Public Horse A horse which belonged to the State—that is, to the Senate and People of Rome. During the time of the kings of Rome the practice of donating a warhorse to Rome's knight cavalry had begun; it continued right through the five hundred-odd years of the Republic. Public Horses were confined to the eighteen hundred men of the Eighteen, the senior Centuries of the First Class. Evidence suggests that many senators continued to use Public Horses after Gaius Gracchus split the Senate off from the Ordo Equester. To own a Public Horse was a mark of a man's importance. quadrireme See quinquereme.
quaestor The lowest rung on the cursus honorum of Roman magistracies. Quaestor was always an elected office, but until Sulla laid down that the quaestorship would be the only way (aside from being elected a tribune of the plebs) a man could enter the Senate, it was not necessary for a man to be quaestor in order to be a senator; the censors had had the power to co-opt a man to the Senate. Sulla then increased the number of quaestors from twelve to twenty, and laid down that the minimum age for a man to hold the office of quaestor was thirty. The chief duties of a quaestor were fiscal, and determined by casting lots. He might be seconded to Treasury duty within Rome, or to collect customs duties, port dues and rents elsewhere in Italia, or serve as the manager of a provincial governor's moneys. A man going to govern a province could ask for a quaestor by name. The quaestor's year in office began on the fifth day of December.
Quinctilis Originally Quinctilis was the fifth month of the Roman year, which had begun in March. When the New Year was transferred to the first day of January, Quinctilis kept its name. It is now known as July; we know from the letters of Cicero that it acquired the name "Julius" during Caesar's lifetime.
quinquereme A very common and popular form of ancient war galley; also known as the "five." Like the bireme, trireme and quadrireme, it was much longer than it was broad in the beam, and was designed for no other purpose than to conduct war on the sea. It used to be thought that the quadrireme contained four banks of oars and the quinquereme five, but it is now almost universally agreed that no galley ever had more than three banks of oars, and more commonly only two. The quadrireme or "four" and the quinquereme or "five" most likely got their names from the number of men on each oar, or else this number was divided between the two banks of oars. If there were five men on an oar, only the man on the tip or end of the oar had to be highly skilled: he guided the oar and did the really hard work, while the other four provided little beyond muscle power. However, four or five men on one oar meant that at the commencement of the sweep the rowers had to stand, falling back onto their seat as they pulled. A "five" wherein the rowers could remain seated throughout the stroke would have needed three banks of oars, as in the trireme: two men on each of the two upper banks, and one man on the lowest bank.
It seems that all three kinds of quinquereme were used, each community or nation having its preference.
For the rest, the quinquereme was decked, the upper oars lay within an outrigger, and it had room on board for marines and some pieces of artillery. A mast and sail were still part of the design, though usually left ashore if battle was expected. The oarsmen numbered about 270, the sailors perhaps 30; about 120 marines could be accommodated. Like all war galleys of pre-Christian times, the quadrireme and quinquereme were rowed by professional oarsmen, never by slaves.
Quirites Roman citizens of civilian status.
redoubt A part of fortifications outside the main defensive wall, a little fort. It was usually square, sometimes polygonal.
Regia The tiny ancient building in the Forum Romanum thought to have been erected by the second King of Rome, Numa Pompilius. It was oddly shaped and oriented toward the north, and in Caesar's day had long served as the headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus, though it was not large enough to use as offices; these had been tacked onto it. It was an inaugurated temple and contained altars to some of Rome's oldest and most shadowy gods—Opsiconsiva, Vesta, Mars of the sacred shields and spears.
Republic The word was originally two words—res publica—meaning the thing which constitutes the people as a whole—that is, the government. Rome was a true Republic in that its executives or magistrates were elected rather than designated from within the legislature: American-style government rather than the Westminster System of British Commonwealth countries.
Rhenus River The river Rhine.
Rhodanus River The river Rhône.
right act A phrase used by those who subscribed to the doctrines of Stoicism. It meant that the act was good, proper, right.
rostra A rostrum (singular) was the reinforced oaken beak of a war galley, the part used to ram other ships. In 338 b.c. the consul Gaius Maenius attacked the Volscian fleet in Antium harbor and utterly defeated it. To commemorate the end of the Volsci as a rival power to Rome, Maenius removed the beaks of the ships he had sent to the bottom or captured, and fixed them to the Forum wall of the speaker's platform tucked into the side of the well of the Comitia. Ever after, the speaker's platform was known as the rostra—the ships' beaks. Other victorious admirals followed Maenius's example; when no more ship's beaks could be fixed to the rostra wall, they were fixed to tall columns erected in the area of the rostra.
Rubicon River More properly, Rubico River. There is still great debate about which of the rivers running from the Apennines into the Adriatic Sea is actually the Rubico, which Sulla fixed as the border between Italian Gaul and Italia proper. Most authorities seem to favor the modern Rubicone, but this is a short, very shallow stream which does not extend into the Apennines proper, and so comes nowhere near the sources of the Arnus River, which was the boundary on the western side of the Italian Peninsula. After much reading of Strabo and the other ancient sources describing this area, I have fixed upon the modern Savio River, which does have its sources in the high Apennines. Rivers forming boundaries were major streams, not minor ones. The Ronco River, north of the Savio, would be a contender were it not so close to Ravenna at its outflow. The main problem, it seems to me, is that we really have little idea of what the ancient river map was like; during the Middle Ages massive drainage works were carried out all around Ravenna, which means that the ancient rivers may have had a different course.
Sabis River The river Sambre.
sagum The Roman military cape. It was made on the principle of a Mexican poncho, cut on the circle with a hole in its middle through which the head was poked. It probably extended to the hips, leaving the hands free. It was made of untreated, very oily (and therefore water-repellent) Ligurian wool.
Sallust The English name given to the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus, who lived during Caesar's time. It is interesting that the two historians who knew Caesar personally were both favorable to Caesar in their writings; the other was Gaius Asinius Pollio. Sallust seems to have been a rather randy fellow; his earliest claim to fame is that Milo took a horsewhip to him for philandering with Fausta, Milo's wife. Sallust wrote two surviving works: a history of the war against Jugurtha of Numidia, and a history of the conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina.
Salona Modern Split in Yugoslavia
Samara River The Somme River.
Samarobriva An oppidum belonging to the Belgic Ambiani, a tribe closely allied to the Atrebates. Modern Amiens.
Samnium That region of peninsular Italia lying between Latium, Campania, Apulia and Picenum. The area was mountainous and not remarkably fertile; Samnite towns tended to be small and poor, and included Caieta, Aeclanum and Bovianum. The two prosperous cities, Aesernia and Beneventum, were Latin Rights colonies seeded by Rome to keep an eye on things and form a nucleus of pro-Roman feeling. Samnium was inhabited by the true Samnites, but also by peoples called Frentani, Paeligni, Marrucini and Vestini; true Samnites also dominantly inhabited parts of southern Picenum and southern Campania.
Several times during Rome's history the Samnites inflicted hideous defeats upon Roman armies. They were still active in resistance to Rome in 82 b.c. when they contended with Sulla for po
ssession of Rome in the battle at the Colline Gate. Sulla won.
Sampsiceramus The quintessential Eastern potentate, if one is to believe Cicero, who seems to have—typical wordsmith—fallen in love with the sound of "Sampsiceramus." He was King of Emesa in Syria, which does not indicate a great degree of power or even of wealth. What Sampsiceramus apparently did par excellence was to flaunt what wealth he had in the most exotic way. Once Pompey became fabled, Cicero called him Sampsiceramus whenever they fell out.
satrap Originally the title given by the kings of Persia to their provincial or territorial governors. Alexander the Great seized upon the term and employed it, as did the later Arsacid kings of the Parthians and the kings of Armenia. The region administered by a satrap was a satrapy.
Scaldis River The Schelde River in Belgium.
Scipio Aemilianus Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus was born in 185 b.c. He was not a Cornelian of the Scipio branch, but rather the son of the conqueror of Macedonia, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who gave him in adoption to the elder son of Scipio Africanus. Scipio Aemilianus's mother was a Papiria, and his wife was the surviving daughter of Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi, Sempronia; she was his close blood cousin.
After a distinguished military career during the Third Punic War in 149-148 b.c., Aemilianus was elected consul in 147 b.c. As he was not old enough for the consulship, his election was bitterly opposed by many members of the Senate. Sent to Africa to take charge of the Third Punic War, he displayed that relentless and painstaking thoroughness which was thereafter the cornerstone of his career; he built a mole to close the harbor of Carthage and blockaded the city by land. It fell in 146 b.c., after which he pulled it apart stone by stone. However, modern scholars discount the story that he ploughed salt into the soil to make sure Carthage never rose again; the Romans themselves believed the salt story. He was an ineffectual censor thanks to an inimical colleague in 142 B.C.; then in 140 b.c. he took ship for the East, accompanied by his two Greek friends, the historian Polybius and the philosopher Panaetius. In 134 b.c. he was elected consul for the second time, and commissioned to deal with the town of Numantia in Nearer Spain. This tiny place had defied and defeated a whole series of Roman armies and generals for fifty years when Scipio Aemilianus arrived before it. Once he got there, Numantia lasted eight months. After it fell he destroyed it down to the last stone and beam, and deported or executed its four thousand citizens.
News from Rome had informed him that his brother-in-law Tiberius Gracchus was undermining the mos maiorum; Aemilianus conspired with their mutual cousin Scipio Nasica to bring Tiberius Gracchus down. Though Tiberius Gracchus was already dead when Aemilianus returned to Rome in 132 b.c., he was commonly held responsible. Then in 129 B.C. Aemilianus died so suddenly and unexpectedly that it was ever afterward rumored that he had been murdered. The principal suspect was his wife, Sempronia, Tiberius Gracchus's sister; she loathed her husband, all Rome knew it.
By nature Scipio Aemilianus was a curious mixture. A great intellectual with an abiding love for things Greek, he stood at the center of a group of men who patronized and encouraged the likes of Polybius, Panaetius, and the Latin playwright Terence. As a friend, Aemilianus was everything a friend should be. As an enemy, he was cruel, coldblooded and utterly ruthless. A genius at organization, he could yet blunder as badly as he did in his opposition to Tiberius Gracchus. An extremely cultured and witty man of pronounced good taste, he was also morally and ethically ossified.
Senate Properly, Senatus. It came into being as a patricians-only body of one hundred men and served as an advisory council to the King of Rome. Not long into the Republic, it contained some three hundred senators, a great many of whom were plebeians. Because of its antiquity, the legal definitions of its rights, powers and duties were mostly nonexistent. Membership in the Senate was for life (unless a man was expelled by the censors for inappropriate behavior or impoverishment), which predisposed it toward the oligarchical form it acquired. Throughout its history its members fought strenuously to preserve their pre-eminence in government. Until Sulla stipulated that entry to the Senate was via the quaestorship, appointment was in the purlieus of the censors. The lex Atinia provided that tribunes of the plebs should automatically enter the Senate upon election. There was a means test of entirely unofficial nature: a senator was supposed to enjoy an income of a million sesterces per annum.
Senators alone were permitted to wear the latus clavus or broad purple stripe upon the right shoulder of the tunic; they wore closed shoes of maroon leather (the black-and-white senatorial shoe belonged to Imperial times) and a ring which had originally been made of iron, but later came to be gold. Only men who had held a curule magistracy wore the purple-bordered toga praetexta; ordinary senators wore plain white togas.
Meetings of the Senate had to be held in properly inaugurated premises. The Senate had its own meeting house or curia, the Curia Hostilia, but it was prone to meet elsewhere at the whim of the man convoking the meeting. Senatorial sessions could go on only between sunrise and sunset and could not take place on days when any of the Assemblies met, though they were permissible on comitial days if no Assembly meeting was scheduled.
No matter what the speaking order of the particular era, a patrician senator always preceded a plebeian senator of equal rank. Not all members of the House were accorded the privilege of speaking. The senatores pedarii (described in my books by the Westminster Parliamentary term "backbenchers") could vote, but could not open their mouths in debate. They sat behind the men permitted to speak, so "backbencher" is a reasonable English compromise. No restrictions were placed upon the time limit or content of a man's speech, so filibustering was common. If an issue was unimportant or everyone was obviously inclined one way, voting might be by a show of hands; a formal vote took place by a division of the House, meaning that the senators left their stations and grouped themselves to either side of the curule dais according to their yea or nay, and were then physically counted.
Always an advisory rather than a truly legislating body, the Senate issued its consulta or decrees as requests to the various Assemblies. If the issue was serious, a quorum had to be present before a vote could be taken, though we do not know what precise number constituted a quorum. Certainly most meetings were not heavily attended; there was no rule which said a man appointed to the Senate had to attend meetings of it, even on an irregular basis.
In some areas the Senate reigned supreme, despite its lack of formal legislating power: the fiscus was controlled by the Senate, as it controlled the Treasury; foreign affairs were left to the Senate; and the appointment of provincial governors, the regulation of provincial affairs and the conduct of wars were senatorial.
Senatus Consultum Ultimum Properly, senatus consultum de re publica defendenda. This was the Senate's ultimate decree and dated from 121 B.C., when Gaius Gracchus resorted to violence to prevent the overthrow of his laws. Rather than appoint a dictator to deal with the violence, the ultimate decree came into being. Basically it was a declaration of martial law, though its restrictions on civilian movement were often clearly defined in the terms of its issuance. A Senatus Consultum Ultimum overrode all other governmental bodies and persons.
Sequana River The Seine River.
Serapis A hybrid chief deity for the more Hellenized parts of Egypt, especially Alexandria. Invented, it seems, during the reign of the first Ptolemy, an ex-marshal of Alexander the Great's, Serapis was a peculiar fusion of Zeus with Osiris and the tutelary deity of the Apis bull—Osirapis. Statues of Serapis were rendered in the Greek manner and displayed a bearded man wearing a huge basket crown.
Serica The mysterious land we know as China. In Caesar's day the Silk Route had not come into being; "silk" was a floss obtained from a moth native to the Aegean island of Cos.
sestertius, sesterces Roman accounting practices were established in sesterces, though the denarius, more valuable, was apparently a commoner coin in circulation. In Latin writing, "ses
terces" was abbreviated as HS. A very small silver coin, the sestertius was worth one quarter of a denarius.
Sextilis Originally the sixth month of the Roman year when it began in March; its original name was retained even after the New Year shifted to January 1. During the principate of Augustus it acquired its modern name—August.
Sicoris River The river Segre in Spain.
Sol Indiges One of the most ancient Italian Gods. As the Sun, Sol Indiges was the husband of the Earth, Tellus. He was enormously reverenced. Oaths sworn by him were very serious affairs. sow A smelted lump of metal. Iron, copper, silver, gold and some other metals were kept as sows of various weight. Both silver and gold sows were smoother and more regular in shape because these were precious metals and quite soft. Base metal sows perhaps had a piggy shape, rounded on the underside, nipply on the upper side.
stadia A Greek measure of distance. The stadium (singular) was about a furlong in length, and is easiest reckoned at eight stadia to the Roman mile.
Stoic One who subscribed to the system of philosophical thought founded by the Phoenician Zeno. Though Zeno's system was a complete one, it is best summed up as holding that virtue is the only real good, and immorality or unethicality the only real evil. He taught that natural travails, from pain and death to poverty, are not important; a good man is a moral and ethical one, and a good man must always be a happy man. Called after the Stoa Poikile in Athens where Zeno taught, Stoicism eventually arrived in Rome. It was never very popular among such a pragmatic and commonsensible people, but it did have its Roman adherents. The most famous one was Cato Uticensis, Caesar's bitterest enemy.
Subura The poorest and most densely populated part of the city of Rome. It lay to the east of the Forum Romanum in the declivity between the Oppian spur of the Esquiline Mount and the Viminal Hill. Its people were notoriously polyglot and independent of mind; many Jews lived in the Subura, which in Caesar's time contained Rome's only synagogue. Suetonius says that Caesar was brought up in the Subura.
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