Clabularis
Clabularis or CLAVULARIS. The cursus clabularis in the Theodosian Code (6.29.2.4, and 5.1; and 8.5.23) and in Ammianus Marcellinus (20.4) denotes the system of military transport by means of carriages and vehicles. Johannes Lydus derives the word from clavus (κλαβουλάριος ὀχηματικὸς· κλάβον γὰρ τὸν οἴακα καλοῦσι, de Mensibus, 1.9). If we may trust the text of Cod. Theod. 6.29, 2.2 ( ne quis... rhedam usurpet, cui birotum vel veredum postulare vel clabulare permissum est
), clabulare is the name of a wagon, the word here also being used in connexion with the transport service. Hence it has been derived from clavulae in the sense of rails.
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.