Legionary: Roman regular soldier serving in a legion.
Lemuria: The days (9, 11 and 13 May) when dangerous ghosts were said to walk, necessitating propitiation.
Lesbian: From the Greek island of Lesbos; their wine was highly praised in antiquity, and was sometimes mixed with seawater.
Libation: Offering of drink to the gods.
Liberalia: Roman festival in honour of the god Liber and the advent of manhood, celebrated with feasting and the singing of dirty songs.
Liberalitas: Latin, ‘generosity’, a characteristic of good Emperors.
Libertas: Latin term for freedom or liberty; a political slogan throughout much of Roman history, though its meaning changed according to an author’s philosophical principles or the system of government that happened to be in power. Also worshipped in personified form as a deity.
Library of Celsus: Monumental library given to the city of Ephesus in the early second century, honouring the Senator Celsus Polemaeanus, who was buried in a crypt below the reading room.
Longaticum: Modern Logatec in western Slovenia.
Ludi Florales: Roman festival in honour of the goddess Flora held on 28th April, celebrated with six days of games.
Lycaonian Bear: According to Greek myth, the nymph Callisto from Lyconia was seduced by Zeus, transformed into a bear by his enraged daughter, and, hunted down, turned into the constellation of Ursa minor.
Macenites: Nomadic tribe living in western North Africa.
Macurgum: Berber god identified with the Roman messenger god Mercury.
Macurtam: Berber god identified with Sol or Mars, the Roman sun and war gods.
Maenad: Frenzied female followers of the god Aionysos in Greek mythology.
Magna Mater: Roman title for the goddess Cybele, under the Emperors a deity of imperial protection and agriculture.
Mamertine: Wine from north-eastern Sicily, favoured by Julius Caesar.
Mars: Roman god of war.
Mars Pater: Title of the god Mars, ‘The Father’.
Mars Victor: Title of the god Mars, ‘The Victorious’.
Martae: Town on the south-eastern coast of Tunisia, modern Mareth.
Massilia: Roman port on the southern shores of Gaul; modern Marseilles.
Matilam: Berber god identified with the Roman king of the gods, Jupiter.
Mauretania: Roman name for western North Africa, spanning modern Morocco and Algeria.
Mauretania Caesariensis: Roman province of eastern Mauretania, roughly corresponding to northern Algeria.
Mauretania Tingitana: Roman province of western Mauretania, roughly northern Morocco.
Melanogaitouloi: Nomadic tribe living on the northern fringes of the Sahara.
Melitene: City and legionary fortress in central Turkey, modern Malatya.
Menses: Latin, literally ‘months’; by extension, the menstrual cycle.
Mercury: Roman god of travellers; equivalent of Hermes.
Mesopotamia: The land between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris; the name of a Roman province (sometimes called Osrhoene).
Middle Sea: Alternative for Latin Mediterraneus, sea ‘in the middle of the land’.
Milesian Tales: Greek genre of erotic stories.
Minerva: Roman goddess of wisdom.
Mirror Fort: Latin Ad Speculum; Roman frontier fort; modern Chebika in Tunisia.
Misenum: Base of the Roman fleet on the western shore of the Italian peninsular, modern Miseno.
Moesia: Ancient geographical region following the south bank of the Danube river in the Balkans.
Moesia Inferior: Roman province south of the Danube, running from Moesia Superior in the west to the Black Sea in the east.
Moesia Superior: Roman province to the south of the Danube, bounded by Pannonia Inferior to the north-west and Moesia Inferior to the north-east.
Mogontiacum: Roman legionary fortress and capital of Germania Superior; modern Mainz.
Molossian Dog: Ancient breed of hunting dog from the south-western Balkans.
Momento mori: From Latin, literally ‘remember to die’.
Monetales: See Tresviri monetales.
Mons Ocra: Highest peak in the Slovenian Alps, Mount Triglav.
Moorish: From the Mauri tribe that gave its name to Mauretania, western North Africa.
Mycalessus: Site of a notorious massacre perpetrated by the Thracians, who killed the entire population of the town; modern Rhitsona in mainland Greece.
Naissus: Roman town in Moesia; modern Niš in Serbia.
Naparis: Tributary of the Danube to the east of the Carpathian Mountains mentioned by Herodotus.
Narnia: Ancient settlement in Umbria at the foot of the Apennines; modern Narni.
Nasamones: Nomadic tribe living around the Awjila Oasis in the north east of modern Libya.
Nectar: Drink of the gods.
Nemean Lion: Monstrous lion of Greek mythology impervious to mortal weapons; strangled to death by Hercules.
Nisibis: Roman legionary fortress on the Parthian frontier; modern Nusaybin in south-eastern Turkey.
Nobilis, plural Nobiles: Latin, ‘nobleman’; a man from a patrician family or a plebeian family, one of whose ancestors had been consul.
Nones: The ninth day of a month before the Ides, i.e. the fifth day of a short month, the seventh of a long month.
Noricum: Roman province to the north-east of the Alps.
Novus Homo: Latin, literally ‘new man’; someone whose ancestors had not previously held Senatorial rank.
Numeri Brittonum: An ad hoc unit of troops outside the regular army structure recruited in Britain; such units often retained their native dress, armament, and fighting techniques.
Numidia: Roman province in western North Africa.
Nymphs: In Greek and Roman mythology, type of minor female deity associated with a particular place, often streams or woods.
Oligarchy: From the Greek ‘rule by the few’.
Olympians: The twelve major deities of Greek religion, said to live on the summit of Mount Olympus.
Olympieion: Shrine to the twelve Olympian gods of Greek mythology.
Olympus: Mountain in northern Greece, home of the Olympian gods.
Oppian Hill: Southern spur of the Esquiline Hill at Rome.
Opuscula Ruralia: ‘Little rural works’; title of a collection of poems by Serenus Sammonicus.
Ordinarius: See Consul Ordinarius.
Orpheus: Mythical Greek musician.
Osrhoene: Roman province in northern Mesopotamia.
Ostensionales: Soldiers specially trained for parade displays.
Ovile: Settlement in the Thracian highlands, named from the Latin for sheepfold.
Palatine: One of the fabled seven hills of Rome, south east of the Roman Forum. Site of the imperial palaces; the English term is derived from their location.
Palestina: see Syria Palestina.
Panegyric: A type of ancient speech praising someone or something.
Pannonia Inferior: Roman province south of the Danube, to the east of Pannonia Superior.
Panonnia Superior: Roman province south of the Danube, to the west of Pannonia Inferior.
Patricians: People of the highest social status at Rome; originally descendants of those men who sat in the very first meeting of the free senate after the expulsion of the last of the mythical kings of Rome in 509BC; under the Principate, Emperors awarded new families patrician status.
Pax Augusti: Latin, literally ‘Emperor’s peace’; a good Emperor was supposed to ensure peace for the empire; usually reduced to an aspirational slogan.
Pax Romana: The Roman Peace; a mission statement and justification for the Roman empire; at times, such as the mid-third century AD, more an ideology than an objective reality.
Pelion heaped upon Ossa: In Greek mythology, two giants planned to storm Mount Olympus and carry off two of the Olympian goddesses as wives by piling the nearby mountains Pelion and Ossa on top of one another.
Perinthus: Town on the
northern shore of the Sea of Marmara; modern Eregli in Turkey.
Peukiňi: Scythian tribe living north of the mouth of the Danube River.
Phazania: Ancient geographical region of south-western Libya; modern Fezzan.
Phoenicia: Where the Phoenicians lived; an area of the coast of Levant.
Physiognomist: Practitioner of the ancient ‘science’ of studying people’s faces, bodies and deportment to discover their character, and thus both their past and future.
Plebs: Technically, all Romans who were not patricians; more usually, the non-elite.
Plebs Urbana: Poor of the city of Rome, in literature usually coupled with an adjective labelling them as dirty, superstitious, lazy; distinguished from the plebs rustica, whose rural lifestyle might make them less morally dubious.
Polyfagus: An eater of everything; the courts of several Emperors employed such people as entertainers. One is said to have eaten condemned men alive for the benefit of the Emperor Nero.
Polyonomous: From the Greek for many-named.
Polyphemus: In Greek mythology, drunken one-eyed giant blinded by Odysseus.
Pontes: Fort built to defend the southern end of the Roman military bridge across the Danube; the fort and settlement on the opposite shore is now Drobeta-Turnu Severin in south-western Romania.
Porta Querquetulana: Gate of the Oak Grove; Gate in the ancient Servian Wall of Rome, possibly located on the Caelian Hill.
Poseidon: Greek god of the sea.
Praefectus Annonae: Prefect of the Provisions, title of official in charge of the grain supply of Rome.
Praefectus Nationes: Honourific title granted by the Romans to allied tribal chieftains.
Praeneste: Favoured hill resort of the Romans on the edge of the Apennines in central Italy; modern Palestrina.
Praetor: Roman magistrate in charge of justice, senatorial office second in rank to the Consuls.
Praetorian Prefect: Commander of the Praetorians, an equestrian; one of the most prestigious and powerful positions in the empire.
Praetorians: Soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, the Emperor’s bodyguard and the most prestigious and highly paid unit in the empire. Unfortunately for the Emperors, their loyalty could be bought with surprising ease.
Prefect: Flexible Latin title for many officials and officers.
Prefect of Egypt: Governor of Egypt; because of the strategic importance of the province, this post was never trusted to Senators (who might be inspired to challenge the Emperor) but was always filled by equestrians.
Prefect of the Armenians: Commander of an auxiliary unit recruited originally in Armenia.
Prefect of the Camp: Officer in charge of equipment, supply, and billeting.
Prefect of the City of Rome: Senior senatorial post in the city of Rome, commander of the Urban Cohorts.
Prefect of the Watch: Equestrian officer in charge of Rome’s Vigiles.
Priapic: Like the Roman rustic god Priapus; always portrayed with a huge erection.
Primus inter pares: Latin, ‘First among equals’; supposed equal status claimed by the Princeps with the Senate; a boundary not overstepped by good Emperors.
Princeps: Latin, ‘leading man’; thus a polite way to refer to the Emperor.
Princeps Iuventutis: ‘First among the youth’; title bestowed on imperial heirs.
Principate: Rule of the Princeps; the rule of the Roman imperium by the Emperors.
Proconsul: Title of the senatorial governors of some Roman provinces.
Procurator: Latin title for a range of officials, under the Principate typically equestrians appointed by the Emperor to oversee the collection of taxes in the provinces and keep an eye on their senatorial governors.
Prometheus: Divine figure, one of the Titans; variously believed to have created mankind out of clay, tricked the gods into accepting only the bones and fat of sacrifices, and stolen fire from Olympus for mortals. Zeus chained him to a peak in the Caucasus, where an eagle daily ate his liver before it grew back each night.
Pythagorean: Follower of the philosophy of the sixth-century BC Pythagoras, who laid stress on the mysticism of numbers and reincarnation.
Quaestor: Roman magistrate originally in charge of financial affairs, senatorial office second in rank to the Praetors.
Quantum libet, Imperator: Latin, ‘whatever pleases, Emperor’.
Quinquatrus: Roman festival in honour of Minerva, held from 19th to 23rd March.
Quinquegentiani: Literally, ‘people of the five tribes’, nomadic coalition living on the margins of the Sahara in western North Africa.
Quirites: Archaic way of referring to the citizens of Rome; sometimes used by those keen to evoke the Republican past.
Raetia: Roman province; roughly equivalent to modern Switzerland.
Ravenna: Base of the Roman fleet on the Adriatic Sea in north-eastern Italy.
Res Publica: Latin, ‘the Roman Republic’; under the Emperors, it continued to mean the Roman empire.
Res Reconditae: Literally, ‘obscure matters’; title of a lost antiquarian work by Sammonicus.
Resaina: Town in northern Syria, modern Ra’s al-’Ayn.
Roman Forum: See Forum Romanorum.
Romanitas: Roman-ness; increasingly important concept by the third century, with connotations of culture and civilization.
Rostra: Speaking platform at the western end of the Roman Forum; took its name from the beaks (rostra) of enemy warship with which it was decorated.
Roxolani: Nomadic Sarmatian tribe living on the Steppe north of the Danube and west of the Black Sea.
Sabine: From the Sabines, an Italic tribe of central Italy which merged with Rome soon after the foundation of the city in the eighth century BC.
Sacramentum: Roman military oath, taken extremely seriously.
Sacred Way: At Rome, a processional route running below the northern flank of the Palatine and passing south of the Temple of Venus and Rome, ending at the Roman Forum to the west; at Ephesus, main road paved with marble passing the Library of Celsus and leading down to the major shrines of the city.
Samosata: City on the right bank of the Euphrates in south-eastern Turkey protecting an important crossing point; now flooded by the Atatürk Dam.
Sapphic: From Sappho, Greek female poet from Lesbos who wrote love poetry to women.
Sarcophagi: From Greek, literally ‘flesh eater’; a stone chest containing a corpse and displayed above ground, often highly decorated.
Sarepta: Settlement on the Tyrian coast, famed for the production of expensive purple cloth using a dye from the Murex sea snail, worn as the prerogative of the Roman elite; modern Sarafand in Lebanon.
Sarmatians: Nomadic peoples living north of the Danube.
Sassanid: Persian, from the dynasty that overthrew the Parthians in the 220sAD and was Rome’s great eastern rival until the seventh century AD.
Satyrion: Ragwort, common ingredient of ancient aphrodisiacs; named from the licentious Satyrs.
Satyrs: In Greek and Roman mythology, half-goat half-man creatures with excessive sexual appetites.
Scythians: Term used by the Greeks and Romans for peoples living to the north and east of the Black Sea.
Sebasteia: City named after the Greek translation of the Emperor Augustus’s name in central Turkey; modern Sivas.
Senate: The council of Rome, under the Emperors composed of about six hundred men, the vast majority ex-magistrates, with some imperial favourites. The richest and most prestigious group in the empire and once the governing body of the Roman Republic; increasingly side-lined by the Emperors.
Senator: Member of the senate, the council of Rome. The semi-hereditary senatorial order was the richest and most prestigious group in the empire.
Serdica: Roman town; modern Sofia in Bulgaria.
Sicilia: Village in Germania near Mogontiacum; possibly modern Sicklingen.
Silentarii: Roman officials who, as their title indicates, were employed to maintain silence and decorum at the imper
ial court.
Simulacrum: Latin, ‘imitation’.
Singara: Highly fortified eastern outpost of the Roman empire in northern Iraq; modern Balad Sinjar.
Sinope: City on the southern shore of the Black Sea at the eastern end of the Roman province of Bithynia; modern Sinop in Turkey.
Sirmium: Strategic border town in Pannonia Inferior; modern Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia.
Sophists: High status teachers of ancient rhetoric who often travelled from city to city giving instruction and delivering speeches for entertainment.
Sortes Virgilianae: Popular method of divining the future by choosing random lines from Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, and interpreting them to suit the situation.
Speculatores: Roman army scouts and spies.
Spintriae: Latin, ‘male-prostitutes’. From the Greek term (anal) sphincter.
Stoa: Pavilion by the agora in Athens where the Stoics first met, giving its name to their philosophy.
Stoic: Followers of the philosophy of Stoicism; should believe that everything which does not affect one’s moral purpose is an irrelevance; so poverty, illness, bereavement and death cease to be things to fear and are treated with indifference.
Stola: Roman matron’s gown.
Subura: Poor quarter in the city of Rome.
Suebian Sea: Ancient name for the Baltic.
Sufes Pass: Roman name for the Kasserine Pass in the Atlas Mountains of eastern Tunisia.
Suffect Consul: One of the additional consuls appointed later in the year by the Emperors during the Principate; less prestigious than the Consul Ordinarius.
Symposium (plural Symposia): Greek drinking party, adopted as social gathering of choice by the Roman elite.
Syracuse: Greek city on the south-eastern shore of Sicily.
Syria Coele: Hollow Syria, Roman province.
Syria Palestina: Palestinian Syria, Roman province.
Syria Phoenice: Phoenician Syria, Roman province.
Tacape: City on the south-eastern coast of Africa Proconsularis; modern Gabès in Tunisia.
Talassio!: Tradition cry at Roman weddings; its origins were obscure to the ancients themselves.
Taparura: City on the eastern coast of Africa Proconsularis; modern Sfax in Tunisia.
Temple of Peace: Monumental building with planted courtyard north east of the Roman Forum.
Temple of Tellus: Temple dedicated to the earth goddess Tellus; prominent landmark of the Carinae quarter, sited on the flank of the Esquiline Hill.
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