paludamentum

The horse was not in the least like a Greek horse (nor even a Trojan), and F.M. the Duke of Wellington was not represented with the ensis or short sword in his grasp, the chlamys flying from his shoulder, or the paludamentum, as more suitable for the cool of the English climate (totidem divisos orbe &c.), the kothornos on his leg, the galea slung at the crupper? no reins, and his naked nether-man, not (as in these precious models) seated on the bare back of the bull-necked, square-jawed, dray-limbed steed.

1847, “The Wellington Statue”, in The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., London, page 523, column 2:

(historical, Ancient Rome) A military cloak worn by a general and his principal officers, fastened at one shoulder.


Pannonia

Borrowed from Latin Pannonia, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pen- (“moist; wet; mud; swamp; water”), thus meaning “fenland”.

der

A province of the Roman Empire in the western part of modern Hungary and adjacent regions.


armilla

Borrowed from Latin armilla. Doublet of armill.

(Ancient Rome) An armband awarded as a military decoration in Ancient Rome.


euhemerism

en-noun

euhemerism (usually uncountable, plural euhemerisms)

From Euhemerus + -ism, ultimately from Latin Euhēmerus, from Ancient Greek Εὐήμερος (Euḗmeros), an ancient Greek Sicilian Skeptic who proposed most or all mythology derived from historical figures and natural events which received supernatural characteristics only through retelling.

In regard to the Thracian god Zalmosis, the Hellespontic Greeks interpreted his character and attributes according to the scheme of Euemerism.

1846, George Grote, History of Greece, volume I, page 596:

Then again there was a period of what is sometimes called Euhemerism - the theory that the gods and goddesses had actually once been men and women, historical characters round whom a halo of romance and remoteness had gathered.

1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 10:

(uncountable) The belief that legends and mythology arise from exaggerated descriptions of historical people and events.

يُوهَيْمِرِيَّة

attribution of a historical origin to myths and legends


modius

Learned borrowing from Latin modius, from modus (“a measure”) + -ius (adjective-forming suffix). Doublet of muid and mud. See also almud and almude.

(historical) A Roman dry measure of about a peck or 9 litres.


Illyria

From Latin Illyria, from Ancient Greek Ἰλλυρία (Illuría), which may be from Illyrian.

A region in Southeast Europe, the western part of what is now the Balkan Peninsula that was inhabited by the Illyrians, ancient Indo-European people.


exceptor

(Ancient Rome) A hired legal representative or advocate in court.


trophæal

/tɹəʊˈfiːəl/

From the Latin tropaeum, trophaeum (“trophy, monument to victory in war”); suffixing to the stem trophæ- the suffix -al.

This place contains ſo many remarkable remains, and collections ſo curious, that we are ſorry to paſs by it curſorily. We adviſe the reader and the traveller to be leſs haſty. The trophæal arch and the ſepulchral monument, at Glanum Livii, a colony probably eſtabliſhed by M. Livius Druſus Libo, afford alſo ſeveral circumſtances, which will intereſt the attentive traveller.

1788?: Tobias George Smollett [ed.], The Critical Review: or, Annals of Literature, volume 65, page 454

[…H]e would have ſeen with what an endeavour at accuracy (in pages 36, 7, 8) I have diſtinguiſhed trophæal monuments, erected on the fields of battle by the generals and their armies, from triumphal arches, erected by the authority of government, after theſe generals had been admitted to the honour of a triumph.

1795, Thomas Pownall, An Antiquarian Romance, Endeavouring to Mark a Line, by Which the Most Ancient People, and the Processions of the Earliest Inhabitancy of Europe, May Be Investigated, page 197:

(Roman antiquity, of a monument or memorial) Erected without Senatical grant by a prevailing general as a trophy (or tropæum) commemorating a battle in which he was victorious; compare triumphal.


tropæum

/tɹəʊˈpiːəm/

From the Latin tropaeum (“trophy”, “tropæum”). Doublet of trophy.

(historical) A monument erected (originally on the field of battle) by the prevailing army (without Senatical grant — contrast triumph) to commemorate victory in war, featuring spoils taken from the enemy (especially the personal arms of the vanquished general), and dedicated to an appropriate god (such as Mars).


velarium

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-velarium.wav

(historical) An awning that stretched over the seating area of the Colosseum in Ancient Rome and other Roman amphitheaters.


confarreation

confarreation (countable and uncountable, plural confarreations)

(Ancient Rome) A form of marriage in Ancient Rome that was solemnized with cakes made from far (emmer)

confarreatio

Ancient Roman marriage solemnized with spelt cakes


tripus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin tripūs, from Ancient Greek τρίπους (trípous); doublet of tripod and teapoy. In the sense associated with Cambridge University, the Tripus is named after the three-legged stool on which he sat during the degree-awarding ceremony.

(obsolete, rare, in the history of Cambridge University, capitalised when used as a title) A Bachelor of Arts appointed to make satirical strictures in humorous dispute with the candidates at a degree-awarding ceremony; tripos, prevaricator.

tripod

three-legged vessel in Greek and Roman antiquities


Antonius

Marcus Antonius

nomen gentilicium
nomen gentilicium#English


Fiume

Borrowed from Italian Fiume, from Latin Flūmen, from flūmen (“river”).

(historical) A former polity in Europe, between 1920–1924.


penates

From Latin Penātēs, from penus (“inner part of house”).

lest the name thereof being discovered unto their enemies, their Penates and Patronal Gods might be called forth by charms and incantations.

1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I.3:

(Roman mythology) The household deities thought to watch over the houses and storerooms of ancient Rome.


principate

principate (countable and uncountable, plural principates)

Learned borrowing from Latin prīncipātus, referring to the titles prīnceps senātūs (“first among senators”) and prīnceps cīvitātis (“first among citizens”), adopted by Octavian Caesar Augustus in order to preserve the illusion of formal continuance of some aspects of the Roman Republic.

lbor

Coordinate term: dominate

1967, Richard Alexander Bauman, The Crimen Maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate, Witwatersrand University Press.:

The history of the courts and of judicial procedure during the principate is closely parallel to that of the government as a whole.

1972, H. F. Jolowicz, Barry Nicholas, A Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 3rd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 395:

The transition from republic to Principate brought a new and potent factor into the legal picture of the Roman state, the princeps or emperor.

1978, A. Arthur Schiller, Roman Law: Mechanisms of Development, Walter de Gruyter (Mouton Publishers), page 463:

1996, Clare Krojzl (translator), Sebastian Hensel, III: From Diocletian to Alaric [1886, lecture notes], Theodor Mommsen (editor), A History of Rome Under the Emperors, C.H.Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Republished 2005, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), eBook, page 317,
The dominate of Diocletian and Constantine differs more sharply from the principate than the latter does from the Republic.

In the introductory chapter I had already started to examine how Tacitus' designation of the Augustan regime as a versus status potentially draws a line of continuity between the principate and the civil wars which that regime claims to have resolved.

2000, Ellen O'Gorman, Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus, Cambridge University Press, page 23:

(Ancient Rome) The early period of the Roman Empire, during which some characteristics of the government of the Roman Republic were retained; the reign of any particular emperor during said period.


laconicum

From Latin Lacōnicum (“sweating room”, literally “Spartan [bath]”).

bor

A hot dry sweating room, next to the caldarium in the Roman baths.


talaria

From Latin tālāria, plural form of tālāris (“of or pertaining to the ankle or heel”), from tālus (“anklebone, talus; heel”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- (“to touch”).

refn

From the collection of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, California, USA.

der

Byres has drawn these figures with wings at their ankles, sometimes fastened to the leg, and sometimes like those at their shoulders, growing from the flesh—in both which ways the talaria of Mercury and Perseus are represented on ancient monuments. Nothing of this sort could I perceive; it was manifest to me that these were not talaria, but simple buskins with peaked flaps, such as are commonly depicted on vases of the archaic Greek style, and on the legs of Roman Lares in the paintings of Pompeii.

1848, George Dennis, “Bieda.—Blera.”, in The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. … In Two Volumes, volume I, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, footnote 10, page 319:

From the Graiæ the literary myths make him [Perseus] go to the Nymphs, the artistic ones to the Naiads or nymphs of the lake Tritonis, from which he receives the helmet of Hades, the kibisis or wallet, and the talaria or winged sandals. [...] Other versions made him receive the helmet and talaria from Hermes. On the early monuments the helmet of Hades is like the petasus of Hermes, and the sandals are winged, but in many other works of art, such as mirrors or gems, the talaria are represented as wings, which he attaches to his feet.

1854 May 25, Samuel Birch, “V. On a Vase Representing an Adventure of Perseus.”, in Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, London: Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London; printed by J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Sons, […], published 1855, →OCLC, page 56:

With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.

1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Baker Farm”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 225:

It was the god Hermes, he who conducted souls to the Elysian fields, the slender, agile, elegant figure, beautiful in its sinuous motion, with the petasus on his head and the winged talaria on his ankles, that I beheld floating over me.

1867 May, W. W. S., “A Modern Magician”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CI, number DCXIX, Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 566:

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) The winged sandals worn by certain gods and goddesses, especially the Roman god Mercury (and his Greek counterpart Hermes).


Octavian

From Latin Octavianus, derivative of Octāvius.

(historical) A male given name from Latin, notably borne by Augustus (Caesar) between 44 and 27 BCE


triumpher

(historical, Ancient Rome) Someone who was honoured with a triumph; a victorious soldier.


eparchy

Via Late Latin eparchia from Koine Greek ἐπαρχία (eparkhía, “province; prefecture”), from Ancient Greek ἔπαρχος (éparkhos, “commander, governor; prefect, eparch”) from ἐπι- (epi-, “on, upon; over”) + ἀρχός (arkhós, “ruler”); equivalent to epi- + -archy.

af

(historical, Ancient Rome) A district of the Roman Empire at the third echelon


sextarius

en-noun

sextarius (plural sextariuses or sextarii)

From Latin sextārius (“one-sixth”), from sextus (“sixth”) + -ārius (“-ary: forming adj.”). Doublet of sextary.

(historical) A Roman unit of dry measure.


Juventas

(Roman mythology) The goddess of youth, and a daughter of Jupiter and Juno. Juventas was the cupbearer of the gods until she married her paternal halfbrother, Hercules, with whom she had twin sons, Alexiares and Anicetus. She is the Roman counterpart of Hebe.


Virgilian

en-adj

Virgilian (comparative more Virgilian, superlative most Virgilian)

more Virgilian (comparative)
most Virgilian (superlative)

This Virgilian diversion, together with the spectral thoughts incident to All Hallows’ Eve with its Witch-Sabbaths on the hills, produced in me last Monday night a Roman dream of such supernal clearness and vividness, and such titanic adumbrations of hidden horror, that I verily believe I shall some day employ it in fiction.

1927, H. P. Lovecraft, The Very Old Folk:

Through Mr. Burroughs, he met the other future luminaries of the Beat Generation and became, in the words of Mr. Burroughs's biographer, Ted Morgan, “a sort of Virgilian guide to the lower depths.”

1990 June 10, Jan Herman, quoting Ted Morgan, “The Beatnick's Beatnick”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Not a single extant Virgilian manuscript survives from the ninth century, despite the number of ninth-century manuscripts of Virgil's works and commentaries on his works.

2008, Jan M. Ziolkowski, Michael C. J. Putnam, The Virgilian tradition: the first fifteen hundred years, →ISBN, page 439:

Of or pertaining to Virgil (Roman writer)


pignus

Thirdly, pignus is the object itself upon which the creditor acquires such real right.

1851, Sir Patrick MacChombaich de Colquhoun, A Summary of the Roman Civil Law, page 392:

Pledge is the pignus of the Roman law; and it is from this source that most of the principles governing the subject are derived.

1895, Thomas Beven, Negligence in Law, page 937:

A commonly accepted notion is that pignus is not a generic term at all; that it is limited (1) to movables, and particularly (2) to the pledgee's possession.

1898, Harvard Law Review, volume 11, page 23:

A pignus can be given for other reasons besides money, as where one gives someone a pignus against his acting as guarantor.

1998, Alan Watson, quoting Ulpian, Edict, book 28, The Digest of Justinian, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN:

Pignus was created by traditio, which is by surrender of civilis possessio to the chargee.

2004 August 26, Eva-Maria Kieninger, editor, Security Rights in Movable Property in European Private Law, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 41:

(law, obsolete, Ancient Rome) A pledge or pawn.


Solarium

From Latin Solarium Augusti (“Solarium of Augustus”).

A large monument in ancient Rome and its modern ruins.


deductor

From deduct + -or under influence from Latin dēductor.

One who deducts something, particularly one who deducts tax from wages or deducts certain expenditures from payment of tax.


deductor

From Latin dēductor (“guide; founder”). See deduce.

(historical) The formal patron of a Roman colony.


Gallo-Roman

(historical) A Romanized Gaul, i.e. a Gaulish person who adopted or adapted the culture, language etc. of the Roman Empire following the establishment of Roman rule in the region of Gaul.


quinquennalia

en-noun

quinquennalia (plural quinquennalia or quinquennalias)

quinquennalia (plural)
quinquennalias (plural)

From Latin quīnquennālia, from quīnquennium (“5-year period”) + -ālia (“-alia: forming the names of festivals”), from quīnquennis (“5-year”) + -ium (“-ium: forming abstract nouns”). Equivalent to quinquennium + -alia.

(historical) The festival and religious rituals sometimes observed celebrating a Roman emperor's 5th year of rule.


tripudium

(historical) A solemn religious dance of the Ancient Romans, performed in triple time.


euhemerization

euhemerization (countable and uncountable, plural euhemerizations)

/juːˌhiːməɹɪzˈeɪʃən/

From euhemerize + -ation, ultimately from Latin Euhēmerus, from Ancient Greek Εὐήμερος (Euḗmeros), an ancient Greek Sicilian Skeptic who proposed most or all mythology derived from historical figures and natural events which received supernatural characteristics only through retelling.

The euhemerization of Taoist myth by Confucian historians sometimes led to the appearance of figures such as "Lord Primordial Chaos" (渾沌氏) in the imperial genealogies.

(uncountable, derogatory) The fanciful invention of plausible historical figures and events as an attempt to rationalize mythology and legends

One such euhemerization is a Rowan Atkinson bit where he presents Jesus Christ as a misunderstood street magician.

Much of Chinese mythology appears to have been the result of euhemerization, the later deification of Neolithic tribal leaders and inventors incompletely remembered through oral traditions and now-lost records.

(uncountable) Synonym of deification: the actual creation of mythology and legends from historical figures and events; (countable) an instance of this.

rationalization & pseudohistory

fanciful creation of rational explanations for the supernatural


Twelve Labours of Hercules

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Twelve tasks carried out by the Greek hero Herakles (romanized as Hercules) as his penance.


gynaeceum

gynaeceum (plural gynaeceums or gynaecea)

From Latin gynaecēum, gynaecīum, from Ancient Greek γυναικεῖον (gunaikeîon), from γυνή (gunḗ, “woman”). By surface analysis, gynaec- + -eum.

A master, however this may be, was very jealous of the inmates of his gyneceum, and he permitted no one to enter the place, which was protected as a sanctuary in the legislation of the Barbarians.

1926, PL Jacob, History of Prostitution, page 249:

It was agreeable to see men, after days in this gyneceum, bringing the place to life, to see waiters speeding to their command.

1984, Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, Penguin, published 2016, page 61:

(Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome) The women's quarters in a household; (hence, loosely) any building or area for women.


duumviral

Of or belonging to the duumviri or the duumvirate.


Niobe

(Greek mythology) A daughter of Tantalus, said to have turned into stone while weeping for her children.


propylaeum

propylaeum (plural propylaea or propylaeums)

/ˌpɹəʊpɪˈliːəm/

From Latin propylaeum, from Ancient Greek προπύλαιον (propúlaion), from προ- (pro-, “before”, “in front of”) + πύλη (púlē, “gate”).

On either side of the road young girls stood with pitchers at the fountains which bubbled there, and behind the houses forming the propylaea of the rock rose the massive forehead of the Isle — crested at this part with its enormous ramparts as with a mural crown.

(historical, especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome) A vestibule or entrance, (especially) to a temple.


Proserpina

From Latin Prōserpina from Ancient Greek Περσεφόνη (Persephónē) by metathesis perhaps first in Magna Graecia via a Sicilian Doric Greek Προσερπίνα (Proserpína) or Ionic Greek Προσερπίνη (Proserpínē), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pers-o- (“sheaf of corn, grain, seed”) and *gʷʰn̥-t- (“to strike”), meaning 'corn-thresher'.

der

(Roman mythology) The goddess of springtime, queen of the underworld; the Roman equivalent of Persephone.


Cloelia

From Latin Cloelia, feminine form of the gens name Cloelius, Cluilius, from clueo.

(Roman mythology) A woman who saved Roman hostages from the Clusian camp.


Roman Republic

Roman Republic
Roman Republic (disambiguation)

(historical) The period of Ancient Rome where its government operated as a republic (approx. 509 BC – 27 BC).

რომის რესპუბლიკა

the period of Ancient Rome where its government operated as a republic


flaminical

flaminical college

flaminical couple

flaminical taboo

the unclouded serenity of Christian religion , with the dark overcasting of superstitious copes and flaminical vestures

1642 (indicated as 1641), John Milton, The Reason of Church-governement Urg’d against Prelaty […], London: […] E[dward] G[riffin] for Iohn Rothwell, […], →OCLC:


praetexta

en-noun

praetexta (plural praetextas or praetextae)

From Latin praetexta (toga), from praetextus, past participle of praetexere (“to weave before, to fringe, border”); prae (“before”) + texere (“weave”).

The officers who had attended the proceſſion, ſtripped off the robes in which they were dreſſed, and caſt them in the flames. Women crowded to the pile, and threw upon it, as a ſacrifice to the manes of the dead, the ornaments of their own perſons, the gorgets and the prætextas of their children.

1783, Adam Ferguson, chapter II, in The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic, volume III, Dublin: Printed for Meſſrs. Price, Whitestone, Colles, […], book V, page 73:

It gave to Pompey the Great the privilege of appearing in triumphal robes, and with a golden crown at Circensian games, and with a praetexta and golden crown at theatrical plays.

1886 October 30, Claverley, “The Origin of the Drama, and Old Dramatic Writers of Tragedy”, in Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, volume 62, number 9,350, Supplement, page 2:

In ancient Rome, after a boy celebrated his sixteenth birthday he was considered a man. He threw aside the praetexta worn in his youth, and donned the toga of a full-fledged Roman citizen.

1896 May 17, “A Chicago Boys First Vote”, in The Sunday Inter Ocean, volume 25, number 54, Chicago, Ill., page 23:

(historical, Ancient Rome) A white robe with a purple border, worn by a Roman boy before he was entitled to wear the toga virilis, or until about the completion of his fourteenth year, and by girls until their marriage. It was also worn by magistrates and priests.


fosseway

(Ancient Rome) A Roman military road with a fosse or ditch on each side to keep it dry.


adrogate

en-verb

adrogate (third-person singular simple present adrogates, present participle adrogating, simple past and past participle adrogated)

adrogates (present singular third-person)
adrogating (participle present)
adrogated (participle past)
adrogated (past)

There were certain sacred rites (sacra gentilitia) which belonged to a gens, to the observance of which all the members of a gens, as such, were bound, whether they were members by birth, adoption, or adrogation. A person was freed from the observance of such sacra, and lost the privileges connected with his gentile rites, when he lost his gens, that is, when he was adrogated, adopted, or even emancipated; for adrogation, adoption, and emancipation were accompanied by a diminutio capitis.

1848, G[eorge] L[ong], “GENS”, in William Smith, editor, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 2nd improved and enlarged edition, London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly, Upper Gower Street; and Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row; John Murray, Albemarle Street, →OCLC, page 568, column 2:

(transitive, Ancient Rome, law, historical) To adopt (a free citizen).


vexillary

From Latin vexillarius: compare French vexillaire.

In letters like to those the vexillary / Hast left crag-carven o'er the streaming Gelt— […]

1874, Alfred Tennyson, “Gareth and Lynette”, in Idylls of the King (The Works of Alfred Tennyson; V), cabinet edition, London: Henry S. King & Co., […], →OCLC, page 84:

(Ancient Rome) A standard-bearer of a vexillum.


Etrurian

en-adj

Etrurian (comparative more Etrurian, superlative most Etrurian)

more Etrurian (comparative)
most Etrurian (superlative)


Etrurian

A native or inhabitant of ancient Etruria.


fetialis

This was the mode in which Roman treaties were made, the fecialis praying Jupiter to punish the infringer of the treaty as he did the animal, which he instantly dispatched with a flint stone.

1843, Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, “Heraldick Matters”, in Encyclopaedia of Antiquities and Elements of Archaeology, Classical and Mediaeval, volume 2, London, page 765:

[...] but when the theatre of war became more distant, the fetialis, consul, or praetor, contented himself with hurling his lance from a pillar near the temple of Bellona in the direction of the hostile territory, while the declaration of war itself was made by the military commander of the province through an ambassador.

1874, Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law, 4th edition, New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., page 196:

Fetiales also investigated allies' claims of abuse by Romans; if substantiated, the fetiales delivered the men accused to the injured parties.

2016, Amanda J. Coles, “Ius Fetiale”, in Sara E[lise] Phang, Iain Spence, Douglas Kelly, Peter Londey, editors, Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia, volumes 3 (H–Z, Roman Section), Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 973, column 2:

(Ancient Rome, politics, religion, historical) A fetial.


interdictum

(historical, Ancient Rome) A prohibition: a legal order issued by a praetor (or, in the provinces, a proconsul) at the request of a claimant and addressed to another person, imposing a requirement either to do something or to abstain from doing something.


Vulcanian

Directly from Latin Vulcāniānus or from Latin Vulcānius + -an within English, from Vulcānus + -iānus (“-ian”) or -ius (“-y: forming adjectives”). In reference to a type or stage of volcanic activity, via Italian Vulcaniano, with specific reference to Giuseppe Mercalli's observations of the 1888–90 eruptions of the Aeolian island Vulcano. Equivalent to Vulcan + -ian. Doublet of volcanian. Compare slightly earlier Middle French vulcanien.

...Nor cou'd Vulcanian Flame
The Stench abolish; or the Savour tame...

1697, John Dryden translating Vergil as Georgics, Book III, in The Works of Virgil, p. 121

(Roman mythology) Of, related to, or created by Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalwork, considered equivalent to the Greek Hephaestus and several German and Celtic gods.

Yet Muto, like a good Vulcanian,
An honest Cuckold, calls the bastard sonne,
And brags of that which others for him done.

1598, John Marston, “Certaine Satyres”, in The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image..., page 41:

(rare, obsolete) Alternative letter-case form of vulcanian, a cuckold.

(astronomy) Of or related to the proposed planet Vulcan or a cluster of asteroids at the same location in the Solar System.


septemvir

en-noun

septemvir (plural septemvirs or septemviri)

(Ancient Rome) A member of a septemvirate; one of seven people associated in some office.


quadragintireme

As to the Quadragintiremes, or vessels usually described as having forty ranks or tiers of oars, we cannot reconcile the report to our understandings, except by supposing them nothing more than galleys fitted with as many oars in each rank.

1799, The Naval Chronicle, volume 1, page 132:

(nautical, historical) A vessel with 40 rows of oars.


Egeria

On the heroine of his play he dwelt with the passionate fondness of a lover: there the real mingled with the ideal: could he write of love, and not think of Ethel Churchill? She was the Egeria of his heart, who taught him all the truth of tenderness.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “A London Life”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 165:

(Roman mythology) A nymph or minor goddess from Roman mythology.


Fortuna

(Roman mythology) The Roman goddess of luck, fortune and fate, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche.


Bellona

But time will teach the Russ, ev'n conquering War
Has handmaid arts: aye, aye, the Russ will woo
All sciences that speed Bellona's car,
All murder's tactic arts, and win them too […]

1831, Thomas Campbell, The Power of Russia:

(Roman mythology) Roman goddess of war, wife or sister of Mars. Equivalent to the Greek goddess Enyo.


Fides

(Roman mythology) Roman goddess of trust and loyalty. Her Greek equivalent was Pistis.


Salii

From Latin Salii (“the Leapers, the Jumpers”), from salīre (“to leap, to jump”).

bor

(historical) The 12 priests of Mars Gradivus in Ancient Rome.


tricennial

From Latin trīcennium (“30-year period”) + -al, from trīcennis (“30-year”) + -ium, from trīciēs (“30 times”) + annus (“year”) + -is. Compare Latin tricennalis. Equivalent to tri- + decennial. Doublet of tricennal.

Some manuscripts of Eusebius' Life of Constantine contain not only the four books of the Life and Constantine's Speech to the Assembly of the Saints but also two speeches which are conventionally known by a single title as Laus Constantini, Laudes Constantini, De laudibus Constantini, or the "Tricennial Oration," and which all editors of Eusebius so far have published as a single work.

1977, T.D. Barnes, “Two Speeches by Eusebius”, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, number 18, page 341:

(vi) The employment of Constantine's high-crested helmet in the gold coinage of Constantius in his tricennial issues...

1997, Patrick Bruun, “The Victorious Signs of Constantine: A Reappraisal”, in Numismatic Chronicle, volume 157, page 53:

(historical) Of or related to a tricennalia, the celebrations marking the 30th year of a Roman emperor's rule.


andron

Latin andron, from Ancient Greek ἀνδρών (andrṓn).

(architecture, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome), the room reserved for males and their activities, often in the lower part of the house.


amphoric

From Latin amphoricus (“of or related to an amphora”), from amphora + -icus (“-ic: forming adj.”). Equivalent to amphora + -ic.

der

amphoric respiration or resonance

(medicine) Produced by or indicating a hollow cavity in the lungs, giving a sound like that produced by blowing into an empty decanter.

amphorique

medicine: produced by or indicating a hollow cavity in the lungs


Orcus

From Latin Orcus. Doublet of ogre and orc.

Then ſhall our footmen lie within the trench,
And with their Cannons mouth’d like Orcus gulfe
Batter the wales, and we will enter in:
And thus the Grecians ſhalbe conquered.

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene i:

(Roman mythology) The Etruscan and Roman god of the underworld.


civic crown

Calque of Latin corōna cīvica, the adjective being from cīves (“citizen”).

(historical, Ancient Rome) A crown or garland of oak leaves and acorns, bestowed on a soldier who had saved the life of a citizen in battle.


lemures

Coordinate term: Lares

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint.

1629, John Milton, “On the Morning of Christs Nativity”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC:

So still lay the figure, and so dim was its outline, that any other than Arbaces might have felt a superstitious fear, lest he beheld one of those grim lemures, who, above all other spots, haunted the threshold of the homes they formerly possessed.

1834, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter VII, in The Last Days of Pompeii. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […]; successor to Henry Colburn, →OCLC, book IV, page 13:

(Roman mythology) The spirits or ghosts of the dead, considered as malignant.


uti possidetis

From Latin [Term?] (literally “as you possess”).

bor

(law, historical, Ancient Rome) A species of interdict granted to one who was in possession of an immovable thing, in order that he might be declared the legal possessor.


Punic War

So ended the first and longest of the three Punic Wars; or, if viewed from a more romantic standpoint, the first act of a three-act tragedy, the tragedy of the destruction not only of Carthage but also of old Rome - of Rome the city state.

1992, Brian Caven, The Punic Wars, Barnes & Noble, page 64:

The first Punic War has ended in 241 BC, but another Punic War would begin in 218 BC.

2002, Richard Michael Pasichnyk, In Defense of Nature: The History Nobody Told You About, iUniverse, page 133:

The third and last Punic War (151-146 B.C.E) led to the complete destruction of Carthage.

2004, Kevin McGeough, The Romans: new perspectives, ABC-CLIO, page 69:

Any of several wars between Ancient Rome and Carthage.


stellionate

From Latin stellionatus (“cozenage, trickery”), from stellio (“a newt, a crafty, knavish person”).

der

The crime of stellionate[…]includes every fraud which is not distinguished by a special name; but it is chiefly applied to conveyances of the same numerical right granted by the proprietor to different disponees

1754, John Erskine of Carnock, Principles of the Law of Scotland:

(law, Scotland, Ancient Rome) Any fraud not distinguished by a more special name; chiefly applied to sales of the same property to two different persons, or selling that for one's own which belongs to another, etc.


Asiarch

From Latin Asiarcha, from Ancient Greek Ἀσιάρχης (Asiárkhēs).

They now begged Philip, the Asiarch, to let out a lion against Polycarp

1794, Joseph Milner, The History of the Church of Christ:

(historical) One of the chiefs or pontiffs of the Roman province of Asia, who had the superintendence of the public games and religious rites.

asiarque

one of the chiefs or pontiffs of the Roman province of Asia


postscenium

(Ancient Rome, theater) The part of a theater behind the stage; the backstage area.


prolegate

From Latin prolegatus, from pro (“for”) + legatus (“legate”).

(Ancient Rome) The deputy or substitute legate.


plebiscitum

en-noun

plebiscitum (plural plebiscitums or plebiscita)

plebiscitums (plural)
plebiscita (plural)

Learned borrowing from Latin plēbiscītum, plēbis scītum, plēbī scītum (“law of the common people or plebs”), from plēbis (the genitive singular of plēbs (“common people, plebeians”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁- (“to fill”)) + scītum (“decree, ordinance, statute”) (from scīscō (“to ascertain; to know; to decree, enact, ordain”) (from sciō (“to know; to understand”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to dissect; to split”)) + -scō (suffix meaning ‘to begin [doing something]’)) + -tum (suffix forming action nouns from verbs)).

der

Still worse went it with another individual; doomed, by extempore Plebiscitum, to the Lanterne; […]

1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

(Ancient Rome, historical) A law enacted by the common people, under the superintendence of a tribune or some subordinate plebeian magistrate, without the intervention of the senate.


decurionate

/dɪˈkjʊəɹɪənət/

(Ancient Rome) The position or office of a decurion.


parapherna

From Late Latin parapherna, from Ancient Greek παράφερνα (parápherna, “things additional to a dowry”), from παρα- (para-, “beside”) + φερνή (phernḗ, “dowry”). In the propertied classes, a dowry was placed under the control of the husband, while the 'paraphernalia' which she brought with her remained the wife’s property.

(law, historical, Ancient Rome) A woman's property which was not made a part of her marriage dower but remained her own.


Marcian

(Ancient Rome) Roman emperor of the East from 450 to 457, born 392.

(Ancient Rome) Son of Anthemius, grandson of the Emperor Marcian, who led an unsuccessful rebellion in 479.


trabea

When the emperors were themselves consuls, they wore a Trabea adorned with gems, which were allowed to none else.

1767, Basil Kennett, Romae Antiquae Notitia:

(historical, Ancient Rome) A toga of purple, or ornamented with purple horizontal stripes, worn by kings, consuls, and augurs.


primipilar

From Latin primipilaris, from primipilus (“the centurion of the first cohort of a Roman legion”), from primus pilus (“the division made up of the triarii in the Roman army”).

Upon ſuch grounds it may be reaſonable to allovv S. Peter a primacy of order; ſuch an one as the Ring-leader hath in a Dance, as the primipilar Centurion had in the Legion, or the Prince of the Senate had there, in the Roman State; […]

a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “[The I. Supposition Discussed, that Saint Peter had a Primacy over the Apostles]”, in J[ohn] Tillotson, editor, A Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy. […], London: […] Miles Flesher, for Brabazon Aylmer, […], published 1680, →OCLC, page 49:

(Ancient Rome) Of or relating to the captain of the vanguard of a Roman army.


Senones

Via Latin from Ancient Greek Σήνωνες (Sḗnōnes), originally the capital of the Gaulish people of the same name.


Areopagitic

en-adj

Areopagitic (comparative more Areopagitic, superlative most Areopagitic)

more Areopagitic (comparative)
most Areopagitic (superlative)

/ˌɛəɹiəʊpəˈd͡ʒɪtɪk/

Latin Areopagiticus, from Ancient Greek.

(Ancient Rome) Of or pertaining to the Areopagitic Oration of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (named after but only loosely connected to the Areopagus).


centumvir

en-noun

centumvir (plural centumvirs or centumviri)

(historical, Ancient Rome) One of a court of about 100 judges chosen to try civil suits. Under the Empire the court was increased to 180, and met usually in four sections.


pilentum

(Ancient Rome) An easy chariot or carriage, used by Roman ladies, and in which the vessels etc. for sacred rites were carried.


hemina

From Latin hemina (“half-sextarius”), from Ancient Greek, from ἡμι- (hēmi-, “hemi-: half”) + -ίνα (-ína, “-ina: forming nouns”). As a Spanish unit, via Spanish hemina.

(historical) A traditional Spanish unit of dry measure equivalent to about 23 L, used particularly in Leon.


decury

Accordingly, the hundred senators divided the government among themselves, ten decuries being formed, and the individual members who were to have the chief direction of affairs being chosen into each decury.

1904, John Henry Freese, Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Roman History, Books I-III:

If one, two, or more of a decury proceed bravely to battle, and the rest do not follow, the cowards are slain.

1760, Robert Kerr, A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1:

(Ancient Rome) A group of ten men under the command of a decurion.


Massilia

Unadapted borrowing from Latin Massilia.

Gallia Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis#English

(historical) A city in Gallia Narbonensis, now Marseille


tauroctony

From Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ταυροκτόνος (tauroktónos), from ταῦρος (taûros, “bull”) + κτόνος (któnos, “killing”).

lbor

In any event, if, as I am arguing, the tauroctony represents the astronomical situation which obtained during the epoch in which the spring equinox was in Taurus, the fact that the summer solstice was in Leo during that epoch provides a convincing explanation for the occasional presence of the figure of a lion in the tauroctony.

1991, David Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries, Oxford University Press, page 54:

The central icon, ever present in Mithras temples throughout the Roman Empire, is the tauroctony, or bull-slaying.

2005, Payam Nabarz, The Mysteries of Mithras, Inner Traditions, page 20:

Tauroctonies featuring Mithras' regular clothes but with a crown instead of a cap would belong to a further cluster. A tauroctony would then also be assigned to other clusters for its patterns of features relating to the torchbearers, to the animals, and so on.

2022, Kevin Stoba, “6: A network analysis of the Mithraic tauroctony”, in Anna Collar, editor, Networks and the Spread of Ideas in the Past, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), unnumbered page:

(Mithraism, historical, art) A depiction (typically in relief or sculpture) of Mithras killing a bull; associated with the practice of Mithraism (as a cult) in the Roman Empire.

tauroctonie

depiction of the killing of a bull by Mithras


sigillaria

(historical, Ancient Rome) Little images or figures of earthenware sold or given as presents on the last two days of the saturnalia.


ancile

(Ancient Rome) The sacred shield of the Ancient Romans, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa Pompilius. 11 copies were said to have been made, and it was the palladium of Rome.


Faunus

(Roman mythology) Horned god of the forest, plains and fields; Greek counterpart: Pan.


secle

From Latin saeculum. Compare French siècle. See secular.

If on this principle we calculate back from this first secular epoch preserved in history, the beginning ot the second secle falls U.C. 78.

1845, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Sir Travers Twiss, Niebuhr's History of Rome - Volumes 1-2, page 55:

Such a secular year therefore was probably the term assigned to the life of the gods, as the natural secle was to the life of man, the secular day to that of nations, the secular week to that of one human race. They taught, as we know historically, that the expiration of each secular day was announced by wonders and signs, intelligible to them. So was the close of every natural secle; ten of which, of unequal length, made up a great day. The signs by which each of these epochs had been foreshewn, were recorded in their history .

1847, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Leonhard Schmitz, The History of Rome - Volume 1, page 138:

So the haruspex Vulcatius announced that the comet which appeared shortly after the assassination of Julius Cæsar indicated the end of the ninth secle and the beginning of the tenth.

1887, Horace, James Lonsdale, Samuel Lee, The Works of Horace, page 85:

(Ancient Rome) The length of an epoch, believed to be the amount of time that elapsed from the start of one epoch to the time when no one who was alive at that point is still alive (starting at the founding of Rome).


superficiary

(historical, Ancient Rome) One to whom a right of surface occupation is granted; one who pays quitrent for a house built upon another's ground.


Terminalia

(historical) In Ancient Rome, a festival to Terminus, the god of boundaries.


Mithraeum

en-noun

Mithraeum (plural Mithraea or Mithraeums)

A grotto where the god Mithra was worshipped.


Cumae

An Ancient Greek, and then Roman, settlement near Naples famed for its sibyl.


Mediolanum

/ˌmɛdiəʊˈlɑːnəm/

mā'dēōläʹnəm

Borrowed from Latin Mediolānum, of uncertain Gaulish origin. Doublet of Milan.

(historical) The city of Milan in the era of Ancient Rome.


culeus

From Latin culeus (“large leather sack, punishment of drowning within a sack, unit of bulk liquid measure”), from Ancient Greek κολεός (koleós, “sheath”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover”). Doublet of cullion and cojones.

bor

(historical) A Roman unit of liquid measure reckoned as the volume of 1600 Roman pounds of wine and equivalent to about 520 L although differing slightly over time.

(historical, law) A Roman punishment—chiefly for parricide—involving blindfolding, beating, confinement to a leather sack, and drowning in a river or sea.


Mania

From Latin Mania, related to manes (“spirits of the dead”).

(Roman mythology) The goddess of the dead and ghosts.


Samnite

(historical, Ancient Rome) A Roman gladiator armed with shield, sleeve on right arm, helmet, shoulder-piece, and greave.


cotyla

From Latin cotyla, from Ancient Greek κοτύλη (kotúlē, “cup, half-pint”).

der

Alternative form of cotyle (“in all senses”)


Capitolium

From Latin Capitōlium (“Capitoline Hill, its temples; similar citadels”), from the oblique stem of caput (“head”) + -ō (noun-forming suffix) or -ōlus (“-ole”, diminutive suffix) + -ium (suffix forming place names). Doublet of capitol and capitoul.


Quinquatrian

en-adj

Quinquatrian (comparative more Quinquatrian, superlative most Quinquatrian)

more Quinquatrian (comparative)
most Quinquatrian (superlative)

the great Quinquatrian feast


Plutonic

Plutonic (comparative more Plutonic, superlative most Plutonic)

more Plutonic (comparative)
most Plutonic (superlative)

From Ancient Greek Πλούτων (Ploútōn, “Pluto, Greek and Roman god of the underworld”) (from πλοῦτος (ploûtos, “riches, wealth”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *plew- (“to fly; to flow; to run”)) + -ων (-ōn)) + -ic (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘of or pertaining to’). The English word is cognate with Middle French plutonique (modern French plutonique (“of or pertaining to Pluto, the underworld, or the interior of the Earth”)).

cog

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Synonym of Plutonian (“of or relating to Pluto, the Greek and Roman god of the underworld; demonic, infernal”)


Salacia

(Roman mythology) The goddess of saltwater and the deep.


justitium

(historical, Ancient Rome) An interregnum after the death of an emperor.


Lucina

From Middle English Lucina and Lucyna, from Latin Lūcīna.

(astronomy) 146 Lucina, a Main Belt asteroid.


Voluptas

From Latin voluptas (“Voluptuous, Pleasure, Bliss”).

uder

(Roman mythology) The Roman goddess of sensual pleasures. She is the daughter of Eros/Cupid and Psyche, and the grandaughter of Aphrodite/Venus and Ares/Mars. She is the Roman counterpart of Hedone.


Invidia

Coordinate term: Nemesis

(Roman mythology) The Roman goddess of divine retribution and vengeance; often accompanied by the Furies/Dirae. She is the Roman counterpart of Nemesis.


Polus

(Roman mythology) The personification of the celestial axis around which the heavens revolve, and the Titan of intelligence.


Caelus

(Roman mythology) The personification of the sky and heavens. Either the brother-husband or son-&-husband of Terra, with whom he fathered the Titans and the Cyclops. He is the Roman counterpart of Uranus.


Dirae

(Roman mythology) The goddesses of vengeance; they were also known to accompany Invidia. They are the Roman counterparts of the Furies/Erinyes.


Somnus

(Roman mythology) The god and personification of sleep; the Roman counterpart of Hypnos.


Tisiphone

From Ancient Greek Τῑσιφόνη (Tīsiphónē, literally “Avenging Murder”).

bor

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) One of the Erinyes/Dirae (Furies, the goddesses of vengeance), and a companion of Nemesis/Invidia.


Alecto

From Ancient Greek Ἀληκτώ (Alēktṓ, literally “Unceasing (Anger)”).

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) One of the Furies.


Meditrina

From Latin medica (“health, longevity”).

(Roman mythology) The goddess/personification of health and longevity. She is a daughter of Aesculapius and Epione.


Justitia

Translingual: Justitia

From Latin iustitia (“Justice”). Doublet of justice.

(Roman mythology) One of the Horae, she is the goddess of justice. She is the daughter of Jupiter and Themis; her sisters are Pax and Eunomia. She is the Roman counterpart of Dike.


nundinal letter

en-noun

nundinal letter (plural nundinal letters)

(Ancient Rome) one of the first eight letters of the alphabet, repeated successively from the first to the last day of the year. One of these always corresponded to the market day, which occurred every eight days.


vallar crown

(historical, Roman antiquity) A circular gold crown with palisades, bestowed upon the soldier who first surmounted the rampart and broke into the enemy's camp.


Ascanius

From Latin Ascanius, from Ancient Greek Ἀσκάνιος (Askánios).

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) A legendary king of Alba Longa, and the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas.


sexvir

(historical, Ancient Rome) Any member of a group of six officials.


Favonius

(Roman mythology) The god of the west wind. He is also the husband of Flora and the father of Karpos. He is the Roman counterpart of Zephyrus.


cavaedium

(architecture) The central hall or court within an Ancient Roman house.


Ossonoba

An ancient Roman and pre-Roman city in southwestern Lusitania, in modern Portugal; modern Faro.


Lupercus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin Lupercus.

Πὰν Λυκαῖος
Πὰν Λυκαῖος#Ancient_Greek

(Roman mythology) A god who protected flocks, in some sources identified with Faunus in the aspect of Innus, and by extension as the equivalent of the Greek Πὰν Λυκαῖος (Pàn Lukaîos, “Lycaean Pan”).


Fulgora

(Roman mythology) The Roman goddess/personification of lightning. She is the Roman counterpart of Astrape.


oak wreath

(usually historical, Ancient Rome) A chaplet of common oak leaves woven to form a crown honouring a soldier who had saved the life of a citizen in battle.

corōna cīvica

garland of oak leaves in honour of a heroic soldier


Aetna

From the Latin Aetna, from either Ancient Greek Αἴτνη (Aítnē, “Aetna”) or αἴθω (aíthō, “I burn”), or from a Sicanian dialect Italic base *aith-na (“fiery one”), all from Proto-Indo-European *ai-dh, from *h₂eydʰ- (“burn; fire”). Doublet of Etna.

(Greek mythology and Roman mythology) A nymph in Sicily who, according to legend, gave her name to the volcanic Mount Etna.


Septimus

Borrowed from Latin Septimus, from septimus (“seventh”).

London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith ; thought nothing of fantastic Christian names like Septimus with which their parents have thought to distinguish them .

1925, Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, Collector's Library, published 2003, →ISBN, page 95:


Thisbe

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) One of a pair of ill-fated lovers, whose story forms part of Ovid's Metamorphoses.


Feronia

(Roman mythology) A Roman goddess of wildlife, fertility, health and abundance.


Concordia

58 Concordia
Concordia
Concordia (mythology)

(Roman mythology) The goddess of harmony and concord. She is the Roman equivalent to Harmonia.


Pales

(Roman mythology) The deity of shepherds, flocks and livestock in Roman mythology.


Mellona

(Roman mythology) The goddess of bees, and honey.


Dies

(Roman mythology) One of the Protogenoi, the Protogenos personification of day. She is the daughter of fellow Protogenoi, Nox/Nyx (Night) and Erebus (Darkness), and sister-wife of Aether. She is the Roman counterpart of Hemera.


aedility

From Latin aedilis (“commissioner or magistrate”).

der

Their trunke or hand is most easie to be cut off; for so it happened in the aedility or temple office of Claudius, Antonius and Posthumus being consuls...

1604, Edward Topsell, The History of Four-footed Beasts:

To commemorate his aedility Agrippa added public games lasting for 59 days as well as free admission to 170 public baths.

2013, Jacob Isager, “Book 36: Marble art and architecture”, in Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny's Chapters On The History Of Art:

(historical, Ancient Rome) The office of an elected official responsible for festivals and the maintenance of public buildings.


Fames

(Roman mythology) A goddess who is a personification of famine and hunger. She is the Roman counterpart of Limos.


fetial

From Latin fētiālis (“priest who sanctioned treaties and demanded satisfaction from enemies before formal declarations of war”).
The root of the Latin word is thought to be Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do, place, put”), also the source of the verb Latin faciō (“to do; to build, construct; to appoint”). The nominalized form of this verb, Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁tis (“act of putting, placement”), would have developed into an Italic noun *fētis (unattested, but conjectured to mean something like "statute, treaty" or "prescription, law", developing to mean "body of priests"), which was combined with the adjective-forming suffix -ālis to yield Latin fētiālis.
The unadapted Latin forms fetialis (singular) and fetiales (plural) are also used in English, sometimes with italicization, sometimes without.

der

Nicomachus, as explained in the next line, was already known to the Elean priests or fetials, or whatever we are to call them, as a guest-friend.

1892, Pindar, “Isthmian II. Ode in Honour of a Victory in the Chariot-race at Isthmus Won by Xenocrates of Acragas”, in J[ohn] B[agnell] Bury, editor, ΠΙΝΔΑΡΟΥ ΕΠΙΝΙΚΟΙ ΙΣΘΜΙΟΝΙΚΑΙΣ [PINDAROU EPINIKOI ISTHMIONIKAIS] = The Isthmian Odes of Pindar: Edited with Introduction and Commentary, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, footnote 23, page 45, column 1:

It was customary for the fetial to carry to the bounds of the other nation a cornetwood spear, iron-pointed or hardened in the fire, and in the presence of not less than three grown men to say, "Whereas the tribes of the Ancient Latins and men of the Ancient Latins have been guilty of acts and offences against the Roman People of the Quirites; […] I therefore and the Roman People declare and make war on the tribes of the Ancient Latins and the men of the Ancient Latins." Having said this, he would hurl his spear into their territory.

1919, Livy, “Ab Urbe Condita: Liber I [From the Founding of the City: Book I]”, in B. O. Foster, transl., Livy in Fourteen Volumes … With an English Translation (Loeb Classical Library), volumes I (Books I and II), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., published 1967, →OCLC, paragraph XXXII, page 119:

After an insult had been offered Rome, or a wrong inflicted on it, several of the twenty sacred heralds, members of the College of Fecials, proceeded to demand reparation. […] [I]f war were decided, a second deputation of fecials was nominated upon whom was placed the symbolic duty of discharging a javelin into the enemy camp. This part of the procedure had obvious difficultes, and, after resorting to the fiction of performing it at an enemy camp in Rome, the fecials finally adopted an appropriate ceremony at the temple of Bellona. The fecials also had religious functions at the conclusion of a peace. It was the oath taken by the chief fecial which sanctified a treaty entered into with, or by, the Roman people.

1928, Geoffrey Butler, Simon Maccoby, “Intercourse: In Peace”, in The Development of International Law (Contributions to International Law and Diplomacy), London, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd.; reprinted Clark, N.J.: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2003 (2007 printing), →ISBN, page 74:

[P]erhaps the shadowy fetials were never actually an independent priesthood but were senatorial priests assigned diplomatic functions. If fetials were originally senators, this would explain the parallel fetial and senatorial function in "international relations" and account for the continuity between fetials and later senatorial legates. Of the twenty patrician fetials, only four were customarily chosen to serve in an embassy.

2005, Richard E. Mitchell, “The Definition of Patres and Plebs: An End to the Struggle of the Orders”, in Kurt A[rnold] Raaflaub, editor, Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders, 2nd expanded and updated edition, Malden, Mass., London: Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, pages 142–143:

According to authors of the late Republic, the fetials supervised Roman adherence to the iura belli, the laws of war. How, then, should we interpret the silence with respect to the fetials of Polybius, the central concern of whose history was Roman imperialism, but who mentions the fetials not even once?

2008, Clifford Ando, “Religion and Imperialism at Rome”, in The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage), Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif, London: University of California Press, part II (Gods of the Far-flung Empire), page 128:

Fetiales also investigated allies' claims of abuse by Romans; if substantiated, the fetiales delivered the men accused to the injured parties.

2016, Amanda J. Coles, “Ius Fetiale”, in Sara E[lise] Phang, Iain Spence, Douglas Kelly, Peter Londey, editors, Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia, volumes 3 (H–Z, Roman Section), Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 973, column 2:

(Ancient Rome, politics, religion, historical) A member of the Roman college of priests who acted as representatives in disputes with foreign nations.


Actium

From Latin Actium, from Ancient Greek Ἄκτιον (Áktion).

A promontory in Acarnania in Ancient Greece where Mark Antony and Cleopatra were defeated by Octavian in a naval battle in 31 B.C.


Vertumnus

(Roman mythology) The Ancient Roman god of seasons, change, and plant growth, capable of changing his form at will.


Vertumnalia

An Ancient Roman festival in honour of Vertumnus, held on 13 August.


nomen gentilicium

en-noun

nomen gentilicium (plural nomina gentilicia)

/ˈnəʊmɛn d͡ʒɛntaɪˈlɪsɪəm/

Borrowed from Latin nōmen (“name”) + gentīlicium (nominative neuter singular form of gentīlicius, “belonging to a particular Roman gens”).

The name designating a Roman citizen as a member of a particular gens; a gentile name.


carenum

From Latin carēnum or caroenum, from Ancient Greek κάροινον (károinon), q.v.

(historical cooking) A reduction of must or sweet wine produced by boiling it in large kettles until it was reduced by half or two-thirds in volume.


Levana

(Roman mythology) An Ancient Roman goddess involved in rituals relating to childbirth.


armilustrum

The nine days' sacred rite was then performed again, because a shower of stones had been seen to fall in the armilustrum.

1828, The History of Rome, volume 2, Talboys and Vincent:

In the times of the kings and of the republic it was covered with sumptuous edifices, the armilustrum, the temples of Diana, Juno Regina, Dea bona, Minerva, the atrium of Liberty, the palaces of Sura, of Trajan and the thermæ of Decius.

1849, Antonio Nibby, New Guide of Rome and the Environs:

S. Alessio, on the Aventine, supposed to mark the site of the Armilustrum, where Plutarch tells us that Tatius was interred.

1869, A Handbook of Rome and its Environs:

Beyond, on the left, is the CHURCH OF S. ALEXIUS, on the site of the Armilustrum, where the Sabine king, Titus Tatius, was buried.

1892, S. Russell Forbes, Rambles in Rome:

(Ancient Rome) A festival, in Ancient Rome, in honour of Mars, the god of war.


Phrygian cap

/ˌfrɪd͡ʒɪən ˈkæp/

Eugène Delacroix
Liberty Leading the People

From Phrygian (“of or relating to Phrygia, its people or their culture”) + cap. Sense 2 (“congenital abnormality of the gall bladder”) is a calque of German phrygische Mütze, coined by J. Bartel in 1916 and popularized by Edward A. Boyden.

compound

A Phrygian Priapus of Elegant VVorkmanſhip: The Phrygian Cap pointed and hanging dovvn behind, as our Caps in Diſhabille are novv vvorn.

1699, Martin Lister, “Of Paris in General”, in A Journey to Paris in the Year 1698, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, page 46:

[Cornelian. Brit[ish] Muſ[eum].] The tvvo Dioſcuri, vvith Phrygian caps, on horſeback, approaching a female in a long robe, in the middle, vvho ſeems to hold their horſes by the head.

1791, R[udolf] E[rich] Raspe, “Castor and Pollux, or the Twins”, in A Descriptive Catalogue of a General Collection of Ancient and Modern Engraved Gems, Cameos as well as Intaglios, Taken from the Most Celebrated Cabinets in Europe; […], volume I, London: […] [C. Buckton] for and sold by James Tassie, […]; and J[ohn] Murray, […], →OCLC, paragraph 1261, pages 108–109, column 1:

He was a handsome wretch, physically. […] I have no doubt that his red Phrygian cap concealed a pair of pointed furry ears; but his tattered habiliments and the strips of gay cloth wound, brigand-like, about his calves were not able to hide the ungyved grace of his limbs.

1878 May, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, “From Ponkapog to Pesth. Chapter II. On a Balcony.”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XLI, number CCXLVII, Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Osgood and Company […], →OCLC, page 599, column 2:

A short while later, the fire in the courtyard was lit again when a hen laid a fantastic egg that looked like a Ping-Pong ball with an appendage like that on a Phrygian cap. My grandmother identified it on the spot: "It's a basilisk's egg." She threw it into the fire, murmuring prayers of conjuration.

2003, Gabriel García Márquez, chapter 2, in Edith Grossman, transl., Living to Tell the Tale […] (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 75:

Smiley Phryge (pronounced, with French style, as "Free-juh") represents what's known as a Phrygian cap, based on similar caps worn by 18th-century French revolutionaries, who saw it as a symbol of freedom. […] "When the French and British wanted to choose a cap of liberty from antiquity, they got it wrong," he [Charles Brian Rose] says. "They chose the Phrygian cap, which signified Middle East status, rather than the pileus, which signified liberty—and so the Phrygian cap came to be interpreted as a symbol of liberty."

2024 July 13, Tom Metcalfe, “Why this Ancient Hat is the 2024 Olympic Mascot”, in National Geographic, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-07-28:

(Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome) A soft, close-fitting conical cap with the top bent forward, represented in Greek and Roman art as worn by ancient Phrygians, and later associated with the Roman liberty cap.


ustrinum

The Romans had, even in their smaller municipia, Boards of Health—such, at least, I take to be the meaning of Novemvir and Triumvir Valetudinarius; and it may seem extraordianry that they did not remove the ustrinum to a greater distance.

1858, John Kenrick, Roman Sepulcral Inscriptions: Their Relation to Archaeology, Language, and Religion:

(historical, Ancient Rome) The site of a funeral pyre


lares and penates

A calque of Latin lares et penates. See lar and penates.

The particular gods of the household were its lares and penates.

1995, Antony Kamm, The Romans: An Introduction, page 87:

(Roman mythology) The household deities of ancient Rome, respectively overseeing the family and its house and storerooms.


velite

Borrowed from Latin vēlitēs, plural of vēles.

(historical) A type of Roman infantryman who worked as a skirmisher.


barracks emperor

en-noun

barracks emperor (plural barracks emperors)

/ˈbæɹəks ˈɛmpəɹə/

/ˈbæɹəks ˈɛmpəɹɚ/

The next twenty-nine emperors, who ruled Rome for ninety-two years, or until a.d. 284, were known as the Barracks Emperors, because most of them owed their elevation to the purchase of favors from the soldiers. A few of these men were of unblemished character, but most of them encouraged the progress of corruption and aided the downfall of Rome.

1924, Charles H[erbert] Sylvester, “The History of Rome”, in The Writings of Mankind: […] Twenty Volumes, volume V (Greece·Latin), Kansas City, Mo.: The Epsilon Sigma Alpha Sorority, National Headquarters, →OCLC, page 2481:

While Iran and Mesopotamia therefore enjoyed relative security in the third century a.d., the internal cohesion of the Roman state showed signs of serious disrepair. The civil war between 193 and 197 a.d., which brought the first "barracks emperor" to power, was a mere prelude to the distresses of the years 235 to 285 a.d., when recurrent struggles between rival candidates for the imperial throne opened the gates to barbarian invasion accompanied by pestilential disease of unusual severity.

1963, William H[ardy] McNeill, “Barbarian Onslaught and Civilized Response, 200–600 a.d.”, in The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, →OCLC, part II (Eurasian Cultural Balance 500 B.C.–1500 A.D.), page 387:

Abraham Lincoln had only one thing in common with a Roman barracks-emperor: that he had risen, as had Diocletian and others, from a poverty-stricken rural background.

1974, Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, Malibu, Calif.: Pepperdine University Press, →ISBN; republished Newburyport, Mass.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2014, →ISBN:

Who was the first "barracks emperor" of Rome? […] The "barracks emperors" were Roman military leaders of this era who seized supreme power in the field or were elevated to the throne by the army against their will. They were often uncultured or semieducated, or natives of backward provinces, like Maximinus Thrax ("the Thracian"), the first common soldier who rose through the ranks to become Roman emperor.

2010 March, Peter D’Epiro, “Third Century”, in The Book of Firsts: 150 World-changing People and Events from Caesar Augustus to the Internet, New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Random House, →ISBN, question 18, pages 56–57:

(Ancient Rome, historical) An emperor who seized power by virtue of his command of the army.

Capitoline Museums
Imperial Roman army
Legio IV Italica
Maximinus Thrax
Praetorian Guard
Roman emperor


Maleventum

(historical) An ancient city in Samnium, in modern Campania, Italy; modern Benevento.


Plautus

From Latin Titus Maccius Plautus, the latter two names traditionally held to be stage names, from plautus (“flat-footed, flap-eared”).

A Roman comic playwright (c. 254 – 184 BC) of the Old Latin period.


Fama

(Roman mythology) The Roman equivalent of the Greek Pheme, a personification of fame and renown.


Tironian note

Any one of thousands of signs in a system of shorthand developed in the 60s BC by Cicero’s scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro.

note tironienne

one of M. Tullius Tiro’s many shorthand signs


grossetto

/ɡɹoʊˈsɛtoʊ/

/ɡɹəʊˈsɛtəʊ/

Borrowed from Italian grossetto, diminutive of grosso.

A copper piece, called the grossetto, and resembling the grosso in character and design, but having on the reverse the legend TIBI LAVS & GLORIA, made its first appearance under the Doge Veniero (1383-1400) and at a later period we find the half-grossetto (1523-38).

Probably the best-known example of this is the grosso, with its varieties, the grossetto and the grossone; these names can of course be traced to the numi grossi, i. e., thick coins, or large denarii originally struck in Bohemia in the thirteenth century.

1917, “The Numismatist: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine for Those Interested in Coins, Medals, and Paper Money”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 30:

However, six years after his death a new double grosso was introduced; from this point on the term grossone would be used for the new large coin, and grossetto for the normal grosso.

2013, Benjamin Arbel, Intercultural Contacts in the Medieval Mediterranean:

(historical, numismatics) An Italian coin of the fourteenth century.


Quirinalia

(historical, Ancient Rome) A festival dedicated to the god Quirinus, celebrated on February 17th.


Rasenna

From the Etruscan autonym, 𐌓𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀 (rasna, “the people”).

The Rasenna were to the Romans a foreign nation speaking an unknown tongue.
[…]
The cities of the Rasenna in Campania, whose communications with the mother country, whether by land or sea, were not cut of, surrendered […].

1898, Walter Wybergh How, Henry Devenish Leigh, A History of Rome to the Death of Caesar, pages 12 and 79:

The Etruscan people of historical times—the Rasenna—were very likely the result of a gradual fusion of native and immigrant populations.

2013, Fred Kleiner, Gardner’s Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective:


Acoetes

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) One of several mythological characters.

One of several mythological characters.
An attendant of Bacchus.

One of several mythological characters.
The father of Laocoön.

A Theban character in Statius’s Thebaid.


Roman road

(historical) Any of many roads built in Europe, including Britain, by the Ancient Romans, many of which survive in various forms.


lampadarius

From Latin lampada, from Ancient Greek λαμπάς (lampás, “candle”).

(historical) A slave who carried torches before consuls, emperors and other high officials both during the later Roman Republic and under the Empire.

(Christianity) The leader of the second (left) choir of singers in Eastern Orthodox Christianity.


duplicarius

Borrowed from Latin duplicārius, from duplicō (“multiply by two”).

(historical) A member of the Ancient Roman army who received double the basic pay.


quartary

From Latin quārtārius (“quarter-sextarius, quarter-pint”), from quārtus (“fourth”) + -ārius (“-ary: forming adj.”). Equivalent to quart + -ary. Doublet of quartarius.

der

(historical, rare, obsolete) A Roman unit of mass, one-fourth of a Roman pound.


Stabiae

Castellammare di Stabia
Castellammare di Stabia#English

(historical) An ancient city in Italy near Pompeii, in Campania; now Castellammare di Stabia


congy

From French conge, from Latin congius, q.v. Only attested in English in the obsolete plural form congys.

(historical, obsolete) Synonym of congius, Roman units of liquid measure and mass.


Juturna

(Roman mythology) A goddess of fountains, wells and springs, and the mother of Fontus by Janus.


Sospita

From Latin Sospita (“One who Saves, Salvatrix, Savior”).


Philodemus

Borrowed from Latin Philodemus, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek Φιλόδημος (Philódēmos).

Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean philosopher and poet


Pyramus

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) a Babylonian lover in the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe


propylaeon

en-noun

propylaeon (plural propylaeons or propylaea)

Beyond these is the first great propylaeon; then, as you advance, a second and a third; their number not being limited any more than that of the sphinxes, but both varying in various temples, as well as the length and breadth of the dromus.

1831, John Lempière, Bibliotheca Classica, s.v. "Æegyptus" § 18

(historical contexts, especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome) Alternative form of propylaeum.

historical contexts; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; historical contexts; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome


Palatua

(Roman mythology) The tutelary goddess of the Palatine.


Victory

en-proper noun

Victory (countable and uncountable, plural Victorys or Victories)

All along the Champs Elysées were […] statues of plaster representing nymphs, triumphs, victories, and other female personages painted in oil so as to represent marble; real marble could have had no better effect, and the appearance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme.

1841, M. A. Titmarsh [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], “Mr. Titmarsh to Miss Smith on the Second Funeral of Napoleon. Letter III. The Funeral Ceremony.”, in The Second Funeral of Napoleon: […] And The Chronicle of the Drum. […], London: Hugh Cunningham, […], →OCLC, page 63:

The two reverse groupings which originate on sestertii of Hadrian (BMCCRE III, pl. 79, 7), continue through the coinage of Caracalla, and show Victory floating or standing to the left or right with a standard or trophy held crosswise and extended in the hands are nothing more than the translations of similarly arranged Victoriae from the spandrels of triumphal arches to coin reverses.

1953, Gnomon: Kritische Zeitschrift für die gesamte klassische Altertumswissenschaft, pages 475–476:

Behind Roma seated with Victoriola on the exten ded^([sic]) hand a full-sized Victory approaches from the right with crown and palm.

1974, The Goddess Roma in the Art of the Roman Empire, page 44:

We know from Dio that, when the Curia Iulia, begun by Caesar in 44 B.C., was finally dedicated in 29 B.C., Octavian set up a statue of Victory beside the altar of Victoria which he also dedicated there (51, 22, 2).[…]The type, which inspired innumerable copies, appears on coins by 31 B.C., if not earlier, and shows such a Victory holding in the right hand a wreath and in the left a palm branch, occasionally other attributes. Four years later, when Augustus received the clupeus virtutis, this was placed near the statue of Victory in the Curia Iulia.[…]The fact that there are two Victories at Lugdunum raises a different question, however.

1993, Duncan Fishwick, “The Twin Victories”, in The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, 2nd edition, volume I,1, E.J. Brill, →ISBN, book I, chapter “Roma et Augustus”, subchapter “The Altar of the Three Gauls”, pages 111–112:

(uncountable, Roman mythology) Synonym of Victoria (“the Roman goddess of victory, the counterpart of the Greek goddess Nike”); also (countable), an artistic depiction of her, chiefly as a winged woman.


Senectus

(Roman mythology) A son of Nox and the spirit of old age. He is the Roman equivalent of Geras.


damnatio memoriae

Unadapted borrowing from New Latin damnātiō memoriae (literally “condemnation of memory”).

ubor

(historical, Ancient Rome) A posthumous punishment for traitors etc. by which they were effectively erased from history by having their works undone and any mention of their name forbidden.


damnation of memory

damnatio memoriae
damnatio memoriae#English

(historical, Ancient Rome, uncommon) Synonym of damnatio memoriae


Venti

1858, John Brougham, Neptune’s Defeat, New York: Sameuel French, Act I, Scene 3, p. 15,
Boreas, old buster, go unlock the cave
of Æolus, and let the Venti rave.

(Roman mythology) The four Roman gods of the winds (Aquilo, Favonius, Auster, and Eurus, who were each ascribed a cardinal direction from which their respective winds came), considered collectively.


Mezentius

(Roman mythology) The king of Caere and ally of Turnus.


Parilia

(historical) An annual rural festival held on 21 April in Ancient Rome, thought to cleanse sheep and shepherds.


Valetudo

(Roman mythology) Roman goddess of health and hygiene (equivalent to the Greek Hygieia), great-granddaughter of Jupiter.


conscript father

en-noun

conscript father (plural conscript fathers)

Calque of Latin patrēs cōnscrīptī; see there for more.


Regifugium

From Latin [Term?], literally "Flight of the King".

(historical) An annual festival on February 24 in Ancient Rome, commemorating the expulsion of the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, in 510 BC.


Fugalia

Synonym of Regifugium (“ancient festival”)


Whites

1996, S. Greenfield, "When the Whites Go Marching In? Racism and Resistances in English Football", Marquette Sports Law Review, Vol. 6, No. 2, Art. 7, p. 315: #*: "When the Whites go Marching In" is a version of the hymn "When the Saints Go Marching In" and has been sung by football fans whilst attending "away" matches in other countries... In this context the reference is to English supporters indicating their disapproval of black players.

When the Whites go marching in, oh, when the Whites go marching in, oh, I wanna be in that number when the Whites go marching in!

(sports, historical) Any of several sports teams whose uniform is predominantly white, particularly

(soccer, UK) The away team during international matches.


archflamen

archflamen (plural archflamens or archflamines)

archflamens (plural)
archflamines (plural)


Libertas

Unadapted borrowing from Latin Lībertās. Doublet of liberty

(Roman mythology) the Roman goddess and personification of liberty; equivalent to the Greek goddess Eleutheria.


Jovial

/ˈd͡ʒəʊ.vɪ.əl/

I know the ſhape of's Legge: this is his Hand: / His Foote Mercuriall: his martiall Thigh / The brawnes of Hercules: but his Iouiall face— / Murther in heaven?

1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 390, column 1:

It was pointed out in chapter 3 that [C. S.] Lewis liked to regard Jupiter as his personal presiding deity, but Mercury would have been almost as apt a choice, for Lewis had been extraordinarily favoured by that Intelligence whom, in ‘The Planets,’ he calls the ‘Lord of language’: both as a speaker and as a writer Lewis was uncommonly fluent. However, despite these talents, despite the fact that he saw Mercurial as well as Jovial strains in his paternity, and despite his opinion that Mercury shared with Jupiter a special need of rehabilitation, Lewis claimed no special relationship with the planet of the second sphere. In fact, he confesses that the Mercurial essence is almost beyond his grasp: […]

2008, Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

(Roman mythology, obsolete) Pertaining to the Roman god Jove or Jupiter (the counterpart of the Greek god Zeus), the god of the sky and thunder and the king of the gods; Jovian.


octovir

(historical, Ancient Rome) Any member of a group of eight officials.


duodecimvir

duodecimvir (plural duodecimvirs or duodecimviri)

duodecimvirs (plural)
duodecimviri (plural)

(historical, Ancient Rome) Any member of a group of twelve officials.


quindecimvir

quindecimvir (plural quindecimvirs or quindecimviri)

quindecimvirs (plural)
quindecimviri (plural)

From Latin quīndecimvir, from quindecim (“fifteen”) + vir (“man”).

(historical) Any member of an official group of fifteen people, especially a member of the 15-man college of priests who cared for the Sibylline Books in ancient Rome.


thermopolium

About 80 thermopolia have been found at Pompeii, where residents could choose their edibles from containers set into street-front counters.

2020 December 26, Elisabetta Povoledo, “Snail, Fish and Sheep Soup, Anyone? Savory New Finds at Pompeii”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(historical, Ancient Rome) A place where food and hot drinks were sold.


Centimanes

From Latin centimanus, a calque of Ancient Greek Ἑκατόγχειρες (Hekatónkheires, “the Hundred-Handed”) from centi- (“100”) + manus (“hand”).

der

Ἑκατόγχειρες

1882, The Chautauquan, Volume 3, Chautauqua Press, page 486,
The Titans with the Cyclops and Centimanes (hundred-handed), were giants and the first inhabitants of the earth. Strictly the hundred hands belong to the brothers of the Titans, the Centimanes.

Of the three Centimanes enumerated by Hesiod, Brisareus only is mentioned in Homer, and, to all appearance, not as the son of Uranos, but as the son of Poseidṑn; not as aiding Zeus in his combat with the Titans, but as rescuing him at a critical moment from a conspiracy formed against him by Hḕrḕ, Poseidṑn and Athḕnḕ.

1906, George Grote, A History of Greece, Volume 1, Dent, page 54:

1998, Robert Temple, The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago, 2nd Edition, Random House (Arrow), page 325,
‘"From their shoulders sprang a hundred invincible arms and above these powerful limbs rose fifty heads attached to their backs." For this reason they were called the Hecatoncheires or Centimanes,’ as we are reliably told.

(Roman mythology) Synonym of Hecatoncheires.


Elagabalus

ĕl'əgăbʹələs

/ˌɛləˈɡæbələs/

From Latin Elagabalus. The emperor is named for the deity, whose name is from an Arabic name whose elements are إِلٰه (ʔilāh, “god”) and Arabic جَبَل (jabal, “mountain”).

Racial prejudice also played a part, says Icks: before coming to Rome to rule it, Elagabalus was a priest in an obscure cult in Syria that venerated a black stone meteorite – a culture that would have been deeply strange to the Romans.

2023 November 24, Esther Addley, “Was Roman emperor Elagabalus really trans – and does it really matter?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(Ancient Rome) The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (reigned 218–222), noted for eccentricity, femininity, decadence, and disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos.


Vejovis

From Latin Vējovis, a later spelling of Vēiovis, from Old Latin Vēdiovis, from vē + Diovis from Proto-Italic *djous, *djowes, from Proto-Indo-European *dyḗws.

(Roman mythology) an ancient Italic Roman deity of Etruscan origin considered to be an underworld counterpart of Jupiter; literally “Little Jupiter”, “Anti-Jove”


desultor

(historical) A person skilled at leaping from one horse or chariot to another.


Pandemic

From Ancient Greek Ἀφροδίτη Πάνδημος (Aphrodítē Pándēmos, “Aphrodite Pandemos”), from πάνδημος (pándēmos, “of or belonging to all the people, public”) + English -ic (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’). See further at pandemic (etymology 1).

Ἀφροδίτη Πάνδημος

[page 64] The Love, therefore, which attends upon Venus Pandemos is, in truth, common to the vulgar, and presides over transient and fortuitous connexions, and is worshipped by the least excellent of mankind. The votaries of this deity seek the body rather than the soul, and the ignorant rather than the wise, disdaining all that is honourable and lovely, and considering how they shall best satisfy their sensual necessities. […] [page 67] That Pandemic lover who loves rather the body than the soul is worthless, nor can be constant and consistent, since he has placed his affections on that which has no stability.

a. 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Banquet. Translated from Plato.”, in Richard Herne Shepherd, editor, The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: From the Original Editions […] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, […], published 1888, →OCLC, pages 64 and 67:

The same distinction between an Uranian and a Pandemic Venus runs, as all those who have any acquaintance with the sculptures of the Greeks know, through their whole art. […] The latter [the Capitoline Venus] is the true Pandemic Venus, the perfect type of voluptuousness, soulless, animal beauty,— […]

1840 January–June, “Shelley’s Translation of ‘The Banquet’ of Plato”, in The Monthly Chronicle; a National Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume V, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, […], →OCLC, pages 316–317:

That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose symbol is the tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty and chastity: not of that baser Pandemic one.

1852 January – 1853 April, Charles Kingsley, Jun., “She Stoops to Conquer”, in Hypatia: Or, New Foes with an Old Face. […], volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 109:

The meeting of Venus with Phoebe distinguishes her roles: the business of Venus in her pandemic form is to ensure the immortality of the kinds. Her Garden has the voluptuousness necessary to ensure this, and this is 'the first seminarie / Of all things that are borne to live and die / According to their kindes.' [Quoting from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.]

1967, Frank Kermode, “World Without End or Beginning”, in The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (The Mary Flexner Lectures on the Humanities; 1965), New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC; new edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2000, →ISBN, page 76:

For the complicated history of the Uranian and Pandemic Aphrodite of whom the Venus genetrix, the creative and vivifying force of nature, and Venus, the goddess of erotic passion, are Roman versions, see "Aphrodite" and "Venus" in Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, […]. [Allen] Tate sees the attempt to reconcile the claims of the Uranian and Pandemic Aphrodite as the lifelong concern of [John] Keats.

1969, Gerhard Joseph, “From Fatal Goddess to a God of Love”, in Tennysonian Love: The Strange Diagonal, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, →OCLC, footnote 8, page 141:

The Symposium [of Plato] presents strong and varied opinions on Aphrodite. Aristodemus reports Pausanias's speech on the Homeric and Hesiodic versions of the goddess's origins, and differentiates between the two loves and the two Aphrodites—the Pandemic one, daughter of Zeus, and the heavenly Uranic Aphrodite.

2015, Nora Clark, “Aphrodite and Venus: Myth Timeless and Temporal”, in Aphrodite and Venus in Myth and Mimesis, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 30:

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Of Aphrodite Pandemos, the earthly aspect of the Greek goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart Venus, as contrasted with the heavenly aspect known as Aphrodite Urania: earthly, physical, sensual.

Aphrodite Pandemos
Capitoline Museums
Capitoline Venus


Massalia

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Μασσαλία (Massalía).

(historical) An ancient Greek city and colony in modern southern France; modern Marseille.


plebeiate

From plebeian + -ate (forms noun denoting rank or office, a body of people involved with it).

af

Those writers, on the other hand, who take a more aristocratic view of early institutions, and consider the ceorls as an essentially inferior class, would look upon "commendation" as their original and necessary condition. The Roman plebeiate is of course an argument for the latter view.

1870, William Francis Allen, “Review of The History of the Norman Conquest of England”, in The North American Review, volume 110, number 227, page 355:

In the old life of the pagus and the gens, the weaker sought protection of the stronger by a willing vassalage, which ripened, when the state was formed, into the Plebeiate which had its origin in clientship.

1901, Abel Greenidge, Roman Public Life, pages 5–6:

I propose that this ordo was a stratified and competitive hierarchy, a network with multiple interacting and context-specific hierarchies (clan, patriciate, plebeiate, age, sexual status, social position, sacerdotal public office, wealth etc.) […]

2019, Lewis Webb, “Mihi es aemula: Elite Female Status Competition in Mid-Republican Rome and the Example of Tertia Aemilia”, in Eris vs. Aemulatio: Valuing Competition in Classical Antiquity, page 258:

(rare, Ancient Rome) The class of plebeians or common citizens.


Coele-Syria

Borrowed from Latin Coelē Syria, from Ancient Greek Κοίλη Συρία (Koílē Suría). Literally “Hollow Syria”.

A Hellenistic region and imperial Roman province of Syria.


Querquetulanae

These Querquetulanae have an apparent, or barely possible, survival in the spirits called Querkeln in Bavaria.

2002, Charles Godfrey Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains and the Old Religion, page 106:

There weren't demons or vampires or fairies or shellycoats or Querquetulanae or any of that stuff.

2018, W. Stone Cotter, Saint Philomene's Infirmary for Magical Creatures:

They are partly associated with the Querquetulanae, the Roman nymphs of the oak grove.

2019, Maria Papachristos, Muses - Nymphs - Other Gods, page 55:

(Roman mythology) The nymphs of the oak grove.


Proserpine

(Roman mythology) Alternative form of Proserpina (“Roman goddess of the seasons and spring vegetation, daughter of Ceres and Jupiter; queen of the Underworld as wife of Pluto; equivalent to Greek Persephone and old Italic deity Libera”)


quinquennalian

(historical) Of or related to a quinquennalia.


Faucian

en-adj

Faucian (comparative more Faucian, superlative most Faucian)

more Faucian (comparative)
most Faucian (superlative)

From Fauci, the name of one of the genes, or clans, of Ancient Rome + -an.

The Faucian curia is likewise stated to have been considered unlucky , as having been the first in the year both of the Gallic capture of the city , and of the Caudine disaster -- to which Licinius Macer added the Cremera;

1855, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, An Inquiry Into the Credibility of the Early Roman History:

Papirius appointed Caius Junius Bubulcus master of the horse; and, as he was proceeding in an assembly of the Curiæ to get an order passed respecting the command of the army, an unlucky omen obliged him to adjourn it; for the Curia which was to vote first, happened to be the Faucian, remarkably distinguished by two disasters, the taking of the city, and the Caudine peace; the same Curia having voted first in those years in which the said events are found.

1868, Livy, translated by Daniel Spillan, Cyrus R. Edmonds, and William Alexander McDevitte, The History of Rome, page 614:

The lot had fallen to this Faucian curia to be first in two calamitous years, that of the capture of Rome and of the Claudine forts.

1896, Joseph-Louis-Elzéar Ortolan, Iltudus Thomas Prichard, David Nasmith, The History of Roman Law, page 29:

Pertaining to the Fauci family of Ancient Rome.


Porrima

(Roman mythology) The goddess Antevorta.


exodium

It was said that the campaigning of Crassus had ended, like a tragedy, with an exodium—which seems to mean an amusing scene.

1963, W[illiam] Beare, The Roman Stage: A Short History of Latin Drama in the Time of the Republic, third edition, New York, N.Y.: Barnes & Noble, Inc., page 20:

(historical, Ancient Rome) Synonym of exode (“a comic performance after a tragedy”)


pomarium

(historical, obsolete) Alternative spelling of pomerium


Volcanus

(Roman mythology) Synonym of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalwork.


Ops

Learned borrowing from Latin Ops, from Latin ops (“resources, wealth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep-(i)-, *h₃op-(i)- (“force, ability”), from *h₃ep- base

(Roman mythology) The goddess of earth and fertility. Equivalent to the Greek Rhea, Ops was the sister-wife of Saturn and mother of Jupiter. After Saturn learned of a prophecy that his children by Ops would overthrow him, he ate each of them just after they were born; however, Ops saved Jupiter by feeding Saturn a stone instead.


Sterquilinus

(Roman mythology) A Roman god of odor and manure.


Antevorta

(Roman mythology) An ancient Roman goddess of the future.


Camenae

(Roman mythology) A group of prophetic goddesses associated with childbirth, wells, and fountains.


Camoenae

(Roman mythology) Alternative form of Camenae


Postverta

(Roman mythology) An ancient Roman goddess of the past, sister of Antevorta.


Postvorta

(Roman mythology) Alternative form of Postverta


Carmentae

(Roman mythology) The goddesses Antevorta and Postverta.


Argestes

(Roman mythology) A wind from the west-northwest (according to Pliny the Elder) or west-southwest (according to Vitruvius).


verbenarius

(Ancient Rome, politics, religion, historical) A fetial with the ceremonial function of carrying sacred vervain.


Free State of Fiume

Calque of Italian stato libero di Fiume.

(historical) Synonym of Fiume, a former polity in Europe, between 1920–1924.


quartarius

en-noun

quartarius (plural quartariuses or quartarii)

quartariuses (plural)
quartarii (plural)

From Latin quārtārius (“one-fourth”), from quārtus (“fourth”) + -ārius (“-ary: forming adj.”) from its relation to the sextarius. Doublet of quartary.

(historical) A Roman unit of liquid measure reckoned as the volume of 5/12 Roman pound of wine and equivalent to about 0.14 L although varying slightly over time.


tribune of the plebs

tribune of the plebs (plural tribunes of the plebs)

(Ancient Rome) The first office of the Roman state that was open to the plebeians, with the power to convene and preside over the Concilium Plebis (people's assembly); to summon the senate; to propose legislation; to intervene on behalf of plebeians in legal matters and to veto the actions of the consuls and other magistrates.


wilamowitzianus

Named after the German classicist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.

(poetry, Ancient Rome) a meter consisting of two choriambs, used in Attic tragedy and in Roman comedy, used by Plautus and Terence.

Metres of Roman comedy#Wilamowitzianus
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff


Necessitas

(Roman mythology, Orphic theology) The personification of absolute necessity; Ananke.


cinaedism

(Ancient Rome) Sexual passivity in a man.


Boethius

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480–524 C.E.), Roman historian and philosopher from the Early Middle Ages.


vicennals

From Latin vīcennālia, from vīcennis (“20-year”) + -ālia (“-alia: forming festival names”), from vīciēs (“twenty times”) + annus (“year”) + -is (“forming compound adjectives”).

(historical, rare) Synonym of vicennalia: the festival and religious ritual held on the 20th anniversary of a Roman emperor's reign.


vicennalia

vicennalia (plural vicennalia or vicennalias)

vicennalia (plural)
vicennalias (plural)

From Latin vīcennālia, from vīcennium (“20-year period”) + -ālia (“-alia: forming the names of festivals”), from vicennis (“20-year”) + -ium (“forming abstract nouns”), from vīciēs (“twenty each”) + annus (“year”) + -is (“forming compound adjectives”). Equivalent to vicennium + -alia.

Apart from the Vicennalia, 136 was an eventful year for the imperial family: the serious illness of Hadrian in the spring, the adoption of Aelius in the summer and the death and consecration of Sabina at the end of the year.

1971, P.V. Hill, "The Dating and Arrangement of Hadrian's COS III", Mints, Dies and Currency, p. 52

The exact timing of the tenth and twentieth anniversaries, the decennalia and the vicennalia, has already been discussed at length. The most straightforward solution, that it took place on the emperor's dies imperii ten years after the accession, has its adherents. However, a date earlier in the year, perhaps even the day of the beginning of the tenth year, may also be considered—at least in the second century AD.

2005, Jakob Munk Højte, Roman Imperial Statue Bases from Augustus to Commodus, p. 157

As a chronological list of Roman emperors makes clear, several rulers reign long enough to enjoy their decennalia, but relatively few were fortunate enough to celebrate their vicennalia, their twentieth imperial anniversary; and from the second century onwards Constantine alone ruled long enough to celebrate a tricennalia.

2012, Gary Forsythe, "Magna Mater and the Taurobolium", Time in Roman Religion, p. 111

(historical) The festival and religious rituals celebrating a Roman emperor's 20th year of rule.


decennalia

decennalia (plural decennalia or decennalias)

decennalia (plural)
decennalias (plural)

From Latin decennālia, from decennium (“10-year period”) + -ālia (“-alia: forming the names of festivals”), from decennis (“10-year”) + -ium (“-ium: forming abstract nouns”). Equivalent to decennium + -alia.

Seven pieces celebrate the Decennalia of Arcadius, which were due on Jan. 15, 393.

1915, Arthur Evans, "Notes on the Coinage and Silver Currency in Roman Britain from Valentinian I to Constantine III", Numismatic Chronicle..., 4th Ser., Vol. 15, p. 436

(historical) The festival and religious rituals celebrating a Roman emperor's 10th year of rule.

Antoninus Pius
Julian the Apostate
decennalia


tricennalia

tricennalia (plural tricennalia or tricennalias)

tricennalia (plural)
tricennalias (plural)

From Latin trīcennālia, from trīcennium (“30-year period”) + -ālia (“-alia: forming the names of festivals”), from trīcennis (“30-year”) + -ium (“forming abstract nouns”), from trīciēs (“thirty each”) + annus (“year”) + -is (“forming compound adjectives”). Equivalent to tricennium + -alia.

In 336, the city was ready. Constantine the Great could celebrate his Tricennalia, his thirty-year jubilee, in his new capital. One year later, he was baptised and died.

2008, Jona Lendering, “Constantine's City”, in Livius:

(historical) The festival and religious rituals celebrating a Roman emperor's 30th year of rule.


quindecennalia

quindecennalia (plural quindecennalia or quindecennalias)

quindecennalia (plural)
quindecennalias (plural)

From Latin quīndecennālia, from quīndecennium (“15-year period”) + -ālia (“-alia: forming the names of festivals”), from quīndecennis (“15-year”) + -ium (“-ium: forming abstract nouns”). Equivalent to quin- + decennalia, quindec + ennalia, or quindecennium + -alia.

There is evidence, that the quindecennalia, of fifteenth anniversary of Trajan's proconsular authority, and of his adoption to the empire, was celebrated in 111, or the year after Pliny's arrival in Bithynia.

1837, Edward Burton, Lectures upon the Ecclesiastical History of the First Three Centuries..., Vol. II, "Lecture XIV", p. 40

There is good literary evidence for Honorius' tricennalia in 422, which is at the end of perfect quinquennial sequence from 393, as well as consular vot xxx mvlt xxx solidi, though there do not appear to be any vota coins marking his quindecennalia or quinta quinquennalia.

1988, Richard W. Burgess, “Quinquennial Vota and the Imperial Consulship in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, 337-511”, in Numismatic Chronicle, number 148, page 85:

On 1 January 112... the year opened with a series of celebrations to mark the quindecennalia of the emperor's ascension.

1997, Julian Bennett, Trajan Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times, page 186:

(historical) The festival and religious rituals sometimes observed celebrating a Roman emperor's 15th year of rule.


OVRA

Borrowed from Italian OVRA with unknown full form. Speculated by some as initialism of Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'Antifascismo (Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism).

initialism

(history) The secret police of Fascist Italy active from 1927 to 1945.


Curitis

(Roman mythology) An epithet of the goddess Juno.


Roman charity

en-noun

Roman charity (countable and uncountable, plural Roman charities)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Roman charity.wav

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) A story where someone is sentenced to die by starvation; but their daughter saves them by secretly breastfeeding them.

Cimon and Pero (Rubens)
Peter Paul Rubens


Vagitanus

(Roman mythology) A male deity involved with childbirth.


Gabinian

Cicero appears to have been of this opinion, as we find him in his dialogue on friendship, objecting to the Gabinian law, by which ballot was enacted in lieu of oral voting, on the ground that the populace would gain the ascendancy in elections; a degree of freedom to which he was averse.

1824, An Englishman [Isaac Candler], “The Government” (chapter XXVI), in A Summary View of America: Comprising a Description of the Face of the Country, and of Several of the Principal Cities […], London: Printed for T. Cadell […] and W. Blackwood […], pages 388–389:

tribune of the plebs
tribune of the plebs

(Ancient Rome) Of or pertaining to the gens Gabinia, a plebeian family of Ancient Rome.

Of or pertaining to Aulus Gabinius, tribune of the plebs in 139 BCE, who introduced a law in 139 BCE that permitted voting by ballot.

Josephus says nothing of Samareitis, but the Samaritans had a council in the first century A.D., which was probably a survival of a Gabinian council: it probably sat at Shechem.

1971, A. H. M. Jones, “Syria” (chapter X), in The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 258:

Of or pertaining to Aulus Gabinius, consul in 58 BCE, who introduced a law in 67 BCE that granted Pompey an extraordinary command in the war against the pirates.


Massilian

(historical) A native or inhabitant of Massilia. (ancient Marseille)


Massilian

(historical) Of, from or relating to Massilia. (ancient Marseille)


tabula lusoria

(Ancient Rome) A table used as a gameboard.


supplicia canum

An Ancient Roman holiday in which dogs were slaughtered and paraded through the streets.


priestess of Venus

priestess of Venus (plural priestesses of Venus)

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see priestess, of, Venus.