Portisculus
Portisculus a hammer or truncheon with which, as well as with his voice, the pausarius (=κελευστὴς) regulated the motion of the oars, and made the rowers advance or stop rowing. So Ennius (ap. Non. 151, 26): tonsamque tenentes Parerent, observarent, portisculu‘ signum quum dare coepisset.
The pausarius is also called hortator (Plaut. Merc. 4.2, 5; cf. Ov. Met. 3.618). His duties and his station in the stern of the ship are thus described by Silius Italicus (6.360):
Mediae stat margine puppis
Qui voce alternos nautarum temperet ictus Et remis dictet sonitum.
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.