Full Glossary of Terms

 

Ad aciem: military command essentially equivalent to ‘Battle stations!’

Amphora (pl. Amphorae): A large pottery storage container, generally used for wine or olive oil.

Aquilifer: a specialised standard bearer that carried a legion’s eagle standard.

Aurora: Roman Goddess of the dawn, sister of Sol and Luna.

Bacchanalia: the wild and often drunken festival of Bacchus.

Buccina: A curved horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the cornu.

Capsarius: Legionary soldiers trained as combat medics, whose job was to patch men up in the field until they could reach a hospital.

Civitas: Latin name given to a certain class of civil settlement, often the capital of a tribal group or a former military base.

Cloaca Maxima: The great sewer of republican Rome that drained the forum into the Tiber.

Contubernium (pl. Contubernia): the smallest division of unit in the Roman legion, numbering eight men who shared a tent.

Cornu: A G-shaped horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the buccina. A trumpeter was called a cornicen.

Corona: Lit: ‘Crowns’. Awards given to military officers. The Corona Muralis and Castrensis were awards for storming enemy walls, while the Aurea was for an outstanding single combat.

Curia: the meeting place of the senate in the forum of Rome.

Cursus Honorum: The ladder of political and military positions a noble Roman is expected to ascend.

Decurion: 1) The civil council of a Roman town. 2) Lesser cavalry officer, serving under a cavalry prefect, with command of thirty two men.

Dolabra: entrenching tool, carried by a legionary, which served as a shovel, pick and axe combined.

Duplicarius: A soldier on double the basic pay.

Equestrian: The often wealthier, though less noble mercantile class, known as knights.

Foederati: non-Roman states who held treaties with Rome and gained some rights under Roman law.

Gaesatus: a spearman, usually a mercenary of Gallic origin.

Gladius: the Roman army’s standard short, stabbing sword, originally based on a Spanish sword design.

Groma: the chief surveying instrument of a Roman military engineer, used for marking out straight lines and calculating angles.

Haruspex (pl. Haruspices): A religious official who confirms the will of the Gods through signs and by inspecting the entrails of animals.

Immunes: legionary soldiers who possessed specialist skills and were consequently excused the more onerous duties.

Kalends: the first day of the Roman month, based on the new moon with the ‘nones’ being the half moon around the 5th-7th of the month and the ‘ides’ being the full moon around the 13th-15th.

Labrum: Large dish on a pedestal filled with fresh water in the hot room of a bath house.

Laconicum: the steam room or sauna in a Roman bath house.

Legatus: Commander of a Roman legion

Liburna: A small, fast moving oar-or-sail based galley-type vessel.

Lilia (Lit. ‘Lilies’): defensive pits three feet deep with a sharpened stake at the bottom, disguised with undergrowth, to hamper attackers.

Lupercalia: Festival in Rome, noted for its riotous behaviour.

Mansio and mutatio: stopping places on the Roman road network for officials, military staff and couriers to stay or exchange horses if necessary.

Mare Nostrum: Latin name for the Mediterranean Sea (literally ‘Our Sea’).

Mars Gravidus: an aspect of the Roman war God, ‘he who precedes the army in battle’, was the God prayed to when an army went to war.

Massilia: Nominally-free Greek port on the south coast of Gaul, allied to Rome, now known as Marseilles.

Miles: the Roman name for a soldier, from which we derive the words military and militia among others.

Optio: A legionary centurion’s second in command.

Orichalcum: a lost metal, possibly a mix of gold and silver, or possibly akin to brass.

Pilum (p: Pila) : the army’s standard javelin, with a wooden stock and a long, heavy lead point.

Pilus Prior: The most senior centurion of a cohort and one of the more senior in a legion.

Praetor: a title granted to the commander of an army. cf the Praetorian Cohort.

Praetorian Cohort: personal bodyguard of a General.

Proconsul: Former consul and governor of a proconsular province.

Primus Pilus: The chief centurion of a legion. Essentially the second in command of a legion.

Pugio: the standard broad bladed dagger of the Roman military.

Quadriga: a chariot drawn by four horses, such as seen at the great races in the circus of Rome.

Samarobriva: oppidum on the Somme River, now called Amiens.

Scorpion, Ballista & Onager: Siege engines. The Scorpion was a large crossbow on a stand, the Ballista a giant missile throwing crossbow, and the Onager a stone hurling catapult.

Signifer: A century’s standard bearer, also responsible for dealing with pay, burial club and much of a unit’s bureaucracy.

Subura: a lower-class area of ancient Rome, close to the forum, that was home to the red-light district’.

Testudo: Lit- Tortoise. Military formation in which a century of men closes up in a rectangle and creates four walls and a roof for the unit with their shields.

Triclinium: The dining room of a Roman house or villa.

Trierarch: Commander of a Trireme or other Roman military ship.

Tuba: A Roman musical instrument – a straight horn.

Turma: A small detachment of a cavalry ala consisting of thirty two men led by a decurion.

Vexillum (Pl. Vexilli): The standard or flag of a legion.

Vindunum: later the Roman Civitas Cenomanorum, and now Le Mans in France.

Vineae: moveable wattle and leather wheeled shelters that covered siege works and attacking soldiers from enemy missiles.