The First Man in Rome (133 page)

felix
Literally, "happy in fortune," rather than our interpretation of the word "happy," which is more to do with the mood of the moment. Latin
felix
was inextricably tied to the goddess Fortuna—to
luck.

fellator  
A very crude Latin obscenity which denoted the man on the receiving end—he whose penis was being sucked. It was considered a far more honorable situation than that of the man doing the sucking (see
irrumator).

Ferentinum   
Modern Ferentino, in Italy.

Firmunt Picenum   
Modern Fermo, in Italy.

flamen, flamines
(pl.)
A priest in a special group who served the oldest and most Roman of gods. There were fifteen
flamines,
three major and twelve minor.
The flamines maiores
served (1) Jupiter, (2) Mars, and (3) Quirinus. Save for the
flamen Dialis,
none seems to have had very demanding duties, yet the three major priests received their housing at the expense of the State. This was undoubtedly because the
flamines
were Rome's most ancient priests.
flamen Dialis
The special priest of Jupiter, and most senior of the fifteen
flamines.
His life was not an easy one. He had to be a patrician, and married
confarreatio
to a patrician woman; both his and her parents had to be alive at the time he was appointed to the priesthood; and the position lasted for life. The
flamen Dialis
was absolutely loaded down with taboos and shibboleths—could not see or touch a dead body, could not touch iron, could have no knot on his person, could not use iron to cut his hair or beard, could not wear leather taken from an animal killed for the purpose, could not touch a horse, could not eat beans or any form of leavened bread. His wife, the
flaminica Dialis,
was almost equally constrained.

Florentia
Modern Florence or Firenze, in Italy.

flumen
The Latin word for a river. For this reason, the rivers on my maps are labeled as "Volturnus F.," "Isara F.," etc.

Fortuna
The Roman goddess of fortune, and one of the most worshiped deities in the Roman pantheon. There were many temples to Fortune, each dedicated to the goddess in a different guise or light. The favor of Fortuna mattered tremendously to politicians and generals, who all—including men as formidably intelligent as Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and Gaius Julius Caesar the Dictator— believed in her machinations implicitly.

forum
An open-air public meeting place for all kinds of business, public and private.

Forum Boarium
The meat markets, situated at the northern (Velabrum) end of the Circus Maximus. The word
boarium
meant "cattle," but by Gaius Marius's day, the meat markets vended all kinds of beasts and meats.

forum castrum
The meeting space inside a Roman military camp. It was located alongside the general's command tent.

Forum Frumentarium
The grain markets. My
map situation for them is purely hypothetical, but my reasons are as follows: I do not believe that the private grain vendors (and there were many) conducted their activities in the same area as the public grain issue. The public grain was concentrated in two areas—one in the Porticus Minucia on the Campus Martius, where the aediles had their booths and offices, and issued the grain chits; the other the public granaries, which were located under the cliffs of the Aventine adjacent to the Port of Rome. We know that there were granaries along the Vicus Tuscus below the cliffs of the Palatine, rebuilt by Agrippa during the principate, but probably privately owned during the Republic. Therefore I have located the Forum Frumentarium in the Velabrum, adjacent to the granaries of the Vicus Tuscus.

Forum Holitorium
The vegetable markets. They were situated right on the banks of the Tiber, half inside the Servian Walls, half outside, though they had probably originally lain entirely inside. This location favored those who grew on the Campus Martius and the Campus Vaticanus.

Forum Piscinum
The fish markets. Their location is a mystery, but we know from the grizzles of Cicero that the prevailing winds of Rome blew the smell of stinking fish into both the lower Forum Romanum and the Senate House. I have therefore located them just to the west of the Via Nova, in the Velabrum.

Forum Romanum
The center of Roman public life, a long open space devoted to politics, the law, business, and religion. By the time of Gaius Marius, I believe the Forum Romanum was free from stalls and booths unattached to the basilicae. The amount of political activity—not to mention legal activity—would surely have rendered free-standing structures in the middle of any concourse at peril, as well as most inconvenient. The close proximity of two big markets, the general Macellum on the far side of the Basilica Aemilia and the Macellum Cuppedenis beyond the Clivus Orbius, no doubt provided plenty of booth and stall space.

freedman
A manumitted slave. Though technically free (and, if his former master was a Roman citizen, a Roman citizen himself), he remained in the patronage of his former master, and had little chance to use his vote in the time of Gaius Marius, for he belonged to one of two urban tribes— the Suburana and the Esquilina. In some cases, freedmen of superior ability or ruthlessness managed to acquire great wealth and power, and so were able to vote in the classes.

freeman
A man born free and never sold into slavery (except as a
nexus
or debt slave—this was rare among Roman citizens during Gaius Marius's time, though still prevalent among the Italian Allies, victims of Roman greed).

Fregellae
A Latin Rights community situated on the Via Latina and the river Liris, just over the border into Samnium. It was always very loyal to Rome until 125 B.C., when it revolted, and was crushed with singular cruelty by the praetor Lucius Opimius. Destroyed completely, the town never really flourished again. Rome replaced it with the town of Fabrateria Nova ("new made") on the opposite bank of the Liris.

Further Spain
Hispania Ulterior, the further from Rome of Rome's two Spanish provinces. In the time of Gaius Marius, the boundary between Nearer and Further Spain was somewhat tenuous, but by and large, the further province encompassed the entire basin of the Baetis River, the ore-bearing mountains in which the Baetis and the Anas rose, the Atlantic littoral from Olisippo at the mouth of the Tagus to the Pillars of Hercules, and the Mediterranean littoral from the Pillars to the port of Abdera. The largest city by far was Gades, now called Cadiz, but the seat of the governor was Corduba.

Gaetuli
A far-flung Berber people, nomadic in their way of life, who inhabited the regions behind the coast of North Africa, all the way from the Lesser Syrtis to Mauretania.

Gallia Comata
Long-haired Gaul. Having subtracted the Roman province of Gaul-across-the-Alps, Gallia Comata incorporated modern France and Belgium, together with that part of Holland south of the Rhine. It was a huge, fairly low-lying, and heavily forested land of largely untapped agricultural richness, watered by many superb rivers, including the Liger (Loire), Sequana (Seine), Mosa (Meuse), Mosella (Moselle), Scaldis (Schelde), Samara (Somme), Matroma (Marne), Duranius (Dordogne), Oltis (Lot), and Garumna (Garonne). During the time of Gaius Marius, the bulk of Gallia Comata was hardly known, save for the campaigns of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus in 122 and 121 B.C. The inhabitants were mostly Celtic, except where Germanic tribes had invaded from across the Rhenus and racially mixed, as was the case with the tribes collectively called Belgae. Though all of the Gauls who wore their hair long (hence the Latin name for the country) knew of the existence of Rome, they studiously avoided contact unless unlucky enough to live on the borders of the Roman province. The Gallic way of life was rural, as much pastoral as agricultural, and they spurned urbanization, preferring to cluster in farmsteads and villages. They did build what the Romans called
oppida,
these being strongholds designed to protect the tribal treasures, the person of the king, and their grain. Religiously they were under the sway of the Druids, save for the most Germanic among them. On the whole the long-haired Gauls were not warlike insofar as that they did not pursue war as an end in itself, but they were fierce warriors. They drank beer rather than wine, were flesh eaters more than bread eaters, drank milk, and used butter rather than olive oil. Physically they were tall and well built, and tended to be fair or red of hair, and blue or grey of eye.

Gallia Transalpina
Transalpine Gaul, the Roman province I have called Gaul-across-the-Alps. I did this to avoid the hideous confusions for nonclassicist readers that are involved in the minefield of Cis and Trans. Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul, Cispadane Gaul, Transpadane Gaul—just too confusing for most people, so why get into it at all? Gaul-across-the-Alps was largely won for Rome by Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus just before 120 B.C., to ensure that Rome had a safe land route for her armies between Italy and Spain. The province consisted of a coastal strip all the way from Liguria to the Pyrenees, with two inland incursions: one to Tolosa, in Aquitania, the other up the Rhodanus (Rhone) Valley as far as the trading post of Lugdunum (Lyon).

games
A Roman institution and pastime which went back at least as far as the early Republic, and probably a lot further. At first games, or
ludi,
were celebrated only when a general triumphed, but in 366 B.C. the
ludi Romani,
as the first games were called, became an annual event held to honor Jupiter Optimus Maximus, whose feast day occurred on September 13. It was not long before the
ludi Romani
occupied more than just that day; by the time of Gaius Marius they went on for ten days, possibly beginning on the fifth. Though there were a few rather half-hearted boxing and wrestling bouts, Roman games never possessed the athletic, physical, sports nature of the Greek games (very different!). At first they consisted mostly of chariot races, then gradually came to incorporate animal hunts, and plays held in specially erected theaters. On the first day of the games, there was a spectacular yet ostensibly religious procession through the circus, after which came a chariot race or two, and then the boxing and wrestling, limited to this first day. The succeeding days were taken up with plays in the theaters; tragedies were not popular, comedies were, and as the Republic wore on, farces and mimes became more popular than old-fashioned comedy. Then, as the games drew to a close, the chariot races reigned supreme, together with wild-beast hunts to vary the program. Gladiatorial combats were
not
a part of any games held during the Republic; these were confined to funeral games, and generally held in the Forum Romanum rather than in the circuses. They were put on privately, not at the expense of the State, as were the games. However, men ambitious of making a name for themselves among the electors dug deep into their private purses when aediles to make the games more spectacular than the allocation of funds from the State would permit.

The first games of the year were the
ludi Megalenses
in early April, followed immediately by the
ludi Cereri,
and with the
ludi Floriae
at the end of April extending into May. Then in July came the
ludi Apollinares,
early in the month. Then nothing until the
ludi Romani
in early September. On the Ides of October came the single day of the
ludi Capitolini,
games put on by a private college. The last games of the year were the
ludi Plebeii,
which occurred in early November, and ran for many days. Free Roman citizen men and their women were allowed to attend (there was no admission charge), with Women segregated in the theaters but not in the circus; neither slaves nor freedmen were permitted.

garum
A highly esteemed and much loved flavoring essence made from fish by a process calculated to make a modern man or woman ill at the thought; apparently it stank, being extremely concentrated. However, the ancients adored it. There were many places around the Mediterranean and Euxine where
garum
was made, but the best
garum
was held to come from the fishing ports of Further Spain.

Garumna River
The modern Garonne, in France.