The Golden Dice - A Tale of Ancient Rome (62 page)

Satyr:
A male companion of the wine god Dionysus (Greek) or Fufluns (Etruscan) depicted with goat’s ears and tail, and sometimes a goat’s phallus.

Senate:
An advisory council consisting of ex-magistrates but in effect the most powerful governing body in Rome. A senatorial decree (senatus consultum) had no formal authority but was generally always made into law.

Senator:
A member of the Roman
Senate
. Senators only qualified to be elected if they had previously held office as a magistrate and were wealthy. Senators were entitled to wear a
toga
bordered in purple and a tunic with a broad purple stripe.

Silphion:
A plant believed to be of the Ferula genus. It was used in antiquity as a seasoning (laserpicum) but was more famously known for its contraceptive qualities. It was the primary export of the North African city of Cyrene. Due to its efficacy, the plant was so much in demand that it was farmed out and is now extinct.

Sinus:
The large fold of material in the front of a
toga
which could be used as a type of pocket.

Speakers’ platform:
A large curved platform located in the
Comitium
facing the
Curia
. Speakers would address the assemblies there and it was considered a consecrated area. It later came to be known as the Rostra due to the six rams of captured warships (known as rostra) affixed to the platform after the battle of Antium in 338 bc.

Stola:
A long, sleeveless, pleated dress worn over a tunic. It was fastened at the shoulders with
fibulae
and worn with two belts, one beneath the breasts and the other around the waist. The stola and woolen hair
fillets
were the symbols of a married female Roman citizen.

Suttler:
A civilian merchant who sold supplies to an army in the field.

Sybilline Books:
A collection of holy books containing oracular utterances that were consulted by the Roman Senate in times of crisis. These were not prophecies but instead advice as to which expiation rites should be observed in order to avert calamity.

Tebenna:
A rounded length of cloth worn by Etruscan men over a
chiton
. It was similar in appearance to a
toga
but shorter. The Roman
toga
was derived from this garment.

Tesserae:
A game that was usually played with two dice shaken in a cup and then tossed onto a gaming table. Dice were also referred to as tesserae.

Toga:
A rounded length of cloth derived from the Etruscan
tebenna
that was draped as a cloak over a tunic. It was the distinctive garment of a male Roman citizen. Magistrates and
senators
were entitled to wear a purple border on their tunics and togas. Prostitutes were required to wear togas as they were not entitled to wear the stola of a respectable Roman matron.

Torque:
A necklace of twisted metal open at the front.

Tufa:
A form of limestone. The Italian regions of Tuscany and Lazio where the Etruscan cities were located were famous for the tunnels that could be carved out of this soft stone. Tufa could be red, gray or yellow in color.

Turma
/
turmae:
A cavalry squadron of thirty men that was split into groups of ten knights, each led by a
decurion
.

Zeri:
An opiate elixir. The name is fictitious and based on the Etruscan word for “free” or “serene”.

Zilath:
Chief magistrate of an Etruscan city with similar authority to a Roman
consul
. He was elected each year by aristocratic colleges rather than all citizens. However, the exact nature of the Etruscan political power structure and its mechanisms has not yet been determined.

There is a hyperlink to the cast and glossary at the end of each chapter.

I was inspired to write about the Etruscans after I found a photo of a sixth-century bc sarcophagus upon which a husband and wife were sculpted in a pose of affection. The image of the lovers, known as “The Married Couple,” intrigued me. What ancient culture acknowledged women as equals to their husbands? Or exalted marital fidelity with such open sensuality? Discovering the answer led me to the decadent and mystical Etruria, and the war between early Rome and Veii. In my author’s note for
The Wedding Shroud
I wrote about the difficulties experienced in researching the Etruscan civilization: I recommend you read it if you are interested to find out more about their origins and religion as well as information on social status and bisexuality in the ancient world. (You can access my author’s note via my
website
together with other pieces of research and photographs on my blog:
Triclinium
.)

The ancient sources I used to research the siege of Veii were accounts from historians such as Livy, Plutarch and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. However, problems arose in relying on such commentators due to the fact they were writing centuries after the fall of Etruria with their prejudices firmly entrenched. In essence, what we know about this war is from the viewpoint of the conquerors over the conquered. Nevertheless, the story they tell is compelling. Livy chronicled the events that occurred in each year of the siege, including the lists of the elected military tribunes with consular power (whom I have called “consular generals”). However, as dozens of generals were elected over the ten-year siege, I have pared down the cast by choosing only Genucius and Calvus to represent the plebeians, while highlighting the disastrous feud between the patricians Sergius and Verginius. As for the famous speech exhorting men to fight throughout winter, I have attributed this to Camillus when in fact it was a patrician named Appius Claudius who stirred the common men to fight. I have also condensed the various campaigns and political wrangling across the decade to the last three years of the conflict for the sake of pace and dramatic tension. And, as is the inclination of an historical novelist, I have invented other circumstances to enhance the plot. As for the authenticity of the scenes I describe, I have attempted to be consistent with current historians’ views, but ultimately I present my own interpretation of how Etruscans and the early Republican Romans might have lived.

The episode in which the gates were closed on Veientane troops is mentioned only briefly by Livy. As is often the case with this historian, the most appalling events were glossed over in a few lines: “The Veientes, too, suffered heavily, for the gates of the town had been shut to prevent an irruption of the Romans, and many of them were killed outside before they could get through” (
The Early History of Rome
, Book 5.14, translated by A. de Selincourt, Penguin Books, London, 1971, p. 357). For those who wish to access Livy’s detailed account I recommend reading Book V of
The Early History of Rome.

The characters that appear in the novel are fictitious, except for those consular generals Livy has mentioned. Indeed, no rendering of the story of Veii can be told without reference to Marcus Furius Camillus. This general (who was appointed dictator five times but was never elected consul) was named the second founder of Rome by the Greek biographer Plutarch due to his incredible political acumen, military innovation, bravery and charisma. Any other characteristics I may have attributed to him (and the other generals named by Livy) are purely my own invention. This is particularly the case in relation to Camillus’ attitude towards supporting the political ambitions of commoners. As such he was not the lone patrician who was voted in with five plebeian generals. However, given the fact he was elected consular general several times (and later was called upon to lead Rome during various crises), he clearly held the confidence of those voting in the Comitium.

Discovering that Veii and Rome were located a mere twelve miles across the Tiber has always captivated me. In essence, just by crossing an expanse of water, you could be transported from the equivalent of the Dark Ages into someplace akin to the Renaissance.

The Etruscans were enlightened and cosmopolitan, and their women were afforded education, high status and independence. As a result their society was often described as wicked by Greek and Roman historians, whose cultures repressed women and were xenophobic. Etruscan wives dined with their husbands at banquets and drank wine. In such commentators’ eyes, this liberal behavior may well have equated with depravity. One infamous account, by an often discredited Greek historian Theopompus of Chios, claimed that “the women of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans) are common property”. In contrast, their beautiful tomb art portrays devoted and loving husbands and wives. So which version of Etruscan women is correct? Promiscuous or faithful?

Etruscan culture clearly celebrated both marriage and sex. The image of men and women embracing is a constant theme in their tombs, and ranges from being demure, as in the case of The Married Couple, to strongly erotic (Tomb of the Bulls) and even pornographic (Tomb of the Whippings). The latter illustrations seem to confirm the more prurient view of Etruscan women, but the “symplegma,” or sexual embrace, was not always a gratuitous portrayal of abandon but rather an apotropaic symbol invoking the forces of fertility against evil and death.

It is clear from studying this society’s art that they celebrated life and followed the religion of Fufluns (the Greek Dionysus and Roman Bacchus, whose later cult adherents were famous for indulging in debauchery), which, in its purest form of worship, was a belief in the power of regeneration through the ecstatic merging of the spirit with the god. Interestingly, Etruscan tomb paintings are heavy with Dionysian symbolism when depicting banquets, and their pottery also portrays Bacchanalian scenes. The cult was condemned in ancient Greece and Rome because of the opportunity it granted to women and slaves to participate in the rites. This resonates with me in terms of the independence enjoyed by Etruscan women. Accordingly, in my opinion, it may well be possible that their culture condoned female wantonness while also honoring wives and mothers. Certainly, some credence is given by modern historians in regard to illegitimate children, despite the fact it is Theopompus who raised this when he stated “the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans) bring up all the children born not knowing who is the father of each”, (fragment from
Histories
, Book 43, of Theopompus of Chios, as quoted by Athenaeus in
The Learned Banquet
, sourced from Sybille Haynes,
Etruscan Civilization
, The J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000, p. 256). From this it can possibly be deduced that noblewomen were wealthy enough to afford to keep the children of extramarital affairs because they could transmit their own status to the children. I have explored this issue in the love affair between Ramutha and Caile, which also was inspired by a favorite theme in Etruscan art of older women embracing youthful lovers. However, I readily accept that my interpretation could be flawed.

The world of Roman women of the early Republic is no less fascinating. As with my research into Etruria, reliable sources were difficult to find to provide a definitive view of this period, and again I was forced to depend on non-contemporaneous sources. Much of what is understood about Roman women in early classical times is often deduced from Roman legislation that was enacted centuries later in the Augustan period. Rome valued monogamy, and the concepts of culpability for adultery and “stuprum” (extramarital sex) were applied when classifying a woman’s status. The propriety expected of a Roman matron was the standard by which women were judged. The two ends of the spectrum were the respectable wife versus the dissolute whore. One was lauded as a decent citizen who must be faithful to her husband; the other was so corrupted that she lost all claim to moral or legal rights. The greater the degree of promiscuity, reward for sex and lack of emotional attachment, the more tainted the woman became. However, given a prostitute was irrevocably stained, she could not be punished for committing adultery. That crime was reserved for a wife alone.

Prostitution was heavily regulated in Rome in the late Republican and imperial times. There is considerable commentary about this period but, alas, no certainty as to the rules relating to the “oldest profession” at the time I set the book. Nevertheless, I have based Pinna’s circumstances on the assumption that imperial laws enshrined what had been customary practice throughout Republican times. There is, however, a reference made by the Roman historian, Tacitus, that an official register of prostitutes was kept “in accordance with a custom which obtained among the early Romans” (Tacitus,
Annals
, ii, 85, as sourced in Otto Keifer,
Sexual Life in Ancient Rome
, Abbey Library, London, 1974, p. 60).