Ave, Caesarion (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  Compitalia — Festival beginning in early Ianuarius honoring the lares of each household with offerings of cakes at crossroads. And in every household, slaves and masters alike left representations of themselves outside the doors—small poppets, identical to the masters, hanging from nooses, and small balls of cotton or wool for the slaves—in a bid to keep Mania (the underworld goddess who wasn’t Proserpina) from taking any of their lives in sacrifice. Any resemblance to Halloween isn’t strictly in the eye of the beholder.

  Cubicula — The small rooms of a Roman villa, including bedrooms. Singular: cubiculum.

  Devotio — Root of the word devotion. This meant both the willingness of the ordinary soldier to die in battle, and was also a specialized term for a ritual in which a leader of a group of soldiers would pledge his life to Pluto, Proserpina, Jupiter, and Quirinus, offering himself in sacrifice in battle, for the lives of his men and the victory of his army. This sacrifice was almost inevitably accepted.

  Divalia — Festival held on December 21 of each year, dedicated to Angerona and Voluptia, goddesses of peace, plenty, and joy.

  Domina, dominus — Lady or lord.

  Equestris — Horseman; nickname for the Tenth Legion, an infantry division, is a homage to some of them having mounted up to accompany Caesar as his bodyguards. Otherwise, used in mild irony for that legion.

  Ferrata — Ironclad. Nom de guerre of the Sixth Legion

  Frontem allargate — Form staggered formation!

  Garum — Fish sauce

  Imperator — Technically, the leader of an army invested with imperium by the Senate. By this point in time, the dictator-for-life position taken by Caesar and by Caesarion has become solidly associated with this term.

  Imperium — the legal authority of leadership invested in consuls or imperators by the Senate (in theory), which enabled them to recruit armies. Someone without sufficient imperium could not command armies.

  Infamio — The condition of infamy. An infamis (male singular) or infames (plural) were people who had put themselves beyond the social pale, sunk themselves below the condition of slaves. A male on the receiving end of penetrative sexual relations was an infamis; a freeborn or noble-born male who became a gladiator—effectively willingly becoming a slave, giving someone else the right to order him to die—was an infamis. Actors, who by custom handled the masks of dead ancestors, and wore those masks in a bid to allow the ghosts, the penates, to enter into them, were also considered unclean—almost as unclean as, say, mortuary workers or Untouchables in the Indian caste system.

  Infamio had serious social repercussions, including being stripped of citizenship and potentially even property. But with that in mind, gladiators enjoyed a certain amount of panache. And even they had their pride, and limits to what they considered acceptable behavior.

  Accusations of behavior that was infamous was rife in the rhetoric of the Senate, with Senators almost constantly accusing one another of terrible misdeeds and peccadillos. And given that duels were not a thing in their culture, the only recourse for such accusations were libel lawsuits, or crushing the house of the accused in some fashion.

  Landica — Obscene term for the clitoris.

  Lares — House-spirits, or small gods.

  Libra/librae — A Roman measure of weight, equivalent to .725 modern pounds, or 328.9 g

  Lorica hamata — Lorica means body armor; the hamata was a chain shirt, commonly worn by many legionnaires and their Gallic adversaries.

  Lorica plumata — The plumata was a type of scaled armor designed to look like bird feathers and often gilded. Due to the expense of crafting it, this armor was generally only owned by high-ranking officers.

  Lorica segmentata — This is the prototypical Hollywood legionnaire armor, similar to a plate hauberk for the torso and shoulders. It would not be developed in Real-Earth until the mid-Augustan period, and only saw a couple of centuries of use.

  Lorica squamata — armor of heavy, overlapping scales favored by legionnaires who didn’t affect a flashy muscle cuirass. This is Caesarion’s personal armor choice through the first several books.

  Ludes/ludi — Games offered for ritual reasons or for purposes of public entertainment. Could include gladiatorial combat, horse or chariot races, or other activities.

  Lunula — Amulet worn by girls before becoming women. Burned, along with all their other possessions, on becoming women/wives for the first time, and being permitted to wear a stola. Intended to bind them to their household lares and offer the protection of the spirits, the burning symbolically cuts their ties to their original family in the tradition of female exogamy common to Rome.

  Malleolus — A hammer, or maul.

  Mappae — Napkins.

  Matronalia — The day on which Mars was theoretically born to Juno, if you follow Roman mythology. If you follow Hellene myths, Ares is one of Hera’s brothers. In any event, this is Mother’s Day. On which sons and fathers recognize the efforts of their mothers and wives throughout the year with gifts. . . and on which day, the mother of the house must cook for and serve everyone, including the slaves. All women’s hair must be unbound, and not a single knot in their garments.

  Medicus — Physician

  Munera — Games that included gladiatorial combat.

  Munifex — A non-specialist soldier, or milites.

  Novendialis — The ninth and final required day of official mourning for a dead family member. For the wealthy, this involved sacrifices, actors hired to wear the masks of dead ancestors, and the offering of games in honor of the chthonic gods.

  Optimates — The “Best men,” otherwise known as the boni, or “good men,” these men were a political faction of traditionalists and conservatives in the late Roman Republic, who tried to limit the power of public assemblies and the Tribune of the Plebs.

  Panis — The round emmer-grain bread on which most of Rome lived.

  Parazonium — Long, leaf-bladed dagger carried by senior officers as a symbol of rank. Also almost always carried by Roma in images of the city personified as a goddess.

  Penates — The spirits of the dead.

  Peristylium — One of the two open-air areas of a Roman villa, the other being the atrium. This section was added to Roman houses after an influx of Hellene culture, and was a more informal garden, equivalent to an outdoor living room.

  Pes/pesi — A Roman foot, or .971 English feet/296 mm.

  Pilum; pl. Pila — Long spear carried by legionnaires.

  Proscription — Legal proceeding by which an otherwise sacrosanct, inviolate Roman citizen could be stripped of his citizenship and its protection from torture, etc., and could also be stripped of his lands and money. People who aided proscribed individuals who fled the state, could be proscribed themselves.

  Pugio — A short, wide-bladed dagger carried by every legionnaire.

  Quaestorium — The storehouse of a legion; it can double as a prison for slaves taken in battle, or important prisoners.

  Salii — The leaping priests of Mars. Limited to twelve in number, they were a rare life-time appointment to their positions, and technically barred from pursuing political office, but if they were appointed to a higher office, that office superseded that of the salii. They were in charge of opening and closing the war-season in March and October, and theoretically protected the sacred and magical shield of Numa, the first king of Rome. So long as that shield remained in Roman hands, it ensured that their civilization would remain the preeminent one on Earth.

  Sambucae — Shipboard siege ladders. Largely ineffective in combat in the pre-Imperial era.

  Saturnalia — Festival beginning on December 23, honoring Saturn. Like Matronalia, social inversions rule the festival, with the servants in charge of the house, and the father of the house serving them. During the Punic Wars, after a crushing defeat by the Carthaginians, a prophecy suggested that if the Romans adopted Hellene observances on this day, Rome would appease both the Hellene gods, and potentially Baal Hamon of Carthage, an
d win victory. Thus, the holiday was Hellenized, and eventually extended out to three days instead of one. People exchanged gifts, ate and drank too much, and masters served the slaves. Any resemblance to modern observances of Christmas and Boxing Day are entirely accurate.

  Subligaria — Loincloths worn by most men under their clothing, and by women on their menstrual flows, or by some male and female athletes.

  Tablinium — Room in a Roman villa located between the peristylium and the atrium. Quite often, only a window, curtain, or some manner of wooden screen separated this roofed-over room from these two open areas, allowing air circulation. Caesarion uses the tablinium as his study.

  Taraxacum — dandelions

  Testudo — “Tortoise.” A slow-moving, defensive formation in which men of a legion move into a tight square and the men in the middle raise their shields overhead in an overlapping, scale-like pattern to hold off incoming missiles.

  Testudinem formate — Turtle formation!

  Tinnunculi — kestrels

  Triclinium — This word refers both to the formal dining room of a Roman villa and to the couches that occupied it. Reclining to eat was originally a Hellene custom adopted by Romans; significantly, however, most Romans did not separate the genders at meals, unless absolute sticklers for Hellene manners.

  Toga picta — The ‘colored’ or ‘painted’ toga, chiefly used by kings in ancient Roman history, now chiefly the purple-dyed one worn by Imperators.

  Toga virilis — The white toga given to a young boy when he becomes a man, officially. The toga may be presented by his family any time after the age of fourteen. Delaying it until the age of eighteen would indicate that his family didn’t think much of him.

  Vallum — a wooden palisade, part of the more elaborate circumvallation.

  Uncia — A “thumb.” Unit of measure equivalent to .971 inches/24.6 mm

  Via — by way of, through; also, highway or road.