Fortune's Favorites

by Colleen McCullough

  century Any grouping of one hundred men. Most importantly, the Roman legion was organized in basic units of one hundred men called centuries. The Classes of the Centuriate Assembly were also organized in centuries, but with steadily increasing population these centuries came eventually to contain far more than one hundred men. chlamys The cloaklike outer garment worn b^ Greek men.

  chryselephantine A work of art fashioned in gold and ivory.

  chthonic Pertaining to the Underworld, and ill-omened.

  Cimbri A Germanic people originally inhabiting the upper or northern half of the Jutland peninsula (modern Denmark). Strabo says that a sea-flood drove them out in search of a new homeland about 120 b.c. In combination with the Teutones and a mixed group of Germans and Celts (the Marcomanni-Cherusci-Tigurini) they wandered Europe in search of this homeland until they ran foul of Rome. In 102 and 101 b.c. Gaius Marius utterly defeated them, and the migration disintegrated.

  Circus Flaminius The circus situated on the Campus Martius not far from the Tiber and the Forum Holitorium. It was built in 221 b.c., and sometimes served as a place for a comitial meeting, when the Plebs or the People had to meet outside the pomerium. It seems to have been well used as a venue for the games, but for events pulling in smaller attendances than the Circus Maximus. It held about fifty thousand spectators.

  Circus Maximus The old circus built by King Tarquinius Priscus before the Republic began. It filled the whole of the Vallis Murcia, a declivity between the Palatine and Aventine Mounts. Even though its capacity was about one hundred and fifty thousand spectators, there is ample evidence that during Republican times freedman citizens were classified as slaves when it came to admission to the Circus Maximus, and were thus denied. Just too many people wanted to go to the circus games. Women were permitted to sit with men.

  citizenship For the purposes of this series of books, 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. The male citizen became liable for military service on his seventeenth birthday. After the lex Minicia of 91 b.c., the child of a union between a Roman citizen of either sex and a non-Roman was forced to assume the citizenship of the non-Roman parent.

  citocacia A mild Latin profanity, meaning "stinkweed."

  citrus wood The most prized cabinet wood of the Roman world. It 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. Though termed citrus, the tree was not botanically related to orange or lemon. Most citrus wood was reserved for making tabletops (usually mounted upon a single chryselephantine pedestal), but it was also turned as bowls. No tabletops have survived to modern times, but enough bowls have for us to 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. Those Roman citizens who belonged to the capite censi, or Head Count, were too poor to qualify for a Class status, and so could not vote in the Centuriate Assembly. In actual fact, it was rare for the Third Class to be called upon to vote in the Centuriate Assembly, let alone members of the Fourth or Fifth Class!

  client In Latin, cliens. The term denoted a man of free or freed status (he did not have to be a Roman citizen) 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 adhered to with remarkable consistency. To be a client did not necessarily mean that a man could not also 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-kings 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 even 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 known as a Friend and Ally of the Roman People. Sometimes, however, a foreign monarch pledged himself as the client of a Roman individual, as did certain rulers to Lucullus and Pompey.

  clivus A hilly street.

  cognomen The last name of a Roman male anxious to distinguish himself from all his fellows possessed of an identical first (praenomen) and family (nomen) name. He might adopt one for himself, as did Pompey with the cognomen Magnus, or simply continue to bear a cognomen which had been in the family for generations, as did the Julians cognominated Caesar. In some families it became necessary to have more than one cognomen: for example, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelianus Scipio Nasica, who was the adopted son of Metellus Pius the Piglet. Quintus was his first name (praenomen)', Caecilius his family name (nomen); Metellus Pius were cognomina belonging to his adoptive father; Cornelianus indicated that he was by blood a Cornelian; and Scipio Nasica were the cognomina of his blood father. As things turned out, he was always known as Metellus Scipio, a neat compromise to both blood and adoptive family.

  The cognomen often pointed up some physical characteristic or idiosyncrasy-jug ears, flat feet, hump back, swollen legs-or else commemorated some great feat-as in the Caecilii Metelli who were cognominated Dalmaticus, Balearicus, Macedonicus, Numidicus, these being related to a country each man had conquered. The best cognomina were heavily sarcastic-Lepidus, meaning a thoroughly nice fellow, attached to a right bastard-or extremely witty-as with the already multiple-cognominated Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, who earned an additional name, Sesquiculus, meaning he was more than just an arsehole, he was an arsehole and a half.

  cohort The tactical unit of the legion. It comprised six centuries, and each legion owned ten cohorts. When discussing troop movements, it was more customary for the general to speak of his army in terms of cohorts than legions, which perhaps indicates that, at least until the time of Caesar, the general deployed or peeled off cohorts in battle. The maniple, formed of two centuries (there were three maniples to the cohort), ceased to have any tactical significance from the time of Marius.

  college A body or society of men having something in common. Rome owned priestly colleges (such as the College of Pontifices), political colleges (as the College of Tribunes of the Plebs), civil colleges (as the College of Lictors), and trade colleges (for example, 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 major crossroads and conduct the annual feast of the crossroads, the Compitalia.

  colonnade A roofed walkway flanked by one row of outer columns when attached to a building in the manner of a verandah, or, if freestanding (as a colonnade often was), by a row of columns on either side. comitia See the entry under Assembly. Comitia The large round well in which meetings of the comitia were held. It was located in the lower Forum Romanum adjacent to the steps of the Senate House and the Basilica Aemilia, and proceeded below ground level in a series of steps, forming tiers upon which men stood; comitial meetings were never
conducted seated. When packed, the well could hold perhaps three thousand men. The rostra, or speaker's platform, was grafted into one side.

  CONDEMNO The word employed by a jury to deliver a verdict of "guilty." It was a term confined to the courts; both courts and Assemblies had their own vocabularies.

  confarreatio The oldest and strictest of the three forms of Roman marriage. By the time of Sulla, the practice of confarreatio was confined to patricians, and then was not mandatory. One of the chief reasons why confarreatio lost much popularity lay in the fact that the confarreatio bride passed from the hand of her father to the hand of her husband, and thus had far less freedom than women married in the usual way; she could not control her dowry or conduct business. The other main reason for the unpopularity of confarreatio lay in the extreme difficulty of dissolving it; divorce (diffarreatio) was so legally and religiously arduous that it was more trouble than it was worth unless the circumstances left no alternative.

  Conscript Fathers When it was established by the Kings of Rome (traditionally by Numa Pompilius), the Senate consisted of one hundred patricians entitled patres-"fathers." Then when plebeian senators were added during the first years of the Republic, they were said to be conscripti–"chosen without a choice." Together, the patrician and plebeian members were said to be patres et conscripti; gradually the once-distinguishing terms were run together, and all members of the Senate were simply the Conscript Fathers.

  consul The consul was the most senior Roman magistrate owning imperium, and the consulship (modern scholars do not refer to it as the "consulate" because a consulate is a modern diplomatic institution) was the top rung on the cursus honorum. Two consuls were elected each year by the Centuriate Assembly, and served for one year. They entered office on New Year's Day (January 1). One was senior to the other; he was the one who had polled his requisite number of Centuries first. The senior consul held the fasces (q.v.) for the month of January, which meant his junior colleague looked on. In February the junior consul held the fasces, and they alternated month by month throughout the year. Both consuls were escorted by twelve lictors, but only the lictors of the consul holding the fasces that month shouldered the actual fasces as they preceded him wherever he went. By the last century of the Republic, a patrician or a plebeian could be consul, though never two patricians together. The proper age for a consul was forty-two, twelve years after entering the Senate at thirty, though there is convincing evidence that Sulla in 81 b.c. accorded patrician senators the privilege of standing for consul two years ahead of any plebeian, which meant the patrician could be consul at forty years of age. A consul's imperium knew no bounds; it operated not only in Rome and Italy, but throughout the provinces as well, and overrode the imperium of a proconsular governor. The consul could command any army.

  consular The name given to a man after he had been consul. He was held in special esteem by the rest of the Senate, and until Sulla became dictator was always asked to speak or give his opinion in the House ahead of the praetors, consuls-elect, etc. Sulla changed that, preferring to exalt magistrates in office and those elected to coming office. The consular, however, might at any time be sent to govern a province should the Senate require the duty of him. He might also be asked to take on other duties, like caring for the grain supply.

  consultum The term for a senatorial decree, though it was expressed more properly as a senatus consultant. It did not have the force of law. In order to become law, a consultant had to be presented by the Senate to any of the Assemblies, tribal or centuriate, which then voted it into law– if the members of the Assembly requested felt like voting it into law. Sulla's reformations included a law that no Assembly could legislate a bill unless it was accompanied by a senatus consultum. However, many senatorial consulta (plural) were never submitted to any Assembly, therefore were never voted into law, yet were accepted as laws by all of Rome; among these consulta were decisions about provincial governors, declaration and conduct of wars, and all to do with foreign affairs. Sulla in 81 b.c. gave these senatorial decrees the formal status of laws.

  contio This was a preliminary meeting of a comitial Assembly in order to discuss the promulgation of a projected law, or any other comitial business. All three Assemblies were required to debate a measure in contio, which, though no voting took place, had nonetheless to be convoked by the magistrate empowered.

  contubernalis A military cadet: a subaltern of lowest rank and age in the hierarchy of Roman military officers, but excluding the centurions. No centurion was ever a cadet, he was an experienced soldier.

  corona civica Rome's second-highest military decoration. A crown or chaplet made of oak leaves, it was awarded to a man who had saved the lives of fellow soldiers and held the ground on which he did this for the rest of the duration of a battle. It could not be awarded unless the saved soldiers swore a formal oath before their general that they spoke the truth about the circumstances. L. R. Taylor argues that among Sulla's constitutional reforms was one relating to the winners of major military crowns; that, following the tradition of Marcus Fabius Buteo, he promoted these men to membership in the Senate, which answers the vexed question of Caesar's senatorial status (complicated as it was by the fact that, while flamen Dialis, he had been a member of the Senate from the time he put on the toga virilis). Gelzer agreed with her–but, alas, only in a footnote.

  corona graminea or obsidionalis Rome's highest military decoration. Made of grass (or sometimes a cereal such as wheat, if the battle took place in a field of grain) taken from the battlefield and awarded "on the spot," the Grass Crown conferred virtual immortality on a man, for it had been won on very few occasions during the Republic. The man who won it had to have saved a whole legion or army by his personal efforts. Both Quintus Sertorius and Sulla were awarded Grass Crowns.

  cubit A Greek and Asian measurement of length not popular among Romans; it was normally held to be the distance between a man's elbow and the tips of his fingers, and was probably about 18 inches (450mm).

  cuirass Armor encasing a man's upper body without having the form of a shirt. It consisted of two plates of bronze, steel, or hardened leather, the front one protecting thorax and abdomen, the other the back from shoulders to lumbar spine. The plates were held together by straps or hinges at the shoulders and along each side under the arms. Some cuirasses were exquisitely tailored to the contours of an individual's torso, while others fitted any man of a particular size and physique. The men of highest rank-generals and legates-wore cuirasses tooled in high relief and silver-plated (sometimes, though rarely, gold-plated). Presumably as an indication of imperium, the general and perhaps the most senior of his legates wore a thin red sash around the cuirass about halfway between the nipples and waist; the sash was ritual1^ knotted and looped.

  cultarius Scullard's spelling: the O.L.D. prefers cultrarius. He was a public servant attached to religious duties, and his only job appears to have been to cut the sacrificial victim's throat. However, in Republican Rome this was undoubtedly a full-time job for several men, so many were the ceremonies requiring sacrifice of an animal victim. He probably also helped dispose of the victim and was custodian of his tools. cunnus An extremely offensive Latin profanity-"cunt." Cuppedenis Markets Specialized markets lying behind the upper Forum Romanum on its eastern side, between the Clivus Orbius and the Carinae/Fagutal. In it were vended luxury items like pepper, spices, incense, ointments and unguents and balms; it also served as the flower market, where a Roman (all Romans loved flowers) could buy anything from a bouquet to a garland to go round the neck or a wreath to go on the head. Until sold to finance Sulla's campaign against King Mithridates, the actual land belonged to the State.

  Curia Hostilia The Senate House. It was thought to have been built by the shadowy third king of Rome, Tullus Hostilius, hence its name: "the meeting-house of Hostilius."

  cursus honorum See the entry on magistrates.

  curule chair The sella curulis was the ivory chair reserved exclusively for magistrates
owning imperium: at first I thought only the curule aedile sat in one, but it seems that at some stage during the evolution of the Republic, imperium (and therefore the curule chair) was also conferred upon the two plebeian aediles. Beautifully carved in ivory, the chair itself had curved legs crossing in a broad X, so that it could be folded up. It was equipped with low arms, but had no back. DAMNO The word employed by a comitial Assembly to indicate a verdict of "guilty." It was not used in the courts, perhaps because the courts did not have the power to execute a death penalty.

  decury A group of ten men. The tidy-minded Romans tended to subdivide groups containing several hundred men into tens for convenience in administration and direction. Thus the Senate was organized in decuries (with a patrician senator as the head of each decury), the College of Lictors, and probably all the other colleges of specialized public servants as well. It has been suggested that the legionary century was also divided into decuries, ten men messing together and sharing a tent, but evidence points more to eight soldiers. As a legionary century contained eighty soldiers, not one hundred, this would give ten groups of eight soldiers. But perhaps each eight legionaries were given two of the century's twenty noncombatants as servants and general factotums, thus bringing each octet up to a decury.

  demagogue Originally a Greek concept, the demagogue was a politician whose chief appeal was to the crowds. The Roman demagogue (almost inevitably a tribune of the plebs) preferred the arena of the Comitia well to the Senate House, but it was no part of his policy to "liberate the masses," nor on the whole were those who flocked to listen to him composed of the very lowly. The term simply indicated a man of radical rather than ultra-conservative bent.