The Caspian Gates

by Harry Sidebottom

  A Rationibus: In the principate, the official in charge of the emperor’s finances; later overshadowed by the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum.

  Ares: Greek god of war.

  Armata: Latin, ‘the armed one’; in The Caspian Gates, the name of a war ship.

  Aromeus: Good but heavy wine from the region of Ephesus, said to induce headaches.

  Asiarch: Head priest of the imperial cult in a polis in the province of Asia which had imperial permission to build a temple to the emperors.

  Asneis: Gothic, a lowly day labourer.

  Assessors: Advisors to a Roman judge.

  A Studiis: Official who aided the literary and intellectual studies of the Roman emperor.

  Atheling: Anglo-Saxon, prince or lord.

  Atrium: Open court in a Roman house.

  Autarkeia: Greek, self-sufficiency; concept amenable to vastly different interpretation but vital in all schools of Greek philosophy.

  Auxiliary: Roman regular soldier serving in a unit other than a legion.

  Autokrator: Greek, sole ruler; used of the Roman emperor.

  Bahram fires: Sacred fires of the Zoroastrian religion.

  Ballista, plural ballistae: Torsion-powered artillery piece; some shot bolts, others stones.

  Ballistarius, plural ballistarii: Roman artilleryman.

  Barritus: German war cry; adopted by the Roman army.

  Basileus: Greek, king; used of the Roman emperor; could also carry a philosophical connotation as the good opposite of the tyrant.

  Bithynia et Pontus: Roman province along the south shore of the Black Sea.

  Borani (also Boranoi): German tribe, one of the tribes that made up the confederation of the Goths, notorious for their piratical raids into the Aegean.

  Bosphorus: Latin, from the Greek bosporos, literally, ox-ford; the name of several straits, above all those on which Byzantium stood and that in the Crimea. The latter gives its name to the Roman client kingdom of the Bosphorus.

  Boule: Council of a Greek city; in the Roman period made up of local men of wealth and influence.

  Bouleuterion: Greek, council house, where the Boule met; equivalent to the curia in Latin.

  Buccelatum: Army biscuit, hard-tack.

  Cadusii: Tribe to the south-west of the Caspian Sea.

  Caledonia: Modern Scotland.

  Camara, plural camarae: Double-prowed boat local to the Black Sea region.

  Campus Martius: Latin, literally, field of Mars; name of famous space in Rome; in general, name for a parade ground.

  Campus Serenus: Area of rich farmland north-west of Byzantium.

  Capax Imperii: Latin, capable of (governing the) empire; a memorable Tacitean phrase.

  Cappadocia: Roman province north of the Euphrates.

  Caspian Gates: Name given to the passes through the Caucasus mountains.

  Caucasian Gates: Alternative name for the Caspian Gates; sometimes specifically applied to the Dariel (or Daryal) Pass.

  Chaldean: Cover-all label given to ‘eastern’ magicians under the Roman empire.

  Cilicia: Roman province in the south of Asia Minor, divided into an eastern ‘smooth’ half and a western ‘rough’.

  Cinaedus, plural cinaedi: Derogatory Latin term (taken from Greek, kinaidos; Romans liked to pretend that all such habits came from the Greeks) for the passive one in male–male sex.

  Classis Pontica: Roman Black Sea fleet.

  Clementia: Latin, the virtue of mercy.

  Clibanarius, plural clibanarii: heavily armed cavalryman; possibly derived from ‘baking oven’.

  Cohors: Unit of Roman soldiers, usually about five-hundred strong.

  Cohors Apuleia Civium Romanorum Ysiporto: Unit of auxiliary infantry, originally raised from Roman citizens in Apulia in Italy, now stationed at the fort of Hyssou Limen on the southern shore of the Black Sea.

  Cohors II Claudiana: Auxiliary infantry unit stationed at Asparus on the Black Sea.

  Cohors III Ulpia Patraeorum Milliaria Equitata Sagittariorum: Double-strength (milliaria) auxiliary unit of bowmen with both cavalry and infantry components, originally raised in Petra, now stationed at Asparus on the Black Sea.

  Colchis: Rather vague geographic term for eastern end of Black Sea; often used for land bounded by Iberia to the east and the Black Sea to the west; for Greeks and Romans, the name was heavy with mythic connotations.

  Collegium, plural collegia: Latin, literally, colleges; associations, sometimes religious or burial clubs, often formed by the lower classes, always regarded with suspicion by the elite.

  Colonia Agrippinensis: Important Roman city on the Rhine; modern Cologne.

  Comes Augusti, plural comites Augusti: Companion of Augustus; name given to members of the imperial consilium when the emperor was on campaign or on a journey.

  Comes Sacrarum Largitionum: Count of the Sacred Largess; very important official in the late empire, who controlled mints, mines, monetary taxation and the pay and clothing of soldiers and officials.

  Comissatio: Drinking that followed the eating at a Roman feast.

  Comitatus: Latin, a following; name given to barbarian war bands, and then to the mobile, mainly cavalry forces set up by Gallienus to accompany the emperor.

  Conditum: Spiced wine, often taken as an aperitif, sometimes served warm.

  Consilium: Council, cabinet of advisors, of a Roman emperor, official or elite private person.

  Contubernium: Group of ten (or maybe eight) soldiers who share a tent; by extension, comradeship.

  Corrector Totius Orientis: Overseer of all the Orient; a title applied to Odenathus of Palmyra.

  Crimean Bosphorus: Client kingdom of Rome based on the Crimea, sometimes simply referred to as the kingdom of the Bosphorus.

  Cronus: In myth, the reluctant father of the gods; as each was born, he swallowed them. Thus the expression ‘having the eye of Cronos on you’ meaning that something bad is about to happen.

  Croucasis: Scythian name for the Caucasus; said to mean gleaming white with snow.

  Cumania: Fort in the Dariel (or Daryal) Pass.

  Curia: Latin, senate or council house; in Greek, Bouleuterion.

  Cursus Publicus: Imperial Roman posting service whereby those with official passes (diplomata) could send messengers and get remounts.

  Custos: Latin, chaperone, literally, a guardian; one would accompany an upper-class woman, in addition to her maids, when she went out in public.

  Cyrus river: The modern Kura or Mtkvari river running through Georgia and Azerbaijan.

  Dacia: Roman province north of the Danube, in the region around modern Romania.

  Daemon: Supernatural being; could be applied to many different types: good/bad, individual/collective, internal/external, and ghosts.

  Dareine: Unidentified pass through the Caucasus mentioned by Menander Guardsman (10.5); in this novel applied to the Cross Pass in modern Georgia.

  Decennalia: Festival to mark ten years of an emperor’s rule; few were celebrated in the third century AD.

  Demos: Greek, the people; also sometimes used to indicate the poor.

  Derband Pass: Plain between the Causasus mountains and the Caspian Sea.

  Didyma: Sanctuary, with oracle of Apollo, south of Miletus.

  Didymeia: Festival held every fourth year at Didyma (every fifth in ancient inclusive counting).

  Dignitas: Important Roman concept which covers our idea of dignity but goes much further; famously, Julius Caesar claimed that his dignitas meant more to him than life itself.

  Dikaiosyne: Fictional village, ‘justice’, in Greek; roughly on the site of the modern settlement of Kasbeki.

  Diogmitai: Constables in Greek cities; commanded by an eirenarch.

  Diplomata: Official passes which allowed the bearer access to the cursus publicus.

  Domina: Latin, lady or madam; the feminine of dominus.

  Dominus: Latin, lord, master, sir; a title of respect.

  Draco: Latin, literally, snake or dragon; name given to a
windsock-style military standard shaped like a dragon.

  Dulths: Gothic festival of the full moon.

  Dux: Latin, a high military command, often of a frontier.

  Eirenarch: Title of chief of police in many Greek cities, including Ephesus.

  Elagabalus: Patron god of the town of Emesa in Syria, a sun god; also name often given (sometimes in the form Heliogabalus) to one of his priests who became the Roman emperor formally known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 218–22).

  Embolos: The Sacred Way, the main street of Ephesus.

  Emesa: Town in Syria (modern Homs), where the short-lived emperor Quietus was killed.

  Emporion: Greek, trading place; lacking some of the amenities that made a polis.

  Ephebes: Young men of a Greek city, the upperclass among them often enrolled in some form of paramilitary organization, to mark them out from the hoi polloi.

  Epicureanism: Greek philosophical system whose followers either denied that the gods existed or held that they were far away and did not intervene in the affairs of mankind.

  Equestrian: Second rank down in the Roman social pyramid: the elite order just below the senators.

  Equites Singulares: Cavalry bodyguards; in Rome, one of the permanent units protecting the emperors; in the provinces, ad hoc units set up by military commanders; at Phasis in Colchis, the name of the permanent cavalry garrison.

  Erastes: Greek, the older male lover of a boy (the eromenos).

  Eromenos: Greek, a boy too young to grow a beard beloved by a mature erastes; just how far either with decency should go was debatable.

  Etruscan: Native of Etruria in Italy, a place with a reputation for magic.

  Eumenides: ‘The kindly ones’, a euphemism for the terrible furies from the underworld that pursued and tormented wrongdoers.

  Eupatrid: From the Greek, meaning well-born, an aristocrat.

  Fairguneis: One of the high gods of the Goths.

  Familia: Latin, family, and by extension the entire household, including slaves, freedmen and the rest of an entourage.

  Fasces: Bundles of wooden rods tied round a single-bladed axe, carried by lictors, the symbols of power of Roman magistrates.

  Fiscus: Imperial treasury.

  Framadar: Persian, a military officer or hero.

  Franks: Confederation of German tribes.

  Frisii: North German tribe.

  Frumentarius, plural frumentarii: Military unit based on the Caelian Hill in Rome; the emperors’ secret police; messengers, spies and assassins.

  Gates of the Alani: Alternative name for the Caspian Gates; sometimes specifically applied to the Derbend Pass.

  Genius: Divine part of man; some ambiguity as to whether it is external (like a guardian angel) or internal (a divine spark); that of the head of a household worshipped as part of household gods, that of the emperor publicly worshipped.

  Germania: Lands where the German tribes lived; ‘free’ Germany.

  Germania Inferior: More northerly of Rome’s two provinces of Germany; mainly confined to the west bank of the Rhine.

  Germania Superior: More southerly of Rome’s two German provinces.

  Getae: Tribe in the Balkans.

  Gladius: Roman military short sword; generally superseded by the spatha by the mid-third century AD; also slang for penis.

  Gorgons: Female monsters in Greek mythology, the most infamous being Medusa. Their terrible appearance, including snakes in their hair, turned men to stone.

  Gorytus: Combined bow case and quiver.

  Goths: Loose confederation of Germanic tribes.

  Graeculus, plural Graeculi: Latin, little Greek; Greeks called themselves Hellenes, but Romans tended not to extend that courtesy but called them Graeci; with casual contempt, Romans often went further, to Graeculi.

  Gudja: Gothic priest.

  Gyaros: Small Aegean island just off Andros; Roman emperors sentenced men to exile there.

  Hansa: Division of Gothic warriors.

  Harmozica: Important town in ancient Iberia (modern Baginetti in Georgia).

  Hecate: Sinister three-headed underworld goddess of magic, the night, crossroads and doorways.

  Hegemon, plural hegemones: Greek, leading man.

  Helots: Serf-type underclass in classical Sparta.

  Heracles: Latin, Hercules; God who was once a man.

  Herbed: Zoroastrian priest, possibly chief priest.

  Heroon: Shrine to a hero; at Ephesus to the founder of the city, Androclos.

  Heruli: Germanic nomads from north-east of the Black Sea.

  Hetaira: Greek, literally, a female companion, girl who provided sex for ‘gifts’; should be skilled at conversation as well, a cut above a common porne (prostitute); often translated as courtesan.

  Hibernia: Modern Ireland.

  Himation: Greek cloak.

  Hippodamian: Name given to a planned street grid; after Hippodamus of Miletus, the famous fifth-century BC town planner.

  Hispania Tarraconensis: One of the three provinces into which the Romans divided the Spanish peninsula, the north-east corner.

  Homonoia: Greek, harmony; a philosophical concept and a divine personification; in the disputatious world of the principate, often invoked on civic coinage.

  Humiliores: Latin, the humble, the lower class; a social expression which transforms in the late empire into a legal group, distinguished from the honestiores (the upper class).

  Hydrophor: Priestess of Artemis at Didyma.

  Hypochrestes: Aide to the prophetes at Didyma.

  Hypozomata: Rope forming the under-girdle of a trireme; there were usually two of them.

  Iberia: Kingdom to the south of the Caucasus (the name led some ancient writers to state that its inhabitants had migrated from Spain).

  Ides: Thirteenth day of the month in short months, the fifteenth in long months.

  Ientaculum: Latin, breakfast.

  Imperium: Power to issue orders and exact obedience; official military command.

  Imperium Romanum: Power of the Romans, i.e. the Roman empire, often referred to simply as the imperium.

  Inamicitia: Latin, hostility, the opposite of amicitia.

  Insula: Latin, literally an island; an urban block of dwellings surrounded by roads or paths.

  Iustitia: Latin, justice; a virtue ascribed to Roman emperors.

  Jormungand: In Norse mythology, the world serpent which lay in the depths of the ocean waiting for Ragnarok.

  Kalends: First day of the month.

  Kinaidos: See Cinaedus.

  Kyria: Greek, lady, mistress; the feminine of kyrios; a title of respect.

  Kyrios: Greek, lord, master, sir; a title of respect.

  Latrones: Latin, robbers/ bandits.

  Legio II Adiutrix Pia Fidelis: ‘The Second Legion, the help-giver, loyal and faithful’ based at Aquincum in Pannonia Inferior.

  Legio II Parthica Pia Fidelis Felix Aeterna: ‘The Second Legion, the Parthian, eternally loyal, faithful and fortunate’ based in Rome.

  Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix: ‘The Thirtieth Legion, ulpian and victorious’, stationed at Vetera (modern Xanten) in Germania Inferior.

  Legion: Unit of heavy infantry, usually about five thousand strong; from mythical times, the backbone of the Roman army; the numbers in a legion and the legions’ dominance in the army declined during the third century AD as more and more detachments (vexillationes), served away from the parent unit and became more or less independent units.

  Libitinarii: Funerary Men, the carriers out of the dead; they had to reside beyond the town limits, and to ring a bell when they came into town to perform their duties.

  Liburnian: Name given in the time of the Roman empire to a small war ship, possibly rowed on two levels.

  Lictors: Ceremonial attendants of a Roman magistrate.

  Limes: Latin, frontier.

  Loki: In Norse mythology, the trickster, a mischievous, evil god.

  Lustrum: Roman religious ceremony of purification, carried out when a new
beginning was considered necessary.

  Lydia: Kingdom in Asia Minor, conquered by the Persians in 546BC.

  Macropogones: Literally, longbeards, a tribe to the north-east of the Black Sea.

  Maeotis: Sea of Azov.

  Magi: Name given by Greeks and Romans to Persian priests, often thought of as sorcerers.

  Maiestas: Latin, majesty; offences against the majesty of the Roman people were treason; a charge of maiestas was a grave fear among the elite of the imperium.

  Mandata: Instructions issued by the emperors to their governors and officials.

  Manichaeans: The followers of the religious leader Mani (AD216–76).

  Mansio: Rest house of the cursus publicus.

  Marcomanni: German tribe.

  Mardi: Tribe to the south-west of the Caspian Sea.

  Massagetae: Nomad tribe to the north-east of Persia; famous, via Herodotus, for defeating Cyrus the Great of Persia.

  Mazda (also Ahuramazda): The wise lord, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism.

  Mediolanum: Major Roman city in northern Italy; modern Milan.

  Miles, plural milites: Latin, soldier.

  Milesian: From the town of Miletus in Asia Minor.

  Milesian Tales: Greek genre of erotic stories, their most famous author being Aristides.

  Mobads: Persian Zoroastrian priests; see magi.

  Moesia Inferior: Roman province south of the Danube, running from Moesia Superior in the west to the Black Sea in the east.

  Moesia Superior: Roman province to the south of the Danube, bounded by Panonnia Inferior to the north-west and Moesia Inferior to the north-east.

  Mos Maiorum: Important Roman concept; traditional customs, the way of the ancestors.

  Mouth of the Impious: According to Ps-Plutarch, On Rivers 5, an opening in the ground in Colchis which led to an underground river. Those condemned for impiety were thrown into it and re-emerged, very dead, thirty days later, in Lake Maeotis (the Sea of Azov).

  Nasu: Persian, the daemon of death.

  Naupegos: Shipwright of a Greek or Roman war ship.

  Negotium: Latin, business time, time devoted to the service of the Res Publica; the opposite of otium.

  Nemausus: Town in Gaul (modern Nîmes); possibly the birthplace of Castricius.

  Nobilis, plural nobiles: Latin, nobleman,; a man from a patrician family or a plebeian family one of whose ancestors had been consul.