contāgium

1. Lues (from λοιμός) denotes epidemic disease, as proceeding from an impure morbid matter; contagium (from contingere? or κατατήκειν?) as contagious; pestilentia, as a disease reigning in the land, and especially as a pestilence. Sall. Cat. 10. Post ubi contagia quasi pestilentia invasit. Plin. H. N. xxiii. 28. Laurus folia pestilentiæ contagia prohibent. Lucan. vi. 86. Fluidæ contagia pestis. 2. Pestis is used for pestilence itself only by the poets; otherwise it denotes, like exitium and pernicies (from necare), that which destroys in general, without reference to disease; but pestis is, according to rule, used as a concrete, exitium and pernicies as abstract terms. Sen. N. Q. iii. pr. Philippi aut Alexandri . . . . qui exitio gentium clari non minores fuere pestes mortalium quam inundatio. 3. Pernicies has an active meaning, and denotes the destruction of a living being by murder; whereas exitium has a passive meaning, and denotes the destruction even of lifeless objects by annihilation; lastly, interitus has, like exitus, a neutral meaning, the destruction of living or lifeless objects by decay. Tac. Ann. xiv. 65. Poppæa non nisi in perniciem uxoris nupta; postremo crimen omni exitio gravius: and ii. 68. Cic. Cat. iv. 3. Cum de pernicie populi Romani, exitio hujus urbis cogitarit. Rull. ii. 4, 10. Extremi exitiorum exitus. 4. Exitium is a violent, exitus a natural end. Cic. Rull. ii. 4, 10. Qui civitatum afflictarum perditis jam rebus extremi exitiorum solent esse exitus, is, as it were, the last breath of a state that is being destroyed; like Verr. v. 6, 12 Exitus exitiales. (ii. 62. iii. 176.)