{"id":86230,"date":"2023-12-11T03:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T08:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=86230"},"modified":"2025-12-17T12:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T17:08:23","slug":"roman-glossary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/12\/11\/roman-glossary\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman glossary"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I continue to post QotD entries drawn from Bret Devereaux’s fascinating historical blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry<\/em><\/a> (with Dr. Devereaux’s kind permission, I hasten to add), the number of names and specialized terms from the Roman Republic and Empire also expands. As some of these terms pop up in my shorter excerpts without immediate context, I think that a glossary for Rome is called for (similar to the Spartan glossary<\/a>, as there’s a lot more Roman content coming up, it being Dr. Devereaux’s area of academic specialization) to help explain the terms that I think may need expansion in these excerpts from his longer posts. As usual, most of the information is drawn directly from ACOUP<\/em> (often from more than one original post) and where I’ve felt the need to interpolate any additional information it will be enclosed in square brackets. Errors and misinterpretations of his original work are purely mine.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

<\/a>Actium<\/strong>, 31BC.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Civil war naval battle between the forces of Octavian<\/a> led by Agrippa<\/a> and the combined forces of Antony<\/a> and Cleopatra<\/a> in the Ionian Sea on 2 September, 31BC. Cleopatra and Antony fled to Alexandria after the battle and portions of Antony’s army defected to Octavian.]
\nNaval historian Drachinifel did a video on the battle here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Aedile<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[On the cursus honorum<\/em><\/a>,] after the quaestor<\/em><\/a>ship, aspirants for higher office had a few options. One option was the office of aedile<\/em>; there were after 367 BC four of these fellows. Two were plebeian aediles<\/em> and were not open to patricians<\/a>, while the two more prestigious spots were the curule aediles<\/em>, open to both patricians and plebeians<\/a>. The other option at this stage for plebeian political hopefuls was to seek election as a tribune of the plebs<\/a>, of which there were ten annually. […] The name probably comes from the fact that one of their core functions was the maintenance of temple buildings (aedes<\/em>), though our sources suggest the office began as a pair of assistants to the tribunes of the plebs. According to Livy (6.42.12-14) in 367 as part of the shaking out of the struggle of the order, two patrician aediles<\/em> were added. We call these two patrician aediles<\/em> “curule<\/em>” aediles<\/em> because they were permitted the the use of the curule<\/em> chair<\/a> (the sella curulis<\/em>), a mark of a magistrate’s authority not extended to the original two plebeian aediles<\/em>. The two plebeian aediles<\/em> were elected in the concilium plebis<\/em><\/a>, whereas the two curule aediles<\/em> were elected by the comitia tributa<\/em><\/a>. While the plebeian aedile<\/em>ships were restricted to plebeians, it doesn’t seem that the curule aediles<\/em> had to be patricians (much the same way that while post-367 one of the consuls had to be a plebeian but the other did not have to be a patrician). While technically magistrates, the curule aediles<\/em> seem to have lacked a lot of the prerogatives typical of magistrates \u2013 they couldn’t convene assemblies, give orders to citizens (coercitio<\/em>), nor were they immune from prosecution during their term of office, though they could publish edicts related to their duties. The aediles<\/em> had a range of public duties at Rome related to the upkeep of the city and its public structures. They were to ensure that the streets were clean and clear, that the water and grain supplies were steady, that temples and markets were maintained and that certain key festivals occurred. Of the festivals, the curule aediles<\/em> seem to have handled the ludi Romani<\/em> and the Megalensia<\/em>, while the plebeian aediles<\/em> managed the ludi plebeii<\/em>, the Floralia<\/em> and cerealia<\/em>. One thing they do not<\/em> do is act as police; in rare circumstances they are involved with the keeping of order in the city but their role is minimal and they do not have lictors<\/a> (lictores<\/em>) the way magistrates with imperium<\/em><\/a> do. […] While the aediles<\/em> likely had public funds for at least some of these jobs, it was expected that aediles<\/em> would dip into their own private funds to help fund their public works, renovations, games and festivals. Serving as aedile<\/em> was thus a really useful stepping stone on the way up the cursus honorum<\/em> because it gave the holder of the office \u2013 assuming they were very wealthy \u2013 an opportunity to pose as a high profile public benefactor, building goodwill among the Roman voters by putting on extravagant games or spending lavishly on public works. Of course the lavishness of a typical aedile<\/em>ship is going to depend on the wealth of the Roman elite, which is rising rapidly during this period. We may thus assume that the expenditures of aediles<\/em> in the third century were probably pretty tame compared to the attested astonishing lavishness of some aediles<\/em> in the first century.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the role of the aediles<\/em><\/a>]. <\/p>\n

<\/a>Ager Publicus<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
When Rome had expanded in Italy, it had often taken land from defeated enemies, some of which was resettled or sold, but some of which was kept as “public land” (ager publicus<\/em>), leased out by the state at very favorable rates. By the late second century, Tiberius Gracchus<\/a> and others are observing two conjoined facts: on the one hand, the number of Romans eligible for conscription (the assidui<\/em>) has begun to decline. On the other hand<\/em>, the city of Rome itself is increasingly full of landless poor looking for labor and hoping for some option that will give them a chance at land. […] for the sake of making this understandable, I am using the relatively simple category of ager publicus<\/strong>. However, as Gargola notes, in actual Roman law, ager publicus<\/strong> was a messy super-category of lands governed by an exciting range of different rules and conditions (some leased, some sold, some held by the state, etc.) \u2013 ager censorius<\/strong>, ager quaestorius<\/strong>, ager occupatorius<\/strong>, ager diuisus et adsignatus<\/strong>, the ager Campanus<\/strong> and ager in trientabulis<\/strong>. Simplifying this and treating all of these lands as if they had been governed under the same rubric which Tiberius is merely now enforcing is one of Appian’s deceptive simplifications.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Ager Romanus<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]

\nOutside of the pomerium<\/em><\/a> was the ager Romanus<\/em>, “the Roman field”, a term which designated the territory directly controlled by Rome and inhabited by Roman citizens in Italy. By the third century, this was no small amount of territory but encompassed around a third of peninsular Italy, as the Romans tended, when they won wars, to strip defeated communities of some of their land, annexing it into the ager Romanus<\/em>. Much of this territory was relatively close to Rome but some of it was not. Often the Romans founded colonies of Roman citizens in restive parts of Italy to serve effectively as garrisons or security bulwarks; some of these colonies retained Roman citizenship, while in others the colonists instead took citizenship in the new community and status as “Latins” in Rome (thus leading to the situation that, by the late second century, most of the “Latin colonies” are in fact transplanted Romans, not Latins, which goes some way to explaining their loyalty to Rome in a crisis). There were also municipia<\/em> [towns] cum suffragio<\/em>, that is towns that were locally self-governing but whose citizens were also Roman citizens<\/a> and could participate in Roman governance.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Agrippa<\/strong>, or more formally Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 63 BC, Consul<\/a> 37 BC, died 12 BC. The most trusted subordinate and ally of Augustus<\/a>, victor at the battle of Actium<\/a> in 31BC. The Pantheon<\/a> in Rome is one of the many structures he was responsible for building or renovating.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Ala<\/em> (Republican allied military unit)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Before the Social War<\/a>, each legion<\/a> would ideally have an ala<\/em> (pl. alae<\/em>) of socii<\/em><\/a> troops attached, similar in size and organization to the legion it accompanied.] Italian military equipment seems to be converging, so by the second century if not earlier, the equipment of the socii<\/em> seems little different than that of the Romans and units of socii<\/em> are effectively interchangeable with Roman legions. Once again, the most plausible solution is that the socii<\/em> do what the Romans do: restrict recruitment to men of means who are expected to purchase their own equipment. If there are “grades” of equipment sets \u2013 like the velites<\/em><\/a> and three ranks of the Roman heavy infantry \u2013 within the socii<\/em> (entirely plausible!) we do not near about them. Likewise, elites among the socii<\/em> presumably serve in the cavalry and provide their own horses; Rome tends<\/em> to have more socii<\/em> than citizen cavalry, though Polybius’ suggestion (6.26.7) of a fixed ratio is clearly a simplification of a general rule. The one thing Rome administers in the logistics is the food supply: the socii<\/em> receive their rations as a “free gift” from the Roman people (Polyb. 6.39.14). I doubt this is generosity, but rather a desire for logistical simplification, as doing things this way lets the army keep a single stock of food supplies. If the quaestor<\/em><\/a> wanted to charge the socii<\/em> for the food, they’d have to coordinate with a dozen different socii<\/em> paymasters to do it; far easier to just call it a free gift and move on (whereas since the quaestor<\/em> handles the pay of Roman soldiers directly<\/em> it is easy enough just to deduct the cost of their rations from their pay, which is what was done). Indeed, it is hard not to note that the entire system maximizes simplicity for the quaestor<\/em>: pay deductions in camp for Romans keeps the movement of money entirely notional, reducing the amount of raw specie the army has to carry to make out pay, while the entire administrative burden of keeping track of the socii<\/em> is offloaded on to their own leaders.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Alesia<\/strong>, 52BC.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The famous battle of the Gallic Wars<\/a> between Caesar<\/a>‘s legions and the Gauls, where Caesar’s siege forces at Alesia, the main oppidum<\/em> (fortified town) of the Mandubii tribe, were beset by a large relieving army and became besieged themselves. The Romans had erected walls (contravallation<\/em>) surrounding Vercingetorix and his defending Gauls in Alesia and then had to set up outward-facing defensive walls (circumvallation<\/em>) to protect their rear against the Gallic relief force. Caesar’s eventual victory (at Alesia specifically and in the Gallic War generally) was celebrated for 20 days in Rome.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Annona civilis<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nEgyptian grain was the foundation for the imperial era annona civilis<\/em>, the distribution of free grain to select citizens in the city of Rome itself. That meant a massive, continuous state-organized transfer of grain, specifically wheat, from Egypt to Rome. Some of that grain was taxed in kind, but much of it seems to have been purchased in Egypt; in either case transport was essentially subcontracted by the state. Egypt was hardly the only source of grain for the annona<\/em> (the province<\/a> of Africa, modern Tunisia, was another major source), but few provinces likely saw the scale<\/em> of state-organized goods transfer that Egypt did. And it’s striking that attested Egyptian agriculture is quite heavily dominated by wheat farming, rather more than we might normally expect, which both speak to the high yields the Nile could offer but also Egypt’s role as the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Antiochus III, called “The Great”<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The sixth ruler of the Seleucid Empire<\/a>, reigning from 223 to 187 BC. Defeated by Roman forces under the command of consul<\/a> Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus at the battle of Magnesia<\/a> in 190\/189 BC. ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Mark Antony<\/strong>, or more properly, Marcus Antonius<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born, 14 January 83 BC. Died 1 August 30 BC. Consul, 44 BC and 34 BC. Caesar<\/a>‘s magister equitum<\/em><\/a> (after Lepidus<\/a>) and part of the second triumvirate<\/em><\/a> with Octavian<\/a> and Lepidus after Caesar’s assassination. Lepidus was fairly quickly sidelined, leaving Octavian in charge of most of the western provinciae<\/em><\/a> while Antony took control of the east. He and Cleopatra<\/a> formed a personal alliance and after his defeat by Octavian’s forces at Actium<\/a>, retreated to Egypt where both he and Cleopatra committed suicide.
\nHistoria Civilis<\/em> did a video on Antony’s invasion of Parthia<\/a> and on the death of Antony and Cleopatra<\/a>. ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Appian<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Greco-Roman historian born circa 95AD in Alexandria, originally named Appian\u00f2s Alexandre\u00fas latinized as Appianus Alexandrinus. His principal surviving work (\u03a1\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u03ca\u03ba\u03ac Romaik\u00e1, known in Latin as Historia Romana<\/em> and in English as Roman History<\/em>) was written in Greek in 24 books, before 165.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Aquila<\/em> (the legionary Eagle standard)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe aquila<\/em>, the legionary eagle, became a key standard for the Roman legions<\/a>. Pliny the Elder<\/a> notes that before Marius<\/a> it was merely the foremost of five standards, the others being the wolf, minotaur, horse and boar. But even a brief glance at legionary standards into the early empire shows that bulls, boars and wolves remained pretty common legionary emblems (alongside the eagle) into the empire. The eagle seems to have been something of a personal totem for Marius (e.g. Plut. Mar<\/em>. 36.5-6) so it is hardly surprising he’d have emphasized it, the same way that legions founded by Caesar<\/a> \u2013 or which wanted to be seen<\/em> as founded by Caesar \u2013 adopted the bull emblem, quite a lot. But this is a weak accomplishment, since Pliny already notes that the eagle was, even before Marius, already prima cum quattuor aliis<\/em> (“first among four others”), and so it remained: first among a range of other emblems and standards.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Astrology<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nPerhaps the most influential form of divination<\/a> to arrive in the Roman world from the East. Systems for divining the will of the gods and the course of the future emerged in both Egypt and Mesopotamia c. 2000 B.C. and were thus both very<\/em> ancient when Alexander the Great conquered both in the late fourth century. From there, astrology, practiced by professional experts, moved into the Greek and then Roman world, though Roman elites were often deeply ambivalent about this foreign method of divination; both Cato<\/a> and Cicero<\/a> express doubts (of course, the Roman practice of haruspicy<\/em><\/a> was also<\/em> foreign in that it was Etruscan<\/a>, but this adoption had been sanctified by long use in Roman tradition and was thus mostly beyond reproach). Nevertheless, it is clear that this form of divination become common, with the writer, geographer and astronomer Ptolemy (c. 100-170 A.D.) even producing a long explication of the practice of astrology in his Tetrabiblos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Auctoritas<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nRoman political speech is full of words to express authority without violence. Most obviously is the word auctoritas<\/em>, from which we get authority. J.E. Lendon (in Empire of Honor: The Art of Government in the Roman World<\/em>), expresses the complex interaction whereby the past performance of virtus<\/em> (“strength, worth, bravery, excellence, skill, capacity”, which might be military, but it might also be virtus<\/em> demonstrated in civilian fields like speaking, writing, court-room excellence, etc.) produced honor<\/em> which in turn invested an individual with dignitas<\/em> (“worth, merit”), a legitimate claim to certain forms of deferential behavior from others (including peers; two individuals both with dignitas<\/em> might owe mutual deference to each other). Such an individual, when acting or especially speaking was said to have gravitas<\/em> (“weight”), an effort by the Romans to describe the feeling of emotional pressure that the dignitas<\/em> of such a person demanded; a person speaking who had dignitas<\/em> must be listened to seriously and respected, even if disagreed with in the end. An individual with tremendous honor might be described as having a super-charged dignitas<\/em> such that not merely was some polite but serious deference, but active compliance, such was the force of their considerable honor<\/em>; this was called auctoritas<\/em>. As documented by Carlin Barton (in Roman Honor: Fire in the Bones<\/em>), the Romans felt these weights keenly and have a robust language describing the emotional impact such feelings had.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Augury<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nAlong with haruspicy<\/em><\/a>, another key system for divining the will of the gods<\/a> in Rome was augury<\/em>, the reading of the flights of birds (mostly, there are actually other categories of auspicia<\/em>); doing so is called “taking the auspices<\/em>“, and the men who do so are the augurs<\/em>. Augurs<\/em> were particularly important in political matters, taking the auspices<\/em> for elections and the like. Unfavorable auspices<\/em> could invalidate even a consular election<\/a>: the gods get a vote too. The rituals involved in divination follow many of the same rules as sacrifice in terms of the importance of precise performance. For augury, a platform would need to be set up so that the sections of the sky could be fixed relative to the viewer in four sections (right, left, front and back): it mattered if a sign occurred in a favorable space (typically rightward) or an unfavorable one (left). […] The animals and signs watched for in augury<\/em> were often associated with the gods. Over time, a sort of hierarchy of signs within augury<\/em> emerged, with signs “ex caelo<\/em>” (from the sky) like lightning or thunder being the most important, followed by signs “ex avibus<\/em>” from birds in flight, both of which were more important than other signs that might be observed in an augury<\/em>. Of course many different types of birds were particularly sacred to this or that god \u2013 the eagle, particular to Jupiter, was also important for such portents \u2013 but also the flight of birds, like lightning, thunder (and the movement of celestial bodies) put them in the sky, closer to the gods above. […] Moreover, in a crisis, the gods might act outside of the typical channels (in Latin, these were called auspicia oblativa<\/em>, auspices thrust upon the viewer, as opposed to auspicia impretrativa<\/em>, auspices sought out in ritual fashion). In Roman divination, this might take the form of prodigies<\/em>, unusual, strange events which were taken of signs of severe divine displeasure. These could be stellar phenomena like eclipses or comets, but also things like the animals or children born with \u2013 to the Romans \u2013 strange and inexplicable conditions (like conjoined twins or individuals with intersex characteristics). Inopportune thunder or lightning, for the Romans, was often a sign of divine displeasure a whatever was happening \u2013 a sign that an election should be stopped, or a piece of legislation dropped, or a chance for battle refused. Such omens and portents might be meant for the whole community, but they might also be meant merely for an individual (the Roman term for this is auspicia privata<\/em> \u2013 private auspices).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Augustus<\/strong>, originally Gaius Octavius or Octavian<\/strong>, then Gaius Julius Caesar<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 23 September 63 BC. Died 19 August 14 AD. Member of the second Triumvirate<\/em><\/a> with Mark Antony<\/a> and Lepidus<\/a>, 43-27 BC. Consul 43, 33, 31-23, 5, 2 BC. Adopted the honorific Augustus on 16 January 27 BC. The first Roman Emperor and founder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Augustus came to power “to restore the republic” (res publica restituta<\/em>) although his very position was an innovation not seen before.] Augustus made substantial<\/em> changes (even if one looked past his creation of an entire shadow-office of emperor!) to Roman governance on the justification that this was necessary to “restore” the Republic; exactly what is preserved tells you a lot about what elements of the Roman (unwritten) constitution were thought to be essential to the Republic by the people that mattered (the elites). And Augustus was hardly the first; Sulla<\/a> crippled the tribunate<\/a>, doubled the size of the Senate<\/a> and made substantial reforms to the laws claiming that he was restoring things to the way they had been \u2013 that is, restoring the Senate to its position of prominence.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> has several videos on the career of Augustus<\/a>. Sean Gabb<\/em> also did a video on Augustus<\/a>. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook did a video on Augustus: Visionary Statesman or Destroyer of the Republic?<\/a> as part of their The Rest Is History<\/em> podcast.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Auxilia<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThere had always been non-Romans fighting alongside Roman citizens in the army, for as long as we have reliable records to judge the point. In the Republic (until the 80s BC) these had consisted mostly of the socii<\/em><\/a>, Rome’s Italian allies. These were supplemented by troops from whatever allies Rome might have at the time, but there was a key difference in that the socii<\/em> were integrated permanently into the Roman army’s structure, with an established place in the “org. chart”, compared to the forces of allies who might fight under their own leaders with an ad hoc<\/em> relationship to the Roman army they were fighting with. The end of the Social War (91-87BC)<\/a> brought the Italians into the Roman citizen body<\/a> and thus their soldiers into the legions<\/a> themselves; it marked the effective end of the socii<\/em> system, which hadn’t been expanded outside of Italy in any case. But almost immediately we see the emergence of a new system for incorporating non-Romans, this time provincial<\/a> non-Romans, into the Roman army. These troops, called auxilia<\/em> (literally, “helpers”) first appear in the Civil Wars, particularly with Caesar<\/a>‘s heavy reliance on Gallic cavalry to support his legions (which at this time seem not to have featured their own integrated cavalry support, as they had earlier in the republic and as they would later in the empire). The system is at this point very ad hoc<\/em> and the auxiliaries here are a fairly small part of Roman armies. But when Augustus<\/a> sets out to institutionalize and stabilize the Roman army after the Battle of Actium (31 BC)<\/a> and the end of the civil wars, the auxilia<\/em> emerge as a permanent, institutional part of the Roman army. Clearly, they were vastly expanded; by 23 AD they made up half of the total strength of the Roman army (Tac. Ann<\/em>. 4.5) a rough equivalence that seems to persist at least as far as the Constitutio Antoniniana<\/em><\/a> in 212 AD. […] And most importantly, eventually the auxilia<\/em> began to receive a special grant of citizenship<\/a> on finishing that tour of duty, one which covered the soldier, and any children he might have had by his subsequent spouse (including children had, it seems, before<\/em> he left the army; Roman soldiers in this period were legally barred from contracting legal marriages while serving, so the grant is framed so that it retroactively legitimizes any children produced in a quasi-marriage when the tour of service is completed). Consequently, whereas a soldier being dragooned or hired as a mercenary into other<\/em> multi-ethnic imperial armies might end his service and go back to being an oppressed subject, the Roman auxiliary<\/em>, by virtue of his service, became Roman<\/em> and thus essentially joined the ruling class<\/em> at least in ethnic status. [Not to be confused with Foederati<\/em><\/a>, non-Roman military units serving under their own leaders after the Crisis of the Third Century<\/a> who eventually greatly contributed the demise of the western empire<\/a>.]
\n[Epimetheus<\/em> did a video on the military effectiveness, equipment, and organization of the Auxilia<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Bandits<\/strong>.
\nRoman armies do not seek to conceal themselves in the civilian population, for instance and the taking and holding of territory is a meaningful difference as well. But rather that we’re not looking at a “bright line” between what big state armies do in battles and sieges and what smaller forces do in raids, ambushes, banditry or resistance. It’s a continuum of grey. And that problem is made harder by a consistent rhetoric turn in a lot of our sources, which of course tend to be written by the literate, wealthy administrators of these big empires: the rhetorical turn to represent any resistance or opposition for anything that isn’t a peer big empire<\/em> as just “banditry” (e.g. Latin, latrocinium<\/em>). You can see the propaganda value of this as such a label inherently delegitimizes what might be popular movements by re-classifying something like resistance simply as “crime” (though we should be quick to note that there was plenty of actual banditry<\/em> in antiquity as well!). But I think it was also often a sincere<\/em> (but motivated) position for military aristocrats who wanted to separate the thing they did \u2013 honorably wield violence on behalf of the state \u2013 from the thing others<\/em> did \u2013 dishonorably wield violence without the sanction of the state. That said, our aristocratic sources are also perfectly happy to classify local resistance as “banditry” too, even when the targets of this “banditry” are traditional military targets in warfare in this period, like raids against forts or garrisons, or violence against state officials like tax collectors, or efforts to seize population centers. That said, this tendency to reduce almost any form of non-state violence (or of non-recognized<\/em> state violence) to “banditry” can have adverse impacts on our understanding of warfare. A good example of this is in how generations of scholars have regarded Roman fighting in Spain. For a long time, the native Spaniards (Iberians, Celtiberians, Lusitanians, etc. etc.) were often regarded as “irregulars” or “guerrillas” in part because our sources keep calling them bandits and in part, I suspect, from the long shadow that actual Spanish guerillas<\/em> fighting Napoleon in the Peninsular War (1807-1814) cast. Scholars looked at these “bandits” in their sources and said, “ah yes, the venerable ‘Spanish guerilla’ from antiquity to today.” Except \u2013 as Fernando Quesada Sanz has been pointing out now in his lonely crusade for roughly two decades \u2013 these “guerilla” armies of “bandits” in fact often fought in pitched battles! When they fight the Romans, they aren’t usually skirmishing or ambushing, but forming into main battle lines or resisting the Romans in sieges (like that at Numantia, famously). Absolutely, these armies also engage in raiding, but so do the Romans<\/em> and one man’s raid is another’s “foraging operation”.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Britannia<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The Roman province<\/a> composed of much of modern-day England and parts of Wales and Scotland, invaded by Julius Caesar<\/a> twice (in 55 and 54BC), but only formally captured in the reign of Claudius<\/a>. After the final legions were withdrawn,] The Roman government largely withered away from neglect and was effectively gone before the arrival of the Saxons and Angles, a point made quite well by Robin Flemming in the first chapter of Britain after Rome<\/em> (2010).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Caesar<\/strong>, or more formally, Gaius Julius Caesar<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 12 July 100 BC. Assassinated 15 March 44 BC. Pontifex Maximus<\/em> 64-44 BC, Consul 59, 48, 46-44 BC, Proconsul 58-49 BC, Dictator perpetuo<\/em> 44 BC.] Caesar utilized the same procedure [as Sulla<\/a> had done, to use the historical title of dictator but with the increased powers Sulla had claimed]. M. Aemilius Lepidus<\/a> (later to be triumvir<\/em><\/a> with Octavian<\/a> and Antony<\/a>), a praetor<\/em><\/a> in 49, put forward the legislative measure \u2013 rather than through the normal process \u2013 to make Caesar dictator<\/a> for that year, with the same sweeping powers to legislate by fiat<\/em> that Sulla had. One of the first things Caesar did was openly threaten the tribunes<\/a> with violence if they interfered with him; the tribune’s powers were not at the discretion of the dictator in the customary system and tribunes were held to be sacrosanct and thus legally immune to any kind of coercion by other magistrates, so this too represented a continuation of Sulla’s massive increase in the dictator’s absolute authority. Caesar’s dictatorship, rather than initially being without time limit, was renewed, presumably every six months, from 49 through February 44, when Caesar had himself instead appointed dictator perpetuo rei publicae constieundae causa<\/em>, “Dictator forever for the reformation of the Republic”, at this point (if not earlier) reusing Sulla’s made-up causa<\/em> and now making explicit his intention to hold the office for life. He was assassinated a month later, on March 15, 44 BC, so perpetuo<\/em> turned out to not be so perpetual. Caesar is sometimes given a rosy glow in modern teaching materials, in part because he got such a glow from the ancient sources (one could hardly do otherwise writing under the reign of his grand-nephew, Augustus<\/a>, who had him deified). That was often reinforced by (early) modern writers writing with one eye towards their monarch \u2013 Shakespeare, for instance. I think a fair assessment of Caesar strips away most of this glow (especially his “man of the people” reputation), except for his reputation as a gifted general, which is beyond dispute. Julius Caesar’s career was a net negative for nearly everyone he encountered, with the lone exception of Augustus.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on Caesar’s first consulship<\/a> and several others covering his career<\/a>. Sean Gabb<\/em> did a video on the Triumph of Caesar<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Caligula<\/strong> or more properly Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 31 August 12 AD. Assassinated 24 January 41 AD. Acclaimed as Emperor by the Senate, 18 March 37 AD. The third emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, grand-nephew and adopted son of Tiberius<\/a>. “Caligula” (“little boot” or “bootikins”) is a nickname given to him as a young child, where he accompanied his parents (Germanicus Julius Caesar<\/a> and Agrippina The Elder<\/a>) to frontier posts and became a kind of mascot to the soldiers under his father’s command. They reportedly made him a child-sized set of legionary gear including the caligae<\/em> (military sandals)<\/a>. After the deaths of his elder brothers, he was adopted by Tiberius<\/a> and became the heir presumptive.
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on Caligula<\/a>. Sean Gabb<\/em> also did a video on Caligula: The First Insane Tyrant<\/a>. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook did a video on Caligula: Was He Really Mad?<\/a> as part of their The Rest Is History<\/em> podcast.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Campania<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nOscan speakers, the Campanians settled in Campania at some early point (perhaps around 1000-900 BC) and by the fifth century were living in urban communities politically more similar to Latium and Etruria<\/a> (or Greece) than their fellow Oscan speakers in the hills above, to the point that the Campanians turned to Rome to aid them against the also-Oscan-speaking Samnites. The leading city of the Campanians was Capua, but as Michael Fronda notes [In Between Rome and Carthage<\/em>], they were meaningful divisions among them; Capua’s very prominence meant that many of the other Campanians were aligned against it, a division the Romans exploited. The Oscans struggled for territory in Southern Italy with the Greeks [who] founded colonies along the southern part of Italy, expelling or merging with the local inhabitants beginning in the seventh century BC. These Greek colonies have distinctive material culture (though the Italic peoples around them often adopted elements of it they found useful), their own language (Greek), and their own religion. I want to stress here that Greek religion is not<\/em> equivalent to Roman religion, to the point that the Romans are sticklers about which gods are worshiped with Roman rites and which are worshiped with the ritus graecus<\/em> (“Greek rites”) which, while not a point-for-point reconstruction of Greek rituals, did involve different dress, different interpretations of omens, and so on.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Campus Martius<\/em> (the Field of Mars)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The field of Mars, just outside the legal border<\/a> of the city of Rome<\/a> in the Republican period.] Moving the process [of assembling newly raised troops] outside the ritual boundary of the city, the pomerium<\/em>, would have been important, because the power of certain Roman magistrates to command armies (imperium<\/em><\/a>) only exists fully outside this boundary. It also<\/em> keeps them from being hassled by the Tribunes of the Plebs<\/a> (a distinct and entirely<\/em> different office from the military tribunes<\/a>), whose powers don’t exist outside<\/em> the pomerium<\/em>. It was also where the Roman census took place. It was also a big, open assembly place and so as Rome grew larger, the most complex of Rome’s voting assemblies, the comitia centuriata<\/em><\/a>, moves out into this space because it no longer really fit in the forum<\/em><\/a>. In the Late Republic this space, no longer as essential as a military muster point, begins to be the site of building, both of temples and eventually private residences; in the imperial period it is wholly built up. But during the Middle Republic, this is mostly an open space, with just a few major structures.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Capite Censi<\/em><\/strong>
\n[Wiki<\/a>.]
\n“Those counted by heads” = the propertyless poor or proletarii<\/em> of Rome […] men who didn’t meet the property qualification for military service. […] it wasn’t that the poor absolutely never served; Polybius<\/a> notes that the capite censi<\/em> served in the fleet (Polyb. 6.19.2). But we also see non-assidui<\/em> (assidui<\/em> being the term for those wealthy enough to be liable for normal conscription) in a range of other emergencies. Livy<\/a> reports in 329 a “crowd of sellularii<\/em> [men who work sedentary trades, literally, ‘stoolsmen’], a type least suited for military service, were called into the army” (Livy 8.20.4), though the historicity of this report is questionable given the early date. In 296, Etruscan entrance into the Third Samnite War causes a draft of “not only the freeborn or the iuniores<\/em> took the oath, but cohorts were made of seniores<\/em> and centuries of freedmen” (Livy 10.21.4). Gellius (16.10.1) quotes Ennius reporting the proletarii<\/em> were pulled into the armies in 280, presumably in response to Pyrrhus<\/a>‘ victory at Heraclea. And during the Second Punic War the Romans pulled out all of the stops, recruiting debters and men convicted of capital crimes (Livy 23.14.3), enrolling slaves into the army (called the volones<\/em>; you free them first and then draft them, Livy 27.38 and 28.10, Val. Max<\/em>. 7.6.1) and as noted above, taking volunteers more generally. […] As an aside, if you are wondering why the Romans seem in some of these to skip<\/em> recruiting freeborn capite censi<\/em> and go straight to freedmen and enslaved people, I think there are two answers here for this period. First<\/em>, many of the available freeborn poor are probably already in service in the fleet. Second, there probably aren’t that many of them<\/em>. Recall our chart of Roman social classes \u2013 the capite censi<\/em> in the third century is quite small<\/em>, almost certainly outnumbered by enslaved persons in Italy. But the population of Italy was rising<\/em> over the third and especially second century and without adding new farmland, those new freeborn Romans may have swelled the ranks of the capite censi<\/em>, leading to a much larger propertyless class by the late second century or the first century. Consequently, there may have been a lot more capite censi<\/em> worth recruiting by Marius’ day, when Rome no longer needed to keep a large navy at sea (not facing any naval powers in its wars) and the number of capite censi<\/em> having risen.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Carbo<\/strong>, or more properly Gnaeus Papierius Carbo<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 129 BC, Consul 85, 84, and 82 BC, died 82 BC. A leader of the Marian<\/a> faction after the death of Cinna<\/a>, proscribed by Sulla<\/a> and executed by Pompey<\/a> in Sicily.
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on Carbo<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Caroballista<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]

\nThe carroballista<\/em> first appears in the second century AD, is also sometimes described as being like an ancient “tank”. Saying anything<\/em> about the carroballista<\/em> is complicated by the scarceness in the sources; it is mentioned in a grand total of two texts, both of them late: Vegetius’ Epitoma Rei Militaris<\/em> 2.25 and the anonymous De Rebis Bellicis<\/em>. Were it not for the fact that carroballistae<\/em> are also clearly depicted on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, scholars might well doubt this was ever a real military device. Nevertheless they are<\/em> so depicted, multiple times and so it seems that the carroballista<\/em> was a very real thing and used fairly regularly; Vegetius, for what it is worth, claims each legion<\/a> would have had 55 of them. The structure of the carroballista<\/em> was generally a two-wheeled cart pulled by a pair of mules or horses with a two-armed torsion arrow-throwing catapult (the ballista<\/em>) mounted on the cart. This was a crew-operated weapon as Vegetius notes, with each carroballista<\/em> having a contubernium<\/em><\/a> \u2013 a unit of eight soldiers \u2013 assigned to it, though on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus the weapon itself seems to be worked by a two-man team.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cataphract<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
[Armoured heavy cavalry, believed to have originated in Sassanid Persia and used extensively by many other cultures afterwards. Roman and socii<\/em> cavalry had generally been lightly armed and armoured, but after several defeats at the hands of Parthian and Sassanian cataphracts, Roman armies began to adopt the arms and armour themselves. Later Roman and Eastern Roman Empires depended heavily upon cataphract units.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Catiline<\/strong>, or more formally, Lucius Sergius Catilina<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 108 BC. Died January 62 BC. Best known for his failed attempt to overthrow the Republic in the Catilinarian conspiracy<\/a>. He was a supporter of Sulla<\/a> and got great financial benefits from the purges of Sulla’s opponents. He served as praetor<\/em><\/a> in Africa, but was defeated in his attempt to become consul<\/a> in 64 and again in 63 BC. Rather than try again, he gathered other politicians who resented their respective losses and angry rural plebs to force his way into the consulship. He was discovered by Crassus<\/a> who provided Cicero<\/a> with the information he needed to denounce Catiline before the senate<\/a>. After fleeing Rome, he was defeated in arms at Pistoria<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cato the Censor<\/strong>, or more formally, Marcus Porcius Cato, the Elder<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 234 BC. Died 149 BC. Consul 195 BC and Censor 184 BC. He was renowned for his staunch defence of the mos maiorum<\/em><\/a> and for denouncing the cultural influence of the Greeks on traditional Roman customs. Perhaps best remembered for his habit of ending every speech in the Senate<\/a> with a warning that Carthage was a danger and must be destroyed (“Carthago delenda est<\/em>“).]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Marcus Porcius Cato, the Younger<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 95 BC. Died by suicide 46 BC. A prominent member of the Senate<\/a> despite never having been elected Consul<\/a>, largely because of his (priggish) morality and — like his great-grandfather Cato the Censor<\/a>, a strong advocate for Roman traditions (the mos maiorum<\/em><\/a>). Bitter opponent of Caesar<\/a>, he killed himself rather than accepting a pardon from Caesar.
\nHistoria Civilis<\/em> did a short video on Cato’s year<\/a> as tribune of the plebs<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Causa<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[When a] dictator<\/a> was appointed to respond to a specific issue or causa<\/em>, the formula for which are occasionally recorded in our sources. The most common was rei gerundae causa<\/em>, “for the business to be done” which in practice meant a military campaign or crisis. In cases where the consuls<\/a> were absent (out on campaign), a dictator might also be nominated comitiorum habendorum causa<\/em>, “for having an assembly”, that is, to preside over elections for the next year’s consuls, so that neither of the current consuls had to rush back to the city to do it. Dictators might also be appointed to do a few religious tasks which required someone with imperium<\/em><\/a>. Less commonly but still significantly, a dictator might be appointed seditionis sedenae causa<\/em>, “to quell sedition”.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Censor<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThere is one office after<\/em> the cursus honorum<\/em><\/a> and that is the censorship. Two are elected every five years for an 18 month term in which they carry out the census. Election to the censorship generally goes to senior former consuls<\/a> and is one way to mark a particularly successful political career. That said, Romans tend to dream<\/em> about the consulship, not the censorship and if you had a choice between being censor once or holding the consulship two or three times, the latter was more prestigious. […] The censors are odd magistrates. They don’t have imperium<\/em><\/a> and thus no lictors<\/a>, but they wear the toga praetexta<\/em> of a senior magistrate, and sit in the curule<\/em> chair<\/a> of a senior magistrate. They could not convene any assembly. Odder still, the censors are immune to the veto of the consuls, though they could block each other (thus the selection in pairs, each a check on the other) and could still be disrupted by the intercessio<\/em> of a tribune<\/a>. Once elected, the censors set up shop in the campus Martius<\/em><\/a> in a building called the villa publica<\/em>; they had a staff of apparatores<\/em> (professional functionaries) to assist them and given the scale of their task the staff was likely to be considerable. Citizens \u2013 or more correctly heads of households, meaning patres familias<\/em><\/a> as well as (probably!) women<\/a> who were sui iuris<\/em><\/a> \u2013 were required to show up and register, making a declaration of the members of their household as well as their property. The censors were then responsible for assigning citizen households to census classes (as used in the assembly voting<\/a>) and of course this was also the process that made an individual liable for conscription in the dilectus<\/em><\/a>. The censors also as part of the process updated the rolls of the Senate<\/a>, inducting new members \u2013 those who had held the quaestor<\/em>ship<\/a> or other senior magistracies<\/a> in the previous years \u2013 as well as establishing the precedent order, which determined the order in which senators spoke in debate. […] The censors had some power to punish failure to declare or for simple moral turpitude either by seizing and auctioning off the person’s property or by degrading their citizenship; it’s unclear if this would mean revoking it or merely reassigning the individual into one of the less favored urban tribes. In the case of senators, since the censors kept the Senate’s rolls, they could strike senators off of the list, generally for what was considered flagrant immoral behavior. […] In practice it seems safe to assume the system by the mid-first century is substantially ad hoc<\/em>, as the census straight up doesn’t happen from 69 BC to 28 BC, which would make it hard to actually enforce the property requirements. But the process doesn’t stop in 107 and there’s no reason to suppose from 107 to 69, with the census being regularly conducted, that most annual levies were not conducted along traditional property lines.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Centurion<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nIn modern military structures, a second lieutenant, the lowest commissioned officer, typically commands a platoon of c. 40 soldiers while a sergeant typically leads a squad or section (around 10 soldiers). By contrast in the Roman army, the centurion \u2013 a senior NCO like the sergeant promoted from the common soldiers \u2013 led a century of 60-80 soldiers; more senior centurions (the primi ordines<\/em>) commanded an entire cohort<\/a> (480 soldiers). […] [When a legion<\/a> is being formed,] each class (except the velites<\/em><\/a>) elect ten senior centurions and ten junior centurions, with the very first fellow elected being the primus pilus<\/em>, the most senior centurion of the legion. Centurions then handpick their supporting officers (the optio<\/em><\/a>). We are given no clues as to how this election would be accomplished, but the numbers here we’re now dealing with are fairly small (1200 infantry per type, except just 600 triarii<\/em><\/a>), so the procedures here don’t have to be that complex. The centurions then assist the [military] tribunes in breaking up each class into maniples<\/a> (120 men) and centuries (60 men), with the velites<\/em> being attached to the maniples of the heavy infantry rather than getting their own, because they’re a supporting force. Meanwhile, the cavalry is being divided as well into ten squadrons, each with three officers (decuriones<\/em>), who have their own optiones<\/em>.
\n[Metatron<\/em> did a video on What is a Roman Centurion?<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cicero<\/strong>, or more formally, Marcus Tullius Cicero<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 3 January 106 BC. Died 7 December 43 BC. Consul 63 BC, Proconsul 51-50 and 49-47 BC.] Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the most gifted and successful politicians of his day. Unlike nearly all of his peers in the Roman Senate<\/a>, his family had not been in Roman politics for generations on generations, but rather was new to it. Cicero’s family was a wealthy one, but hailed from the town of Arpinum, about 60 miles from Rome, making Cicero an outsider to elite Roman politics. He made his name as a legal advocate<\/a>, rather than (in more typical Roman fashion) as a military man. He was the first of his family to enter the Roman Senate (making him a novus homo<\/em><\/a> or “new man”) and was the first such new man to rise all the way to the consulship<\/a> (the highest Roman office) in thirty years, which should give some sense of the magnitude of that achievement. Moreover, Cicero had managed to get elected in the first year he was eligible, which would have been a banner achievement even for a member of Rome’s traditional upper-class. During that consulship (63 B.C.), he further distinguished himself by foiling a planned coup centered around the influential figure of Catiline (L. Sergius Catilina)<\/a>. […] While many of Cicero’s contemporaries and readers down to the modern era have been impressed by Cicero’s thinking and eloquence, I feel confident in asserting no one \u2013 alive or dead \u2013 will ever be more impressed by Cicero than Cicero was impressed by himself.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on Cicero’s consulship<\/a> and on Cicero’s finest hour<\/a>. Sean Gabb posted a video on Cicero’s rhetoric<\/a>]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cinna<\/strong>, or more properly, Lucius Cornelius Cinna<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 130 BC, Consul 87-84 BC, died 84 BC. Ally of Marius<\/a> against Sulla<\/a>, and also against his own Consular colleague<\/a>, Gnaeus Octavius. Defeating Octavius, he held office for four continuous years and orchestrated an extrajudicial purge of his political and personal enemies until his death in office. ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cisalpine Gaul<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe Romans called the region south of the Alps but north of the Rubicon river Cisalpine Gaul and while we think of it as part of Italy, the Romans did not. <\/p>\n

<\/a>Claudius<\/strong>, or more formally Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 1 August 10 BC, died 13 October 54 AD. Consul 37 AD, Emperor 41 AD. Fourth emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Brother of Germanicus<\/a>, uncle of Caligula<\/a> and adoptive father of Nero<\/a>. Perhaps best known to modern audiences as the protagonist of Robert Graves’ novels I, Claudius<\/em><\/a> and Claudius The God<\/em><\/a>, later dramatized as a mini-series<\/a> on British TV. Claudius survived the assassination of Caligula<\/a> and his family, and became the preferred candidate of the Praetorians<\/a>, and his candidacy prevailed over the Senate.
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on Claudius<\/a>. Sean Gabb did a video on Claudius: The First Normal Emperor<\/a>. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook did a video on Claudius: The Disabled Emperor Who Conquered Britain<\/a> as part of their The Rest Is History<\/em> podcast.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cleopatra VII Philopator<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nCleopatra was born in 69 BC, the middle of three daughters of Ptolemy XII Auletes. In 58 BC her father, by all accounts an incompetent ruler, was briefly overthrown and his eldest daughter (Berenice IV) made queen; Cleopatra went into exile with her father. In 55 BC, with Roman support, Ptolemy XII returned to power and executed Berenice. Ptolemy XII then died in 51, leaving two sons (Ptolemy XIII and XIV, 11 and 9 years old respectively) and his two daughters; his will made Cleopatra queen as joint ruler-wife with Ptolemy XIII (a normal enough arrangement for the Ptolemies). Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII were at odds, both trying to assert themselves as sole monarch, though by 49 Ptolemy XIII’s faction had largely sidelined Cleopatra in what had become a civil war. Cleopatra traveled to Syria to gather an army and invades Egypt with it in 48, but fails. She is able, however, to ally with Julius Caesar<\/a> (lately arrived looking for Pompey<\/a>, who supporters of Ptolemy XIII had killed, to Caesar’s great irritation). Caesar’s army \u2013 Cleopatra’s military force is clearly a non-factor by this point \u2013 defeats Ptolemy XIII in 47. Caesar appoints Cleopatra as joint ruler with her youngest brother, Ptolemy XIV (he’s 12) and Cleopatra bears Caesar’s son, Ptolemy XV Caesar in 47, who we generally call “Caesarion”. Cleopatra then journeys to Rome late in 46 and seems to have stayed in Rome until after Caesar’s assassination (March 44) and the reading of Caesar’s will (April 44). Ptolemy XIV (the brother) also dies in this year and Cleopatra then co-rules with her son, Caesarion. Cleopatra returned to Egypt, attempted to dispatch troops to aid the Caesarian cause against Brutus and Cassius, but fails and loses all of the troops in 43. She is saved from being almost certainly steamrolled by Brutus and Cassius by their defeat in 42 at Philippi<\/a>. Cleopatra meets with Marcus Antonius<\/a> in 41 and they form an alliance, as well as (at some point) a romantic relationship. Cleopatra had three children by Antonius: Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios (twins, born in 40) and Ptolemy Philadelphus (born in 36). With Cleopatra’s resources, Antonius [invaded] Parthia in 38 BC [and retreats] back to Roman territory by 36. In 34, Antonius embarks on a massive reorganization of the Roman East, handing over massive portions of Rome’s eastern territory \u2013 in name at least \u2013 to Cleopatra’s children, a move which infuriated<\/em> the Roman public and cleared the way politically for Octavian<\/a> to move against him. Through 33 and 32, both sides prepare for war which breaks out in 31. Cleopatra opts to go with Antonius’ combined land-sea military force and on the 2nd of September 31 BC, solidly outmaneuvered at Actium<\/a>, she and Antonius are soundly defeated. They flee back to Egypt but don’t raise a new army and both die by suicide when Octavian invades in the following year.
\n[For a full treatment of Cleopatra’s reign and its impact on Egypt, Dr. Devereaux did a blog post<\/a> on that. Historia Civilis<\/em> did a video on the death of Antony and Cleopatra<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Client and Patron system (Clientela<\/em> and Patrocinium<\/em>)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nAt Rome as in many societies it was common for less wealthy, less influential citizens to entrust themselves to the protection of more powerful families in a reciprocal exchange. These sorts of patronage relationships were common in many societies, but they often carried a strong social stigma (as in Greece, for instance). In Roman Italy, however, patronage relationships of this sort were much less stigmatized and even elite Romans might, early in their career, be the clients of older, more established Roman politicians. The basic exchange was as followed: the cliens<\/em> agreed to support their patronus<\/em> politically (to vote and canvass for him) and militarily (to volunteer to serve<\/a> when he commanded an army if he needed trustworthy men) and in exchange the patronus<\/em> agreed to protect his cliens<\/em> legally (representing him in court<\/a>, using his influence) and financially (being a source of emergency loans). There were social expectations too: clientes<\/em> were expected to visit their patronus<\/em> in the morning at least some of the time and might accompany him to the forum<\/a>, so the patronus<\/em> would benefit from the status gained by his crowd of clientes<\/em>. At the same time, neither cliens<\/em> nor patronus<\/em> will call the relationship that in public unless the status divide between them is extremely wide: instead they will insist they are amici<\/em> (“friends”) whose relationship is amicitia<\/em> (“friendship”), politely disguising an obviously hierarchical relationship as an equal one to avoid injuring anyone’s honor.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Clodius<\/strong>, or more formally, Publius Clodius Pulcher<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 93 BC, died 52 BC. Clodius was born into a patrician<\/a> family, but arranged to be adopted by a plebeian<\/a> to be eligible to run for the office of Tribune of the Plebs<\/a>, which he did for the year 58 BC. He was tried for sacrilege (a capital crime) for intruding into the women-only rituals<\/a> of the goddess Bona Dea<\/a>, and was later murdered by Milo<\/a>‘s bodyguards on the Via Appia<\/em> outside the city. His supporters brought the body into the forum<\/a> and cremated him inside the senate house<\/a>, destroying the building.
\nHistoria Civilis<\/em> did a short video on Clodius<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Cohors amicorum<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The military retinue of a Roman general. This may have been one of the more important ways for young would-be politicians to gain the required ten years of military experience before attempting to rise through the cursus honorum<\/em><\/a>, given that Roman citizens were not normally eligible for conscription until age 17.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Cohort<\/em> (Legionary sub-unit)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Legions<\/a> began to replace the 120-man maniple<\/a> with the larger 480-man-cohort as the basic maneuver unit during the second century BC.] The term “cohort” (\u03ba\u03bf\u03cc\u03c1\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2, many thanks to Polybius for transliterating this word) first shows up in Polybius, describing a maneuver of Scipio<\/a>‘s at Ilipa<\/a> in 206 (Polyb. 11.23.1). But cohorts seem to have been around among the socii<\/a><\/em> for longer than this, as an administrative division \u2013 socii<\/em> were recruited and commanded in cohorts, even if they fought in maniples. When the Romans recruited the socii<\/em>, they evidently wanted them in bigger batches with their own officer commanding each batch, so the socii<\/em> organizationally were attached to the legions organized into cohorts with a socius<\/em> commander, the praefectus cohortis<\/em><\/a> and a paymaster. How this proceeds towards the citizen-legion of cohorts [in Caesar<\/a>‘s army] is a tricky question, but the old theory that it was Marius<\/a> has been essentially wholly abandoned by historians. At present the orthodox view is that advanced by M.J.V. Bell in 1965, that the cohort as a tactical unit incubated in Rome’s many wars in Spain over the second century. Our sources do mention<\/em> cohorts in describing those wars, in passages that were previously dismissed by scholars before Bell as anachronisms by ancient authors writing in the “cohort era” (like Livy, writing in the late first century) and back-projecting that organization. And to be fair, that kind of anachronism is something our sources do a lot<\/em>. Still, our sources are our sources and Livy is stalwart in talking cohorts in Spain and it would be surprising if he made a mistake on that point. Appian and Frontinus, both less reliable, seem to offer a fair bit of support to Livy’s use of cohorts in that context.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Comitatenses<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Instituted in the reforms of Constantine<\/a>, mobile armies of the middle and late empire. They were intended to be moved to back up the stationary limitanei<\/em> border troops<\/a> in case of significant enemy incursion into imperial territory, or, y’know, stage a coup or six.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Comitia Centuriata<\/em> (Centuriate Assembly)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe oldest and most important of Rome’s functioning assemblies in [the Middle Republic] was the comitia centuriata<\/em> or centuriate<\/em> assembly. Of all of the assemblies<\/a> the comitia centuriata<\/em> was the most powerful, capable of doing the most things, but also the slowest and most cumbersome and as a result generally convened only to do the very important things no other assembly could do. At its core, the comitia centuriata<\/em> assembles the Roman citizenry as an army for the purpose of voting; it is the army-as-voting-body<\/strong> and thus retains unique competence over military issues. Indeed, occasionally the comitia centuriata<\/em> was referred to as the exercitus<\/em>, “the army”. In particular, the comitia centuriata<\/em> elected magistrates with imperium<\/em><\/a> (consuls<\/a> and praetors<\/em><\/a>) who could thus command armies. It is also the only assembly which can declare war or ratify peace treaties. The comitia centuriata<\/em> can also pass laws like the other assemblies, but doesn’t seem to have been regularly used for this because its voting procedure is so cumbersome. Still even limited to its exclusive jobs will have meant that this assembly met a few times every year. The comitia centuriata<\/em> is odd in another respect: evidently its large number of voting units (and higher than normal attendance?) required it to be moved out of the comitium<\/em> where other assemblies were held on to the campus Martius<\/em><\/a> just outside of Rome. What made the comitia centuriata<\/em> so cumbersome was its structure: citizens were divided (in the census conducted every five years) into 193 voting blocks called centuries<\/em>. At some early point, these probably mapped on to military centuries, but by our period that is long past. These centuries were broken down by wealth and age and because they voted as units<\/em>, with each century effectively awarding one “point” to the winner of its internal vote, this system made some voters more powerful than others. […] in the first year of the reign of Tiberius<\/a> (r. 14-37 AD), elections are then moved entirely into the Senate<\/a>, with the assemblies only meeting to ratify the choices the Senate made. That is a significant change, as it made the Senate a self-selecting body, since electoral victory was, generally, the entry-condition for the Senate<\/strong>. The Senate’s discretion in choosing magistrates was non-zero; the emperor could declare his support for candidates, whose election by the Senate would then be assured, but it seems that emperors generally didn’t set out complete or even nearly complete slates, except sometimes for the consulship. Consequently, the Senate effectively had the job and the power of weeding out men from the lower offices, deciding who advanced and who didn’t, with the emperor intervening to make sure a few of his candidates advanced each year. The assemblies also lost their power to really legislate. As you will recall, under the Republic, magistrates proposed legislation, then the Senate recommended, but the final up-or-down went to the assemblies (usually the comitia tributa<\/em><\/a>, as the comitia centuriata<\/em> was too cumbersome). In practice, under Augustus<\/a>, the senatus consulta<\/em><\/a> acquired the force of law, although Roman legal writers are careful to note that this is merely the force<\/em> of law and that creating an actual lex<\/em> still requires the assembly. That said, the assemblies became, in effect, by the start of Tiberius’ reign, a mere rubber stamp: the Senate decided elections and passed senatus consulta<\/em> and the assemblies merely approved what was put before them.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Comitia Curiata<\/em> (Curiate Assembly)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nRome’s oldest voting assembly, which was responsible for conferring imperium<\/em><\/a> (the power to command armies and organize law courts; essentially “the power of the kings”) on magistrates. This assembly had been important in the regal period, but by the period of the republic, nearly all of its real powers had been absorbed into other assemblies and it existed in, as Lintott notes, “only in a symbolic and ritualized form”. Technically<\/em> the comitia curiata<\/em> was required to approve all grants of imperium<\/em> to elected magistrates, including dictators<\/a>; in practice this was a rubber-stamp. Likewise the comitia curiata<\/em> had a role in ratifying wills and formalizing a certain form of adoption (adrogatio<\/em><\/a>), but this too was mostly a rubber stamp. […] in the first year of the reign of Tiberius<\/a> (r. 14-37 AD), elections are then moved entirely into the Senate<\/a>, with the assemblies only meeting to ratify the choices the Senate made. That is a significant change, as it made the Senate a self-selecting body, since electoral victory was, generally, the entry-condition for the Senate<\/strong>. The Senate’s discretion in choosing magistrates was non-zero; the emperor could declare his support for candidates, whose election by the Senate would then be assured, but it seems that emperors generally didn’t set out complete or even nearly complete slates, except sometimes for the consulship. Consequently, the Senate effectively had the job and the power of weeding out men from the lower offices, deciding who advanced and who didn’t, with the emperor intervening to make sure a few of his candidates advanced each year. The assemblies also lost their power to really legislate. As you will recall, under the Republic, magistrates proposed legislation, then the Senate recommended, but the final up-or-down went to the assemblies (usually the comitia tributa<\/em><\/a>, as the comitia centuriata<\/em><\/a> was too cumbersome). In practice, under Augustus<\/a>, the senatus consulta<\/em><\/a> acquired the force of law, although Roman legal writers are careful to note that this is merely the force<\/em> of law and that creating an actual lex<\/em> still requires the assembly. That said, the assemblies became, in effect, by the start of Tiberius’ reign, a mere rubber stamp: the Senate decided elections and passed senatus consulta<\/em> and the assemblies merely approved what was put before them.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Comitia Tributa<\/em> (Tribal Assembly)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe comitia tributa<\/em> was the workhorse of the Roman assemblies, used for the bulk of legislation, because it was less cumbersome. The comitia tributa<\/em>, like the comitia centuriata<\/em><\/a> could be convened by either a praetor<\/em><\/a> or a consul<\/a>. It assembled in the comitium<\/em>, a space in the Roman forum<\/a> directly outside the Senate house, a location that is going to have some substantial implications. The only “special” competence this assembly had was that it elected curule aediles<\/em><\/a> and quaestors<\/em><\/a>, but in practice it was the regular assemblies that consuls and praetors<\/em> used to pass legislation. While laws (technically plebiscita<\/em>, rather than leges<\/em>, though the Romans are not always careful about these technical terms) passed by the tribunes<\/a> through the concilium plebis<\/em><\/a> tend to get a lot more focus (because of the remarkable tribunates of the Gracchi<\/a>, mostly), most<\/em> legislation was proposed by consuls and praetors<\/em> \u2013 consuls in particular for major legislation \u2013 and so was mostly passed through this body. The comitia tributa<\/em> was called that because the Roman citizens voted here in units called “tribes” (tribus<\/em>). These tribes were not really tribal units so much as voting districts, with each section of the ager Romanus<\/em><\/a> assigned to a tribe for voting purposes. Census<\/a> registration was in turn done by tribe-of-residence, which will have created the voter rolls. Originally there had been four urban tribes and just fifteen or sixteen rural tribes (then called pagi<\/em>, “rural district”). As the ager Romanus<\/em> expanded, so too did the number of tribes, reaching its full count of 35 in 241 BC. After this point, new land was apportioned into the existing rural tribes rather than assigned to new tribes, with the result that fairly quickly most “tribes” consisted of several disconnected districts. Consequently, for the Middle Republic, there were 35 tribes: four for residents of the city itself and 31 “rural” tribes which covered the countryside (including smaller urban settlements of Roman citizens in that countryside). […] in the first year of the reign of Tiberius<\/a> (r. 14-37 AD), elections are then moved entirely into the Senate<\/a>, with the assemblies only meeting to ratify the choices the Senate made. That is a significant change, as it made the Senate a self-selecting body, since electoral victory was, generally, the entry-condition for the Senate<\/strong>. The Senate’s discretion in choosing magistrates was non-zero; the emperor could declare his support for candidates, whose election by the Senate would then be assured, but it seems that emperors generally didn’t set out complete or even nearly complete slates, except sometimes for the consulship. Consequently, the Senate effectively had the job and the power of weeding out men from the lower offices, deciding who advanced and who didn’t, with the emperor intervening to make sure a few of his candidates advanced each year. The assemblies also lost their power to really legislate. As you will recall, under the Republic, magistrates proposed legislation, then the Senate recommended, but the final up-or-down went to the assemblies (usually the comitia tributa<\/em>, as the comitia centuriata<\/em><\/a> was too cumbersome). In practice, under Augustus<\/a>, the senatus consulta<\/em><\/a> acquired the force of law, although Roman legal writers are careful to note that this is merely the force<\/em> of law and that creating an actual lex<\/em> still requires the assembly. That said, the assemblies became, in effect, by the start of Tiberius’ reign, a mere rubber stamp: the Senate decided elections and passed senatus consulta<\/em> and the assemblies merely approved what was put before them.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Concilium Plebis<\/em> or Comitia plebis tributa<\/em> (Plebeian Council)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe concilium plebis<\/em> has the same tribal voting structure of four urban and 31 rural tribes, meets in the comitium<\/em> just like the comitia tributa<\/em><\/a> and votes by tribes in an order selected by lot, just like the comitia tributa<\/em>. You may then ask why have<\/em> this assembly if it is going to function almost exactly like the comitia tributa<\/em> and the answer is that, like many elements of the res publica<\/em>, it emerged as an ad hoc<\/em> solution to a problem that then continued to exist afterwards, after the problem had largely faded from prominence. The problem was the “Struggle of the Orders”<\/a>, a series of political crises running from 494 BC to 287 BC in which the plebeians<\/a> (particularly wealthy, influential plebeians) pushed for a greater role in the state. In 494 they extracted a compromise from the Senate<\/a> (at that point, exclusively patrician<\/a>) that the plebeians would get their own magistrates, the tribunes of the plebs<\/a> (tribuni plebis<\/em>) to organize them within the republic and act as a counter-balance to the patrician magistrates (Livy 2.33). Initially, we are told, there were five tribunes, but the number is eventually expanded to ten and one of the powers these tribunes evidently had was the ability to summon their fellow plebeians to an assembly by tribes. Those assemblies could then pass laws for the plebeians only, called plebiscita<\/em>, which of course fits with the tribune’s role as the magistrates for the plebeians (while the patrician magistrates spoke, in theory, for the entire community). Naturally, the assembly those tribunes call, which of course is the concilium plebis<\/em>, also elects new tribunes as well as the two plebeian aediles<\/em><\/a> (the matching plebeian pair to the two curule aediles<\/em>). […] in the first year of the reign of Tiberius<\/a> (r. 14-37 AD), elections are then moved entirely into the Senate<\/a>, with the assemblies only meeting to ratify the choices the Senate made. That is a significant change, as it made the Senate a self-selecting body, since electoral victory was, generally, the entry-condition for the Senate<\/strong>. The Senate’s discretion in choosing magistrates was non-zero; the emperor could declare his support for candidates, whose election by the Senate would then be assured, but it seems that emperors generally didn’t set out complete or even nearly complete slates, except sometimes for the consulship. Consequently, the Senate effectively had the job and the power of weeding out men from the lower offices, deciding who advanced and who didn’t, with the emperor intervening to make sure a few of his candidates advanced each year. The assemblies also lost their power to really legislate. As you will recall, under the Republic, magistrates proposed legislation, then the Senate recommended, but the final up-or-down went to the assemblies (usually the comitia tributa<\/em><\/a>, as the comitia centuriata<\/em><\/a> was too cumbersome). In practice, under Augustus<\/a>, the senatus consulta<\/em><\/a> acquired the force of law, although Roman legal writers are careful to note that this is merely the force<\/em> of law and that creating an actual lex<\/em> still requires the assembly. That said, the assemblies became, in effect, by the start of Tiberius’ reign, a mere rubber stamp: the Senate decided elections and passed senatus consulta<\/em> and the assemblies merely approved what was put before them.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Constantine the Great<\/strong>, or more properly, Flavius Constantinus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 27 February 272 AD. Emperor 25 July 306 AD. Died 22 May 337 AD.] Constantine is famous for declaring the toleration of Christianity in the empire and being the first emperor to convert to Christianity (only on on his death-bed). What is less well known is that, having selected Christianity as his favored religion, Constantine \u2013 seeking unity<\/em> \u2013 promptly set out to unify his new favored religion, by force if necessary. A schism arose as a consequence of Diocletian<\/a>‘s persecution and \u2013 now that Christianity was in the good graces of the emperor \u2013 both sides sought Constantine’s aid in suppressing the other in what became known as the Donatism controversy<\/a>, as the side which was eventually branded heretical supported a Christian bishop named Donatus. Constantine, after failing to get the two groups to agree settled on persecuting one of them (the Donatists) out of existence (which didn’t work either). […] Whereas before taxes had been assessed on communities, Diocletian planned a tax system based on assessments of individual landholders based on a regular census; when actually performing<\/em> a regular census proved difficult, Constantine responded by mandating that coloni<\/em> \u2013 the tenant farmers and sharecroppers of the empire \u2013 must stay on the land they had been farming so that their landlords would be able to pay the taxes, casually<\/em> abrogating a traditional freedom of Roman citizens for millions of farmers out of administrative convenience<\/em>. Of course all of this centralized direction demanded bureaucrats and the bureaucracy during this period swelled to probably around 35,000 officials (compared to the few hundred under Augustus!).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Constitutio Antoniniana<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe Constitutio Antoniniana<\/em> (212), which extended Roman citizenship<\/a> to all free persons in the empire, in turn had the effect of wiping out all of the local law codes and instead extending Roman law<\/a> to cover everyone [in the empire].<\/p>\n

<\/a>Consul<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nOur sources are happy to call Rome’s first magistrates in the early years “consuls”, but in fact we know that the first chief magistrates were in fact praetors<\/em><\/a>. Then there is a break in the mid-400s where the chief executive is vested briefly in a board of ten patricians<\/a>, the decemviri<\/em>. This goes poorly and so there is a return to consuls, soon intermixed from 444 with years in which tribuni militares consulari potestate<\/em>, “military tribunes with consular powers”, were elected instead (the last of these show up in 367 BC, after which the consular sequence becomes regular). [After serving terms as quaestor<\/em><\/a>, aedile<\/em><\/a>, and praetor<\/em>] comes the consulship, the chief magistrate of the Roman Republic, who also carried imperium<\/em><\/a> but of a superior sort to the praetors<\/em>. There were always two consuls and their number was never augmented. For our period (pre-Sulla<\/a>) the consuls led Rome’s primary field armies and were also the movers of major legislation. Achieving the consulship was the goal of every Roman embarking on a political career. This is the only office that gets “repeats”. […] Each consul would also command a major field army. The Romans do not do army-command-by-committee, so under normal circumstances the consuls each had independent command over their own army. The standard strength of a consular army<\/a> was two legions (8,400 infantry, 600 cavalry) plus two alae<\/em><\/a> of socii<\/em><\/a> (varies but roughly the same size, with somewhat more cavalry), meaning that each consul in the Middle Republic goes to war with a chunky c. 20,000 man army. It was only in rare circumstances that these armies would be combined and such combined “double consular” armies often caused problems if the consuls couldn’t get along or agree on a strategic vision [*cough* Cannae<\/a> *cough*]. That said, how many troops a consul might have and where he would be expected to take them was largely determined by the Senate<\/a>. The Senate assigns provincia<\/em><\/a> (think “jobs” not “provinces”) \u2013 even to the consuls \u2013 and it also directs the quaestors<\/em><\/a> on how resources are to be allocated. That includes conscription (the dilectus<\/em><\/a>) and we see repeatedly that consuls do not feel they can hold a dilectus<\/em> without the consent of the Senate; they can take volunteers without senatorial approval, but a draft, no. Likewise, unless they can find volunteer funding<\/em>, they are reliant on quaestors<\/em> releasing funds, quaestors<\/em> who are always going to do what the Senate tells them to do. [In the early Imperial period, it became common for consuls to serve only part of their term in office, to be replaced by a consul suffectus<\/em> as it gave the Emperor a highly valued yet economically inconsequential way to bestow honours on Roman notables.]
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the role of the consul<\/a>. Adrian Goldsworthy discusses \n\n --><\/p>\n

<\/a>Fasces<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nOne of the ways that legal power was visually communicated in Rome was through lictors<\/a>, attendants to the magistrates who carried the fasces<\/em>, a bundle of rods (with an axe inserted when outside the sacred bounds of the city, called the pomerium<\/em><\/a>). [The number of lictors indicated the relative power of the office-holder: 12 lictors for consuls<\/a>, six lictors for praetors<\/em><\/a>, one less for pro-magistrates of each degree. The axe indicated the power of the magistrate to impose capital punishment outside the pomerium<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>“Fall” of the Roman Empire<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThis vision of the collapse of Roman political authority in the West may seem a bit strange to readers who grew up on the popular narrative which still imagines the “Fall of Rome” as a great tide of “barbarians” sweeping over the empire destroying everything in their wake. It’s a vision that remains dominant in popular culture (indulged, for instance, in games like Total War: Attila<\/em>; strategy games in particular tend to embrace this a-historical annihilation-and-replacement<\/a> model of conquest). But actually culture<\/em> is one of the areas where the “change and continuity” crowd have their strongest arguments: finding evidence for continuity in late Roman culture into the early Middle Ages is almost trivially easy. The collapse of Roman authority did not mark a clean cultural break from the past, but rather another stage in a process of cultural fusion and assimilation which had been in process for some time.<\/strong> […] There really is a very strong argument to be made that the “Romans” and indeed Roman culture never left<\/em> Rome’s lost western provinces<\/a> \u2013 the collapse of the political order did not bring with it the collapse of the Roman linguistic or cultural sphere, even if it did fragment it. […] There is continuity<\/em> here, as new kings mostly established regimes that used the visual language, court procedure and to a degree legal and bureaucratic frameworks of Late Roman imperial rule. On the other hand, those new kingdoms fairly clearly lacked the resources, even with respect to their smaller territories, to engage in the kind of state activity that the Late Roman state had, for instance, towards the end of the fourth century. Instead, central administration largely failed in the West, with the countryside gradually becoming subject to local rural magnates (who might then be attached to the king) rather than civic or central government.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Fides<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThis is “faith, trustworthiness”. Fundamentally it is the quality of keeping one’s word and bargains \u2013 important in a Roman culture that runs on the reciprocal obligations of patrons and clients. The Romans talked so much about fides<\/em> in their diplomacy that it sometimes annoyed the Greeks (Diod. Sic. 23.1.2), but this was a core value too which restrained virtus<\/em><\/a>: sometimes the rush to action must be restrained by the need to keep one’s word.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Flamen<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[A flamen<\/em> was a priest of one of the eighteen official religious orders in Rome. Three of these were flamines maiores<\/em> for the most important deities, Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, and the rest were considered flamines minores<\/em>. Flamines<\/em> had many restrictions on their behaviour, including things like not leaving the pomerium<\/em><\/a>, riding horses, or touching metal. Julius Caesar<\/a> was appointed flamen dialis<\/em><\/a>, high priest of the cult of Jupiter but forced to resign during Sulla<\/a>‘s dictatorship<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Flavian Dynasty<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Vespasian<\/a> emerged the winner of the civil wars following the death of Nero<\/a>. He was succeeded in 79AD by his son Titus (died of a fever in 81BC) who was in turn succeeded by his younger brother Domitian who ruled until he was assassinated in 96AD.
\nSean Gabb posted a video about the Flavian dynasty here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Foederati<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nAfter the Constitutio Antoniniana<\/em><\/a>, there was no longer much need for the auxilia<\/em><\/a>, as all [free adult male] persons in the empire were citizens, and so the structure distinction between the legions<\/a> and other formations fades away (part of this is also the tendency of the legions in this period to be progressively split up into smaller units called vexillationes<\/em>, meaning that the unit-sizes wouldn’t have been so different). But during the fourth century, with frontier pressures building, the Romans again looked for ways to utilize the manpower and fighting skill of non-Romans. What is striking here is that whereas in some ways […] the auxilia<\/em> had represented almost a revival of the attitudes which had informed the system for the socii<\/em><\/a>, the new system that emerged for using foreign troops, called foederati<\/em> (“treaty men”) did not<\/em> draw on the previously successful auxilia<\/em>-system (which, to be clear, by this point had been effectively gone for more than a century). Instead, the Romans signed treaties with Germanic-speaking kings, exchanging chunks of (often depopulated, war-torn frontier) land in exchange for military service. Since these troops were bound by treaty (foedus<\/em>) they were called foederati<\/em>. They served in their own units, under their own leaders, up to their kings. Consequently, all of the mechanisms that encouraged the auxilia<\/em> to adopt Roman practices and identify with the Roman Empire were lost; these men might view Rome as a friendly ally (at times) but they were never encouraged to think of themselves as Roman. […] Never fully incorporated into the Roman army and under the command of their own kings, they proved deeply unreliable allies. Pitting one set of foederati<\/em> against the next could work in the short-term, but in the long term, without any plan to permanently incorporate the foederati<\/em> into Roman society, fragmentation was inevitable. The Roman abandonment of the successful older systems for managing diverse armies turned the foederati<\/em> from a potential source of vital manpower into the central cause of imperial collapse in the West<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Forum Romanum<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThere is no clear evidence of any archaeological discontinuity between the old settlements on the hills and the newly forming city<\/a>; these seem to have been the same people. The Palatine hill, which is “chosen” by Romulus<\/a> in the legend and would be the site of the houses of Rome’s most important and affluent citizens during the historical period, seems to have been the most prominent of these settlements even at this early stage. A key event in this merging comes in the mid-600s, when these hill-communities begin draining the small valley that lay between the Capitoline and Palatine hills; this valley would naturally have been marshy and quite useless but once drained, it formed a vital meeting place at the center of these hill communities \u2013 what would become the Forum Romanum<\/em>. That public works project \u2013 credited by the Romans to the semi-legendary king Tarquinius Priscus<\/a> (Plin. Natural History<\/em> 36.104ff) \u2013 is remarkably telling, both because it signals that there was enough of a political authority in Rome to marshal the resources to see it done (suggesting somewhat more centralized government, perhaps early kings) and because the new forum formed the meeting place and political center for these communities, quite literally binding them together into a single polity. It is at this point that we can really begin speaking of Rome and Romans with confidence.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Galea<\/em> (helmet)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe galea<\/em> was originally a leather helmet, while a cassis<\/em> was a metal one. Later helmets could be referred to by either name.] Roman infantry wore several different types of helmet over the centuries, including the Montefortino<\/a> (4th century BC to at least the first century AD), Coolus<\/a> (3rd century BC to at least the first century AD), Gallic<\/a> (first century BC to at least the early second century AD), Italic<\/a> (late first century BC to at least the early third century AD), and Ridge<\/a> styles (earliest appearance is on coins of Constantine).
\n[Metatron<\/em> did a video on Roman helmets – Montefortino, Coolus and Imperial<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Gallic Wars<\/strong> 58-50BC.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[A series of conflicts between Gallic tribes in the region of modern-day France and the legions under the Proconsul<\/a> Julius Caesar<\/a>. At the end of the wars, the Senate voted 20 days of celebration for Caesar and his army. ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Genius<\/em> (“little” gods)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThere were other forms of little gods [than the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em><\/a>] \u2013 gods of places, for instance. The distinction between a place and the god of that same place is often not strong \u2013 when Achilles enrages the god of the river Scamander (Iliad<\/em> 20), the river itself rises up against him; both the river and the god share a name. The Romans cover many small gods under the idea of the genius<\/em> (pronounced gen-e-us, with the “g” hard like the g in gadget); a genius<\/em> might protect an individual or family (we’ll discuss the genius<\/em> of the emperor in a moment) or even a place (called a genius locus<\/em>). Water spirits, governing bodies of water great and humble, are particularly common \u2013 the fifty Nereids of Greek practice, or the Germanic Nixe or Neck. Other gods might not be particular to a place, but to a very specific activity, or even moment. Thus Arculus, the god of strongboxes, or Vagitanus who gives the newborn its first cry or Forculus, god of doors (distinct from Janus and Limentinus who oversaw thresholds and Cardea, who oversaw hinges). All of these are what I tend to call small gods: gods with small powers over small domains, because \u2013 just as there are hierarchies of humans, there are hierarchies of gods. Fortunately for the practitioner, bargaining for the aid of these smaller gods was often quite a lot cheaper than the big ones. A Jupiter or Neptune might demand sacrifices in things like bulls or the dedication of grand temples \u2013 prohibitively expensive animals for any common Roman or Greek \u2013 but the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em> might be befriended with only a regular gift of grain or a libation of wine. A small treat, like a bowl of milk, is enough to propitiate a brownie. Many rituals to gods of small places amount to little more than acknowledging them and their authority, and paying the proper respect.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Germanicus<\/strong>, originally of the Claudian gens, later Germanicus Julius Caesar<\/strong>
\n[Wiki<\/a>].
\n[Born 15 BC, consul 12 AD, died 19 AD. Son of Nero Claudius Drusus, elder brother of Claudius, nephew of Tiberius. Inherited the agnomen Germanicus that was awarded to his father in 9BC. After he was adopted by his uncle Tiberius, he became the heir apparent to the Principate. Among his descendants were his son Caligula (Gaius Caesar), his daughter Julia Agrippina (wife to Claudius) and his grandson Nero.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Gladius Hispaniensis<\/em> (infantry short sword)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nFor the curious, the Romans will, probably in the very late third century [BC], change out those La T\u00e8ne<\/a> swords for a Spanish sword \u2013 the famed gladius Hispaniensis<\/em> \u2013 which was itself a variant of early La T\u00e8ne swords. So the Romans trade an Italian variant of the early La T\u00e8ne sword for a Spanish variant of the early La T\u00e8ne sword (while in the actual La T\u00e8ne material culture sphere, they’ve moved on to what we call the Middle La T\u00e8ne sword, a longer, parallel-edged variation of the earlier design). And the best part is, if you wait long enough (well into the imperial period) the Romans are eventually going to adopt the spatha<\/em><\/a> (which had been in use among Roman auxiliaries for a long time) which seems to be yet another variant of the La T\u00e8ne sword (though in this case, of the late La T\u00e8ne sword), which in turn becomes the ancestor of the lion’s share of the European sword tradition. So it’s basically all La T\u00e8ne swords, all the way down.
\n[ScholaGladiatoria<\/em> did several videos on the gladius<\/em>, including: development of Roman swords from the gladius<\/em> to the spatha<\/em><\/a>, Is The Roman Gladius<\/em> (Sword) Really That Good?<\/a>, Roman Gladius Hispaniensis<\/em> sword (and importance of the Scutum<\/em>)<\/a>, and The Roman Gladius<\/em> (Short Sword) in its correct Historical Context<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (often referred to as “The Gracchi” or the “Gracchi Brothers”)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Tiberius, born c. 160, died 133 BC. Gaius, born c. 154, died 121 BC. Controversial Tribunes of the Plebs<\/a> (Tiberius in 133 and Gaius in 122-121 BC) who died after championing social reforms – Tiberius killed in a street brawl with senatorial supporters, Gaius forced to flee Rome after an unsuccessful coup and then committed suicide. The effectiveness of their proposed changes were less than hoped-for, according to more recent scholarship, due to an apparent misdiagnosis of the actual cause of the observed social problems:]
[Nathan Rosenstein] begins by demonstrating that based on what we know the issue with the structure of agriculture in Roman Italy was not, strictly speaking “low productivity” so much as inefficient labor allocation (a note you will have seen me come back to a lot<\/em>): farms too small for the families \u2013 as units of labor \u2013 which farmed them. That is a very interesting<\/em> observation generally, but his point in reaching it is to show that this is why Roman can conscript these fellows so aggressively: this is mostly surplus<\/em> labor so pulling it out of the countryside does not undermine these households (usually). But that pulls a major pillar \u2013 that heavy Roman conscription undermined small freeholders in Italy in the Second Century \u2013 out of the traditional reading of the land reforms. Instead, Rosenstein then moves on to modeling Roman military mortality, arguing that, based on what we know, the real problem is that Rome spends the second century winning a lot<\/em>. As a result, lots of young men who normally might have died in war \u2013 certainly in the massive wars of the third century (Pyrrhic<\/a> and Punic<\/a>) \u2013 survived their military service, but remained surplus to the labor needs of the countryside<\/em> and thus a strain on their small households. These fellows then started to accumulate. Meanwhile, the nature of the Roman census<\/a> (self-reported on the honor system) and late second century Roman military service (often unprofitable and dangerous in Spain, but not with the sort of massive armies of the previous centuries which might cause demographically significant losses) meant that more Romans might have been dodging the draft by under-reporting in the census. Which leads to his conclusion: when Tiberius Gracchus looks out, he sees both large numbers of landless Romans accumulating in Rome (and angry) and also falling census rolls for the Roman smallholder class and assumes that the Roman peasantry is being economically devastated by expanding slave estates and his solution is land reform. But what is actually happening<\/em> is population growth<\/em> combined with falling census registration, which in turn explains why the land reform program doesn’t produce nearly as much change as you’d expect, despite being more or less implemented.
\n[Sean Gabb’s video on the decay of the Republic<\/a> discusses the Gracchi at some length. Adrian Goldsworthy discusses the Gracchi in his Conquered and the Proud<\/a> video series.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Gravitas<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nRoman political speech is full of words to express authority without violence. Most obviously is the word auctoritas<\/em><\/a>, from which we get authority. J.E. Lendon (in Empire of Honor: The Art of Government in the Roman World<\/em> (1997)), expresses the complex interaction whereby the past performance of virtus<\/em> (“strength, worth, bravery, excellence, skill, capacity”, which might be military, but it might also be virtus<\/em> demonstrated in civilian fields like speaking, writing, court-room excellence, etc.) produced honor which in turn invested an individual with dignitas<\/em> (“worth, merit”), a legitimate claim to certain forms of deferential behavior from others (including peers; two individuals both with dignitas<\/em> might owe mutual deference to each other). Such an individual, when acting or especially speaking was said to have gravitas<\/em> (“weight”), an effort by the Romans to describe the feeling of emotional pressure that the dignitas<\/em> of such a person demanded; a person speaking who had dignitas<\/em> must be listened to seriously and respected, even if disagreed with in the end.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Hadrian<\/strong> or, more formally, Publius Aelius Hadrianus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
[Born 76 AD, Emperor 117-138 AD. Adopted by Emperor Trajan<\/a> in 138 AD.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Hannibal<\/strong> or, more formally, Hannibal Barca<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 247 BC, died 183 or 181 BC in Bithynia.]\n<\/p>\n

Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook did a video series on Hannibal<\/a> (part 2<\/a>, part 3<\/a>, part 4<\/a>) as part of their The Rest Is History<\/em> podcast.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Haruspicy<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nPerhaps the most important form of divination<\/a> in Rome was haruspicy<\/em> [originally adopted from the Etruscans<\/a>]. Performed by a haruspex<\/em>, haruspicy<\/em> was the art of determining the will of the gods by examining the entrails of animals \u2013 particularly sacrificed<\/a> animals and most commonly (but not exclusively) the liver. The most common thing haruspicy<\/em> might tell you is if the sacrifice was accepted: a malformed or otherwise ill-omened liver might indicate that the ritual<\/a> had failed and that the god had refused the sacrifice. Remember that the do ut des<\/em><\/a> system is essentially one of bargaining with the gods, and the god you are bargaining with always has the option of simply refusing the bargain. This might mean some failure in the mechanics of the ritual (necessitating it be performed again), or that the god had been offended in some way, but it might also mean something more. A lot of sacrificial rituals were done at the outset of important tasks \u2013 before battles, political events, etc. What the god might be telling you then with a failed sacrifice is “DO NOT PROCEED”. The practitioner is given a bit of wiggle room on how to interrupt a failed sacrifice in this way: it might mean “don’t attack at all”, but it might also mean “don’t attack now”. Roman generals, ready to attack, might repeat the same ritual over and over again, like a runner at the start of a race waiting for the “go” signal. But more information was potentially available, because the exact nature of the liver and its quality might signal more things. In Rome, it was understood that the very best knowledge in this regard came from the Etruscans (an example of how antiquity lends credibility to ritual \u2013 Etruscan religion was old even to the Romans, and thus had acquired a strong reputation). The reading of a liver could be complex: we find “liver models” from both Italy and the Near East with guidance on how to interpret different parts of the liver of a sacrificed animal. This could be fairly specific: famously, it was haruspex<\/em> who warned Caesar<\/a> about the danger of the Ides of March (Seut. Caes<\/em>. 81.2).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Hastati<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nLike most Mediterranean armies, the Roman infantry were initially armed with a spear (the hasta<\/em>) and shield. The heavy infantry ([in three classes,] hastati<\/em>, principes<\/em><\/a> and triarii<\/em><\/a>) carry a large oval shield (the scutum<\/em><\/a>), a sword (the gladius Hispaniensis<\/em><\/a>, a versatile cut-and-thrust sword), two heavy javelins (pila<\/em><\/a>), and wear both a metal helmet<\/a> (the ubiquitous bronze Montefortino-type) and body armor. Poor soldiers, Polybius tells us, wear what in Latin is a pectorale<\/em> (and thus in English a “pectoral”); this gets represented as a single smallish bronze plate over the upper-chest, but our evidence for this equipment suggests a more complete cuirass consisting of a front and back plate joined by side and shoulder plates, with a broad armored belt protecting the belly, a sort of “articulated breastplate”.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Honor<\/em><\/strong>.
\nHonos<\/em> or honor<\/em> (same word, different forms; it means honor). Honor<\/em> was a thing the Romans felt they could almost see or feel, an emotional force around a person of great worth (great dignus<\/em>). In Roman society, the social demand to defer to an individual understood to have greater honor<\/em> was strong (and so, of course, everyone wants to prove themselves to be that sort of person). A person with honor<\/em> had an expectation of a certain inviolability, a sort of social force-field around them which was their dignitas<\/em> (literally: “worthiness”) \u2013 that their achievements had put them above, for instance, petty insults or injuries. An exceptional concentration of honor<\/em>, so much that it could cow almost anyone into deference, was termed auctoritas<\/em><\/a> (“authority”), a quality in the Republic wielded collectively by the Senate<\/a> (the auctoritas Senatus<\/em>) and in the imperial period by well-regarded emperors (like Augustus<\/a>). We might view Augustus’ claim that he ruled more by auctoritas<\/em> than by force somewhat cynically, but I suspect it was often actually true: Augustus had achieved exceptional facta<\/em> through his virtus<\/em><\/a> (winning the civil wars, expanding Rome’s borders, reorganizing the Roman government, then presiding over a long period of peace and prosperity) and so most Romans would have felt the tremendous pressure of his intense honor<\/em> to defer to him. And of course recognizing that a person is possessed of honor<\/em>, dignitas<\/em> and auctoritas<\/em>, that itself is a quality of the constraining virtues.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Imperium<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nImperium<\/em> literally meaning a command or control; imperium<\/em> comes from the Latin verb imperio<\/em> (lit: “to order or command”). Thus imperium<\/em> was a sphere of command over others. In Roman politics, this could mean an individual had the authority to command an army or to set up courts (consuls<\/a>, praetors<\/em><\/a> and dictators<\/a> had this sort of imperium<\/em>), but the Romans understood their empire as a sort of command exercised by the Senate<\/a> and People of Rome [“SPQR”] over non-Roman people, thus they called that too imperium<\/em> \u2013 an imperium<\/em> of the Roman people (imperium populi Romani<\/em>), crucially over the non-Roman people<\/strong>; once cannot, after all, have imperium<\/em> over one\u2019s self. An imperium<\/em> of the Roman people must be an imperium<\/em> over someone else<\/strong>. […] That power was represented visually around the person of magistrates with imperium<\/em> through the lictors<\/a> (Latin: lictores<\/em>), attendants who follows magistrates with imperium<\/em>, mostly to add dignity to the office but who also could act as the magistrates “muscle” if necessary. The lictors carried the fasces<\/em><\/a>, a set of sticks bundled together in a rod; often in modern depictions the bundle is thick and short but in ancient artwork it is long and thin, the ancient equivalent of a police-man’s less-lethal billy club<\/a>. That, notionally non-lethal but still violent, configuration represented the imperium<\/em>-bearing magistrate’s civil power within the pomerium<\/em><\/a> (the sacred boundary of the city). When passing beyond the pomerium<\/em>, an axe was inserted into the bundle, turning the the non-lethal crowd-control device into a lethal weapon, reflective of the greater power of the imperium<\/em>-bearing magistrate to act with unilateral military<\/em> violence outside of Rome (though to be clear the consul couldn’t just murder you because you were on your farm; this is symbolism). The consuls were each assigned 12 lictors, while praetors<\/em> got 6. Pro-magistrates had one fewer lictor than their magistrate versions to reflect that, while they wielded imperium<\/em>, it was of an inferior sort to the actual magistrate of the year. […] While in office, any Roman with imperium<\/em> is immune from prosecution<\/strong>, but can be prosecuted immediately on leaving office for any crimes they may have done while in office. Consequently, a consul’s freedom of action is going to be limited by their concern about potentially having to face a jury after their one-year term is complete. Even if they aren’t worried about that, once their year is done they go back to being just another senator, so good relations with the rest of the Senate is a good idea.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Imperator<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nIt would be reasonable to assume that the Latin word for a person with imperium<\/em> would be imperator<\/em> because that’s the standard way Latin words form. And I will say, from the perspective of a person who has to decide at the beginning of each thing I write what circumlocution I am going to use to describe “magistrate or pro-magistrate with imperium<\/em>“, it would be remarkably fortunate if imperator<\/em> meant that, but it doesn’t. Instead, imperator<\/em> in Latin ends up swallowed by its idiomatic meaning of “victorious general”, as it was normal in the republic for armies to proclaim their general as imperator<\/em> after a major victory (which set the general up to request a triumph<\/a> from the Senate). In the imperial period, this leads to the emperors monopolizing the term, as all of the armies of Rome operated under their imperium<\/em> and thus all victory accolades belonged to the emperor. [This was in part to deter commanders on the frontier from launching campaigns specifically to receive a Triumph. Under the empire, the best that was awarded were Ornamenta triumphalia<\/em><\/a> (“Triumphal ornaments”) rather than a full Triumph.] That in turn leads to imperator<\/em> becoming part of the imperial title, from where it gives us our word “emperor”. That said, the circumlocution I use here, because this isn’t a formal genre and I can, is “imperium<\/em>-haver”. I desperately wish I could use that in peer-reviewed articles, but I fear no editor would let me (while Reviewer 2 will predictably object to “general”, “commander” or “governor” for all being modern coinages).<\/p>\n

<\/a>In suo anno<\/em> (“in his year”)<\/strong>.
\nOne thing I want to note is the “elimination contest” structure of the cursus honorum<\/em><\/a><\/strong>. To take the situation as it stands from 197 to 82BC, there are dozens and dozens of military tribunes<\/a>, but just eight quaestors<\/em><\/a> and just six praetors<\/em><\/a> and then just two consuls<\/a>. At each stage there was thus likely to be increasingly stiff competition to move forward. To achieve an office in the first year of eligibility (in suo anno<\/em>, “in his own year”) was a major achievement; many aspiring politicians might require multiple attempts to win elections. But of course these are all annual offices, so someone trying again for the second or third time for the consulship is now also competing against multiple years of other failed aspirants plus this new year’s candidates in suo anno<\/em>. [E]ven given the relatively small(ish) size of Rome’s aristocracy, these offices are fiercely competitive as one gets higher up.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Interrex<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nConstitutionally, there were always [supposed] to be two consuls<\/a> and consular elections had to be presided over by a consul. [In the rare situation where this was not true,] the customary solution to this problem was the appointment of an interrex<\/em>, a five-day-long<\/em> office which essentially only had the authority to hold elections for new consuls in the absence of consuls or an already appointed dictator<\/a>. Prior to 82, the last confirmed interrex<\/em> we know of was in 216, but there may<\/em> have been another in 208, in either case this also a long-unused office. All the interrex<\/em> is supposed to do is hold an assembly of the comitia centuriata<\/em><\/a> which can elect new consuls; they did not have any further authority.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Italy or Peninsular Italy (Middle Republic)<\/strong>.
\nQuite a few people look at a map like that<\/a>, classify most of Rome’s territories as “Italian” and assume there is a large, homogeneous ethnic core there (except, I suspect, anyone who has actually been to Italy and is aware that Italy is hardly homogeneous, even today!). But Roman Italy in 218 B.C. was nothing<\/em> like that. Peninsular Italy (which doesn’t include the Po River Valley) contained a bewildering array of cultures and peoples: at least three distinct religious systems (Roman, Etruscan<\/a>, Greek), half a dozen languages (some completely unrelated to each other) and many clearly distinct cultural and ethnic groups divided into communities with strong local identities and fierce local rivalries (if you want more on this, check out Salmon, The Making of Roman Italy<\/em> (1982), Fronda, Between Rome and Carthage<\/em> (2010), and Keaveney, Rome and the Unification of Italy<\/em> (2005)).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Iuniores<\/strong>.
\n[Among] Roman citizen males in the third or second century, not all [are] liable for general conscription [in the dilectus<\/em><\/a>], which was restricted to the iuniores<\/em> \u2013 Roman citizen men between the ages of 17 and 46; seniores<\/em><\/a> in theory could be conscripted, but in practice only were in an emergency. In practice the number is probably lower still as unless things were truly dire, men in their late 30s or 40s with several years of service could be pretty confident they wouldn’t be called and might as well stay home and rely on a neighbor of family member to report back from the dilectus<\/em> in the unlikely event they were called. <\/p>\n

<\/a>Jugurthine War (112-106 BC)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nConflict between the Roman Republic and Jugurtha<\/a>, King of Numidia.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Julian “the Apostate”<\/strong>, or more formally, Flavius Claudius Julianus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 331 AD. Emperor 3 November 361 – 26 June 363 AD. Julian was the last non-Christian emperor of Rome and attempted to revive the traditional Roman cults. He died during an invasion of Sassanid Persia<\/a>.
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video playlist on the life of Julian<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Justinian I, originally Petrus Sabbatius<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 482 AD. Emperor 1 April 527 \u2013 14 November 565 AD. Justinian’s attempt to re-unify (renovatio imperii<\/em>) the lost western provinces<\/a> of the Roman Empire (North Africa, Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Spain) failed through a combination of imperial overstretch and plague<\/a>. His civil achievements included the re-codification of Roman law<\/a> (the Corpus Juris Civilis<\/em>) and a church building and beautification program that included the construction of Hagia Sophia<\/em><\/a> in Constantinople.
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on Justinian I<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki: Lares<\/a> and Penates<\/a>]
\nThe [Roman religious] world is full of smaller and more personal gods [than the “big gods” like Jupiter, Apollo, or Ishtar]. The most pervasive of these are household gods \u2013 gods associated with either the physical home, or the hearth (the fireplace), or the household\/family as a social unit. The Romans had several of these, chiefly the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em>, two sets of gods who presided over the home. The Lares<\/em> seem to have originally been hearth guardians associated with the family, while the Penates<\/em> may have begun as the guardians of the house’s storeroom \u2013 an important place in an agricultural society! Such figures are common in other polytheisms too \u2013 the fantasy tropes of brownies, hobs, kobolds and the like began as similar household spirits, propitiated by the family for the services they provide. (As an aside, the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em> provide an excellent example on how practice was valued more than belief<\/em> or orthodoxy<\/em> in ancient religion: when I say that they “seem” or “may have originally been”, that is because it was not entirely clear to the Romans<\/em>, exactly what the distinction between the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em> were; ancient authors try to reconstruct exactly what the Penates<\/em> are about from etymologies (e.g. Cic. De Natura Deorum<\/em> 2.68) and don’t always agree! But of course, the exact origins of the Lares<\/em> or the Penates<\/em> didn’t matter so much as the power they held, how they ought to be appeased, and what they might do to you!) Household gods also illuminate the distinctly communal nature of even smaller religious observances. The rituals in a Roman household for the Lares and Penates were carried out by the heads of the household (mostly the pater familias<\/em><\/a> although the matron of the household had a significant role \u2013 at some point, we can talk about the hierarchy of Roman households, but now I just want to note that these two positions in the Roman family are not co-equal) on behalf of the entire family unit<\/em>, which we should remember might well be multi-generational, including adult children with their own children<\/em> \u2013 in just the same way that important magistrates (or in monarchies, the king or his delegates) might carry out rituals on behalf of the community as a whole.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Laws of the Twelve Tables<\/strong> properly lex duodecim tabularum<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The earliest known codification of Roman law<\/a>, 449 BC.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Legatus<\/em> (military Legate)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[In the Middle Republic, the Legatus<\/em> was the second-in-command to a Consul<\/a> while commanding an army in the field, usually a former Consul or senior senator recommended by the Senate<\/a> (after consultation with the commander, to attempt to ensure that they would be able to work well together in the field). In the Late Republican period, multiple legati<\/em> would be assigned to a Consular army<\/a>, specifically to command individual legions<\/a> (legatus legionis<\/em>). In the Empire, this was made a more formal post, except for legions assigned to Egypt or Mesopotamia which were commanded by an equestrian praefectus legionis<\/em>. Legion command in the Empire was a two-year appointment, later extended to four years. Roman representatives to foreign powers were also called legate<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Lepidus<\/strong>, or more formally, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 89 BC. Interrex<\/em> 52 BC (last known to hold this office), Consul<\/a> 46 and 42 BC, Proconsul<\/a> 43-40 and 38-36 BC, Triumvir<\/em><\/a> 43-36 BC, Pontifex Maximus<\/em><\/a> 44-13 or 12 BC. Died 13 or 12 BC. A close ally and supporter of Caesar<\/a>‘s, leading the Senate<\/a> to appoint Caesar to his dictatorship<\/a>. Appointed as Caesar’s Magister equitum<\/em><\/a> in 46 BC over Mark Antony<\/a>. Succeeded Caesar as Pontifex maximus<\/em> in 44 BC. A member of the second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Octavian<\/a>. After his death, Augustus took over the role of Pontifex maximus<\/em> and it remained one of the offices of the Emperor after that.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Legion<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The primary army organizational unit from early in the Republic until late in the Empire. A classic Middle Republican legion would consist of 4200 infantry and 300 cavalry, while an Imperial legion would number 5600 infantry and 200 auxilia<\/em><\/a> cavalry. A Middle Republican legion would usually have a matching Ala<\/em><\/a> of socii<\/em><\/a>-raised troops until the Social War<\/a> forced Rome to offer the various socii<\/em> communities full Roman citizenship<\/a>. Until late in the Republic, legions were not permanent units but were raised and disbanded as required. Legionaries were all free-born Roman citizens until quite late in the Republic, where competing factions in the civil wars needed more warm bodies to fill out the ranks. Republican legions were organized by maniple<\/em><\/a> (two centuries of 80 legionaries per maniple<\/em>) until the late Republic where organizations switched to cohorts<\/em><\/a> (480 legionaries in six centuries).] The legion is organized into three primary heavy infantry lines (hastati<\/em><\/a>, principes<\/em><\/a> and triarii<\/em><\/a>), with the last line at half-numbers compared to the other two. These lines are broken into units called maniples (manipuli<\/em>, “handfuls”) of 120 men with intervals between them. Those maniples in turn are split into centuries (centuriae<\/em>, “group of 100”) consisting of sixty men [“because no numerical term in the Roman army means what it sounds like it means”], one in front and one behind. That leaves an interval between the maniples, creating a kind of checkerboard formation we call a quincunx<\/em> after the symbol for “five” on a die. Out in front of all of this there is a diffuse screen of light infantry, the velites<\/em><\/a>, who are differently equipped (no armor, small shield, seven light javelins [not pila<\/em><\/a>] and a sword for close-in defense). The standard<\/em> way this army fights then is that each line attacks in sequence, falling back through the gaps of the line behind it if it cannot defeat the enemy. Formations other than the three-line quincunx<\/em> (called the triplex acies<\/em>, “three battle lines”) are used sometimes, but the triplex acies<\/em> is standard. The question is what does it look like when the first two lines \u2013 the hastati<\/em> and the principes<\/em> (who make up the main force of the army) \u2013 engages. The traditional view is what we might term “volley-and-charge”. Here the assumption is that when the hastati<\/em> engage, the rear centuries move to close (or at least shrink) the gaps and then the whole line advances (six men deep) and at c. 25m or so, hurls their pila<\/em> before drawing swords and charging.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the legion<\/a> and Epimetheus did a survey of How the Roman legionary evolved in the Republic<\/a> (although he credits a lot of the changes in the legions to the “Marian Reforms<\/a>“, which Dr. Devereaux and many others now believe were not “a thing”.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Lictor<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>.]
\n[Lictors, despite being bodyguards to the magistrates, were not soldiers, although they often were former soldiers.] One of the way that legal power was visually communicated in Rome was through lictors, attendants to the magistrates who carried the fasces<\/em><\/a>, a bundle of rods (with an axe inserted when outside the sacred bounds of the city, called the pomerium<\/em><\/a>). More lictors generally indicated a greater power of imperium<\/em><\/a> (consuls<\/a>, for instance, could in theory give orders to the praetors<\/em><\/a>). Praetors<\/em> were accompanied by six lictors; consuls by 12. The dictator<\/a> had 24 lictors when outside of the pomerium<\/em> to indicate his absolute power in that sphere (that is, in war), but only 12 inside the city. The magister equitum<\/em><\/a>, as the dictator’s subordinate, got only six, like the praetors<\/em>. [Promagistrates, having imperium<\/em>, were entitled to one less lictor than the primary office-holders, so 11 for proconsuls<\/a> and five for propraetors<\/em><\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Limes<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Originally, the fortified border with the German tribes but later usage expanded the term to include all of the Empire’s defended external land borders.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Limitanei<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Instituted in the army reforms of Constantine<\/a>, these were stationary border troops of the middle and late empire. Their role was to defend against raids and small incursions and (ideally) to hold on in the face of larger invasions until the mobile comitatenses<\/em><\/a> forces were able to arrive (if they weren’t busy with something more urgent, like overthrowing the current emperor).]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Livy (Titus Livius)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>.]
\n[Born 59 BC, died 17 AD. A native of Patavium (modern-day Padua) in Cisalpine Gaul<\/a>, which was granted citizenship<\/a> by Caesar<\/a>. One of the best-known Roman historians, his (incomplete) work on the history of Rome, Ab urbe condita<\/em> (From the founding of the city<\/em>)<\/a> provides one of the few extant period histories of the Monarchy and Republic through to the early days of the Empire. He was a friend and academic rival to Asinius Pollio<\/a>, who had been governor of Cisalpine Gaul in Livy’s teen years.]
\n[MoAn posted “An Introduction To Roman Historian Livy’s Life<\/a>” ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Lorica<\/em> (body armour)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Roman body armour took many forms from the earliest days of the monarchy to the end of the western empire. These types included lorica hamata<\/em><\/a> (chainmail), lorica musculata<\/em><\/a>, plate armour sculpted to show musculature, lorica plumata<\/em><\/a>, scale armour that resembled layers of feathers, lorica segmentata<\/em><\/a>, the iconic banded armour that most people think of when they hear the word “legionary”, and lorica squamata<\/em><\/a>, scale armour.]
\n[ScholaGladiatoria<\/em> did a video on the lorica segmentata<\/em><\/a>. Metatron<\/em> also did a video on The Lorica Segmentata<\/em><\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Lupercalia<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[An annual festival celebrated on the Ides (the 15th) of February (which apparently got its name from the purification instruments used in this festival, the februa<\/em>.]
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a pair of short videos on the Lupercalia here<\/a> and here<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Lustrum<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The five-year inter-census<\/a> period, derived from the lustration<\/em>, a purification sacrifice performed by one of the censors at the end of the census. The Romans themselves believed the first lustration<\/em> had been performed by Servius Tullius<\/a> fifth legendary King of Rome in 566BC.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Macedonian Wars<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki: First (214-205 BC)<\/a>, Second (200-196 BC)<\/a>, Third (172-168 BC)<\/a>, and Fourth (150-148 BC)<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Magister equitum<\/em> (Master of Horse)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe magister equitum<\/em> was a lieutenant [of the dictator<\/a>], not a colleague, but interestingly once selected by a dictator could not be unselected or removed, though his office ended when the dictator laid down his powers. The magister equitum<\/em>, as the dictator’s subordinate, was attended by six [lictors<\/a> carrying fasces<\/em><\/a>], like the praetors<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Maniple<\/em> (Legionary sub-unit of the Middle Republic)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[A maniple was composed of two centuries of legionaries. Each legion<\/a> of the middle republican period was composed of thirty maniples (consisting of 120 men in the hastati<\/em><\/a> and principes<\/em><\/a> and 60 men in the triarii<\/em><\/a> maniples). The Romans start using the larger 480-man-cohort<\/a> as the basic maneuver unit during the second century BC).]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Marian Reforms<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Far too much here to summarize, as Dr. Devereaux has an extensive blog post<\/a> on the lack of evidence for there being any such thing as the “Marian Reforms”. Most of the “reforms” appear to have been adopted over a long period of time, not necessarily during Marius’ lifetime.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Marius<\/strong>, or more properly, Gaius Marius<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 157 BC, died 13 January 86 BC. Consul<\/a> 107, 104-100, 86 BC. In his first consulship, Marius was the victor in the Jugurthine War<\/a>, and in 104 as consul again, he fought and defeated the Cimbri and the Teutones, holding the consulship continuously until 100 BC. Loser of a conflict with Sulla<\/a>, Marius was exiled to Africa in 88 BC. Returning in arms, his forces took Rome and began purging his enemies. Elected to the consulship one final time, he died early in his term of office, before Sulla could return in fire and slaughter. Leadership of his faction fell to Cinna<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Milo<\/strong>, or more formally, Titus Annius Milo<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born c. 90 BC, Praetor<\/em><\/a> 54 BC, died 48 BC. Milo was a friend of Cicero<\/a> and Pompey<\/a> and a bitter rival of Clodius<\/a>, whose murder was done on his direct orders.] <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Mos maiorum<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe Romans had no written constitution and indeed most of the rules for how the Roman Republic functioned were, well, customary<\/em>. […] The Romans were very conservative in their outlook, believing that things ought to be done according to the mos maiorum<\/em> \u2013 “the customs of [our] ancestors”. The very fact that the way you say “ancestors” in Latin is maiores<\/em>, “the greater ones” should tell you something about the Roman attitude towards the past. And so often real innovations in Roman governance were explained as efforts to get back to the “way things were”, but of course “the way things were” is such a broad concept that you can justify pretty radical changes in some things to restore other things to “the way they were”. […] One thing is very clear about the Greeks and Romans generally: they had at best a fuzzy sense of their past, often ascribing considerable antiquity to things which were not old but which stretched out of living memory. Moreover there is a general sense, pervading Greek and Latin literature that people in the past were better<\/em> than people now, more virtuous, more upright, possibly even physically better. There seems to have been a broad sense of the folk system that things get worse over time and thus things must have been better in the past and thus returning to the way things were done is better. […] The Romans most certainly did not have our strong positive associations with youth and progress. Their culture expected deference to elders and certainly didn’t expect “progress” most of the time; things, they thought, generally ought to be done as they had “always been done”. Consequently, framing things as a return to the mos maiorum<\/em> or as a means to return to it was always a strong political framing and presumably many of the folks doing those things believed it. On the other hand the Romans seem well aware that some of the things they did were new and that not all of these “firsts” were bad and that some things had seemed to have gotten better or more useful since the days of their maiores<\/em>. And some Romans, particularly emperors, are relatively unabashed about making dramatic breaks with tradition and precedent; Diocletian<\/a> comes to mind here in particular.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Murus Gallicus<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n… one solution to this problem [the inherent weakness to fire of wooden fortifications] which doesn’t much appear in the Middle Ages but was very well-used in Iron Age Europe was what the Romans called the murus Gallicus<\/em>, a hybrid wood-and-stone wall system. Gallic hillforts (called oppida<\/em>) were built on hills, as the name suggests; their outer walls could be built by using earth fill to construct what was essentially a retaining wall, faced in stone, with transverse reinforcing wood beams every few feet. That created, in turn, a vertical stone surface, supported by the hillside itself, on which could be additionally built a wooden palisade for added height. The result was a very formidable fortification, assuming one had the hill to work with initially. You couldn’t knock it over or really undermine it effectively and the stone face was nearly vertical; the height of the hill meant that effective escalade meant coming up with a mole, tower or ladder taller than the hill (a thing, naturally, that the Romans ended up doing<\/a>). That this style of fortification didn’t really reemerge in the Middle Ages speaks to the degree of path dependence<\/em><\/a> in fortification design<\/strong>. Because fortification design tends to be evolutionary, it is possible in similar conditions to get very different responses<\/strong> as different designers try to meet the same threats by modifying different preexisting systems of fortification.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Nero<\/strong>, or more formally Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 15 December 37 AD, Emperor 54 AD, died by suicide 9 June 68 AD. Last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, after his death came the civil wars of Year of the Four Emperors<\/a>, ending with Vespasian<\/a> founding the Flavian dynasty<\/a>.]
\n[Sean Gabb did a video on Nero’s life and death<\/a> and another on how to judge the veracity of our sources – Nero: Can We Trust the Sources?<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Nobiles<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThere are what our sources call nobiles<\/em>, a term of the Late Republic which (among others) H.I. Flower uses to define the system of the Middle Republic \u2013 usefully so. To be nobilis<\/em> was to be “well known” \u2013 the word comes to give us our word “noble” but it doesn’t mean that yet, it means “notable”. Families that got into high elected office in repeated generations (these are going to be very wealthy families; politics is not a game for the poor in Rome) joined this informal club of nobiles<\/em>. The exact borders of this club shifted, though generally only slowly, with small but significant numbers of new entrants as older families faded into relative obscurity (sometimes to surge back into prominence). But the movement is slow: from one generation to the next, most of the families of the nobiles<\/em> remain the same<\/strong>, in part because Roman voters<\/em> fairly clearly assume that the sons of great politicians will be great like their fathers.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Novus homo<\/em> (new man or self-made man)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[A term used for someone who achieved high office in the Republic as the first in his family to do so. Often used as a pejorative.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Numantia<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[One of the last Celtiberian hold-outs against Roman control of the entire Iberian peninsula. Located in what is now northeastern Spain on and controlling a crossing of the Douro river. The town was eventually captured by Scipio Aemilianus in 133BC after a siege. Although the site was occupied until the 5th century, it never became a significant population centre after the war.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Numantine War (143-133 BC)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The last major conflict of the Celtiberian Wars, between the Roman Republic and the Celtiberian tribes of the province<\/a> of Hispania Citerior<\/em>. ] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Numen<\/em> (divinity or divine will)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nWhat connects these gods [Lares<\/em>, Penates<\/em><\/a> or Genius<\/em><\/a>] with the big ones is not their scale but a certain kind of power. The Romans called this power numen<\/em>. Literally, the word means a nod \u2013 or more correctly, a thing produced by nodding. Presumably this has something to do with the power to produce results without directly effecting them, to do so “with a nod”. As with most things, this spark of divinity may be left pleasantly vague and blurry. After all, it doesn’t matter how<\/em> it works, but only that<\/em> it works<\/a>. But note how that conception of divine power \u2013 the ability to change the world “with a nod” as it were \u2013 leaves a tremendous space for differences in scope: Forculus might open a door with his nod, which is rather less impressive than if Poseidon crumbles the entire house with his (Poseidon, in addition to ruling the seas, was the Earthshaker). These gods \u2013 the ones we don’t often think of \u2013 defined many of the rhythms of life<\/strong>. For instance, a Roman boy wore a small charm called a bulla<\/em> to protect him from evil magic \u2013 when he came of age (and thus had his own masculine energy which could repel the feminine evil magic), he offered that charm to the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em> as thanks for protecting him through his youth. It was a key passage into adulthood. Likewise, a Roman girl surrendered the trappings of girlhood to the Lares<\/em> and Penates<\/em> before her wedding, and offered her new<\/strong> Lares<\/em> \u2013 those of her husband’s house \u2013 a copper coin on her arrival so that they would bless the addition to the household. The key thing to note here is that divinity is not an all-or-nothing proposal<\/em>. Beings that have numen<\/em> do not all have equal amounts of it. The powers of the great gods \u2013 Jupiter, Zeus, Thor, Marduk, Ra, that sort \u2013 are vast and global in scope. Arculus isn\u2019t going to strike you with lightning, or flood out your city, or cause your army to lose a battle \u2013 but he may keep you from getting robbed (or cause the valuables in your storage chest to rot!). And for a lot of work-a-day people, that kind of power is all you need, for the relatively small concerns of your life.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Oppida<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[An earlier form of defensive fortification] which doesn’t much appear in the Middle Ages but was very well-used in Iron Age Europe was what the Romans called the murus Gallicus<\/em>, a hybrid wood-and-stone wall system. Gallic hillforts (called oppida<\/em>) were built on hills, as the name suggests; their outer walls could be built by using earth fill to construct what was essentially a retaining wall, faced in stone, with transverse reinforcing wood beams every few feet. That created, in turn, a vertical stone surface, supported by the hillside itself, on which could be additionally built a wooden palisade for added height. The result was a very formidable fortification, assuming one had the hill to work with initially. You couldn’t knock it over or really undermine it effectively and the stone face was nearly vertical; the height of the hill meant that effective escalade meant coming up with a mole, tower or ladder taller than the hill (a thing, naturally, that the Romans ended up doing<\/a>). That this style of fortification didn’t really reemerge in the Middle Ages speaks to the degree of path dependence<\/em><\/a> in fortification design. Because fortification design tends to be evolutionary, it is possible in similar conditions to get very different responses<\/strong> as different designers try to meet the same threats by modifying different preexisting systems of fortification.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Optimates<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>
\nSupporters of the senate<\/a> in political struggles with the populares<\/em><\/a>, “supporters of the people” during the first century BC.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Optio<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Second-in-command to the Centurion<\/a> within a century of a Roman legion<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Parma<\/em> (light infantry shield)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nUnlike the heavy infantry (the hastati<\/em><\/a>, principes<\/em><\/a> and triarii<\/em><\/a>) who carried the large Scutum<\/em><\/a>, the skirmishing Velites<\/em><\/a> carried a smaller round shield called a Parma<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pater Familias<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nRoman legal and political thought understands the cives<\/em> to be made up of familiae<\/em> (singular familia<\/em>). Familia<\/em> is one of those dangerous Latin words because you want to translate it as “family” (and sometimes can), but it has a bigger meaning than that. Put simply, a familia<\/em> is the household of a free, adult male with no living male ancestors (the pater familias<\/em>), including his wife (the mater familias<\/em>), any sons they may have (married or unmarried) or unmarried daughters, any children those<\/em> children may have and all property \u2013 including enslaved people \u2013 owned by all of those individuals. An enslaved servant was thus a member of the familia<\/em>, but not<\/em> a “member of the family”. Roman law<\/a> understands the legal power of the pater familias<\/em> within the familia<\/em> to be absolute, to the point of being able to put any member to death<\/em> (this seems to have almost never happened, but it was legally permitted). One could argue the state and Roman law exists between, but not within, these familiae<\/em>: within the familia<\/em> the pater familias<\/em> is absolute and it is only outside the familia<\/em> that his authority is balanced with the law or the state. […] even an adult son remained the legal dependent of his father while his father lived. Individuals in potestate<\/em> (under the power of another) didn’t hold their own property in a legal sense \u2013 their property came under the power of their pater familias<\/em>. They also couldn’t conduct binding transactions without his consent (though an individual in potestate<\/em> could still vote, serve in the army and run for office). Individuals under the legal power of another \u2013 be they children or slaves \u2013 could have a small amount of pseudo-property called a peculium<\/em>, but this was still technically an extension of the property of the pater familias<\/em>.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the Roman view of the family<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Patricians and Plebeians<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki: Patricians<\/a> and Plebeians<\/a>]
\nThis was a formal legal distinction; one was by birth one or the other. At the dawn of the republic, the leading families in Rome at the time, who sat in the Senate<\/a> when it advised the kings<\/a> (and who thus founded the republic itself) were the patricii<\/em>, a title derived from senators being called patres<\/em> (“fathers”, often patres conscripti<\/em>). And in the early decades of the republic, political offices were restricted to members of these key families. Everyone else \u2013 the vast majority of Rome’s households \u2013 were plebeians. The thing is, from the mid-fourth century to the early third century (the Lex Hortensia<\/em> of 287 marks the end of this process) the legal distinctions between the two groups largely collapsed as rich plebeian families successfully pushed to be “let in” to full participation in Roman government. Consequently, by the mid-third century the distinction between patrician and plebeian is mostly politically<\/em> unimportant. It does matter for religious purposes and being a patrician from a famous family is a nice status marker to have, but elite plebeian families are not rare in the Middle Republic. So, repeat after me: the patrician\/plebeian distinction is not particularly meaningful in the Middle Republic<\/strong>. There are rich plebeian families in the Middle Republic who are influential in politics. Do not anachronistically forward-project the political struggles of the fifth-through-early-third centuries onto the struggles of the late-second or first centuries. Plebeian is not<\/em> a synonym for “poor”.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Peltast<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Thracian light infantry, usually equipped with several javelins and a light wicker shield called a pelte<\/em>. ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pergamum<\/strong> or Pergamon<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[City in Anatolia on the coast of the Aegean Sea, probably founded in the 8th century BC. ]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pharsalus<\/strong>, 48 BC.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Final major battle of Caesar’s struggle with Pompey on 9 August, 48 BC in central Greece. ]
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a video on the Battle of Pharsalus<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pietas<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe due respect one owes family, elders and the gods (and gives us the word “piety”). To be pius<\/em> is to be dutiful towards parents, country, elders, and the gods, putting their needs before your own (thus Aeneas, saving his father from burning Troy is famously pius Aeneas<\/em>). <\/p>\n

<\/a>Pilum<\/em> (javelin)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe pilum<\/em> is an unusual javelin. The most common form of javelin we see in the ancient Mediterranean is what I’ve taken to calling the “small tip, wooden haft” javelin. It has a light wooden haft; these don’t generally survive so it is hard to be exact on how much they’d weigh, but javelin-tips have thinner sockets than spears, suggesting a narrower haft (and probably a shorter one). That’s tipped by a small iron spear-tip usually a miniature version of the local thrusting-spear shape (though often with a less pronounced mid-ridge). The whole assembly probably going to around half a kilogram, though again there’s probably a fair bit of range here (the Roman hasta velitaris<\/em>, that lighter javelin for the velites<\/em><\/a>, probably had a total mass of around 200-250g). The pilum<\/em> is … not like that. Instead of a narrow wooden haft, it has a thick, heavy wooden haft with estimated masses typically around 1kg instead of maybe 200-400g. And that’s topped not with a c. 50g javelin-tip, but with a tip that has a long iron shank connecting the point (which can be “arrowhead” shaped or “bodkin” (square-sectioned pyramidal) shaped) to the haft and massing 250-350g. Thus a pilum<\/em> altogether has about the same mass as a thrusting spear, but it is very much not a thrusting spear. The whole thing tends to be around 1.25-1.5kg; this is a hefty weapon. The Romans end up using a few different systems to connect the iron shank to the wooden haft. The most common was actually the “socketed” pilum<\/em>, in which the shank (which is square in cross-section) terminates into a socket (round in cross-section) that fits on to the haft. This type is what we see in Cisalpine Gaul<\/a> before the Romans, its the version of the pilum<\/em> that ends up being locally copied in Spain and Transalpine Gaul in response to the Romans and it occurs in basically all periods. […] Plutarch says that Marius<\/a> designed it to incorporate a wooden rivet where the long metal shank met the heavy wooden shaft, replacing one of the two iron nails with a wooden rivet that would break on impact, in order to better disable the shield. The problem<\/em> is that the pilum<\/em> is actually archaeologically one of the best attested Roman weapons with the result that we can follow its development fairly closely. And the late, great Peter Connolly did exactly that in a series of articles in the Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies<\/em> and while the design of the pilum<\/em> does develop over time, there’s simply no evidence for what Plutarch describes. The “broad tanged” pilum type could<\/strong> have been modified this way, but we’ve never found one actually so modified; instead the pila<\/em> of this type we find all have rivets (two of them) in place (where rivets are preserved at all). Moreover, most pila<\/em> of that “broad tanged” type, both before and after Marius, have the edges of that broad tang bent over at the sides, which would prevent the sort of sliding action Plutarch describes even if one of the rivets broke. Meanwhile, by the first century there are three<\/em> types of pila<\/em> around (socketed, broad-tanged and spike-tanged) only one of which could be modified in this way (the broad-tanged type), and that type doesn’t dominate during the first century [BC] when one might expect Marius’ new-style pila<\/em> to be in use. In practice then the conclusion seems to be that Plutarch made up or misunderstood this “innovation” in the pilum<\/em> or, at best, the design was adopted briefly and then abandoned.
\n[ScholaGladiatoria<\/em> has several videos on the pilum<\/em>: Roman Pilum – ScholaGladiatoria Mini Documentary<\/a>, Roman Pilum Throwing – Javelin & Shield Roman Army Style<\/a>, Why The Roman Army Used The Pilum Spear<\/a>, Shield Penetration! Roman Pilum vs Shield: Was this the main purpose?<\/a>, Roman Pilum (Throwing Spear) vs Armour! Testing against shield, chainmail & plate<\/a>, How did the Roman Army Marian Reforms PILUM (spear) Work? An appendix to @tods_workshop<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Plutarch<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 46 AD, died c. 119 AD. Greek historian and Platonist philosopher, best known for his work Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans<\/em> (usually known as Parallel Lives<\/em>)<\/a>, which charted similar biographies for prominent Greek and Roman historical figures.
\nMoAn posted “The Life of Plutarch<\/a>“]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Polis<\/em><\/strong> (pl. poleis<\/em><\/strong>).
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Early Rome and many of the other future socii<\/em><\/a> were very similar to classical Greek poleis<\/em>.] A complicated and effectively untranslatable Greek term, polis<\/em> most nearly means “community” and is often translated as “city-state”. However, there were poleis<\/em> in Greece without cities (Sparta being one \u2013 a fact often concealed by translators rendering polis<\/em> as city). Instead a polis<\/em> consists of a body of citizens, their state, and the territory it controls (including smaller villages but not other subjugated poleis<\/em>), usually but not always centered on a single urban center. Poleis<\/em> are almost by definition independent and self-governing (that is, they have eleutheria<\/em><\/a> and autonomia<\/em>).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pollio<\/strong>, or more properly, Gaius Asinius Pollio<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Born 75 BC, Consul<\/a> 40 BC, died 4 AD. Roman statesman and historian whose primary historical work has been lost. The later historians Appian and Plutarch<\/a> used a lot of Pollio’s work in their own histories. A supporter of Caesar<\/a>, he was with Caesar at the Rubicon, and loyally served Caesar through the civil war. After Caesar’s assassination, Pollio supported Antony<\/a> against Octavian<\/a>. After the end of the civil conflicts, he established the first public library in Rome, the Atrium Libertatis<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Polybius<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Greek historian born around 200BC in Megalopolis in Arcadia. His father was appointed strategos<\/em> of the Achaean League and he in his turn eventually became a high-ranking cavalry officer in the league. He was among a thousand Achaeans interned at Rome to ensure the loyalty of the Greek cities to the Republic. During the 17 years he was detained as a Roman hostage, he developed a friendship with Scipio Aemilianus<\/a> and became well-acquainted with the extended Scipio clan and their supporters. As a result, he accompanied Scipio to the final destruction of Carthage in 146BC. Most of his works have been lost but The Histories<\/em> was a major source for many later historians including Livy<\/a> and Plutarch<\/a>.] It was this string of victories [The River Aous, Cynoscephalae, Thermopylae, Magnesia, and Pydna], so shocking in the Greek world, that prompted Polybius to write his own history, covering the period from 264 to 146 to try to explain what the heck happened<\/em><\/strong> (much of that history is lost, but Polybius opens by suggesting that anyone paying attention to the First<\/em> Punic War (264-241) ought to have seen this coming).
\nMoAn posted a video on Polybius asking “Was Being Taken Prisoner The Best Thing To Happen To Him?<\/a>“]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pomerium<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The ritual boundaries of the city of Rome<\/a>, which among other things limit the powers of the Tribunes of the Plebs<\/a>.] Rome itself was ritually defined by a sacred boundary, the pomerium<\/em> around the city itself; the phrase means something like “beyond the [city] wall” but in practice the pomerium<\/em> might only imperfectly match the city’s actual defensive wall at any given time. The larger point is that this sacred boundary covered only the urban core: no part of Rome’s hinterland was within it; indeed as the city grew, large portions of the urban core were outside of it. The pomerium<\/em> was a ritual boundary but one with legal significance. Weapons were banned within the pomerium<\/em> and the powers of certain magistrates (those with imperium<\/em>) were diminished within it, while the powers of other magistrates (the tribunes of the plebs) did not extend beyond it. Roman armies could only operate, legally, outside the pomerium<\/em> so war was an activity that, by definition took place outside<\/em> this zone (which is why the later stages of the dilectus<\/em><\/a> must happen on the campus Martius<\/em><\/a>, the “Field of Mars”, which sits just outside the pomerium<\/em>).
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the pomerium<\/em><\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pompey the Great<\/strong>, or more formally, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nFirst came to prominence for raising an army of three legions (without a shred of legal authority) with which he aided Sulla<\/a> against the Marians<\/a>. Later commanded (as proconsul) an army which defeated 5,000 armed slaves at the end of the Third Servile War<\/a> (and claiming credit for ending the war, which Crassus<\/a> had actually done the majority of the work to win). One of the three members of the First Triumvirate<\/a> with Caesar<\/a> and Crassus, later the military leader of the Senatorial forces opposed to Caesar. Murdered by agents of Ptolemy XIII after fleeing to Egypt<\/a> after his defeat at Pharsalus<\/a> in an attempt to curry favour with Caesar (which backfired badly).
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on how Pompey became “the Great”<\/a> and Historia Civilis<\/em> did a video on Pompey’s terms as consul<\/a> and his fall<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pontifex maximus<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Despite the Pope sometimes being called the “Pontiff”, the Roman Pontifex maximus<\/em> did not have the same role in religious life during the Republic. The Pontifex maximus<\/em> was an elected position that was held for the life of the incumbent. On the death of Lepidus<\/a>, the last elected to the position, in 13\/12 BC, Augustus<\/a> took over the role and it remained one of the Imperial titles after that.] I stress this point because this is a common mistake: assuming that the Pontifex Maximus<\/em> as Rome’s highest priest was in some way the “boss” of all of Rome’s other priests. He was not; he was the presiding officer of the college of Pontiffs and the manager of the calendar<\/a> (this was a very significant role), but the Pontifex Maximus<\/em> was not the head of some priestly hierarchy and his power over the other pontifices<\/em> was limited. Moreover his power over other religious officials (the augures<\/em><\/a>, haruspices<\/em><\/a>, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis<\/em> and so on) was very limited. Instead, these figures report to the Senate<\/a>, though the Senate will generally defer to the judgment of the pontifices<\/em>.
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the role of the Pontifex maximus<\/em><\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Populares<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Supporters of the people against the optimates<\/em><\/a>, who supported the senate<\/a> in political struggles during the first century BC.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Praefecti Aegpyti<\/em> or Governor of Egypt<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nTacitus describes Augustus<\/a> as having “kept in the [imperial] house” (retinere domi<\/em>) the governance of Egypt<\/a>, assigning it to an equestrian<\/a> prefect. Egypt was a relatively late addition to Rome’s growing Empire; the Ptolemaic dynasty<\/a> had ruled it since the death of Alexander the Great in 323. Praefecti Aegpyti<\/em> typically served around three years, where generally not from the province<\/a> they oversaw (also typical), and wouldn’t be reassigned to a post back in that province (also typical). Unlike with the earlier Ptolemaic government, there was no royal court in Egypt, the prefect’s entourage more nearly resembling that of a Roman governor, nor was the emperor personally present. Residents of Egypt who wished to petition the emperor had to do it through the same channels as any other resident of the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Praefecti Cohortium<\/em><\/strong>.
\nEach Roman [Consular] army<\/a> has a presiding magistrate (like a consul<\/a>) and an assigned financial magistrate (a quaestor<\/em><\/a>), just as each socii<\/em><\/a> detachment has a commander and a paymaster. The commander of these socii<\/em> units show up in our sources as praefecti cohortium<\/em> and seem to have been drawn from the local elite of those communities (just like the Romans).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Praefecti Sociorum<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[When a Roman Consular army<\/a> assembles,] the Romans and socii<\/em><\/a> converge, as the socii<\/em> are arriving at the same spot, on the same day, under arms in their own small units with their leaders [the praefecti cohortium<\/em><\/a>]. The army commander (generally a consul<\/a>) now appoints twelve Roman officers, the praefecti sociorum<\/em> as senior officers over the socii<\/em> [junior officer equivalents to centurions<\/a> would be appointed by the socii<\/em>] who are divided into two wings (alae<\/em><\/a>), which generally flank the legions<\/a> in battle. The praefecti sociorum<\/em>, we’re told, first have the job of pulling out an elite subset of the socii<\/em>, the extraordinarii<\/em>, from the socii<\/em> cavalry (who generally<\/em> outnumber the Roman cavalry) and infantry.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Praetor<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nAfter [elected terms as quaestor<\/em><\/a> and aedile<\/em><\/a> and possibly the tribunate<\/a>] was the praetor<\/em>ship, [on the cursus honorum<\/em><\/a>] the first office which came with imperium<\/em><\/a>. Initially there may have just been one praetor<\/em>; by the 240s there are two (what will become the praetor urbanus<\/em><\/a> and the praetor peregrinus<\/em><\/a>). In 227 the number increases to four, with the two new praetors<\/em> created to handle administration in [the provinces<\/a> of] Sicily<\/a>, [and] Corsica et Sardinia<\/em><\/a>. That number then increases to six in 198\/7, with the added praetors<\/em> generally being sent to Spain. Finally Sulla<\/a> raises the number to eight in 81 BC. The minimum age seems to have been 39 for this office. […] The six praetors<\/em> are the junior imperium<\/em>-possessing magistracy and though all of the praetors were elected together, by the Middle Republic the job of being praetor<\/em> might vary quite a lot depending on which role you were assigned by the Senate<\/a>. You will recall that the praetor<\/em>ship is an old office, originally taking the place of chief magistrate which later becomes the consulship<\/a> (note Livy 3.5.11-12, 7.3.5-8; Cic. Leg<\/em>. 3.8; Fest. 249L; Gell. 11.18.8, 20.1.47; Plin. Natural History<\/em> 18.12 see also Varro Ling<\/em>. 5.80), though at some point the title of the chief magistrate shifted [to] consul and the praetor<\/em> (just one of them) served as a junior assistant to the consuls. We’re not well informed about the praetor<\/em>ship in this early form, but it seems likely it had a similar role in organizing the courts, while the consuls led the armies. In any case the number of praetors<\/em> increases rapidly in the last half of the third century, with a second added in c. 242, two more in 228 and two more in 198\/7, giving the total of six. [Sulla<\/a> increased the number to eight, and Caesar<\/a> increased it again to ten, then fourteen, then finally sixteen. Augustus<\/a> reduced that to twelve and changed the nature of the position, becoming Senate-appointed rather than popularly elected, and no longer having imperium<\/em>.] Because the praetors<\/em> had imperium<\/em>, they could in theory lead armies and organize courts the same as consuls (though they lacked some of the other distinctive consular powers) but in practice the responsibilities of the praetors<\/em> were usually quite distinct and split into two large categories: praetors<\/em> assigned a provincia<\/em><\/a> (which again, you should read as “job” not “province”) at Rome [the Praetor urbanus<\/em><\/a> and Praetor peregrinus<\/em><\/a>] and praetors<\/em> assigned a provincia<\/em> outside of Rome. […] Praetors<\/em> in the field tend to be assigned to putative “quiet” provinces or auxiliary support functions. The standard praetorian<\/em> provinces were Corsica et Sardinia<\/em> (one province) and Sicily, later joined by the two Spains (Hispania Citerior<\/em>, “Nearer Spain” and Hispania Ulterior<\/em>, “Further Spain”), when they were quiet. When a major military action flared up on this areas, the response wasn’t to send a praetor<\/em> with a large army, but to assign a consul or a proconsul to the province instead, though because these assignments are made annually that tends to mean that [if] trouble flares up, the praetor<\/em> with his smaller army tries to manage it and if he fails and is defeated, then<\/em> a consul is sent out with a major army. [The lex Villia annalis of 180BC forbade former consuls to hold a second praetor<\/em>ship.]
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on the role of the praetor<\/em><\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Praetor urbanus<\/em> and Praetor peregrinus<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki: Praetor peregrinus<\/em><\/a> and Praetor urbanus<\/em><\/a>]
\nThe two praetors<\/em><\/a> operating normally in Rome<\/a> were termed the praetor urbanus<\/em> and praetor peregrinus<\/em> and their responsibility was almost entirely focused on the court system. The praetor urbanus<\/em> was primarily concerned with legal disputes involved two citizen parties, while any issue involving foreigners came under the jurisdiction of the praetor peregrinus<\/em>, though the latter was sometimes also deployed out of Rome on special duties, at which point the praetor urbanus<\/em>, who almost always remained in Rome, would handle both. On coming into office, the praetor urbanus<\/em> (and probably also the praetor peregrinus<\/em>) issued the edictum praetoris<\/em> (“Praetor’s edict”) which set out how he intended to carry out his office. Early on, these edicts seem mostly to have been restricted to changes in procedure or the assessment of damages, but by the first century praetorian<\/em> edicts could lay out substantive law creating what later Roman jurists would term the ius praetorium<\/em> (“praetorian law”), which sat alongside the main law code<\/a> itself, the ius civile<\/em> (“civil law”). Mostly what these edicts lay out seem to be procedures or the conditions under which the praetor<\/em> will grant a cause of action. By the time the edict is fully developed, praetors<\/em> seem to be seeking and getting advice from an emerging class of legal experts<\/a>, iuris prudentes<\/em> (“men learned at law” = “legal consult”) to craft what must often have been pretty formulaic edicts.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Praetorians<\/em><\/strong> or Praetorian<\/em> Guards<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Originating as the personal guards of Roman generals (the Scipios are the first recorded generals to use them), they were designated by Augustus<\/a> as his own personal security force (as Octavian, he had five cohorts while Antony, his fellow Triumvir, had three cohorts in the east). Their headquarters were just outside the pomerium<\/em><\/a> in the Castra Praetoria<\/em><\/a>. The Praetorians<\/em> often had a major role in determining the emperor due to their close proximity to the current emperor and their near-monopoly of significant military force in and around the capital. The practice of “ensuring” their loyalty through donatives<\/a> quickly became standard after the reign of Tiberius. They were disbanded by Constantine<\/a> in 312 AD and their barracks were destroyed.]
\n[Metatron<\/em> did a video on What is a Roman Praetorian?<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Princeps senatus<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nOnce the convening magistrate was done introducing the issue, the opinions of each senator<\/a>, in turn, were sought. The order was set by the censors<\/a>, but it was based on offices held and seniority, so while the censors could shift (“movere<\/em>“) a senator down in the order, they were expected to have a good reason (typically conspicuous moral turpitude). The order began with the princeps senatus<\/em>, traditionally the most senior ex-consul<\/a>, though “most senior” here often meant both in age and in influence, so while the princeps senatus<\/em> was never young, it might not strictly be the oldest senator. After that, the former consuls (in Latin consulares<\/em>, which enters English as “consulars” to mean “men who have held the consulship”) spoke, with the most former (and thus likely oldest) going first. And then the Senate proceeded down in rank order to ex-praetors<\/em><\/a> and so on all the way down. As you may well imagine, the figures who spoke first tended to set the terms of the debate and indeed the whole reason they spoke first is because they were understood to be preeminent in auctoritas<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Principate (the early Roman Empire)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>
\nThe early Roman Empire under Augustus<\/a> and his successors until the Crisis of the Third Century<\/a>.
\nThersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on Augustus’ Principate: The Institutions of the Early Roman Empire<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Principes<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe heavy infantry (hastati<\/em><\/a>, principes<\/em> and triarii<\/em><\/a>) carry a large oval shield (the scutum<\/em><\/a>), a sword (the gladius Hispaniensis<\/em><\/a>, a versatile cut-and-thrust sword), two heavy javelins (pila<\/em><\/a>), and wear both a metal helmet (the ubiquitous bronze Montefortino-type) and body armor. Poor soldiers, Polybius tells us, wear what in Latin is a pectorale<\/em> (and thus in English a “pectoral”); this gets represented as a single smallish bronze plate over the upper-chest, but our evidence for this equipment suggests a more complete cuirass consisting of a front and back plate joined by side and shoulder plates, with a broad armored belt protecting the belly, a sort of “articulated breastplate”.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Proconsul<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nRoman expansion put strains on all of these systems. Fundamentally, the Roman system remained one designed for a small city-state<\/strong>. Everything \u2013 military command, attending the Senate<\/a>, passing legislation, using veto power \u2013 needed to be done in person by magistrates who only had a single year in office. While Roman territory and the scope of Rome’s wars remained small, that sort of system worked fine. As Roman territory and Rome’s wars expanded, it put all sorts of strains on that system: how to handle multi-year campaigns which kept the armies in the field? How to handle having more commands than magistrates? The solution was to extend (prorogue<\/em>) a magistrate’s authority, making them a pro-magistrate (“pro” meaning “standing in for”). It’s tricky to pin down exactly when the Romans first did this as our sources for early Rome (Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus) tend to use terms for proconsular power (pro consule<\/em> or \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03cd\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u1f74\u03bd) long before prorogation seems to have been used in Rome. Generally, we think that the first genuine prorogation happens in 327 as part of the run-up to the Second Samnite War<\/a> (Livy 8.23). The problem here was two-fold: Rome’s evident shift to year-round campaigning meaning that the army needed a continuous commander in the field as in this case where it was conducting a siege, combined with the greater distances \u2013 the commander, Q. Pubilius Philo, is besieging Naples \u2013 making swift changes in command difficult. Prorogation becomes common and regular during the Punic Wars<\/a>. The First Punic War, taking place primarily in Sicily<\/a>, demanded the use of prorogation to cover the lag time between elections in Rome and commanders arriving in Sicily, as well as to allow single commanders to conduct more complex campaigns. By the Second Punic War, which takes place in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, Spain, North Africa and Illyria (much of that simultaneously<\/em>) it was also necessary to prorogue commanders in order to simply get enough field commanders with imperium<\/em><\/a> for all of the armies Rome was deploying. Indeed, in the crazy days of the Second Punic War, at points the Senate prorogued men who had never held office before, privati cum imperio<\/em> (private citizens with imperium<\/em>), though this is discontinued and replaced by a system whereby prorogued commanders will have first held the relevant office at some point. […] One significant legal quirk of prorogation is that while a consul<\/a> or a praetor<\/em><\/a> at least notionally had imperium<\/em> which traveled (though in practice they would be expected to focus on the provincia<\/em><\/a> the Senate assigned them), the imperium<\/em> of a promagistrate, who after all only “stood in for” the actual magistrate of the year, was in fact restricted to their defined sphere of action.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Propraetor<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe expanding number of areas of Roman overseas control pushed this further as more regions meant more provinciae<\/em><\/a> (in the sense of “jobs”) which demanded more imperium<\/em><\/a>-havers to handle. New praetors<\/em><\/a> were eventually made for Sicily<\/a>, Corsica-and-Sardinia<\/a> and the two Spains, but by the mid-second century the Romans are regularly assigning imperium<\/em>-havers to Gaul (Cisalpine<\/a> or Transalpine), Africa, Greece and Macedonia and of course also need magistrates with imperium<\/em> in Italy to handle the regular functions of government.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Proquaestor<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nOnce a quaestor<\/em><\/a>‘s term of service was done, they became eligible for entry into the Senate<\/a> and would normally be entered into the Senate’s rolls in the next census<\/a> (conducted every five years). Now you may be wondering, as Rome’s territory outside of Italy expanded, how the eight quaestors<\/em> could meet the demands and the answer is: they couldn’t. The solution, rather than adding more annual quaestors<\/em>, was to “prorogue” (Latin: prorogare<\/em>) a quaestor<\/em>‘s term in office, making them a “pro-quaestor<\/em>“. This is the first of our pro-magistrates, who are Roman magistrates whose term of service has been prolonged to provide sufficient officials for all of Rome’s overseas commands. Consuls<\/a> and praetors<\/em><\/a> could also be prorogued like this (becoming proconsuls<\/a> and propraetors<\/em><\/a>) and we’ll talk about that more when we get to those offices, as their habit of being prorogued is rather more important.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Provinciae<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nBeginning in 241 BC, Rome begins establishing permanent control of territories overseas in what come to be the provinciae<\/em> or provinces. Initially the word provincia<\/em> simply indicated an assignment, a job for a Roman magistrate \u2013 generally a consul<\/a> or praetor<\/em><\/a> \u2013 to take an army somewhere and either wage war or “keep the peace”. Over time those assignments became routine as Roman power expanded, leading to the understanding of the provinces as permanent administrative and geographical divisions. But fundamentally a province (at least, during the period of the republic) was a sphere of Roman foreign policy<\/em>, to which a magistrate was sent with an army<\/em> to administer. One way to understand this is through a common binary opposition in Roman language: domi<\/em> (“at home”) vs. militiae<\/em> (“at military service” , sometimes also rendered as belli<\/em>, “at war”). If you weren’t domi<\/em> then you were militiae<\/em>. Much of Italy might be a grey area that could be both domi<\/em> or militiae<\/em> depending on circumstances (though sometimes Romae<\/em>, “at Rome”, replaces domi<\/em> in the opposition, making it rather more specific), but the provinces were always militiae<\/em>, a sphere of activity and service, a place the res publica<\/em> exerted its imperium<\/em><\/a>, but not a place it inhabited itself. As such in this period provinces have fuzzy, rather than defined outward borders: assuming a province isn’t an island, it can always be pushed further through more military activity. After all, military activity is what the provinces are for<\/em>. […] In 218 [BC], Rome and Carthage go to war anew and Rome sends armies into Spain to capture Carthage’s territory there. The area is large enough that command is eventually split between the north-eastern coastal area and the southern area, which become Hispania Citerior<\/em> and Hispania Ulterior<\/em> (Nearer and Further Spain). The Romans have moved out the Carthaginians there by 205 and by 197 the ad hoc<\/em> military command has transitioned into an effectively permanent provincial one, again usually assigned to praetors<\/em><\/a>. And the rest of the provinces follow, bit by bit, though after a long pause. Macedonia in 147, absorbed after the Fourth Macedonian War (150-148)<\/a>, and the province of Africa in 146 after the Third Punic War<\/a>. That fifty-year pause from 197 to 147 sees the Roman “standard operating procedures” in the provinces become codified into strong norms that influence how later provinces are governed. Asia is incorporated as a province in 133 after being bequeathed to Rome by its last king, Attalus III, who doubtless expected the Romans to pick a successor, but politics in Rome made its annexation convenient, so annexed it was. Then Gallia Narbonesis<\/em> in 120, followed by a slew of eastern provinces in the 60s, most a result of Pompey<\/a>‘s campaigns: Creta et Cyrenae<\/em> (Crete and Cyrenaica), Bithynia et Pontus<\/em>, Syria and Cilicia. […] In each case, those neat “years of incorporation” can be deceptive, because they typically come at the end of years \u2013 and in some cases decades \u2013 of regular military activity in the region. While Macedonia is regarded as “becoming a province” in 147, Roman generals had been being assigned the provincia<\/em> of Macedonia on-and-off since 200 and the start of the Second Macedonian War. Moreover, even after this point the province remained an active combat zone with its outward-facing borders ill-defined and offering Roman magistrates assigned there considerable latitude for offensive action, as Cicero<\/a> can quip as late as 55 that the borders of Macedonia “were those of swords and javelins” (Cic. In Pisonem<\/em> 38), which is to say, they projected as far as the Roman army could take them.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Publicani<\/em> (Roman tax farmers)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nDuring the Middle and Late Roman Republic, the job of extracting tax revenue from the provinces<\/a> was too administratively complex for the limited machinery of the Republic, so instead the senate<\/a> directed the censors<\/a> to auction the right to collect taxes. Groups of Roman businessmen (and often silent patrician<\/a> partners) would group resources together to bid for the right to collect taxes from a province \u2013 any taxes they took in excess of that figure would be their profit. These companies could be very<\/em> large indeed. For instance, parts of the lex portorii Asiae<\/em> (the customs laws for the Roman province of Asia) survive and include regulations for the relevant company including a slew of customs houses and guard posts (the law is incomplete, but mentions more than 30 collection points \u2013 all major ports \u2013 to which would also need to be added posts along the land routes into the province). From other evidence we know that the staff at customs posts included armed guards along with the expected tax collectors and bookkeepers. And we know that publicani<\/em> were sometimes delegated local or Roman forces to do their work (e.g. Cic. Ad Att<\/em>. 114, using Shackleton Bailey’s numbering). They also maintained the closest thing the Roman Republic had to a postal service (Cic. Ad Att<\/em>. 108). It’s not clear exactly how many employees one of the larger tax collection companies might have had (and those for the province of Asia \u2013 equivalent to the west coast of Anatolia \u2013 would have been some of the largest), but it was clearly considerable, as were the sums of money involved. […] We certainly know that these publicani<\/em> often collected substantially far more than was due to them under the law (the reason why “tax collector” and “sinner” seem to be nearly synonymous in the New Testament). […] Every five years when the censors<\/a> were elected, one of their jobs would be to let out public contracts; of old, those were for things like road maintenance and so on. But they would also, as Rome’s empire expanded, let out contracts on taxes. The form of these contracts was that the publicanus<\/em> (almost always in its plural, publicani<\/em>) would put a bid of the estimated five-year tax revenue of the province in question. The winning bid \u2013 whichever was highest \u2013 would then put up property as surety equal in value to the bid and then have to deliver annually one fifth of the bid each year until the whole amount was discharged. Of course then any amount collected above the value of the bid was profit which the publicani<\/em> \u2013 the tax farmers \u2013 could keep. In turn, they were expected to run the entire complex apparatus of tax collection. Now as you might imagine, five years of tax income for an entire province<\/em> might be an enormous<\/em> amount of money, requiring a tremendous<\/em> amount of property be put up as surety. In order to manage that, aspiring publicani<\/em> would band together into companies called societates<\/em> (sing. societas<\/em>) to pool enough wealth together to bid on the contracts. These weren’t quite joint-stock corporations, in part because Roman law<\/a> doesn’t recognize corporate persons, but to some degree liability was limited because the societas<\/em> only risked the property put up as surety. That said, having such a societas<\/em> go bankrupt could be absolutely ruinous<\/em> to the investors and indeed the prospect of one such societas<\/em> going bankrupt (it is the societas<\/em> of tax farmers for the vectigalia<\/em> of the province of Asia, which would have been a massive<\/em> venture) is a major motivator of the political tensions leading up to Julius Caesar<\/a>‘s election as consul<\/a> in 59.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Pugio<\/em> (dagger)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[The backup weapon of the legionary.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Punic Wars<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki: First (264-241 BC)<\/a>, Second (218-201 BC)<\/a>, and Third (149-146 BC)<\/a>]
\n[Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook did a video on The First Punic War<\/a> as part of their The Rest Is History<\/em> podcast. Thersites the Historian<\/em> did a video on Carthage’s strategic situation in the Second Punic War<\/a>. Sean Gabb has posted several videos covering the First Punic War<\/a>, the period between the first and second Punic Wars<\/a>, and the Second Punic War<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Pyrrhic War (280-275 BC)<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Struggle between the Roman Republic and forces led by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus over the independence of the Greek colony of Tarentum. Noteworthy for giving us the concept of a “Pyrrhic Victory” where the losses of the winner are so terrible that they are only slightly better off than the losers. It was also the first war that pitted Roman troops against war elephants.]
\nThe Greek cities in southern Italy now at last recognize their peril and call in Pyrrhus of Epirus to try to beat back Rome, leading to the Pyrrhic War (280-275). Pyrrhus wins some initial battles but \u2013 famously \u2013 at such cost that he is unable to win the war. Pyrrhus withdraws in 275 and Rome is then able over the next few years to mop up the Greek cities in Southern Italy, with the ringleader, Tarentum, falling to Rome in 272. Rome imposed treaties on them, too, pulling them into the alliance system. Thus, by 264 Rome’s alliance system covered essentially the whole of Italy South of the Po River. It had emerged as an ad hoc<\/em> system and admittedly our sources don’t give us a good sense of how and when the terms of the alliance change; in many cases it seems our sources, writing much later, may not know. They have the foedus Cassianum<\/em>, with its rather more equal terms, and knowledge of the system as it seems to have existed in the late third century and the dates and wars by which this or that community was voluntarily or forcibly integrated, but not the details of by what terms and so on.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Quaestor<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe first major office of the cursus honorum<\/em><\/a> was the quaestor<\/em>ship. The number of quaestors<\/em> elected grows over time. Initially just two, their number is increased to four in 421 (two assigned to Rome, one to each of the consuls<\/a>) and then to six in the 260s (initially handling the fleet, then later to assist Roman praetors<\/em><\/a> or pro-magistrates in the provinces) and then eight in 227. There may<\/em> have been two more added to make ten somewhere in the Middle Republic, but recent scholarship has cast doubt on this, so the number may have remained eight until being expanded to twenty under Sulla<\/a> in 81 BC through the aptly named lex Cornelia de XX quaestoribus<\/em> (the Cornelian Law on Twenty Quaestors). It’s not clear if there was a legal minimum age for the quaestors<\/em> and we only know the ages of a few (25, 27, 29 and 30, for the curious) so all we can say is that officeholders tended to hold the office in their twenties, right after finishing their mandatory stint of military service. Serving as a quaestor enables entrance into the Senate<\/a>, though one has to wait for the next census to be added to the Senate rolls by the censors<\/a>. […] [In a Consular army<\/a>, the quaestor<\/em> was] a much more junior magistrate than the imperium<\/em><\/a>-haver (but senior to the military tribunes<\/a>), he handles pay and probably in the middle Republican period also supply. That said, the quaestor<\/em> is not usually the general’s “number two” even though it seems like he might be; quaestors<\/em> are quite junior magistrates and the imperium<\/em>-haver has probably brought friends or advisors<\/a> with a lot more experience than his quaestor<\/em> (who may or may not be someone the imperium<\/em>-haver knows or likes). [As part of Sulla’s reforms, those who serve as questors<\/em> are automatically made members of the Senate at the end of their term of office (previously, the promotion would have to wait until the next censors were elected).]
\n[Historia Civilis<\/em> did a short video on this<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Raphia<\/strong>, 217 BC.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Battle fought between Pharaoh Ptolemy IV Philopater<\/em> of Egypt and Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid Empire in what is now the Gaza Strip.]<\/p>\n

<\/a>Republic or de res publica<\/em><\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Beginning in 509 BC, after the final king was exiled, the Romans established a new form of government for themselves, de res publica<\/em>, which lasted with many disruptions and modifications until 27BC when Augustus formally established the Principate<\/a>.] The Romans had no written constitution and indeed most of the rules for how the Roman Republic functioned were, well, customary<\/em>. The Roman term for this was the mos maiorum<\/em><\/a>, the “custom of the ancestors”. In practice, the idea here was that the “constitution” of the Republic consisting in doing things as they had always been done, or at least as they were understood to have always been done. Consequently, as historians, we adopt the formulation that the Republic is what the Republic does<\/strong> \u2013 that is that one determines the rules of offices and laws based on how they are implemented, not through a hard-and-fast firm legal framework. […] The Latin term for the republic was, naturally enough, res publica<\/em> (from which the modern word republic derives). Res<\/em> is a very common, earthy sort of Latin word whose closest English equivalent is probably “matter”, with that wide range of possible meanings. Res<\/em> can mean a “thing” more generally, “matter” in the scientific sense, but also in an abstract sense it can be an interest, a cause, a court case or other set of events, or property generally. Meanwhile publica<\/em> means “public”, in the sense of something held in common or collectively or done for the collective good or interest. That gives res publica<\/em> a wonderful kaleidoscope of meaning \u2013 it is the collective property (the “commonwealth”) of the citizenry but also the communal affairs, the matters of collective concern, the actions undertaken for the public benefit and indeed even the public benefit itself. <\/p>\n

<\/a>Religious ritual in Roman religion<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n… with that out of the way, all that’s left is to do is ritually clean ourselves, don our toga and veil our heads, stage our ritual procession, conduct our offerings of incense and pour out a wine libation<\/em> (a poured liquid offering), say our prayer, wash our hands again and then get on with it (those are, as a side note, real steps before an actual Roman sacrificial ceremony; it is not an exhaustive list). […] religious rituals are meant to have (and will<\/em> have, so the believer believes, if everything is done properly) real effects in both the spiritual world and the physical world. That is, your ritual will first effect a change<\/em> in the god (making them better disposed to you) and second that will effect a change<\/em> in the physical world we inhabit (as the god’s power is deployed in your favor). But to reiterate, because this is key: the purpose of ritual<\/em> (in ancient, polytheistic religious systems) is to produce a concrete, earthly result<\/em>. It is not to improve our mood or morals, but to make crops grow, rain fall, armies win battles, business deals turn out well, ships sail, winds blow. While some rituals in these religions do concern themselves with the afterlife or other seemingly purely spiritual concerns (the lines between earthly and spiritual in those cases are somewhat blurrier in these religions than we often think them to be now), the great majority of rituals are squarely focused on what is happening around us, and are performed because they do something<\/em>. This is the practical<\/em> side of practical knowledge; the ritual in polytheistic religion does not (usually) alter you<\/em> in some way \u2013 it alters the world (spiritual and physical) around you<\/em> in some way. Consequently, ritual is employed as a tool<\/em> \u2013 this problem is solved by a wrench, that problem by a hammer, and this other problem by a ritual. Some rituals are preventative maintenance (say, we regularly observe this ritual so this god is always<\/em> well disposed to us, so that they do X, Y, and Z on the regular), others are a response to crisis, but they are all tools<\/em> to shape the world (again, physical and spiritual) around us. If a ritual carries a moral duty, it is only because (we’ll get to this a bit more later) other people in your community are counting on you<\/em> to do it; it is a moral duty the same way that, as an accountant, not embezzling money is a moral duty. Failure lets other people<\/em> (not yourself and not even really the gods) down. I want to stress that these rituals are practical solutions to everyday problems<\/em>. We focus a lot on the big rituals carried out by ancient states (in part because these tend to be rituals for the “big” gods that we find in mythology), but the great majority of religious activity were small rituals for smaller concerns. A religious festival to encourage the harvest, a small sacrifice for a loved one who got better after being sick, a ritual for safe childbirth (always a dangerous thing before modern medicine) and so on. […] Moreover, it was absolutely essential that the ritual be carried out with exact correctness. As Pliny<\/a> notes [that] a ritual procession to a sacrifice<\/a> included not only the magistrate making the sacrifice, but one attendant who carried the written formula for the ritual (so that no mistakes were made), a second whose job was to make sure the magistrate said all of the words correctly, a third who was to silence the crowd so no unfavorable omen was uttered (it wouldn\u2019t do to have the god take an inadvertent word as an insult, or as a part of the formal request!), and a fourth playing the flute so that any words (the whispered chatter of the crowd) uttered that were not part of the ritual formula would not be heard. Pliny is quite certain that failures in this regard have in the past caused the organs of the sacrificial animal to spontaneously malform, indicating divine disapproval.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Rights of Roman women<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nDemographically, functionally all women in Roman society married at least once and Roman law effectively assumes this. Prior to marriage, girls are in the potestas<\/em> [legal power] of their father, like sons. Legally, this might or might not change with marriage. Roman marriages came in two legal types, cum manu<\/em> and sine manu<\/em>, “with” and “without” “the hand”. Manus<\/em>, “the hand” here is another word for potestas<\/em>, so really what this means is, “with the transfer of legal power” (cum manu<\/em>) and “without the transfer of legal power” (sine manu<\/em>). Under a cum manu<\/em> marriage, a women essentially had the same legal status as a daughter to her husband, with her property becoming his property, even if she had before been sui iuris<\/em> (legally independent), but she also becomes one of his heirs. Under a sine manu<\/em> marriage, her legal position doesn’t change, she remains an heir to father but not her husband \u2013 essentially legally positioned much like her brothers. The real significance of this, of course, is that women’s husbands are likely to be younger than their fathers and given ancient life expectancy, unlikely to live through their daughter’s whole adulthood. That in turn matters because sine manu<\/em> marriages are clearly the most common sort by the Late Republic and probably even by the Middle Republic; the concern here is probably not the independence of daughters but rather the desire of fathers to keep any property willed to their daughters in their own family line, rather than it becoming the property of her husband (and his family). And that matters because a woman with no pater familias<\/em><\/a> became sui iuris<\/em>. In practice the combination of Roman life expectancy with the preference for sine manu<\/em> marriage meant that there would have been a significant number of women who were sui iuris<\/em> in Rome at any given time, thus holding their own property in their own name and conducting their own business. Those women might choose to remarry, but do so sine manu<\/em> so as to retain their legal independence. Now Roman women remained under all circumstances shut out of the “public” functions in society: they could not vote, hold office, or participate in public trials. But Roman private law proceeded on the assumption that, unless specified otherwise \u2013 and it usually was not \u2013 a sui iuris<\/em> women was not legally different from a sui iuris<\/em> man; and recall most of the law here is private. Consequently, Roman women could hold property, execute contracts, do business, make wills, bring suit against people, and be sued themselves. That is a lot more legal latitude than women had in basically any other ancient society I know of and that’s well worth comment. However, women who were sui iuris<\/em> were required to have a legal guardian, a tutor<\/em>, however the tutores<\/em> of adult women had a lot less power, being only able to veto her decisions and only under certain circumstances. Moreover, an adult woman was typically able to choose her own guardian and this was a continuing right; she could replace a guardian too. Interestingly, her sine manu<\/em> husband had no say at all in this process \u2013 her choice of tutor<\/em> did not need to be him (though it could be) nor did it need to be acceptable to him. It seems to have been common, at least by the late Republic, for women of means to choose guardians over whom they had significant control, such as their own freedman.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Roman calendar<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nThe Roman calendar is kind of a moving target: at some very early point the Romans seem to have had a calendar with ten months, with December as the last month, March as the first month and no January or February. That said while you will hear a lot of folk history crediting Julius Caesar<\/a> with the creation of two extra months (July and August) that’s not right; those months (called Quintilis and Sextilis) were already on the calendar. By the time we can see the Roman calendar, it has twelve months of variable lengths (355 days total) with an “intercalary month” inserted every other year to “reset” the calendar to the seasons. That calendar, which still started in March (sitting where it does, seasonally, as it does for us), the Romans attributed to the legendary-probably-not-a-real-person King Numa<\/a>, which means in any case even by the Middle Republic it was so old no one knew when it started (Plut. Numa<\/em> 18; Liv 1.19.6-7). The shift from March to January as the first month in turn happens in 153 BC (Liv. Per<\/em>. 47.13), probably for political reasons<\/a>. We still use this calendar (more or less) and that introduces some significant oddities in the reckoning of dates that are recorded by the Roman calendar. See, because the length of the year (355 days) did not match the length of a solar year (famously 365 days and change), the months “drifted” over the calendar a little bit; during the first century BC when things were so chaotic that intercalary months were missed, the days might drift a lot. This problem is what Julius Caesar fixed [in his role as Pontifex maximus<\/em><\/a>], creating a 365 day calendar in 46; to “reset” the year for his new calendar he then extended the year 46 to 445 days.
\n[See the Historia Civilis<\/em> video on “The Longest Year in Human History”<\/a> for their take on it. Historia Civilis<\/em> also did a short video on Roman families and the Roman calendar<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

<\/a>Roman citizenship<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\nAs with other ancient self-governing citizen bodies, the populus Romanus<\/em> (the Roman people \u2013 an idea that was defined by citizenship) restricted political participation to adult citizen males (actual office holding was further restricted to adult citizen males with military experience, Plb. 6.19.1-3). And we should note at the outset that citizenship was stratified both by legal status and also by wealth; the Roman Republic openly and actively counted the votes of the wealthy more heavily than those of the poor, for instance. So let us avoid the misimpression that Rome was an egalitarian society; it was not. The most common way to become a Roman citizen was by birth, though the Roman law on this question is more complex and centers on the Roman legal concept of conubium<\/em><\/a> \u2013 the right to marry and produce legally recognized heirs under Roman law. […] Romans were a lot more comfortable with open<\/em> hierarchy and status distinctions among the citizenry and so those distinctions were public and formalized in ways that would have been socially unacceptable in a Greek polis<\/em><\/a>. Roman law<\/a> still shows a lot of concern for protecting the basic dignity of free citizens, but once that baseline is guarded, it is a lot more OK with some free citizens being “big men” and other being “small men”. Naturally the first distinction is between citizens \u2013 cives<\/em> \u2013 and non-citizens. While Greek thinking tends to understand the politai<\/em> as an exclusively male, self-replicating “club” of families, Roman citizenship is more expansive. For one, while it is ambiguous if women were considered citizens of Greekpoleis<\/em>, it is very<\/em> clear<\/em> that Roman women were cives<\/em>, albeit cives<\/em> with heavily restricted civic rights. There is thus no need in Rome for a class of “women of citizen status”, because Roman women were simply citizens and could, in the right circumstances, pass on that citizenship to children. That has all sorts of follow-on implications: Roman women were valid targets of wills and bequests, they could own and inherit property, they could act as witnesses in court, bring court cases and indeed even argue such cases themselves (though that was rare), because those were the prerogatives of citizens. Which Roman women were. That said, political participation was limited to adult citizen males<\/strong>, with most offices having age requirements to serve. Outside of the cives<\/em>, there are Latini<\/em> (“Latins”, non-Romans under the ius latinum<\/em>, “the Latin right”. by the late third century these are rarely ethnic Latins who mostly have Roman citizenship at that date, but other communities of socii<\/em><\/a> or residents of the “Latin colonies”), socii<\/em> (allies whose communities have a relationship with Rome, but are not Latins), peregreni<\/em> (foreigners whose communities have no alliance with Rome) and servi<\/em> (slaves). And we shouldn’t leave this merely implied: Rome was very much<\/em> a slave society with a large enslaved underclass who were on the whole very poorly treated; enslaved people probably made up something like 15-20% of the population of Roman Italy in this period. There is also an odd category, cives sine suffragio<\/em>, “citizens without the vote”, who were members of Italian communities who couldn’t participate in Roman politics but who had the valuable legal rights of Roman citizens (under the ius civilis<\/em>) rather than the more limited rights of foreigners (under the ius gentium<\/em>). Finally, another odd category are liberti<\/em>, freedpersons<\/a>. These were enslaved people freed by Roman masters; such individuals gained Roman citizenship but with a few disabilities, like the inability to hold major magistracies or generally to serve in the army (but their children would be freeborn Romans with no such limitations).<\/p>\n

<\/a>Roman kings<\/strong>.
\n[Wiki<\/a>]
\n[Rome was believed (by the Romans) to have been founded by Romulus<\/a> in 753 BC. After the death of Romulus in 716 BC, they believed there were six more kings before the last king was driven out by the first Brutus and the Republic founded in 509 BC:<\/p>\n