With which verb can I park a car?

Question

What would be a good Latin translation for the verb "to park"? I mean contexts like "I parked my car in front of his house". I would prefer to have a classically attested verb, so my main question is this: How was parking a land vehicle typically expressed in classical Latin? I want to exclude naval vessels and horses, but I assume the same expression would be equally valid for chariots, wagons, cars, and bicycles. Verbs like ponere and relinquere are certainly understandable, but I'm not sure if there is something better. What would you suggest, and why so?

Answer 1

I'm not sure that the concept of vehicle parking was quite as familiar to the Romans as it is to us in the modern world, so an attested classical usage may be hard to find. But if you had wanted to park anything casually, from a cisium to a quadriga, I suggest that you would either choose a stabularius, a person to guard your property for money, or find a locus statarius, where you might simply 'park' it (equally, if relying on public transport, you might have found a rheda publica waiting for you at a similar spot).

As to a more permanent place in which to leave your means of transport, stabula equorum or vehiculorum might serve. Smith offers a suggestion for 'livery stables', stabula caballorum mercenaria.

Because it conveys the sense of going off somewhere, rather than simply of depositing, I would much prefer relinquo to pono as the verb to use. When you arrived at your actual destination, you might say Cisium in loco statario reliqui.