catapulta In Republican times, a piece of artillery designed to shoot bolts (wooden missiles rather like very large arrows). The principle governing their mechanics was akin to that of the crossbow. Caesar’s Commentaries inform us that they were accurate and deadly. Cebenna The Massif Central, the Cévennes.
Celtae The pure Celtic peoples of Gallia Comata. They occupied the country south of the Sequana River and were twice as numerous as the Belgae (four million against two million). Their religious practices were Druidic; they did not practise cremation, but elected to be inhumed. Those Celtic tribes occupying modern Brittany were much smaller and darker than other Celts, as were many Aquitanian tribes. Some Celts adhered to kings, who were elected by councils, but most tribes preferred to elect a pair of vergobrets on an annual basis.
Cenabum The main oppidum of the Carnutes, on the Liger (Loire) River. Modern Orleans.
censor The censor was the most august of all Roman magistrates, though he lacked imperium and therefore was not entitled to be escorted by lictors. Two censors were elected by the Centuriate Assembly to serve for a period of five years (termed a lustrum). Censorial activity was, however, mostly limited to the first eighteen months of the lustrum. No man could stand for censor until he had been consul; usually only those consulars of notable auctoritas and dignitas bothered to run. The censors inspected and regulated membership in the Senate and in the Ordo Equester (the knights), and conducted a general census of all Roman citizens throughout the world. They had the power to transfer a citizen from one tribe to another as well as from one Class to another. They applied the means test. The letting of State contracts for everything from the farming of taxes to public works was also their responsibility.
Centuriate Assembly See Assembly.
centurion He was the regular professional officer of the Roman legion. It is a mistake to equate him with the modern non-commissioned officer; centurions enjoyed a relatively exalted status uncomplicated by social distinctions. A Roman general hardly turned a hair if he lost even senior military tribunes, but was devastated if he lost centurions. Centurion rank was graduated in a manner so tortuous that no modern scholar has worked out how many grades there were, nor how they progressed. The ordinary centurion commanded the century, composed of eighty legionaries and twenty noncombatant servants (see noncombatants). Each cohort in a legion had six centuries and six centurions, with the senior man, the pilus prior, commanding the senior century as well as the entire cohort. The ten men commanding the ten cohorts which made up a legion were also ranked in seniority, with the legion’s most senior centurion, the primus pilus (reduced by Caesar to primipilus), answering only to his legion’s commander (either one of the elected tribunes of the soldiers or one of the general’s legates). During Republican times promotion was up from the ranks. The centurion had certain easily recognizable badges of office: alone among Roman military men, he wore greaves covering his shins; he also wore a shirt of scales rather than chain links; his helmet crest was stiff and projected sideways rather than back-to-front; and he carried a stout knobkerrie of vine wood. He always wore many decorations.
century Any grouping of one hundred men.
Cherusci A tribe of Germans occupying the lands around the sources of those German rivers emptying into the North Sea.
chlamys The cloaklike outer garment worn by Greek men.
Cimbri A Germanic people who originally inhabited the northern half of the Jutland Peninsula (modern Denmark). Strabo says that a sea flood drove them out in search of a new homeland around 120 B.C. In combination with the Teutones and a mixed group of Germans and Celts (the Marcomanni-Cherusci-Tigurini), they wandered around Europe in search of this homeland until they ran afoul of Rome. In 102 and 101 B.C., Gaius Marius utterly defeated them; the migration disintegrated. Some six thousand Cimbri, however, returned to their kinfolk the Atuatuci in modern Belgium.
Cimbric Chersonnese The Jutland Peninsula, modern Denmark.
Circus Flaminius The circus situated on the Campus Martius not far from the Tiber and the Forum Holitorium. It was built in 221 B.C. to hold about fifty thousand spectators, and was sometimes used for meetings of the various Assemblies.
Circus Maximus The old circus built by King Tarquinius Priscus before the Republic began. It filled the whole of the Vallis Murcia, a declivity between the Palatine and Aventine mounts. Even though it could hold over 150,000 spectators, there is ample evidence during Republican times that freedmen citizens were excluded from the games held there because of lack of room. Women were permitted to sit with men.
citrus wood The most prized cabinet wood of the ancient world. It was cut from vast galls on the root system of a cypresslike tree, Callitris quadrivavis vent., which grew in the highlands of North Africa all the way from the Oasis of Ammonium in Egypt to the far Atlas Mountains of Mauretania. Though termed citrus, the tree was not botanically related to orange or lemon.
Classes These were five in number, and represented the economic divisions of property-owning or steady-income-earning Roman citizens. The members of the First Class were the richest; the members of the Fifth Class were the poorest. Those Roman citizens who belonged to the capite censi or Head Count did not qualify for a Class status, and so could not vote in the Centuriate Assembly. In actual fact, if the bulk of the First and Second Class Centuries voted the same way, even the Third Class was not called upon to vote.
client-king A foreign monarch might pledge himself as a client in the service of Rome as his patron, thereby entitling his kingdom to be known as Friend and Ally of the Roman People. Sometimes, however, a foreign monarch pledged himself as the client of a Roman individual. Lucullus and Pompey both owned client-kings.
codex Basically, a book rather than a scroll. Evidence indicates that the codex of Caesar’s day was a clumsy affair made of wooden leaves with holes punched in their left-hand sides through which thongs of leather bound them together. However, the sheer length of Caesar’s senatorial dispatches negates the use of wooden leaves. I believe Caesar’s codex was made of sheets of paper sewn together along the left-hand margin. The chief reason for my assuming this is that his codex leaf was described as being divided into three columns for easier reading—not possible on a wooden leaf of a size enabling the codex to be read comfortably.
cognomen The last name of a Roman male anxious to distinguish himself from all his fellows possessed of identical first (praenomen) and family (nomen) names. He might adopt a cognomen for himself, as did Pompey with the cognomen Magnus, or simply continue to bear a cognomen which had been in the family for generations, as did the Julians cognominated Caesar. In some families it became necessary to have more than one cognomen; the best example of this is Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, a Cornelius Scipio Nasica adopted into the Caecilii Metelli. He was generally known as Metellus Scipio for short. The cognomen often pointed up some physical characteristic or idiosyncrasy—jug ears, flat feet, humpback, swollen legs—or else commemorated some great feat—as in the Caecilii Metelli who were cognominated Dalmaticus, Balearicus, Macedonicus, and Numidicus, these being related to a country each man had conquered. The most delicious cognomens were heavily sarcastic—Lepidus, meaning a thoroughly nice fellow, attached to a right bastard—or extremely witty—as with the already multiply cognominated Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus (Strabo, meaning he had cross-eyes, and Vopiscus, meaning he was the surviving one of twins). He earned the additional name of Sesquiculus, meaning he was more than just an arsehole, he was an arsehole and a half.
cohort The tactical unit of the legion. It comprised six centuries; each legion owned ten cohorts. When discussing troop movements, it was more customary for the general to speak of his army in terms of cohorts rather than legions, which perhaps indicates that, at least until Caesar’s time, the general deployed or peeled off cohorts rather than legions. Caesar seems to have preferred to general legions than cohorts, though Pompey at Pharsalus had eighteen cohorts which had not been organized into legions.
college A body or society of men having something in common. Rome owned priestly colleges (such as the College of Pontifices), political colleges (the College of Tribunes of the Plebs), civil servant colleges (the College of Lictors), and trade colleges (the Guild of Undertakers, for example). Certain groups of men from all walks of life, including slaves, banded together in what were called crossroads colleges to look after the city of Rome’s major crossroads and conduct the annual feast of the crossroads, the Compitalia.
comata Long-haired.
comitium, comitia See Assembly.
CONDEMNO The word employed by a court jury when delivering a verdict of guilty.
Conscript Fathers When it was established as an advisory body by the Kings of Rome (traditionally by Romulus himself), the Senate consisted of one hundred patricians entitled patres—fathers. Then when plebeian senators were added during the first years of the Republic, they were said to be conscripti—chosen without a choice. Together, the patrician and plebeian senators were said to be patres et conscripti; gradually the once-distinguishing terms were run together. All members of the Senate were Conscript Fathers.
consul The consul was the most senior Roman magistrate owning imperium, and the consulship (modern scholars do not refer to it as the “consulate” because a consulate is a modern diplomatic institution) was the top rung on the cursus honorum. Two consuls were elected each year by the Centuriate Assembly, and served for one year. They entered office on New Year’s Day (January 1). The one who had polled the requisite number of Centuries first was called the senior consul; the other was the junior consul. The senior consul held the fasces for the month of January, which meant his junior colleague looked on. In February the fasces passed to the junior consul, and alternated thus throughout the year. Both consuls were escorted by twelve lictors, but only the consul holding the fasces for that month had his lictors bear them. By the last century of the Republic, both consuls could be plebeians, but both consuls could not be patricians. The proper age for a consul was forty-two, twelve years after entering the Senate at thirty, though there is convincing evidence that Sulla in 81 B.C. accorded patrician senators the privilege of standing for consul (and praetor) two years before any plebeian; this meant a patrician could be consul at forty. A consul’s imperium knew no bounds; it operated not only in Rome and Italia, but throughout the provinces as well, and overrode the imperium of a proconsular governor unless he had imperium maius, an honor accorded to Pompey regularly, but to few others. The consul could command any army.
consular The name given to a man after he stepped down from office as consul. He was then held in special esteem by the rest of the Senate. Until Sulla became Dictator, the consular was always asked to speak or give his opinion in the House ahead of all others. Sulla changed that, preferring to exalt magistrates in office and those elected to coming office. The consular, however, might at any time be sent to govern a province should the Senate require this duty of him. He might also be asked to take on other tasks, such as caring for the grain supply.
consultum, consulta The proper terms for a senatorial decree or decrees, though the full title is senatus consultum. These decrees did not have the force of law; they were merely recommendations to the Assemblies to pass laws. Whichever Assembly a consultum was sent to was not obliged to enact what it directed. Certain consulta were regarded as law by all of Rome, though never sent to any Assembly; these were matters mostly to do with foreign affairs and war. In 81 B.C. Sulla gave these latter consulta the formal status of laws.
contio, contiones A contio was a preliminary meeting of a comitial Assembly in order to discuss promulgation of a proposed law, or any other comitial business. All three Assemblies were required to debate a measure in contio, which, though no actual voting took place, was nonetheless a formal meeting convoked only by a magistrate empowered to do so.
contubernalis A military cadet, usually from a good family. He was the subaltern of lowest rank and age in the Roman military officers’ hierarchy, but he was not training to be a centurion. Centurions were never cadets; they had to be experienced soldiers from the ranks with a genuine gift for command. Being relatively highborn, the contubernalis was attached to legatal staff and not required to do much actual fighting unless he chose to.
Cora River The Cure River.
Corcyra Island Modern Corfu or Kerkira Island.
Corduba Spanish Cordoba.
corona civica Rome’s second-highest military decoration. A chaplet made of oak leaves, it was awarded to a man who saved the lives of fellow soldiers and held the ground on which he did this until the battle was over. It could not be awarded unless the saved soldiers swore an oath before their general that they were speaking the truth about the circumstances. L. R. Taylor argues that among Sulla’s constitutional reforms was one pertaining to the winners of major military crowns: that, following the precedent of Marcus Fabius Buteo, he promoted these men to membership in the Senate no matter what their ages or their social backgrounds. Dr. Taylor’s contention answers the vexed question as to when exactly Caesar entered the Senate, which she hypothesizes as aged twenty, after winning the corona civica at Mitylene. The great Matthias Gelzer agreed with her—but, alas, only in a footnote.
cubit A Greek and/or Asian measurement of length not popular among Romans. The cubit was normally held as the distance between a man’s elbow and his clenched fist, and was probably about 15 inches (375mm).
cuirass Armor encasing the upper body without having the form of a shirt. It consisted of two plates of bronze, steel, or hardened leather, the front one protecting thorax and abdomen, the other a man’s back from shoulders to lumbar spine. The plates were held together by straps or hinges at the shoulders and along each side under the arms. Some cuirasses were exquisitely tailored to the contours of an individual’s torso, while others fitted any man of a particular size and physique. The men of highest rank—generals and legates—owned parade cuirasses tooled in high relief and silver-plated (sometimes, though rarely, gold-plated). As an indication of his imperium, the general and his most senior legates wore a thin red sash around the cuirass about halfway between the nipples and waist; the sash was ritually knotted and looped.
cultarius H. H. Scullard’s spelling: The Oxford Latin Dictionary prefers cultrarius. He was a public servant attached to religious duties, and his only job appears to have been that of cutting the sacrificial victim’s throat. He may also have helped tidy up afterward.
cunnus, cunni A very choice Latin obscenity: cunt, cunts.
Curia Hostilia The Senate House. It was thought to have been built by the shadowy third King of Rome, Tullus Hostilius, hence its name: “the meeting-house of Hostilius.” It burned down in January of 52 B.C. when the mob cremated Publius Clodius, and was not rebuilt until Caesar became Dictator.
Curicta Island Krk Island, off the Liburnian coast of Yugoslavia.
curule, curule chair The sella curulis was the ivory chair reserved exclusively for magistrates owning imperium. Consuls, praetors and curule aediles sat in it; I have gone back to thinking that plebeian aediles did not, as they were not elected by the whole Roman People, therefore could not have owned imperium. Beautifully carved in ivory, the chair itself had curved legs crossing in a broad X, so that it could be folded up. It was equipped with arms, but had no back. Possibly once a man had been consul, as a consular he had the right to retain his curule chair and sit in it. Knowing Rome, I believe it didn’t belong to the State, if the State could insist those entitled to sit in the curule chair had to commission and pay for it themselves.
Dagda The principal God of Druidism. His elemental nature was water, and he husbanded the Great Goddess, Dann.
Dann The principal Goddess of Druidism. Her elemental nature was earth and she was wife to Dagda, though not, it would seem, his inferior. She headed a pantheon of Goddesses who included Epona, Sulis and Bodb.
Danubius River The Danube, Donau or Dunarea River. The Romans knew its sources bette
r than its outflow into the Euxine (Black) Sea; the Greeks knew its outflow better, and called it the river Ister.
Decetia An oppidum of the Aedui situated on the Liger (Loire) River. Modern Decize.
decury To the Romans, any group of ten men, be they senators or soldiers or lictors.
demagogue Originally a Greek concept, the demagogue of ancient times was a politician whose chief appeal was to the crowds. The Roman demagogue (almost inevitably a tribune of the plebs) preferred the arena of the well of the Comitia to the Senate House, but it was not part of his policy to “liberate the masses.” Nor were those who flocked to hear him made up of the very lowly. The term simply indicated a man of radical as opposed to conservative bent.
denarius, denarii Save for a very rare issue or two of gold coins, the denarius was the largest denomination of coin under the Republic. Of pure silver, it contained about 3.5 grams of the metal, and was about the size of a dime—very small. There were 6,250 denarii to 1 silver talent. Of actual coins in circulation, there were probably more denarii than sesterces, but accounts were always expressed in sesterces, not denarii.
diadem This was neither crown nor tiara. It was a thick white ribbon about 1 inch (25mm) wide, each end embroidered and often finished with a fringe. It was the symbol of the Hellenic sovereign; only the king and/or queen could wear it. The coins show that it was generally worn across the forehead, but could be (as in the case of Cleopatra VII) worn behind the hairline. It was knotted at the back below the occiput, and the two ends trailed down onto the shoulders.
dignitas To the Romans this word had connotations not conveyed by the English word derived from it, “dignity.” Dignitas was a man’s right and entitlement to public honor through personal endeavor. It gave the sum total of his integrity, pride, family and ancestors, word, intelligence, deeds, ability, knowledge, and worth as a man. Of all the assets a Roman nobleman possessed, dignitas was likely to be the one he was most touchy about and most protective of.
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