AEDILES. Roman officials ranking above quaestors and below praetors (qq.vv.). There were two branches of the aedilate, ‘curule’ and ‘plebeian’, but by this time the functions of both mainly related to little more than the care of the city of Rome. Nero lessened their powers further.
AGENTS, IMPERIAL. This term is used here for the ‘procurators’ of the emperor (see KNIGHTS), whom he employed to staff certain departments under his control, to manage his property and to handle the national finances in the provinces and armies for which he was directly responsible (see GOVERNORS). They possessed certain juridical authority from the time of Claudius. Other ‘procurators’ served as governors of certain minor provinces. For the Treasury Agent see TREASURY.
ASSEMBLY. This ancient, democratic element in the State had lost its power. Its elective and judicial functions gradually lapsed under the first emperors. But throughout the first century A.D. it remained, formally, Rome’s law-giving body.
ASSISTANT. See QUAESTOR.
AUGURS. The official Roman diviners – one of the four great Orders of Priesthood: believed to owe their lore to the Etruscans. Augural observations, which particularly related to the inspection of birds, still preceded every important public action. The Augury for the Welfare of Rome was a periodical religious inquiry from the gods (in time of peace only) whether it was permissible to pray for the national well-being.
AUGUSTA. The first ‘Augusta’ was Augustus’ widow Livia, who became ‘Julia Augusta’ by adoption in his will – probably to the grave embarrassment of Tiberius. I have followed Tacitus in calling her the Augusta and not Livia, since certain of his effects demand this employment of the more solemn designation. Agrippina (II) was named ‘Augusta’ by Claudius, and Nero’s wives received the same appellation.
AUGUSTUS. The name selected by or for the young Octavian (officially, by adoption, Gaius Julius Caesar) in 27 B.C. as the emperor’s most distinctive title, and assumed by all his successors. Believed to be etymologically akin to ‘augur’ (q.v.) and ‘augere’ = to increase, it may mean the possessor of superhuman Increase, the ‘augmented’ and sanctified. The same term had of old been applied to temples and sacred objects.
AUXILIARIES. From the third century B.C. Rome had increasingly recruited certain cavalry and light infantry (in which she was weak) in Italy. Augustus established a permanent auxiliary army which probably numbered over 100,000 (cf. 150,000 regulars = legionaries). Units were named after the locality of their formation, but though they gradually lost their local character this did not, for the most part, happen during our period. The auxiliaries were not Roman citizens but were officered by citizens, sometimes of native origin. See also DIVISION.
BALLET. These were the highly popular, sophisticated dances of the ‘pantomimi’, who danced traditional themes in dumb-show, with music and chorus. These performances were first seen in Rome under Augustus.
BANISHMENT. This penalty, reserved for the upper class – for offences punished in their inferiors by forced labour or death – comprised various degrees of severity. ‘Relegation’ was often merely exclusion from certain territories, especially Rome or Italy. ‘Deportation’ (introduced by Tiberius) meant not only perpetual exile but loss of citizenship and the confiscation of all property.
BOARD OF FIFTEEN for Religious Ceremonies. One of the four great priestly Orders. Originally custodians of the Sibylline books (q.v.), they later supervised all foreign cults allowed at Rome, and directed the Secular Games (q.v.).
BOARD OF TWENTY (twenty-six until Augustus). A group of minor offices held by men intending to stand for the quaestorship (q.v.) and so enter the senate. Half these officials formed a special tribunal for lawsuits concerning free status. Three others were responsible to the State for issuing the coinage.
BRIGADE. See DIVISION.
CENSORS. Roman officials originally appointed every four (then, every five) years to draw up and maintain the list of citizens, and from the fourth century B.C. entrusted with the revision of the senate list as well. Practically defunct in the Principate. The last appointments outside the imperial family date from Augustus, who also assumed censorial powers himself. Claudius had himself made censor (later Domitian assumed the office for life).
CENTURION. See COMPANY-COMMANDER.
CITIZEN’S WREATH. An oak-wreath awarded to Romans for saving another citizen’s life – the supreme military decoration. The State habitually awarded it to emperors (who showed it, as well as the laurel-wreath, on their coinage); but Tiberius refused it.
CLIENTS. See DEPENDANTS.
COMEDY, MUSICAL. The topical, farcical, coarse performances of the ‘mimus’, beloved by the Roman public and patronized by many emperors.
COMPANY-COMMANDER. This is the translation I have generally used for centurio, though the number of men under the command of the sixty-odd centurions in a legion varied between 100 and 1000. When a centurion (especially of the Guard) is on extra-regimental duties (as we should say), I have described him as a (junior) staff-officer.
CONSULS. Still the highest officials of the State and senate (the principate itself was not yet, legally, an office). Emperors usually took pains to show outward deference to the consulate. Tenure had normally been annual, but replacements during the year were nowadays frequent, so as to spread the honour as widely as possible. Emperors had means of securing the acceptance of their candidates. They themselves, too, accepted the office at intervals (Nero five times). Tacitus dates the years of his annalistically constructed work by the names of the consuls. The governorships of the most important provinces were reserved for ex-consuls (except Egypt; see KNIGHTS).
CORPS, ARMY. See DIVISION.
COUNCIL OF TEN ‘to write laws’. It was traditionally believed that in 451–449 B.C. the Republican constitution was suspended in favour of two successive Councils of Ten to draw up the Twelve Tables of laws.
CURULE. See AEDILE.
DEPENDANTS. These are the ‘clients’ whose moral and legal relation to the Roman citizens who were their ‘patrons’, with its powerful and hereditary mutual obligations, formed a vital element in Roman social (and political) life. Freed slaves became automatically and permanently the ‘clients’ of their former masters, and the children of both parties inherited the relationship. The dependent and semi-dependent monarchies which bordered the frontiers of the empire were of ‘client’ status and their rulers regarded as clients of the Roman emperors. See also EX-SLAVE.
DIVISION. For purposes of translation the Roman ‘legion’ is regarded as a brigade when its regular (citizen) troops – 5,000 infantry and 120 cavalry – are alone concerned, and as a division when it is thought of in conjunction with the auxiliary (q.v.) troops which were often united under the same command during operations in the field. In the early imperial epoch the ‘praefectus castrorum’, or (to use an American term) divisional chief-of-staff, sometimes represented more than one division, in which case he is here described as corps chief-of-staff.
EX-SLAVE. The Roman libertus or libertinus, freedman. A freed slave still owed deference and service to his former master as patron (see also DEPENDANTS), but his son, although supposed to maintain the family tie, became a full citizen. When the households of the emperors gradually turned into state departments, freedmen – mostly Hellenised orientals – took charge of them, and became extremely rich and powerful, especially under Claudius. Tacitus often sneers at their servile origin.
FETIALS, an ancient order of Roman priestly officials who conducted ritual concerning international relationships, e.g. treaties and declarations of war.
FIELD OF MARS. A flat area immediately to the north of Rome containing monumental buildings of Augustus’ reign, including his Mausoleum.
FORUM. The chief public square of a town, generally surrounded by important temples and halls. At Rome, this is the Forum Romanum, near which Julius Caesar, Augustus, and later emperors constructed supplementary Forums bearing their names.
FREEDMAN, FREED SLAVE. See EX-SLAVE.
GAMES. Formal sports and shows, usually annual (but see SECULAR GAMES) and religious in origin and purpose. At Rome they took place in the Circus (races, etc.), in Forums and amphitheatres (e.g. gladiatorial displays and wild-beast hunts), in temples and in theatres (dramatic and musical). There were also semi-military Games or manoeuvres (e.g. the ‘Troy Pageant’). By the last decade B.C. each year included sixty-six days of Games (forty-eight theatrical). By the death of Tiberius twenty-one further days had been added. But neither Tiberius nor Nero (who made further additions) enjoyed blood-sports.
GOVERNORS were of two main kinds, the ‘proconsul’ who governed ‘senatorial’ provinces – still elected (ostensibly) by the senate, without imperial intervention – and the ‘legatus’ (here ‘imperial governor’) of an ‘imperial’ province, the emperor’s direct subordinate – and commander of an army. Under Tiberius the governor of the ‘senatorial’ province of Africa also controlled an army (Gaius removed it from him in A.D.37). Governors were ex-consuls or ex-praetors except for a few ‘imperial’ governors who were ‘knights’ (see KNIGHTS) (the prefect of Egypt was by far the most important).
GUARD. The ‘Praetorians’, imperial bodyguard organized by Augustus in nine battalions 1,000 strong. Sejanus concentrated them in a single camp under his own command in A.D. 23, thereby making them into a political factor of the first importance. Gaius added three battalions.
IMPERIAL GOVERNORS, PROVINCES. See GOVERNORS.
KNIGHTS (Order of). The Roman ‘equites, equester ordo’. In the later Republic this Order comprised a powerful class of financial interests (with a minimum property qualification of 400,000 sesterces) outside the senate and often opposed to it. Augustus reformed the Order, which henceforward, though it still remained outside the senate and its career (and included the families of ex-slaves), provided holders of many important new administrative posts, e.g. the governors of Egypt and elsewhere, and imperialAGENTS(q.v.). Members of this class were regarded as the patrons of young imperial princes, whom they named ‘Princes of Youth’ – the ‘Youth’ being knights under thirty-five (and senators’ sons under twenty-five) who recalled the ancient cavalry origins of the Order by parading for the emperor’s inspection. Company-commanders in the army became knights on retirement.
LATIN FESTIVAL. Held on the Alban Mount – usually, in historical times, in April – this was the successor of the ancient joint festival of the communities of Latium. It was attended by the chief Roman officials, who left behind a temporary and honorary mayor.
LATIN RIGHTS. ‘Latin rights’ were by this time a means of conferring on a provincial community Roman citizen status for its officials (though its remaining members were not citizens).
LEGION. See DIVISION.
MAYOR, HONORARY. See LATIN FESTIVAL.
MILITARY POLICEMEN. See POLICEMEN, MILITARY.
MILITARY TREASURY. See TREASURY, MILITARY.
MUSICAL COMEDY. See COMEDY, MUSICAL.
OVATION. A lesser form of Triumph, in which the victorious general wore a wreath of myrtle instead of laurel.
PATRONS. See DEPENDANTS.
POLICEMEN, MILITARY. One of the duties of the ‘exploratores’ and ‘speculatores’, scouts and dispatch-carriers attached to emperors, generals, and brigades, and particularly employed on frontier service.
PONTIFICAL ORDER. The ‘Pontifices’, one of the four great Orders of Priesthood, presided over the State Cult generally. The head of the Order, and of the entire State clergy, was the emperor (since 12 B.C.). He was the Supreme Pontiff or Chief Priest, a title subsequently adopted by the Popes.
PRAETORS. The State officials next in importance to the consuls. Usually, at this time, twelve in number (it was Tiberius’ practice to nominate four of these). Though their administration of justice had declined in scope, emperors placed praetors in charge of important bureaux including (for a time) the Treasury. Most provincial governors (q.v.) were ex-praetors.
PREFECTS OF THE CITY. The post became permanent under Augustus. Prefects were responsible for maintaining order in Rome, and commanded the three (later four) battalions of city-police.
PRIESTS. See AUGURS, BOARD OF FIFTEEN, FETIALS, PONTIFICAL ORDER.
PRINCIPATE. The imperial régime – the Empire as opposed to the Republic. ‘Princeps’ was the most general appellation of the emperor; from ‘a leader’ it had come to mean ‘the leader’.
PROVINCES. See GOVERNORS.
QUAESTORS. The lowest office of State in the senator’s official career, ranking below the aedilate and tribunate (q.v.). From Augustus onward there were twenty quaestors, many of them attached as finance officers and assistants to the governors of ‘senatorial’ provinces. See also SENATE.
REGULAR ARMY. See DIVISION.
RELEGATION. See BANISHMENT.
SALIAN HYMN. The ancient ritual hymn of the priestly Order of the Salii, connected with the worship of Mars. This hymn, of which fragments have survived, was already incomprehensible in the later Roman Republic.
SECULAR GAMES. A much venerated religious ceremony – administered by the Board of Fifteen (q.v.) with the emperor as chairman – to purify and ‘renew’ the city. These rites took place at irregular intervals, sometimes corresponding – as under Claudius – with multiple centenaries of the legendary foundation-date 753 B.C. Horace, however, in his Secular Hymn, refers to calculations based on a cycle of 110 years.
SENATE. Still the chief Council of the State, though severely limited in power by even the most ostensibly deferential emperors. Augustus fixed membership at 600 and imposed a minimum property qualification of 1,000,000 sesterces. Its automatic recruitment from new quaestors (q.v.), themselves only elected if the emperor approved of them, was supplemented by imperial nominess – otherwise membership was restricted to senators’ sons. Like the emperor, it developed far-reaching judicial functions, which overshadowed the law-courts. Its decrees, often moved by the emperor, were valid though not legally binding until the second century A.D. Acknowledgement by the senate was in theory the precondition of an emperor’s legitimacy, though in practice the approval of the army or Guard was decisive. Those here described as ‘junior senators’ (senatores pedarii) had held no important office, and their participation in debates was perhaps limited.
SESTERCE (sestertius), the denomination in which Tacitus usually quotes Roman currency (it was represented by a token coin of brass = one-quarter of the silver denarius). It is virtually impossible to translate its value into modern terms. In 1914 1,000 sesterces were reckoned the equivalent of just under £9, but since then the purchasing power of the pound sterling has decreased very considerably. However, the value of the Roman currency, compared to ours, would be set eight times higher if we accept the alternative suggestion that to have an as (
sesterce) in one’s hand probably felt like having a 10p piece. A few ancient statistics may be helpful. For example, late in the first century A.D. the normal price of wheat in central Anatolia was 2½ sesterces a peck (or a little less); in Egypt very poor people spent about 100 sesterces a year on food; and a Roman private soldier earned 900 sesterces a year, of which rather less than 600 were deducted for full board. Early in the second century a uniform cloak or tunic cost 96 sesterces.
SETTLEMENT, the word used here to render the Roman term ‘a colony of Roman citizens’ = a city in Italy or the provinces created, or augmented (in ancient or recent times) by drafts of demobilized, soldiers, for whom no regular gratuity or pension system existed before Augustus (see TREASURY, MILITARY).
SIBYLLINE BOOKS. The Sibyls were prophetesses consulted as oracles at many centres. Their ecstatic trances have been compared with those of Tartar Shamans today. Their heyday had been quite early in the first millennium B.C., but their utterances were still written down in historical times, notably at Cumae in south-west Italy, and were filed by the Roman State for consultation, at the senate’s request, by the Board of Fifteen (q.v.). The collection was destroyed by fire in 83 B.C. but replaced from various sources by new Books, which were honoured by Augustus.
SLAVE, FORMER, FREBD. See EX-SLAVE,
STAFF-OFFICER (JUNIOR). See COMPANY-COMMANDER.
STOICS. The philosophical school, founded by Zeno of Cyprus (c. 300 B.C.), which laid the greatest emphasis on ethics and so appealed particularly to the ethically-minded Romans, whose education, directly and then through Cicero and Seneca, its doctrines profoundly affected. Both the imperial administration and Republican-minded opposition claimed to be motivated by Stoic principles. But the effect of the opposition under Gaius and Nero was to identify the Stoics with disapproval not only of bad monarchy but of monarchy in general – the original attitude of Cynics, not Stoics, who had favoured this form of government in the hope of a ‘sage’ or philosopher-king (or king guided by a philosopher) on the throne.
TARPEIAN ROCK. A cliff, identified at the south-west corner of the Capitoline Hill, from which traitors and murderers were thrown.
TREASURY. The State Treasury of Rome (the aerarium). Probably this credited the emperor, periodically, with the sums he needed to discharge his functions at home and in the provinces. However, it required extensive subsidization from the enormous private resources of the emperors (see AGENTS). There were several changes in the administration of the Treasury, culminating in the creation of a joint controllership by Nero. The Treasury Agent was a slave, or more probably an ex-slave, who administered public property.
TREASURY, MILITARY. Established by Augustus in A.D. 6 to provide pensions for discharged soldiers (for whom no such regular provision had hitherto existed, so that they and their generals had often endangered the peace). The Military Treasury was fed by the proceeds of the 5 per cent Estates Duty and 1 per cent Sales Tax, both very unpopular in the senate.
TRIBES. For certain, largely formal purposes the Assembly (q.v.) was organized in conformity with the ancient territorial ‘tribes’ into which the Roman people (including citizens abroad) was divided. The tribes were also the units for taxation, census, and recruiting. Tradition recorded that in 444–367 B.C. the commanders of their contingents had, at intervals, been given the authority of consuls.
TRIBUNE of the People. A step in the senatorial career (for plebeians) corresponding with the aedilate (q.v.). Nero further restricted the powers of both; but the ancient revered ‘democratic’ powers of the tribunes, empowering them to ‘protect the people’ by intercession, veto, and punitive action had already long vanished. However, these ancient associations induced Augustus, followed by his successors, to choose the ‘tribunician power’ (divorced from office) as the most distinctive prerogative of an emperor. The numeral marking his years of this power replaced the number of his consulships (q.v.) as the official reckoning of his regnal years. Rulers also found the power useful as an unassuming legal basis for the introduction of measures in the senate. They also arranged for it to be conferred on their principal collaborators and, before long, on heirs within the imperial family.