ACTA DIURNA Rome’s Daily News; world’s first daily newspaper. Handwritten daily by the Palatium at Rome and sent around the empire. Founded by Julius Caesar in 59 B.C.
AQUILIFER The standard-bearer who carried the aquila, the legion’s eagle.
AUXILIARY Noncitizen serving in Roman army. Light infantry and cavalry. Recruited throughout empire. In imperial times served 25 years. Paid less than legionary. From first century, granted Roman citizenship on discharge. Commanded by prefects.
BALLISTA Artillery piece firing round stones weighing 60 to 100 pounds.
BATTLESHIP Roman warship of Deceres class, 145 feet long with a beam of 28 feet, crewed by 572 oarsmen, 30 sailors, and up to 250 marines.
CAMP PREFECT Praefectus castrorium. Imperial legion officer, third-in-command after commanding officer and senior tribune. Promoted from centurion. Quartermaster, commander of major legion detachments.
CAMPAIGNING SEASON Traditionally, early March to October 19, when legions conducted military campaigns, after which they went into winter quarters.
CENTURION Legion and Praetorian Guard officer, sixty to a legion, in eleven grades, equivalent to lieutenant and captain. Usually an enlisted man promoted from ranks—there were some Equestrian centurions in late republican and early imperial times.
CENTURY Legion subunit. In republican times, of a hundred men. In imperial times, of eighty men in ten squads. Commanded by a centurion.
CHIEF CENTURION Primus pilus, “first spear.” Legion’s most senior centurion.
CIVIC CROWN Crown of oak leaves, Roman military bravery award for saving the life of a Roman citizen in battle. Highly prized.
COHORT Battalion. Ten to a legion. In Caesar’s time, of 600 men. In imperial times, cohorts 10 through 2 had 480 men; the senior first cohort, 960. Second-enlistment veterans served in senior cohorts.
COLONEL See TRIBUNE.
CONSUL Highest official at Rome, president of Senate. Two held office annually. Also commanded Roman armies—equivalent rank of lieutenant general. Former consuls first to speak in Senate debates and were eligible for most important provincial governorships.
CONTUBERNIUM Legion subunit, the squad. In imperial times, of eight men.
CRUISER Midsize warship, including Trireme and Quinquereme classes. The latter were 120 feet long, had a beam of 17 feet, a crew of 270 oarsmen, 3 banks of oars, 30 sailors, and 160 marines.
CURSUS PUBLICUS Imperial Rome’s courier service. Wheeled vehicles and mounted couriers sped documents across the empire. Horses changed at way stations checked by inspectors every six to ten miles. It was a capital offense to interfere with Cursus Publicus couriers or their loads.
DECIMATION Literally, to reduce by one-tenth. Legions punished for mutiny or cowardice by one man in ten being clubbed to death by their comrades after drawing lots. The 9th Legion, later the 9th Hispana, is the only legion on record to be decimated twice.
DECUMAN GATE The main gate of a legion camp, it faced away from the enemy.
DECURION Legion cavalry officer, a junior lieutenant. Four to each legion cavalry unit. Also, an elected civil official of a Roman town.
DUPLICARIUS A legionary whose pay was doubled as a reward for service.
EAGLE The aquila, sacred standard of a legion; originally silver, later gold.
EQUESTRIAN Member of Roman order of knighthood. Qualified for posts as prefect, and for Senate membership. Had to have a net worth of 400,000 sesterces. Imperial Equestrians undertook mandatory six-month military cadetships as junior tribunes at ages eighteen to nineteen.
EVOCATI In the imperial era, militia of retired legion veterans, serving behind their old standards in emergencies, most likely for a total of four years service, as in republican times.
FASCES Symbol of Roman magistrate’s power to punish and execute, an ax head protruding from a bundle of wooden rods. Carried by lictors. Denoted rank— legates had five fasces; praetors, six; consuls and most emperors, twelve; dictator and some emperors, twenty-four.
FIRST-RANK CENTURIONS Primi ordines, legion’s six most senior centurions.
FREEDMAN Former slave, officially granted freedom.
FRIGATE Liburna, light, fast class of warship. Length, 108 feet; beam, 12 feet. Crew—144 rowers; 10 to 15 sailors; and 40 marines.
FURLOUGH FEES In camp, one legionary in four could take leave by paying a set fee to his centurion. In A.D. 69 the state took over the responsibility for paying centurions these fees.
GEMINA LEGION “Twin” legion formed by merger of two existing legions.
GLADIUS Roman legionary sword twenty inches long, double-edged, with a pointed end.
GOLDEN SPEAR Military bravery award, inferior to Civic Crown and torque.
IMPERATOR Title. Literally, chief or master. Highest honor for a general. Became reserved for emperors after their armies’ victories. The title “emperor” grew from imperator.
IMPERIAL Relating to the period of Roman history from 27 B.C. to the fall of the empire.
LEGION Regiment. Main operational unit of the Roman army. From legio (levy, or draft). Republican legion nominal strength, 6,000 men; imperial, 5,345 enlisted men, 72 officers. Ten cohorts, plus, in imperial times, own cavalry unit of 124 men. At the beginning of the first century there were 28 legions, numbered 1 to 28. By A.D. 100 there were 30 legions, but in the intervening period 5 had been wiped out, 11 abolished, and 18 new legions formed.
LEGIONARY Soldier of a legion. Mostly a draftee, always a Roman citizen. Most recruited outside Italy in imperial times. Republican recruits were aged seventeen to twenty and served sixteen years. Imperial recruits were twenty, and from late in the reign of Augustus served twenty years.
LICTORS Attendants of senior Roman officials, carrying their fasces.
LUSTRATION The Lustratio exercitatio, or Purification Exercise, a religious ceremony performed by legions in March. Standards were purified with perfumes and garlands prior to new campaigns.
MANIPLE Company. Legion subunit, of 160 men in imperial times. Three to a cohort.
MANTLET Wooden shed, on wheels, used in siege works.
MARCHING CAMP Fortified camp built by legions at the end of a day’s march.
MARINE A soldier with the navy. Freedman. Served twenty-six years; paid less than an auxiliary.
MURAL CROWN Crown of gold awarded to the first Roman soldier over an enemy city wall.
ONAGER The “wild ass,” a heavy Ballista invented by Greeks in the third century B.C.
OPTIO Sergeant major. Deputy to centurion and decurion. Unit records and training officer. One to a century, four to legion cavalry units.
ORBIS The Ring; the Roman legion’s circular formation of last resort.
PALATIUM Residence and military headquarters of the emperor at Rome. The first Palatium complex was established by Augustus on the Palatine Hill, from which the name derived. All emperors’ headquarters were thereafter called the Palatium, no matter where they were located. It is from Palatium that the word “palace” originated.
PALUDAMENTUM General’s cloak. Scarlet in republican times. In imperial times, legion commanders wore a scarlet cloak; commanders in chief, a purple cloak.
PRAETOR Senior magistrate and major general. Commanded legions and armies.
PRAETORIAN GATE Gate of a legion camp facing the enemy.
PRAETORIAN GUARD Founded by the Republic to guard Rome. Imperial military police force. Only unit usually based in Italy south of the Po River. Recruited in Italy, better paid and with a shorter enlistment period than legionaries—sixteen years in imperial times. From A.D. 23 based atcastra praetoria at Rome. Varied between seven and fourteen cohorts of a thousand men, plus Praetorian Cavalry, strength unknown. Accompanied the emperor when he left Rome and took part in military campaigns he personally led.
PRAETORIUM Headquarters in a legion camp.
PREFECT Commander of auxiliary units, Praetorian Guard, and City Guard; a citizen of Equestrian status. Prefects also governed Egypt and, between A.D. 6 and 41, Judea.
PROCURATOR Roman official superior to prefect; deputy of a provincial governor.
QUADRIGA Roman chariot drawn by four horses. Golden quadriga used in Triumphs.
QUAESTOR “Investigator.” Lowest-ranking Roman magistrate. Responsible for treasury matters. Minimum age thirty from 82 B.C. Served consuls and provincial governors—chief tax collector and quartermaster; forty in Caesar’s time, reduced to twenty by Augustus.
SCORPION Scorpio, quick-firing artillery piece using metal-tipped spears, or “bolts.”
SECOND-ENLISTMENT MEN Legionaries who voluntarily served another sixteen- or twenty-year enlistment with their legion when their first enlistment expired.
SENATE Rome’s most powerful elected body. Members needed a net worth of one million sesterces and qualified for legion commands and consulships. Minimum age thirty in imperial times.
SIGNIFER Literally a signaler, the standard-bearer of legion subunits.
TESSERA Small wax sheet on which was inscribed the legion or army watchword for the day.
TESSERARIUS Legion guard/orderly sergeant. Distributed the tessera to his men.
TESTUDO The “tortoise.” Legionaries locked shields over their heads and at their sides.
THIRD-ENLISTMENT MEN Legionaries voluntarily serving a third enlistment.
TIRO A legion recruit.
TOGA VIRILIS Toga worn by young Roman men after coming of age in their fifteenth year.
TORQUE A neckchain of gold, one of the Roman military’s highest bravery awards.
TRIBUNAL Reviewing stand in a legion camp; built in front of tribunes’ quarters.
TRIBUNE Legion and Praetorian Guard officer. Six of equal rank in republican legions shared command. In imperial legion, a junior tribune, tribunus angusticlavius, was an officer cadet serving a mandatory six months; five to a legion. One senior tribune, tribunus laticlavius, was a full colonel and second-in-command of his legion. Praetorian tribune numbers are unknown. Tribunes of the Plebs were elected officials at Rome; their republican powers were absorbed by the emperor.
TRIUMPH Prestigious parade through Rome in a golden quadriga by a victorious general, followed by his soldiers, prisoners, and spoils. Officially granted by a vote of the Senate.
TRIUMPHAL DECORATIONS Crimson cloak, crown of bay leaves, and laurel branch awarded senior generals celebrating a Triumph. Later given in lieu of a Triumph.
WATCH Time in Roman military camps was divided into watches of three hours, at the end of which sentries changed, on a trumpet call. The officer of the watch was a tribune.
WATCHWORD Password in a Roman military camp. Changed daily, at sunset.
WINTER CAMP Permanent base where a legion usually spent October to March.