Attic helmet An ornate helmet worn by Roman officers above the rank of centurion. It is the kind of helmet commonly worn by the stars of Hollywood Roman epic movies—though I very much doubt that any Attic helmet of Republican times was crested with ostrich feathers! There were ostrich feathers available, but their employment would have been deemed decadent, to say the least.
auctoritas A very difficult Latin term to translate, as it meant far more than the English word "authority" implies. It carried nuances of pre-eminence, clout, leadership, public importance, and—above all—the ability to influence events through sheer public reputation. All the magistracies possessed auctoritas as a part of their very nature, but auctoritas was not confined to those who held magistracies; the Princeps Senatus, Pontifex Maximus, consulars, and even some private individuals outside the Senate could also own auctoritas. Where the term occurs in the book, I have left it untranslated.
Augur A priest whose duties concerned divination rather than prognostication. He and his fellow augurs comprised the College of Augurs, an official State body, and at the time of this book numbered twelve, six patricians and six plebeians. Until 104 b.c., when Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus passed his lex Domitia de sacerdotiis, new augurs had been co-opted by those already in the College; after that law, augurs had to be elected by an Assembly of seventeen tribes chosen by lot. The augur did not predict the future, nor did he pursue his auguries at his own whim; he inspected the proper objects or signs to ascertain whether or not the projected undertaking was one having the approval of the gods, be the undertaking a meeting, a war, a proposed new law, or any other State business, including elections. There was a standard manual of interpretation to which the augur referred; augurs "went by the book." The augur wore the toga trabea (see that entry), and carried a curved staff called the lituus.
auxiliary A legion of non-citizens incorporated into a Roman army was called an auxiliary legion; its soldiers were also called auxiliaries, and the term extended to cavalry as well. In the time of Marius and Sulla, most auxiliary infantry was Italian in origin, whereas most auxiliary cavalry was Numidian, Gallic, or Thracian, all lands where the soldiers habitually rode horses. The Roman soldier (and the Italian soldier) was not enamored of horses.
barbarian Derived from a Greek word having strong onomatopoeic overtones; on first hearing these peoples speak, the Greeks thought they sounded "bar-bar," like animals barking. The word "barbarian" was used to describe races and nations deemed uncivilized, lacking in any admirable or desirable culture. Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Sarmatians, and Dacians were considered barbarian.
basilica A large building devoted to public activities such as courts of law, and also to commercial activities in shops and offices. The basilica was two-storeyed and clerestory-lit, and incorporated an arcade of shops under what we might call verandah extensions along either side. During the Republic it was erected at the expense of some civic-minded Roman nobleman, usually of consular status, often censorial as well. The first basilica was built by Cato the Censor on the Clivus Argentarius next door to the Senate House, and was known as the Basilica Porcia; as well as accommodating banking institutions, it was also the headquarters of the College of Tribunes of the Plebs. At the time of this book, there also existed the Basilica Aemilia, the Basilica Sempronia, and the Basilica Opimia, all on the fringes of the lower Forum Romanum.
Bellona The Roman goddess of war. Her temple lay outside the pomerium or sacred boundary of the city on the Campus Martius, and was vowed in 296 b.c. by the great Appius Claudius Caecus. A group of special priests called fetiales conducted her rituals. A large vacant piece of land lay in front of the temple of Bellona, and was known as Enemy Territory.
Bithynia A kingdom flanking the Propontis (the modern Sea of Marmara) on its Asian side, extending east to Paphlagonia and Galatia, south to Phrygia, and southwest to Mysia. It was fertile and prosperous, and was ruled by a series of kings of Thracian origin—the first two were named Prusias, the rest Nicomedes. The traditional enemy of Bithynia was Pontus. From the time of Prusias II, Bithynia enjoyed the status Friend and Ally of the Roman People.
boni Literally, "the Good Men." First mentioned in a play by Plautus called The Captives, the term came into political use during the days of Gaius Gracchus. He used it to describe his followers—but so also did his enemies Opimius and Drusus. It then passed gradually into general use, indicating men of intensely conservative political inclination; the "true" government of Rome in this book—that is, the faction led by the consul Gnaeus Octavius Ruso—would have described its members as boni.
Brennus A king of the Gauls (or Celts) during the third century b.c.. Leading a large confraternity of Celtic tribes, Brennus invaded Macedonia and Thessaly in 279 b.c., turned the Greek defense at the pass of Thermopylae and sacked Delphi, in which battle he was badly wounded. He then penetrated into Epirus and sacked the enormously rich oracular precinct of Zeus at Dodona; and went on to sack the richest precinct in the world, that of Zeus at Olympia in the Greek Peloponnese. Retreating before a determined Greek guerrilla resistance, Brennus returned to Macedonia, where he died of his wound. Without Brennus to hold them together, his Gauls were rudderless. Some of them (the Tolistobogii, the Trocmi, and a segment of the Volcae Tectosages) crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor and settled in a land thereafter called Galatia. Those Volcae Tectosages who did not go to Asia Minor returned to their homeland around Tolosa in southwestern Gaul; with them they carried the entire loot of Brennus's campaign, holding it in trust against the return of the rest of the tribes to Gaul. Apparently they melted the gold and silver down (turning the silver into gigantic millstones) before hiding it in various sacred lakes within the precinct of Herakles in Tolosa. The gold amounted to fifteen thousand talents. See also Gold of Tolosa.
Burdigala Modern Bordeaux, in southwestern France. A great Gallic oppidum (fortress) belonging to the Aquitani, it lay on the south bank of the Garumna River (the modern Garonne) near its mouth. In 107 b.c. it was the scene of a debacle, when a combined force of Germans and Aquitani annihilated the Roman army of Lucius Cassius Longinus, consul (with Gaius Marius) in that year. Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus was killed, as was Cassius himself. Only Gaius Popillius Laenas and a handful of men survived.
Calabria Confusing for those who know modern Italy better than they do ancient Italy! Nowadays Calabria is the toe of the boot, but in ancient times Calabria was the heel. Brundisium was its most important city, followed by Tarentum. The region was not mightily involved in the Marsic War, though its people, the Calabri, were sympathetic to the Italian cause.
Campania A fabulously rich and fertile basin, volcanic in origin and soil, Campania lay between the Apennines of Samnium and the Tuscan Sea, and extended from Tarracina in the north to a point well south of the modern Bay of Naples. Watered by the Liris, Volturnus/Calor, Clanius, and Sarnus rivers, it grew bigger, better, and more of everything than any other region in Italy, even Italian Gaul of the Padus. Colonized during the seventh century b.c. by the Greeks, it fell under Etruscan domination, then affiliated itself to the Samnites (of whom there was a large element in its population), and eventually became subject to Rome. Because of the Greek and Samnite population, it was always an area prone to insurrection, and lost much of its best countryside to Rome as Roman ager publicus. The towns of Capua, Teanum Sidicinum, Venafrum, Acerrae, Nola, and Interamna were important inland centers, while the ports of Puteoli, Neapolis, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Surrentum, Stabiae, and Salernum constituted the best on Italy's west coast. Puteoli was the largest and busiest port in all of Italy. The Viae Campana, Appia, and Latina passed through it.
campus Plural, campi. A plain, or a flat expanse of ground.
Campus Esquilinus The area of flat ground outside the Servian Walls and the double rampart of the Agger, between the Querquetulan Gate and the Colline Gate. Here lay Rome's necropolis.
Campus Martius Situated to the north and northwest of the Servian Walls of Rome, the Campus M
artius was bounded by the Capitol to its south and the Pincian Hill on its east; the rest of it was enclosed by a huge bend in the Tiber River. On the Campus Martius armies awaiting their general's triumph were bivouacked, military exercises and the training of the young went on, the stables and exercise tracks for horses engaged in chariot racing were situated, assemblies of the comitia centuriata took place, and market gardening vied with public parklands. The Tiber swimming hole of the Trigarium lay at the apex of the bend, and just to the north of that were medicinal mineral hot springs called the Tarentum. The Via Lata (Via Flaminia) crossed the Campus Martius on its way to the Mulvian Bridge, and the Via Recta bisected it at right angles to the Via Lata.
Campus Vaticanus Situated on the opposite (north) bank of the Tiber from the Campus Martius, the Campus Vaticanus was an area of market gardening and had no importance in the Rome of Marius and Sulla.
Cannae An Apulian town on the Aufidius River in southeastern Italy. Here in 216 b.c. , Hannibal and his Punic army (allied with the Samnites) met a Roman army commanded by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. The Roman army was annihilated; until the Battle of Arausio in 106 b.c. , it ranked as Rome's worst military disaster. Somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 men died. The survivors were made to pass beneath the yoke (see yoke).
Capena Gate Porta Capena. This was one of the two most strategic gates in Rome's Servian Walls (the other was the Colline Gate). It lay south of the Circus Maximus, and outside it was the common road which branched into the Via Appia and the Via Latina about half a mile from the gate itself.
capite censi Literally, "Head Count." The capite censi were those full Roman citizens too poor to belong to one of the five economic classes, and so were unable to vote in the Centuriate Assembly at all. As most capite censi were urban in origin as well as in residence, they largely belonged to urban tribes, which numbered only four out of the total thirty-five tribes; this meant they had little influence in either of the tribal Assemblies, People or Plebs (see also Head Count, proletarii).
Cappadocia A kingdom located in central Anatolia (it is still known today as Cappadocia). Lying at high altitude, the land was created by the outpourings of many volcanos, the most notable of which was Mount Argaeus; Cappadocia's only township, Eusebeia Mazaca, lay on the lower flanks of this mighty cone. Bountifully watered and rich of soil, Cappadocia was perpetually coveted by the more powerful kings to its north (Pontus) and south (Syria). However, Cappadocia maintained its own line of kings, who usually went by the title Ariarathes. The people were akin to the people of Pontus. The temple-state of Ma at Comana, rich enough to keep 6,000 temple slaves, was reserved as a fief for the reigning king's brother, who functioned as its high priest.
Capua The most important inland town in Campania. A history of broken pledges of loyalty to Rome led to Roman reprisals which stripped Capua of its extensive and extremely valuable public lands; these became the nucleus of the ager Campanus, and included, for instance, the fabulous vineyards which produced Falernian wines. By the time of Marius and Sulla, Capua's economic well-being depended upon the many military training camps, gladiatorial schools, and slave camps for bulk-lot prisoners that lay on the town's outskirts; the people of Capua made their livings from supplying and servicing these huge institutions.
Carinae One of Rome's more exclusive addresses. The Carinae (which incorporated the Fagutal) was the northern tip of the Oppian Mount on its western side; it extended between the Velia and the Clivus Pullius. Its outlook was southwestern, across the swamps of the Palus Ceroliae toward the Aventine.
Carthage Capital and chief center of the trading empire founded by Phoenician colonists in central North Africa (modern Tunisia). Situated on one of the finest harbors in the Mediterranean, Carthage's port facilities were enhanced by massive man-made improvements. After Scipio Aemilianus terminated the activities of the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War, Carthage itself virtually ceased to exist.
Caudine Forks In 321 b.c. a Roman army was trapped in a gulch known as the Caudine Forks, somewhere near the Samnite town of Beneventum. It surrendered to the Samnite Gavius Pontius, who forced its soldiers to pass beneath the yoke, a terrible disgrace.
Celtiberian The name given to the members of that segment of the Celtic race which crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and settled in its central, northwestern, and northeastern regions. By the time of Marius and Sulla the Celtiberians were so well ensconced that they were generally regarded as indigenous to Spain.
Celts More the modern than the ancient term for a barbarian race which emerged from north-central Europe during the early centuries of the first millennium b.c. From about 500 b.c. onward, the Celts attempted to invade the lands of the European Mediterranean; in Spain and Gaul they succeeded, whereas in Italy, Macedonia, and Greece they failed. However, in Italian Gaul, Umbria, and Picenum in Italy (as well as in Macedonia, Thessaly, Illyricum, and Moesia) they seeded whole populations which gradually admixed with older local stock. Racially the Celts were different from, yet akin to, the later Germans; they considered themselves a discrete people, and had a more complex religious culture than the Germans. Their languages were similar in some ways to Latin. A Roman rarely if ever used the word "Celt"; he said "Gaul."
censor The censor was the most senior of all Roman magistrates, though he lacked imperium and was not therefore escorted by lictors. No man who had not already been consul could seek election as censor, and only those consulars owning tremendous auctoritas and dignitas normally bothered to stand. To be elected censor (by the Centuriate Assembly) was a complete vindication of a man's political career, as it told Rome he was one of the very top men. Two censors were elected to serve together for a period of five years called the lustrum, though the censors were active in their duties only for about the first eighteen months. The censors inspected and regulated membership in the Senate, the Ordo Equester (the knights), the holders of the Public Horse (the 1,800 most senior knights), and conducted a general census of Roman citizens throughout the Roman world. They also applied the means test. State contracts and various public works and buildings were in the domain of the censors.
census Every five years the censors brought the roll of the citizens of Rome up to date. The name of every Roman citizen male was entered on these rolls, together with information about each man's tribe, his economic class, his property and means, and his family. Neither women nor children were formally registered as being Roman citizens, though there are cases documented in the ancient sources in which a woman was awarded the Roman citizenship in her own right. The city of Rome's census was taken on the Campus Martius at a special station erected for the purpose; those living elsewhere in Italy had to report to the authorities at the nearest municipal registry, and those living abroad to the provincial governor. There is some evidence, however, that the censors of 97 b.c., Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Marcus Antonius Orator, changed the manner by which citizens living outside Rome but inside Italy were enrolled.
Centuriate Assembly See Assembly
centurion The regular officer of both Roman citizen and auxiliary legions. It is a mistake to equate him with the modern noncommissioned officer; centurions were complete professionals enjoying a status uncomplicated by our modern social distinctions. A defeated Roman general hardly turned a hair if he lost military tribunes, but tore his hair out in clumps if he lost centurions. Centurion rank was graduated; the most junior centurio (plural, centuriones) commanded a group of eighty soldiers and twenty noncombatants called a century. In the Republican army as reorganized by Gaius Marius, each cohort had six centurions, with the most senior man—the pilus prior—commanding the senior century of his cohort as well as commanding his entire cohort. The ten men commanding the ten cohorts making up a legion were also ranked in seniority, with the legion's most senior centurion, the primus pilus, answering only to his legion's commander (either one of the elected tribunes of the soldiers, or one of the general's legates). Promotion during Republican times was up fro
m the ranks.
chersonnese The name the Greeks gave to a peninsula, though they used it somewhat more flexibly than modern geographers employ the term peninsula. Thus the Tauric Chersonnese, the Cimbrian Chersonnese, the Thracian Chersonnese, the Cnidan Chersonnese, et cetera.
Chios A large island in the Aegean Sea, lying off the coast of Asia Minor (the Roman Asia Province) near Smyrna. Chios was chiefly famous for its wine, which had no peer. After an accident to his flagship caused by a Chian ship, King Mithridates VI of Pontus ever after harbored a huge grudge against Chios and Chians.
Cilicia Cilicia was that part of southern Anatolia lying opposite the Cleides peninsula of Cyprus and extending westward as far as the further end of Cyprus, where it adjoined Pamphylia. Its eastern border lay along the Amanus mountains, which separated it from Syria. Western Cilicia was harsh, arid, and extremely mountainous, but eastern Cilicia (known as Cilicia Pedia) was a large and fertile plain watered by the Pyramus, the Saras and the Cydnus rivers. Its capital was Tarsus, on the Cydnus. Modern scholars hold differing opinions as to when Cilicia was formally made a province of Rome, but there seems to me plenty of evidence to suggest that Marcus Antonius Orator annexed it during his campaign against the pirates in 101 b.c. Certainly Sulla was sent to govern Cilicia during the nineties, well before the Marsic War.
Cimbri A very large confraternity of Germanic tribes who lived in the more northern half of the Cimbric Chersonnese (the modern Jutland Peninsula) until about 120 b.c., when some natural disaster prompted them to migrate. Together with their southern neighbors, the Teutones, they began an epic trek to find a new homeland—a trek which lasted twenty years, took them thousands of miles, and finally brought them up against Rome—and Gaius Marius. They were virtually annihilated at the battle of Vercellae in 101 b.c. citadel Properly, a fortress atop a precipitous hill. Sometimes it lay within its own walls within a larger, more open fortress, as was the case with the Roman stronghold on the Janiculum.
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