Fortune's Favorites

by Colleen McCullough

  denarius Plural, 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 one silver talent. Of actual coins in circulation, there were probably more denarii than sesterces.

  diadem This was not a crown or a tiara, but simply a thick white ribbon about one inch (25mm) wide, each end embroidered and often finished with a fringe. It was the symbol of the Hellenic sovereign; only King and/or Queen could wear it. The coins show that it was worn either across the forehead or behind the hairline, and was knotted at the back below the occiput; the two ends trailed down onto the shoulders.

  dies religiosi Days of the year regarded as ill-omened. On them nothing new ought to be done, nor religious ceremonies conducted. Some dies religiosi commemorated defeats in battle, on three dies religiosi the mundus (underworld gate) was left open, on others certain temples were closed, on yet others the hearth of Vesta was left open. The days after the Kalends, Nones and Ides of each month were dies religiosi, and thought so ill-omened that they had a special name: Black Days.

  diffarreatio See the entry on confarreatio.

  dignitas Like auctoritas (q.v.), the Latin dignitas has connotations not conveyed by the English word derived from it, "dignity." It was a man's personal standing in the Roman world rather than his public standing, though his public standing was enormously enhanced by great dignitas. 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 protective of. I have elected to leave the term untranslated in my text.

  diverticulum In the two earlier books, I used this term to mean only the "ring roads" around the city of Rome that linked all the arterial roads together. In Fortune's Favorites it is also used to indicate sections where an arterial road bifurcated to connect with important towns not serviced by the arterial road itself, then fused together again, as with the two diverticula on the Via Flaminia which must have already existed by the late Republic, though not generally conceded to exist until imperial times. Did the diverticulum to Spoletium not exist, for example, neither Carrinas nor Pompey would have been able to fetch up there so quickly.

  divinatio Literally, guesswork. This was a special hearing by a specially appointed panel of judges to determine the fitness of a man to prosecute another man. It was not called into effect unless a man's fitness was challenged by the defense. The name referred to the fact that the panel of judges arrived at a decision without the presentation of hard evidence-that is, they arrived at a conclusion by guesswork.

  doctor The man who was responsible for the training and physical fitness of gladiators.

  drachma The" name I have elected to use when speaking of Hellenic currency rather than Roman, because the drachma most closely approximated the denarius in weight at around 4 grams. Rome, however, was winning the currency race because of the central and uniform nature of Roman coins; during the late Republic, the world was beginning to prefer to use Roman coins rather than Hellenic.

  Ecastor! Edepol! The most genteel and inoffensive of Roman exclamations of surprise or amazement, roughly akin to "Gee!" or "Wow!" Women used "Ecastor!" and men "Edepol!" The roots suggest they invoked Castor and Pollux.

  electrum An alloy of gold and silver. In times dating back to before the Republic electrum was thought to be a metal in itself, and like the electrum rod in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitol, it was left as electrum. By the time of the Republic, however, it was known to be an alloy, and was separated into its gold and silver components by cementation with salt, or treatment with a metallic sulphide.

  Epicurean Pertaining to the philosophical system of the Greek Epicurus. Originally Epicurus had advocated a kind of hedonism so exquisitely refined that it approached asceticism on its left hand, so to speak; a man's pleasures were best sampled one at a time, and strung out with such relish that any excess defeated the exercise. Public life or any other stressful work was forbidden. These tenets underwent considerable modification in Rome, so that a Roman nobleman could call himself an Epicure yet still espouse his public career. By the late Republic, the chief pleasure of an Epicurean was food.

  epulones A minor order of priests whose business was to organize senatorial banquets after festivals of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and also to arrange the public banquets during games and some feast days.

  equestrian Pertaining to the knights.

  ethnarch The general Greek word for a city or town magistrate. There were other and more specific names in use, but I do not think it necessary to compound confusion in readers by employing a more varied terminology.

  Euxine Sea The modern Black Sea. Because of the enormous number of major rivers which flowed into it (especially in times before water volume was regulated by dams), the Euxine Sea contained less salt than other seas; the current through Thracian Bosporus and Hellespont always flowed from the Euxine toward the Mediterranean (the Aegean)- which made it easy to quit the Euxine, but hard to enter it.

  exeunt omnes Literally, "Everybody leave!" It has been a stage direction employed by playwrights since drama first came into being.

  faction The following of a Roman politician is best described as a faction; in no way could a man's followers be described as a political party in the modern sense. Factions formed around men owning auctoritas and dignitas, and were purely evidence of that individual's ability to attract and hold followers. Political ideologies did not exist, nor did party lines. For that reason I have avoided (and will continue to avoid) the terms Optimate and Popularis, as they give a false impression of Roman political solidarity to a party-acclimatized modern reader.

  Faesulae Modern Fiesole. Possibly because it was settled by the Etruscans before Rome became a power, it was always deemed a part of Etruria; in actual fact it lay north of the Arnus River, in what was officially Italian Gaul.

  fasces The fasces were bundles of birch rods ritually tied together in a crisscross pattern by red leather thongs. Originally an emblem of the Etruscan kings, they passed into the customs of the emerging Rome, persisted in Roman life throughout the Republic, and on into the Empire. Carried by men called lictors (q.v.), they preceded the curule magistrate (and the propraetor and proconsul as well) as the outward symbol of his imperium. Within the pomerium only the rods went into the bundles, to signify that the curule magistrate had the power to chastise, but not to execute; outside the pomerium axes were inserted into the bundles, to signify that the curule magistrate or promagistrate did have the power to execute. The only man permitted to insert the axes into the midst of the rods inside the pomerium was the dictator. The number of fasces indicated the degree of imperium: a dictator had twenty-four, a consul and proconsul twelve, a praetor and propraetor six, and the aediles two. Sulla, incidentally, was the first dictator to be preceded by twenty-four lictors bearing twenty-four fasces; until then, dictators had used the same number as consuls, twelve.

  fasti The fasti were originally days on which business could be transacted, but came to mean other things as well: the calendar, lists relating to holidays and festivals, and the list of consuls (this last probably because Romans preferred to reckon up their years by remembering who had been the consuls in any given year). The entry in the glossary to The First Man in Rome contains a fuller explanation of the calendar than space permits me here-under fasti, of course.

  fellator Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! My fault entirely that in the two previous volumes of this series, I managed to give the man on the receiving end the wrong name! It does happen that one becomes confused, as I do by opposites, left and right, and clockwise versus anticlockwise. A cerebral aberration of sorts. The fact remains that I was wrong. The fellator was the man sucking the penis, the irrumator the man whose penis was being suc
ked. Fellator sucker, irrumator suckee.

  feriae Holidays. Though attendance at public ceremonies on such holidays was not obligatory, feriae traditionally demanded that business, labor and lawsuits not be pursued, and that quarrels, even private ones, should be avoided. The rest from normal labors on feriae extended to slaves and also some animals, including oxen but excluding equines of all varieties. fetiales A special college of priests whose duties were to serve Bellona, the goddess of war. Though it was an honor to be appointed a fetialis, during the late Republic the rites of making war or peace as pertaining to Bellona were much neglected; it was Caesar's great-nephew, Augustus, who brought the college back to full practice.

  filibuster A modern word for a political activity at least as old as the Senate of Rome. It consisted, then as now, of “talking a motion out": the filibusterer droned on and on about everything from his childhood to his funeral plans, thus preventing other men from speaking until the political danger had passed. And preventing the taking of a vote!

  flamen The flamines (plural) were probably the oldest of Rome's priests in time, dating back at least as far as the Kings. There were fifteen flamines, three major and twelve minor. The three major flaminates were Dialis (Jupiter Optimus Maxi-mus), Martialis (Mars), and Quirinalis (Quirinus). Save for the poor flamen Dialis-his nature is discussed fully in the text-none of the flamines seemed terribly hedged about with prohibitions or taboos, but all three major flamines qualified for a public salary, a State house, and membership in the Senate. The wife of the flamen was known as the flaminica. The flamen and flaminica Dialis had to be patrician in status, though I have not yet discovered whether this was true of the other flamines, major or minor. To be on the safe side, I elected to stay with patrician appointments.

  Fortuna One of Rome's most worshipped and important deities. Generally thought to be a female force, Fortuna had many different guises; Roman godhead was usually highly specific. Fortuna Primigenia was Jupiter's firstborn, Fors Fortuna was of particular importance to the lowly, Fortuna Virilis helped women conceal their physical imperfections from men, Fortuna Virgo was worshipped by brides, Fortuna Equestris looked after the knights, and Fortuna Huiusque Diei ("the fortune of the present day") was the special object of worship by military commanders and prominent politicians having military backgrounds. There were yet other Fortunae. The Romans believed implicitly in luck, though they did not regard luck quite as we do; a man made his luck, but was-even in the case of men as formidably intelligent as Sulla and Caesar-very careful about offending Fortuna, not to mention superstitious. To be favored by Fortuna was considered a vindication of all a man stood for.

  forum The Roman meeting place, an open area surrounded by buildings, many of which were of a public nature. Forum Boarium The meat markets, situated at the starting-post end of the Circus Maximus, below the Germalus of the Palatine. The Great Altar of Hercules and several different temples to Hercules lay in the Forum Boarium, which was held to be peculiarly under his protection. Forum Holitorium The vegetable markets, situated on the bank of the Tiber athwart the Servian Walls between the river and the flank of the Capitoline Mount. There were three gates in the walls at the Forum Holitorium-the Porta Triumphalis (used only to permit the triumphal parade into the city), the Porta Carmentalis, and the Porta Flumentana. It is generally thought that the Servian Walls of the Forum Holitorium were crumbled away to nothing by the late Republic, but I do not believe this; the threat of the Germans alone caused many repairs to the Servian Walls.

  Forum Romanum This long open space was the center of Roman public life, and was largely devoted, as were the buildings around it, to politics, the law, business, and religion. I do not believe that the free space of the Forum Romanum was choked with a permanent array of booths, stalls and barrows; the many descriptions of constant legal and political business in the lower half of the Forum would leave little room for such apparatus. There were two very large market areas on the Esquiline side of the Forum Romanum, just removed from the Forum itself by one barrier of buildings, and in these, no doubt, most freestanding stalls and booths were situated. Lower than the surrounding districts, the Forum was rather damp, cold, sunless-but very much alive in terms of public human activity.

  freedman A manumitted slave. Though technically a free man (and, if his former master was a Roman citizen, himself a Roman citizen), the freedman remained in the patronage of his former master, who had first call on his time and services. He had little chance to exercise his vote in either of the two tribal Assemblies, as he was invariably placed into one of two vast urban tribes, Suburana or Esquilina. Some slaves of surpassing ability or ruthlessness, however, did amass great fortunes and power as freedmen, and could therefore be sure of a vote in the Centuriate Assembly; such freedmen usually managed to have themselves transferred into rural tribes as well, and thus exercised the complete franchise.

  free man A man born free and never sold into outright slavery, though he could be sold as a nexus or debt slave. The latter was rare, however, inside Italy during the late Republic.

  games In Latin, ludi. Games were a Roman institution and pastime which went back at least as far as the early Republic, and probably a lot further. At first they were celebrated only when a general triumphed, but in 336 b.c. the ludi Romani became an annual event, and were joined later by an ever-increasing number of other games throughout the year. All games tended to become longer in duration as well. At first games consisted mostly of chariot races, then gradually came to incorporate animal hunts, and plays performed in specially erected temporary theaters. Every set of games commenced on the first day with a solemn but spectacular religious procession through the Circus, after which came a chariot race or two, and then some boxing and wrestling, limited to this first day. The succeeding days were taken up with theatricals; comedy was more popular than tragedy, and eventually the freewheeling Atellan mimes and farces most popular of all. As the games drew to a close, chariot racing reigned supreme, with animal hunts to vary the program. Gladiatorial combats did not form a part of Republican games (they were put on by private individuals, usually in connection with a dead relative, in the Forum Romanum rather than in the Circus). Games were put on at the expense of the State, though men ambitious to make a name for themselves dug deeply into their private purses while serving as aediles to make "their" games more spectacular than the State-allocated funds permitted. Most of the big games were held in the Circus Maximus, some of the smaller ones in the Circus Flaminius. Free Roman citizen men and women were permitted to attend (there was no admission charge), with women segregated in the theater but not in the Circus; neither slaves nor freedmen were allowed admission, no doubt because even the Circus Maximus, which held 150,000 people, was not large enough to contain freedmen as well as free men.

  Gaul, Gauls A Roman rarely if ever referred to a Celt as a Celt; he was known as a Gaul. Those parts of the world wherein Gauls lived were known as some kind of Gaul, even when the land was in Anatolia (Galatia). Before Caesar's conquests, Gaul-across-the-Alps-that is, Gaul west of the Italian Alps-was roughly divided into two parts: Gallia Comata or Long-haired Gaul, neither Hellenized nor Romanized, and a coastal strip with a bulging extension up the valley of the river Rhodanus which was known as The Province, and both Hellenized as well as Romanized. The name Narbonese Gaul (which I have used in this book) did not become official until the principate of Augustus, though Gaul around the port of Narbo was probably always known as that. The proper name for Gaul-across-the-Alps was Transalpine Gaul. That Gaul more properly known as Cisalpine Gaul because it lay on the Italian side of the Alps I have elected to call Italian Gaul. It too was divided into two parts by the Padus River (the modern Po); I have called them Italian Gaul-across-the-Padus and Italian Gaul-this-side-of-the-Padus. There is also no doubt that the Gauls were racially closely akin to the Romans, for their languages were of similar kind, as were many of their technologies. What enriched the Roman at the ultimate expense of the Gaul was his centurie
s-long exposure to other Mediterranean cultures.

  gens A man's clan or extended family. It was indicated by his nomen, such as Cornelius or Julius, but was feminine in gender, hence they were the gens Cornelia and the gens Julia. gig A two-wheeled vehicle drawn by either two or four animals, more usually mules than horses. Within the limitations of ancient vehicles-springs and shock absorbers did not exist-the gig was very lightly and flexibly built, and was the vehicle of choice for a Roman in a hurry because it was easy for a team to draw, therefore speedy. However, it was open to the elements. In Latin it was a cisia. The carpentum was a heavier version of the gig, having a closed coach body.

  gladiator There is considerable wordage within the pages of this book about gladiators, so I will not enlarge upon them here. Suffice it to say that during Republican times there were only two kinds of gladiator, the Thracian and the Gaul, and that gladiatorial combat was not usually "to the death." The thumbs-up, thumbs-down brutality of the Empire crowds did not exist, perhaps because the State did not own or keep gladiators under the Republic, and few of them were slaves; they were owned by private investors, and cost a great deal of money to acquire, train and maintain. Too much money to want them dead or maimed in the ring. Almost all gladiators during the Republic were Romans, usually deserters or mutineers from the legions. It was very much a voluntary occupation.

  governor A very useful English term to describe the pro-magistrate-proconsul or propraetor-sent to direct, command and manage one of Rome's provinces. His term was set at one year, but very often it was prorogued, sometimes (as in the case of Metellus Pius in Further Spain) for many years.

  Gracchi The Brothers Gracchi, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and his younger brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. They were the sons of Cornelia (daughter of Scipio Africanus and Aemilia Paulla) and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul in 177 and 163 b.c., censor in 169 b.c.), and the consulship, high military command and the censorship were thus their birthright. Neither man advanced beyond the tribunate of the plebs, due to a peculiar combination of high ideals, iconoclastic thinking, and a tremendous sense of duty to Rome. Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs in 133 b.c., set out to right the wrongs he saw in the way the Roman State was administering its ager publicus; his aim was to give it to the civilian poor of Rome, thus encouraging them by dowering them with land to breed sons and work hard. When the end of the year saw his work still undone, Tiberius Gracchus flouted custom by attempting to run for the tribunate of the plebs a second time. He was clubbed to death on the Capitol.