forum An open-air meeting place for all kinds of business, public and private. Some fora (plural) were devoted to meat, others to vegetables, or fish, or grain, while others witnessed political assemblies and the business of government. Even an army camp had its forum, situated alongside the general’s tent.
freedman A manumitted slave. Though technically a free man (and, if his former master was a Roman citizen, a Roman citizen himself), the freedman remained in the patronage of his former master. At the time of Marius and Sulla he had little chance to exercise his right to vote in the tribal assemblies, as he belonged to one of two urban tribes—Esquilina and Suburana. If he was of superior ability or ruthlessness, he might, however, be able to vote in the classes of the Centuriate Assembly once he acquired sufficient wealth; freedmen capable of amassing a fortune usually bought their way into a rural tribe and so possessed the complete franchise.
free man A man born free and never sold into slavery (except as a nexus or debt slave, which was rare among Roman citizens during the time of Marius and Sulla, though still prevalent among the Italian Allies). Fregellae This had been a Latin Rights community with an unblemished record of loyalty to Rome; then in 125 b.c. it revolted against Rome and was crushed by the praetor Lucius Opimius in circumstances of singular cruelty. Destroyed completely, the town never recovered. It was situated on the Via Latina and the Liris River just across the border in Samnium.
Further Spain Hispania Ulterior. This was the further of Rome’s two Spanish provinces—that is, it lay further away from Rome than the other province, called Nearer Spain. In the time of Marius and Sulla the border between Nearer and Further Spains was somewhat tenuous. By and large, the Further province encompassed the entire basins of the Baetis and Anas rivers, the ore-bearing mountains in which the Baetis and the Anas rose, the Atlantic littoral from the Pillars of Hercules to Olisippo at the mouth of the Tagus, and the Mediterranean littoral from the Pillars to the port of Abdera. The largest city by far was Gades, but the seat of the governor was Corduba. Strabo calls it the richest growing land in the world.
Gallia Comata Long-haired Gaul. Having excluded the Roman province of Gaul-across-the-Alps, Gallia Comata incorporated modern France and Belgium, together with that part of Holland south of the Rhine. The Rhine throughout its length formed the border between Gaul and Germania. The inhabitants of all areas away from the Rhine were Druidical Celts; close to the Rhine the strains were mixed due to successive invasions of Germans. Long-haired Gaul was so called because its peoples wore their hair uncut. games In Latin, ludi. They were a Roman institution and pastime which went back at least as far as the very early Republic, and probably a lot further. At first they were celebrated only when a general triumphed, but in 336 b.c., the ludi Romani became an annual event held in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, whose feast day occurred on September 13. At first the ludi Romani were over in a single day, but as the Republic aged they increased in length; at the time of Marius and Sulla they went on for ten days. Though there were a few rather half-hearted boxing and wrestling bouts, Roman games never possessed the athletic nature of Greek games. At first the games consisted mostly of chariot races, then gradually came to incorporate animal hunts, and plays performed in specially erected theaters. On the first day of every games, there was a spectacular religious procession through the Circus, after which came a chariot race or two, and then the boxing and wrestling, limited to this first day. The succeeding days were taken up with plays in the theater; tragedies were far less popular than comedies, and by the time of Marius and Sulla mimes were most popular of all. Then as the games drew to a close, chariot racing reigned supreme, with wild beast hunts to vary the program. Gladiatorial combats did not form a part of Republican games (they were put on by private individuals, usually as part of a funeral, in the Forum Romanum rather than in the Circus). The games were put on at the expense of the State, though men ambitious to make a name for themselves dug deep into their purses when serving as aediles to make “their” games more spectacular than the State allocation of funds permitted. Most of the big games were held in the Circus Maximus, some of the smaller ones in the Circus Flaminius. Free Roman citizen men and women could attend (there was no admission charge), with women segregated in the theater but not in the Circus; neither slaves nor freedmen were allowed admission, probably because even the Circus Maximus, which held perhaps 150,000 people, was not large enough to contain freedmen as well as free men.
Gaul-across-the-Alps Gallia Transalpina. I have preferred to endow Gallia Transalpina with a more pedestrian name because of the hideous confusion nonclassical readers would experience if they had to deal with Cis and Trans. Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus won the Roman Gallic province for Rome just before 120 b.c. to ensure that Rome would have a safe land route for her armies marching between Italy and Spain. The province consisted of a coastal strip all the way from Liguria to the Pyrenees, with two inland incursions—one to Tolosa in Aquitania, the other up the valley of the Rhodanus as far as the trading post of Lugdunum (Lyon).
gens Plural, gentes. A Roman clan whose members all owned the same nomen or family name, also called the gentilicial name. Julius, Domitius, Cornelius, Aemilius, Servilius, Livius, Porcius, Junius and Licinius were all gentilicial names, for example. All the genuine members of the same gens (that is, excluding freed slaves who adopted their masters’ names) could trace their line back to a common ancestor. The terms gens was feminine gender, hence gens Julia, gens Cornelia, gens Servilia, and so forth.
gig A two-wheeled vehicle drawn by either two or four animals, more usually mules than horses. The gig was very lightly and flexibly built within the limitations of ancient vehicles—springs and shock absorbers did not exist—and was the vehicle of choice for a Roman in a hurry because it was easy for the animals to draw, therefore speedy. However, it was open to the elements. In Latin it was cisia. The two-wheeled closed-in carriage, a heavier and slower vehicle, was called the carpentum.
gladiator A soldier of the sawdust, a professional warrior who performed his trade before an audience as a form of entertainment. An inheritance from the Etruscans, he always flourished throughout Italy, including Rome. During the Republic he was an honorable as well as an heroic figure, was well cared for and free to come and go. His origins were several: he might be a deserter from the legions, a condemned criminal, a slave, or a free man who voluntarily signed himself up. In Republican times he served for perhaps four to six years, and on an average fought perhaps five times in any one year; it was rare for him to die, and the Empire’s “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” verdict was still far in the future. When he retired he was prone to hire himself out as a bodyguard or bouncer. To own a gladiatorial school was considered a smart investment for a Roman businessman.
Gold of Tolosa Perhaps several years after 278 b.c., a segment of the tribe Volcae Tectosages returned from Macedonia to their homeland around Aquitanian Tolosa (modern Toulouse) bearing the accumulated spoils from many sacked temples (see Brennus). These were melted down and stored in the artificial lakes which dotted the precincts of Tolosa’s temples; the gold was left lying undisturbed beneath the water, whereas the silver was regularly hauled out—it had been formed into gigantic millstones which were used to grind the wheat. In 106 b.c. the consul Quintus Servilius Caepio was ordered during his consulship to make war against migrating Germans who had taken up residence around Tolosa. When he arrived in the area he found the Germans gone, for they had quarreled with their hosts, the Volcae Tectosages, and been ordered away. Instead of fighting a battle, Caepio the Consul found a vast amount of gold and silver in the sacred lakes of Tolosa. The silver amounted to 10,000 talents (250 imperial tons) including the millstones, and the gold to 15,000 talents (370 imperial tons). The silver was transported to the port of Narbo and shipped to Rome, whereupon the wagons returned to Tolosa and were loaded with the gold; the wagon train was escorted by one cohort of Roman legionaries, some 520 men. Near the fortress of Carcasso the wagon train of go
ld was attacked by brigands, the soldier escort was slaughtered, and the wagon train disappeared, together with its precious cargo. It was never seen again.
At the time no suspicion attached to Caepio the Consul, but after the odium he incurred over his conduct at the battle of Arausio a year later, it began to be rumored that Caepio the Consul had organized the attack on the wagon train and deposited the gold in Smyrna in his own name. Though he was never tried for the Great Wagon Train Robbery, he was tried for the loss of his army, convicted, and sent into exile. He chose to spend his exile in Smyrna, where he died in 100 b.c. The story of the Gold of Tolosa is told in the ancient sources, which do not state categorically that Caepio the Consul stole it. However, it seems logical. And there is no doubt that the Servilii Caepiones who succeeded Caepio the Consul down to the time of Brutus (the last heir) were fabulously wealthy. Nor is there much doubt that most of Rome thought Caepio the Consul responsible for the disappearance of more gold than Rome had in the Treasury. Good Men See boni.
governor A convenient English word to describe the consul or praetor, proconsul or propraetor, who—usually for the space of one year—ruled a Roman province in the name of the Senate and People of Rome. The degree of imperium the governor owned varied, as did the extent of his commission. However, no matter what his imperium, while in his province he was virtual king of it. He was responsibly for its defense, administration, the gathering of its taxes and tithes, and all decisions pertaining to it. Provinces notoriously difficult to govern were generally given to consuls, peaceful backwaters to praetors.
The Gracchi More generally known as the Brothers Gracchi. Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus and Aemilia Paulla, was married when eighteen years old to the forty-five-year-old Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus; the year was about 172 b.c., and Scipio Africanus had been dead for twelve years. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was consul in 177 b.c., censor in 169 b.c., and consul a second time in 163 b.c. By the time he died in 154 b.c. he was the father of twelve children. However, they were a universally sickly brood; only three of them did Cornelia manage to raise to adulthood, despite assiduous care. The oldest of these three was a girl, Sempronia, who was married as soon as she was of age to her cousin Scipio Aemilianus. The two younger children were boys. Tiberius was born in 163 b.c., his brother Gaius not until the year of his father’s death, 154 b.c. Thus both boys owed their upbringing to their mother, who by all accounts did a superlative job. Both the Brothers Gracchi served under their mother’s first cousin (and their own brother-in-law) Scipio Aemilianus—Tiberius during the Third Punic War, Gaius at Numantia—they were conspicuously brave. In 137 b.c. Tiberius was sent as quaestor to Nearer Spain, where he single-handedly negotiated a treaty to extricate the defeated Hostilius Mancinus from Numantia, thus saving Mancinus’s army from annihilation; however, Scipio Aemilianus considered Tiberius’s action disgraceful, and managed to persuade the Senate not to ratify the treaty. Tiberius never forgave his cousin and brother-in-law. In 133 b.c. Tiberius was elected a tribune of the plebs and set out to right the wrongs the State was perpetrating in its leasing of the ager publicus. Against furious opposition, he passed an agrarian law which limited the amount of public land any one man might lease or own to 500 iugera (with an extra 250 iugera per son), and set up a commission to distribute the surplus land this limit produced among the civilian poor of Rome. His aim was not only to rid Rome of some of her less useful citizens, but also to ensure that future generations would be in a position to give Rome sons qualified at the means test to serve in the army. When the Senate chose to filibuster, Tiberius took his bill straight to the Plebeian Assembly—and stirred up a hornets’ nest thereby, as this move ran counter to all established practice. One of his fellow tribunes of the plebs, his relative Marcus Octavius, vetoed the bill in the Plebeian Assembly, and was illegally deposed from office—yet another enormous offense against the mos maiorum (that is, established custom and practice). The legality of these ploys mattered less to Tiberius’s opponents than did the fact that they contravened established practice, however unwritten that. established practice might be. When Attalus III of Pergamum died that year and was discovered to have bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, Tiberius ignored the Senate’s right to decide what ought to be done with this bequest, and legislated to have the lands used to resettle more of Rome’s poor. Opposition in Senate and Comitia hardened day by day. Then when 133 b.c. drew to a close without Tiberius’s seeing a successful conclusion to his program, he flouted another established practice—the one which said a man might be a tribune of the plebs only once. Tiberius Gracchus ran for a second term. In a confrontation on the Capitol between his own faction and an ultra-conservative faction led by his cousin Scipio Nasica, Tiberius was clubbed to death, as were some of his followers. His cousin Scipio Aemilianus—though not yet returned from Numantia when this happened—publicly condoned the murder, alleging that Tiberius had wanted to make himself King of Rome. Turmoil died down until ten years later, when Tiberius’s little brother Gaius was elected a tribune of the plebs in 123 b.c. Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was the same kind of man as his elder brother, but he had learned from Tiberius’s mistakes, and was besides the more able of the two. His reforms were far wider; they embraced not only agrarian laws, but also laws to provide very cheap grain for the urban lowly, to regulate service in the army, to found Roman citizen colonies abroad, to initiate public works throughout Italy, to remove the extortion court from the Senate and give it to the knights, to farm the taxes of Asia Province by public contracts let by the censors, and to give the full Roman citizenship to all those having the Latin Rights, and the Latin Rights to every Italian. His program was nowhere near completed when his term as a tribune of the plebs came to an end, so Gaius did the impossible—he ran for a second term, and got in. Amid mounting fury and obdurate enmity, he battled on to achieve his program of reform, which was still not completed when his second term expired. He stood a third time for the tribunate of the plebs. This time he was defeated, as was his friend and close colleague, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus. When 121 b.c. dawned, Gaius saw his laws and policies attacked at once by the consul Lucius Opimius and the ex-tribune of the plebs Marcus Livius Drusus. Desperate to prevent everything he had done being torn down again, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus resorted to violence. The Senate responded by passing its first-ever “ultimate decree” to stop the escalating Forum war; Fulvius Flaccus and two of his sons were murdered and the fleeing Gaius Gracchus committed suicide in the Grove of Furrina on the flanks of the Janiculan hill. Roman politics could never be the same; the aged citadel of the mos maiorum was now irreparably breached. The same thread of tragedy wove through the personal lives of the Brothers Gracchi also. Tiberius married a Claudia, the daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, consul in 143 b.c., an inveterate enemy of Scipio Aemilianus and as idiosyncratic as most Claudius-Pulcher men tended to be. There were three sons of the marriage between Tiberius and Claudia, none of whom lived to achieve a public career. Gaius Gracchus also married the daughter of one of his stoutest supporters—Licinia, daughter of Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus. They had one child only, a daughter, Sempronia, who married a Fulvius Flaccus Bambalio—she produced a daughter, Fulvia, who became in turn the wife of Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gaius Scribonius Curio, and Mark Antony.
grammaticus Not a teacher of grammar! He taught the basic arts of rhetoric—public speaking (see rhetoric).
Greece By the beginning of the first century b.c. Greece had been stripped of the territories of Macedonia and Epirus. It comprised Thessaly, Dolopia, Malis, Euboeia, Ocris, Phocis, Locris, Aetolia, Acarnania, Boeotia, Attica, Corinth, and the various states of the Peloponnese. Things Greek had fallen into almost complete decline; many of Greece’s regions were bare of people, their towns ghost, their coffers empty. Only places like Athens continued in some way to thrive. Centuries of war—with foreign invaders, at the whim of would-be conquerors, and—most often of all—between Greek states, had impoverished the country and halved
its population, many of whom (if fortunate enough to possess a good trade or education) voluntarily sold themselves into slavery.
Hannibal The Carthaginian prince who led his country in the second of its three wars against Rome. Born in 247 b.c. , the son of Hamilcar, Hannibal was taught to soldier in Spain as a mere child; he spent his youth in Spain, where his father was the Carthaginian governor. In 218 b.c. Hannibal invaded Italy, a shock tactic which confounded Rome; his crossing of the Alps (complete with elephants) through the Montgenèvre Pass was brilliantly done. For sixteen years he roamed at will through Italian Gaul and Italy, defeating Roman armies at Trebia, Trasimene, and finally Cannae. But Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosis Cunctator evolved a strategy which eventually wore Hannibal out; relentlessly he shadowed the Carthaginian army with an army of his own, yet never offered battle nor allowed his men to be trapped into battle—the so-called “Fabian tactics.’’ Because Fabius Maximus was always in his vicinity somewhere, Hannibal never quite got up the courage to attack the city of Rome herself. Then his allies among the Italians began to flag; after his hold on Campania was broken, Fabius Maximus forced Hannibal further and further south in Italy. The Carthaginian lost the (verbal) battle for Tarentum at about the same time as his younger brother, Hasdrubal, was defeated at the Metaurus River in Umbria. Penned up in Bruttium, the very toe of Italy, he evacuated his undefeated army back to Carthage in 203 b.c. At Zama he was beaten by Scipio Africanus, after which, as the Head of State, he intrigued with Antiochus the Great of Syria against Rome. Roman pressure forced him to flee from Carthage and seek asylum with Antiochus in Syria; after Rome subdued the King, Hannibal had to move on. He is reputed to have wandered to Armenia, where he helped King Artaxias design and build his capital, Artaxata. So oriental a court could not please; Hannibal journeyed west across Anatolia and fetched up with King Prusias in Bithynia. Then in 182 b.c., Rome demanded that Prusias hand the Carthaginian over. Rather than fall into Roman hands, Hannibal committed suicide. An unrepentant enemy of Rome, he was always admired and respected by Rome.
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