The fifth century Gallo-Roman writer Sidonius Apollinaris, in a letter to his friend Heronius, mentions hearing during his travels the congratulatory shout of “Thalassio” in the streets, theaters, and marketplaces.  An editor’s footnote to the text explains that the exclamation was a standard Roman expression of good wishes to a newlywed couple.

In this same footnote, an cross-reference to Livy (I.9.11) is cited for a possible origin of this custom.  I could not resist looking up the passage myself, as few things interest me in literary matters as much as the etymologies of unusual words and expressions.  According to Livy, the origin of the expression Thalassio (or Talassio) dates back many hundreds of years to Rome’s earliest recorded history.  Around 750 B.C., we are told, an incident occurred in which a gang of men led by one Thalassius seized and carried off a maiden of exceptional loveliness as a bridal prize.  As they carried out this enterprise, they shouted that no one should interfere, since she was now the rightful property of Thalassius.  This, Livy claims, is the origin of the expression; and what was originally a kidnapping evolved, over time, into a positive statement of felicitation.

Whether this origin story is true, no one can say.  I do not know if this Thalassio or some variant of it is still used in Italy, but I would not be surprised if it were.  The rhythms of human life, especially in the Mediterranean, change with glacial slowness.  Regarding the labors of etymologists, the Roman scholar Varro made this amusing point:

So why should you criticize the hard work of a writer who could not locate the identity of a demigod’s great-great-great-great grandfather or great-great-great grandfather, when you yourself cannot say who is the mother of your own great-great-great-great grandfather?  [De Lingua Latina VII.3]

A few lines later, Varro goes on to use an analogy I find particularly pleasing.  He rightly says that we cannot know the origins of every word; some have roots that are hopelessly lost in the flows and admixtures of history’s riverine sediments.  But this should not disturb us:  for it is also true that we cannot understand why certain medicines are effective, or where the roots of trees are precisely located, or how far they may extend in the ground.  While we may know little or nothing about the location and movements of a tree’s roots, we can still see its branches, and the pears which dangle invitingly from them.  In a larger sense, Varro implicitly counsels his readers, we must learn to live with the limitations of knowledge, and accept the boundaries marked by these limitations.    

I find this lesson an important one, and one essential for those wishing to make progress in many disciplines.  The search for complete information in all things leads only to frustration and, eventually, stagnation; we must learn to be comfortable with the Unknown, with the swirling mists and foggy clouds of Uncertainty.  Modern science and scholarship have mastered many things; but there remains no shortage of instances where we can only approximate the truth, or lay out distinct probabilities. 

Varro’s etymologies are often wrong, but he at least based them on deductions from reasonable premises.  And this is what matters.  He was not deterred by the primitive, or nonexistent, state of linguistic studies in his day.  To advance in comprehension and knowledge, we must see ourselves as advancing armies on the attack in a battlefield marked by strong points and soft points.  Strong points should be bypassed in favor of speed of movement; they can always be surrounded and mopped up later, once large tracts of mental terrain have been seized and comprehended. 

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Take a look at the new, annotated translation of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations.