Temple of Venus and Rome: Temple designed by the Emperor Hadrian with back-to-back shrines for Venus, Roman goddess of Love, and Rome, a deified personification of the city. In Latin, Roma (Rome) spelled backwards is amor, love. Situated east of the Roman Forum on the north side of the Sacred Way.
Temple of Vesta: Circular temple in the south-eastern corner of the Roman Forum, housing the sacred flame of Vesta, goddess of the hearth.
Tepidarium: The warm room of a Roman baths.
Terra Incognita: Latin, ‘unknown, unexplored land’.
Testudo: Latin, literally ‘tortoise’; by analogy, a Roman infantry formation with overlapping shields, giving overhead protection.
Thabraca: Coastal town in north-eastern Africa Proconsularis, five day’s journey from Thysdrus by the fastest (sea) route; modern Tabarka in Tunisia.
Thelepte: Town in the centre of northern Africa Proconsularis; modern Medinet-el-Kedima in Tunisia.
Theveste: Town in northwestern Africa Proconsularis; modern Tébessa in Tunisia.
Thiges: Roman fort on the edge of the Sahara in southern Africa Proconsularis; modern Henshir Ragoubet Saieda in eastern Tunisia.
Thrace: Roman province to the north-east of Greece.
Thracians: People from the ancient geographical region of Thrace, the south-eastern corner of the Balkans.
Thusuros: Oasis on the southern fringe of Africa Proconsularis; modern Tozeur in eastern Tunisia.
Thysdrus: Town in central Africa Proconsularis, five days’ journey from Thabraca by the fastest (sea) route; modern El Djem in Tunisia.
Tibur: Ancient town north east of Rome popular as a hill resort; modern Tivoli.
Tillibari: Roman fort in southern Tunisia; modern Remada.
Tisavar: Roman military outpost in southern Tunisia; modern Ksar Ghilane.
Titan: First generation of gods; defeated by the Olympians.
Toga: Voluminous garment, reserved for Roman citizens, worn on formal occasions.
Toga Virilis: Garment given to mark a Roman’s coming of age; usually at about fourteen.
Transpadane: Literally, ‘Beyond the River Po’; ancient geographical area of northern Italy.
Tresviri Monetales: Literally, ‘Three men of the mint’; board of junior magistrates responsible for the coinage.
Tresviri Capitales: Board of three junior magistrates in charge of prisons.
Tribune: Title of a junior senatorial post at Rome (see Tribune of the Plebs) and of various military officers; some commanded auxiliary units, while others were mid-ranking officers in the Legions.
Tribune of the Plebs: A powerful office in the Republican government, originating as a champion of the people to prevent the domination of the senatorial nobility. Under the Principate an honourific appointment awarded to junior senators by the Emperor.
Tripolitania: Ancient geographical region of central North Africa, at the eastern extremity of Africa Proconsularis.
Triton: A Greek sea god.
Triumvirate: ‘Three men’; term made notorious by two pacts to share control of the Roman government between three leading citizens that precipitated the end of the Roman Republic and ushered in the Principate.
Troy: Legendary city in Asia Minor; the story of its siege by the Greeks is the subject of Homer’s Iliad.
Tutor: Guardian legally necessary for a child, imbecile or woman.
Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia: ‘Where you are Gaius, I am Gaia’; Roman wedding formula, its origin, and even meaning, were sources of speculation in antiquity itself.
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa: Legionary fortress and capital of the province of Dacia; now abandoned, the site lies in western Romania.
Urban Cohorts: Military unit stationed at Rome to act as a police force and counterbalance the Praetorian Guard.
Utica: Coastal town of Africa Proconsularis north west of Carthage.
Vadas: Nec victoriam speres, nec te militia tuo credas. ‘Go, neither hope for victory, nor trust your soldiers’. According to the Historia Augusta, words of a prophesy offered to Alexander Severus.
Valerii: Members of the Valerius family.
Varissima: Berber goddess identified with Venus, Roman goddess of love.
Via Aurelia: Road running along the Italian coast north west of Rome.
Via Egnatia: Roman military road running east–west across the southern Balkans, ending in the east at Byzantium.
Via Flaminia: Road leading north from Rome, crossing the Apennines, and terminating on the Adriatic coast.
Via Labicana: Road leading south east from the centre of Rome.
Via Popilia: Extension of the Via Aurelia leading north into the plain of the river Po.
Victoria: Roman goddess of victory.
Vicus Augusti: Town in eastern Africa Proconsularis; modern Sidi-el-Hani in Tunisia.
Vigiles: Paramilitary unit stationed at Rome for police and firefighting duties.
Vihinam: Berber goddess associated with childbirth.
Viminacium: Provincial capital of Moesia Superior; modern Kostolac in eastern Serbia.
Vir Clarissimus: Title of a Roman Senator.
Volaterrae: Town in central Italy; modern Volterra.
Votis Decennalibus: Latin, ‘vows of the tenth year’; common legend on coinage announcing the loyal vows made by the populous for an Emperor’s safety in the coming decade.
Zeugma: City on the banks of the Euphrates guarding a bridge of boats; now submerged by the Birecik Dam in southern Turkey.
Zeus: Greek king of the gods.
Zeus Philios: Title of Zeus, ‘The Friendly, Hospitable’.
Zirin: Cry of the Scythians, said by Lucian to signal a person’s status as an emissary and prevent the caller from being harmed, even in the heart of combat.
THANKS
My greatest thanks, as ever, go to my family: my wife, Lisa, my sons, Tom and Jack, my aunt Terry, and my mother, Frances. With a new series, loads of stuff to learn and lots of new characters to make up, they have put up with me working non-stop all year.
Writing a novel is an unnatural, arrogant thing to do. Without the support of both the professionals and friends around me, I am not sure I could pull it off. So, many thanks to my agent, James Gill, and my new editor, Katie Espiner; also to Kate Elton, Damon Greeney, Cassie Browne, and Charlotte Cray (all at HarperCollins), to Richard Marshall (for the endmatter, and knowing more about the novels than me) and, for the seventh time, to my copy-editor, Sarah Day. Thanks also to friends, academic and otherwise, Peter and Rachel Cosgrove, Katie and Jeremy Habberley, Maria Stamatopoulou, Michael Dunne, Vaughan Jones and Jeremy Tinton.
Various students have put up with a lot of fiction when they might have hoped for history: Jonny Riches, Olly Jones, Torsten Alexander, Fergus O’Reegan and Michalina Szymanska.
Back in the day, three senior scholars in Oxford said or did things that showed a faith in my abilities that I was far from sharing. At different times, in ways they will have forgotten, Ewen Bowie, Miriam Griffin and Robin Lane Fox gave me the confidence to write. So this novel is dedicated to them.
Harry Sidebottom
Newmarket and Oxford
February 2014
IRON & RUST:
LIST OF CHARACTERS
The list is organized alphabetically within geographic regions. To avoid giving away any of the plot characters usually are only described as first encountered in Iron & Rust.
THE NORTH
Ababa: A druid woman patronized by the imperial court.
Agrippina: Wife of the general Germanicus, she died in AD33.
Alcimus Felicianus: Gaius Attius Alcimus Felicianus, an equestrian official with a long record of civilian posts, including administering the inheritance tax; a friend of Timesitheus.
Alexander Severus: Born AD208, Roman Emperor from AD222.
Ammonius: An equestrian officer commanding a unit of Cataphracts.
Antigonus: Domitius Antigonus, a Senator, governor of Moesia Inferior.
Anullinus: A
n equestrian officer commanding a unit of Armenians.
Apollonius: Of Tyana, wandering Pythagorean philosopher and performer of miracles, whose life spanned almost the whole of the first century AD; according to the Historia Augusta, the private chapels of the Emperor Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana, Jesus and Orpheus.
Arrian of Nicomedia: Greek historian and philosopher, and Roman Consul and general, c. AD85/90–145/6.
Aspines of Gadara: Valerius Aspines, Greek rhetorician from Syria, c. AD190-250.
Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, 31BC–AD14; known as Octavian before he came to power.
Autronius Justus: A Senator, governor of Pannonia Inferior.
Axius: Quintus Axius Aelianus, an equestrian, Procurator of Germania Inferior, an associate of Timesitheus.
Barbia Orbiana: Gnaea Seia Herennia Sallustia Barbia Orbiana, second wife of the Emperor Alexander Severus from AD225, divorced and banished in AD227.
Caracalla: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, known as Caracalla, Roman Emperor AD198–217.
Catilius Severus: Lucius Catilius Severus; member of the Senatorial inner council of sixteen advising the Emperor Alexander Severus; wears his hair long, and considered effeminate by Timesitheus.
Catius Clemens: Gaius Catius Clemens, commander of Legio VIII Augusta in Germania Superior; brother of Catius Priscillianus and Catius Celer.
Catius Priscillianus: Sextus Catius Clementius Priscillianus, Governor of Germania Superior; elder brother of Catius Clemens and Catius Celer.
Claudius Venacus: Marcus Claudius Venacus, ex-Consul, member of the Senatorial inner council of sixteen advising the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Clodius Pompeianus: Ex-Quaestor, and thus a junior Senator, descendant of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and thus a distant relative of Iunia Fadilla.
Cornelianus: Marcus Attius Cornelianus, Praetorian Prefect under the Emperor Alexander Severus from c. AD230.
Decius: Gaius Messius Quintus Decius, from a senatorial family owning wide estates near the Danube, an early patron of the career of Maximinus, now governor of the province of Hispania Tarraconesis.
Domitius: An equestrian, Prefect of the Camp under the Emperor Alexander Severus; enemy of Timesitheus.
Eadwine: Chief and warlord in the service of Isangrim, King of the Angles.
Elagabalus: Nickname given to the notoriously perverted Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius (AD218-22) who served as a priest of Elagabalus, patron god of his ancestral town, Emesa in Syria.
Faltonius Nicomachus: Maecius Faltonius Nicomachus, Governor of Noricum.
Felicianus: Senior Praetorian Prefect under Alexander Severus.
Flavia Latroniana: Daughter of the ex-Consul Flavius Iulius Latronianus.
Flavius Vopiscus: A Roman Senator from Syracuse in Sicily; fond of literature, especially biography, and much given to superstition.
Florianus: Marcus Annius Florianus, equestrian commander of an irregular unit of British infantry, half-brother of Marcus Claudius Tacitus.
Fortunata: Slave-girl owned by Caecilia Paulina.
Froda: A prince of the Angles, eldest son of King Isangrim.
Germanicus: Nephew and heir of the Emperor Tiberius, won his name from his father’s campaigns in Germany; he died in suspicious circumstances in AD19.
Gessius Marcianus: An equestrian from Syria, the deceased second husband of Mamaea, and father of the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Granianus: Iulius Granianus, rhetorical tutor to the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Honoratus: Lucius Flavius Honoratus Lucilianus, a novus homo in the Roman Senate, an ex-Praetor, Legate of the 11th legion and commander of all detachments from Moesia Inferior serving with the imperial field army; a man of ridiculous good looks, others often comment on his perfect teeth.
Iotapianus: M. Fulvius Rufus Iotapianus, equestrian commander of the Cohort of Emesenes, and himself from Emesa.
Isangrim: The King of the Angles in the far north (modern Denmark).
Javolenus: A legionary in the 2nd Legion Parthica.
Julius Capitolinus: An equestrian officer commanding the 2nd Legion Parthica; often found making notes he intends to turn into biographies.
Julius Licinianus: Quintus Julius Licinianus, a Senator, governor of Dacia.
Licinius Valerian: See Valerian (Africa).
Lorenius: Tiberius Lorenius Celsus, governor of Raetia.
Lucius Marius Perpetuus: Consul Ordinarius in AD237, son of a past governor of Moesia Superior, father of Perpetua, the friend of Iunia Fadilla.
Macedo: Macedo Macedonius, equestrian commander of an auxiliary unit of Osrhoenes, friend of Timesitheus.
Mamaea: Julia Avita Mamaea, mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Marcus Nummius Tuscus: An ex-Quaestor, and thus a junior Senator; the grandson of M. Nummius Umbrius Primus Senecio Albinus, Consul Ordinarius in AD206, the latter having been the brother of Nummius, Iunia Fadilla’s late husband.
Marius: Roman statesman and general, 157–86BC; a novus homo who rose from humble origins to be Consul seven times.
Maximinus Thrax: Gaius Iulius Verus Maximinus, known as Maximinus Thrax (the Thracian), equestrian officer training the new recruits with the imperial field army.
Maximus: Gaius Iulius Verus Maximus, son of Maximinus and Caecilia Paulina.
Memmia Sulpicia: Daughter of the Senator Sulpicius Macrinus, first wife of the Emperor Alexander Severus, divorced and living in banishment in Africa.
Micca: Bodyguard of Maximinus from the days when both were young.
Mokimos: A Centurion in the Cohort of Osrhoene archers.
Nero: Roman Emperor AD54–68.
Ostorius: Governor of Cilicia.
Paulina: Caecilia Paulina, wife of the Emperor Maximinus.
Petronius Magnus: Gaius Petronius Magnus, member of the Senatorial inner council of sixteen advising the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Plautianus: Gaius Fulvius Plautianus, Praetorian Prefect under the Emperor Septimius Severus and accused of plotting against him by Caracalla; murdered AD205.
Plutarch: A prolific Greek writer of philosophy, biography, and history, c. AD45–125.
Pomponius Julianus: A Senator, governor of Syria Phoenice.
Pontius Proculus Pontianus: Consul Ordinarius in AD238; son of Tiberius Pontius Pontianus, sometime governor of Pannonia Inferior.
Pythias: A slave-girl owned by Caecilia Paulina.
Quintus Valerius: Equestrian commander of the Numeri Brittonum, an irregular unit of British infantry.
Rutilus: Distant relative of Maximinus.
Sabinus Modestus: Cousin of Timesitheus, not judged overly intelligent by the latter.
Sanctus: Ab Admissionibus (Master of Admissions) of the imperial household.
Saturninus Fidus: Titus Claudius Saturninus Fidus, a Senator; friend of the Gordiani.
Septimius Severus: Roman Emperor AD193–211.
Soaemis: Julia Soaemis (or Soaemias) Bassiana, sister of Mamaea, mother of the Emperor Elagabalus and aunt of the Emperor Alexander Severus; murdered AD222 with her son.
Sulla: Roman statesman, c. 138–78BC; resigned the Dictatorship in 81BC and soon after retired from public life, dying of natural causes shortly after finishing his memoirs.
Sulpicius Macrinus: The executed father of Memmia Sulpicia, divorced first wife of the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Tacitus: Marcus Claudius Tacitus, governor of Raetia; half-brother of Marcus Annius Florianus.
Taurinus: Not Raurinus; unwillingly proclaimed Emperor by the soldiers of Syria during the reign of Alexander Severus; trying to flee from his mutinous troops, he fell in the Euphrates and drowned.
Thrasybulus: Astrologer on friendly terms with the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Timesitheus: Gaius Furius Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus, senior equestrian official in charge of imperial finances in Belgica, Germania Superior and Germania Inferior; acting governor of Germania Superior; married to Tranquillina.
&nbs
p; Titus Quartinus: A Senator, governor of Moesia Superior.
Tranquillina: Wife of Timesitheus.
Tynchanius: From the same village in Thrace as Maximinus, his personal attendant since early days.
Ulpian: Domitius Ulpianus, famous jurist, made Praetorian Prefect by Alexander Severus in AD222 but murdered by the Praetorians in AD223 for curtailing their privileges.
Varus: Quinctilius Varus, general who lost his life and three legions in an ambush in Germania (AD9).
Veturius: A Rationibus (Treasurer) of Alexander Severus.
Vitalianus: Publius Aelius Vitalianus, an equestrian official.
Volo: Marcus Aurelius Volo, commander of the frumentarii (the imperial spies).
Vulcatius Terentianus: Member of the Senatorial inner council of sixteen advising the Emperor Alexander Severus.
Xenophon: Athenian soldier and writer, c. 430–c. 350BC; though famed as a historian and biographer, also wrote a treatise on hunting with dogs.
ROME
Acilius Aviola: Manius Acilius Aviola, patrician Senator; his family claimed descent from Aeneas, and thus the goddess Venus, they first rose to prominence under the Emperor Augustus and an ancestor held the consulship in AD24; cousin of Acilius Glabrio.
Acilius Glabrio: Marcus Acilius Glabrio, cousin of Acilius Aviola; a young patrician, one of the Tresviri monetales; his father Manius Acilius Faustinus was Consul Ordinarius in AD210.
Alcimus Felicianus: Gaius Attius Alcimus Felicianus, an equestrian official with a long record of official posts, including administering the inheritance tax; a friend of Timesitheus.
Antheros: An acquaintance of Fabianus.
Balbinus: Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus, a patrician Senator, claims kinship with the deified Emperors Trajan and Hadrian via the great Roman clan of the Coelli; Consul Ordinarius with the Emperor Caracalla in AD213; among his many political friends are Acilius Aviola, Caesonius Rufinianus, and the brothers Valerius Messala and Valerius Priscillianus.
Caenis: A prostitute living in the Subura at Rome.
Caesonius Rufinianus: Lucius Caesonius Lucillus Macer Rufinianus, a patrician Senator; Suffect Consul c. AD225–30; a friend of Balbinus.
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