Calabria Confusing for those who know modern Italy better than they do ancient Italy! Nowadays Calabria is the toe of the boot, but in ancient times Calabria was the heel. Brundisium was its most important city, followed by Tarentum. The region was not mightily involved in the Marsic War, though its people, the Calabri, were sympathetic to the Italian cause.
Campania A fabulously rich and fertile basin, volcanic in origin and soil, Campania lay between the Apennines of Samnium and the Tuscan Sea, and extended from Tarracina in the north to a point well south of the modern Bay of Naples. Watered by the Liris, Volturnus/Calor, Clanius, and Sarnus rivers, it grew bigger, better, and more of everything than any other region in Italy, even Italian Gaul of the Padus. Colonized during the seventh century b.c. by the Greeks, it fell under Etruscan domination, then affiliated itself to the Samnites (of whom there was a large element in its population), and eventually became subject to Rome. Because of the Greek and Samnite population, it was always an area prone to insurrection, and lost much of its best countryside to Rome as Roman ager publicus. The towns of Capua, Teanum Sidicinum, Venafrum, Acerrae, Nola, and Interamna were important inland centers, while the ports of Puteoli, Neapolis, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Surrentum, Stabiae, and Salernum constituted the best on Italy’s west coast. Puteoli was the largest and busiest port in all of Italy. The Viae Campana, Appia, and Latina passed through it.
campus Plural, campi. A plain, or a flat expanse of ground.
Campus Esquilinus The area of flat ground outside the Servian Walls and the double rampart of the Agger, between the Querquetulan Gate and the Colline Gate. Here lay Rome’s necropolis.
Campus Martius Situated to the north and northwest of the Servian Walls of Rome, the Campus Martius was bounded by the Capitol to its south and the Pincian Hill on its east; the rest of it was enclosed by a huge bend in the Tiber River. On the Campus Martius armies awaiting their general’s triumph were bivouacked, military exercises and the training of the young went on, the stables and exercise tracks for horses engaged in chariot racing were situated, assemblies of the comitia centuriata took place, and market gardening vied with public parklands. The Tiber swimming hole of the Trigarium lay at the apex of the bend, and just to the north of that were medicinal mineral hot springs called the Tarentum. The Via Lata (Via Flaminia) crossed the Campus Martius on its way to the Mulvian Bridge, and the Via Recta bisected it at right angles to the Via Lata.
Campus Vaticanus Situated on the opposite (north) bank of the Tiber from the Campus Martius, the Campus Vaticanus was an area of market gardening and had no importance in the Rome of Marius and Sulla.
Cannae An Apulian town on the Aufidius River in southeastern Italy. Here in 216 b.c. , Hannibal and his Punic army (allied with the Samnites) met a Roman army commanded by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. The Roman army was annihilated; until the Battle of Arausio in 106 b.c. , it ranked as Rome’s worst military disaster. Somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 men died. The survivors were made to pass beneath the yoke (see yoke).
Capena Gate Porta Capena. This was one of the two most strategic gates in Rome’s Servian Walls (the other was the Colline Gate). It lay south of the Circus Maximus, and outside it was the common road which branched into the Via Appia and the Via Latina about half a mile from the gate itself.
capite censi Literally, “Head Count.” The capite censi were those full Roman citizens too poor to belong to one of the five economic classes, and so were unable to vote in the Centuriate Assembly at all. As most capite censi were urban in origin as well as in residence, they largely belonged to urban tribes, which numbered only four out of the total thirty-five tribes; this meant they had little influence in either of the tribal Assemblies, People or Plebs (see also Head Count, proletarii).
Cappadocia A kingdom located in central Anatolia (it is still known today as Cappadocia). Lying at high altitude, the land was created by the outpourings of many volcanos, the most notable of which was Mount Argaeus; Cappadocia’s only township, Eusebeia Mazaca, lay on the lower flanks of this mighty cone. Bountifully watered and rich of soil, Cappadocia was perpetually coveted by the more powerful kings to its north (Pontus) and south (Syria). However, Cappadocia maintained its own line of kings, who usually went by the title Ariarathes. The people were akin to the people of Pontus. The temple-state of Ma at Comana, rich enough to keep 6,000 temple slaves, was reserved as a fief for the reigning king’s brother, who functioned as its high priest.
Capua The most important inland town in Campania. A history of broken pledges of loyalty to Rome led to Roman reprisals which stripped Capua of its extensive and extremely valuable public lands; these became the nucleus of the ager Campanus, and included, for instance, the fabulous vineyards which produced Falernian wines. By the time of Marius and Sulla, Capua’s economic well-being depended upon the many military training camps, gladiatorial schools, and slave camps for bulk-lot prisoners that lay on the town’s outskirts; the people of Capua made their livings from supplying and servicing these huge institutions.
Carinae One of Rome’s more exclusive addresses. The Carinae (which incorporated the Fagutal) was the northern tip of the Oppian Mount on its western side; it extended between the Velia and the Clivus Pullius. Its outlook was southwestern, across the swamps of the Palus Ceroliae toward the Aventine.
Carthage Capital and chief center of the trading empire founded by Phoenician colonists in central North Africa (modern Tunisia). Situated on one of the finest harbors in the Mediterranean, Carthage’s port facilities were enhanced by massive man-made improvements. After Scipio Aemilianus terminated the activities of the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War, Carthage itself virtually ceased to exist.
Caudine Forks In 321 b.c. a Roman army was trapped in a gulch known as the Caudine Forks, somewhere near the Samnite town of Beneventum. It surrendered to the Samnite Gavius Pontius, who forced its soldiers to pass beneath the yoke, a terrible disgrace.
Celtiberian The name given to the members of that segment of the Celtic race which crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and settled in its central, northwestern, and northeastern regions. By the time of Marius and Sulla the Celtiberians were so well ensconced that they were generally regarded as indigenous to Spain.
Celts More the modern than the ancient term for a barbarian race which emerged from north-central Europe during the early centuries of the first millennium b.c. From about 500 b.c. onward, the Celts attempted to invade the lands of the European Mediterranean; in Spain and Gaul they succeeded, whereas in Italy, Macedonia, and Greece they failed. However, in Italian Gaul, Umbria, and Picenum in Italy (as well as in Macedonia, Thessaly, Illyricum, and Moesia) they seeded whole populations which gradually admixed with older local stock. Racially the Celts were different from, yet akin to, the later Germans; they considered themselves a discrete people, and had a more complex religious culture than the Germans. Their languages were similar in some ways to Latin. A Roman rarely if ever used the word “Celt”; he said “Gaul.”
censor The censor was the most senior of all Roman magistrates, though he lacked imperium and was not therefore escorted by lictors. No man who had not already been consul could seek election as censor, and only those consulars owning tremendous auctoritas and dignitas normally bothered to stand. To be elected censor (by the Centuriate Assembly) was a complete vindication of a man’s political career, as it told Rome he was one of the very top men. Two censors were elected to serve together for a period of five years called the lustrum, though the censors were active in their duties only for about the first eighteen months. The censors inspected and regulated membership in the Senate, the Ordo Equester (the knights), the holders of the Public Horse (the 1,800 most senior knights), and conducted a general census of Roman citizens throughout the Roman world. They also applied the means test. State contracts and various public works and buildings were in the domain of the censors.
census Every five years the censors brought the roll of the citizens of Rome up to date.
The name of every Roman citizen male was entered on these rolls, together with information about each man’s tribe, his economic class, his property and means, and his family. Neither women nor children were formally registered as being Roman citizens, though there are cases documented in the ancient sources in which a woman was awarded the Roman citizenship in her own right. The city of Rome’s census was taken on the Campus Martius at a special station erected for the purpose; those living elsewhere in Italy had to report to the authorities at the nearest municipal registry, and those living abroad to the provincial governor. There is some evidence, however, that the censors of 97 b.c., Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Marcus Antonius Orator, changed the manner by which citizens living outside Rome but inside Italy were enrolled.
Centuriate Assembly See Assembly
centurion The regular officer of both Roman citizen and auxiliary legions. It is a mistake to equate him with the modern noncommissioned officer; centurions were complete professionals enjoying a status uncomplicated by our modern social distinctions. A defeated Roman general hardly turned a hair if he lost military tribunes, but tore his hair out in clumps if he lost centurions. Centurion rank was graduated; the most junior centurio (plural, centuriones) commanded a group of eighty soldiers and twenty noncombatants called a century. In the Republican army as reorganized by Gaius Marius, each cohort had six centurions, with the most senior man—the pilus prior—commanding the senior century of his cohort as well as commanding his entire cohort. The ten men commanding the ten cohorts making up a legion were also ranked in seniority, with the legion’s most senior centurion, the primus pilus, answering only to his legion’s commander (either one of the elected tribunes of the soldiers, or one of the general’s legates). Promotion during Republican times was up from the ranks.
chersonnese The name the Greeks gave to a peninsula, though they used it somewhat more flexibly than modern geographers employ the term peninsula. Thus the Tauric Chersonnese, the Cimbrian Chersonnese, the Thracian Chersonnese, the Cnidan Chersonnese, et cetera.
Chios A large island in the Aegean Sea, lying off the coast of Asia Minor (the Roman Asia Province) near Smyrna. Chios was chiefly famous for its wine, which had no peer. After an accident to his flagship caused by a Chian ship, King Mithridates VI of Pontus ever after harbored a huge grudge against Chios and Chians.
Cilicia Cilicia was that part of southern Anatolia lying opposite the Cleides peninsula of Cyprus and extending westward as far as the further end of Cyprus, where it adjoined Pamphylia. Its eastern border lay along the Amanus mountains, which separated it from Syria. Western Cilicia was harsh, arid, and extremely mountainous, but eastern Cilicia (known as Cilicia Pedia) was a large and fertile plain watered by the Pyramus, the Saras and the Cydnus rivers. Its capital was Tarsus, on the Cydnus. Modern scholars hold differing opinions as to when Cilicia was formally made a province of Rome, but there seems to me plenty of evidence to suggest that Marcus Antonius Orator annexed it during his campaign against the pirates in 101 b.c. Certainly Sulla was sent to govern Cilicia during the nineties, well before the Marsic War.
Cimbri A very large confraternity of Germanic tribes who lived in the more northern half of the Cimbric Chersonnese (the modern Jutland Peninsula) until about 120 b.c., when some natural disaster prompted them to migrate. Together with their southern neighbors, the Teutones, they began an epic trek to find a new homeland—a trek which lasted twenty years, took them thousands of miles, and finally brought them up against Rome—and Gaius Marius. They were virtually annihilated at the battle of Vercellae in 101 b.c.
citadel Properly, a fortress atop a precipitous hill. Sometimes it lay within its own walls within a larger, more open fortress, as was the case with the Roman stronghold on the Janiculum.
citizenship For the purposes of this book, the Roman citizenship. Possession of it entitled a man to vote in his tribe and his class (if he was economically qualified to belong to a class) in all Roman elections. He could not be flogged, he was entitled to the Roman trial process, and he had the right of appeal. At various times both his parents had to be Roman citizens, at other times only his father (hence the cognomen Hybrida); after the lex Minicia of 91 b.c., a Roman male marrying a non-Roman woman would have had to acquire conubium for his wife if the child was to be a Roman citizen. The male citizen became liable for military service on his seventeenth birthday, and had then to serve for ten campaigns or six years, whichever came first. Before Gaius Marius’s army reforms, a citizen had to possess sufficient property to buy his own arms, armor, gear, and provisions if he was to serve in the legions; after Gaius Marius, legions contained both propertied men and men of the capite censi, the Head Count.
citocacia A mild Latin profanity, meaning “stinkweed.”
citrus wood The most prized cabinet wood of the Roman world, seen at its very best during the last century of the Republic. Citrus wood was cut from vast galls on the root system of a cypresslike tree, Callitris quadrivavis vent., which grew in the highlands of North Africa all the way from the Oasis of Ammonium, and Cyrenaica, to the far Atlas of Mauretania; it must be emphasized that the tree was no relation of orange or lemon, despite the name of its timber. Different trees produced different patterns in the grain, all of which had names—tiger had a long and rippling grain, panther a spiral grain, peacock had eyes like those in a peacock’s tail, parsley a ruffled grain, and so on. In Republican times it was cut as solid wood rather than as a veneer (scarcity dictated veneer during the Empire), and always mounted upon an ivory leg or legs, usually inlaid with gold. Hence a special guild of tradesmen grew up, the citrarii et eborarii, combining citrus wood joiners with ivory carvers. Most citrus wood was reserved for making table-tops, where the beauty of its grain could really be displayed, but it was also turned as bowls. No tables have survived to modern times, but we do have a few bowls, and can see that citrus wood was certainly the most beautiful timber of all time.
classes These were five in number, and represented the economic divisions of property-owning or steady-income-earning Roman citizens. The members of the First Class were the richest, the members of the Fifth Class the poorest. The capite censi or Head Count did not have class status, and so could not vote in the Centuriate Assembly.
client In Latin, cliens. The term denoted a man of free or freed status (he did not have to be a Roman citizen, however) who pledged himself to a man he called his patron. In the most solemn and binding way, the client undertook to serve the interests and obey the wishes of his patron. In return he received certain favors—usually gifts of money, or a job, or legal assistance. The freed slave was automatically the client of his ex-master until discharged of this obligation— if he ever was. A kind of honor system governed the client’s conduct in relation to his patron, and was remarkably consistently adhered to. To be a client did not necessarily mean a man could not be a patron; more that he could not be an ultimate patron, as technically his own clients were also the clients of his patron. During the Republic there were no formal laws concerning the client-patron relationship because they were not necessary—no man, client or patron, could hope to succeed in life were he known as dishonorable in this vital function. However, there were laws regulating the foreign client-patron relationship; foreign states or client-kingdoms acknowledging Rome as patron were legally obliged to find the ransom for any Roman citizen kidnapped in their territories, a fact that pirates relied on heavily for an additional source of income. Thus, not only individuals could become clients; whole towns and countries often were.
client-king A foreign monarch might pledge himself as a client in the service of Rome as his patron, thereby entitling his kingdom to be called Friend and Ally of the Roman People. Sometimes, however, a foreign monarch pledged himself as the client of one Roman individual.
clivus A street on an incline—that is, a hilly street. Rome, a city of hills, had many.
cognomen Plural, cognomina. This was the last name of a Roman male anxious to distinguish himself from all h
is fellows possessed of an identical first and family name. In some families it became necessary to have more than one cognomen: for example, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica; Quintus was his first name (praenomen), Caecilius his family name (nomen), and Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica were all cognomina. The cognomen usually pointed up some physical characteristic or idiosyncrasy— jug ears, flat feet, hump back—or else commemorated some great feat—as in the Caecilii Metelli who were cognominated Dalmaticus, Balearicus, Numidicus, these being countries each man had conquered. Many cognomina were heavily sarcastic or extremely witty.
cohort After the reforms Gaius Marius carried out upon the Roman legion, the cohort became the tactical unit of the legion. It comprised six centuries of troops; in normal circumstances, a legion owned ten cohorts. When discussing troop movements, it was customary to speak of tactical strength in terms of cohorts rather than legions—thus, twenty-five cohorts rather than two and a half legions, or five cohorts rather than half a legion.
college A body or society of men having something in common. Thus, Rome owned priestly colleges (the College of Pontifices), political colleges (the College of Tribunes of the Plebs), religious colleges (the College of Lictors), and work-related colleges (the Guild of Undertakers). Certain groups of men from all walks of life, including slaves, banded together in what were called Crossroads Colleges to look after the city of Rome’s crossroads and conduct the annual feast of the crossroads, the Compitalia.
colonnade A roofed walkway flanked by one outer row of columns when attached to a building in the manner of a verandah, or two rows of columns, one on either side, if freestanding.
comitia See Assembly.
Comitia The large round well in which meetings of the comitia were held. It lay in the lower Forum Romanum adjacent to the steps of the Senate House and the Basilica Aemilia, and was formed of a series of tiers. When packed, perhaps three thousand men could be accommodated in it. The rostra, or speakers’ platform, was attached to its side.
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