Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  “hay on his horn” Ancient oxen were endowed with most formidable horns, and not all ancient oxen were placid, despite their castrated state. A beast which gored was tagged in warning; hay was wrapped around the horn it gored with, or around both horns if it gored with both. Pedestrians scattered wildly on seeing an ox tagged in this manner. The saying “hay on his horn” came to be applied to a very large, good-natured, placid man after it was discovered that this same man could turn like lightning and strike with the ruthlessness of a born killer.

  Head Count This is the term I have used throughout the book to describe the lowliest of Roman citizens—those who were too poor to belong to one of the five economic Classes. All the censors did was to take a “head count” of them. I have preferred Head Count to “the proletariat” or “the masses” because of our modern post-Marxist attitudes— attitudes entirely misleading in the ancient context (see also capite censi and proletarii).

  Hellenic The term used to describe Greek culture outside Greece after Alexander the Great introduced a Greek element into the courts and kingdoms of Mediterranean and Asian rulers.

  Herakles The Greek form. In Latin, Hercules. A mortal man (though a son of Zeus), his sheer strength, indomitability and perseverance in adversity immortalized him for all time. After he died inside the poisoned shirt, Zeus also immortalized him. However, it was undoubtedly his human qualities which made him such an attractive object of worship; he held sway from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. His cult was exclusively male, and he was regarded as the embodiment of all traditional male virtues. His was the statue dressed in the raiment of the triumphing general. In Rome, he was also a god of merchant trading, particularly for vendors of olive oil. Some men thought themselves his descendants; this was true of Mithridates and the Roman Antonii.

  Hyperboreans Literally, the people beyond the home of Boreas, the North Wind. They were mythical, said to worship only the god Apollo, and to live an idyllic existence. The Land of the Hyperboreans was, however, definitely thought by the ancients to exist somewhere in the far north. Ilium The name the Romans gave to the city of Troy. imago Plural, imagines. This was the beautifully painted and bewigged, lifelike mask of a Roman family’s consular (or perhaps also praetorian) ancestor. It was made out of beeswax and kept in a dust-free cupboard shaped like a miniature temple. The mask and its cupboard were the objects of enormous reverence. When a man of the family died, an actor was hired to don the mask and wig and impersonate the dead ancestor in the funeral procession. If a man became consul, his mask was added to the family collection. From time to time a man who was not consul did something so remarkable it was considered he deserved an imago.

  imperator Literally, the commander-in-chief or the general of a Roman army. However, the term gradually came to be given only to a general who won a great victory; his troops hailed him imperator on the field. In order to gain permission from the Senate to celebrate a triumph, a general had to prove that his men had indeed hailed him as imperator on the field. Imperator is the root of the word “emperor.”

  imperium Imperium was the degree of authority vested in a curule magistrate or promagistrate. Imperium meant that a man owned the authority of his office, and could not be gainsaid (provided he was acting within the limits of his particular level of imperium and within the laws governing his conduct). It was conferred by a lex Curiata, and lasted for one year only; extensions had to be ratified by Senate and/or People in the case of promagistrates who had not completed their original commissions in the space of one year. Lictors bearing fasces indicated that a man possessed imperium, the higher the number, the higher the imperium (see also fasces; lictor; magistrate),

  insula Plural, insulae. Literally, “island.” Because it was usually surrounded on all sides by streets or lanes or alleys, an apartment building became known as an insula. Roman insulae were very tall (up to one hundred feet—thirty meters—in height), and most were large enough to warrant the incorporation of an internal light-well; many were large enough to contain more than one internal light-well. Then, as now, Rome was a city of apartment dwellers. This in itself is a strong clue to the answer to the vexed question— how many people lived in Rome? We know the dimensions of the city within the Servian Walls: one-plus kilometers in width, two-plus kilometers in length. That meant the population of Rome at the time of Marius and Sulla had to have been at least one million, probably more. Otherwise the insulae would have been half empty and the city smothered in parks. Rome teemed with people, its insulae were multitudinous. Two million (including slaves) might be closer to the truth of the matter.

  Interrex The word means “between the kings.” It dates back to the kings of Rome, when the patrician Senate appointed one of its members to act after the death of one king and before the accession of a new king. After the establishment of the Republic the practice survived in cases where, due to death or other disaster, no consuls were left in office, and no elections had yet been held. The members of the Senate were divided into decuries of ten men, each decury being headed by a patrician senator; this was always so. But while Rome had no consuls, an interrex was chosen from among the patrician heads of the senatorial decuries. He could serve for five days only, then was succeeded by another patrician head of a decury; this went on until elections could be held and proper consuls take office. While in office the interrex was endowed with a full consular imperium, had the full complement of twelve lictors, and could perform all the functions of the consul. No man could be an interrex unless he was the patrician head of a senatorial decury. The first in a series of interreges (plural) was not allowed to hold consular elections.

  Italia For the purposes of this book, the word has two meanings. First of all, it refers to all of ancient peninsular Italy south of the Arnus and Rubico rivers. Secondly, it is used to refer to the rebel Italian nations which rose against Rome in 91 b.c. and fought the Marsic (later known as the Social) War.

  Italian Allies The peoples, tribes, or nations (they are variously described as all three) who lived in the Italian peninsula without enjoying either the full Roman citizenship or the Latin Rights were known as the Italian Allies. In return for military protection and in the interests of peaceful co-existence, they were required by Rome to furnish properly armed soldiers for the armies of Rome, and to pay for the upkeep of these soldiers. The Italian Allies also bore the brunt of general taxation within Italy at the time of Marius and Sulla, and in many instances had been obliged to yield part of their lands to swell the Roman ager publicus. Many of them had either risen against Rome (like the Samnites) or sided with Hannibal and others against Rome (like parts of Campania). To some extent, there was always some movement among the Italian Allies to throw off the Roman yoke, or to demand that Rome accord them the full citizenship; but until the last century of the Republic, Rome was sensitive enough to act before the grumbling grew too serious. After the joint enfranchisement of Formiae Fundi and Arpinum in 188 b.c., no more Italian Allied communities were rewarded with the citizenship or even the Latin Rights. The final straw which turned Italian Allied discontent into open revolt was the lex Licinia Mucia of 95 b.c.; at the end of 91 b.c. war broke out. The regions of Italy which remained loyal to Rome were: Etruria, Umbria, Northern Picenum, Northern Campania, Latium, the Sabine country. The nations which rose up against Rome were: Marsi (after whom the war was named, the Marsic War), Samnites, Frentani, Marrucini, Picentes south of the Flosis River, Paeligni, Vestini, Hirpini, all of whom rose up together, and were soon joined by: Lucani, Apuli, Venusini. The two regions in the extreme south, Bruttium and Calabria, were sympathetic to the Italian cause, but took little part in hostilities. Quintus Poppaedius Silo of the Marsi and Gaius Papius Mutilus of the Samnites were the heads of the Italian Allied government.

  Italian Gaul Gallia Cisalpina—Gaul-on-this-side-of-the-Alps. In the interests of simplicity, I have elected to call it Italian Gaul. It incorporated all the lands north of the Arnus-Rubico border on the Italian side of the for
midable semicircle of alps which cut Italy off from the rest of Europe. It was bisected from west to east by the Padus River (the modem Po). South of the river the people and towns were heavily Romanized, many of them possessing the Latin Rights. North of the river the peoples and towns were more Celtic than Roman; Latin was at best a second language, if spoken at all. The lex Pompeia promulgated by Pompey Strabo in 89 b.c. gave the full Roman citizenship to all the Latin Rights communities south of the Padus, and gave the Latin Rights to the towns of Aquileia, Patavium, and Mediolanum to the north of the Padus. Politically Italian Gaul dwelt in a kind of limbo at the time of Marius and Sulla, for it had neither the status of a true province nor was it a part of Italia. The Marsic (Social) War saw for the first time the men of Italian Gaul drafted into Rome’s armies—as auxiliaries before the lex Pompeia, as full Roman legions after that.

  Italica The capital of the new nation of Italia as dreamed of by the insurgents of the Marsic (Social) War. It was actually the city of Corfinium, and enjoyed the name Italica only while the war went on.

  iugera Singular, iugerum. The Roman unit of land measurement. In modern terms one iugerum was 0.623 (or five eighths) of an acre, or 0.252 (one quarter) of a hectare. The modern user of imperial measure will get close enough in acres by dividing the iugera in two; in metric measure, to divide by four will be very close in hectares.

  ius Latii See Latin Rights.

  Janiculum The Janiculan hill consisted of the heights behind the northwest bank of the Tiber, opposite the city of Rome. During the Republic-there was a defensive fortress upon it; this was still kept up and was ready to be garrisoned during the time of Marius and Sulla. A flagpole stood atop the citadel inside the stronghold; if the red flag flying from it was pulled down, it was a signal that Rome lay under threat of attack.

  Jugurtha King of Numidia from 118 b.c. until his capture by Sulla in 105 b.c.. An illegitimate son, he gained his throne by murdering those more legitimately entitled to the throne than himself, and he hung onto it grimly, despite great opposition from certain elements in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus the Princeps Senatus. In 109 b.c. (after a disgraceful act of aggression by the young Aulus Postumius Albinus) Jugurtha went to war against Roman Africa; Quintus Caecilius Metellus the consul was sent to Africa to subjugate him, his legates being Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius Rufus (both of whom had served as cadets with Jugurtha in Spain years before). Metellus (who earned the extra cognomen Numidicus from this campaign) and Marius could not get on, with the result that Marius ran for consul in 108 b.c. for 107 in office, and had the Plebeian Assembly take the command in the war off Metellus Numidicus, who never forgave him. Marius did well against the Numidian army, but Jugurtha himself constantly eluded capture until Sulla, then Marius’s quaestor, persuaded King Bocchus of Mauretania to trick Jugurtha, who was captured and sent to Rome. He walked in Marius’s triumphal parade on New Year’s Day of 104 b.c., then was thrown into the lower chamber of the Tullianum and left there to starve to death.

  Juno Moneta Juno of Warnings, or perhaps Reminders. Rome’s highest goddess, Juno had many guises, including Juno Moneta. It was her gaggle of sacred geese which cackled so loudly they woke Marcus Manlius in time for him to dislodge the Gauls trying to scale the Capitol cliffs in 390 b.c. The mint was located inside the podium of her temple on the Arx of the Capitol; from this fact, we obtain our English word “money.”

  Jupiter Optimus Maximus Literally, “Jupiter Best and Greatest.’’ He was the king of the Roman pantheon, Rome’s Great God. He had a huge and magnificent temple on the Capitolium of the Capitol, and his own special priest, the flamen Dialis.

  Jupiter Stator Jupiter the Stayer. It is a title having to do with military men and matters; Jupiter Stator was that aspect of Jupiter who arrested retreats, gave soldiers the courage to stand and fight, hold their ground. Two temples of Jupiter Stator existed, one very old establishment on the corner of the Via Sacra and the Velia adjacent to the Clivus Palatinus (it was here Gaius Marius hid after his defeat by Sulla in 88 b.c.), and the other Rome’s first all-marble temple, on the Campus Martius adjacent to the Porticus Metelli.

  Kingdom of the Parthians Regnum Parthorum. This is the way the ancients expressed the name of that vast area of western Asia under the domination of the King of the Parthians. It was not called Parthia; Parthia was a small nation to the northeast of the Caspian Sea, near Bactria, and was important only because it had produced the seven great Pahlavi families, and the Arsacid Parthian kings. By the time of Marius and Sulla the Arsacid Parthian kings held sway over all of the lands between the Euphrates River of Mesopotamia and the Indus River of modern Pakistan. The King of the Parthians did not live in Parthia itself, but ruled his domains from Seleuceia-on-Tigris in winter and Ecbatana in summer. Pahlavi satraps ruled the various regions into which the Kingdom of the Parthians was split up, but only as the King’s designated representatives. Though government was loose and no genuine national feeling existed, the King of the Parthians held his empire together by military excellence. The army was purely cavalry, but of two different kinds: light-armed bowmen who delivered the “Parthian shot” twisted facing backward as they pretended to flee, and cataphracts who were clad from head to foot in chain mail, as were their horses. Thanks to Syrian Seleucid contacts, the Parthian court’s oriental atmosphere was partially leavened by a little Hellenism.

  knights The equites, the members of the Ordo Equester. It had all started when the kings of Rome enrolled the city’s top citizens as a special cavalry unit provided with horses paid for from the public purse. At that time, horses of good enough quality were both scarce and extremely costly. When the young Republic came into being there were 1,800 men so enrolled, grouped into eighteen centuries. As the Republic grew, so too did the number of knights, but all the extra knights were obliged to buy their own horses and maintain them at their own expense. However, by the second century b.c. Rome was no longer providing her own cavalry; the knights became a social and economic entity having little to do with military matters, though the State continued to provide the 1,800 senior knights with the Public Horse. The knights were now defined by the censors in economic terms; the original eighteen centuries holding the 1,800 senior knights remained at one hundred men each, but the rest of the knights’ centuries (some seventy-one) swelled within themselves to contain many more than one hundred men. Thus all the men who qualified at the census as knights were accommodated within the First Class. Until 123 b.c., all senators were knights as well; it was Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (see The Gracchi) who in that year split the Senate off as a separate body of three hundred men, and gave the knights the title Ordo Equester. The sons of senators and other nonsenatorial members of senatorial families continued to be classified as knights. To qualify as a knight at the census (held on a special tribunal in the lower Forum Romanum), a man had to have property or assets giving him an income in excess of 400,000 sesterces. There was no restriction upon the nature of the activities which brought him in his income, as there was on the senator. From the time of Gaius Gracchus down to the end of the Republic, the knights either controlled or temporarily lost control of the major courts which tried senators for minor treason or provincial extortion; this meant the knights were often at loggerheads with the Senate. There was nothing to stop a knight who qualified for the senatorial means test becoming a senator if the censors agreed upon a vacancy falling due; that by and large the knights did not aspire to the Senate was purely because of the knightly love of trade and commerce, both forbidden fruit for senators. The members of the Ordo Equester liked the thrills of the business forum more than they craved the thrills of the political forum.

  Lar Plural, Lares. These were among the most Roman of all gods, having no form, shape, sex, number, or mythology. They were numina. There were many different kinds of Lares, who might function as the protective spirits or forces of a locality (as with crossroads and boundaries), a social group (as with the family’s private Lar, the Lar
Familiaris), an activity such as voyaging (the Lares Permarini), or a whole nation (as with Rome’s public Lares, the Lares Praestites). By the late Republic they had acquired both form and sex, and were depicted (in the form of small statues) as two young men with a dog. It is doubtful, however, whether a Roman actually believed by this that there were only two of them, or that they owned this form and sex; more perhaps that the increasing complexity of life made it convenient to tag them in a concrete way.

  latifundia Large tracts of public land leased by one person and run as a single unit in the manner of a modern ranch. That is, the activity was purely grazing, not farming. They were usually staffed by slaves who increasingly became treated like chain-gang prisoners and were locked at night in barracks called ergastula.

  Latin Rights ius Latii. They were an intermediate citizen status between the nadir of non-citizenship as suffered by the Italian Allies and the zenith of the full Roman citizenship. In other words, they were a typically Roman ploy to soothe ruffled non-citizen feelings without conceding the full citizenship. Those having the Latin Rights shared privileges in common with Roman citizens; booty was divided equally, contracts with full citizens could be entered into and legal protection sought for these contracts, marriage was allowed with full citizens, and there was the right to appeal against capital convictions. However, there was no suffragium—no right to vote in any Roman election. Nor the right to sit on a Roman jury. After the revolt of Fregellae in 125 b.c. (this was a Latin Rights town grown tired of waiting for the full citizenship), an unknown tribune of the plebs in 123 b.c. passed a law allowing the magistrates of Latin Rights communities to assume the full citizenship for themselves and their direct descendants in perpetuity—another typically Roman ploy, as it soothed the ruffled feelings of a town’s important men, yet did nothing to enfranchise the ordinary residents.