nundinum, nundinae There were eight days in a Roman week, every eighth day being a market day called the nundinus. There was a calendar affixed to the rostra in the Forum Romanum.
oppidum A Gallic fortress, considered by Romans to be hideously ugly.
Our Sea In Latin, Mare Nostrum. The Mediterranean, whole and entire.
Padus River The Po River of northern Italy.
Palus Asphaltites The Dead Sea, so called because it produced lumps of bitumen that could be “fished” from its waters—a valuable commodity.
Paraetonium Thought to be modern Mersa Matruh, in western Egypt.
Parthians Parthia itself was a land to the east of the Caspian Sea, so to the Romans the enemy was “the Parthians” rather than the country. The Kingdom of the Parthians was enormous, stretching from the Indus River to the Euphrates River. Much of it was inhospitable.
Patrae Modern Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth in Greece.
phalerae Round, chased, ornamented silver or gold discs about 3 or 4 inches in diameter. They were decorations for military valor, mounted in three rows of three upon a fancy harness, and worn over the mail shirt or cuirass.
Pharsalus In Grecian Thessaly. Here Caesar defeated Pompey the Great.
Phraaspa Somewhere around modern Zanjan, in Iran.
Picenum The calf muscle of the Italian leg. It was famous for producing disruptive political figures; the people were looked down on by Romans as Gauls. A sore point with the Picentine Pompey the Great.
pilum, pila The legionary’s spear. It had a small, pyramidal, barbed head, and an iron shaft for half its length; this was fastened to a wooden shaft by a weak pin that severed connection when it lodged in an enemy, thus preventing his throwing it back. Gaius Marius invented it.
pinnace An open boat rowed by about eight men. Very swift.
plebeian, Plebs The huge majority of Roman citizens were plebeian; patricians were thin on the ground by the time of this book.
plethron The Greek unit of land measurement.
pomerium The sacred boundary of the city of Rome, marked by stones called cippi, and different from the Servian Walls; the Aventine Mount and the Capitol lay outside it. Religiously, Rome herself existed only within the pomerium; all outside it was Roman territory.
pontifex, pontifices The Roman priest, inducted into the College of Pontifices. The head of the College was the Pontifex Maximus, who shared the State-owned Domus Publica with the Vestal Virgins. A priest wore the red-and-purple-striped toga.
praefectus fabrum The individual, usually a civilian, who purchased the items to equip Roman legions, from tent pegs to mules to mail shirts, food and clothing. He tended to be a banker by profession.
praetor The second highest Roman magistrate owning imperium. His duties concerned the law courts and litigation. He served for one year and had six lictors.
pro- Proconsul, propraetor, proquaestor, promagistrate. This was a man who had passed out of office but retained imperium. If a proconsul or propraetor, he probably governed a province.
proletarii The poor, who had nothing to give Rome except children. After Gaius Marius, not quite true; a proletarius could be a soldier.
pronuba The bride’s chief attendant at her wedding.
proscription The act of stripping a man of his property, probably also his citizenship, and perhaps his life. Usually he was on the losing side in a civil war. A list of the proscribed was posted on the rostra in the Forum Romanum.
province A region belonging to Rome and directly governed by Rome.
Public Horse The horse bought by the State in earlier times; though Romans no longer fielded their own cavalry, the Famous Families all prized possession of a Public Horse.
publicani A business company contracted to the Treasury to “farm” the taxes and tributes of a province—that is, to collect them on behalf of the Treasury. As publicani always collected more money than the Treasury stipulated, tax-farming was highly profitable.
quaestor The most junior magistrate, owning no imperium. The office let him enter the Senate. He looked after the State’s moneys, be they a governor’s or an institution’s or the Treasury’s.
quinquereme A very popular war galley coming to be deemed too slow and clumsy, though it had the advantages of massive weight and the ability to carry artillery as well as marines. Apparently the “five” had either five men on one oar, or five men spread over the three oars of one bank. The top bank was always located in an outrigger or platform jutting over the water; the middle bank’s oars poked through ports well up the ship’s beams; and the bottom bank’s oars protruded through a leather valve very close to the waterline. The ship was always decked and accommodated about 120 marines. It had about 270 oarsmen, who were professionals; the galley-slave was a Christian idea. There were 30 sailors to work the rigging, as the five carried a huge sail.
quin taces Shut up! in the singular.
Rex Sacrorum During the time of the Kings of Rome, he was the highest priest. He was also the king himself. When the Republic came into being, its leaders invented the Pontifex Maximus, who outranked the Rex Sacrorum—a typically Roman solution.
Rhegium Modern Reggio, at the tip of the Italian boot’s toe.
Rhenus River The Rhine.
Rhodanus River The Rhône, in France.
rostra A raised dais in the forum, used for oratory and conducting big meetings. It was named for the ship’s beaks that decorated a column adjacent to it.
Rubicon River The eastern boundary of Italia proper. Modern authorities differ on the identity of this river, as extensive drainage schemes were carried on around Ravenna in later times.
saltatrix tonsa Literally, a barbered dancing-girl. In fact, a man who dressed as a woman and sold his sexual favors in a public place. There was a law, the lex Scantinia, that made it a capital offense.
satrapy Territory belonging to a suzerain or over-ruler, but administered as a distinct entity on the suzerain’s behalf. The man designated to rule a satrapy was a satrap. It was a Parthian or Eastern form of the client-kingdom.
Senate The upper house, so to speak. At this time it held a thousand men, who were either admitted through election as quaestors, or adlected by the censors, or by the Triumvirs. The Senate could not pass a law, only decree that a law should be passed; the power to legislate belonged to the Assemblies, now virtually defunct. The Triumvirs legislated with mere lip-service to the Assemblies.
senatus consultum A decree issued by the Senate. It had no power at law.
Serapis A peculiarly hybrid god invented for the citizens of Alexandria by its first Ptolemy and the then high priest of Ptah, one Manetho. The aim was to weld Greek and Egyptian religious ideas together so that Alexandria could have a local god of suitably Greek nature. His precinct lay in Rhakotis, the worst section of the city, a hint that Serapis was a god for the lower classes.
sestertius, sesterces This minute silver coin was the official unit of Roman bookkeeping. Four of them made one denarius; 25,000 made one talent.
sinus Geographically, a gulf, as in the Sinus Arabicus (now the Red Sea). A sinus was also that part of a toga sitting in loose folds on a man’s right hip; he used it as a pocket for his papers and handkerchief. However, his money-purse was always firmly attached to a belt around the waist of his tunic.
siren A mythical woman of great allure who lived in dangerous reefs and rocks. She bewitched sailors with the beauty of her song, thus causing them to run their ships aground.
Skenite Arabs A tribe of Arabs who inhabited the area east of the Euphrates in the vicinity of Zeugma and Nicephorium. They were a nomadic desert people who found little to admire in the Romans.
socius A free man or freedman who dwelled in Roman territory but was not a Roman citizen.
Sol Indiges, Tellus, and Liber Pater This trio of numinous Roman gods governed the swearing of oaths. If they were invoked, even the most cynical of Romans adhered to his oath, no matter what the cost.
sortition Choosing
the holders of public positions by casting lots.
sow A unit of smelted metal. Iron, copper, tin, silver, and gold were all kept as sows, perhaps a talent in weight.
Subura A declivity between the Viminal and Esquiline Mounts of Rome. It was a famous stew having the poorest inhabitants, but Suetonius says that Julius Caesar lived there as a child.
suffect consul A consul who was appointed by the Senate rather than elected; it had been a last resort upon the death of an incumbent or other severe circumstances, but under the Triumvirs suffect consulships became a way of rewarding loyalty.
sui iuris In control of one’s own affairs and fate. Used of women who kept control of their own money and property.
tace, quin taces Shut up! in the singular.
tacete Shut up! in the plural.
talent Traditionally, the weight a man could carry upon his own back. About 56 pounds (25 kilograms).
Taprobane The island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon).
tata Latin for “daddy.”
Thrace The long stretch of country between the Strymon River and the area around the Hellespont and the Thracian Bosporus. It thrust far inland and was, apart from the people of its Mediterranean coast, populated by barbarians.
transport A ship designed to carry troops. If empty, it was rowed by a crew; if occupied by legionaries, these hapless men had to row. Since legionaries had a horror of the sea, their generals felt that rowing gave them something to do.
tribune of the plebs A magistrate who, though elected, did not represent the whole Roman People—just the Plebs. This meant that tribunes of the plebs did not operate under the auspices and could hold no kind of imperium. However, they were inviolate and sacrosanct in the carrying out of their duties, and they had one tremendous political weapon: the veto, which they could exercise against a law, an undertaking, or a magistrate. They had been famous for legislating, but by this time little did they pass into law.
triumph A Roman general whose troops hailed him as imperator on the field of battle was entitled to apply to the Senate for a triumph, not easily gainsaid. Upon his return to Rome he featured as the star of a huge parade that displayed his deeds and booty for the crowd. Some triumphs were spectacular, others run-of-the-mill.
Tyrian purple The most expensive and desired of all purple dyes. It was made from a little tube inside the shellfish murex by the city of Tyre, in Syria. The color was almost black but shot with subtle flashes of a deep purple-red.
verpa A Latin obscenity referring to the penis and its foreskin.
via A main road, as in the Via Latina or Sacra Via.
Via Egnatia The great eastern road that ran from two branches at Dyrrachium and Apollonia on the Adriatic coast and shortly thereafter merged to continue for almost a thousand miles across Macedonia and the coast of Thrace to Byzantium in a northerly direction and the Hellespont in a southerly. It was built about 146 B.C. by the Romans, to facilitate movement of troops.
vicus A city street or less important road than a via. A city street going uphill was a clivus.
villa A man’s country estate, incorporating a vast residence and peristyle garden. The old Getty Museum in Malibu, California, was a brilliant reconstruction of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law Piso’s villa at Herculaneum, and was a true wonder of the world. I deplore its closure, as no villa exists anywhere in Europe that is not in ruins. Our own times are the poorer for its lack.
Colleen McCullough, Antony and Cleopatra
(Series: Masters of Rome # 7)
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