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

by Colleen McCullough

  Senatus Consultum Ultimum The name more usually given in this book’s times to the senatus consultum de re publica defendenda. It was certainly used by Cicero, to whom I have attributed its genesis, though this is mere guesswork.

  sestertius Plural, sestertii, more generally expressed in English as sesterces. Though the denarius was a more common coin in circulation than the sestertius, Roman accounting procedures were always expressed in sesterces. In Latin texts it is abbreviated as HS. A tiny silver coin weighing less than a gram (of silver, at any rate), the sestertius was worth a quarter of a denarius.

  Sextilis Originally the sixth month when the Roman New Year had begun in March, it kept its name after January New Year made it the eighth month. We know it, of .course, as August; so too did the Romans—but not until the reign of Augustus.

  socius Plural, socii. A socius was a man of a citizenship having allied status with Rome.

  Sol Indiges One of the most ancient Italian gods, apparently (as the Sun) the husband of Tellus (the Earth). Though little is known of his cult, he was apparently enormously reverenced. Oaths sworn by him were very serious affairs.

  spelt A very fine, soft white flour used for making cakes, never bread. It was ground from the variety of wheat now known as Triticum spelta (emmer).

  spina The central dividing strip of a circus course or arena.

  Spinther An actor in Roman theater famous for playing second leads. To call upon his name was to deride the efficacy of a person or deed.

  stibium The ancient version of mascara. A black antimony-based powder soluble in water, stibium was used to darken the brows and/or lashes, or to draw a line around the perimeter of the eye. It would be interesting to know just how recently a more benign substance than stibium replaced it, but, alas, no work of reference tells me.

  stips A small payment for services rendered.

  Stoic An adherent of the school of philosophy founded by the Phoenician Cypriot Zeno in the third century B.C. Stoicism as a philosophical system of thought did not particularly appeal to the Romans. The basic tenet was concerned with nothing beyond virtue (strength of character) and its opposite, weakness of character. Virtue was the only good, weakness of character the only evil. Money, pain, death, and the other things which plague Man were not considered important, for the virtuous man is an essentially good man, and therefore by definition must be a happy and contented man—even if impoverished, in perpetual pain, and under sentence of death. As with everything Greek they espoused, the Romans did not so much modify this philosophy as evade its unpalatable concomitants by some very nice—if specious—reasoning.

  strigilis Sometimes Anglicized to strigil. It was a blunt, rather knifelike instrument with a curved blade, and was used to scrape sweat and dirt off the skin during a hot bath.

  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 people were notoriously polyglot and independent of mind; many Jews lived in the Subura, which at the time of Sulla contained Rome’s only synagogue. Suetonius says Caesar the Dictator lived in the Subura.

  sui iuris In his own hand, or in control of his own destiny. As distinct from existing under the authority of a paterfamilias (q.v.) or other legal guardian.

  Tace! Plural, tacete. Shut up!

  Tace inepte! Shut up, you fool!

  talent This was 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 50 to 55 pounds (25 kilograms). A talent of gold weighed the same as a talent of silver, but was far more valuable, of course.

  Taprobane The island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon).

  Tarpeian Rock Its precise location is still hotly debated, but we do know that it was quite visible from the lower Forum Romanum, as people being thrown off it could be seen from the rostra. Presumably it was an overhang at the top of the Capitoline cliffs, but since the drop was not much more than 80 feet, the Tarpeian Rock must have been located directly over some sort of jagged outcrop—we have no evidence that anyone ever 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. The tribunes of the plebs were particularly fond of threatening to throw obstructive senators from the Tarpeian Rock. I have located it on a line from the temple of Ops.

  Tarquinius Superbus Tarquin the Proud, the seventh and last King of Rome. He finished and dedicated the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, but had more of a reputation as a warmaker than a builder. His accession to the throne was a lurid tale of murder and a woman (Tullia, daughter of King Servius Tullius), and his deposition was much the same kind of tale. An uprising of patricians led by Lucius Junius Brutus led to his flight from Rome, and the establishment of the Republic. Tarquin the Proud sought refuge with several local anti-Roman leaders in turn, and eventually died at Cumae. A curious story is told of how Tarquin the Proud finished his war against the city of Gabii: when asked what he wanted done with Gabii’s prominent men, he said not a word; instead, he went into his garden, drew his sword, and lopped the head off every poppy taller than the rest; his son in Gabii interpreted the message correctly, and beheaded every Gabian man of outstanding merit. Few people today know the origins of the so-called Tall Poppy Syndrome, though the phrase is used metaphorically to describe the character assassination of men and women of superior ability or prominence.

  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 actual Latin was mamma.

  terra incognita Unknown land.

  tetrarch The chief of a fourth section of any state or territory. The three tribes of Galatia—Tolistobogii, Trocmi, and Volcae Tectosages—were each divided into four parts, and each of the four parts was headed by a tetrarch.

  Tingitanian ape The Barbary ape, a macaque, terrestrial and tailless. Monkeys and primates were not common around the Mediterranean, but the macaque still found on Gibraltar was always present in North Africa.

  tirocinium fori A youth’s rhetorical and legal apprenticeship in the Forum.

  toga The garment only a full citizen of Rome was entitled to wear. Made of lightweight wool, it had a 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 produced a perfect-looking toga. To fit a man 5 feet 9 inches (175 centimeters) tall having a waist of 36 inches (89.5 centimeters), the toga was about 15 feet (4.6 meters) wide, and 7 feet 6 inches (2.25 meters) long. The length measurement is draped on the man’s height axis and the much bigger width measurement is wrapped around him. However, the shape was far from being 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 the last century B.C. was very large (the size varied considerably during the thousand years it was the customary garb of the Roman). And a man draped in his toga could not have worn a loincloth or other undergarment!

  toga Candida The specially whitened toga worn by those seeking office as an elected magistrate. Its stark whiteness was achieved by bleaching the garment in the sun for many days, then working finely powdered chalk through it.

  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 toga worn by children of both sexes.

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

  toga trabea Cicero’s “particolored toga.” It was the striped toga of the augur, and very likely of the pontifex also. Like the toga praetexta, it had a purple border running all th
e way around it, but it was also striped in broad bands of alternating red and purple down its length. toga virilis The plain white toga of a Roman male. It was also called the toga alba or the toga pura.

  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 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. When Roman-owned territory in the peninsula began to expand during the early and middle Republic, 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 they probably originated somewhat later. The last tribe of the thirty-five was created in 241 B.C. Every member of a tribe was entitled to register one vote in a tribal Assembly, but his vote counted only in helping to determine which way the tribe as a whole voted, for a tribe delivered just one vote, that of the majority of its members. This meant that in no tribal Assembly could the huge number of citizens enrolled in the four urban tribes sway the vote, as the urban tribes delivered only four of the thirty-five ultimate votes. Members of rural tribes were not disbarred from living in Rome, nor were their progeny obliged to be enrolled in an. urban tribe. Most senators and knights of the First Class belonged to rural tribes. It was a mark of distinction.

  tribune, military Those on the general’s staff who were not elected tribunes of the soldiers but who ranked above cadets and below legates were called military tribunes. If the general was not a consul in office, military tribunes might command legions. Otherwise they did staff duties for the general. Military tribunes also served as cavalry commanders, called prefects.

  tribune of the plebs These magistrates came into being early in the history of the Republic, when the Plebs was at complete loggerheads with the Patriciate. Elected by the tribal body of plebeians formed as the concilium plebis or comitia plebis tributa (the Plebeian Assembly), they took an oath to defend the lives and property of members of the Plebs, and to rescue a member of the Plebs from the clutches of a (patrician in those days) magistrate. By 450 B.C. there were ten tribunes of the plebs. A lex Atinia de tribunis plebis in senatum legendis in 149 B.C. provided that a man elected to the tribunate of the plebs automatically entered the Senate. Because they were not elected by the People (that is, by the patricians as well as by the 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. The power of the office also lay in the right of its officers to interpose 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; he could veto the holding of an election; he could veto the passing of any law; and he could veto any decrees of the Senate, even those dealing with 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 about his duties was denied him. The tribune of the plebs had no imperium, and the authority vested in the office did not extend beyond the first milestone outside the city of Rome. Custom dictated that a man should serve only one term as a tribune of the plebs, but Gaius Gracchus put an end to that; even so, it was not usual for a man to stand more than once. As the real power of the office was vested in negative action—the veto (it was called intercessio)—tribunician contribution to government tended to be more obstructive than constructive. The conservative elements in the Senate loathed the tribunes of the plebs, though they always employed a few. The College of Tribunes of the Plebs entered office on the tenth day of December each year, and had its headquarters in the Basilica Porcia. Sulla as Dictator in 81 B.C. stripped the tribunate of the plebs of all its powers save the right to rescue a member of the Plebs from the clutches of a magistrate, but the consuls Pompey and Crassus restored all the powers of the office in 70 B.C. It was too important to do without. See also plebeian,

  tribune of the soldiers Two dozen young men aged between twenty-five and twenty-nine years of age were elected each year by the Assembly of the People to serve as the tribuni militum, or tribunes of the soldiers. They were true magistrates, the only ones too young to belong to the Senate, and were the governmental representatives of the consuls’ legions (the four legions which belonged to the consuls in office). Six tribunes of the soldiers were allocated to each of the four legions, and normally commanded them. The command was shared in such a way that there was always a tribune of the soldiers on duty as commander, but apparently one of the six (probably by lot or by his number of votes) was senior to the others.

  tribuni aerarii Singular, tribunus aerarius. See knights.

  triclinium The dining room. See illustration on facing page. For additional information, see the glossary of any of my earlier Roman books.

  troglodytes In ancient times, people who lived not so much in caves as in dwellings they carved out of soft rocks. The Egyptian side of the Sinus Arabicus (now the Red Sea) was reputed to have troglodytes, and the soft tufa stone of the Cappadocian gorges provided homes for the local peoples from times before recorded history.

  Tullus Hostilius The third King of Rome, and a very shadowy figure. A warlike man, he attacked, captured, and destroyed Alba Longa, then brought its people into Rome and added them to the populace; Alba Longa’s ruling class became a part of Rome’s patriciate. Tullus Hostilius also built the Senate House, called the Curia Hostilia in his honor.

  tunic The ubiquitous article of clothing for all the ancient Mediterranean peoples, including the Greeks and the Romans; trousers were considered the garb of a barbarian. A Roman tunic tended to be rather loose and shapeless, made without darts to give it a waisted look; it covered the body from the shoulders and upper arms to the knees. Sleeves were probably set in (the ancients knew how to sew, cut cloth, and make clothing comfortable), and sometimes long. The tunic was usually belted with a cord or with buckled leather, and the Romans wore theirs longer at the front than at the back by about .3 inches. Upper-class Roman men were probably togate if outside the doors of their own homes, but there is little doubt that men of the lower classes wore their togas only on special occasions, such as the games or elections. If the weather was wet, a cloak of some kind was preferred “to a toga. The knight wore a narrow purple stripe down the right (bared to show the tunic) shoulder called the angustus clavus; the senator’s purple stripe, the latus clavus, was wider. Anyone on a census lower than 300,000 sesterces could not wear a stripe at all. The customary material for a tunic was wool, the usual color the pale oatmeal of un-dyed wool.

  Venus Erucina That aspect of Venus which ruled the act of love, particularly in its freest and least moral sense. On the Feast of Venus Erucina prostitutes offered to her, and the temple of Venus Erucina outside the Colline Gate of Rome was accustomed to receive gifts of money from successful prostitutes.

  verpa A Latin obscenity used in verbal abuse. It referred to the penis—apparently in the erect state only, when the foreskin is drawn back—and had a homosexual connotation.

  Vesta, Vestal Virgins Vesta was a very old and numinous Roman goddess having no mythology and no image. She was the hearth, the center of family life, and Roman society was cemented in the family. Her official public cult was personally supervised by the Pontifex Maximus, but she was so important that she had her own pontifical college, the six Vestal Virgins. Th
e Vestal Virgin was inducted at about seven or eight years of age, took vows of complete chastity, and served for thirty years, after which she was released from her vows and sent back into the general community still of an age to bear children. Few retired Vestals ever did marry; it was thought unlucky to do so. The chastity of the Vestal Virgins was Rome’s public luck: a chaste college was favored by Fortune. When a Vestal was accused of unchastity she was formally brought to trial in a specially convened court; her alleged lover or lovers were tried in a separate court. If convicted, she was cast into an underground chamber dug for the purpose; it was sealed over, and she was left there to die. In Republican times the Vestal Virgins shared the same residence as the Pontifex Maximus, though sequestered from him and his family. The House (Aedes)—it was not an inaugurated temple—of Vesta was near this house, and was small, round, and very old. It was adjacent to the Regia of the Pontifex Maximus and to the well of Juturna, which supplied the Vestals with water they had to draw from the well each day in person; by the late Republic this ritual was a ritual only. A fire burned permanently inside Vesta’s house to symbolize the hearth; it was tended by the Vestals, and could not be allowed to go out for any reason.

  via A main thoroughfare or highway. vicus A good-sized street.

  vilicus An overseer. Used in this book to describe the custodian of a crossroads college.

  virmilitaris See Military Man.

  voting Roman voting was timocratic in that the power of the vote was powerfully influenced by economic status, and in that voting was not “one man, one vote” style. Whether an individual was voting in the Centuries or in the tribes, his own personal vote could influence only the verdict of the Century or tribe in which he polled. Election outcomes were determined by the number of Centuriate or tribal votes going a particular way: thus in the Centuries of the First Class there were only ninety-one votes all told, the number of Centuries the First Class contained, and in the tribal Assemblies only thirty-five votes all told, the number of tribes. Juridical voting was different. A juror’s vote did have a direct bearing on the outcome of a trial, as the jury was supposed to have an odd number of men comprising it and the decision was a majority one, not a unanimous one. If for some reason the jury was even in number and the vote was tied, the verdict had to be adjudged as for acquittal. Jury voting was timocratic also, however, in that a man without high economic status had no chance to sit on a jury.