Anteambulones
Anteambulones were slaves who were accustomed to go before their masters, in order to make way for them through the crowd. (Suet. Vesp. 2.) They usually called out date locum domino meo; and if this were not sufficient to clear the way, they used their hands and elbows for that purpose. Pliny tells an amusing story of a man who was roughly handled by a Roman knight, because his slave had presumed to touch the latter, in order to make way for his master. (Ep. 3.14, 7.) The term anteambulones was also given to the clients, who were accustomed to walk before their patroni in white togas when the latter appeared in public. (Mart. 2.18, 3.7, 10.74; Juv. 1.96, 8.49, 10.44.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.