Meaning of ergastulum | Babel Free

Definitions

1. penitentiary, workhouse (or its residents)
   declension-2, neuter
2. slave prison
   declension-2, neuter

Equivalents

Examples

“XV līberī hominēs populus est, totidem servī familia, totidem vīnctī ergastulum.”

Fifteen free men are a people, as many slaves are a household, as many shackled men are a chain-gang.

“id cumulātum ūsūrīs prīmō sē agrō paternō avītōque exuisse, deinde fortūnīs aliīs; postrēmō velut tābem pervēnisse ad corpus; ductum sē ab crēditōre nōn in servitium, sed in ergastulum et carnificīnam esse.”

He had first paid off the accumulated interest from his father's and grandfather's farm, then from other assets; finally, it had reached the very substance of his body, and he was led by the creditor not into servitude, but into a prison and a place of torture.

“nōn cōnsōlābimur tam trīste ergastulum, nōn adhortābimur ferre imperia carnificum; ostendēmus in omnī servitūte apertam lībertātī viam.”

We will not be consoled by such a gloomy prison, nor will we be urged to bear the orders of executioners; we will show in every servitude an open path to freedom.

“Tryphaena lacrimās effūdit dēcepta suppliciō—vēra enim stigmata crēdēbat captīvōrum frontibus impressā—scīscitārīque submissius coepit, quod ergastulum intercēpisset errantēs, aut cujus tam crūdēlēs manūs in hōc supplicium dūrāssent.”

Tryphaena shed tears, deceived by the punishment—for she truly believed the marks to be imprinted on the captives' foreheads—and she began to ask more submissively what prison had intercepted the wanderers, or whose hands had grown so cruel in inflicting this punishment.

“in lūdō fuī, quā poenā nūllam ulteriōrem scelera nōvērunt, cujus ad comparātiōnem ergastulum leve est.”

I have been in a gladiatorial school, a punishment beyond which crimes know no further extreme, and in comparison to which a slave-prison is a light matter.

CEFR level