Appendix D: Key to Technical Terms

CENTUMVIRAL COURT: The Chancery Court of Rome; a civil court of justice consisting of 180 members who normally sat in four panels and dealt with the more important cases concerning wills and inheritances.

CLIENT : Roman society still retained the old relationship of a client dependent upon a patron, with moral and legal mutual obligations. Freedmen (ex-slaves) were automatically clients of their former masters.

CONSUL: This was still the highest office in the State; the two consuls now held office for considerably less than a full year, so that the honour could be widely distributed. All ex-consuls enjoyed the privileges of consular rank, and the possibility of being elected governor of one of the most important provinces.

DECEMVIR STLITIBUS IUDICANDIS: One of the ten magistrates who presided over the panels of the Centumviral Court.

IMPERIAL POST: Under the Empire official dispatches were carried by special messengers travelling usually by carriage, and changing horses at recognized posting-houses. Private letters had to be entrusted to hired couriers or to friends making a journey, and only in special circumstances were permits issued to private individuals enabling them to use the Imperial Post.

KNIGHTS: This Order ranked next to the Senate, and had originally been the rank of citizens from whom horsemen were drawn for the army. They came to represent business and commercial interests outside the Senate; all knights had to have a minimum property qualification of 400,000 sesterces. They held important posts in the Emperor’s service in Rome and in the provinces, and from them and his personal freedmen the Emperor developed an efficient Civil Service.

PRAETOR: The State office next in rank to the consulship; the praetors had lost much of their judicial authority, but provided officials for the Treasury and other administrative posts, and most provincial governors were ex-praetors.

PROCURATOR, IMPERIAL: A knight or an imperial freedman serving on the Emperor’s staff in Rome or in the provinces for which he was responsible; some minor provinces were given procurators as governors.

QUAESTOR: The lowest post in the senator’s official career; quaestors served as financial officials, usually in the provinces, or as quaestores Augusti were assigned to the Emperor to convey his wishes to the Senate.

SENATE: Its members had to have the minimum property qualification of a million sesterces and were limited to 600. They were recruited from the sons of senators, from new quaestors, and from individuals nominated by the Emperor. Though the Senate’s powers as supreme Council of State were now limited, it had important judicial authority and was still active as a deliberative body.

SESTERCE: At this period the sesterce was the unit for reckoning sums of money, though the coin in common use was die silver denarius, worth four sesterces or sixteen bronze asses. As there were twenty-five denarii (a hundred sesterces) to die gold aureus, most Victorian editors and some modern translators have tried to give an English equivalent by dividing by a hundred and referring to pounds or gold sovereigns. This has no relevance in 1963, but most of us would like to visualize what a capital of 400,000 or a tip of twelve sesterces meant to the possessor. One way to do so is to list some known sums of money, large and small, and see how they compare. Juvenal twice says that he could live comfortably as a single man on die income from 400,000 invested capital, plus a few slaves and silver plate. Assuming that his income would be five per cent of his capital, if a sesterce were equivalent to a modern 6d. then he would have £500 a year tax free, and, with much less to spend money on in first-century Rome than in a modern capital city, he could surely do quite well. Then the twelve-sesterce tip is 6s. This is of course pure conjecture and readers can make their own guesses. The relative values remain constant.^*

The table below suggests that the Civil Servants’ salaries (the procurators) fall into the £1,500-£7,500 range, and a member of the bar could expect £250 for a case. The senators’ unearned income would be augmented by salaries from short-term appointments such as Pliny held. If we compare his fortune with the enormous sums quoted by Suetonius for real extravagance (Vitellius’s banquets could cost 400,000 or £10,000 apiece) then Pliny’s claim to be only moderately rich is more understandable.

TREASURY, MILITARY: This was financed largely by estate duties and sales taxes to provide pensions for discharged soldiers. It was administered by three praetors nominated by the Emperor. TREASURY, OF SATURN: Originally the main State Treasury, this had declined in importance by competition with the Emperor’s fiscus, or privy purse; it was administered by two senators appointed by the Emperor.

TRIBUNE, MILITARY: A young officer, who usually did not intend to pursue his military service beyond the prescribed sixmonths before starting on a senatorial career.

TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE: This office still existed as a stage in the senator’s career, though its powers as representative of the plebs had vanished. Its popular associations made the Emperors choose annual ‘tribunician power’ as the distinctive mark of their authority.

Table of Relative Money Value

Reference in Pliny