Of all spoils the most important were the spolia opima, a term applied to those only which the commander-in-chief of a Roman army stripped in a field of battle from the leader of the foe.
Thaddeus will yield, I am sure, as the younger, and as the kinsman of our host; hence Your Honour the Count will receive the spolia opima.
A more significant case is the sacred oak of Iuppiter Feretrius on the Capitol, on which the spolia opima were hung after the triumph--probably in early times a dedication of the booty to the spirit inhabiting the tree.
The +spolia opima+ (spoils of honour) were the arms taken on the field of battle by the victorious from the vanquished general.
The spoils were called spolia opima, according to Varro, because opim means excellence.
This dedication of spolia opima is reserved as a privilege for a general who has slain the opposing general with his own hand.
The word for ordinary spoils is spolia, but for these spolia opima.
But the most common story runs that those spoils alone are spolia opima which are taken at a pitched battle, and first of all, and by the general of the one side from the general of the other.
Footnote 468: The Spolia Opima were the spoils taken from the enemy's king, or chief, when slain in single combat by a Roman general.
In the course of so many years and so many wars the spolia opima were only twice gained: so rare has been the successful attainment of this honour.
Marcellus slew with his own hand Viridomarus, the chief of the Insubrian Gauls, and thus gained the third Spolia Opima.
Cornelius Cossus, one of the Military Tribunes, and his arms dedicated to Jupiter, the second of the three instances in which the Spolia Opima were won (B.
Romulus slew with his own hand Acron, king of Cænina, and dedicated his arms and armor, as spolia opima, to Jupiter.
Following all the Roman writers, I have represented Aulus Cornelius Cossus as a military tribune, when he carried the second spolia opima to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius.
Cornelius Cossus, having killed Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, offers the second spolia opima.
By far the most remarkable object in the triumph was Cossus, bearing the spolia opima of the king he had slain.
His spolia opima were not mentioned till years had in some measure worn off the rust of danger, and then he gave his friends and neighbours reason to rejoice in his adventure, and that he had escaped transportation.
He unlocked his boat, and shoved off into the channel alone, rejoicing in the thought of the spolia opima he should expose next morning at the breakfast-table.
Though it was incontestably considerable, we cannot now concede, as Macaulay in his random way conceded to this Company, thespolia opima of down-beaten Protestantism.
Hideyoshi then returned to Azuchi and presented to Nobunaga an immense quantity of spolia opima which are said to have exceeded five thousand in number and to have covered all the ground around the castle.
Paul Keg worthy, the raggedest of them all, with nothing to recommend him but his ridiculous exotic beauty and the paper and wooden spolia opima of the vanquished, stood before them, a tattered Caesar.
So the child who had kicked Billy Goodge and taken the spolia opima of paper cocked hat and wooden sword spoke through the man.
The inference that the rules were found in the Libri pontificum is inevitable in any case, but seems proved by the fact that one of them, that relating to the spolia opima, is stated by Festus, p.
Mars and Minerva as one of the deities to whom "spolia hostium dicare ius fasque est" (Livy xlv.
Claudius Marcellus, consul, having slain Viridomarus, the general of the Insubrian Gauls, carries off the spolia opima.
The Spolia Opima were the spoils taken from the enemy's king, or chief, when slain in single combat by a Roman general.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "spolia" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
