Spartacus: The Gladiator (68 page)

caldarium
: an intensely hot room in Roman bath complexes. Used like a modern-day sauna, most also had a hot plunge pool. The
caldarium
was heated by hot air which flowed from a furnace through pipes into hollow bricks in the walls and under the raised floor.

caligae
: heavy leather sandals worn by the Roman soldier. Sturdily constructed in three layers – a sole, insole and upper –
caligae
resembled an open-toed boot. Dozens of metal studs on the sole gave the sandals good grip.

Campania: a fertile region of west central Italy.

Campus Atinas: modern-day Vallo di Diano.

Campus Martius: part of the Tiber flood plain to the north-west of Rome. It was here that men exercised, armies were mustered and votes taken.

cenacula
(pl.
cenaculae
): see
insula
.

censor: one of a pair of senior Roman magistrates whose primary function was to maintain the official list of all citizens.

centurion (in Latin,
centurio
): the disciplined, career officers who formed the backbone of the Roman army. In the first century BC, there were six centurions to a cohort, and sixty to a legion. See also entry for cohort.

Cerberus: the monstrous three-headed hound that guarded the entrance to Hades.

Cilician pirates: sea raiders from a region in southern Asia Minor who, in the second and first centuries BC, caused severe problems to shipping in the eastern Mediterranean.

Cinna, Lucius Cornelius (d. 84 BC): Little is known of the early life of this four-time consul. An ally of Marius and an enemy of Sulla, he was killed in a mutiny by his own troops.

cohort: a unit of the Roman legion. There were ten cohorts in a legion in the 70s BC, with six centuries of eighty legionaries in every unit. Each century was under the command of a centurion.

consul: one of two annually elected chief magistrates, appointed by the people and ratified by the Senate. Effective rulers of Rome for a year, they were in charge of civil and military matters and led the Republic’s armies into war. Each could countermand the other and both were supposed to heed the wishes of the Senate. No man was supposed to serve as consul more than once. But by the early decades of the first century BC, powerful nobles such as Marius, Cinna and Sulla were holding on to the position for years on end. This dangerously weakened Rome’s democracy.

Crassus, Marcus Licinius (
c
.115–53 BC): an astute Roman politician and general who joined with Sulla after Cinna’s death and whose actions at the Colline Gate on Sulla’s behalf helped to take Rome. He lived modestly but was reputedly the richest man in Rome, making much of his fortune by buying and seizing the properties of those affected by Sulla’s proscriptions. To reveal more about him would ruin some readers’ enjoyment of the next book, so I will stop here.

Cumae: modern-day Cuma.

Curia: the building in Rome in which the Senate met.

denarius
(pl.
denarii
): the staple coin of the Roman Republic. Made from silver, it was worth four
sestertii
, or ten
asses
(later sixteen).

Dionysus: the twice-born son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of the founder of Thebes. Recognised as man and animal, young and old, male and effeminate, he was one of the most versatile and indefinable of all Greek gods. Essentially, he was the god of wine and intoxication but was also associated with ritual madness,
mania
, and an afterlife blessed by his joys. Named Bacchus by the Romans, his cults were secretive, violent and strange.

editor
(pl.
editores
): the sponsor of a
munus
, a gladiatorial contest.

familia
: by taking the gladiator’s oath, a fighter became part of the
familia gladiatoria
, the tight-knit group that would be his only family, often until death.

Fortuna: the goddess of luck and good fortune. Like all deities, she was notoriously fickle.

Forum Annii: a farming settlement in the Campus Atinas that has been lost to history.

frigidarium
(pl.
frigidaria
): a room in Roman baths containing a cold plunge pool.

fugitivus
: a runaway slave – a fugitive.

Gaul: essentially, modern-day France.

Getai: a Thracian tribe.

gladius
(pl.
gladii
): little information remains about the long ‘Spanish’ sword of the Republican army, the
gladius hispaniensis
, with its waisted blade. It is not clear when it was adopted by the Romans, but it was probably after encountering the weapon during the First Punic War, when it was used by Celtiberian troops. The shaped hilt was made of bone and protected by a pommel and guard of wood. The
gladius
was worn on the right, except by centurions and other senior officers, who wore it on the left.

Great Rider: almost nothing is known about Thracian religion. However, more than three thousand representations of one mysterious figure survive from Thrace. These depict a deity on horseback who is often accompanied a dog or a lion. He is usually aiming his spear at a boar hiding behind an altar. Invariably, there is a tree nearby with a snake coiled around it; often there are women present too. Other carvings depict the ‘hero’ god returning from a successful hunt with his dogs or lions, or approaching the altar in triumph, a bowl held in his hand. No name for this heroic deity survives, but his importance to the Thracians cannot be understated. I have therefore given him a name I thought suited quite well.

Hades: the underworld – hell. The god of the underworld was also called Hades.

Heraclea: modern-day Policoro.

Hercules (or, more correctly, Heracles): the greatest of Greek heroes, who completed twelve monumentally difficult labours.

Iberia: the Iberian peninsula. In the first century BC, it was divided into two Roman provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior.

Illyria (or Illyricum): the Roman name for the lands that lay across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, including parts of modern-day Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro.

impluvium
: see
atrium
.

insula
(pl.
insulae
): high-rise (three-, four-or even five-storey) blocks of flats, or
cenaculae
, in which most Roman citizens lived.

Iugula
: ‘Kill him’ in Latin.

Juno: sister and wife of Jupiter, she was the Roman goddess of marriage and women.

Jupiter: often referred to as
Optimus Maximus
– ‘Greatest and Best’. Most powerful of the Roman gods, he was responsible for weather, especially storms.

Kabyle: Thracians did not live in large urban gatherings. Kabyle was the only settlement that
may
have looked a town as we would nowadays describe it.

kopis
(pl.
kopides)
: a heavy Greek slashing sword with a forward curving blade. It was normally carried in a leather-covered sheath and suspended from a baldric. Many ancient peoples used the
kopis
, from the Etruscans to the Persians.

lanista
(pl.
lanistae
): a gladiator trainer, often the owner of a
ludus
, a gladiator school.

lararium
: a shrine found in Roman homes, where the household gods were worshipped.

Latin: in ancient times this was not just a language. The Latins were the inhabitants of Latium, an area close to Rome. By about 300 BC it had been vanquished by the Romans.

latifundium
(pl.
latifundia
): a large estate, usually owned by Roman nobility, and which utilised large numbers of slaves as labour.
Latifundia
date back to the second century BC, when vast areas of land were confiscated from Italian peoples defeated by Rome, such as the Samnites.

latro
(pl.
latrones
): thief or brigand. However, the word also meant ‘insurgent’.

legate: the officer in command of a legion, and a man of senatorial rank.

licium
: linen loincloth worn by nobles. It is likely that all classes wore a variant of this.

lictor
(pl.
lictores
): a magistrates’ enforcer.
Lictores
were essentially the bodyguards for the consuls, praetors and other senior Roman magistrates. Such officials were accompanied at all times in public by set numbers of
lictores
(the number depended on their rank). Each
lictor
carried
fasces
, the symbol of justice: a bundle of rods enclosing an axe.

Lucania: modern-day Basilicata, a mountainous region of southern Italy.

ludus
(pl.
ludi
): a gladiator school.

machaira
: another word for
kopis
.

Maedi (also spelt Maidi): a Thracian tribe from which Spartacus may have originated.

maenads: women inspired to
mania
, or ritual ecstasy, by Dionysus. Euripides reported that they ate raw meat, handled snakes and tore live animals apart.

manica
(pl.
manicae
): an arm guard used by gladiators. It was usually made of layered materials such as durable linen and leather, or metal.

Marius, Gaius (
c
.157–86 BC): another prominent Roman politician of the late second century and early first century BC. He served as consul a record seven times, and was a very successful general, but was outwitted by Sulla’s march on Rome in 87 BC. Marius was also responsible for extensive remodelling of the Roman army. He was married to Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar.

Mars: the Roman god of war.

Metapontum: modern-day Metaponto.

Minerva: the Roman goddess of war and also of wisdom.

Mitte
: ‘Let him go’ in Latin.

munus
(pl.
munera
): a gladiatorial combat, staged originally during celebrations honouring someone’s death. Their popularity meant that by the late Roman Republic, rival politicians were regularly staging
munera
to win the public’s favour and to upstage each other.

Mutina: modern-day Modena.

Neapolis: modern-day Naples.

Nubian: a person from Nubia, a region in the middle Nile valley.

Nuceria: modern-day Nocera.

Odrysai: the most powerful of the Thracian tribes, and the only one briefly to unite all the others.

olibanum
: frankincense, an aromatic resin used in incense as well as perfume. Highly valued in ancient times, the best
olibanum
was reportedly grown in modern-day Oman, Yemen and Somalia.