Latium The region of Italy in which Rome was situated; it received its name from the original inhabitants, called Latini. Its northern boundary was the Tiber, its southern a point extending inland from the seaport of Circei; on the east it bordered the lands of the Sabines and Marsi. When the Roman conquest of the Volsci and the Aequi was completed by 300 b.c., Latium became purely Roman.
Lautumiae The ancient tufa-stone quarry in the base of the northeast cliffs of the Arx of the Capitol. The earliest of the buildings contained in the Forum Romanum of Marius and Sulla’s day were made from stone quarried there. At some time a prison was built in the convenient quarry’s lap, but as lengthy incarceration was not a Roman concept, the place was never rendered secure. The Lautumiae was a collection of holding cells—mostly used, it seems, to confine recalcitrant magistrates and politicians. As punishment for crime, the Romans preferred exile to imprisonment. It was much cheaper.
legate Legatus. The most senior members of the Roman general’s military staff were his legates. In order to be classified as a legate, a man had to be of senatorial rank, and often was a consular (it appears these elder statesmen occasionally hankered after a spell of army life, and volunteered their services to a general commanding some interesting campaign). Legates answered only to the general, and were senior to all types of military tribune.
legion Legio. This was the smallest Roman military unit capable of fighting a war on its own (though it was rarely called upon to do so). That is, it was complete within itself in terms of manpower, equipment, and facilities. By the time of Marius and Sulla, a Roman army engaged in any major campaign rarely consisted of fewer than four legions—though equally rarely of more than six legions. Single legions without prospect of reinforcement did garrison duty in places where rebellions or raids were small-scale. A legion contained something over five thousand soldiers divided into ten cohorts of six centuries each, and about one thousand men of noncombatant status; there was a modest cavalry squadron attached to the legion under normal circumstances. Each legion fielded its own artillery and matèriel. If a legion was one of the consul’s legions, it was commanded by up to six elected tribunes of the soldiers; if it belonged to a general not currently consul, it was commanded by a legate, or else by the general himself. Its regular officers were centurions, of which it possessed some sixty. Though the troops belonging to a legion camped together, they did not live together en masse; instead, they were divided into units of eight men who tented and messed together.
legionary This is the correct English word to describe an ordinary soldier (miles gregarius) in a Roman legion. “Legionnaire,” which I have sometimes seen instead, is more properly the term applied to a member of the French Foreign Legion.
lex Plural, leges. A law. The word “lex” came to be applied also to a plebiscitum (plebiscite), which was a law passed in the Plebeian Assembly. A lex was not considered valid until it had been inscribed on bronze or stone and deposited in the vaults below the temple of Saturn. However, logic says the tablet’s residence in the temple of Saturn must have been brief, as the vaults could not have contained anything like the number of tablets necessary to hold the body of Roman law at the time of Marius and Sulla— especially not when the Treasury also lay beneath the temple of Saturn. I imagine the tablets were whisked in and out to be stored permanently elsewhere.
leges Caecilia Didia I have called the first one prima, as it figures more prominently in the book than the second lex Caecilia Didia. The first of these two laws stipulated that three nundinae or market days must elapse between the first contio to promulgate a law in any of the Assemblies and the vote which passed a bill into law. There is some debate as to whether the waiting period was seventeen or twenty-four days; I have chosen the smaller wait because it seems more Roman. The second lex Caecilia Didia forbade the tacking of unrelated matters together to form one law. They were passed by the consuls of 98 b.c.
lex Calpurnia de civitate sociorum The law of Piso Frugi passed in 89 b.c. Originally it stipulated that all the new citizens of the lex Julia should be placed in two newly created tribes; when this caused a huge outcry, Piso Frugi changed his law to admit the new citizens to his two new tribes plus eight existing tribes.
leges Corneliae The laws of Sulla, passed in 88 b.c., during his consulship. They fall into three lots, passed at different times. At the beginning of his consulship he passed two laws to regulate Rome’s rocky finances; the first stipulated that all debtors were to pay simple interest only on loans at the rate agreed to by both parties at the time the loan was made. The second waived the lodgment of sponsio (that is, the sum in dispute) with the praetor in cases of debt, enabling the praetor to hear the case. After the slaughter in Asia Province by Mithridates and before the laws of Sulpicius came Sulla’s agrarian law. It gave the confiscated lands of the rebel towns Pompeii, Faesulae, Hadria, Telesia, Bovianum, and Grumentum to Sulla’s veteran soldiers upon their retirement. The final batch of laws was passed after Sulla’s march on Rome. The first waived the waiting period of the lex Caecilia Didia prima. The second added three hundred members to the Senate, to be appointed by the censors in the usual way. The third repealed the lex Hortensia of 287 b.c. by stipulating that nothing could now be brought before the tribal Assemblies unless the Senate issued a consultum. The wording of the consultum could not be changed in the Assemblies. The fourth returned the Centuriate Assembly to the form it had known under King Servius Tullius, thus giving the First Class of voters almost 50 percent of the voting power. The fifth prohibited either discussion of or passing of laws in the tribal Assemblies. All laws in future were to be discussed and passed in the Centuriate Assembly only. The sixth repealed all of the leges Sulpiciae because they had been passed with violence during legally declared religious holidays. The seventh indicted twenty men on charges of high treason (perduellio)—and damned them—in the Centuriate Assembly. Gaius Marius, Young Marius, Sulpicius, Brutus the urban praetor, Cethegus, the Brothers Granii, Albinovanus, Laetorius, and eleven more were named.
lex Domitia de sacerdotiis Passed in 104 b.c. by Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, later Pontifex Maximus. It required that future members of the College of Pontifices and College of Augurs be elected by a special tribal Assembly comprising seventeen tribes chosen by lot.
lex Julia de civitate Latinis et sociis danda Passed by Lucius Julius Caesar at the end of his consulship in 90 b.c. It gave the Roman citizenship to all Italians who had not taken up arms against Rome during the Marsic War. Presumably it also fully enfranchised all Latin Rights communities in Italy.
lex Licinia Mucia Passed by the consuls of 95 b.c. in response to an outcry about the number of spurious Roman citizens who appeared on the census rolls in 96 b.c. It legislated the creation of a number of special courts (quaestiones) to enquire into the credentials of all new names on the citizen register, and prescribed severe penalties for those found to have falsified citizenship.
lex Plautia iudiciaria Passed in the Plebeian Assembly in 89 b.c. It changed the frame of reference of the so-called Varian Commission to prosecute those who had opposed enfranchisement of the Italians. Further, it took the court off the knights and gave it to citizens of all and any Classes right across the thirty-five tribes.
lex Plautia Papiria Passed by the Plebeian Assembly in 89 b.c. It extended the full citizenship to any Italian with his name on an Italian municipal roll (if an insurgent, it required that he withdraw from all hostilities against Rome) provided the applicant lodged his case with the urban praetor inside Rome within sixty days of the passing of the law.
lex Pompeia Passed by the consul of 89 b.c., Pompey Strabo. This law gave the full citizenship to every Latin Rights community south of the Padus River in Italian Gaul, and gave the Latin Rights to Celtic tribes attached to the towns of Aquileia, Patavium, and Mediolanum north of the Padus River.
leges Sulpiciae There were four such, passed after the consul Sulla had been given command of the war against Mithridates in about September o
f 88 B.c: The first recalled all those exiled under the terms of the Varian Commission; the second provided that all the new Roman citizens should be distributed equally across the thirty-five tribes, and that the freedmen of Rome also be distributed across the thirty-five tribes; the third expelled all senators in debt for more than two thousand denarii from the Senate; and the fourth took the command of the war against Mithridates off Sulla and gave it to Marius. After Sulla’s march on Rome, his laws were annulled.
lex Varia de maiestate Passed in the Plebeian Assembly by Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis in 90 b.c. It created a special court (thereafter always called the Varian Commission) to try those accused of attempting to secure the Roman citizenship for Italians.
lex Voconia de mulierum hereditatibus Passed in 169 b.c. This law severely curtailed the right of women to inherit from wills. Under no circumstances could she be designated the principal heir, even if she was the only child of her father; his nearest agnate relatives (that is, on the father’s side) superseded her. Cicero quotes a case where it was argued that the lex Voconia did not apply because the dead man’s property had not been assessed at a census; but the praetor (Gaius Verres) overruled the argument and refused to allow the girl in question to inherit. The law was certainly got around, for we know of several great heiresses; by securing a law waiving the lex Voconia, perhaps; or by dying intestate, in which case the old law prevailed, and children inherited irrespective of sex or close agnate relatives. Until Sulla as dictator established permanent quaestiones there does not appear to have been a court to hear testamentary disputes, which meant the urban praetor must have had the final say.
LIBERO The verdict of acquittal in a trial conducted in one of the voting Assemblies.
licker-fish A freshwater bass of the Tiber River. It was found only between the Wooden Bridge and the Pons Aemilius, where it lurked around the outflows of the great sewers and fed upon what the sewers disgorged. Apparently it was so well fed that it was notoriously difficult to catch— which may be why it was regarded as a great delicacy.
lictor One of the few genuine public servants of Rome. There was a College of Lictors; how many it contained is uncertain, but enough certainly to provide the traditional single-file escort for all holders of imperium, both within and without the city, and to perform other duties as well. Two or three hundred lictors all told may not have been unlikely. A lictor had to be a full Roman citizen, but that he was lowly seems fairly sure, as his official wage was minimal; he relied heavily upon gratuities from those he escorted. Within the college the lictors were divided into groups of ten (decuries), each headed by a prefect; there were several presidents of the college as a whole. Inside Rome the lictor wore a plain white toga; outside Rome he wore a crimson tunic with a wide black belt heavily ornamented in brass; at funerals he wore a black toga. I have located the College of Lictors behind the temple of the Lares Praestites on the eastern side of the Forum Romanum adjacent to the great inn on the corner of the Clivus Orbius, but there is no factual evidence to support this location. Long-haired Gaul See Gallia Comata. Lucania Western peninsular Italy lying south of Campania and north of Bruttium—the front of the Italian ankle and foot. It was a wild and mountainous area and contained huge and magnificent forests of fir and pine. Its people— called Lucani—had strong ties with the Samnites, the Hirpini, and the Venusini, and bitterly resented Roman incursions into Lucania.
Lucius Tiddlypuss See Tiddlypuss, Lucius.
ludi Romani See games.
Lusitani The people of the southwestern and western areas of the Iberian peninsula; they lay beyond the frontiers of the Roman province of Further Spain, and strenuously resisted all Roman attempts to penetrate their lands. They also regularly invaded Further Spain to annoy the Roman occupiers.
lustrum This word came to mean two things, both connected with the office of censor. It meant the entire five-year term the censors served, but also meant the ceremony with which the censors concluded the census of the ordinary Roman People on the Campus Martius.
magistrates The elected executives of the Senate and People of Rome. By the middle Republic, all the men who held magistracies were members of the Senate (elected quaestors, if not already senators, were normally approved as senators by the next pair of censors). This gave the Senate a distinct advantage over the People, until the People (in the person of the Plebs) took over the lawmaking. The magistrates represented the executive arm of government. In order of seniority, the most junior magistrate was the elected tribune of the soldiers, who was not old enough to be admitted to the Senate under the lex Villia annalis, yet was nonetheless a true magistrate. Then; in ascending order came the quaestor, the tribune of the plebs, the plebeian aedile, the curule aedile, the praetor, the consul, and the censor. Only the curule aedile, the praetor, and the consul held imperium. Only the quaestorship, praetorship, and consulship constituted the cursus honorum. Tribunes of the soldiers, quaestors, and curule aediles were elected by the Assembly of the People; tribunes of the plebs and plebeian aediles were elected by the Plebeian Assembly; and praetors, consuls, and censors were elected by the Centuriate Assembly. In times of emergency, the Senate was empowered to create an extraordinary magistrate, the dictator, who served for six months only, and was indemnified against answering for his dictatorial actions after his term as dictator was over. The dictator himself appointed a Master of the Horse to function as his war leader and second-in-command. On the death or incapacitation of a consul, the Senate was also empowered to appoint a suffect consul without holding an election. Save for the censors, all magistrates served for one year only.
maiestas Treason. After Lucius Appuleius Saturninus first put maiestas minuta (“little treason”) on the law tablets as a criminal charge, the old-style treason charge of perduellio (high treason) was virtually abandoned. Saturninus set up a special court or quaestio to hear charges of maiestas minuta during his first term as tribune of the plebs in 103 b.c.; it was staffed entirely by knights, though the men tried in it were usually senators.
manumission The act of freeing a slave (manumit, manumitted). When the slave’s master was a Roman citizen, manumission automatically endowed the slave with the Roman citizenship, However, the freed slave, or freedman, had little opportunity to exercise his franchise, as he was placed in one of two of the four urban tribes—Esquilina or Suburana—and therefore found his vote worthless in tribal elections; his economic lowliness (though slaves occasionally did manage to make a lot of money) meant he was not made a member of one of the Five Classes, so he could not vote in the Centuriate Assembly either. The manumitted slave took the name of his old master as his new name, adding to it his original slave name as a cognomen. A slave might be manumitted in any one of several ways: by buying his freedom out of his earnings; as a special gesture of the master’s on some great occasion like a coming-of-age birthday; after an agreed number of years in service; in a will. Though technically the freedman was the equal of his master, in actual fact he was obliged to remain in his old master’s clientship, unless this was formally dispensed with. Despite this, most slaves found the Roman citizenship highly desirable, not so much for themselves as for their freeborn descendants. The freedman was obliged for the rest of his life to wear a slightly conical skullcap on the back of his head; this was the Cap of Liberty.
Marsi One of the most important of the Italian peoples. The Marsi lived around the shores of the Fucine Lake, which belonged to them; their territory extended into the high Apennines. Their history indicates that they were always loyal to Rome until came the time of the Marsic War. They were affluent, martial, and populous, and had adopted Latin as their language fairly early. Their chief town was Marruvium; the larger and more important town of Alba Fucens was a Latin Rights colony seeded on Marsic territory by Rome. The Marsi worshipped snakes, and were famous snake charmers.
Martha The Syrian prophetess who predicted that Gaius Marius would be consul of Rome seven times, and did this before he had been con
sul at all. She extracted a promise from Marius that he would bring her from Africa to Rome, where she lived in his house as his guest until she died, and regularly scandalized Rome’s populace by appearing in a purple litter. My own novelist’s license added the second part to her prophecy—that Marius would be eclipsed in greatness by his wife’s nephew; I did this to make later events more logical.
mentula Plural, mentulae. The Latin obscenity for the penis.
mentulam caco “I shit on your prick!”
merda A Latin obscenity referring more to the droppings of animals than to human excrement.
Metrobius Plutarch attests to the existence of this beloved boyfriend of Sulla’s, and gives us his name—Metrobius.
Middle Sea The name I have given the Mediterranean Sea, which had not at the time of Marius and Sulla acquired its later name of Mare Nostrum—”Our Sea.” Properly, at the time of Marius and Sulla it was called Mare Internum.
Military Man Vir militaris. He was a man whose whole career revolved around the army, and who continued to serve in the army after his obligatory number of campaigns or years had expired. He entered the political arena relying upon his military reputation to recommend him to the electors. Many Military Men never bothered to enter the political arena at all, but if such a one wanted to general an army, he had to attain the rank of praetor, and that meant a political career. Gaius Marius, Quintus Sertorius, Titus Didius, Gaius Pomptinus, and Publius Ventidius were all Military Men; but Caesar the Dictator, the greatest military man of them all, was never a Military Man.
military tribune See tribune, military.
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