The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  Cebenna The highlands of south-central Gaul, lying to the west of the river Rhodanus. The Cebenna in modern terms would incorporate the Cevennes, the Auvergne, the Ardeche, and, in effect, all of the Massif Central.

  cella, cellae (pl.) Literally, “room.” Rooms in domestic households had mostly acquired special names distinguishing their functions, but a room without a name was a cella. The rooms inside temples were always cellae.

  Celtiberians The members of that part of the Celtic race who crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and settled mostly in its central, western, and northwestern regions. They were so well ensconced by the time of Gaius Marius that they were generally regarded as indigenous.

  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, while in Italy and Greece they failed. However, in northern Italy, Macedonia, Thessaly, Illyricum, and Moesia, they seeded whole populations which gradually admixed with those peoples already present. Galatia, in central western Anatolia, was still Celtic speaking many centuries A.D. (see Brennus [2]). Racially the Celts were different from yet kindred to the later Germans; they considered themselves a discrete people. Their languages held certain similarities to Latin. A Roman rarely used the word “Celt”; he said “Gaul.”

  censor 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 personal auctoritas and dignitas normally bothered to stand. To be elected censor was complete vindication of a political man’s career, for it said he was one of the very top men in Rome. The censor (two were elected at the same time) held office for a period of five years, though he was active in his duties for only about eighteen months at the beginning of his term. He and his colleague in the censorship inspected and regulated membership of the Senate, the Ordo Equester (the knights), and the holders of the Public Horse (the eighteen hundred most senior knights), and conducted a general census of Roman citizens, not only in Rome, but throughout Italy and the provinces. He also applied the means test. State contracts were let by him, and various public works or buildings initiated by him.

  Centuriate Assembly See Assembly.

  centurion, Centurio, centuriones (pl.) 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 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 from the ranks.

  century A term which could apply to any collection of one hundred men, but which originally meant one hundred soldiers. The centuries of the Centuriate Assembly no longer contained a mere one hundred men, nor had military significance, but originally were indeed military. The centuries of the legions continued to contain one hundred men.

  Cercina Island Modern Kerkenna. One of the islands of the African Lesser Syrtis, it was the site of the first of Gaius Marius’s veteran soldier colonies. The father of Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator was sent by Marius to organize the settlement of Cercina.

  Ceres A very old Italian-Roman earth goddess whose duties chiefly concerned food crops, particularly cereal grains. Her temple, on the Aventine side of the Forum Boarium (and therefore outside the pomerium), was held to be the most beautiful temple in Republican Rome, and was built to house the cult of the Plebs in the days when Rome was controlled by the patricians and the Plebs often threatened to pack up and leave Rome, settle elsewhere; the first such mass desertion of the Plebs, in 494 B.C., was only as far as the Aventine, but that was far enough to win them concessions. By the time of Gaius Marius, the temple of Ceres was simply known as the headquarters of the Plebeian Order; it held the offices and records of the plebeian aediles.

  Charybdis A mythical whirlpool variously located in the straits between Italy and Sicily, or near the Pillars of Hercules, or other places. Charybdis was always lumped with her companion, Scylla, a monster with a girdle of snarling dogs, who lived so close to Charybdis that no sailor could avoid the one without falling into the clutches of the other. In ancient times the saying “caught between Scylla and Charybdis” was the equivalent of our “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” or “between a rock and a hard place.”

  chersonnese The Greeks’ word for a peninsula, though they used it somewhat more flexibly than modern geographers. Thus the Tauric Chersonnese, the Thracian Chersonnese, the Cimbrian Chersonnese, etc.

  Cherusci A confraternity of German tribes who lived in the area around the Amisia River (now the Ems) and the Visurgis River (now the Weser). Some segments of the Cherusci left this homeland about 113 B.C. to join the mass migration of the German Teutones and Cimbri.

  Cimbri A very large confraternity of German tribes who lived in the more northern half of the Cimbrian Chersonnese until, in 120 B.C. or thereabouts, a massive natural disaster forced them to leave their homeland. Together with their immediate southern neighbors, the Teutones, they began an epic trek to find a new homeland—a trek which lasted nearly twenty years, took them thousands of miles, and finally brought them up against Rome—and Gaius Marius.

  Cimbrian Chersonnese Modern Denmark, also known as the Jutland Peninsula.

  Circei, Circeii The area, including Mount Circeii, which formed the coastal boundary between Latium and Campania. The town of the same name occupied the Tarracina side of the Circeian Promontory, and was a popular Republican seaside resort.

  circus A place where chariot races were held. The course itself was long and narrow, and was divided lengthwise by a central barrier, the spina, the ends of which were conical stones called metae, which formed the turning points for the chariots. Bleacher-style tiers of wooden seats completely fenced it in. The seven laps of a race were monitored by seven eggs in cups, and seven dolphins; both were probably always there, but Agrippa certainly gave the Circus Maximus new and better dolphins. A race normally took about twenty-five minutes to complete. It is now thought that all four colors-—red, green, white, and blue—were a part of the races throughout the middle and late Republic as well as during the Empire. I imagine four colors meant four competitors.

  Circus Flaminius The circus situated on the Campus Martius not far from the Tiber and the Forum Holitorium. It was built in 221 B.C., and sometimes was made to serve as a place for a comitial meeting, when the Plebs or the People had to assemble outside the pomerium. There were several temples within the Circus Flaminius, among them one to Vulcan, and the very beautiful, very famous temple of Hercules and the nine Muses.

  Circus Maximus The old circus built by King Tarquinius Priscus before the Republic began. It filled the whole of the Vallis Murcia, between the Palatine and Aventine mounts. It held somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 people, even in Republican times; during the Republic, only Roman citizens were admitted, and there is ample evidence to suggest that freedman citizens were still classified as slaves when it came to admission to the circus; I imagine that freedmen were excluded because too many people wanted to go to the circus. Women were allowed to sit with men.

  citadel Properly,
a fortress atop a precipitous hill, or that part of a larger fortified place occupying the heights, and surrounded by its own walls.

  citizenship For the purposes of this book, the Roman citizenship. Possession of it entitled a man to vote in his tribe and his class (if he was economically qualified to belong to a class) in all Roman city elections. He could not be flogged, he was entitled to the Roman trial process, and he had the right of appeal. At various times both his parents had to be Roman citizens, at other times only his father (hence the cognomen Hybrida). The citizen was liable to military service, though, prior to Gaius Marius, only if he owned sufficient property to buy his arms and support himself on campaigns beyond the very small sum he was paid by the State, usually at the end of a campaign.

  classes The five economic divisions of property-owning or steady-income-earning Roman citizens. The members of the First Class were the richest, the members of the Fifth Class the poorest. The capite censi did not belong to a class.

  client In Latin, cliens. The term denoted a man of free or freed status (he did not have to be a Roman citizen, however) who pledged himself to a man he called his patron (patronus). The client undertook in the most solemn and morally binding way to serve the interests and obey the wishes of his patron, in return for various favors (these were usually gifts of money, or positions, or legal assistance). The freed slave was automatically the client of his former master, until discharged of this obligation—if he ever was. A kind of honor system governed a client’s conduct in respect of his patron, and was remarkably consistently adhered to. To be a client did not necessarily mean a man could not also be a patron; more that he could not be an ultimate patron, for his own clients technically were the clients of his patron also. There were laws governing the foreign client-patron relationship; concerning foreign client-kingdoms or states owning Rome as patron, there was a legal obligation to ransom any kidnapped Roman citizen, a fact that pirates relied on heavily as an additional source of income. Thus, not only individuals could become clients; whole towns and even countries could be clients.

  client-king A foreign monarch who pledged himself as client in the service of Rome as his patron, or sometimes in the service of a Roman individual as his patron. The title “Friend and Ally of the Roman People” was a statement of clientship.

  Clitumnus River A river in Umbria, Italy.

  clivus A street on an incline—that is, a hilly street. Rome, a city of hills, had many.

  cloaca, cloacae (pl.) A drain, particularly a sewer. There seems no doubt that a very extensive system of cloacae was put down very early on in Rome’s history. Livy says that after the Gauls virtually demolished the city in 390 B.C., the rebuilding was not planned as it ought to have been, due to the Senate’s fear that the Plebeian Order would move holus-bolus to Veii unless allowed to do precisely what they wanted. So where in the old city plan the streets had been wider, and followed the course of the main sewers, the new city saw narrower and more tortuous streets, and many buildings put on top of the main sewers.

  Cloaca Maxima The system of sewers which drained the Subura, the upper Esquiline, the Capitol, the Forum Romanum, and the Velabrum; it entered the Tiber between the Pons Aemilius and the Wooden Bridge (Pons Sublicius), but closer to the Pons Aemilius. The ancient river which formed its first tunnels was the Spinon.

  Cloaca Nodina The system of sewers which drained the Palatine, the lower Esquiline and Oppian mounts, the area of the Circus Maximus, and some of the Aventine. It followed the course of the ancient river Nodina and its tributaries, and entered the Tiber just upstream of the Wooden Bridge (Pons Sublicius).

  Cloaca Petronia The system of sewers which drained the Viminal, Quirinal, and Campus Martius, following the original course of the ancient river Petronia and its tributaries. It entered the Tiber just upstream of Tiber Island; from this point downstream, the Tiber was not used for swimming.

  Coan Pertaining to the island of Cos, one of the Sporades, and located off the coast of Asia Minor. The adjective “Coan” was attached to a famous export of Cos—Coan silk. This was not real silk, but wild silk (real silk did not reach the Mediterranean until the early Empire). Coan silk was much esteemed by prostitutes, to the extent that a prostitute was simply called a Coan.

  cognomen, cognomina (pl.) The last name of a Roman male anxious to distinguish himself from all his fellows having the same first and gentilicial (family) names. In some families it became necessary to have more than one cognomen; for example, take Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica! The cognomen usually pointed out some physical or character idiosyncrasy—jug ears or flat feet or a humpback—or else commemorated some great feat, as in the Caecilii Metelli who were cognominated Dalmaticus, Balearicus, Numidicus. Many cognomina were heavily sarcastic or extremely witty. For the meanings of a number of cognomina, see pages 1060-1065.

  cohort The tactical unit of the Roman legion, comprising six centuries of troops; in normal circumstances, a legion had ten cohorts. It was customary to speak of the size of a Roman army under three or four legions in strength in terms of cohorts rather than legions.

  college A body formed by the association of a number of men having something in common. Thus, there were priestly colleges, political colleges like that of the tribunes of the plebs, religious colleges like that of the lictors, and work-related colleges. Certain groups of men from all walks of life (including slaves) banded themselves together in colleges which looked after the city of Rome’s crossroads and conducted the annual feast of the crossroads, the Compitalia.

  Comitia See Assembly.

  Comum Modern Como, in northern Italy.

  CONDEMNO One of two words employed by a jury when delivering a verdict of “guilty.” The other word was DAMNO (see that entry).

  confarreatio The oldest and strictest of the three forms of Roman marriage. By the time of Gaius Marius, only patricians still practised it—but by no means all patricians, as it was not mandatory. The confarreatio bride passed from the hand of her father to the hand of her husband, thus preventing her acquiring any measure of independence; this was one reason why confarreatio was not popular, as the other forms of marriage allowed a woman more control over her business affairs and dowry. The difficulty of divorce was the other cause of its unpopularity; divorce (diffarreatio) was a dismal, religiously and legally arduous business considered more trouble than it was worth, unless the circumstances left no other alternative.

  Conscript Fathers As established by the kings of Rome, the Senate consisted of one hundred patricians titled patres, which means “fathers.” Then after the Republic was established and plebeians were admitted to the Senate, and its membership had swollen to three hundred, and the censors were given the duty of appointing new senators, the word “conscript” came into use as well, because the censors conscripted these new members. By the time of Gaius Marius, the two terms had been run together, so that the members of the Senate were addressed as Conscript Fathers.

  consul The consul was the most senior Roman magistrate owning imperium, and the consulship (modern scholars do not refer to it as the “consulate” because a consulate is a modern diplomatic institution) was considered the top rung of the cursus honorum. Two consuls were elected each year by the Centuriate Assembly, to serve for one year. The senior of the two—who had polled his requisite number of centuries first—held the fasces for the month of January, which meant he officiated while his junior colleague looked on. The first day of a consul’s office was New Year’s Day, January 1. Each consul was attended by twelve lictors, but only the lictors of the consul officiating during the month carried the fasces on their shoulders. By the time of Gaius Marius, consuls could be either patrician or plebeian, excepting only that two patricians could not hold office together. The proper age for a consul was forty-two, twelve years after entering the Senate at thirty. A consul’s imperium knew no bounds; it operated not only in Rome but throughout Italy and the provinces as well, and overrode the imperium of a proconsular governor
. The consul could command any army.

  consular The title given to a man who had been a consul. He was held in special esteem by the ordinary members of the Senate, was asked to speak ahead of junior magistrates, and might at any time be sent to govern a province should the Senate require the duty of him. He might also be asked to take on other duties, like caring for the grain supply.

  consultum, consulta (pl.) The proper term for a senatorial decree. These decrees did not have the force of law; in order to become law, a consultum had to be presented to the Assembly of the People or to the Plebeian Assembly, which then passed the consultum into law—or did not. However, many consulta did not go to one of the tribal assemblies, yet were accepted as law; such were senatorial decisions about who was to govern a province, or the declaration or pursuit of war, or who was to command an army. Foreign affairs were normally conducted through unratified senatorial consulta.

  contio, contiones (pl.) The preliminary meetings of all the comitial assemblies, whether to debate promulgated legislation or establish a trial at law, were called contiones. A contio could be called only by a magistrate having the correct power to convoke whichever assembly it was—a consul or praetor could convoke the Centuriate Assembly or the Assembly of the People, but only a tribune of the plebs could convoke the Plebeian Assembly.

  contubernalis The Latin term for a cadet, a subaltern of lowest rank in the military officers’ hierarchy, but excluding the centurions; no centurion was ever a cadet, he was an experienced soldier.

  corona A crown. The term was generally confined to military decorations for the very highest valor. In descending order of importance, these crowns for various acts of bravery were:

  Corona Graminea The grass crown, awarded to a man who saved a whole legion, or—upon rare occasions—even a whole army.