laena A cape rather like a Mexican poncho, cut on the circle and containing a hole through which the head emerged. It was usually made from greasy Ligurian wool, and was therefore fairly waterproof. In this form it was standard issue to the legions (though called the sagum). Doubly thick and particolored, the laena was worn by the flamen Dialis (see flamen).
Lar Plural, Lares. These were among the most Roman of all gods, having no form, shape, sex, number, or mythology. They were numina. There were many different kinds of Lares, who might function as the protective spirits or forces of a locality (as with crossroads and boundaries), a social group (as with the family’s private Lar, the Lar Familiaris), sea voyages (the Lares Permarini), or a whole nation (Rome had public Lares, the Lares Praestites). By the late Republic, however, people had come to think of the Lares as two young men accompanied by a dog; they were depicted in this way in statues. It is doubtful, however, whether a Roman actually believed that there were only two of them, or that they owned this form and sex; more perhaps that the increasing complexity of life made it convenient to tag them.
latifundia Large tracts of public land leased by one person and run as a single unit in the manner of a modern ranch. The activity was pastoral rather than agricultural. Latifundia were usually staffed by slaves who tended to be chained up in gangs and locked at night into barracks called ergastula. Running latifundia was a senatorial occupation rather than an equestrian one.
Latin Rights An intermediate citizen status between the nadir of the Italian Allies and the zenith of the Roman citizenship. Those having the Latin Rights shared many privileges in common with Roman citizens: booty was divided equally, contracts with full citizens could be entered into and legal protection sought for these contracts, marriage was allowed with full citizens, and there was the right to appeal against capital convictions. However, there was no suffragium—no right to vote in any Roman election—nor the right to sit on a Roman jury. After the revolt of Fregellae in 125 B.C., the magistrates of Latin Rights towns and districts were entitled to assume the full Roman citizenship for themselves and their direct descendants.
legate A legatus. The most senior members of a Roman general’s staff were his legates. All men classified as legates were members of the Senate; they answered only to the general, and were senior to all types of military tribune. Not every legate was a young man, however. Some were consulars who apparently volunteered for some interesting war because they hankered after a spell of army life, or were friends of the general.
legion Legio. The legion was the smallest Roman military unit capable of fighting a war on its own, though it was rarely called upon to do so. It was complete within itself in terms of manpower, equipment, facilities to make war. Between two and six legions clubbed together constituted an army; the times when an army contained more than six legions were unusual. The total number of men in a full-strength legion was about six thousand, of whom perhaps five thousand were actually soldiers, and the rest were classified as noncombatants. The internal organization of a legion consisted of ten cohorts of six centuries each; under normal circumstances there was a modest cavalry unit attached to each legion, though from the time of Sulla downward the cavalry tended more to be grouped together as a whole body separate from the infantry. Each legion was in charge of some pieces of artillery, though artillery was not employed on the field of battle; its use was limited to siege operations. If a legion was one of the consuls’ legions it was commanded by up to six elected tribunes of the soldiers, who spelled each other. If a legion belonged to a general not currently a consul, it was commanded by one of the general’s legates, or else by the general himself. Its regular officers were the centurions, of whom it possessed some sixty. Though the troops belonging to a legion camped together, they did not live together en masse; they were divided into units of eight men who tented and messed together. See also cohort,
legionary This is the correct English word to describe an ordinary soldier (miles gregarius) in a Roman legion. “Legionnaire,” which I have sometimes seen used, is more properly applied to a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, or to a veteran of the American Legion.
lemures The ghosts or spirits of the dead, who dwelled in the underworld.
lex Plural, leges. A law or laws. The word lex also came to be applied to the plebiscite (plebiscitum), passed by 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, residence therein must have been brief, as space was limited and the temple of Saturn also housed the Treasury. After Sulla’s new Tabularium was finished, laws were deposited there instead of (probably) all over the city. A law was named after the man or men who promulgated it and then succeeded in having it ratified, but always (since lex is feminine gender) with the feminine ending to his name or their names. This was then followed by a general description of what the law was about. Laws could be—and sometimes were—subject to repeal at a later date.
lex Caecilia Didia There were actually two laws by this name, but only one is of relevance to this volume. Passed by the consuls of 98 B.C., the relevant one stipulated that three nundinae or market days had to elapse between the vote of the Assembly that it become law and its actual ratification. There is some debate as to whether the waiting period consisted of twenty-four or seventeen days; I have elected seventeen.
lex Domitia de sacerdotiis Passed in 104 B.C. by Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, later Pontifex Maximus. It specified that new pontifices and augurs must be elected by a tribal Assembly comprising seventeen of the thirty-five tribes chosen by lot. Until this law, pontifices and augurs were co-opted by the College members. Sulla, once Dictator, repealed it, but the tribune of the plebs Titus Labienus re-enacted it in 63 B.C.
lex frumentaria The general term for a grain law. There were many such, commencing with Gaius Gracchus. All grain laws pertained to the public grain supply—that is, the grain bought by the State and distributed by the aediles. Most such laws provided cheap grain, but some took cheap grain away.
lex regia A law passed by one of the kings of Rome, therefore older than any Republican law. Most leges regiae were still perfectly valid at the end of the Republic, as it was not usual for Romans to repeal laws.
lex rogata A law promulgated in an Assembly by direct co-operation between the presiding magistrate and the members of the Assembly. In other words, the law was not presented to the Assembly in a cut-and-dried, fully drafted state, but was drafted during contio in the Assembly.
lex rogata plus quam perfecta A law drafted in an Assembly by the convoking magistrate that not only invalidated an act or previous law, but provided that those responsible for doing the act or using the law should be punished.
lex sumptuaria Any law regulating the purchase and consumption of luxuries. They were popular laws among magistrates who deplored luxury-loving tendencies, but rarely worked in practice. The most common articles legislated against were spices, peppers, perfumes, incenses, imported wines, and genuine Tyrian purple.
lex Voconia de mulierum hereditatibus Passed in 169 B.C., this law severely curtailed the right of a woman to inherit from a will. 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 wherein 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 Senatorial consultum waiving the lex Voconia; 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 word used in Assembly trials to register a verdict of acquittal.
licker-fish A freshwater bass of the Tiber River. The creature was to be found only between the Wooden Bridge and the Pons Aemilius, where it lurked around the outflows of the great sewers and fed upon what they disgorged. Apparently it was so well fed that it was notoriously hard to catch. This may have been why it was so prized as a delicacy by Rome’s Epicureans.
lictor The man who formally attended a curule magistrate as he went about his official business by preceding him in single or double file to clear a way, or by being on hand as he conducted his business in case he needed to employ restraint or chastise. The lictor had to be a Roman citizen and was a State employee, though he does not seem to have been of high social status; he was probably so poorly paid that he relied upon his magistrate’s generosity with gratuities. On his left shoulder he bore the bundle of rods called fasces (q.v.). Within the city of Rome he wore a plain white toga, changing to a black toga for funerals; outside Rome he wore a scarlet tunic cinched by a broad black leather belt bossed in brass, and inserted the axes in his rods. There was a College of Lictors, though the site of lictorial headquarters is not known. A tiny collegium existed attached to the front of the Basilica Aemilia, for what purpose is not known; I have made it a waiting station for lictors. Their headquarters I have placed 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 of any kind to support this location. Within the College the lictors (there must have been at least three hundred of them, possibly many more) were organized into decuries of ten men, each headed by a prefect, and the decuries were collectively supervised by several College presidents.
literatus Plural, literati. A man of letters.
litter A covered cubicle equipped with legs upon which it rested when lowered to the ground. A horizontal pole on each corner projected forward and behind the conveyance; it was carried by four to eight men who picked it up by means of these poles. The litter was a slow form of transport, but it was by far the most comfortable known in the ancient world. I imagine it was considerably more comfortable than most modern transport!
lituus The staff carried by an augur. It was perhaps three or four feet (about 1 meter) long, curved in shape, and ended in a curlique.
ludi The games (q.v.).
macellum A market. See also Cuppedenis Markets,
magistrates The elected representatives of the Senate and People of Rome. They embodied the executive arm of government, and with the exception of the tribunes of the soldiers, they all belonged automatically to the Senate from the time of Sulla’s dictatorship downward. The diagram below most clearly shows the nature of each magistracy: its seniority, who did the electing, and whether a magistrate owned imperium or not. The cursus honorum, or Path of Offices, proceeded in a straight line from quaestor through praetor to consul; censor, both kinds of aedile, and tribune of the plebs were ancillary to the cursus honorum. Save for the censor and the Dictator, all magistrates served for one year only. The Dictator was a magistrate appointed by the Senate rather than elected, to deal with a civil or military emergency; he appointed a master of the horse to serve him, and was indemnified against the consequences of his dictatorial actions.
maiestas Treason. The refinements of treason introduced by Saturninus (q.v.) in 103 B.C. were largely canceled by the law Sulla put on the tablets when Dictator; this spelled out with absolute clarity the offenses Rome would hitherto find to be treasonous. See also perduellio.
manumission The act of freeing a slave. If the slave’s master was a Roman citizen, this act automatically endowed the freed slave with the citizenship. His vote, however, tended to be worthless. The manumitted slave took the name of his old master as his own, adding his own name to it as a cognomen—hence Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus, Sulla’s infamous freedman. A slave might be manumitted in one of several ways: by buying his freedom out of his earnings, as a special gesture of the master’s on some great family occasion like a coming-of-age birthday, after an agreed number of years in service, or in a will. Most slaves found the Roman citizenship highly desirable despite its limitations, chiefly on behalf of their freeborn descendants. It was not at all uncommon for men with skills to sell themselves into slavery, particularly among the Greeks. For the rest of his life the freed slave had to wear a slightly conical skullcap on the back of his head—the Cap of Liberty. See also freedman.
Mare Erythraeum The modern Persian Gulf. I have not translated it as the Red Sea because what we know today as the Red Sea was known to the Romans as the Sinus Arabicus.
measures and weights Most measurements were based upon body parts, hence the foot, the hand, the pace. The Roman foot at 296 millimeters was just slightly short of 12 modern inches, and it was divided into 12 inches. Five feet made up a pace, and the Roman mile at 1,000 paces was about 285 feet short of the English mile, thus there were 20 Roman miles for every 19 English—too small a difference to make it necessary in my text to specify miles (or feet) as Roman.
Area was measured in iugera (see iugerum).
Grains such as wheat were dry-measured rather than weighed, as they poured like fluids; the dry measures were the medimnus and the modius (q.v.).
The bulk container was the amphora (q.v.), which held about 6 American gallons (25 liters) and was the volume of a Roman cubic foot. Ship’s cargoes were always expressed in amphorae.
The Roman pound, or libra, weighed about seven tenths of an English pound at 327 grams, and was divided into 12 ounces (unciae). Heavy weights were measured in the talent (q.v.).
medicus The middle finger.
medimnus Plural, medimni. A dry measure for grains and other pourable solids. It equaled 5 modii and occupied a volume of 10 U.S. gallons (40 liters), and weighed about 65 Roman pounds (47.5 English pounds or about 23 kilograms). This provided sufficient grain for two 1-Roman-pound loaves of bread per day for about thirty days, given that the waste husked off the grain in grinding was replaced by water and other ingredients. The ordinary Roman who lived in one or two rooms in an insula did not normally grind his flour and bake his bread at home; he came to an arrangement with his local baker (as indeed was done in many parts of Europe until relatively recently), who took a cut of the grain ration as his price. Perhaps the final result was that one medimnus of wheat provided the ordinary Roman with one large loaf per day for thirty days?
mentula A choice Latin obscenity for the penis.
metae The pillars or obelisks at each end of the central dividing strip, the spina, of a circus course.
Middle Sea The name I have used for the Mediterranean Sea. My observant readers will notice a new term now creeping into the narrative: Our Sea. Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) is what it came to be called as the Republic neared its end.
Military Man The vir militaris. What might be called a “career officer.” His whole life revolved around the army, and he continued to serve in the army after his obligatory number of years or campaigns had expired. If he entered the Roman political arena he relied upon his military reputation to catch votes, but many Military Men never bothered to enter the political arena at all. However, if a Military Man wanted to general an army, he had no choice other than to attain the praetorship, which was the lowest magistracy carrying command of an army with it. 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.
minim A bright vermilion pigment made from cinnabar (mercuric sulfide) which the triumphing general painted on his face, apparently to ape the terracotta face of the statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in his temple on the Capitol.
modius Plural, modii. The customary measure of grain. A modius occupied 2 U.S. gallons or 8 liters, and weighed about 13 (presumably Roman) pounds (approximately 4 kilograms). The public grain was doled out in increment
s of 5 modii per month, this equaling 1
medimnus (see this entry also for information about bread).
Moesia The lands now occupied by Serbia and northwestern Bulgaria. Its peoples were Thracian, tribally organized and living in settlements. They farmed as well as grazed. The Dardani and the Triballi, two of the major tribes, constantly raided the borderlands of Roman Macedonia.
mola salsa A holy cake made from spelt (the fine white flour of emmer wheat) mixed with salt and water, and not leavened. To make it was the duty of the Vestal Virgins. They had to grow and harvest the emmer themselves, evaporate and make the salt themselves, and fetch the water personally from the well of Juturna. monoreme A ship having one bank of oars. Mormolyce A nursery bogey.
mos maiorum The established order of things; used to describe the habits and customs of government and public institutions. Perhaps the best definition is to say that the mos maiorum was Rome’s unwritten constitution. Mos meant established custom; and in this context maiores meant ancestors or forebears. To sum up, the mos maiorum was how things had always been done—and how they should always be done in the future too!
Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar Page 458
