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

by Colleen McCullough

  legate Legatus. The most senior members of a general’s staff were his legates. To qualify to serve as a legate, a man had to be a member of the Senate. He answered only to the general, and was senior to all types of military tribune. Not every legate was a young man, however. Some were consulars who apparently volunteered for some interesting war because they hankered after a spell of military life, or were friends and/or relatives of the general—or were in need of some extra money from spoils.

  legion Legio. Though it was rarely called upon to do so, the legion was the smallest unit of a Roman army capable of fighting a war on its own. In terms of manpower, equipment and warmaking facilities it was complete within itself. Between two and six legions clubbed together constituted an army; the times when an army contained more than six legions were unusual. A legion comprised some 4,280 ranker soldiers, 60 centurions, 1,600 noncombatant servants, perhaps 300 artillerymen and 100 skilled artificers. The internal organization of a legion consisted of ten cohorts of six centuries each. In Caesar’s time cavalry units were not grafted onto a legion, but constituted a separate force. Each legion appears to have had about thirty pieces of artillery, more catapultae than ballistae, before Caesar; he introduced the use of artillery into battle as a technique of softening up the enemy, and increased the number of pieces to fifty. The legion was commanded by a legate or an elected tribune of the soldiers if it belonged to the consuls of the year. Its officers were the centurions. Though the troops belonging to a legion went into the same camp, they did not live together en masse in dormitory style; they were divided into units of eight soldiers and two noncombatants who tented and messed together. Reading the horrors of the American Civil War, one is impressed with the Roman arrangement. Roman soldiers ate fresh food because they ground their own wheat and made their own bread, porridge and other staples and were provided with well-salted or smoked bacon or pork for flavoring, and also ate dried fruit. Sanitary facilities within a camp predicated against enteric fevers and polluted water. An army not only marches on its stomach, it is also enabled to march when it is free from disease. Few Roman generals cared to command more than six legions because of the difficulties in supply; reading Caesar’s Commentaries makes one understand how important a place Caesar gave to supply, as he mostly commanded between nine and eleven legions. legionary This is the correct English word to call an ordinary Roman soldier . “Legionnaire,” which I have seen used by lesser scholars, is more properly applied to a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, or to a veteran of the American Legion.

  lex, leges A law or laws. The word lex also came to be used of plebiscites, the laws passed in the Plebeian Assembly. A lex was not considered valid until it had been inscribed on stone or bronze and deposited in the vaults below the temple of Saturn. However, residence therein must have been brief, as space was limited and the temple of Saturn also housed the Treasury. After Sulla’s Tabularium was finished, laws came to rest permanently therein. A law was named after the man or men who promulgated it and succeeded in having it ratified, but always (since lex is feminine gender) with the feminine ending to the name or names. This was followed by a brief description as to what the law was about. Laws could be—and sometimes were—repealed at some later date.

  lex curiata A law endowing a curule magistrate or promagistrate with his imperium. It was passed by the thirty lictors who represented the thirty original Roman tribes. A lex curiata was also necessary before a patrician could be adopted by a plebeian.

  lex data A law promulgated by a magistrate which had to be accompanied by a senatorial decree. It was not open to change by whichever Assembly the magistrate chose to present it to.

  lex Julia Marcia Passed by the consuls Lucius Julius Caesar and Gaius Marcius Figulus in 64 B.C., it outlawed all but a few of the many different kinds of colleges, sodalities and clubs which proliferated throughout every stratum of Roman life. Its chief object was the crossroads college, which was seen as potentially dangerous politically. Publius Clodius was to prove this true after he, as tribune of the plebs, reinstated crossroads colleges in 58 B.C.

  lex Plautia de vi Passed by a Plautius during the seventies B.C. and having to do with violence in public meetings.

  lex Pompeia de iure magistratuum The infamous law Pompey passed while consul without a colleague in 52 B.C. It obliged all seekers of curule office to register their candidacy in person inside the sacred boundary of Rome; when reminded by Caesar’s faction that the Law of the Ten Tribunes of the Plebs made it possible for Caesar to stand for consul the second time in absentia, Pompey said oops and tacked a codicil onto its end exempting Caesar. This codicil, however, was not inscribed on the bronze tablet bearing the law, and therefore had no validity at law.

  lex Pompeia de vi Passed when Pompey was consul without a colleague in 52 B.C., and designed to reinforce the lex Plautia.

  lex Pompeia Licinia de provincia Caesaris The law passed by Pompey and Crassus during their second consulships in 55 B.C. It gave Caesar all his provinces for a further five years, and forbade any discussion in the Senate about who would get his provinces afterward until March of 50 B.C.

  lex Trebonia de provinciis consularibus Passed by Gaius Trebonius as a tribune of the plebs in 55 B.C. It gave Pompey and Crassus the provinces of Syria and both the Spains for a period of five years.

  lex Villia annalis Passed in 180 B.C. by the tribune of the plebs Lucius Villius. It stipulated certain minimum ages at which the curule magistracies could be held and apparently also stipulated that two years must elapse between a man’s holding the praetorship and the consulship. It is also generally accepted as stipulating that ten years must go by between a man’s being consul for the first time and running for a second term as consul.

  lictor The man who formally attended a curule magistrate as he went about his business. The lictor preceded the magistrate to clear him a way through the crowds, and was on hand to obey the magistrate in matters of custody, restraint or chastisement. The lictor had to be a Roman citizen and was a State employee; he was not of high social status, and probably depended upon largesse from his magistrate to eke out a poor wage. On his left shoulder he bore the bundle of rods called the fasces. Within the city of Rome he wore a plain white toga, changing to a black toga for funerals; outside Rome he wore a scarlet tunic cinched at the waist by a broad black leather belt bossed in brass. Outside Rome he inserted the axes into his fasces. There was a College of Lictors, though its site is not known. I have placed it behind the temple of the Lares Praestites on the eastern side of the Forum Romanum (behind the great inn on the corner of the Clivus Orbius), but there is no factual basis for this. Within the College, which must have numbered some hundreds, the lictors were grouped in decuries of ten men, each headed by a prefect; the decuries were collectively supervised by several College presidents.

  Liger River The Loire River.

  Lissus Modern Lezhe in Albania.

  litter A covered cubicle equipped with four legs upon which it rested when lowered to the ground. A horizontal pole on each corner projected forward and behind the conveyance; it was carried by four to eight men who picked it up by means of these poles. The litter was a slow form of transport, but it was by far the most comfortable known in the ancient world. Litters belonging to the richest persons were commodious enough to hold two people and a servant to wait on them. Lugdunum Modern Lyon.

  Lusitani The peoples of far western and northwestern Spain. Less exposed to Hellenic and Roman culture than the Celtiberians, the Lusitani were probably somewhat less Celtic than Iberian in racial content, though the two strains were mixed in them. Their organization was tribal, and they seem to have farmed and mined as well as grazed.

  Lutetia An island in the Sequana (Seine) River which served as the principal oppidum of a Celtic tribe called the Parisii. Modern Paris.

  magistrates The elected executives of the Senate and People of Rome. With the exception of the tribunes of the soldiers, they all belonged automatically to the Senate
in Caesar’s day. The diagram on page 642 clearly shows the nature of each magistracy, its seniority, who did the electing, and whether a magistrate owned imperium. The cursus honorum proceeded in a straight line from quaestor through praetor to consul; censor, both kinds of aedile and the tribunate of the plebs were not magistracies attached to the cursus honorum. Save for the censor, all magistrates served for one year only. The dictator was a special case.

  maiestas Treason.

  malaria This pestilential disease, caused by four varieties of Plasmodium and vectored by the female Anopheles mosquito, was endemic throughout Italy. The Romans divided it into three kinds of ague: quartan (rigors occurring every four days), tertian (rigors occurring every three days) and a more malignant form wherein the rigors had no pattern. The Romans also knew the ague was more prevalent wherever there was swampy ground, hence their fear of the Pomptine Marshes and the Fucine Lake. What they didn’t know was that the vector was a mosquito.

  mantlet The shelter shed, usually roofed and walled with hides, which shielded Roman troops from enemy missiles.

  marca Gallic for horse. Gallic was very akin to Latin and was quite easy for Romans to learn to speak; often we have no idea whether the Gallic word is actually a Latin word shifted into Gallic, or a Gallic word shifted into Latin.

  Marsi One of the most important non-Roman Italian peoples. They lived around the shores of the Fucine Lake, which belonged to them, and their territory extended into the high Apennines. It bordered the lands of the Paeligni. Until the Italian War of 91-88 B.C., they had always been loyal to Rome. They worshiped snakes and were renowned snake charmers.

  Massilia Modern Marseilles.

  Mater Latin for mother.

  Matisco One of the oppida belonging to a sept of the Aedui known as the Ambarri. It lay on the Arar (Saone) River. Modern Macon.

  mentula, mentulae A very choice Latin obscenity meaning prick, pricks.

  Mercedonius The name given to the twenty extra days inserted into the Roman calendar after the month of February to bring the calendar into line with the seasons.

  Metiosedum The principal oppidum of a sept of the Parish” called the Meldi. It was an island in the Sequana (Seine) River. Modern Melun.

  meum mel A Latin endearment. Literally, “my honey.”

  Mons Fiscellus The Gran Sasso d’ltalia: Italy’s highest mountain.

  Mosa River The Maas in Belgium, the Meuse in France.

  Mosella River The Moselle River.

  mos maiorum The established order of things, used to encompass the customs, traditions and habits of Roman government and public institutions. It served as Rome’s unwritten constitution. Mos meant established custom; in this context maiores meant ancestors or forebears. To sum up, the mos maiorum was how things had always been done—and how they should be done in the future too!

  murus Gallicus The way Gauls built their oppidum walls. It consisted of very long, large wooden beams interspersed between stones, and was relatively impervious to the battering ram because the stones lent it great thickness, and the logs a tensile strength stone walls alone do not possess. Narbo Modern Narbonne.

  Nemausus Modern Mimes.

  nemer In Latin it could mean simply wood, but in Gallic seems to have referred specifically to the oak.

  Nemetocenna An oppidum belonging to the Belgic Atrebates. Modern Arras.

  nemeton The sacred oak grove of the Druids.

  noncombatants There were sixteen hundred of these military servants in a legion. They were not slaves; they were free men of mostly Roman citizenship. It would seem likely that serving as a noncombatant acquitted a Roman citizen of his obligatory military duty if perhaps he felt himself ill equipped to be a soldier. One imagines they had to be fit men rather than physically handicapped, as they were required to keep up with the soldiers on the march and could (sometimes actually did) take up a sword and shield and fight. They seem to have been rural people in origin.

  Nones The second of the three named days of the month which represented the fixed points of the month. The Nones occurred on the seventh day of the long months (March, May, July and October), and on the fifth day of the other months.

  Noviodunum of the Bituriges An oppidum belonging to the Bituriges. Modern Neuvy.

  Noviodunum Nevirnum An oppidum which seems to have belonged to the Aedui, though it bordered the lands of the Senones. It lay at the confluence of the Liger (Loire) and Elaver (Allier) rivers. Modern Nevers.

  Novum Comum A full Roman citizen colony established by Caesar at the western tip of Lake Larius (now Lake Como); whether its inhabitants were citizens was moot, as magistrates like the senior Gaius Claudius Marcellus felt free to flog a citizen of Novum Comum. Modern Como. nundinus,

  nundinae, nundinum The nundinus was the market day which came around every eight days, though it was almost always referred to in the plural, nundinae. The eight days which constituted the Roman week were called the nundinum.

  October Horse On the Ides of October (which was the time the old campaigning season finished), the best warhorses of that year were picked out and harnessed in pairs to chariots. They then raced not in the Circus but on the sward of the Campus Martius. The right-hand horse of the winning team became the October Horse. It was sacrificed to Mars on a specially erected altar adjacent to the course of the race. The animal was ritually killed with a spear, after which its head was severed and piled over with little cakes, the mold salsa, while its tail and genitalia were rushed to the Regia in the Forum Romanum, and the blood dripped onto the altar within. The tail and genitalia were then given to the Vestal Virgins, who dripped some blood on Vesta’s altar before mincing everything up and burning it; the ashes were then reserved for another annual festival, the Parilia. The head of the horse was tossed into a crowd composed of two competing peoples, the residents of the Subura and of the Sacra Via. The crowd then fought for possession of the head. If the Sacra Via people won, the head was nailed to the outside of the Regia; if the Subura people won, the head was nailed to the Turris Mamilia, the highest building in the Subura. What reason lay behind this very ancient rite is not known, even perhaps to the Romans of the late Republic themselves, save that it was in some way connected to the close of the campaigning season. We do not know if the competing horses were Public Horses, but might be pardoned for presuming they were.

  Octodurum Modern Martigny in Switzerland.

  Oltis River The Lot River.

  oppidum, oppida The oppidum was the Gallic stronghold. With few exceptions it was not designed to be lived in, so was not a town. It contained the tribe’s treasures and stockpiled foods in granaries and warehouses, also a meeting hall. Some oppida accommodated the king or chief thane. A few, like Avaricum, were real cities.

  Oricum Modern Oriku in Albania.

  Padus River The Po River.

  palisade The fortified section of a wall above the level of the fighting platform inside it. It was usually divided into breastworks for fighting over and battlements for dodging behind.

  paludamentum The bright scarlet cloak worn by a full general.

  paterfamilias The head of a Roman family unit. His right to do as he pleased with the various members of his family was rigidly protected at law.

  patrician, Patriciate The Patriciate was the original Roman aristocracy. To an ancestor-revering, birth-conscious people like the Romans, the importance of belonging to patrician stock can hardly be overestimated. The older among the patrician families were aristocrats before Rome existed, the youngest among them (the Claudii) apparently emerging at the very beginning of the Republic. All through the Republic they kept the title of patrician, as well as a degree of prestige unattainable by any plebeian, no matter how noble and august his line. However, by the last century of the Republic a patrician owned little special distinction apart from his blood; the wealth and energy of the great plebeian families had steadily eroded away patrician rights. Even in the late Republic, the importance of patrician blood can hardly be exaggerated,
which is why men like Sulla and Caesar, of the oldest, most patrician blood, were seen as potentially able to make themselves King of Rome, whereas men like Gaius Marius and Pompey the Great, heroes supreme though they were, could not even dream of making themselves King of Rome. Blood was all.

  During the last century of the Republic the following patrician families were still producing senators, and some praetors and consuls: Aemilius, Claudius, Cornelius, Fabius (but through adoption only), Julius, Manlius, Pinarius, Postumius, Sergius, Servilius, Sulpicius and Valerius. pedarii See Senate.

  People of Rome This term embraced every single Roman citizen who was not a member of the Senate; it applied to patricians as well as to plebeians, and to the capite censi as much as to the knights of the Eighteen.

  peristyle Most affluent Roman houses, be they city or country, were built around an interior open court called the peristyle. It varied considerably in size, and usually contained a pool and fountain. For those who can get there, I strongly urge that they visit what will now be the old Getty Museum at Malibu, California; it is a replica of the villa at Herculaneum owned by Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso. I can never go to California without once again visiting it. Now there’s a peristyle!

  phalerae These were round, chased, ornamented gold or silver discs about 3 to 4 inches (75 to 100mm) in diameter. Originally they were worn as insignia by Roman knights, and formed a major part of their horses’ decorations. Gradually phalerae came to be military decorations awarded for exceptional bravery in battle. Normally they were given in sets of nine (three rows of three each) upon a decorated leather harness of straps designed to be worn over the mail shirt or cuirass. Centurions almost inevitably wore phalerae.