor for a given undertaking.

The lituus was also used as a symbol of office for the college of the augurs to mark them out as a priestly group.

The ancient lituus was an Etruscan high-pitched brass instrument, which was straight but bent at the end, in the shape of a letter J, similar to the Gallic carnyx. It was later used by the Romans, especially for processional music and as a signalling horn in the army. For the Roman military it may have been particular to the cavalry, and both the Etruscan and Roman versions were always used in pairs, like the prehoistoric lurer. Unlike the Roman litui, the Etruscan instruments had detachable mouthpieces and in general appear to have been longer. The name lituus is Latin, thought to have been derived from an Etruscan cultic word describing a soothsayer's wand modelled on a shepherd's crook and associated with sacrifice and favourable omens. Earlier Roman and Etruscan depictions show the instrument used in processions, especially funeral processions. Players of the lituus were called liticines, though the name of the instrument appears to have been loosely used (by poets, not likely by soldiers) to describe other military brass instruments, such as the tuba or the buccina. In 17th-century Germany a variant of the bent ancient lituus was still used as a signalling horn by nightwatchmen.

From the end of the 10th through the 13th centuries, chroniclers of the Crusades used the word lituus vaguely—along with the Classical Latin names for other Roman military trumpets and horns, such as the tuba, cornu, and buccina and the more up-to-date French term trompe—to describe various instruments employed in the Christian armies. However, it is impossible to determine just what sort of instrument might have been meant, and it is unlikely there litui were the same as the Etrusco-Roman instrument.

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