The First Man in Rome (131 page)

contio, contiones
(pl.)
The preliminary meetings of all the comitial assemblies, whether to debate promulgated legislation or establish a trial at law, were called
contiones.
A
contio
could be called only by a magistrate having the correct power to convoke whichever assembly it was—a consul or praetor could convoke the Centuriate Assembly or the Assembly of the People, but only a tribune of the plebs could convoke the Plebeian Assembly.

contubernalis
The Latin term for a cadet, a subaltern of lowest rank in the military officers' hierarchy, but excluding the centurions; no centurion was ever a cadet, he was an experienced soldier.

corona
A crown. The term was generally confined to military decorations for the very highest valor. In descending order of importance, these crowns for various acts of bravery were:

Corona Graminea
The grass crown, awarded to a man who saved a whole legion, or—upon rare occasions—even a whole army.

Corona Civica
The civic crown, made of ordinary 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 battle.

Corona Aurea
The first of the more minor crowns, which interestingly were intrinsically far more valuable than the top two (an indication that they were far newer). This gold crown was awarded to a man who killed an enemy in single combat, and held the ground for the rest of the battle.
Corona Muralis
A crenellated gold crown awarded to the first man over the walls of an enemy city when it was stormed.

Corona Navalis  
A gold crown adorned with ship's beaks, awarded for outstanding valor during a sea battle.

Corona Vallaris  
A gold crown awarded to the first man across the ramparts of an enemy camp.
cottabus
  
A game played in the dining room. The lees in the bottom of a man's wine cup were tossed into a large flattish bowl, and the winner was decided by the number of rays in the splash pattern, though exactly how it worked, we do not know.

cuirass
Two plates usually of bronze or steel, but sometimes of hardened leather, one protecting a man's thorax and abdomen, the other his back from shoulder to lumbar spine; the plates were held together by straps or ties at the shoulders and along each side beneath the arms. Some were exquisitely tailored to the contours of the torso; others were suitable for all wearers of average size and physique. The men of highest rank, especially generals, normally wore cuirasses beautifully tooled in relief, mostly of silver-plated steel or bronze, occasionally gold-plated; the general and his legates also wore a thin red sash around the cuirass about halfway between the nipples and the waist, ritually knotted and looped.

culibonia  
A Latin obscenity interpreted by Dr. J. N. Adams as meaning a whore who offered anal intercourse; hence Publius Rutilius Rufus's pleasure in his own pun on
boni
in his letter, page 768.

culus  
The basic Latin word for the anus.

Cumae  
The first Greek colony in Italy, founded in the early eighth century B.C. It lay on the sea side of Cape Misenum, and was an extremely popular Roman Republican resort.

cunnum lingere
A very crude Latin obscenity, meaning to lick the female genitalia.

cunnus
A Latin obscenity at least as offensive to Romans as "cunt" is to us. It meant the female genitalia.

curator annonae
The man responsible for regulating the grain supply from the provinces to Rome.

curia, curiae
(pl.)
The
curia
originally was one of the thirty most ancient divisions of the Roman People, preceding the tribes and certainly the classes. These first Roman clans gathered in special meeting halls; each
curia
was headed by a
curio
or chieftain, elected for life. The
curiae veteres
or ancient meeting halls were clustered on the edge of the Palatium of the Palatine, adjacent to the Via Triumphalis. By the time of Gaius Marius, the
curia
was all but forgotten in the political and social organization of the People. When, as with the adoption of a patrician into a plebeian family, or the conferring of imperium upon a senior magistrate by a
lex curiata,
the thirty
curiae
were required under law to assemble, they were represented by thirty lictors.

Curia Hostilia
The Senate House. It was thought to have been built by King Tullus Hostilius, the third of Rome's kings, hence its name ("meeting-house of Hostilius").

cursus honorum
"The way of honor." If a man aspired to be consul, he had to take certain steps: first he was admitted to the Senate (either by seeking election as quaestor, or by co-optation of the censors, though the censors always had the final word in Gaius Marius's day); he had to serve as quaestor even if already a senator; after which he had to be elected praetor; and finally he could stand for the consulship. The four steps—senator, quaestor, praetor, and consul—constituted the
cursus honorum.
Neither of the aedileships (plebeian and curule) nor the tribunate of the plebs was a part of the
cursus honorum,
but most men who aspired to be consul understood that in order to attract sufficient attention from the electorate, they needed to serve as a tribune of the plebs or as an aedile. The office of censor, available only to those who had already been consul, was also separate from the
cursus honorum
(see also magistrates).

curule chair
In Latin,
sella curulis.
This was the ivory chair reserved exclusively for men in senior magistracies; a curule aedile sat in one, but a plebeian aedile did not. The praetor and consul used curule chairs. They were the exclusive province of the magistrates who held imperium, as were lictors. In style, the curule chair was beautifully carved, with curved legs crossing in a broad X; it was equipped with very low arms, but had no back. The Roman in a toga sat very straight and allowed nothing to disturb the complicated massing of his toga on arm, back, and shoulders.

Cynic
An adherent of the school of philosophy founded by Diogenes of Sinope. It was not a school in the Academic sense, nor was its rule of life of great complexity. Basically, the Cynic believed in simplicity and freedom from the thrall of possessions. Cynics completely mistrusted all human endeavors and worldly aspirations, deeming them self-seeking.

DAMNO
One of the two words employed by a jury when delivering a verdict of "guilty." Presumably there was a reason why a jury would vote
DAMNO
rather than
CONDEMNO;
perhaps
DAMNO
was more vigorous, and was a way of recommending that no mercy be shown in sentencing the damned.

Danastris River
The modern river Dniester, in Moldavia. It was also known to the ancients as the Tyras River.

Danubius River
The modern Danube, Donau, or Dunarea. The Greeks, who called it the Ister, knew it was a very great river, but had not explored it beyond those inevitable Greek colonies around its outflow into the Euxine. Only its upper, alpine reaches were known to the Romans of Gaius Marius's day, though like the Greeks, they knew its course through Pannonia and Dacia in theory.

Delphi
The great sanctuary of the god Apollo, lying in the lap of Mount Parnassus, in central Greece. From very ancient times it was an important center of worship, though not of Apollo until about the sixth or seventh century B.C. There was an
omphalos
or navel stone (in all likelihood, a meteorite), and Delphi itself was thought to be the center of the earth. An oracle of awesome fame resided there, its prophecies given by a crone in a state of ecstatic frenzy; she was known as Pythia, or the Pythoness.

demagogue
Originally a Greek concept, meaning a politician whose chief appeal was to the crowds. The Roman demagogue 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 listened to him composed of the very lowly. The term was one employed by ultraconservative factions inside the Senate to describe the more radical tribunes of the plebs.

denarius, denarii (pl.)
Save for a very rare issue or two of gold coins, the denarius was the largest denomination of Roman Republican coinage. Of pure silver, it contained about 3.5 grams of the metal. There were 6,250 denarii to the talent. It was about the size of a dime, or a threepence.

Dertona
Modern Tortona, in northern Italy.

diadem
The diadem was a thick white ribbon about 1 inch (25 mm) wide, each end embroidered, and often finished with a fringe. It was worn tied around the head, either across the forehead, or behind the hairline, and knotted beneath the occiput; the ends trailed down onto the shoulders. Originally a mark of Persian royalty, the diadem became the mark of the Hellenistic monarch after Alexander the Great removed it from the tiara of the Persian kings, as being a more appropriately Greek understatement than either crown or tiara.

dignitas
A peculiarly Roman concept,
dignitas
cannot be translated as the English "dignity." It was a man's personal share of public standing in the community, and involved his moral and ethical worth, his reputation, his entitlement to respect and proper treatment. Of all the assets a Roman nobleman possessed,
dignitas
was likely to be the one he was most touchy about; to defend it, he might be prepared to go to war or into exile, to commit suicide, or to execute his wife or his son. I have elected to leave it in the text untranslated, simply as
dignitas.

Dis   
An alternative name for Pluto, the god who ruled the underworld.

diverticulum, diverticula
(pl.)
In the sense used in this book, a road connecting the main arterial roads which radiated out from the gates of Rome—a "ring road."

Dodona
A temple and precinct sacred to the Greek Zeus. Located among the inland mountains of Epirus some ten miles to the south and west of Lake Pamboris, it was the home of a very famous oracle situated in a sacred oak tree which was also the home of doves.

dominus
Literally, "lord."
Domina
meant "lady," and
dominilla
"little lady." I have used these words to indicate the kind of respect servants would show to an English nobleman in addressing him as "my lord."

domus, domi
(pl.)
Literally, "house." It was the term used to describe a city house or town house, and as used in this book is intended to mean the residences of those living privately rather than in apartments.

Domus Publicus
This was a house owned by the Senate and People of Rome—that is, owned by the State. There were at least several such, and perhaps more—all, it would appear, inhabited by priests. The Pontifex Maximus, the Vestal Virgins, the Rex Sacrorum, and the three major
flamines
—
Dialis, Martialis,
and
Quirinalis
—lived in State-owned houses. All were apparently situated within the Forum Romanum. The evidence suggests that during Republican times, the Pontifex Maximus and the Vestal Virgins shared the same house (on the site of the much later Atrium Vestae, but oriented to the north); this was usually the one meant when the term "Domus Publicus" was used. The house of the Rex Sacrorum, located on the Velia, was referred to as "the King's house."  I
have drawn in the houses of the three major
flamines
on my map of central Rome in purely arbitrary positions, intended only to show where they might have been.

Dravus River  
The modern Drava, in Yugoslavia.