The First Man in Rome (132 page)

Druentia River  
The modern Durance, in France.

Druidism  
The major Celtic religion, particularly in Gallia Comata and in Britannia; its priests were called Druids. Druidic headquarters were located in the area of Long-haired Gaul inhabited by the Carnutes. A mystical and naturalistic cult, Druidism did not appeal in the least to any of the Mediterranean peoples, who considered its tenets bizarre.

Duria Major River  
The modern Dora Baltea, in northern Italy.

Duria Minor River
The modern Dora Riparia, in northern Italy.

ecastor
The exclamation of surprise or amazement considered polite and permissible for women to utter. Its root suggests it invoked Castor.

edepol
The exclamation of surprise or amazement men uttered in the company of women, as sufficiently polite. Its root suggests it invoked Pollux.

Elysium
Republican Romans had no real belief in the intact survival of the individual after death, though they did believe in an underworld and in "shades," which were rather mindless and characterless effigies of the dead. However, to both Greeks and Romans, certain men were considered by the gods to have lived lives of sufficient glory (rather than merit) to warrant their being preserved after death in a place called Elysium, or the Elysian Fields. Even so, these privileged shades were mere wraiths, and could re-experience human emotions and appetites only after a meal of blood.

emporium
The word had two meanings. It could denote a seaport whose commercial life was all tied up in maritime trade (the island of Delos was an emporium). Or it could denote a large building on the waterfront of a port where importers and exporters had their offices.

Epicure, Epicurean
An adherent of the school of philosophy founded by the Greek Epicurus during the early third century B.C. Personally Epicurus had advocated a brand of hedonism so exquisitely refined it approached asceticism on its left hand, so to speak; a man's pleasures had to be so relished and strung out and savored that any excess defeated the purpose of the exercise. Public life or any other stressful kind of occupation was forbidden. In Rome especially, these tenets underwent considerable modification, so that a Roman nobleman could call himself an Epicure, yet espouse a public career.

Epirus
The Molossian and Thesprotian area of western Greece, isolated from the mainstream of Greek culture by the Gulf of Corinth and the high mountains of central Greece, for there were few passes into Thessaly or Boeotia. After the defeat of Macedonia by Aemilius Paullus in 167 B.C., some 150,000 Epirote people were deported, leaving the country depopulated and helpless. By the time of Gaius Marius, it was largely the fief of absentee Roman landlords who grazed vast herds for wool and leather.

Eporedia
Modern Ivrea, in northern Italy.

ethnarch
The Greek term for a city magistrate.

Etruria
The Latin name for what had once been the Kingdom of the Etruscans. It incorporated the wide coastal plains of northwestern peninsular Italy, from the Tiber in the south to the Arnus in the north, and east to the Apennines of the upper Tiber.

Euxine Sea
The modern Black Sea. It was extensively explored and colonized by the Greeks during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., but behind its coasts in its upper regions both on the European side (Sarmatia) and the Asian side (Scythia), the land remained barbarian. Trade routes were many, however, and jealously guarded. Whoever controlled the Thracian Bosporus, the Propontis, and the Hellespont was in a position to levy duty or passage fees between the Euxine and the Aegean; in the time of Gaius Marius, this control belonged to the Kingdom of Bithynia.

faction
The term usually applied by modern scholars to Roman Republican political groups. These can in no way be called political parties, for they were extremely flexible, and their membership changed continually. Rather than form around an ideology, the Roman faction formed around a man of formidable
auctoritas
and
dignitas.
I have completely avoided the terms "Optimate" and "Popularis" because I do not wish to give any impression that political parties existed.

Fannius paper
A Roman Fannius who lived at some time between 150 and 130 B.C. took the worst grade of papyrus paper and subjected it to a treatment which turned it into paper as good as the best hieratical grade. The Brothers Gracchi used Fannius paper, which is how we know when Fannius must have invented his treatment. Fannius paper was far cheaper to buy than hieratical Egyptian paper, as well as easy to obtain.

Fanum Fortunae
Modern Fano, in Italy.

fasces
These were bundles of birch rods ceremonially tied together in a crisscross pattern by red leather thongs. Originally an emblem of the old Etruscan kings, they persisted in Roman public life throughout the Republic and into the Empire. Carried by men called lictors, they preceded the curule magistrate (and the proconsul and propraetor as well) as a symbol of his imperium. Within the
pomerium,
only the rods went into the bundles, to signify that the curule magistrate had only the power to chastise; outside the
pomerium,
axes were inserted into the bundles, to signify that the curule magistrate also had the power to execute. The number
of fasces
indicated the degree of imperium—a dictator had twenty-four, a consul or proconsul twelve, a praetor or propraetor six, and a curule aedile two.

fasti
The Latin word for "holidays," which has come to mean the calendar as a whole. The calendar was divided into
dies fasti
and
dies nefasti,
and was published by being attached to the walls of various buildings, including the Regia and the rostra. It told the Roman what days of the year he could use for business, what days were available for meetings of the Comitia, what days were holidays, what days ill-omened, and when the movable feasts were going to fall. With the year set at 355 days, the calendar was rarely synchronized with the seasons—save when the College of Pontifices took its duties seriously, and intercalated an extra twenty days every two years, after the month of February. Normally the college didn't bother, as Romans found it hard to see the point of the exercise. The days in each month were not calculated as we do, in a simple consecutive counting-off—March 1, March 2, etc.—the days were counted backward from one of three nodal points: the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides. Thus, instead of March 3, a Roman would say "four days before the Nones of March," and instead of March 28, he would say "four days before the Kalends of April." To us, very confusing! But not to the Romans.