Numidia The ancient kingdom of middle North Africa which always lay to the west, south, and east of Carthage, and later of the Roman African province. The original inhabitants were Berbers, and lived a seminomadic life. After the defeat of Carthage, Rome and the Scipios encouraged the establishment of a regal dynasty, the first member of which was King Masinissa. The capital of Numidia was Cirta.
oakum A crudely tamped together collection of fibers, in ancient times gathered from woolly seeds, maple “cotton,” or the coarsest fibers of the flax plant. It was occasionally used for calking, but its main use was for lampwicks.
Odysseus In Latin, Ulysses. King of Ithaca in days of legend. He was one of the main characters in Homer’s Iliad, and the hero of Homer’s Odyssey.
Olympia The famous sanctuary of Zeus was not anywhere near Mount Olympus; this Olympia was in Elis, in the western Peloponnese.
oppidum In the sense used in this book, a fortified settlement, usually atop a hill, and designed to protect the lower lands around it. I have confined the term to the strongholds of Gallia Comata—Long-haired Gaul.
opus incertum The oldest of several ways in which the Romans built their walls. A facing of irregular small stones mortared together was built with a hollow interior; this hollow was filled with a mortar composed of black pozzolana and lime mixed through an aggregate of rubble and small stones (caementa). Evidence suggests that opus incertum walls date back at least to 200 B.C.; in the time of Gaius Marius, the two younger ways of building walls had not yet replaced the tried and true opus incertum.
order, ordo In Roman terms, a social group having much the same family background and degree of wealth.
Ordo Equester See knights.
Oscan The language spoken by the Samnites, Lucani, Frentani, Apuli, Brutii, and Campani of peninsular Italy. It was allied to Latin, but very different. During the time of Gaius Marius, Oscan was still a living, widely spoken tongue. True Romans tended to despise those whose first language was Oscan.
Ostia Rome’s closest seaport, situated at the mouth of the Tiber River, and in Rome’s earliest days the location of the salt marshes which produced Italy’s best—perhaps only— salt. It was a fortified town during the Republic, and became Rome’s naval base during the Punic Wars. Bedeviled by silting-up and sandbars, Ostia was never a very satisfactory port, but its disadvantages did not prevent its being extremely busy. The swift and silt-dirty Tiber made it impossible for any but the smallest merchantmen to voyage up to the city of Rome; cargo was normally unloaded from large and medium ships in Ostia, and sent up to Rome by barge or lighter. Ostia contained granaries. It also had its own quaestor, who was responsible for overseeing the unloading and onward shipment of the grain supply, and responsible too for the levying of all customs and excise duties.
Padus River The modern Po, in northern Italy.
Paeligni One of the peoples of central peninsular Italy, allied to the Marsi and the Sabines.
Pamphylia That part of the southern coast of Asia Minor lying between Lycia (opposite Rhodes) and Cilicia (opposite Cyprus). The extremely high Taurus Mountains plunged straight into the sea, giving Pamphylia a very rugged and inaccessible coastline. The interior was heavily forested with pines, but the whole region was rather poor in yielding a decent living for its people, who found that the most profitable enterprise—and the one to which their country was most suited by nature—was piracy.
pantheon The word used in modern times to describe collectively the whole array of gods in a polytheistic system of religious belief.
papyrus The pithy stalks of the Egyptian marsh papyrus were made into paper by a most painstaking and ingenious method; no species of papyrus other than Egyptian was ever successfully used to manufacture paper. The process whereby the plant was converted into a substance suitable for writing on is hard to date, but seems not to have been in general use prior to the first Ptolemy, about 322 B.C. There can be no doubt that the ever-widening availability of paper as a writing material from 300 B.C. onward was the single most significant contribution toward literacy in the ancient world. A process invented by a Roman Fannius (see Fannius paper) about 150 B.C., to convert poor paper into good, made writing paper even easier to get, as well as cheaper.
parchment When King Ptolemy V Epiphanes of Egypt banned the export of paper from Egypt about 190 B.C., the shortage of a suitable medium for writing upon was so acutely felt that in Asiatic Pergamum a process was quickly evolved to produce a substitute for papyrus paper; this substitute became known as vellum, or parchment. The skins of very young animals, particularly lambs and kids, were washed, very carefully scraped, then polished with pumice and chalk. However, papyrus paper was soon put back onto the world market, and the Pergamum parchment industry could never have hoped to replace papyrus paper, for it was both more expensive and slower to make. Parchment was kept for the documents considered so important that they had to “last forever.”
Pass of Brennus The modern Brenner Pass. The name comes either from the first of the two Celtic kings named Brennus (see Brennus [1]), who invaded Italy through this pass, or from the tribe of Celts called the Brenni, who lived in the Alps around the pass. The lowest of all the alpine passes into Italian Gaul, it followed the valley of the river Isarcus, a tributary of the Athesis. That it was seldom used was because the lands to its north were inhospitable.
Pass of the Salassi The modern pair of passes called the Little St. Bernard and the Great St. Bernard (see Lugdunum Pass, Salassi).
Patavium Modern Padua, in northern Italy. The fastest-growing and most prosperous town in Italian Gaul.
paterfamilias The head of the family unit. His right to do as he pleased with the members of his family unit was rigidly protected by the laws of the Roman State.
Patrae Modern Patras, in Peloponnesian Greece. It lay outside the Gulf of Corinth on its southern (Peloponnesian) shore, and was the natural (that is, with regard to winds and sea currents) terminus for those voyagers to Greece from Tarentum or Sicily.
patricians The original Roman aristocracy. Patricians were distinguished citizens before there were kings of Rome, and ever after kept their title of patrician, as well as a prestige unattainable by any plebeian (no matter how many consuls in his family had ennobled him). However, as the Republic evolved and the power of the plebeians grew in pace with their wealth, the special rights and entitlements of the patricians were inexorably stripped from them, until by the time of Gaius Marius they tended to be relatively impoverished compared to the families of the plebeian nobility. Not all patrician clans were of equal antiquity: the Julii and the Fabii were certainly some centuries older in their tenure of patrician status than the Claudii. Patricians married in a special form called confarreatio, which was virtually for life, and patrician women never were allowed the relative emancipation of their plebeian fellows. Certain priesthoods could be held only by patricians—Rex Sacrorum and flamen Dialis—and certain senatorial positions could be held only by patricians—interrex and the Princeps Senatus. At the time of Gaius Marius, the following patrician families were still regularly producing senators (if not consuls): Aemilius, Claudius, Cornelius, Fabius (but through adoptions only), Julius, Manlius, Papirius, Pinarius, Postumius, Sergius, Servilius, Sulpicius, and Valerius.
patron Patronus. Roman Republican society was organized into a system of patronage and clientship. Though perhaps the smallest businessmen and the ordinary lowly workers of Rome were not always participants in the system, the system was nonetheless very prevalent at all levels of society. The patron undertook to offer protection and favors to those who acknowledged themselves his clients (see client).
pectoral A small metal plate, mostly square but sometimes round, usually of bronze or iron (steel), worn on the chest as armored protection.
pedagogue Paedagogus. A teacher of young children. He was the man who instilled rudimentary education—reading, writing, and arithmetic. His status was usually that of slave or freedman, he lived within the family unit, a
nd his nationality was more often than not Greek; however, he was required to teach in Latin as well as in Greek.
pedarius, pedarii (pl.) A senatorial backbencher (see also Senate).
Peloponnese The Isle of Pelops. It was that southern part of Greece which is connected to the “mainland” by a narrow neck, the Isthmus of Corinth. In the time of Gaius Marius, the Peloponnese was unimportant and underpopulated; as on the “mainland,” many of its inhabitants chose to sell themselves into slavery rather than stagnate at home.
Penates The Di Penates, the gods of the storage cupboard. Among the oldest and most numinous of Roman gods (see numen), the Di Penates were worshiped in every Roman house in conjunction with Vesta (spirit of the hearth), and the Lar Familiaris, the special family representative of the Lares. Like the Lares, the Di Penates were depicted (in the form of bronze statuettes usually) as youths.
Penates Publici .Originally these were the royal Di Penates belonging to the King of Rome; during the Republic, the Penates Publici came to be worshiped as the caretakers of the public storage cupboard—that is, of the State’s well-being and solvency.
People Technically, this term embraced every Roman citizen who was not a member of the Senate. It applied to patricians as well as to plebeians, and the Head Count as much as the First Class.
Peripatetic An adherent of the school of philosophy founded by Aristotle, but developed by his pupil Theophrastus. Unfortunately Theophrastus’s immediate successors did not concern themselves with the written words of Aristotle, and gave the only copy of his works to Neleus of Scepsis, who took them home to Scepsis (a town in the Troad) and stored them in his cellar, where they remained forgotten for 150 years. The name Peripatetic was given to adherents of the school because of a covered walkway within the school that was used for strolling while the scholars conversed; it was also said Aristotle himself walked while he talked. By the time of Gaius Marius the philosophy was in disrepute, for it had quite lost the wonderful breadth of Aristotelian interests, devoting itself to literature, the criticism of literature, the writing of biographies in a florid and inaccurate style, and moral matters.
peristyle An enclosed garden or courtyard which was surrounded by a colonnade.
Pessinus A small city in eastern Phrygia, famous for containing the chief sanctuary and precinct of the Great Mother.
phalerae Round, chased, ornamented silver or gold discs about 3 to 4 inches (75 to 100 mm) in diameter. Originally they were worn by Roman knights as insignia, and also were the trappings of their horses. During the middle Republic they became military decorations awarded to cavalrymen, but by the time of Gaius Marius they were also awarded to infantrymen. Normally phalerae given to soldiers for valor were mounted in sets of nine (in three rows of three) upon a decorated leather harness of straps designed to be worn over the mail shirt or cuirass.
Phrygia One of the wilder and less populated parts of Asia Minor, synonymous to the ancients with nymphs, dryads, satyrs, and other mythical woodland folk, as well as with peasants so defenseless they were easily enslaved. Phrygia lay inland from Bithynia, south of Paphlagonia, and west of Galatia. Mountainous and heavily forested, it was a part of the Attalid empire of Pergamum; after the wars following the bequeathing of the Kingdom of Pergamum to Rome, the Roman proconsul Manius Aquillius literally sold most of Phrygia to King Mithridates V of Pontus, pocketing the gold for himself.
Picentes, Picentines, Picenum Picenum was that part of the eastern Italian Peninsula roughly occupying the area of the Italian leg’s calf muscle. Its western boundary was the high Apennines; to the north lay Umbria, and to the south and west Samnium. Since it had a good section of the Adriatic coast, it also had two busy seaports, Ancona and Firmum Picenum; the main inland town and chief center was Asculum Picentum. The inhabitants were originally of Italiote and Illyrian stock, but during the invasion of the first King Brennus, many of his Celtic tribesmen settled in Picenum, and intermarried with the original people. By the time of Gaius Marius, the Picentines were well admixed with the Celts, most particularly in the north.
pilaster A column or pillar engaged within a wall, so that only a part of it showed on the outside of the wall.
pilum, pila (pl.) The Roman infantry spear, particularly as modified by Gaius Marius. It had a very small, wickedly barbed head of iron that was continued as an iron shaft for perhaps three feet (one meter); this was joined to a shaped wooden stem which fitted the hand comfortably. Marius modified it by introducing a weakness into the junction between iron and wooden shaft sections, so that upon lodging in shield, body, or ground after throwing, it broke apart, and thus was of no use to the enemy. However, Roman craftsmen within the legions could repair these broken specimens of pilum very quickly.
pipinna A little boy’s penis.
Pisae Modern Pisa, in Italy.
Placentia Modern Piacenza, in northern Italy. It was one of the largest and most important towns in Italian Gaul, and was a Latin Rights colony from 218 B.C. Its importance increased enormously after the censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus caused the building of a good road from the Tyrrhenian coast through Dertona to Placentia and the Padus Valley.
plebeian, plebs All those Roman citizens who were not patricians were plebeians—that is, they belonged to the plebs (the e is short, so the word “plebs” has the same e sound as “February”—it is not pronounced pleebs, as at West Point military academy). At the beginning of the Republic, no plebeian could be a priest, a curule magistrate, or even a senator. This situation lasted only a very short while; one by one the exclusively patrician institutions crumbled before the onslaught of the plebs, until by the time of Gaius Marius only a very few politically unimportant posts remained the province of the patricians. However, the plebs created a new nobility to distinguish the stars in its firmament from the rest, by calling a man who had attained the consulship a nobilis (nobleman), and ordaining that his direct descendants would also be noble.
plebiscite, Strictly speaking, a law enacted in the Plebeian Assembly was not called a lex or law, but a plebiscitum (hence our modern English word “plebiscite”). From very early in the history of the Republic, plebiscites were regarded as legally binding, but the lex Hortensia of 287 B.C. made this a formal fact. From then on, there was virtually no difference at law between a plebiscitum and a lex. By the time of Gaius Marius, almost all the legal clerks who were responsible for putting the laws on tablets and recording them for posterity neglected to qualify whether they were recording a true lex or a plebiscitum; simply, they had all been classified in the minds of the clerks as laws.
podex The Latin obscenity—a mild one—for the posterior fundament or anus.
Pollux The “forgotten twin”—Castor’s brother the boxer. Of the four children of King Tyndareus and his wife, Leda—born as quadruplets—two were sired by Tyndareus, and two by Zeus, who had ravished Leda in the guise of a swan. Castor and Helen belonged to Zeus; Pollux (Polydeukes) and Clytemnestra belonged to Tyndareus. Doomed always to be mentioned after his brother, very often Pollux was not mentioned at all. Romans called the temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum Romanum simply “Castor’s” (see Castor).
pomerium The sacred boundary of the city of Rome. Marked by stones called cippi, it was reputedly inaugurated by King Servius Tullus, and remained the same until the time of Sulla the Dictator. The pomerium did not exactly follow the Servian Walls, one good reason why it is doubtful that the Servian Walls were actually built by King Servius Tullus—who would surely have caused the walls to follow the same course as the pomerium. The whole of the ancient Palatine city of Romulus was enclosed within the pomerium, but the Aventine was not, nor was the Capitol. Tradition held that the pomerium could be enlarged only by a man who significantly increased the size of Roman territory. In religious terms, Rome herself existed only within the pomerium; all outside it was merely Roman territory.
pons A bridge.
pontifex The Latin word for a priest; it has survived to be absorbe
d unchanged into most modern European languages. Many philologists consider that in very early Roman times, the pontifex was a maker of bridges, these being deemed magical structures. Be that as it may, by Republican times the pontifex was a priest of special kind; incorporated into a college, he served as an adviser to Rome’s magistrates in religious matters—for Rome’s religion was administered by the State. At first all the pontifices had to be patrician, but in 300 B.C. a lex Ogulnia stipulated that half the members of the college must be plebeian.
Pontifex Maximus The head of the State religion, and most senior of all priests. He seems to have been an invention of the infant Republic, a typically masterly Roman way of getting around an obstacle without ruffling too many feelings; for the Rex Sacrorum (a title held by the kings of Rome) had been the chief priest. Rather than upset the populace by abolishing the Rex Sacrorum, the new rulers of Rome in the person of the Senate simply created a new pontifex whose role and status was superior to that of the Rex Sacrorum. He was called the Pontifex Maximus, and he was elected rather than co-opted, in order to reinforce his statesmanlike position. At first he was probably required to be a patrician, but by the middle Republic he was more likely to be plebeian. He supervised all the various members of the various priestly colleges—pontifices, augurs, fetials and other minor priests, and the Vestal Virgins. In Republican times he occupied the most important Domus Publicus, or State-owned house, but shared it with the Vestals. His official headquarters (it had the status of a temple) was the little old Regia in the Forum Romanum.
Pontus The large state at the southeastern end of the Euxine Sea (the Black Sea).
Populonia A port city on the western, Tyrrhenian coast of the Italian Peninsula.
porta A gate.
porticus A roofed-over colonnade, either in the form of a long straight arcade, or a rectangle enclosing a courtyard (peristyle). It was commonly a place of business, public as well as commercial; the Porticus Margaritaria at the top of the Forum Romanum was named after the pearl merchants who had their shops or stalls therein; the Porticus Metelli adjacent to the temple of Jupiter Stator on the Campus Martius contained offices for the censors as well as many business offices; the Porticus Minucia, at the Circus Flaminius, held the grain supply offices of the aediles as well as business offices; the Porticus Aemilia, fronting onto the wharves of the Port of Rome, was a true emporium, containing the offices of those engaged in the import and export of goods.
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