GLOSSARY

ABSOLVO The term employed by a court jury when voting for the acquittal of the accused.

aedile There were four Roman magistrates called aediles; two were plebeian aediles, two were curule aediles. Their duties were confined to the city of Rome. The plebeian aediles were created first (493 B.C.) to assist the tribunes of the plebs in their duties, but, more particularly, to guard the right of the Plebs to its headquarters, located in the temple of Ceres. Soon the plebeian aediles inherited supervision of the city’s buildings, both public and private, as well as archival custody of all plebiscites passed in the Plebeian Assembly, together with any senatorial decrees (consulta) directing the enactment of plebiscites. They were elected by the Plebeian Assembly, and did not have the right to sit in the curule chair; nor were they entitled to lictors. Then in 367 B.C. two curule aediles were created to give the patricians a share in custody of the city’s buildings and archives. They were elected by the Popular Assembly, which comprised the whole people, patrician and plebeian, and therefore had the right to sit in the curule chair and be preceded by two lictors. Very soon, however, the curule aediles were as likely to be plebeians as patricians. From the third century B.C. downward, all four were responsible for the care of Rome’s streets, water supply, drains and sewers, traffic, public buildings, building standards and regulations for private buildings, public monuments and facilities, markets, weights and measures (standard sets of these were housed in the basement of the temple of Castor and Pollux), games, and the public grain supply. They had the power to fine citizens and non-citizens alike for infringements of any regulation appertaining to any of the above, and deposited the moneys in their coffers to help fund the games. Aedile—curule or plebeian—was not a magistracy of the cursus honorum (see magistrates), but because of its association with the games was a valuable magistracy for a man to hold just before he stood for office as praetor.

Agedincum An oppidum belonging to the Senones. Modern Sens.

agora The open space, usually surrounded by colonnades or some kind of public buildings, which served any Greek or Hellenic city as its public meeting place and civic center. The Roman equivalent was a forum.

ague The old name for the rigors of malaria.

Alba Helviorum The main town of the Helvii. Near modern Le Teil.

Albis River The Elbe.

Alesia An oppidum of the Mandubii. Modern Alise-Ste.-Reine.

Alexander the Great King of Macedonia, and eventually of most of the known world. Born in 356 B.C., he was the son of Philip II and one Olympias of Epirus. His tutor was Aristotle. At the age of twenty, he acceded to the throne upon his father’s assassination. Regarding Asia Minor as in his purlieus, he determined to invade it. He first crushed all opposition in Macedonia and Greece, then in 334 B.C. led an army of forty thousand men into Anatolia. Having liberated all the Greek city-states therein from Persian rule, he proceeded to subdue all resistance in Syria and Egypt, where he is said to have consulted the oracle of Amon at modern Siwah. The year 331 B.C. saw him marching for Mesopotamia to meet the Persian King, Darius. Darius was defeated at Gaugamela; Alexander went on to conquer the empire of the Persians (Media, Susiana, Persia), accumulating fabulous booty. From the Caspian Sea he continued east to conquer Bactria and Sogdiana, reaching the Hindu Kush after a three-year campaign which cost him dearly. To ensure his treaties he married the Sogdian princess Roxane, then set out for India. Resistance in the Punjab ceased upon the defeat of King Porus on the Hyphasis River, from whence he marched down the Indus River to the sea. In the end his own troops curtailed Alexander’s plans by refusing to accompany him eastward to the Ganges. He turned west again, dividing his army; half marched with him overland and half sailed with his marshal Nearchos. The fleet was delayed by monsoons, and Alexander’s own progress through Gedrosia was a frightful ordeal. Eventually what was left of the army reunited in Mesopotamia; Alexander settled down in Babylon. There he contracted a fever and died in 323 B.C. at the age of thirty-two, leaving his marshals to divide his empire amid war and dissent. His son by Roxane, born posthumously, never lived to inherit. The indications are that Alexander wished to be worshiped as a god.

Ambrussum A town in the Roman Gallic Province on the Via Domitia to Narbo and Spain. It was near Lunel.

Anatolia Roughly, modern Turkey. It incorporated Bithynia, Mysia, the Roman Asian Province, Lycia, Pisidia, Phrygia, Paphlagonia, Pontus, Galatia, Lacaonia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Cappadocia and Armenia Parva (Little Armenia).

animus The Oxford Latin Dictionary has the best definition, so I will quote it: “The mind as opposed to the body, the mind or soul as constituting with the body the whole person.” One must be careful, however, not to attribute belief in the immortality of the soul to Romans.

Aous River The Vijose River, in modern Albania.

Apollonia The southern terminus of the Via Egnatia, the road which traveled from Byzantium and the Hellespont to the Adriatic Sea. Apollonia lay near the mouth of the Aous (Vijose) River.

Apsus River The Seman River, in modern Albania. In Caesar’s time it appears to have served as the boundary between Epirus to its south and western Macedonia to its north.

Aquae Sextiae A town in the Roman Gallic Province near which Gaius Marius won a huge victory against the Teutonic Germans in 102 B.C. The modern name is Aix-en-Provence. Aquilifer The soldier who bore a legion’s silver Eagle.

Aquitania The lands between the Garumna River (the Garonne) and the Pyrenees.

Arar River The Saône River.

Arausio Orange.

Arduenna The Ardennes Forest.

Arelate Arles.

Ariminum Rimini.

armillae The wide bracelets, of gold or silver, awarded as prizes for valor to Roman legionaries, centurions, cadets and military tribunes of more junior rank.

Arnus River The Arno River. It served as the boundary between Italian Gaul and Italia proper on the western side of the Apennine watershed.

Assembly(comitium, comitia) Any gathering of the Roman People convoked to deal with governmental, legislative, judicial, or electoral matters. In the time of Caesar there were three true Assemblies: the Centuries, the People, and the Plebs. The Centuriate Assembly marshaled the People, patrician and plebeian, in their Classes, which were filled by a means test and were economic in nature. As this was originally a military assemblage of cavalry knights, each Class gathered outside the sacred city boundary on the Campus Martius at a place called the Saepta. Except for the senior eighteen Centuries, kept to one hundred members, many more than one hundred men were lumped into one Century by Caesar’s time. The Centuriate Assembly met to elect consuls, praetors and (every five years) censors. It also met to hear major charges of treason (perduellio) and could pass laws. Under ordinary circumstances it was not convoked to pass laws or hear trials. The Assembly of the People or Popular Assembly (comitia populi tributa) allowed the full participation of patricians and was tribal in nature, convoked in the thirty-five tribes into which all Roman citizens were placed. Called into session by a consul or praetor, it normally met in the well of the Comitia, in the lower Forum Romanum. It elected the curule aediles, the quaestors, and the tribunes of the soldiers. Until Sulla established the standing courts it conducted trials; in the time of Caesar it met to formulate and pass laws as well as hold elections. The Plebeian Assembly (comitia plebis tributa or concilium plebis) was also a tribal assembly, but it did not allow participation of patricians. The only magistrate empowered to convoke it was a tribune of the plebs. It had the right to enact laws (called plebiscites) and conduct trials, though trials were few after Sulla established standing courts. Its members elected the plebeian aediles and the tribunes of the plebs. It usually met in the well of the Comitia. See also tribe and voting,

atrium The main reception room of a Roman domus, or private house. It generally contained an opening in the roof above a pool (impluvium) originally intended as a reservoir for domestic use. By Caesar’s time, the pool had become ornamental only.

auctoritas A very difficult Latin term to translate, as it meant far more than the English word “authority” implies. It carried nuances of pre-eminence, clout, public importance and—above all—the ability to influence events through sheer public reputation. All the magistracies possessed auctoritas as an intrinsic part of their nature, but auctoritas was not confined to those who held magistracies. The Princeps Senatus, Pontifex Maximus, other priests and augurs, consulars and even some private citizens outside the ranks of the Senate owned auctoritas. Though the plutocrat Titus Pomponius Atticus was never a senator, his auctoritas was formidable.

augur A priest whose duties concerned divination. He and his fellow augurs constituted the College of Augurs, an official State body which numbered twelve members (six patricians and six plebeians) until in 81 B.C. Sulla increased its membership to fifteen, always thereafter intended to contain one more plebeian than patrician. Originally augurs were co-opted by the College of Augurs, but in 104 B.C. Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus brought in a law compelling election of future augurs by an assembly of seventeen tribes chosen from the thirty-five by lot. Sulla in 81 B.C. removed election, going back to co-optation, but after his death election was reestablished. The augur did not predict the future, nor did he pursue his auguries at his own whim; he inspected the proper objects or signs to ascertain whether or not the undertaking in question met with the approval of the Gods, be the undertaking a contio, a war, legislation, or any other State business, including elections. There was a standard manual of interpretation to which the augur referred; augurs “went by the book.” The augur wore the purple-and-scarlet-striped toga trabea and carried a curved, curlicued staff, the lituus.

aurochs The progenitor of modern cattle, now extinct, in Caesar’s time this huge wild ox still roamed the impenetrable forests of Germania, though it had disappeared from the Ardennes. Auser River The Serchio River in Italy.

Avaricum The largest oppidum of the Bituriges, and said to be the most beautiful oppidum in Gallia Comata. It is now the city of Bourges.

ave Hello in Latin.

Axona River The Aisne River.

ballista In Republican times, a piece of artillery designed to hurl stones and boulders. The missile was placed in a spoon-shaped arm which was put under extreme tension by means of a rope spring wound up very tightly; when the spring was released, the arm shot into the air and came to rest against a thick pad, propelling the missile a considerable distance depending upon the size of the missile and the size of the machine itself.

barbarian Derived from a Greek word having strong onomatopoeic overtones. On first hearing certain peoples speak, the Greeks heard it as “bar-bar,” like animals barking. “Barbarian” was not a word applied to any people settled around the Mediterranean Sea or in Asia Minor, but referred to peoples and nations deemed uncivilized, lacking in any desirable or admirable culture. Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Sarmatians, Massagetae and other peoples of the steppes and forests were barbarians.

battlement The parapet along the top of a fortified wall at its full (that is, above head level) height. The battlement afforded shelter for those not engaged in the actual fighting.

Belgae, Belgica The Belgae were those tribes of Gauls who were a hybrid mixture of Celt and German. Their religion was Druidic, but they often preferred cremation to inhumation. Some, like the Treveri, had progressed to the stage of electing annual magistrates called vergobrets, but most still subscribed to the rule of kings; the title of king was not hereditary, but attained through combat or other trials of strength. The Belgae lived in that part of Gallia Comata called Belgica, which may be thought of as north of the Sequana (Seine) River and extending east to the Rhenus (Rhine) River north of the lands of the Mandubii.

Beroea Veroia, in Greece.

Bibracte An oppidum of the Aedui, now Mont Beuvray.

Bibrax An oppidum of the Remi. Near Laon.

bireme A galley constructed for use in naval warfare, and intended to be rowed rather than sailed, though it was equipped with a mast and sail (usually left ashore if action was likely). Some biremes were decked or partially decked, but most were open. It seems that the oarsmen did sit on two levels at two separate banks of oars, the upper bank accommodated in an outrigger, and the lower bank’s oars poking through leather-valved ports in the ship’s sides. Built of fir or some other lightweight pine, the bireme could be manned only in fair weather, and fight battles only in very calm seas. Like all warships, it was not left in the water, but stored in shipsheds. It was much longer than it was wide in the beam (the ratio was about 7:1), and probably measured about 100 feet (30 meters) in length. There were upward of one hundred oarsmen. A bronze-reinforced beak of oak projected forward of the bow just below the waterline, and was used for ramming and sinking other galleys. The bireme was not designed to carry marines or artillery, or grapple to engage other vessels in land-style combat. Throughout Greek and Roman Republican times the ship was rowed by professional oarsmen, never by slaves. Slaves sent to the galleys were a feature of Christian times.

breastworks The parapet along the top of a fortified wall contained breast-high sections designed to enable the defenders to fight over their tops. These were the breastworks.

Brundisium Modern Brindisi.

Burdigala An oppidum of the Aquitanian Bituriges near the mouth of the Garumna (Garonne) River. Modern Bordeaux.

Cabillonum An oppidum of the Aedui upon the Arar (Saone) River. Modern Chalon-sur-Saône.

Cacat! Shit!

Calabria Confusing for modern Italians! Nowadays Calabria is the toe of the boot, but in Roman times it was the heel. Brundisium and Tarentum were the important cities. Its people were the Illyrian Messapii.

Campus Martius The Field of Mars. Situated north of the Servian Walls, it was bounded by the Capitol on its south and the Pincian Hill on its east; the rest of it was enclosed by a huge bend in the Tiber River. In Republican times it was not inhabited as a suburb, but was the place where triumphing armies bivouacked, the young were trained in military exercises, horses engaged in chariot racing were stabled and trained, the Centuriate Assembly met, and market gardening vied with public park-lands. At the apex of the river bend lay the public swimming holes known as the Trigarium, and just to the north of the Trigarium were medicinal hot springs called the Tarentum. The Via Lata (Via Flaminia) crossed the Campus Martius on its way to the Mulvian Bridge; the Via Recta bisected the Via Lata at right angles.

Capena Gate The Porta Capena. One of the two most important gates in Rome’s Servian Walls (the other was the Porta Collina, the Colline Gate). It lay beyond the Circus Maximus, and outside it was the common highway which branched into the Via Appia and the Via Latina about half a mile beyond it.

capite censi Literally, the Head Count. Also known as proletarii. They were the lowly of Rome, and were called the Head Count because at a census all the censors did was to “count heads.” Too poor to belong to a Class, the urban Head Count usually belonged to one of the four urban tribes, and therefore owned no worthwhile votes. This rendered them politically useless, though the ruling class was very careful to ensure that they were fed at public expense and given plenty of free entertainment. It is significant that during the centuries when Rome owned the world, the Head Count never rose against their betters. Rural Head Count, though owning a valuable rural tribal vote, could rarely afford to come to Rome at election time. I have sedulously avoided terms like “the masses” or “the proletariat” because of post-Marxist preconceptions not applicable to the ancient lowly.

Carantomagus An oppidum belonging to the Ruteni. Near modern Villefranche.

Carcasso A stronghold in the Roman Gallic Province on the Atax River not far from Narbo. Modern Carcassonne.

Carinae One of Rome’s most exclusive addresses. Incorporating the Fagutal, the Carinae was the northern tip of the Oppian Mount on its western side; it extended from the Velia to the Clivus Pullius. Its outlook was southwestern, toward the Aventine.

Caris River The Cher River.

carpentum A four-wheeled, closed carriage drawn by six to eight mules.

cartouche The personal hieroglyphs peculiar to each individual Egyptian pharaoh, enclosed within an oval (or rectangular with rounded corners) framing line. The practice continued through until the last pharaoh of all, Cleopatra VII.

cataphract A cavalryman clad in chain mail from the top of his head to his toes; his horse was also clad in chain mail. Cataphracts were peculiar to Armenia and to the Kingdom of the Parthians at this period in time, though they were the ancestors of the medieval knight. Because of the weight of their armor, their horses were very large and bred in Media.

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 better 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.

domine My lord. Vocative case.

Domus Publica The official State residence of the Pontifex Maximus and, in Republican times, also the residence of the six Vestal Virgins, who were in the hand of the Pontifex Maximus. It was located in the Forum Romanum at about the middle latitude.

Druid A priest of the Druidic religion, which dominated spiritual (and often earthly) thought among the Gauls, be they Celts or Belgae. It took twenty years to train a Druid, who was required to memorize every aspect of his calling from lays to rituals to laws. Nothing was written down. Druids once consecrated as Druids held the position for life. They were permitted to marry. As directors of thought, they paid no taxes or tithes, did not do military service, and were fed and housed at the expense of the tribe. They provided the priests, lawyers and doctors.

dug-mullets A kind of fish which lived in sandy or muddy bottoms around river estuaries. I imagine they were flounders.

Durocortorum The principal oppidum of the Remi. Modern Reims.

duumviri The two men, elected annually, who headed the municipal governing body or the town governing body.

Dyrrachium Modern Durres in Albania.

Eagle Among the army reforms instituted by Gaius Marius was one which gifted each legion with a silver eagle set upon a long pole pointed at its nether end so it could be driven into the ground. The Eagle was the legion’s rallying point and its most venerated standard.

Edepol! A very benign and socially unexceptionable expletive, akin to our “Oh, darn!” Edepol was reserved for men. Women said, “Ecastor!”

Elaver River The Allier River.

Elysian Fields A very special place in the afterlife for very few people. Whereas ordinary shades or spirits were thought to be mindless, twittering, flitting denizens of an underworld both cheerless and drab, some men’s shades were treated differently. Tartarus was that part of Hades where men of great evil like Ixion and Sisyphus were doomed to toil literally eternally at some task perpetually unraveled or undone. The Elysian Fields or Elysium were a part of Hades akin to what might be called Paradise, Nirvana. Interestingly, entrance to either Tartarus or Elysium was reserved for men who in some way had connections to the Gods. Those doomed to Tartarus had offended the Gods, not man. And those transported to the Elysian Fields were either the sons of Gods, married to Gods, or married to human children of the Gods. This may account for the driving wish of some men and women to be worshiped as Gods while still living, or made into Gods after death. Alexander the Great wanted to be declared a God. So, some maintain, did Caesar.

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 taboo. However, these tenets underwent considerable modification in Rome. A Roman nobleman could call himself an Epicurean yet still espouse his public career. By the late Republic, the chief pleasures of an Epicurean were food and wine.

Epirus That part of the Grecian/Macedonian west adjacent to the Adriatic Sea which extended from the Apsus (Seman) River in the north to the Gulf of Ambracia in the south, and inland to the high mountains. Modern Albania is perhaps not the right description; it goes too far north and not far enough south to be aligned with ancient Epirus.

Equites, equestrian, Ordo Equester See knights.

Esus The Druidic God of war. His elemental nature was air.

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 my readers by employing a more varied terminology.

Euxine Sea The modern Black Sea.

fasces These were bundles of birch rods ritually tied together into a cylinder by crisscrossed red leather thongs. Originally an emblem of the Etruscan kings, they passed into the customs and traditions of the emerging Rome, persisting in Roman life throughout the Republic and on into the Empire. Carried by men called lictors (see lictor), they preceded the curule magistrate or promagistrate as the outward indication of his imperium. There were thirty rods for the thirty curiae or original tribal divisions of Roman men under the kings. Within the pomerium of Rome only the rods went into the fasces, to indicate that the curule magistrate had the power to chastise, but not to execute; outside the pomerium two axes were inserted into the fasces to indicate that the curule magistrate had the power to execute. The only man who could bring fasces holding the axes inside the sacred boundary of Rome was the dictator. The number of fasces (and lictors) told the degree of imperium: a dictator had twenty-four, a consul and proconsul twelve, a praetor and propraetor six, and a curule aedile two.

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). For a fuller explanation, see fasti in the Glossary to The First Man in Rome.

fellatrix, fellatricesA woman or women who sucked a man’s penis.

filibuster A modern term for a political practice as old as the concept of a parliament. It consisted, then as now, of “talking a motion out.”

flamen A special priest dedicated to one particular Roman God. They were the oldest in time of Rome’s priests. Caesar had been flamen Dialis, the special priest of Jupiter (Marius had him so consecrated at thirteen years of age); Sulla stripped him of it.

forum The public meeting place of any Roman town or city. It was surrounded by public buildings and arcades housing shops or offices.

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 of Hercules lay therein.

freedman A manumitted slave. Though technically a free man (and, if his former master was a Roman citizen, himself also a Roman citizen), the freedman remained in the patronage of his former master, who had first call on his time and services.

free man A man born free and never sold into slavery.

Gades Modern Cádiz.

Gallia Gaul. Commonly regarded as the area of modern France and Belgium. There were four Gauls: the Roman Gallic Province (always called, simply, the Province), which encompassed the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea between Niceia (modern Nice) and the Pyrenees and included a tongue which went from the Cebenna (the Cevennes) to the Alps as far up as Lugdunum (modern Lyon); the lands of the Belgae, which lay to the north of the Sequana River (the Seine) from the Atlantic to the Rhenus (Rhine); the lands of the Celtae, which lay south of the Sequana and to the north of the Garumna (Garonne); and the lands collectively called Aquitania, which lay between the Garumna and the Pyrenees. The latter three Gauls together constituted Gallia Comata.

Gallia Comata Gaul of the Long-hairs. That is, un-Romanized Gaul.

games In Latin, ludi. Public entertainments put on by certain magistrates of the year, and held in one of the two circuses (usually the Circus Maximus), or both circuses. Games consisted of chariot races (the most popular events), athletic contests and theatrical performances put on in temporary wooden theaters. The Republican games did not include gladiatorial combat, which was confined to funeral games put on by private individuals in the Forum Romanum. Free Roman men and women were permitted to attend the games, but not freedmen or freed-women; the circuses could not accommodate all the free, let alone the freed.

garum A noisome concentrate made from fish which was used as a basis for many sauces. It was highly prized by gourmets.

Garumna River The Garonne River.

Gaul, Gauls For French Gaul, see Gallia. “Gaul” was what Romans called a man of Celtic or Belgic race, no matter which part of the world he inhabited. Thus there were Gauls not only in modern France, but also in Italian Gaul, Switzerland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and that part of modern Turkey around Ankara.

Genava Modern Geneve, Geneva.

gens humana The human family of peoples.

Genusus River The Shkumbin River in modern Albania.

Gergovia The principal oppidum of a very powerful Gallic tribe, the Arverni. It was near modern Clermont-Ferrand.

German Ocean Basically, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

Gerrae! Rubbish! Nonsense!

gladiator During Republican times there were only two kinds of gladiator, the Thracian and the Gaul. These were styles of combat, not nationalities. Republican gladiators did not fight to the death, because they were expensive investments owned privately by individuals; purchasing, training, feeding and housing a gladiator was costly. Few of them were slaves. Most were deserters from the Roman army, offered a choice between disenfranchisement and a term as a gladiator. The gladiator fought for a total of six years or thirty bouts (he had around five bouts per year), after which he was free to do as he pleased. The best gladiators were heroes to the people of Italia and Italian Gaul.

gladius The Roman sword. It was short, the blade being about 2 feet (600mm) long and sharp on both edges. It ended in a point. The handle was made of wood in the case of an ordinary soldier; those higher than a ranker who could afford it preferred a handle made of ivory carved in the shape of an eagle.

Gorgobina The principal oppidum of the Boii. Modern St.-Parize-le-Chatel.

Head Count See capite censi.

Hellenic, Hellenized These are terms relating to the spread of Greek culture and customs after the time of Alexander the Great. Life style, architecture, dress, industry, government, commerce and the Greek language were all part of it.

Heracleia Near modern Bitola, in Makedonia.

Hierosolyma The other, Hellenic name for Jerusalem.

horse See October Horse and Public Horse.

hostis The term used when the Senate and People of Rome declared a man an outlaw, a public enemy.

Iberus River The Ebro River.

Icauna River The Yonne River.

Ides The third of the three named days of the month which represented the fixed points of the month. Dates were reckoned backward from each of these points—Kalends, Nones and Ides. The Ides occurred on the fifteenth day of the long months (March, May, July and October) and on the thirteenth day of the other months.

Ilium The Roman name for Troy.

Illerda Modern Lerida in Spain.

Illyricum The wild and mountainous lands bordering the Adriatic on its eastern side. The native peoples belonged to an Indo-European race called Illyrians, were tribalized, and detested first Greek and then Roman coastal incursions. By the time of Caesar, Illyricum was an unofficial province governed in conjunction with Italian Gaul. That Caesar’s long years as governor were good for Illyricum is evidenced by the fact that Illyricum remained loyal to him during his civil wars.

imperium Imperium was the degree of authority vested in a curule magistrate or promagistrate. It meant that a man owned the authority of his office, and could not be gainsaid provided he was acting within the limits of his particular level of imperium and within the laws dictating his conduct. Imperium was conferred by a lex curiata and lasted for one year only. Extensions for prorogued governors had to be ratified by the Senate and/or People of Rome. Lictors shouldering the fasces indicated a man’s imperium: the more lictors, the higher the imperium.

imperium maius Unlimited imperium, which outranked the imperium of the consuls of the year. The main benefactor of imperium maius was Pompey the Great.

in absentia Described a candidacy for public office approved of by the Senate (and the People, if necessary) and an election conducted in the absence of the candidate himself. He may have been waiting on the Campus Martius because imperium prevented his crossing the pomerium to register as a candidate and fight the election in person. Cicero when consul in 63 B.C. enacted a law prohibiting in absentia candidacy; Pompey reinforced this during his consulship without a colleague in 52 B.C.

in suo anno Literally, “in his year.” The phrase was used to describe men who attained curule office at the exact age the law and custom prescribed for a man holding that office. To be praetor and consul in suo anno was a great distinction, as it meant that a man had gained office at his first attempt.

intercalaris Because the Roman year was only 355 days long, some 20 days extra were inserted after the month of February every two years—or ought to have been. Very often this was not done, with the result that the calendar galloped ahead of the seasons. By the time Caesar rectified the calendar in 46 B.C., the seasons were lagging 100 days behind the calendar, so few intercalations had been made. It was the duty of the Colleges of Pontifices and Augurs to intercalate; while Caesar, Pontifex Maximus from 63 B.C., was in Rome these intercalations were made, but when he went to Gaul in 58 B.C. the practice ceased, with one or two exceptions.

interrex It meant “between the kings.” When Rome had no consuls to go into office on New Year’s Day, the Senate appointed a patrician senator, leader of his decury, to assume office as the interrex. He served for five days, then a second interrex was appointed to hold elections. Sometimes public violence prevented the second interrex from this duty, with the result that a further series of interreges served until elections could be held.

Italia The Italian Peninsula. The boundary between Italia proper and Italian Gaul consisted of two rivers, the Arnus on the western side of the Apennines, and the Rubicon on the eastern side.

Italian Gaul In Latin, Gallia Cisalpina, meaning “Gaul on this side of the Alps.” The peoples of Italian Gaul, which lay to the north of the rivers Arnus and Rubicon, and between the town of Ocelum in the west and Aquileia in the east, were held to be Gauls descended from the Gallic tribes which invaded Italy in 390 B.C., and therefore to the more conservative Roman mind not worthy to hold the full Roman citizenship. This became the sorest point in the minds of the Italian Gauls, particularly for those on the far (north) side of the Padus River (the Po); Pompey the Great’s father, Pompey Strabo, legislated the full citizenship for those living south of the Padus in 89 B.C., while those living to the north continued as non-citizens or the second-class citizens who held the Latin Rights. Caesar was the great champion of full enfranchisement for all of Italian Gaul, and made it the first thing he legislated when appointed Dictator at the end of 49 B.C. It was, however, still governed as a province of Rome rather than as a part of Italia proper.

iugerum, iugera The Roman unit of land measurement. In modern terms the iugerum consisted of 0.623 (five-eighths) of an acre, or 0.252 (one-quarter) of a hectare. The modern reader used to acres will get close enough by dividing iugera by 2; for metric readers, divide by 4 to get the number of hectares.

Kalends The first of the three named days of each month which represented the fixed points of the month. The Kalends always occurred on the first day of the month. Originally they had been timed to coincide with the appearance of the New Moon.

knights The equites, the members of what Gaius Gracchus named the Ordo Equester or Equestrian Order. Under the kings of Rome, the equites had formed the cavalry segment of the Roman army; at this time horses were both scarce and expensive, with the result that the eighteen original Centuries comprising the knights were dowered with the Public Horse by the State. As the Republic came into being and grew, the importance of Roman knight cavalry waned. Yet the number of knight Centuries in the Classes kept increasing. By the second century B.C. Rome no longer fielded horse of her own, preferring to use Gauls as auxiliaries. The knights became a social and economic group having little to do with military matters. They were now defined by the censors in economic terms alone, though the State continued to provide a Public Horse for each of the eighteen hundred most senior equites, called the Eighteen. These original eighteen Centuries were kept at one hundred members each, but the rest of the knights’ Centuries (between seventy-one and seventy-five) swelled within themselves to contain many more than one hundred men apiece. Until 123 B.C. all senators were knights as well, but in that year Gaius Gracchus split the Senate off as a separate body of three hundred men. It was at best an artificial process; all nonsenatorial members of a senator’s family were still classified as knights and the senators were not put into three senators-only Centuries for voting purposes, but left in whichever Centuries they had always occupied. Nor, it appears, were senators stripped of their Public Horses if they belonged in the ranks of the Eighteen. Economically the full member of the First Class had to possess an income of 400,000 sesterces per annum; those knights whose income lay between 300,000 and 400,000 sesterces per annum were probably the tribuni aerarii. Senators were supposed to have an annual income of one million sesterces, but this was entirely unofficial; some censors were lenient about it, others strict. The real difference between senators and knights lay in the kinds of activities they might pursue to earn income. Senators were forbidden to indulge in any form of commerce not pertaining to the ownership of land, whereas knights could.

latus clavus The broad purple stripe which adorned the right shoulder of a senator’s tunic. He alone was entitled to wear it. The knight wore a narrow purple stripe, the angustus clavus, and those below the status of knights wore no stripe at all.

lectus imus, lectus medius, locus consularis A lectus was a couch, mostly used for dining (the lectus funebris was the funerary bier). Couches were arranged in threes to form a U; if one stood in the doorway of a dining room (the triclinium) looking into the U, the couch on the right was the lectus imus, the couch in the middle forming the bottom of the U was the lectus medius, and the couch on the left was the lectus summus. Socially the most desirable couch was the lectus medius. Positions on the couches were also socially graded, with the head of the household located at the left end of the lectus medius. The spot for the guest of honor, the locus consularis, was at the right end of the lectus medius. A continuous U of table at a little below couch height stood just in front of the couches. During the Republic couches were reserved for men; women sat on chairs placed inside the U on the opposite side of the tables from the couches.

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.