Rome: An Empire's Story (66 page)

curiales
Members of the councils of provincial cities in the Roman empire. The Greek equivalent term was
bouleutai
. These groups were in effect local equivalents
of the senatorial order in Rome and like them were recruited from the propertied classes.

dictator
During times of military emergencies a single dictator was elected in place of the consuls for a limited period only. The term was later appropriated first by Sulla and then Julius Caesar to provide a traditional name for their control of the state.

equites
The richest citizens of the Republic were enrolled in the equestrian order from which senators were elected. Equites are also sometimes termed knights, and at times the term equestrian is used to designate any citizen with the requisite property qualification, whether or not they had been formally enrolled as
equites equo publico
. Augustus created a new senatorial order above the equestrian one, for which the property qualification was higher, and gave both orders specific roles in the government of the empire and the ceremonial of the city.

fasces
The attendants of consuls and dictators carried before them an axe bound together into a bundle of rods as a simple of power.

hoplite
A Greek term for a heavy-armed infantryman who fought hand to hand in a close formation termed a phalanx.

imperium
The term originally meant a command, both one issued and one given to a general. Holding
imperium
conferred a range of religious and political powers and obligations, and so it was formally assumed at the start of a campaign and laid down at the end of one. The term was extended to mean the authority of the Roman people, and at the end of the Republic came to be used in the term of the territory subject to the commands of the Romans, from which our sense of territorial empire derives.

legate
A legate meant a Roman assigned a particular task by the state. Some legates were effectively ambassadors sent to conduct negotiations, some (
legati legionis
) were commanders assigned to legions, and from the last century
BC
there were also legates assigned to govern parts of very large provinces, such as that awarded to the emperor.

legion
From the middle Republic until the late empire, the Roman army was based on units of around 5,000 heavily armed infantrymen, each of which was termed a legion. Typically these units were supported by light infantry, missile troops, cavalry, engineers and other auxiliaries.

magister officiorum
Senior official in the bureaucracy of the late empire and the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy.

magistrate
An official of the Roman state elected by the whole community. The most important magistrates were (in descending order) censors, consuls, praetors and aediles. A dictator or an interrex (a person appointed solely to hold elections) were magistrates, but tribunes (elected only by the plebeians) were not.

patricians
This inner circle of families within the equestrian order claimed descent from the aristrocracy of the Regal Period. During the Republic they gradually lost control of a monopoly of magistracies but even under the principate some priesthoods were reserved for patricians. The emperors occasionally created new patricians, as an honour and to provide sufficient for the various patrician priesthoods.

plebeians
All members of the Roman state who were not patricians. Tradition recorded a number of conflicts between patricians and plebeians during the early Republic (known collectively as the Struggle of the Orders) through which the prerogatives of the patricians were reduced and the rights of the plebeians recognised, for example in the institution of the tribunate or in the convention that votes of the plebeians (
plebiscita
) were binding on the entire state.

pontifex maximus
The most senior priest of the college of pontiffs, and holder of the most prestigious priesthood in Rome. As well as presiding over the pontiffs he also supervised a number of other priests including the priestesses of Vesta.

populares
During the last century of the Republic a series of senatorial politicians, of whom the most famous were the Gracchi brothers and Julius Caesar, based their political programme on fighting for the interest of the Roman people. Land-distributions, colonial schemes, and subsidized or free grain were distinctive features of their activities but in practice they became involved in all political debates, often using popular assemblies to outflank their opponents (who adopted the name
Optimates
). This conflict contributed to the civil strife of the late Republic.

praetor
A magistrate of the Roman state. After the creation of the consulship the praetors were the more junior magistrates and had a range of judicial, administrative and military responsibilities. The number of praetors and the diversity of their roles increased as the city and empire expanded.

praetorian prefect
The main bodyguard of the emperors were the praetorian cohorts and their commanders were equestrian prefects. From as early as the reign of Tiberius they came not only to control security in the City (and around the emperor when he was away from it) but also to act as the chief equestrian advisors to the emperor, and effectively as viziers or chief ministers of the imperial court. From the early fourth century AD the empire was divided in praetorian prefectures within which each prefect headed the imperial bureaucracy.

princeps
Literally the first (most senior) senator, the title was adopted by Augustus and his successors as a more neutral alternative to
rex
(king),
dictator
or perpetual consul.

promagistrate
Originally Roman armies were commanded by consuls and praetors but after imperial expansion made this impractical, the senate began to ask former magistrates to take on commands. By the late Republic magistracies seem often to have been regarded as a necessary preliminary to winning a major
command, and consuls drew lots for the commands prepared for them. Under the principate the most senior governors (for example of Africa, Asia and Achaea) were Proconsuls, and less senior posts went to propraetors, the emperors reserving for themselves one vast province which they governed through legates (
legati Augusti pro praetore
).

provincia
Originally the task assigned along with imperium to a magistrate or pro-magistrate (e.g. the war with Antiochus, the command of Sicily), the term eventually acquired the sense of a territorial unit within the empire, hence the modern term “province”.

publicanus
A Roman citizen who had contracted with the state to carry out work, for example provisioning an army, building or repairing a temple or basilica or road, or collecting taxes. The most notorious publicans were the tax-farmers, whose brutality and greed in the later Republic became proverbial.

senate
The council of the Roman state, composed mostly of ex-magistrates but topped up every five-years by the censors from those with the appropriate census qualification.

spolia opima
An exceptional honour granted to generals who had killed their counterparts in single combat. Augustus claimed they had to fight under their own auspices to qualify.

tetrarchy
In the aftermath of the military crisis of the third century AD, the empire was for a while ruled by colleges of emperors, originally comprising a pair of senior emperors (termed
Augusti
) and a pair of junior ones (
Caesares
) who were also their designated heirs. The term “tetrarchy” refers both to this short-lived institution and to the period, while “tetrach” refers to one member of the college. Both joint rule and the distinction between
Augusti
and
Caesares
had earlier precedents, but before Diocletian power was always shared between relatives rather than political allies. That was the case once again by the late fourth century
AD
.

tribune of the People
(
tribunus plebis
) An annually elected position created during the Republic to protect the rights of the plebeians against the patricians. Tribunes’ persons were sacrosanct and they had the right to call assemblies and to veto legislation and the acts of magistrates if they thought them against the interests of the plebeians. During the last century of the Republic the post was used first by the Gracchi and other popularis politicians as a means of passing legislation the senate might not agree to and later by generals in order to have a veto to protect their interests. The emperors appropriated the sacrosanctity of tribunes as one of their powers, and dated their regnal year by the number of annual grants of tribunical power they had received.

triumph
This ritual which included a great procession into the city might be awarded to a general who had won a significant victory. The procession was often accompanied by games, banqueting, and extended public holidays. Under the principate only emperors and their relatives celebrated triumphs.

Photographic Acknowledgements

© The Art Archive/Alamy:
23
; © Erin Babnik/Alamy:
9
; © charistooneimages/Alamy:
19
; © Peter Horree/Alamy:
7
; © Independent Picture Service/Alamy:
16
; © Mastercraft/Alamy:
13
; © Alex Segre/Alamy:
22
; © Skyscan Photolibrary/Alamy:
17
; computer visualisation created by Martin Blazeby, King’s College London:
11
; The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (MS Canon Misc. 378 f.164v):
20
; © Alinari/Bridgeman Art Library:
18
; © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved:
14
; © Sandro Vannini/Corbis:
10
; © Charles Crowther and Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, Oxford:
15
; © DEA/A. Dagli Orti/Getty Images:
3
; © Sebastià Giralt:
6
; © Bildarchiv Foto Marburg:
4
; © 2011 Scala, Florence:
5
; © 2011 The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence:
8
,
12
; © age fotostock/SuperStock:
1
,
21
,
24

We apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list. If contacted we shall be pleased to rectify these at the earliest opportunity.

Index

Abbasid Caliphate 21, 104

Achaean League 70, 67–8, 100

Aemilius Paullus 68, 69, 153, 172

Aeneas 14, 16, 17

agriculture,
see
economy; taxation

Alamanni 213–5, 247, 275

Alexander the Great

career 19, 26, 36, 64, 126

as a model conqueror 71, 140

allies

Roman relations with 41–2

see also
Social War

Ammianus Marcellinus 242

antiquarianism 122–3

see also
Varro

Arab conquests 21, 187

army

equipment, organization and tactics 41–2, 74–5, 207–11

political role 132–3, 135

veterans 117, 131, 141, 196, 221–2

Athens 34, 64, 111, 130, 267

Augustine 122, 255–6, 259

Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus)

honours after at Actium 84, 116, 125, 166

imperialism 166–7, 201–5

life and career 14–16, 165–9

religious authority 123–6

reorganization of the military 92, 166–8

reorganization of taxation 196–8

Ausonius 242, 252

autocracy,
see
emperors

Aztec empire 24, 73, 121, 187

bathing 222–5

Britain, conquest of 82, 202

bureaucracy 11, 187–8, 196, 242–3, 248–51, 275, 282–4

capstone monarchy 176–8, 274

Caracalla’s Edict (Constitutio Antoniniana) 7, 121, 219, 246, 261

Carthage 14, 18, 40–1, 64–5, 70, 194

Cassiodorus 273, 275–6, 281, 289

Catilinarian conspiracy 85, 133, 149

Cato the Elder 18, 69, 71, 86, 87–8, 99

ceremonial 19–21, 26, 117–18, 125, 166–8, 180–1, 236, 245–6, 277, 285

see also
triumph

Chinese Empires 26, 37, 73, 104, 175, 183, 186–7, 203, 210–13, 274, 297

Christians

communities of 213, 256

early growth in numbers 258–61

in historiography 234–5, 255–6, 278, 298

persecutions by 10, 235, 266–8

persecutions of 121, 123, 234–5, 246, 260, 262–3, 266, 277

see also
heresy; schisms

Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

philosophical writings 120, 157–9

political career 16, 85, 133–4, 137–8, 140–1, 148–152