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

by Colleen McCullough

  Noricum produced such superb steel lay in the fact that it naturally contained a small amount of manganese uncontaminated by phosphorus, arsenic, or sulphur, and therefore was modern manganese steel.

  stibium A black antimony-based powder soluble in water, stibium was used to dye or paint eyebrows and eyelashes, and to draw a line around the eyes.

  stips A wage. In the sense used in this book, the slips was the wage paid to a slave by his master. It was also called peculium.

  Subura The poorest and most densely populated part of the city of Rome. It lay to the east of the Forum Romanum in the declivity between the Oppian spur of the Esquiline Mount and the Viminal Hill. Its very long main street had three different names: at the bottom, where it was contiguous with the Argiletum, it was the Fauces Suburae; the next section was known as the Subura Major; and the final section, which scrambled up the steep flank of the Esquiline proper, was the Clivus Suburanus. The Subura Minor and the Vicus Patricii branched off the Subura Major in the direction of the Viminal. The Subura was an area composed entirely of insulae and contained only one prominent landmark, the Tunis Mamilia, apparently some kind of tower. Its people were notoriously polyglot and independent of mind; many Jews lived in the Subura, which at the time of Marius and Sulla contained Rome’s only synagogue. Suetonius says Caesar the Dictator lived in the Subura.

  suffect consul Consul suffectus. When an elected consul died in office or was in some other way rendered incapable of conducting the duties of his office, the Senate appointed a substitute called the suffectus. He was not elected. Sometimes the Senate-would appoint a suffectus even when the consular year was just about over; at other times no substitute would be appointed even when the consular year was far from over. These discrepancies apparently reflected the mood of the House at the particular time. It seems too that the Senate needed the presence of the remaining consul to appoint a suffectus—witness senatorial helplessness when Cato the Consul was killed in 90 b.c. and the remaining consul, Lucius Julius Caesar, refused to come to Rome for the choosing of a suffectus. The name of the suffect consul was engraved upon the consular fasti, and he was entitled to call himself a consular after his period in office was over.

  sumptuary law A lex sumptuaria. These laws sought to regulate the amount of luxurious (that is, expensive) goods and/or foodstuffs a Roman might buy or have in his house, no matter how wealthy he was. Presumably the goods targeted were imported from abroad. During the Republic many sumptuary laws were leveled at women, forbidding them to wear more than a specified amount of jewelry, or ride in litters or carriages within the Servian Walls; as several magistrates found out, women so legislated against were inclined to turn nasty and become a force to be reckoned with.

  suovetaurilia This was a special sacrifice consisting of a pig (su), a sheep (ove), and an ox or bull (taur). It was offered to certain gods on critical occasions; Jupiter Optimus Maximus was one, Mars another. The ceremonies surrounding the suovetaurilia called for the sacrificial victims to be led in a solemn procession before being killed. Besides these special occasions of national crisis, there were two regular occasions on which a suovetaurilia was offered; the first occurred in late May when the land was purified by the twelve minor priests called the Arval Brethren; the second occurred at five-year intervals when the censors set up their booth on the Campus Martius and prepared to take the full census of Roman citizens.

  tablinum This room was the exclusive domain of the paterfamilias in a Roman family unit; unless too poor to have more than one or two rooms, he had his study, as I have chosen to call it.

  talent This ancient unit of weight was defined as the load a man could carry. Bullion and very large sums of money were expressed in talents, but the term was not confined to precious metals and money. In modern terms the talent weighed about fifty to fifty-five pounds (25 kilograms). A talent of gold weighed the same as a talent of silver, of course, but was far more valuable.

  Tarpeian Rock Its precise location is still hotly debated, but it is known to have been quite visible from the lower Forum Romanum, and presumably was an overhang at the top of the Capitolium cliffs. Since the drop was not much more than eighty feet from the Tarpeian Rock to the bottom, the rock itself must have been located precisely above some sort of jagged outcrop—we have no evidence that anyone survived the fall. It was the traditional place of execution for Roman citizen traitors and murderers, who were either thrown from it or forced to jump from it. I have located it on a line from the temple of Ops.

  tata The Latin diminutive for “father”—akin to our “daddy.” I have, by the way, elected to use the almost universal “mama” as the diminutive for mother, but the Latin was “mamma.”

  Tellus The Roman earth goddess. Her worship became largely neglected after the importation of Magna Mater from Pessinus. Tellus had a big temple on the Carinae, in early days imposing; by the time of Marius and Sulla it was dilapidated.

  Tiddlypuss, Lucius I needed a joke name of the kind people in all places at all times have used when they want to refer to a faceless yet representative person. In the USA it would be “Joe Blow,” in the UK “Fred Bloggs.” As I am writing in standard English for a largely non-Latinate readership, it was not possible to choose a properly Latin name to fulfill this function. I coined “Lucius Tiddlypuss” because it looks and sounds patently ridiculous, has an “uss” ending—and because of a mountain. This mountain was named in a Latin distortion after the villa of Augustus’s infamous freedman, Publius Vedius Pollio, which lay on its flanks. The villa’s name, a Greek one, was Pausilypon, whereas the Latin name of the mountain was Pausilypus— a clear indication of how much Pollio was loathed, for pus then meant exactly the same as’ ‘pus’’ does today in English. Speakers of Latin punned constantly, as we know. And that’s how Lucius Tiddlypuss came into being, one of the few fictitious characters in this book.

  toga The garment only a full citizen of Rome was permitted to wear. Made of lightweight wool, it was a most peculiar shape (which is why the togate “Romans” in Hollywood movies never look right). After exhaustive and brilliant experimentation, Dr. Lillian Wilson of Johns Hopkins worked out a size and shape which produce a perfect-looking toga. To fit a man five feet nine inches (175 cm) tall and having a waist of thirty-six inches (89.5 cm), the toga was about fifteen feet (4.6 m) wide, and seven feet six inches (2.25 m) long; the length measurement is draped on his height axis while the much bigger width measurement is wrapped around him. However, the shape was not a simple rectangle! It looked like this:

  Unless the toga is cut as illustrated, it will absolutely refuse to drape the way it does on the togate men of the ancient statues. The Republican toga of Marius and Sulla’s day was very large (the toga varied considerably in size between the time of the Kings of Rome and 500 a.d., a period of one thousand years). One final observation about the toga resulted from my own experimentation—I proved rather conclusively that the togate Republican Roman could not possibly have worn under-drawers or a loincloth. The toga itself disqualified the left hand from performing any task at groin level, as the left arm carried multiple folds and most of the weight of the garment. But when the toga is properly draped, the right hand can part it with astonishing ease, push up the hem of the tunic, and perform the act of urinating from a standing position—provided, that is, that there are no under-drawers or loincloth to fiddle with! I mention this interesting fact only because it is still said the Roman wore some sort of nether under-garment. Well, if he was wearing a toga, he couldn’t have.

  toga alba Or toga pura, or toga virilis. This was the plain white toga of manhood as worn by an ordinary citizen. It was probably more cream or ecru than stark white.

  toga Candida This was the specially whitened toga worn by those seeking office as an elected magistrate (our word “candidate” comes from the toga Candida). The candidate wore his special toga on the day when he registered his candidacy, as he went about Rome canvassing, and on election day. Its stark whiteness was achie
ved by bleaching the garment in the sun for many days, and then working finely powdered chalk through it.

  toga picta The all-purple toga of the triumphing general, lavishly embroidered (presumably in gold) with pictures of people and events. The kings of Rome had worn the purple toga picta, and so too did the statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in his temple on the Capitol.

  toga praetexta The purple-bordered toga of the curule magistrate, it continued to be worn by these men after their term in office was over. It was also the garment worn by children of both sexes.

  toga pulla This was the toga of mourning, and was made of wool as close to black as possible. Senators in mourning also wore a knight’s tunic bearing the angustus clavus, or “narrow stripe,” on its shoulder.

  toga trabea Cicero’s “particolored toga.” It was the striped toga of the augur, and very likely the pontifex also. Like the toga praetexta, it had a purple border, but also was striped in alternate red and purple down its length.

  togate The correct English-language term to describe a man clad in his toga.

  tribe Tribus. By the beginning of the Republic, tribus to a Roman was not an ethnic grouping of his people, but a political grouping of service only to the State. There were thirty-five tribes altogether; thirty-one of these were rural, only four urban. The sixteen really old tribes bore the names of the various original patrician gentes, indicating that the citizens who belonged to these tribes were either members of the patrician families, or had once lived on land owned by the patrician families. During the early and middle Republic, when Roman-owned territory in the Italian peninsula began to expand, tribes were added to accommodate the new citizens within the Roman body politic. Full Roman citizen colonies also became the nuclei of fresh tribes. The four urban tribes were supposed to have been founded by King Servius Tullius, though the time of their actual foundation is more likely to have been during the early Republic. The last date of a tribal creation was 241 b.c. Every member of a tribe was entitled to register one vote in a tribal assembly; but his vote was not in itself significant. The votes in each tribe were counted first, then the tribe as a whole cast one single vote, the majority vote within the ranks of its members. This meant that in no tribal assembly could the huge number of citizens enrolled in the four urban tribes influence the outcome of a vote, as each of the thirty-one rural tribes had the exact same degree of voting power as each urban tribe. Members of rural tribes were not disbarred from living within the city of Rome, nor were their progeny forced into an urban tribe. Most senators and knights of the First Class belonged to rural tribes.

  tribune Tribunus. An official representing the interests of a certain part of the Roman body politic. The name originally referred to those men who represented the tribes (tri-bus—tribunus), but, as the Republic got into its stride, the name came to mean an official representing various institutions not directly connected with the tribes per se.

  tribune, military Those on the general’s staff who were not elected tribunes of the soldiers, yet who ranked below legate but above cadet. If the general was not a consul currently in office, military tribunes might command his legions. Otherwise they did staff duties for the general. Military tribunes also served as commanders of cavalry units.

  tribune of the plebs These magistrates came into being early in the Republic, when the Plebs was at complete loggerheads with the patricians. Elected by the tribal body of plebeians formed as the concilium plebis or comitia plebis tributa or Plebeian Assembly, they took an oath to defend the lives and property of members of the Plebs. By 450 b.c. there were ten tribunes of the plebs. By the time of Marius and Sulla these ten tribunes of the plebs had proven themselves a thorn in the side of the Senate rather than merely the patricians—and even though, by this time, they were themselves members of the Senate. A lex Atinia de tribunis plebis in senatum legendis of 149 b.c. had made tribunes of the plebs automatically members of the Senate upon election. Because they were not elected by the Whole People (that is, by patricians as well as plebeians), they had no power under Rome’s unwritten constitution and were not magistrates in the same way as tribunes of the soldiers, quaestors, curule aediles, praetors, consuls, and censors; their magistracies were of the Plebs and their power in office resided in the oath the whole Plebs took to defend the sacrosanctity—the inviolability—of its elected tribunes. That the tribunes of the plebs were called tribunes was possibly due to the tribal organization of the Plebeian Assembly. The power of the tribunate of the plebs lay in the right of its officers to exercise a veto against almost any aspect of government: a tribune of the plebs could veto the actions or laws of his nine fellow tribunes, or any—or all!—other magistrates, including consuls and censors (witness how in 109 b.c. the censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, who had defied attempts to remove him from his office, yielded immediately when the tribune of the plebs Mamilius interposed his veto); he could veto the holding of an election; he could veto the passing of lex or plebiscitum; and he could veto decrees of the Senate, even in war and foreign affairs. Only a dictator (and perhaps an interrex) was not subject to the tribunician veto. Within his own Plebeian Assembly, the tribune of the plebs could even exercise the death penalty if his right to proceed in his duties was denied him. During the early and middle years of the Republic, tribunes of the plebs were not members of the Senate. Then came the lex Atinia of 149 b.c., which meant that election as a tribune of the plebs became a way of entering the Senate without being approved by the censors; from that time on, men who had been expelled from the Senate by the censors often sought election as tribunes of the plebs in order to get back in again. The tribune of the plebs had no imperium, and the authority vested in the office did not extend past the first milestone. Custom dictated that a man serve only one term as a tribune of the plebs, entering office on the tenth day of December for one year. But custom was not legally binding, as Gaius Sempronius Gracchus proved when he successfully sought a second term in 122B.C. The real power of the office was vested in the sacrosanctitas (inviolability) of its holders, and intercessio, the right to interpose a veto. Tribunician contribution to government was in consequence more often obstructive than constructive.

  tribune of the soldiers Two dozen young men, aged between about twenty-five and twenty-nine years, were elected each year by the Assembly of the (whole) People to serve as tribuni militum, or military tribunes. As they were elected by the Whole People, they were true magistrates. They were the legally elected officers of the consul’s legions (four legions belonged to the consuls in office), and were posted to command them, six per legion. At times when the consuls had more than six legions in the field (as at Arausio) the tribunes of the soldiers were rationed out between them, not always equally in numbers per legion.

  tribune of the Treasury Tribuni aerarii. There is a great deal of mystery about who the tribuni aerarii actually were. Originally they definitely were the army’s paymasters, but by the middle of the Republic this task had been assumed by the quaestors. Yet at the time of Marius and Sulla, tribuni aerarii were numerous enough (and wealthy enough) to qualify for the Second Class in the Centuriate Assembly, having a census economic status not far inferior to the knights’ minimum. Perhaps they were men descended from the original tribuni aerarii who simply clung to their old status to prove their antiquity. However, more likely, I think, that they were senior civil servants attached to the Treasury. Though the Senate and People of Rome frowned heavily upon bureaucracy and strenuously resisted any growth in numbers of public employees, there can be no doubt that once Rome’s territorial possessions began to increase, one branch of the SPQR must have demanded more and more public officials of unelected nature. This branch was the Treasury (the aerarium). By the late Republic there must have been a fairly large number of senior civil servants administering the many departments and duties attached to the Treasury (and this increased dramatically after the time of Marius and Sulla). Money had to be exacted for many different taxes, at home and abroad; and money had to be fo
und for everything from the purchase of public grain, to censors’ building programs, to the army’s pay, to minutiae like purchases of the urban praetor’s pigs distributed throughout Rome at the Compitalia. While no doubt an elected magistrate issued orders about any or all of these items, he certainly did not concern himself with the mechanics implementing his orders. For these, there had to have been senior civil servants, men whose rank was distinctly higher than clerk or scribe; they probably came from respectable families and were probably well paid. The existence of a class of them can definitely be supposed at the time Cato Uticensis (in 64 b.c.) made such a nuisance of himself when appointed Treasury quaestor, for it was glaringly obvious that many years had elapsed since Treasury quaestors concerned themselves personally with the Treasury—and by 64 b.c. the Treasury was huge.

  triclinium The dining room. By preference the family dining room was square in shape, and possessed three couches arranged to form a U. Standing in the doorway one looked into the hollow of the U; the couch on the left was called the lectus summits, the couch forming the middle or bottom of the U was the lectus medius, and the couch forming the right side was the lectus imus. Each couch was very broad, perhaps four or more feet (1.25 m), and at least twice that long. One end of the couch had a raised arm forming a head, the other end did not. In front of the couches, a little lower than the height of the couches, was a narrow table also forming a U. The male diners reclined on their left elbows, supported by bolsters; they were not shod, and could call for their feet to be washed. The host of the dinner reclined at the left end of the lectus medius, this being the bottom or armless end of it; the right-hand end of the same couch—its head—was the place where the most honored guest reclined, and was called the locus consularis. At the time of Marius and Sulla it was rare for women to recline alongside-the men unless the dinner party was a men’s party and the women invited of low virtue. The women of the family sat on upright chairs inside the double U of couches and table; they entered the room with the first course and left as soon as the last course was cleared away. Normally they drank only -water, as women drinking wine were “loose.”