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Recently, in CHAT, Pompeii was mentioned (the "CAVE-CANEM" mosaic) which reminded me of my visit. I stayed in Naples. There, it soon became clear that the overcharging and short-changing of tourists was a city-wide sport, cum way-of-life--even at the railway station. Would such malpractice, by the commercial community, have been recognised in Roman times? If so, what would the Latin idioms be for, "to be overcharged"; "to be short-changed"?

Would victims simply have invoked the passive forms of "fraudo" & "circumvenio", the verbs, "to swindle"?

Looking at adjective, "brevis" = "short": e.g. "shorthand" = "notae breviores" (feminine plural); "short-lived" = "brevis"; "shortly" (adverb) "of time" = "brevi".

A wild guess: using "nummuli" = "small-change (money)"; "brevium nummulorum victima esse" = "to be the victim of short-change".

What does this really mean? The coins are of a narrow diameter?

How about:

O tempora, O mores! Neapolim veni quo circumventus sum." =

"Oh the times, oh the traditions! I came to Naples in which (place) I was overcharged, short-changed & swindled."

Would the verb, "circumvenio" cover all three sins?

tony
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A manticularius is a pickpocket. A carnufex ("butcher") is any kind of street thug. A fraudator is a swindler (on a large scale). An aversor is a thief, and specifically an embezzler. A falsarius is a forger. To cheat is fallo, and something fraudulent is fallax (adjective), a fallacia or fallacitas is a petty cheat or swindle. A falsus is a liar. To cheat can also be expressed by circumducor, circumeo, or circumvenio and a circumventor is a swindler or cheater. A Greek loan word, sycophanta, originally meant a snitch, but in Roman colloquial use came to mean a swindler or pettifogger. Pseudolus is another word for a cheat or a swindler. There is a play by Plautus entitled Pseudolus (The Cheater).

A saccularius is a cutpurse and by extension any kind of swindler. A raptor is a robber by violence. A latro is bandit or pirate.

Your umbra (shadow) is somebody who wants to cheat you, take advantage of you, or debauch you.

In later Latin, a vagus or vagans (wanderer) has the implication of being a cheat, welcher and swindler.

Tyler Durden
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  • Thank you. What a cadre of scoundrels stalking the streets of Roman cities. Little wonder that decent citizens were reluctant (terrified) to go out after dark. Carpocino's "Daily lLife in Ancient Rome", p.60 "...night fell over the city like the shadow of a great danger, diffused, sinister, menacing. Everyone fled to his home, shut himself in, and barricaded the entrance. [...] Juvenal sighs that to go out to supper without having made your will was to expose yourself to the reproach of carelessness;". – tony Sep 09 '22 at 09:06