Roma The Latin name of Rome.
Romulus and Remus The twin sons of Rhea Silvia, daughter of the King of Alba Longa and the god Mars. Her uncle Amulius, who had usurped the throne, put the twins in a basket made of rushes and set them adrift on the Tiber. They were washed up beneath a fig tree at the base of the Palatine, found by a she-wolf, and suckled by her in her cave nearby. They were rescued by Faustulus and his wife Acca Larentia, who raised them to manhood. After deposing Amulius and putting their grandfather back on his throne, the twins founded a settlement on the Palatine. Once its walls were built, Remus jumped over them and was put to death by Romulus, apparently for sacrilege. Romulus then set out to acquire subjects to live in his town, which he did in respect of males by establishing an asylum in the depression between the two humps of the Capitol, there collecting refugees who seem to have been criminals. Female citizens he acquired by tricking the Sabines of the Quirinal into bringing their women to a feast and then kidnapping them as wives for his men. Romulus ruled for a long time. Then one day he went hunting in the Goat Swamps of the Campus Martius and was caught in a terrible storm; when he didn’t come home, it was believed that he had been taken by the gods and made an immortal.
rostra The plural form of “rostrum,” meaning a ship’s bronze or reinforced oaken beak. This fierce object jutted well forward of the bows just below the level of the water, and was used to hole an enemy ship in the maneuver called “ramming.” When in 338 b.c. the consul Gaius Maenius attacked the Volscian fleet in Antium harbor, he defeated it completely. To mark 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 well of the Comitia. Ever after, the speaker’s platform was known as the rostra—the ships’ beaks.
Rubico River Also known as the Rubicon, it was the river which formed the boundary between Italian Gaul and peninsular Italy on the eastern side of the Apennines (the Arnus did the same thing to the west). No one today is sure which modern river is the antique Rubico; scholarly opinion favors a very short and uninspiring stream now called the Rubicone. I beg to differ. Surely the Rubico was that river which had its source in closest proximity to the source of the Arnus? Ancient boundaries wherever possible were visible phenomena—otherwise, why have the border of Italian Gaul follow the contour of the huge loop in the Arnus? I contend that the Rubico was not a short little coastal stream, but a long river with its source high enough up in the Apennines to give it a respectable volume of water in its bed as well as the necessary proximity to the source of the Arnus. My pick is the modern Ronco, which enters the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini (Ariminum) and rises very close to the Arnus. Why would a people as sensible as the Romans choose a little coastal trickle as the boundary when a much larger and longer river was in the vicinity? Extensive drainage and canal work has been going on for so many centuries around Ravenna that no one can be sure.
saepta “The sheepfold.” In Republican times, this was simply an open area on the Campus Martius not far from the Via Lata, and in proximity to the Villa Publica; it possessed no permanent buildings. Here the comitia centuriata met in its centuries. As the Centuriate Assembly normally called for a voting procedure, the saepta was divided up for the occasion by temporary fences so that the Five Classes could vote in their Centuries’.
sagum The soldier’s heavy-weather cape. It was made out of greasy wool to make it as waterproof as possible, cut on the full circle with a hole in its middle for the head to poke through, and came well down the body for maximum protection; it was capacious enough to cover the soldier’s back-borne kit also. The best kind of sagum came from Liguria, where the wool was exactly right for it.
saltatrix tonsa “Barbered dancing-girl.” That is, a male homosexual who dressed as a woman and sold his sexual favors.
Samnium The territory lying between Latium, Campania, Apulia, and Picenum. Most of Samnium was ruggedly mountainous and not particularly fertile; its towns tended to be poor and small, and numbered among them Bovianum, Caieta, and Aeclanum. Aesernia and Beneventum, the two biggest towns, were Latin Rights communities implanted in Samnite territory by Rome. The people of the general area called Samnium were of several different nations—the Paeligni, the Marrucini, the Vestini, and the Frentani each occupied a different part, and the Samnites the rest. Throughout their history the Samnites were implacable enemies of Rome, and several times during the early and middle Republic inflicted crushing defeats on Rome. However, they had neither the manpower nor the financial resources to throw off the Roman yoke permanently. About 180 b.c. the Samnites were sufficiently sapped of strength to prove incapable of refusing a foreign race of settlers; to lessen Roman troubles in the northwest, Rome shifted forty thousand Ligurians to Samnium. At the time it had seemed to Rome an excellent idea, but the new settlers were eventually fully absorbed into the Samnite nation—and harbored no more love for Rome than their Samnite hosts. Thus Samnite resistance grew afresh.
satrap The title given by the Persian kings to their provincial or territorial governors. Alexander the Great seized upon the term and employed it, as did the later Arsacid kings of Parthia. The region ruled by a satrap was called a satrapy.
Saturninus Lucius Appuleius Saturninus was born about 135 b.c., of a respectable family with close links to Picenum (his sister was married to the Picentine Titus Labienus, his colleague in his last tribunate of the plebs). Elected quaestor for 104 b.c. , he was given the job of looking after the grain supply and the port of Ostia, only to be sacked from his position and expelled from the Senate when Marcus Aemilius Scaurus the Princeps Senatus blamed him for a premature increase in the price of grain. Saturninus didn’t take this disgrace lying down; he stood for election as a tribune of the plebs for 103 b.c., and got in. During this first term as a tribune of the plebs Saturninus allied himself with Gaius Marius, and passed laws benefiting Marius, particularly one allocating land in Africa for Marius’s Jugurthine War veterans. He also passed a law establishing a special court to try those accused of a crime he called maiestas minuta— “little treason.” In 102 and 101 b.c. Saturninus was out of office, but sufficiently obnoxious to irritate the censor Metellus Numidicus, who tried to expel him from the Senate; the result was a riot in which Metellus Numidicus was severely beaten about. He stood for a second term as tribune of the plebs for 100 b.c., and was elected, still in alliance with Marius. A second land bill, to settle Marius’s veterans from the war against the Germans on land in Gaul-across-the-Alps, provoked huge fury in the Senate, but Saturninus went ahead and procured it. The members of the Senate were required to swear an oath to uphold the law; all swore except Metellus Numidicus, who elected to pay a heavy fine and go into exile. From there on, Saturninus became an increasing embarrassment for Marius, who sloughed him off, his own reputation having suffered greatly. Saturninus then began to woo the Head Count with promises of grain; there was a famine at the time, and the Head Count was hungry. When the elections for tribunes of the plebs for 99 b.c. were held, Saturninus ran for a third term, and was defeated; his boon companion Gaius Servilius Glaucia conveniently arranged that one of the successful candidates be murdered, and Saturninus gained office to replace the dead man. Stirred to the point of revolution, the Forum crowds threatened the government of Rome sufficiently to spur Marius and Scaurus into an alliance which produced the Senate’s Ultimate Decree. Saturninus and his friends were apprehended after Marius cut off the water supply to the Capitol, where the group had taken refuge. Put in the Senate House for safekeeping, they were stoned to death by a rain of roof tiles. All of Saturninus’s laws were then annulled.
Scordisci A tribal confederation of Celts admixed with Illyrians and Thracians, the Scordisci lived in Moesia between the valley of the Danubius and the Macedonian border. Powerful and warlike, they plagued the Roman governors of Macedonia-perpetually.
Scythians This people was probably of Germanic stock, and sp
oke an Indo-European language. They lived in the Asian steppelands to the east of the Tanais River, extending south as far as the Caucasus. They were well organized enough socially to have kings, and were fabled goldsmiths.
Senate Properly, Senatus. The Romans believed that Romulus himself founded the Senate by collecting one hundred patrician men into an advisory body and giving them the title patres (“fathers”). However, it is more likely that the Senate was an advisory body set up by the later kings of Rome. When the Republic replaced the kings, the Senate was retained, now comprising three hundred patricians. Scant years later it contained plebeian senators also, though it took the plebeians somewhat longer to attain the senior magistracies. Because of the Senate’s antiquity, legal definition of its powers, rights, and duties were at best inadequate; it was an important constituent of the mos maiorum. Membership of the Senate was for life, which predisposed it toward the oligarchy it soon became. Throughout its history, its members fought strenuously to preserve their—as they saw it— natural pre-eminence. Under the Republic, senators were appointed by (and could be expelled by) the censors. There were thirty decuries of ten senators each, the decury being led by a patrician—which meant that there always had to be a minimum of thirty patrician senators in the Senate. By the time of Marius and Sulla it was customary to demand that a senator have property bringing him in at least a million sesterces a year, though during the entire life of the Republic this was never a formal law. Like much else, it simply was. Senators alone were entitled to wear the latus clavus or broad stripe on their tunics; they wore closed shoes of maroon leather, and a ring which had originally been made of iron, but came to be of gold. Meetings of the Senate had to be held in properly inaugurated premises. The Senate had its own meeting-house, the Curia Hostilia, but often chose to assemble elsewhere. The ceremonies and meeting of New Year’s Day, for example, were held in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, while meetings to discuss war were held outside the pomerium in the temple of Bellona. Sessions could only go on between sunrise and sunset, and could not take place on days when any of the Comitia met, though could take place on a comitial day if no Comitia meeting was convoked. There was a rigid hierarchy among those allowed to speak in senatorial meetings, with the Princeps Senatus at the top of the list at the time of Marius and Sulla; patricians always preceded plebeians of exactly the same status otherwise. Not all members of the House were allowed the privilege of speaking. The senatores pedarii (I have used a British parliamentary term, backbenchers, to describe them, as they sat behind those permitted to speak) were allowed to vote only, not to speak. No restrictions were placed upon a man’s oration in terms of length of time or germane content— hence the popularity of the technique now called filibustering—talking a motion out. If the issue was unimportant or the response completely unanimous, voting could be by voice or a show of hands, but a formal vote took place by 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. An advisory rather than a true legislating body always, the Senate issued its consulta or decrees as requests to the various Comitia. If the issue was serious, a quorum had to be present before a vote could be taken, though we do not know the precise number of senators who constituted a quorum—perhaps a quarter? Certainly most meetings were not heavily attended, as there was no rule which said a senator had to attend meetings on a regular basis. In certain areas the Senate traditionally reigned supreme, despite its lack of legislating power: the fiscus was controlled by the Senate, as it controlled the Treasury; foreign affairs were left to the Senate; war was the business of the Senate; and the appointment of provincial governors and the regulation of provincial affairs were left to the Senate to decide. After the time of Gaius Gracchus, in civil emergencies the Senate could override all other bodies in government by passing the Senatus Consultant de republica defendenda— its Ultimate Decree proclaiming its own sovereignty and the establishment of martial law. The Ultimate Decree, in other words, was a senatorial sidestep to prevent the appointment of a dictator.
Servian Walls Murus Servii Tullii. Republican Romans believed that the formidable walls enclosing the city of Rome had been erected in the time of King Servius Tullius. However, evidence suggests that they were built after Rome was sacked by the Gauls in 390 b.c. (see Juno Moneta). Down to the time of Caesar the Dictator they were scrupulously kept up.
sesterces Latin singular, sestertius. The commonest of Roman coins. Roman accounting practices were expressed in sesterces, hence their prominence in Latin writings of Republican date. The name sestertius derives from semis tertius, meaning two and a half ases (see as). In Latin writing, it was abbreviated as HS. A small silver coin, the sestertius was worth a quarter of a denarius. I have kept to the Latin when speaking of this coin in the singular, but have preferred to used the Anglicized form in the plural.
Sibylline Books The Roman State possessed a series of prophecies written in Greek and called the Sibylline Books. They were acquired, it was believed, by King Tarquinius Priscus, at which date they were written on palm leaves; each time the King refused to buy them, one book was burned and the price for the rest went up until finally the King agreed to take the remainder. They were greatly revered and were in the care of a special college of minor priests called the decemviri sacris faciundis; in State crises they were solemnly consulted to see if there was a prophecy which fitted the situation.
sinus A pronounced curve or fold. The term was used in many different ways, but for the purposes of this book, two only are of interest. One described the geographical feature we might call a gulf—Sinus Arabicus, et cetera. The second described the looping fold of toga as this garment emerged from under the right arm and was swept up over the left shoulder—the togate Roman’s pocket.
Sosius A name associated with the book trade in Rome. Two brothers Sosius published during the principate of Augustus. I have taken the name and extrapolated it backward in time; Roman businesses were often family businesses, and the book trade in Rome was already a flourishing one at the time of Marius and Sulla. Therefore, why not a Sosius?
spelt A very fine, soft white flour. It was not suitable for making bread, but was excellent for making cakes. It was ground from the variety of wheat now known as Triticum spelta.
sponsio In cases of civil litigation not calling for a hearing in a formal court of law (that is, cases which could be heard by the urban praetor), the urban praetor could only proceed to hear the case if a sum of money called sponsio was lodged in his keeping before the hearing began. This was either damages, or the sum of money in dispute. In bankruptcy complaints or nonpayment of debts, the sum owed was the sponsio. This meant that when the sum concerned could not be found by either the plaintiff or the defendant, the urban praetor was not empowered to hear the case. In times of money shortage, it became a problem, hence the inclusion by Sulla in his law regulating debt of a provision waiving the lodgement of sponsio with the urban praetor.
steel The term Iron Age is rather misleading, as iron in itself is not a very usable metal. It only replaced bronze when ancient smiths discovered ways of steeling it; from then on, it was the metal of choice for tools, weapons, and other apparatus demanding a combination of hardness, durability and capacity to take an edge or point. Aristotle and Theophrastus, both writing in the Greece of the fourth century b.c., talk about steel, not about iron. However, the whole process of working iron into a usable metal evolved in total ignorance of the chemistry and metallurgy underlying it. The main ore used to extract iron was haematite; pyrites was little used because of the extreme toxicity of its sulphuric by-products. Strabo and Pliny the Elder both describe a method of roasting the ore in a hearth-type furnace (oxidation), and the shaft furnace (reduction). The shaft furnace was more efficient, could smelt larger quantities of ore, and was the method of choice. The carbon necessary for smelting was provided (as with bronze and other alloys) by charco
al. Most smelting works used both hearth and shaft furnaces side by side, and produced from the raw ore slag-contaminated “blooms” which were called sows (hence, presumably, our term “pig”). These sows were then reheated to above melting point and compelled to take up additional carbon from the charcoal by hammering (forging); this also drove out most of the contaminating slag, though ancient steels were never entirely free of slag. Roman smiths were fully conversant with the techniques of annealing, quenching, tempering, and cementation (this last forced yet more carbon into the iron). Each of these procedures changed the characteristics of the basic carbon steel in a different way, so that steels for various purposes could be made—razors, sword blades, knives, axes, saws, wood and stone chisels, cold chisels, nails, spikes, et cetera. So precious were the steels suitable for cutting edges that a thin piece of edge steel was welded (the Romans knew two methods of welding, pressure welding and fusion welding) onto a cheaper-quality base, as seen with ploughshares and axes. However, the Roman sword blade was made entirely from steel taking a cruelly sharp edge; it was produced by tempering at about 280°C. Tongs, anvils, hammers, bellows, crucibles, fire bricks, and the other tools in trade of a smith were known and universally used. Many of the ancient theories were quite wrong; it was thought, for instance, that the nature of the liquid used in quenching affected the quenching—urine was the quenching liquid of choice. And no one understood that the real reason why the iron mined in
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