The First Man in Rome (129 page)

Brundisium
Modern Brindisi. The most important port in southern Italy, and possessing the only good harbor on the whole Italian Adriatic coast. In 244 B.C. it became a Latin Rights colony, as Rome wished to protect its new extension of the Via Appia, from Tarentum to Brundisium.
Burdigala
Modern Bordeaux, in southwestern France. The great Gallic
oppidum
belonging to the Aquitani.

Caesarean section
The surgical procedure resorted to when a woman in childbirth finds it impossible to deliver her child through the pelvis. The abdomen is incised, the loops of bowel retracted, and the wall of the uterus cut open to extricate the child from within it. In this manner, so it is said, was Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator delivered; the procedure still bears his family's
cognomen.
I have chosen to ignore the story, for the reason that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Caesar's mother, Aurelia, lived to be seventy years old, and apparently enjoyed good health up until the time of her death. The history of Caesarean section in antiquity was a grim one; though the operation was occasionally resorted to, and the child sometimes saved, the mother inevitably perished. The first truly successful Caesarean section that is well recorded occurred in Pavia, Italy, in April, 1876, when Dr. Edoardo Porro removed a healthy child—and uterus—from one Julie Covallini; mother and child survived and did very well.

Calabria
Confusing for those who know modern Italy! Nowadays Calabria is the toe of the boot, but in ancient times it was the heel.

Campania
The fabulously rich and fertile basin, volcanic in origin and soil, which lay between the Apennines of Samnium and the Tuscan (Tyrrhenian) Sea, and extended from Tarracina in the north to a point just south of the modern Bay of Naples. Watered by the Liris, Volturnus
I
Calor, Clanius, and Sarnus rivers, it grew bigger, better, and more of everything than any other region in all Italy. Early colonized by the Greeks, it fell under Etruscan domination, then affiliated itself to the Samnites, and eventually was subject to Rome. The Greek and Samnite elements in its populace made it a grudging subject, and it was always an area prone to insurrection. The towns of Capua, Teanum Sidicinum, Venafrum, Acerrae, Nola, and Interamna were important inland centers, while the ports of Puteoli, Neapolis, Herculaneum, Surrentum, and Stabiae constituted the best on Italy's west coast. Puteoli was the largest and the busiest port in all of Italy. The Via Campana, Via Appia, and Via Latina passed through it.

campus, campi
(pl.)
A plain, or flat expanse of ground.

Campus Martius
Situated to the north of the Servian Walls, the Campus Martius was bounded by the Capitol to its south and the Pincian Hill on its east; the rest of it was enclosed by a huge bend in the river Tiber. Here on the Campus Martius armies awaiting their general's triumphs were bivouacked, military exercises and military training of the young went on, the stables for horses engaged in chariot racing were situated, assemblies of the Comitia Centuriata took place, and market gardening vied with public parklands. The Via Lata (Via Flaminia) crossed the Campus Martius on its way north.

Cannae
An Apulian town on the Aufidius River. Here in 216 B.C., Hannibal and his army of Carthaginians met a Roman army commanded by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. The Roman army was annihilated; until Arausio in 105 B.C., it ranked as Rome's worst military disaster. Somewhere between thirty thousand and sixty thousand men died. The survivors were made to pass beneath the yoke (see that entry).

capite censi
Literally, "Head Count." The
capite censi
were those full Roman citizens too poor to belong to one of the five economic classes, and so were unable to vote in the Centuriate Assembly at all. As most
capite censi
were urban in origin as well as in residence, they largely belonged to urban tribes, which numbered only four out of the total thirty-five tribes; this meant they had little influence in either of the tribal Assemblies, People or Plebs (see also Head Count,
proletarii).

Capitol
The Mons Capitolinus, one of the seven hills of Rome, and the only one more or less limited to religious and public buildings. Though the top of the Capitol contained no private residences, by the time of Gaius Marius its lower slopes boasted some of the most expensive houses in all Rome. Gaius Marius himself lived in this location.

Capua
The most important inland town of Campania. A history of broken pledges of loyalty to Rome led to Roman reprisals which stripped Capua of its extensive and extremely valuable public lands; these became the nucleus of the
ager publicus
of Campania, and included, for instance, the fabulous vineyards which produced Falernian wine. By the time of Gaius Marius, Capua's economic well-being depended upon the many military training camps, gladiatorial schools, and slave camps for bulk prisoners which surrounded the town; the people of Capua made their living from supplying and servicing these huge institutions.

carbunculus  
The precious stone ruby; the word was also applied to really red garnets.

career
A dungeon. The Tullianum's other name was simply Career.

Carinae
One of Rome's more exclusive addresses. The Carinae was the northern tip of the Oppian Mount on its western side; it extended between the Velia, at the top of the Forum Romanum, and the Clivus Pullius.

Carnic Alps
The name I have used to embrace that part of the alpine chain surrounding northern Italy at its eastern end, behind the coastal cities of Tergeste and Aquileia. These mountains are generally called the Julian Alps, the name Carnic Alps being reserved for the mountains of the modern Austrian Tyrol. However, I can find no evidence to suggest that some member of the family Julius of earlier date than Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator had a mountain range named after himself, and so must assume that prior to Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator, the Julian Alps were known by some other name. For want of ancient evidence (which is not to say it does not exist, only that I haven't found it), I have simply extended that name Carnic Alps to cover the Julian Alps as well.

Carnutes
One of the largest and most important of the Celtic tribal confraternities of Gaul. Their lands lay along the river Liger between its confluence with the Caris and a point on about the same meridian of longitude as modern Paris. The Carnutes owed much of their pre-eminence to the fact that within their lands lay the cult centers and Gallic training schools of the Druids.

Castor
The senior of the twin gods Castor and Pollux (to the Greeks, Kastor and Polydeukes), also called the Dioscuri. Their temple, in the Forum Romanum, was imposingly large and very old, indicating that their worship in Rome went back at least to the time of the kings. They cannot therefore simply be labeled a Greek import, as was Apollo. Their special significance to Rome (and possibly why later on they came to be associated with the Lares) was probably because Romulus, the founder of Rome, was a twin.

Cebenna
The highlands of south-central Gaul, lying to the west of the river Rhodanus. The Cebenna in modern terms would incorporate the Cevennes, the Auvergne, the Ardeche, and, in effect, all of the Massif Central.

cella, cellae
(pl.)
Literally, "room." Rooms in domestic households had mostly acquired special names distinguishing their functions, but a room without a name was a
cella.
The rooms inside temples were always
cellae.

Celtiberians
The members of that part of the Celtic race who crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and settled mostly in its central, western, and northwestern regions. They were so well ensconced by the time of Gaius Marius that they were generally regarded as indigenous.

Celts
More the modern than the ancient term for a barbarian race which emerged from north-central Europe during the early centuries of the first millennium B.C. From about 500 B.C. onward, the Celts attempted to invade the lands of the European Mediterranean; in Spain and Gaul they succeeded, while in Italy and Greece they failed. However, in northern Italy, Macedonia, Thessaly, Illyricum, and Moesia, they seeded whole populations which gradually admixed with those peoples already present. Galatia, in central western Anatolia, was still Celtic speaking many centuries A.D. (see Brennus [2]). Racially the Celts were different from yet kindred to the later Germans; they considered themselves a discrete people. Their languages held certain similarities to Latin. A Roman rarely used the word "Celt"; he said "Gaul."

censor
The most senior of all Roman magistrates, though he lacked imperium, and was not therefore escorted by lictors. No man who had not already been consul could seek election as censor, and only those consulars owning tremendous personal
auctoritas
and
dignitas
normally bothered to stand. To be elected censor was complete vindication of a political man's career, for it said he was one of the very top men in Rome. The censor (two were elected at the same time) held office for a period of five years, though he was active in his duties for only about eighteen months at the beginning of his term. He and his colleague in the censorship inspected and regulated membership of the Senate, the
Ordo Equester
(the knights), and the holders of the Public Horse (the eighteen hundred most senior knights), and conducted a general census of Roman citizens, not only in Rome, but throughout Italy and the provinces. He also applied the means test. State contracts were let by him, and various public works or buildings initiated by him.

Centuriate Assembly
See Assembly.

centurion, Centurio, centuriones (pl.)
The regular officer of both Roman citizen and auxiliary legions. It is a mistake to equate him with the modern noncommissioned officer; centurions were complete professionals enjoying a status uncomplicated by our modern social distinctions. A defeated Roman general hardly turned a hair if he lost military tribunes, but tore his hair out in clumps if he lost centurions. Centurion rank was graduated; the most junior
centurio
commanded a group of eighty soldiers and twenty noncombatants called a century. In the Republican army as reorganized by Gaius Marius, each cohort had six centurions, with the most senior man, the
pilus prior,
commanding the senior century of his cohort as well as commanding his entire cohort. The ten men commanding the ten cohorts making up a legion were also ranked in seniority, with the legion's most senior centurion, the
primus pilus,
answering only to his legion's commander (either one of the elected tribunes of the soldiers or one of the general's legates). Promotion during Republican times was from the ranks.

century
A term which could apply to any collection of one hundred men, but which originally meant one hundred soldiers. The centuries of the Centuriate Assembly no longer contained a mere one hundred men, nor had military significance, but originally were indeed military. The centuries of the legions continued to contain one hundred men.

Cercina Island
Modern Kerkenna. One of the islands of the African Lesser Syrtis, it was the site of the first of Gaius Marius's veteran soldier colonies. The father of Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator was sent by Marius to organize the settlement of Cercina.

Ceres
A very old Italian-Roman earth goddess whose duties chiefly concerned food crops, particularly cereal grains. Her temple, on the Aventine side of the Forum Boarium (and therefore outside the
pomerium),
was held to be the most beautiful temple in Republican Rome, and was built to house the cult of the Plebs in the days when Rome was controlled by the patricians and the Plebs often threatened to pack up and leave Rome, settle elsewhere; the first such mass desertion of the Plebs, in 494 B.C., was only as far as the Aventine, but that was far enough to win them concessions. By the time of Gaius Marius, the temple of Ceres was simply known as the headquarters of the Plebeian Order; it held the offices and records of the plebeian aediles.
Charybdis
A mythical whirlpool variously located in the straits between Italy and Sicily, or near the Pillars of Hercules, or other places. Charybdis was always lumped with her companion, Scylla, a monster with a girdle of snarling dogs, who lived so close to Charybdis that no sailor could avoid the one without falling into the clutches of the other. In ancient times the saying "caught between Scylla and Charybdis" was the equivalent of our "between the devil and the deep blue sea," or "between a rock and a hard place."