modius Plural, modii. The measure of grain in Rome. One modius weighed thirteen pounds, or six kilograms.
Mormolyce Also known as Mormo. A children’s bogey, she appears to have been an historical figure, at least in myth. The queen of a race of cannibal giants, she lost her children, and ever afterward preyed upon the children of humankind.
mos maiorum The established order of things. Perhaps the best definition is to say that the mos maiorum was Rome’s unwritten constitution. Mos meant established customs; maiores meant ancestors or forebears in this context. The mos maiorum was how things had always been done.
Nearer Spain Hispania Citerior. The territory of this Roman province embraced the Mediterranean coastal plain and the mountainous foothills beyond it all the way from the Pyrenees to just south of the seaport of New Carthage. The southern boundary splitting the Further province off from it was fairly tenuous, but seems to have run between the range of mountains called the Orospeda and the taller range behind Abdera called the Solorius. In the time of Marius and Sulla the largest settlement was New Carthage (modern Cartagena) because the Orospeda ranges behind this seaport were honeycombed with productive silver mines the Romans had taken over when Carthage fell. Only one other part of the province was of much interest to its Roman owners; the valley of the Iberus River (modern Ebro) and its tributaries, this area being very rich. The governor had two seats: New Carthage in the south and Tarraco in the north. Nearer Spain was never as economically important to Rome as the Further province; it was, however, the only land route to Further Spain, and therefore had to be kept subdued.
nefas Sacrilege.
nobleman Nobilis. A man and his descendants were described as noble once he had achieved his consulship. This was an artificial aristocracy invented by the plebeians in order to cut the patricians down to size, since more plebeians reached the consulship than did patricians once the first century of the Republic was over. By the time of Marius and Sulla, nobility mattered greatly. Some modern authorities extend the term nobilis to cover those men who reached the status of praetor without ever attaining the consulship. However, my feeling is that to have admitted praetors into the plebeian nobility would have demeaned the exclusivity of nobility too much. Therefore I have reserved the term nobleman for those men of proven consular family.
nomen The family, clan, or gentilicial name—the title of the gens. Cornelius, Julius, Domitius, Livius, Marius, Marcius, Junius, Sulpicius, et cetera, are all nomina (plural), gentilicial names. I have not used the word gens very much in this book, as it takes a feminine ending—gens Julia, gens Aurelia, et cetera—too confusing for non-Latinate readers.
Numidia A kingdom in ancient middle North Africa which always surrounded the limited lands owned by Carthage (lands which became the Roman African province). The original inhabitants were Berbers, and lived a semi-nomadic life. After the defeat of Carthage, Rome encouraged the establishment of a regal dynasty, the first member of which was King Masinissa. The capital of Numidia was Cirta.
October Horse On the Ides of October (this was about the time the old campaigning season used to finish), the best war-horses of that year were picked out and harnessed in pairs to chariots. They then raced on the sward of the Campus Martius, rather than in one of the circuses. The right-hand horse of the winning team was sacrificed to Mars on an altar specially erected to Mars adjacent to the course of the race. The animal was killed with a spear, after which its head was severed and piled over with little cakes, while its tail and genitals were rushed to the Regia in the Forum Romanum, and the blood dripped onto the Regia’s altar. Once the ceremonies over the cake-decorated horse’s head were ended, it was thrown at two crowds of people, one comprising the residents of the Subura, the other residents of the Via Sacra; they fought for possession of it. If the people of the Via Sacra won, they nailed the head to the outside wall of the Regia; if the people of the Subura won, they nailed it to the outside wall of the Turris Mamilia (the most conspicuous building in the Subura). What was the reason behind all this is not known; modern scholars tend to think it was concerned with the closing of the campaign season in much earlier times than the day of Marius and Sulla, by which era the Romans themselves may not have been sure of its origins. We do not know whether the war-horses involved in the race were Public Horses or not; one might presume they were Public Horses.
Odysseus To Romans, he was Ulysses. King of Ithaca in days of legend. One of the main characters in Homer’s Iliad, he was the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. By nature crafty, brilliant, and deceitful (deceit was not necessarily odious to the ancient Greeks), he was also a great warrior, strong enough to own a bow no other man could bend and string; physically he was red-haired, left-handed, grey-eyed, and so short in the legs that he looked “taller sitting than he did standing.” Having fought for the whole ten years at Troy (Ilium) and survived, Odysseus set out for home when the war was over, bearing as his special prize old Queen Hekabe (Hecuba), widow of King Priam of Troy. But he soon abandoned her, disgusted at her weeping and wailing, and then became embroiled in a decade of amazing adventures which took him all over the Mediterranean. At the end of ten years (having been away for twenty) he arrived home in Ithaca, where his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, and his dog, Argus, had all waited for him faithfully. The first thing he did was to string his bow and shoot an arrow through the hollows in a series of axe heads, after which he turned his mighty weapon upon his wife’s importunate suitors, and killed them all, his son helping. After that, he settled down with Penelope and lived happily ever after.
Ordo Equester See knights.
Oxyntas A son of King Jugurtha of Numidia, he walked with his brother Iampsas in Gaius Marius’s triumphal parade of 104 b.c. His father was put to death immediately afterward, but Oxyntas was sent to the town of Venusia, where he remained until 89 b.c. What happened to him after the Marsic War is not known.
Parthia See Kingdom of the Parthians.
paterfamilias The head of the family unit. His right to do as he pleased with his family was rigidly protected at law.
patricians The original Roman aristocracy. Patricians were distinguished citizens before there were kings of Rome, and after the establishment of the Republic they kept the title of patrician, as well as a prestige unattainable by any plebeian—and this in spite of the nobility, the “new aristocracy” ennobled above mere plebeian status by having consuls in the family. However, as the Republic grew older and the power of the plebeians grew in pace with their wealth, the special rights and entitlements of the patricians were inexorably stripped from them, until by the time of Marius and Sulla they tended to be relatively impoverished compared to those of the plebeian nobility. Not all patrician clans were of equal antiquity; the Julii and the Fabii were some centuries older in their tenure of patrician status than the Claudii. Patricians married in a form called confarreatio which was virtually for life, and patrician women never were allowed the relative emancipation of their plebeian sisters. Certain priesthoods could be held only by patricians—the Rex Sacrorum and the flamen Dialis—and certain senatorial positions could only be held by patricians— head of a decury, interrex, Princeps Senatus. At the time of Marius and Sulla the following patrician families were still regularly producing senators (if not praetors and consuls): Aemilius, Claudius, Cornelius, Fabius (but through adoption only), Julius, Manlius, Pinarius, Postumius, Sergius, Servilius, Sulpicius, and Valerius.
patronage Roman Republican society was organized into a system of patronage and clientship (see also client). Though perhaps the smallest businessmen and the ordinary lowly workers of Rome were not always participants in the system, the system was nevertheless very prevalent at all levels of society, and not all patrons were from the uppermost levels of society. The patron undertook to offer protection and favors to those who acknowledged themselves his clients. Freed slaves were in the patronage of their ex-masters. No woman could be a patron. Many patrons were clients of more powerful patrons than themselve
s, which technically made their clients also the clients of their patron. Though at law the domestic system was not recognized, there was a very strong principle of honor involved, and it was a rare client who ignored or cheated his patron. The patron might do nothing for years to obtain help or support from a client, but one day the client would be called upon to do his patron a favor—vote for him, or lobby for him, or perform some special task. It was customary for the patron to see his clients at dawn on “business” days in the calendar; at these matinees the clients would ask for help or favor, or merely attend to show respect, or offer services. The patron, if he was rich or generous, often bestowed gifts of money upon his clients when they assembled at such times. If a man became the client of another man whom in earlier days he had hated to the point of implacable enmity, that client would thereafter serve his erstwhile enemy, now his patron, with complete fidelity, even to death (vide Caesar the Dictator and Curio the Younger).
pedagogue Paedagogus. A teacher of young children. He was the man who instilled rudimentary education—reading, writing, arithmetic. His status was usually that of a slave or freedman, he lived within the family unit as a particularly privileged servant, and his nationality was more often than not Greek; he was, however, required to teach in Latin as well as Greek.
pedarius Plural, pedarii. See Senate.
Penates The Di Penates, the gods of the storage cupboards. Among the oldest and most numinous of all Roman gods, the Di Penates were worshipped in every Roman house in conjunction with Vesta (spirit of the hearth) and the Lar Familiaris. Like the Lares, the Di Penates eventually acquired a form, shape and sex, and were depicted as two youths, usually bronze statuettes. The Roman State had its own Di Penates, called the Penates Publici—guardians of the State’s well-being and solvency.
Penelope The wife of Odysseus, King of Ithaca (see Odysseus). He won her in a footrace her father, Icarius, staged among her suitors. When it was prophesied that if Odysseus went to the war against Troy (Ilium), he would be away for twenty years, Penelope and her infant son, Telemachus, settled down to wait for him. The succession to the throne of Ithaca must have been matrilineal, for, presuming Odysseus dead, a large number of suitors for Penelope’s hand in marriage moved into the palace and stayed for the duration. She refused to marry anyone until she had finished weaving a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes; every night she unraveled what she had woven the previous day. According to Homer, this ploy worked until Odysseus returned home and killed the suitors.
People of Rome This term embraced every single Roman who was not a member of the Senate; it applied to patricians as well as to plebeians, and to the Head Count as well as to the First Class.
perduellio High treason. Until the later Republic saw the introduction of the lesser form of treason called maiestas (see Saturninus), perduellio was the only form treason had in Roman law. Old enough to be mentioned in the Twelve Tables, it required a trial process in the Centuriate Assembly, cumbersome and glaringly public until the secret ballot was finally extended to trial in the centuries. It was, however, virtually impossible to persuade the centuries to convict a man of perduellio unless he stood there and openly admitted that he had conspired to make war upon Rome— and Roman political miscreants were not so stupid. It carried an automatic death penalty.
peristyle An enclosed garden or courtyard which was surrounded by a colonnade and formed the outdoor segment of a house.
permutatio A banking term. It meant that sums of money could be transferred between institutions inside and outside Rome, sometimes over very long distances, without the actual money changing hands.
Phrygia This was one of the wilder and less populated parts of Anatolia, synonymous to the ancients with nymphs, dryads, satyrs, and other mythical woodland folk, as well as with peasants so naive and defenseless they were ridiculously easy to enslave. Phrygia lay inland from Bithynia, south of Paphlagonia, and west of Galatia. Its southern boundary was with Pisidia. Mountainous and heavily forested, it was a part of the Attalid empire of Pergamum; after settling the wars following the bequest of the Kingdom of Pergamum to Rome, the Roman proconsul Manius Aquillius literally sold most of Phrygia to the fifth King Mithridates of Pontus in return for a large sum of gold. Aquillius kept the gold for himself.
Picenum That part of the eastern Italian peninsula roughly occupying the area of the Italian leg’s calf muscle. Its western boundary followed the ridge of the Apennines; to its north lay Umbria, and to its south Samnium. Since it possessed a good section of the Adriatic coast, it possessed several seaports, the most important of which were Ancona and Firmum Picenum. The main inland town and capital city was Asculum Picentum. The original inhabitants were of Italiote and Illyrian stock, but when the first King Brennus invaded Italy many of his Celtic tribesmen settled in Picenum, and intermarried with the earlier folk. There was also a tradition that Sabines from the other side of the Apennines had migrated to settle Picenum. Its people were referred to as Picentines or Picentes. The region fell more or less into two parts—northern Picenum, closely allied to southern Umbria, was under the sway of the great family called Pompeius, whereas Picenum south of the Flosis River was connected more closely to Samnium in the spiritual ties of its people.
pilum Plural, pila. The Roman infantry spear, especially as modified by Gaius Marius. It had a very small, wickedly barbed head of iron and an upper shaft of iron; this was joined to a shaped wooden stem which fitted the hand comfortably. Marius modified it by introducing a weakness into the junction between iron and wooden sections of the shaft; when the pilum lodged in a shield or enemy’s body, it broke apart, and thus was of no use to enemy soldiers. The Roman legions, however, possessed craftsmen who could quickly mend pila after a battle.
Pisidia This region lay to the south of Phrygia, and was even wilder and more backward. Extremely mountainous and filled with lakes, its climate was held to be a very healthy one. Little industry or populous settlement existed; the countryside was heavily forested with magnificent pines. Its people apparently were an ancient and indigenous strain allied to the Thracians, and its language was unique. Those few Pisidians who came to the notice of Rome and Romans were famous for their bizarre religious beliefs.
Plautus His real name was Titus Maccius Plautus. An Umbrian, he lived during the third century b.c., and died at some date after 184 b.c. During his long career he wrote about 130 plays. He worked in the comedic form, and in Latin; though his plots were essentially borrowed from Greek comedy, he contributed an unmistakably Roman feel to his plays, shifting his locales from Greece to Rome, enhancing the importance of slave characters, and giving his Roman or Italian audiences a completely comfortable feeling that what they saw was taking place at home rather than in Greece. His dialogue (even in modern English translation) is remarkably free and extremely funny. Critically he failed to be faithful to his own plots and often succumbed to interpolated scenes having nothing to do with what had gone before or was yet to come—wit was all. Though no trace of the music has come down to us, his plays were larded with songs, some accompanied by a lyre (the canticum) or flute. The importance of music in Latin comedy relative to Greek comedy may perhaps have been a heritage from the Etruscans; the music in Latin plays may have been freer and more melodic in our present-day terms than Greek music.
plebeian, Plebs All Roman citizens who were not patricians were plebeians—that is, they belonged to the Plebs (the e is short, so Pleb rhymes with Feb of “February”). At the beginning of the Republic, no plebeian could be a priest, a curule magistrate, or even a senator. This situation lasted only a very short while; one by one the exclusively patrician institutions crumbled before the onslaught of the Plebs, that much larger class of citizens not being above threatening to secede. By the time of Marius and Sulla it could be said that the Plebs ran Rome, that there was little if any advantage in being patrician.
plebiscite Plebiscitum. A law passed in the Plebeian Assembly was more properly a plebiscitum than a lex. From very e
arly in the Republic, plebiscites were regarded as legally binding, but the lex Hortensia of 287 b.c. made this an official fact. From then on, there was virtually no difference at law between a plebiscitum and a lex. By the time of Marius and Sulla almost all the legal clerks who were responsible for putting the laws on tablets and recording them for posterity neglected to mention whether the laws were plebiscitum or lex.
pomerium The sacred boundary enclosing the city of Rome. Marked by stones called cippi, it was reputedly inaugurated by King Servius Tullius, and remained without alteration until the later years of Sulla’s career. The pomerium did not exactly follow the Servian Walls, one good reason why it is doubtful that the Servian Walls were built by King Servius Tullius—who would surely have caused his walls to follow the same line as his pomerium. The whole of the ancient Palatine city of Romulus was enclosed by the pomerium, but the Aventine lay outside it, and so did the Capitol. Tradition held that the pomerium might be enlarged only by a man who significantly increased the size of Roman territory. In religious terms, Rome herself existed only within the pomerium; all outside it was merely Roman territory.
pons A bridge.
pontifex The Latin word for a priest; it has survived to be absorbed unchanged into most modern European languages. Many Latin etymologists consider that in very early Roman times the pontifex was a maker of bridges, and that the making of bridges was considered a mystical art, thus putting the maker in close touch with the gods. Be that as it may, by the time the Republic was flourishing the pontifex was a priest; incorporated into a special college, he served as an adviser to Rome’s magistrates in religious matters— and inevitably would be a magistrate himself. At first all pontifices had to be patrician, but a lex Ogulnia of 300 b.c. stipulated that half of the College of Pontifices had to be plebeian.
Pontifex Maximus The head of Rome’s State-run religion, and most senior of all priests. He seems to have been an invention of the infant Republic, a typically masterly Roman way of getting around an obstacle without ruffling too many feelings; for in the time of the kings of Rome, the Rex Sacrorum had been the chief priest, this being a title held by the king. Probably because they considered it unwise to abolish the Rex Sacrorum, the rulers of the new Republic of Rome simply created a new pontifex whose role and status were superior to those of the Rex Sacrorum. This new priest was given the title Pontifex Maximus; to reinforce his statesmanlike position, he was to be elected rather than co-opted (as the ordinary pontifices were). At first he was probably required to be a patrician (the Rex Sacrorum remained a patrician right through the Republic), but by the middle of the Republic he was more likely to be a plebeian. He supervised all the various members of the various priestly colleges—pontifices, augurs, flamines, fetials, and other minor priests—and the Vestal Virgins. In Republican times he occupied the most prestigious State-owned house, but shared it with the Vestal Virgins. His official headquarters had the status of a temple—the little old Regia in the Forum Romanum just outside his house.
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