The First Man in Rome (135 page)

herm   
A pedestal upon which originally the head of the god Hermes was mounted; it was traditionally adorned about halfway up its front side with a set of male genitals, the penis erect. By Hellenistic times it had become the custom to mount all busts upon herms, the term having come to mean a pedestal possessing male genitalia. A visitor to any modern museum owning ancient bust pedestals will note the presence of a square cavity about halfway up the front side; here there once proudly reared two testicles and an erect penis. The herms were defaced during Christian times.

Hippo Regius   
Modern Annaba, in Algeria.

Hispania   
Modern Spain. Also called Iberia.

Hispania Citerior   
See Nearer Spain.

Hispania Ulterior   
See Further Spain.

hubris   
A Greek word which is still used today. It means overweening pride.

hydra-headed monster   
A creature killed by Hercules. It had seven snaky heads, and when a head was cut off, it grew back again at once. Thus the term came to be used of any dilemma which seemed solved, only to grow back again.

Hymettan honey   
Honey gathered from the bees of Mount Hymettos, one of the hills around Athens. The reason the honey was so universally prized did not lie in the flowers the bees visited, but in the fact that Hymettan apiarists never smoked their hives when gathering the honey.
Hypanis River  
The modern Bug, in the USSR.

Icosium
    Modern Alger (Algiers).

Ilium   
The Roman name for Troy.

Illyricum   
The wild and mountainous lands bordering the upper Adriatic on its eastern side.

Ilva
Modern Elba. It was rich in iron ore; this the Ilvans mined. They smelted the ore on Ilva to the bloom stage, then shipped the bloom iron "sows" to Pisae and Populonia for refining.

imago, imagines
(pl.)
The beautifully painted and be-wigged, most lifelike mask of a Roman family's consular (or perhaps praetorian) ancestor. It was made out of beeswax (those who have been to Madame Tussaud's will understand how lifelike a beeswax face can be), and kept by the ancestor's direct descendants in a dust-free cupboard shaped like a miniature temple. The cupboard—though prestigious families usually had more than one ancestor so honored, thus owned many cupboards—was placed in the atrium of the house near the altar to the household Lar and Penates. The mask and its cupboard were the objects of enormous reverence. When a man of the family died, an actor was employed to don the
imago
and impersonate the ancestor. If a man became consul, his mask was made and added to the family collection; occasionally a man who was not consul did something so extraordinary he was considered deserving of a mask.

imperator
Literally, "the commander-in-chief" or "the general" of a Roman army. However, the term gradually came to be given only to a general who won a great victory; in order to apply to the Senate for permission to celebrate a triumph, the general had to be able to prove that after the battle, his troops had formally hailed him with the title
imperator.
It is of course the root of the word "emperor."

imperium
Imperium was the degree of authority invested in a curule magistrate or promagistrate. Having imperium meant that a man had the authority of his office, and could not be gainsaid (provided that he was acting within the limits of his particular imperium and within the laws governing his conduct). It was conferred by a
lex curiata,
and lasted for one year only; extensions had to be ratified by Senate and
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or people for promagistrates who had not in the space of one year completed their original commission. Lictors bearing
fasces
indicated that a man possessed imperium.

insula, insulae (pl.)
Literally, "island." Because it was mostly surrounded by streets or lanes or alleys on all sides, apartment buildings became known as insulae. Roman insulae were very tall (up to 100 feet—30 m—in height), and some were large enough to warrant the incorporation of several internal light-wells, rather than the normal one. Then as now, Rome was a city of apartment dwellers.

Iol
Modern Cherchel, in Algeria.

irrumator
A man sucking another's penis. Romans thought this the lowest form of sexual activity, indicating a servility and moral self-abnegation no honorable man would condone (presumably it was not considered in such a harsh light when the
irrumator
was an
irrumatrix
—a woman). As Latin obscenities were graded, this was the worst one of all. The act itself was
irrumo, irrumatio.
Isara River  
There were several rivers named Isara. One was the modern Isere (a tributary of the Rhodanus); another was the modern Isar (a tributary of the Danubius); yet another was the modern Oise (a tributary of the Sequana).

Isarcus River  
The modern Isarco, in northern Italy.

isonomia  
Originally this Greek word mean "equality." However, the sixth-century B.C. Athenian statesman Cleisthenes, popularly supposed to have evolved the form of government the Greeks called democracy, applied the tag
isonomia
to the concept of democracy.

Italia  
This name was reserved for the Italian Peninsula south of the rivers Arnus and Rubico, though it is doubtful if a Roman ever thought of the peninsula as a nation when he called it Italia.

Italian Allies
Those people, tribes, or nations (they are variously described as all three) which lived in the Italian Peninsula without enjoying either the full Roman citizenship or even the Latin Rights. In return for military protection and in the interests of peaceful co-existence, they were required to furnish properly armed soldiers for the armies of Rome, and to pay for the upkeep of these soldiers. The Italian Allies also bore the chief burden of general taxation within Italy at the time of Gaius Marius, and in many instances had been obliged to yield part of their lands to swell the Roman
ager publicus.
Many of them had either risen against Rome (like the Samnites) or sided with Hannibal and others against Rome (like parts of Campania). Rome's most successful way of keeping the Italian Allies in their place was to implant "colonies" within their borders; these colonies consisted of a nucleus of Roman citizens and a community enjoying either the Latin Rights (most commonly) or the full citizenship, and they were of great influence in the lives and policies of the Allied states surrounding them. Naturally they tended to side with Rome in any of the multitudinous disputes and discontents which marred existence in the Italian Peninsula. To some extent, there was always some movement among the Italian Allies to throw off the Roman yoke, or to demand the full citizenship; but until the last century of the Republic, Rome was sensitive enough to act before this grumbling became too serious. The last great concession before the events leading to the Social War was a law passed by an unknown Roman politician about 123 B.C., which allowed the men who held magistracies in Latin Rights communities to assume the full Roman citizenship in perpetuity for themselves and their descendants.

Italian Gaul
Gallia Cisalpina—that is, Gaul-on-this-side-of-the-Alps. I have called it Italian Gaul in the interests of simplicity. It incorporated all the lands north of the rivers Arnus and Rubico, on the Italian side of the formidable semicircle of alpine mountains which cut Italy and Italian Gaul off from the rest of Europe. It was bisected from west to east by the mighty Padus River (the modern Po), and there was a marked difference in the nature of the lands on either side of the Padus. South of the river, the people and towns were heavily Romanized, many of them possessing the Latin Rights. North of the river, the people and towns were more Celtic than Roman, and at the time of Gaius Marius, the number of Latin Rights communities were limited to Aquileia and Cremona only; Latin was a second language at best, if spoken at all. Politically Italian Gaul dwelled in a kind of limbo, for it had neither the status of a true province nor the benefits—such as they were—of the Italian Allies. In the time of Gaius Marius, the men of Italian Gaul were not recruited into the Roman infantry, even as auxiliaries.

iugerum, iugera
(pl.)
The Roman unit of land measurement. In modern terms one
iugerum
was 0.623 (or five eighths) of an acre, or 0.252 (one quarter) of a hectare. The modern user of British imperial and American measure will get close enough in acres by dividing the number of
iugera
in two; the modern user of metric measure will be very close in hectares by dividing the number of
iugera
in four.

Iulus
The son of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Both in ancient and in modern times there is much confusion as to whether Iulus's mother was the Trojan woman Creusa or the Latin woman Lavinia. Vergil plumped for Creusa, Livy for Lavinia. What we do not know is which woman the
gens
Julia deemed Iulus's mother. Iulus was also called Ascanius, this definitely being the name Homer gives to Creusa's son. As Vergil was the official poet patronized by Augustus, a Julian, perhaps Augustus wished to have it known his Julian lineage was impeccably Trojan on both sides; what his great-uncle Caesar the Dictator thought is another matter, as Augustus tended to manipulate his divine great-uncle's human thoughts and deeds to suit his own ends. However, it really doesn't matter who was the mother of Iulus; the important thing is that the clan Julius implicitly believed they were the direct descendants of the son of Aeneas, and therefore also descended from the goddess Venus (Aphrodite), who was Aeneas's mother and Iulus's grandmother. If one considers that the time span between the arrival of Aeneas in Italy and the birth of Caesar the Dictator in 100 B.C. is about the same as the time span between the invasion of England by William the Conqueror and modern Englishmen claiming to be able to trace their lineage back to one of William's Norman barons, then perhaps the Julii Caesares could indeed trace their ancestry back so far.

Julilla
In this book, the younger daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar. There is really nothing to say that Caesar did not have two daughters; the fact that only one, Julia, is mentioned in the ancient sources is at best only negative evidence. I am endlessly fascinated with what the ancient sources considered important enough to report, and what they ignored as unimportant; and our most contemporary ancient source, Cicero, wrote for the men of his own time, so assumed that everyone knew many facts he therefore didn't bother to mention. Julia lived to be an old woman, and was one of the most admired and notable matrons of her day; also, she was the one memorable wife of the great Gaius Marius, and the mother of a son who also made his mark on Rome. Little wonder then that her name has come down to us, whereas other female offspring of Caesar and his wife, Marcia, might naturally not be so notable. We know from Plutarch that Sulla's first wife was a Julia, but he had three wives after her, though only the last two obtain any real mention in the ancient sources. And, bearing in mind the width of the rift which opened up between Marius and Sulla later on, it is very possible Sulla in his memoirs (used as a source by later historians like Plutarch) had little to say about his Julian wife; Julia the widow of Gaius Marius was well and truly alive when Sulla published his memoirs.

For the sake of a seamless story alone, I might be pardoned for taking novelist's license and making a younger sister of Marius's wife Julia the first wife of Sulla. But there is more to it than that. Historical fact reveals that Sulla's early political and military career was strongly tied to Gaius Marius; look though one will, there is nothing concrete during the years chronicled in this book to suggest that Sulla and Marius were anything other than close colleagues. All the inferences that Sulla tried to claim the credit for winning the war against Jugurtha because he had personally captured Jugurtha have their origin in two lots of memoirs published many years afterward—one, the memoirs of Sulla himself, and the other, the memoirs of Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar. At that stage, it behooved both men to diminish the reputation of Gaius Marius. Yet when one looks at the intertwined careers of Marius and Sulla between the years 107 and 100 B.C., it is impossible to infer from actual events that any enmity really existed at that stage. On the contrary, actual events suggest rather that the two men continued to be close colleagues, and trusted each other. If a feud existed between them thanks to Sulla's alleged claims he won the war against Jugurtha, why would Marius have taken Sulla with him to Gaul as his legate? Then, all of a sudden, Sulla pops up in Italian Gaul with Catulus Caesar, right about the time Marius was committed to battle with the advancing Teutones on the far side of the Alps. But not, I think, because of any falling-out with Marius; Catulus Caesar rashly sets off up the Athesis, and then a mysterious revolt breaks out among his troops, and back down the Athesis goes Catulus Caesar—who, instead of shrieking mutiny in Rome, sits tamely with his saved army in Placentia, and waits for Marius. Of Sulla in all this, not a word, yet he was Catulus Caesar's senior legate. One cannot claim it for certain, but it is just as logical to assume that Sulla was sent by Marius to prevent Catulus Caesar's losing an army Rome could not afford to lose, as it is to assume Sulla and Marius had fallen out.

Going back to the year 108 B.C., when Marius escaped to seek the consulship in Rome, he must have asked for Sulla's services as his quaestor personally, for when his year in Numidia was up, Sulla remained with Marius, the act of one personally committed to his general. Indeed, Sulla did not come home until Marius came home. He was Marius's named choice as quaestor. Yet how would Marius ever have come to know Sulla well enough to ask for him? They hadn't served in any campaigns together, there was a seventeen-year gap between their ages, and their life-styles were radically different, if one is to believe Plutarch. And Plutarch says Sulla's first wife was a Julia. If Sulla's first wife, Julia, was the sister of Marius's wife Julia, it answers many questions. Or it may have been that the two Julias were cousins and close friends. But for the novelist, plagued by the need to keep story and characters in as small a framework as possible given the size of this particular theme, to have them sisters is perfect. Thank you, Plutarch, for mentioning Sulla's first wife's name! Given the inarguable fact that family was foremost to a Roman, what could be more logical than that Marius and Sulla were closely related by marriage, and that the older man was beseeched by his wife's family to give the younger man a helping hand onto the first rung of the
cursus honorum!
Therefore, Julilla was born, the younger daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar, and wife of Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Juno Moneta
Juno of Warnings, or perhaps Reminders. It was her gaggle of sacred geese which cackled so loudly they woke Marcus Manlius in time for him to dislodge the Gauls trying to scale the Capitol cliffs in 390 B.C. The mint was located inside the podium of her temple on the Arx of the Capitol; from this fact, we obtain our English word "money."

Juturna
One of Rome's native deities, and therefore numinous, having no image or mythology in the Greek sense (though later she acquired a mythology, mostly courtesy of Vergil). Juturna was a water deity, and had a pool and shrine adjacent to the Vestal Steps leading up to the Palatine. Its waters were thought to have healing powers, and so the shrine was visited by many pilgrims.
knights
The
Equites,
the members of the
Ordo Equester.
It had all started when the kings of Rome had enrolled the city's top citizens as a special cavalry unit provided with horses paid for from the public purse. At the time, horses in Italy of good enough quality were both scarce and extremely costly. By the time the kings of Rome had yielded to the young Republic, there were eighteen hundred men so enrolled, grouped into eighteen centuries. As the Republic grew, so too did the number of knights, but all the extra knights bought their own horses and maintained them at their own expense; the eighteen hundred men who held the "public horse," as it was called, were now the senior branch of the
Ordo Equester.
However, by the second century B.C., Rome was no longer providing her own cavalry; the
Order Equester
became a social and economic entity having little to do with military matters. The knights were now defined by the censors in economic terms, and while the original eighteen centuries holding the public horse remained at a hundred men each, the rest of the knights' centuries (some seventy-one) swelled within themselves in numbers, so that all men who qualified at the knights' census were accommodated within the First Class. Until 123 B.C., senators were actually still a part of the
Ordo Equester,
it was Gaius Gracchus who split them off as a separate order of three hundred men. However, their sons and nonsenatorial males of their families were still classified as knights.

To qualify as a knight at the census (held on a special tribunal in the Forum Romanum), a man had to have property or income in excess of 400,000 sesterces. Though it was not always observed, some censors insisted upon a parade of the eighteen hundred knights who held the public horse, in order to make sure these men were looking after themselves and their steeds properly. The parade of the public horse (when held) occurred perhaps on the Ides of July, with the censors sitting in state at a tribunal atop the steps of the temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum Romanum, while each holder of the public horse solemnly led his mount in a kind of march-past before the censors.

From the time of Gaius Gracchus down to the end of the Republic, the knights either controlled or lost control of the courts which tried senators for minor treason or provincial extortion, and were at loggerheads with the Senate fairly regularly. There was nothing to stop a knight who qualified on the senatorial means test from seeking entry to the Senate; that, by
and large, they did not aspire to the Senate, was purely due to the knightly love of trade and commerce, forbidden fruit for senators. The
Ordo Equester
(it was not called that formally until after Gaius Gracchus) liked the thrill of the business forum more than they liked the thrill of the political forum.

Lanuvium
Modern Lanuvio.

Lar, Lares (pl.)
Among the most Roman of all gods, having no form, shape, sex, number, or mythology. They were
numina
(see
numeri).
There were many different kinds of Lares, who might function as the protective spirits or forces of a locality (as with crossroads and boundaries), a social group (as with the Lar Familiaris, the family's private Lar), an activity (as with sailing), or a whole nation (as with the public Lares of Rome). By the late Republic they were depicted (in the form of small statues) as two young men with a dog, but it is doubtful whether a Roman actually believed there were only two of them, or that they owned this form—more that the increasing complexity of life made it convenient to "tag" them.

Lares Permarini
The Lares who protected voyagers on the sea.

Lares Praestites
The Lares who watched over the State— also called the Public Lares.

Larius, Lacus
Modern Lake Como.

Latin Rights
An intermediate citizen status between the nadir of the Italian Allies and the zenith of the Roman citizenship. Those having the Latin Rights shared many privileges in common with Roman citizens: booty was divided equally, contracts with full citizens could be entered into and legal protection sought for these contracts, marriage was allowed with full citizens, and there was the right to appeal against capital convictions. However, there was no
suffragium
—no right to vote in any Roman election—nor the right to sit on a Roman jury. After the revolt of Fregellae in 125 B.C., the magistrates of Latin Rights towns and districts were entitled to assume the full Roman citizenship for themselves and their direct descendants.

Latium
The region of Italy in which Rome stood. Its northern boundary was the Tiber, its southern a point extending inland from Circei, and on the east it bordered the lands of the Sabines and the Marsi.

lectisternium
A propitiatory form of religious observance usually reserved for major crises. Images of the important gods arranged in male
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female pairs were placed upon couches; food was offered them and great honor paid them.

legate,
Legatus.
The most senior members of the Roman general's military staff were his legates. In order to be classified as a
legatus,
a man had to be of senatorial status, and often was a consular in rank (it appears these elder statesmen occasionally hankered after a spell of army life, and volunteered their services to a general commanding some interesting campaign). Legates answered only to the general, and were senior to all types of military tribunes.

legion
The smallest Roman military unit capable of fighting a war on its own (though it was rarely called upon to do so); that is, it was complete within itself in terms of manpower, equipment, and function. By the time of Gaius Marius, a Roman army engaged in any major campaign rarely consisted of fewer than four legions—though equally rarely of more than six legions. Single legions without prospect of reinforcement did garrison duty in places like the Spains, where tribal rebellions were small, albeit fierce. A legion contained about five thousand soldiers divided into ten cohorts of six centuries each; it also contained about one thousand men of noncombatant status, and usually came with a modest cavalry arm attached to it. Each legion fielded its own artillery and materiel; if one of the consul's legions, it was commanded by up to six elected tribunes of the soldiers; if belonging to a general not currently a consul, it was commanded by a legate, or else by the general himself. Its regular officers were the centurions, of which it possessed some sixty-six. Though the troops belonging to a legion camped together, they did not mess or live together en masse; instead, they were divided up into units of eight men (the century contained only eighty soldiers, the extra twenty men being noncombatants).

legionary
The correct word for a soldier in a Roman legion. "Legionnaire," which I have sometimes seen used instead, is more properly the term applied to a member of the French Foreign Legion.

Lemanna, Lake   
Modern Lake Leman, or the Lake of Geneva.

lex, leges
(pl.)
The Latin word for a law; it came to be applied also to the
plebiscita
(plebiscites) passed by the Plebeian Assembly. A
lex
was not considered valid until it had been inscribed on bronze or stone, and deposited in the vaults below the temple of Saturn; however, logic says that the law's residence in the temple of Saturn was extremely brief, as the vaults could not have contained anything like the number of tablets necessary to hold the body of Roman law, even at the time of Gaius Marius—especially not when the Treasury of Rome was also beneath Saturn. No doubt the tablets were whisked in and whisked out again to be stored permanently in any one of many places known to have been repositories of law tablets.