The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  praetor peregrinus I have translated this as “foreign praetor,” because he dealt only with legal matters and lawsuits where at least one of the parties was not a Roman citizen. By the time of Gaius Marius, his duties were confined to the dispensation of justice; they took him all over Italy, and sometimes further afield than that. He was also responsible for looking after cases involving noncitizens within the city of Rome herself.

  praetor urbanus I have translated this as “urban praetor.’’ By the time of Gaius Marius his duties were almost purely in litigation, and he was responsible for the supervision of justice and the law courts within the city of Rome. His imperium did not extend beyond the fifth milestone from Rome, and he was not allowed to leave Rome for more than ten days at a time. If both the consuls were absent from Rome, he was its senior magistrate and was empowered to summon the Senate to a meeting, as well as to organize the defense of the city if in danger of an attack. It was his decision whether two litigants might proceed to court; in most cases, he decided the matter there and then, without benefit of the full legal trial process.

  primus inter pares “The first among equals.” This was the cry, the catch-phrase of all those Romans engaged in the political arena. It summed up the aim of a Roman politician—to stand at the forefront of his peers. By definition, this meant he had to have peers—men who were his equals in birth, experience, background, family, status, achievements, dignitas. It was a strong indication of the fact that the Roman nobleman did not want to be a king or a dictator, this being standing above all others, and having no peers. Romans loved the competition.

  primus pilus The centurion in command of the leading century of the leading cohort of a Roman legion, and therefore the chief centurion of that legion. He rose to this position by a serial promotion, and was considered the most able man in the whole legion.

  Princeps Senatus What today we would call the Leader of the House. The censors chose a patrician senator of unimpeachable integrity and morals—and high dignitas as well as high auctoritas—to fill the role of Princeps Senatus. Apparently it was not necessarily a title given for life, but was reviewed every five years when a new pair of censors entered office. Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was created Princeps Senatus at a relatively young age, having acquired the title, it would seem, while still actually serving as consul in 115 B.C. As it was not usual for a man to be appointed Princeps Senatus before being elected censor (Scaurus was not elected censor until 109 B.C.), Scaurus’s winning the post was either a signal mark of honor for an extraordinary

  man, or else (as some modern scholars have suggested) he was in 115 B.C. the most senior patrician senator available for the job. Whichever was the case, Scaurus held the title until he died—and never stood in danger of losing it, as far as we can gather.

  privatus A private citizen, but used in this book to indicate a man who was a member of the Senate yet not serving as a magistrate.

  proconsul One serving with the status of a consul. This imperium was normally given to a man who had just finished his year as consul, and went still holding the status of a consul (that is, as a proconsul) to govern a province or command an army in the name of the Senate and People of Rome. A man’s term as proconsul normally lasted for a year, but was commonly prorogued beyond the year if the man was engaged in a campaign against an enemy still unsubdued. If a consular was not available to govern a province stormy enough to warrant the appointment of a proconsul rather than a propraetor, one of the year’s crop of praetors was sent to govern it, endowed with the imperium of a proconsul. The proconsul’s imperium was limited to the area of his province or task, and was lost the moment he stepped across the pomerium into the city of Rome.

  proletarii Another name for the lowliest of all Roman citizens, the capite censi or Head Count. The word proletarius derived from proles, which means progeny, offspring, children in an impersonal sense, and was given to these lowly citizens because children were the only thing they were capable of giving Rome.

  propraetor One serving with the status of a praetor. This imperium was given to a praetor still serving his year in office, or to a praetor after his year in office was over, and was awarded to empower its owner to govern a province and, if necessary, conduct a war. Like the imperium of a proconsul, that of a propraetor was lost the moment he stepped inside the sacred boundary of Rome. In degree, the position was less powerful than proconsul, and was normally given when the province in question was peaceful. Hence, any war the propraetor engaged in had to be forced upon him; he could not seek it out.

  prorogue The act of extending a man’s tenure of magisterial office beyond its normal time span. It applied to governorships or military commands, not to the actual magistracies themselves.

  province, Provincia. The sphere of duty of a magistrate or a promagistrate holding an imperium. By extension, the word came to mean also the place where the imperium was exercised by its holder—in other words, a territory or possession of Rome requiring the attention of a governor in local residence. By the time of Gaius Marius, all of Rome’s provinces were outside Italy and Italian Gaul.

  pteryges The leather straps which depended from the waist to the knees as a kilt, and from the shoulders to the upper arms as sleeves; they were sometimes fringed at their ends. The traditional mark of senior officers and generals of the Roman army, they were not worn by the ranks.

  Punic The adjective applied to Carthage and its people, but particularly to the three wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The word is derived from the word “Phoenician.”

  Puteoli Modern Pozzuoli. By the time of Gaius Marius, Puteoli was Italy’s busiest and most important port, and as an emporium had surpassed Delos. It was a very well organized and run city, and in spite of its port status still managed to remain an appealing seaside vacation spot for wealthy Romans. Its most prominent family was the family Granius, who apparently had ties to Gaius Marius and the Latin town of Arpinum.

  quadriga A chariot drawn by four horses.

  quaestor The lowest rung on the senatorial cursus honorum. At the time of Gaius Marius, to be elected quaestor did not mean a man was automatically made a member of the Senate; however, it was the normal practice of the censors to admit quaestors into the Senate. The exact number of quaestors elected in any one year is not known for this date, but was perhaps twelve to sixteen. The age at which a man sought election as quaestor was thirty, which was also the correct age for entering the Senate. A quaestor’s chief duties were fiscal: he might be seconded to the Treasury in Rome, or to secondary treasuries, or to collecting customs and port duties (there must have been at least three such quaestors at this time, one for Ostia, one for Puteoli, and one for the other ports), or to managing the finances of a province. A consul going to govern a province the next year could ask for a man by name to serve as his quaestor; this was considered a great distinction for the quaestor and a sure way to be elected. In normal circumstances the quaestorship lasted for one year, but if a man was requested by name, he was obliged to remain in the province with his governor until the governor’s term was brought to an end. Quaestors entered office on the fifth day of December.

  Quirinus One of the most Latin of all gods, Quirinus was the divine embodiment of a concept, an idea. Perhaps of Sabine rather than Latin origins, he had his home on the Quirinal Hill, where in the very beginning there had been a Sabine settlement. Later it became a part of Romulus’s Latin city, and Quirinus the god was fused with Romulus the god. Just who Quirinus was, and what he was, no one knows; but it is thought he was the embodiment of the Roman citizenship, the god of the assembly of Roman men. His special priest, the flamen Quirinalis, was one of the three major flamines, and he had a festival of his own, the Quirinalia. In front of his temple there grew two myrtle trees, one representing the patricians, the other the plebeians.

  Quirites Roman citizens of civilian status. What we do not know is whether the word “Quirites” also implied that the citizens in question had never served as soldier
s in Rome’s armies; certain remarks of Caesar the Dictator might lead one to believe that this was so, for he addressed his mutinous soldiers as Quirites, and by doing so heaped such scorn upon them that they immediately pleaded for his pardon. However, much had changed between the time of Gaius Marius and the time of Caesar the Dictator. I have chosen to believe that at the time of Gaius Marius, the word “Quirites” was an honorable one.

  Regia The ancient little building in the Forum Romanum, oddly shaped and oriented toward the north, that served as the offices of the Pontifex Maximus and the headquarters of the College of Pontifices. It was an inaugurated temple, and contained shrines or altars or artifacts of some of Rome’s oldest and most numinous gods—Opsiconsiva, Vesta, Mars of the sacred shields and spears (see numen). Within the Regia the Pontifex Maximus kept his archives. It was never his residence, though tradition had it that the Regia had been the home of Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome.

  Remus Romulus’s twin. Having, assisted Romulus in founding his Palatine settlement and helped in the building of its walls, Remus was then killed by Romulus for jumping over the walls—apparently some kind of sacrilege.

  repetundae Extortion. Until the time of Gaius Gracchus, it was not standard practice to prosecute provincial governors who used their power to enrich themselves; one or two special courts or commissions had been set up to prosecute particular governors, but that was all. These early special courts or quaestiones were staffed entirely by senators, and quickly became a joke, because senatorial judges and juries would not convict their fellow senators the governors. Then in 122 B.C. Manius Acilius Glabrio, boon companion of Gaius Gracchus, passed a lex Acilia providing a permanent extortion court staffed by knights, and empanelled 450 named knights as a pool from which the juries were to be drawn. In 106 B.C. Quintus Servilius Caepio returned all courts, including the extortion court, to the Senate. Then in 101 B.C. Gaius Servilius Glaucia gave the extortion court back to the knights, with many innovative refinements which were to become standard practice in every kind of court. The cases we hear of were all concerning governors of provinces enriching themselves, but it would seem that after the lex Acilia of 122 B.C., the extortion court was also empowered to try any case of illegal enrichment. There were rewards offered to citizen informants, and noncitizens who successfully brought a prosecution before the court were rewarded with the citizenship.

  Republic The word was originally two words, res publica—that is, the thing which constitutes the people as a whole—that is, its government. We use the word “republic” today to mean an elected government which does not acknowledge any monarch its superior, but it is doubtful that the Romans in establishing their Republic thought of it in quite that way, despite the fact that they founded their Republic as an alternative to monarchy.

  Rex Sacrorum During the Republic, he was the second-ranking pontifex in the pontifical hierarchy. He had to be a patrician, and he was hedged around with as many taboos as the flamen Dialis.

  Rhea Silvia The daughter of Numitor, King of Alba Longa in the days before Rome existed. Numitor was deposed by his younger brother Amulius, and Rhea Silvia was made a Vestal Virgin so that she could never have children. But the god Mars saw her, and ravished her. When Amulius found out she was pregnant he locked her up until her confinement, then put the twin boys she bore into a basket made of rushes and threw the basket into the Tiber, at the time in flood. The basket washed ashore at the foot of the Ficus Ruminalis, the sacred fig tree near the later Steps of Cacus leading to the Palatine. The twins were found by a she-wolf, which suckled them in her cave nearby. They were rescued by Faustulus and his wife Acca Larentia, who raised them to manhood. The twins—Romulus and Remus, of course—then killed Amulius and re-established Numitor on the throne of Alba Longa. The other name of Rhea Silvia was—Julia.

  Rhenus River The modern Rhine. In ancient times, it was the natural boundary between Germania and its German tribes, and Gallia and its Gallic tribes. So wide and deep and strong was it that it was considered impossible to bridge.

  rhetoric The art of oratory, which both the Greeks and the Romans turned into something very close to a science. A proper orator spoke according to carefully laid-out rules and conventions which extended far beyond mere words; body movements and gestures were an intrinsic part of it. In the early and middle Republic, Greek teachers of rhetoric were despised, and sometimes even outlawed from Rome; Cato the Censor was an avowed enemy of the Greek rhetor. However, the Graecophilia of the Scipionic Circle and other highly educated Roman noblemen of the time broke down much of this Latin opposition, so that by the time of the Brothers Gracchi, most young Roman noblemen were taught by Greek rhetors; it was the Latin rhetors who then fell into disfavor. There were different styles of rhetoric—Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator favored the Asianic style, more florid and dramatic than the Attic. It must be remembered that the audience which gathered to listen to public oration, be it concerned with politics or the law courts, was composed of connoisseurs of rhetoric; they watched and listened in a spirit of marked criticism, for they knew all the rules and the techniques at first hand, and were not easy to please.

  Rhodanus River The modern Rhone. Its large and fertile valley, inhabited by Celtic tribes of Gauls, came early under Roman influence; after the campaigns of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus in 122 and 121 B.C., the Rhone Valley up as far as the lands of the Aedui and Ambarri became a part of the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul—that is, of Gaul-across-the-Alps.

  Ria Plutarch (writing in Greek) says that the name of Quintus Sertorius’s mother was Rhea, but this is not a Latin gentilicial name. However, even today “Ria” is a diminutive of “Maria,” which is indeed a Latin gentilicial name. It was the family name of Gaius Marius. The attachment of Quintus Sertorius to Gaius Marius from his earliest days in military service, right through to the days when Marius’s conduct had become repugnant even to his loyalest adherents, makes me wonder about that enigmatic maternal name; Sertorius, says Plutarch also, was very devoted to his mother. Why then should not Sertorius’s mother have been a Maria called Ria for short, and a blood relative of Gaius Marius’s? To have her so answers many questions. As part of my novelist’s license, I have taken the standpoint that Sertorius’s mother was indeed a blood relative of Gaius Marius’s. However, this is pure speculation; of proof positive, there is absolutely none. Roma The Latin name of Rome.

  Romulus The more dominant of the twins Romulus and Remus (see Remus, Rhea Silvia). After he built his Palatine town and killed his brother, Romulus gathered male citizens by establishing an asylum in the depression between the two humps of the Capitoline Mount, and there collecting refugees who seem largely to have been criminals. Female citizens he found harder to get, so he invited all the inhabitants of the Sabine settlement on the Quirinal to a feast, overpowered the Sabine men, and kidnapped the Sabine women. As a result, the Sabine settlement on the Quirinal became a part of Romulus’s expanding city, and the damp, gloomy, marshy depression between the Palatine and the northeastern hills became an area of neutral ground where markets were established and public meetings held; its name eventually became the Forum Romanum. Romulus himself ruled for a long time. Then one day he went hunting in the Goat Swamps of the Campus Martius, and was caught in a terrible storm; when he didn’t come home, it was believed that he had been taken by the gods, and made immortal.

  rostra The plural form of “rostrum,” which was a ship’s bronze or reinforced oaken beak. This fierce object jutted well forward of the bows just below the level of the water, and was used to hole an enemy ship in the maneuver called ramming. When the consul Gaius Maenius in 338 B.C. attacked the Volscian fleet in Antium harbor, he defeated it so successfully that he broke the power of the Volsci. To mark the completeness of his victory, he removed the beaks of the ships he had captured, and fixed them to the Forum wall of the speaker’s platform tucked into the well of the Comitia. Even afterward, the speaker’s platform was known as the rostra—the ship’s beak
s.

  Rusicade The port in closest proximity to the city of Cirta, in Numidia.

  Sabatia Also called Vada Sabatia. Modern Savona. A port on the Ligurian coast.

  Sabines, Sabini The Oscan-speaking people who lived to the north and east of Rome, from the outskirts of the city to the crest of the Apennines, more or less around the area of the ancient salt route to the Adriatic, the Via Salaria. Sabines were famous for their integrity, bravery, and independence. The chief Sabine towns were Reate, Nersia, and Amiternum.

  Sabis River The modern Sambre, in France.

  sacrosanct The tribunes of the plebs possessed sacro-sanctitas—that is to say, their persons were inviolable; they could not be physically hindered or obstructed in the execution of their duty. This asset was given them by their masters, the Plebs, who swore an oath to uphold the inviolability of their special magistrates, the tribunes of the plebs.

  saepta “The sheepfold.” In Republican times, this was simply an open area on the Campus Martius not far from the Via Lata, and in proximity to the Villa Publica; it possessed no permanent buildings, but was nonetheless the place where the Centuriate Assembly or Comitia Centuriata met. As Centuriate Assemblies normally called for a voting procedure, the saepta was divided up for the occasion by temporary fences so that the Five Classes could vote in their centuries.

  sagum The soldier’s heavy-weather cape. It was made out of greasy wool to render it as waterproof as possible, cut on the full circle with a hole in its middle for the head to poke through, and came well down the body for maximum protection. The best kind of sagum came from Liguria, where the wool was extremely suitable.

  Salassi A tribe of Celts who occupied the great alpine valley of the Duria Major River, to the north and west of Mediolanum. Roman incursions into the Vale of the Salassi during the second century B.C. caused the people of the tribe to retreat, but to harden in their resistance to Rome. What attracted Roman attention was alluvial gold, found in large quantities in the bed of the Duria Major not far from Eporedia. However, those prospectors who ventured higher up the valley ran a palpable risk of Salassi attack. Gaius Marius strengthened the Roman presence by settling some of his soldier veterans at Eporedia, and slowly the Salassi withdrew into the high Alps, where they made it very difficult for the Romans to use the two passes they guarded.