Dictionary
PATRONUS	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Roman term for the protector of a single client, or of a whole community (see CLIENTES); the emancipator in relation to his freedman; and the judicial representative of accuser or accused. For the distinction between patronus and advocatus, see the latter.
CONSECRATIO	41.40%
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PRAEVARICATIO	34.86%
The Latin term for the improper conduct of a case on the part of a prosecutor in favour of the defendant, or on the part of a patronus to the detriment of his client. The penalty was forfeiture of the right to prosecute, and to act as an advocate. If the acquittal of the defendant was demonstrably due to proevaricatio, the case might be undertaken anew by a second prosecutor.
SALUTATIO	34.78%
The morning greeting which Romans of rank were in the habit of receiving from clients, friends, and admirers in the atrium during the first two hours of the day; for this purpose the callers gathered in the vestibule even before sunrise. [Martial, iv 8: prima salutantes atque altera continet hora; Pliny, Ep. iii 12,officia antelucana.]
REUS	28.25%
The term used by the Romans for the person accused, especially in a criminal trial. In such a case custom required the accused to appear in public in the garb of mourning, with beard and hair in an unkempt condition, in neglected attire, and stripped of every sign of rank. The mere accusation involved some suspense of legal rights, preventing the reus from standing for any office and from exercising the functions of a judge. The higher officials were exempt from criminal accusation while in office and when engaged in the discharge of public business. Lastly, lawsuits between two persons connected by ties of family or office, such as parents and children, patrons and clients, were regarded as inadmissible.
BANKS AND BANKING	23.71%
Bankers were called by the Greeks trapezitoe, because they sat at tables in the market-places, the centre of all business transactions. They acted as money-changers, exchanging for a commission heavy money or gold into smaller coin, and the moneys of different systems with each other. In commercial cities they would do a considerable trade in this way; the difference of standards and the uncertainty of the stamping of coins in Greece creating a great demand for their assistance. They also acted as money-lenders, both on a small and a large scale. Finally, they received money on deposit. People placed their money with them partly for safe custody, partly to facilitate the management of it. The depositors, according to their convenience, either drew out sums of money themselves, or commissioned their banker to make payments to a third person. In this line the business of the banks was considerable. If a citizen had a large sum of money circulating in business, he probably preferred to put it in a bank, and to hand over to the banker the business of making his payments. Strangers too found that the banks offered them such facilities that they were glad to make considerable use of them. The bankers kept strict accounts of all the monies in their charge. If a person were making a payment to another who was a depositor at the same bank, the banker would simply transfer the requisite sum I from one account to the other. The bankers were generally well known from the public character of their occupation, and they naturally gained great experience in business. Consequently their advice and assistance were often asked for in the ordinary affairs of life. They would be called in to attest the conclusion of contracts, and would take charge of sums of money, the title to which was disputed, and of important documents. Business of this kind was generally in the hands of resident aliens. We hear, in isolated instances, of State-banks. But this business was carried on in the vast majority of cases by the great sanctuaries, such as those of Delphi, Delos, Ephesus, and Samos, which were much used as banks for loans and deposits, both by individuals and governments. The Romans had, in some exceptional cases, State-banks under the superintendence of public officials. The nummularii and argentarii occupied the same position among them as the trapezitoe among the Greeks. The tabernoe argentarioe, or banks, were set up in the forum, especially about or under the three arched buildings called Iani. The nummularii had a two-fold function. (1) They were officers of the mint, charged with assaying new coins, holding a bank (mensa) for putting new coins into circulation, taking old or foreign coinage into currency, and testing the genuineness of money on occasion of payments being made. (2) They carried on the business of exchange on their own account, at the same time acting as argentarii. In other words, they received money on deposit, put out capital at interest for their clients, got in outstanding debts, made payments, executed sales, especially auctions of property left to be disposed of by will, lent money or negotiated loans, and executed payments in foreign places by reference to bankers there. The argentarii and nummularii were alike subject to the superintendence of the state authorities. In Rome they were responsible to the Proefectus Urbi, in the provinces to the governors. They were legally bound to keep their books with strict accuracy. The books were of three kinds: (a) the codex accepti et expensi, or cash book, in which receipts and payments were entered, with the date, the person's name, and the occasion of the transaction; (b) the liber rationum, in which every client had a special page setting out his debit and credit account; and (c) the adversaria, or diary for the entry of business still in hand. In cases of dispute these books had to be produced for purposes of legal proof. The Roman bankers, like the Greek, usually managed payments from one client to another by alteration of the respective accounts.
STRENAE	23.08%
CHAIRS AND SEATS	15.41%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Of these there was a great variety in the ancient world, some with, and some without, supports for the head and back. The latter sort (Gr. diphros, Lat. sella) were mostly low, and were supported sometimes on four upright legs, sometimes on feet arranged and shaped like a sawing stool (see cuts). The seat being made of leather straps, the chair could, in the latter case, be folded up and carried by a servant. A chair of this kind, made of ivory, was one of the insignia of the curule magistrates at Rome (see SELLA CURULIS). The official chair of the Roman magis trates was always without a back. Stools without backs were also used by mechanics, soldiers, and boys at school. The backed chairs ordinarily in use much resembled our modern chairs. They generally had a sloping back, sometimes arched out in the centre (see cuts). Chairs of this form were made for women and invalids; and the cathedra or professor's chair was of the same description. The Greek thronos and the Latin solium were seats of honour. They were lofty, and had footstools accordingly; the back was high and straight, the legs were upright, and there were arms at the sides. The Roman pater familias, when giving his clients their morning audience, sat in a solium. Seats were not always stuffed, but cushions were put on them, and coverings on the backs. Chairs were made of metal and ivory, as well as of wood.
PATRICIANS	9.87%
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CENSORES	8.02%
The officials whose duty it was (after 444 B.C.) to take the place of the consuls in superintending the five-yearly census. The office was one of the higher magistracies, and could only be held once by the same person. It was at first confined to the Patricians; in 351 B.C. it was thrown open to the Plebeians, and after 339 one of the censors was obliged by law to be a plebeian. On occasion of a census, the censors were elected soon after the accession to office of the now consuls, who presided over the assembly. They were usually chosen from the number of consulares, or persons who had been consuls. Accordingly the censorship was regarded, if not as the highest office of state, at least as the highest step in the ladder of promotion. The newly elected censors entered immediately, after due summons, upon their office. Its duration was fixed in 433 B.C. to eighteen months, but it could be extended for certain purposes. For the object of carrying out their proper duties, the census and the solemn purifications (lustrum) that concluded it, they had the power of summoning the people to the Campus Martius, where, since 434 B.C., they had an official residence. in the Villa Publica. The tribunes had no right of veto as against their proceedings in taking the census; indeed, so far as this part of their duties was concerned, they were irresponsible, being bound only in conscience by the oath which they took on entering upon and laying down their office. Having no executive powers, they had no lictors, but only messengers (viatores) and heralds (praecones). Their insignia were the sella curulis and a purple toga. The collegial character of the office was so pronounced, that if one censor died, the other abdicated. From the simple act of taking the census and putting up the new list of citizens, their functions were in course of time extended, so as to include a number of very important duties. Among these must be mentioned in particular a general superintendence of conduct (regimen morum). In virtue of this they had the power of affixing a stigma on any citizen, regardless of his position, for any conceivable offence for which there was no legal punishment. Such offences were neglect of one's property, celibacy, dissolution of marriage, bad training or bad treatment of children, undue severity to slaves and clients, irregular life, abuse of power in office, impiety, perjury, and the like. The offender might be punished with degradation; that is, the censors could expel a man from the senate or ordo equester, or they could transfer him from a country tribe into one of the less respectable city tribes, and thus curtail his right of voting, or again they could expel him from the tribes altogether, and thus completely deprive him of the right of voting. This last penalty might be accompanied by a fine in the shape of additional taxation. The censors had also the power of issuing edicts against practices which threatened the simplicity of ancient Roman manners; for instance, against luxury. These edicts had not the force of law, but their transgression might be punished by the next censors. The effect of the censorial stigma and punishment lasted until the next census. The consent of both censors was required to ratify it, and it directly affected men only, not women. The censors exercised a special superintendence over the equites and the senate. They had the lectio senatus, or power of ejecting unworthy members and of passing over new candidates for the senatorial rank, as, for instance, those who had held curule offices. The equites had to pass singly, each leading his horse, before the censors in the forum, after the completion of the general census. An houourable dismissal was then given to the superannuated or the infirm; if an eques was now found, or had previously been found, unworthy of his order (as for neglecting to care for his horse), he was expelled from it. The vacant places were filled up from the number of such individuals as appeared from the general census to be suitable. There were certain other duties attached to the censorship, for the due performance of which they were responsible to the people, and subject to the authority of the senate and the veto of the tribunes. (1) The letting of the public domain lands and taxes to the highest bidder. (2) The acceptance of tenders from the lowest bidder for works to be paid for by the State. In both these cases the period was limited to five years. (3) Superintendence of the construction and maintenance of public buildings and grounds, temples, bridges, sewers, aqueducts, streets, monuments, and the like. After 167 B.C. Roman citizens were freed from all taxation, and since the time of Marius the liability to military service was made general. The censorship was now a superfluous office, for its original object, the census, was hardly necessary. Sulla disliked the censors for their power of meddling in matters of private conduct, and accordingly in his constitution of 81 B.C. the office was, if not formally abolished, practically superseded. It was restored in 70 B.C. in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus, and continued to exist for a long time, till under the Empire it disappeared as a separate office. The emperor kept in his own hands the right of taking the census. He took over also the other functions of the censor, especially the supervision of morals, a proceeding in which he had Caesar's example to support him. The care of public buildings, however, he committed to a special body.
CICERO	7.83%
Marcus Tullius Cicero. The celebrated Roman orator, born at Arpinum, January 3rd, 106 B.C. He was son of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Helvia, his family being of equestrian rank, but not yet ennobled by office. With his brother Quintus he received his education in Rome, where he soon had an opportunity of hearing and admiring the two most celebrated orators of the day, Crassus and Antonius. He took the toga virilis in 90 B.C., and, while practising rhetorical exercises, devoted himself with ardour to the study of law. In 89 he served on his first campaign in the Marsian War. After this he began his studies in philosophy, mainly under the guidance of the Academic philosopher, Philo of Larissa. The presence of the Rhodian rhetorician Molo in Rome, and afterwards the instruction in dialectic given him by the Stoic Dioduus, gave him the opportunity he desired for furthering his training as an orator. Having thus carefully prepared himself for his future vocation during the period of the civil disturbances, he started on his career as an orator under Sulla's dictatorship. He began with civil or private cases. One of his earliest speeches, the Pro Quinctio, still survives. This oration [in which he defends his client on the question of his conduct in a partnership] he delivered in 81 B.C., in his 26th year. In the following year he first appeared in a causa publica, and not on the side of the prosecution, the usual course for beginners, but on that of the defence. His client was Sextus Roscius of Ameria, accused of murdering his own father. This speech laid the foundation of Cicero's fame, and not only because it was successful. People admired the intrepidity with which Cicero stood up against Chrysogonus, the favourite, of the omnipotent dictator. In the following year, for the sake of his delicate health, Cicero started on a two years, tour in Greece and Asia, taking every opportunity of finishing his education as a philosopher and orator. For philosophy he had recourse to the most celebrated professors at Athens: for rhetoric he went to Rhodes, to his former instructor, Molo. In B.C. 77 he returned to Rome, his health restored, and his intellect matured. In this year he married Terentia. Hie career as an advocate he pursued with such success that he was unanimously elected quaestor in 76 B.C.. He was stationed at Lilybaeum, in Sicily, and administered his office unimpeachably. After his return he entered the senate, and developed an extraordinary activity as a speaker. In consequence he was elected to the curule aedileship in 70 B.C. It was in this year that the Sicilians, remembering the conscientiousness and unselfishness he had displayed in his quaestorship, begged him to lead the prosecution against Verres. For three years this man had, in the most infamous manner, ill-treated and plundered the province. Cicero had to contend with all kinds of hindrances thrown in his way by the aristocratic friends of Verres. By the Divinatio in Caecilium he had to make good his claims to prosecute against those of Caecilius Niger. The defence was led by the most famous orator of the day, Hertensins. But Cicero managed to collect such a mass of evidence, and to marshal it with such ability, that after the actio prima, or first hearing, Verres found it advisable to retire into voluntary exile. The unused material Cicero worked up into an actio secunda in five speeches. The whole proceeding made him so popular that, spoiled as the multitude was, no one complained of his economical expenditure on the games during his aedilesbip. He was unanimously elected praetor in 67 B.C. In this office he made his first political speech in 66, successfully defending the proposal of the tribune Manilius to give Pompeius the command in the Mithridatic war, with unprecedented and almost absolute power. In 64 B.C. he came forward as candidate for the consulship, and was successful, in spite of the efforts of his enemies. He owed his success to the support of the nobility, who had hitherto regarded him, as a homonovus, with disfavour, but had come to recognise him as a champion of the party of order. He obtained the office, as he had the rest, suo anno, that is in the first year in which his candidature was legally possible. The danger with which Catiline's agitation was threatening the State, determined Cicero to offer a vigorous opposition to everything likely to disturb public order. With this view he delivered three speeches, in which he frustrated the agrarian proposals of the tribune Servilius Rullus. He also led the defence of the aged Rabirius, whom the leaders of the democratic party, to excite the people against the senate, had prosecute for the murder of Saturninus thirty-six years before. To avoid the danger and excitement of a fresh consular election for 62, he undertook the defence of the consul designatus L. Murena, on the charge of bribery; and this, although the accusers of Murena numbered among them Cicero's best friends, and, indeed, rested their case upon the very law by which Cicero had himself proposed to increase the penalties for bribery. The conspiracy of Catiline gave Cicero an opportunity of displaying in the most brilliant light his acuteness, his energy, his patriotism, and even his power as an orator. He discovered the conspiracy, and helped largely to suppress it by the execution of the chief conspirators, who had remained behind in Rome. Cicero's consulship marks the climax of his career. He received, it is true, the honourable title of pater patriae; but, a few weeks later, he bad a clear warning of what he had to expect from the opposite party in the way of reward for his services. When laying down his office he was about to make a speech, giving an account of his administration. The tribune Metellus Nepos interrupted him, and insisted on his confining himself to the oath usual on the occasion. In the following year he had opportunities for displaying his eloquence in the defence of P. Cornelius Sulla and the poet Archias. But he was often attacked, and had, in particular, to meet a new danger in the hostility of Clodius Pulcher, whose mortal hatred only too soon hit upon a chance of sating itself. Cicero would not accede to the plans of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, but offered them a strenuous resistance. He deceived himself as to his own political importance, and refused to quit the city except under compulsion. The triumvirs accordingly abandoned him to the vengeance of Clodius. Clodius was elected tribune of the plebs in 58 B.C. , and at once proposed that any person should be made an outlaw, who should have put Roman citizens to death without trial. Cicero met the charge by retiring into voluntary exile early in April, 58. He went to Thessalonica, and Macedonia, where he found a safe retreat at the house of the quaestor Plancius. The sentence was, however, pronounced against him; his house on the Palatine was burnt down, his country houses plundered and destroyed, and even his family maltreated. It is true that, as early as the next year, he was recalled with every mark of distinction, and welcomed in triumph by the people on his entrance into Rome at the beginning of September. But his political activity was crippled by the power of the triumvirs. His fear of Clodius forced him to comply with their commands as a means of keeping in their good graces. But all this only stimulated him to show greater energy as an orator. His chief efforts were put forth in defending his friends, when prosecuted by political antagonists, as, for instance, Publius Sestius in 56 B.C., Gnaeus Plancius in 54, Titus Annius Milo in 52. His defence of the latter, accused of the murder of Clodius, was unsuccessful. It was at this period that he began to apply himself to literature. In 53 B.C. he was elected augur; from July, 51, to July, 50, he administered the province of Cilicia as proconsul. In this capacity, his clemency, uprightness and unselfishness won for him the greatest respect. For his conduct in a campaign against the robber tribes of Mount Amanus he was honoured by the title of Imperator, a public thanksgiving, and the prospect of a triumph. He landed in Italy towards the end of November, B.C. 50, and found that a breach between Pompey and Caesar was inevitable. The civil war broke out in the next year, and, after long hesitation, Cicero finally decided for Pompey, and followed him to Greece. But after the battle of Pharsalus, in which ill-health prevented him from taking a part, he deserted his friends, and crossed to Brundisium. Here he had to wait a whole year before Caesar pardoned him, and gave him leave to return to Rome. Caesar treated him with distinction and kindness, but Cicero kept aloof from public life. Nothing short of the calls of friendship could induce him to appear in the courts, as he did for Marcellus, Ligarius and Deiotarus. The calamities of his country; his separation from his wife Terentia, in 46 B.C. , after a married life of thirty-three years; his hasty union with the young and wealthy Publilia, so soon to be dissolved; the unhappy marriage and death of his favourite daughter Tullia; all this was a heavy affliction for him. He found some consolation in studying philosophy, and applying himself with energy to literary work. The murder of Caesar on March 15th, 44 B.C., roused him from his retirement, though he had taken no actual part in the deed. His patriotism excited him once more to take an active part in public life, and his first aimwas to effect a reconciliation of parties. He succeeded so far as to secure the passing of a general amnesty. But it was not long before the intrigues and the hostility of the Caesarian party forced him again to leave Rome. He was on his way to Greece, when, at the end of August, he was recalled, by false rumours, to the Capitol. In a moment of deep irritation against Antonius, he delivered, on the 2nd of September, the first of his fourteen Philippic orations, so called after those of Demosthenes. The second Philippic was never spoken, but published as a pamphlet; the last was delivered on the 21st April, B.C. 43. On the retirement of Antonius from Rome, Cicero found himself again playing a prominent part in politics. All the efforts of his party to bring about a restoration of the ancient republican freedom centred in him. But,when Octavianus disappointed the hopes which he had excited, and attached himself to Antonius and Lepidus in the second triumvirate, Cicero, now the chief man in the senate, was declared an outlaw. Intending to fly to Macedonia, as he had done fifteen years before, he was overtaken by his pursuers near Caieta, and put to death on September 7th, 43 B.C. , shortly before he had completed his sixty-fourth year. His head and right hand were exposed on the rostra by Antonius. The literary labours of Cicero signalize an important advance in the development of Latin literature. It is not only that he is to be regarded as the creator of classical Latin prose. He was also the first writer who broke ground, to any great extent, in fields of literature which, before him, had remained almost untouched. He had insight enough to perceive that his vocation lay in the career of an orator. His industry, throughout his whole life, was untiring; he was never blinded by success; to educate himself, and perfect himself in his art, was the object which he never lost sight of. His speeches, accordingly, give brilliant testimony to his combination of genius with industry. Besides the fifty-sevon speeches which survive in a more or less complete shape, and the most important of which have been mentioned above, we have about twenty fragments of others, and the titles of thirty-five more. Cicero was justified in boasting that no orator had written so many speeches, and in such different styles, as himself [Orator, c. 29, 30]. These orations were partly political, partly forensic; the latter being mostly on the side of the defenee. Cicero was also the author of panegyrics, as that, for instance, upon Cato. With few exceptions, as the second actio against Verres, the Pro Milone, and the panegyrics, they were actually delivered, and published afterwards. Extending over thirty-eight years, they give an excellent idea of Cicero's steady progress in the mastery of his art. They are of unequal merit, but everywhere one feels the touch of the born and cultivated orator. A wealth of ideas and of wit, ready acuteness, the power of making an obscure subject clear and a dry subject interesting, mastery of pathos, a tendency to luxuriance of language, generally tempered by good taste to the right measure, an unsurpassed tact in the use of Latin idiom and expression, a wonderful feeling for the rhythm and structure of prose writing: these are Cicero's characteristics. With all the faults which his contemporaries and later critics had to find with his speeches, Cicero never lost his position as the most classical representative of Latin oratory, and he was judged the equal, or nearly the equal, of Demosthenes. The knowledge which he had acquired in his practice as a speaker he turned to account in his writings on Rhetoric. In these he set forth the technical rules of the Greek writers, applying to them the results of his own experience, and his sense of the requirements of Latin oratory. Besides the two books entitled Rhetorica or De Inventione, a boyish essay devoid of all originality, the most important of his works on this subject are: (1) The De Oratore, a treatise in three books, written 55 B.C. This work, the form and contents of which are alike striking, is written in the style of a dialogae. Its subject is the training necessary for an orator, the proper handling of his theme, the right style, and manner of delivery. (2) The Brutus, or De Claris Oratoribus, written in B.C. 46; a history of Latin oratory from the earliest period down to Cicero's own time. (3) The Orator, a sketch of the ideal orator, written in the same year as the Brutus. Cicero also devoted a large number of books to Greek philosophy, a subject which he was concerned to render accessible to his countrymen. His writings in this line lack depth and thoroughness; but it must be said at the same time that he has the great merit of being the first Latin writer who treated these questions with taste and in an intelligible form, and who created a philosophical language in Latin. The framework which he adopts is usually that of the Aristotelian dialogue, though he does not always consistently adhere to it. It was not until after his fiftieth year that he began to write on philosophy, and in the years B.C. 45 and 44, when almost entirely excluded from politics, he developed an extraordinary activity in this direction. The following philosophical works survive, either in whole or in part: (1) Fragments, amounting to about one-third of the work, of the six books, De Re Publica, written B.C. 54-51. (2) Three books of an unfinished treatise, De Legibus, written about 52. (3) Paradoxa Stoicorum, a short treatment of six Stoical texts, B.C. 46. (4) Five books on the greatest good and the greatest evil (De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum), B.C. 45. This is the best of his philosophical works. (5) The second book of the first edition, and the first book of the second edition, of the Academica,B.C.45. (6) The five books of the Tusculan Disputations, B.C. 44. In the same year appeared (7) the De Natura Deorum, in three, and (8) the De Divinatione, in two books. (9) A fragment on the Stoical doctrine of Fate. (10) The Cato Maior, or De Senectute. (11) Laellus, or De Amicitia . (12) De Officiis, or On Ethics, in three books. Besides these, a whole series of philosophical and other prose writings by Cicero are known to us only in fragments, or by their titles. The multifarious nature of Cicero's occupation as a statesman and an orator did not hinder him from keeping up a voluminous correspondence, from which 864 letters (including 90 addressed to Cicero, are preserved in four collections. These letters form an inexhaustible store of information, bearing upon Cicero's own life as well as upon contemporary history in all its aspects. We have (1) The Epistulae ad Familiares, in sixteen books, B.C. 63-43; (2) The Epistulce ad Atticum, in sixteen books, B.C. 68-43; (3) Three books of letters to his brother Quintus; (4) Two books of correspondence between Cicero and Brutus after the death of Caesar, the genuineness of which is [rightly] disputed. Cicero also made some attempts to write poetry, in his youth for practice, in his later life mainly from vanity. His youthful effort was a translation of Aratus, of which some fragments remain. After 63 B.C. he celebrated his own consulship in three books of verses. [He is a considerable metrist, but not a real poet.]
NAMES	7.02%
The Romans, in the republican times, bad their names in the following order: prcenamen (= our "Christian name"), nomen (name of race, gentile name), cognomen (surname, denoting the family). The gentile name, which originally (always in patrician names) had for derivative suffix -ius (e.g. Iunius, Cornelius, Tullius), was common to all those connected with the gens, men, women, clients, and freedmen. The prcenomen was given to sons on the third day after birth, the dies lustricus, and was officially confirmed when the toga virilis was assumed and the name was inscribed on the roll of citizens. The original meaning of the prcenomen, in which there was sometimes a reference to peculiar circumstances at birth (e.g. Lacius=born by day, Manius=born in the morning; Quintus, the fifth, Decimus, the tenth), came to be disregarded in the course of time, when the name was given. As a rule, the eldest son received the prcenomen of his father. Of these there was a comparatively limited number in the noble families; some were employed only by certain gentes, even by certain families, as for instance Appius exclusively by the Claudii, and Tiberius especially by the Nerones who belonged to this race; while others were actually prohibited in certain families, e.g. Marcus in that of the Manlii.[1] The prcenomen was usually written in an abbreviated form; thus, A. stands for Aulus, C. for Gaius, Gn. for Gnceus, D. for Decimus, L. for Lacius, M'. for Manius, M. for Marcus, P. for Publius , Q. for Quintus, Ser. for Servius, S. or Sex. for Sextus, Ti. for Tiberius, T. for Titus. The surname (cognomen), the use of which was, in early times, not customary among the plebeians, served to denote and distinguish the different families of the same race, which often included several, patrician and plebeian. Thus the gens Cornelia comprised the patrician families of the Scipiones, Sullce, etc., and the plebeian families of the Dolabellce, Lentuli, etc. [It is true that some patrician families had fixed cognomina (e.g. Nero), but it was quite common for plebeians to take cognomina or to have them given; e.g. Cn. Pompeius Magnus, C. Asinius Pollio, and his son Asinius Gallus. Some plebeians never took a cognomen, e.g. the Antonii. But the Tullii are Cicerones in the last century of the Republic. Cognomina, whether fixed or otherwise, are generally of the nature of nicknames, or, at any rate, add a description of some personal characteristic; e.g. Naso, Strabo, Gallus, Scrofa, Asina, Rufus.] To the surname there was sometimes added a second and even a third, in later times called the agnomen, to indicate a lateral branch of the family, for instance the Scipiones, Nasicoe; or, in memory of some remarkable exploit in war (e.g. Scipio Africanus, Asiaticus, etc.), or in consequence of a popular designation (e.g. Scipio Nasica Serapio) or of an adoption. It was the original custom for the adopted son, on passing from one gens to another, to add to the prcenomen, nomen, and cognomen of his adoptive father the name of his own former gens with the termination -anus. Thus the full name of the destroyer of Carthage, the son of L. Aemilius Paulus adopted by one of the Scipios, was P(ublius) Cornelius Scipio Africanus Emilianus. After about 70 A.D. there were many irregularities in the way these names were given,the tendency being to give very many. Women originally had only one name, the feminine form of the gentile name of their father, e.g. Cornelia. In later times they sometimes had prcenomen also, which they received on marriage. It was the feminine form of the husband's prcenomen, e.g. Gaia. Sometimes they had both names, e.g. Aula Cornelia. The prcenomen went out of use for a time during the later Republic, and it was afterwards placed after the nomen like a cognomen (e.g. Iunia Tertia). Under the Empire, they regularly had two names, either the nomen and cognomen of the father (e.g. Caecilia Metella) or the nomina of father and mother (e.g. Valeria Attia, daughter of Attius and Valeria). Slaves were originally designated by the praenomen of their master, e.g. Marcipor = Marci puer (slave of Marcus). Later, when the number of slaves had been greatly multiplied, it became necessary to give them names chosen at random. Freedmen regularly took the nomen, afterwards the prcenomen also, of the man who freed them (or of the father of the woman who freed them), while they retained their previous name as a cognomen; thus the name of the well-known freedman of Cicero was M. Tullius Tiro, and of a freedman of Livia (the wife of Augustus), M. Livius Ismarus.
HANDICRAFT	6.75%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Examples of handicraft applied to the ordinary needs of life occur in the mythical ages of Greece. Among the gods of Olympus, Hephaestus represents this kind of industry, and the oldest craftsmen are represented as divine beings appearing on earth, as in the instance of the Idaean Dactyli and the Telchines in Crete. In the Homeric poems, which are the production of an age fairly advanced in culture, the number of craftsmen properly so called is very small. (See DEMIURGI.) The only ones mentioned are builders, carpenters, potters, and workers in leather and metal. The development of the mechanical arts inGreece was immensely indebted, in ancient times, to foreign influence, especially that of the East; for Eastern civilization was far older than Hellenic. The greater part of the trade carried on in Greek waters was in the hands of the Phoenicians, and it was, consequently, Phoenician manufacture which the Hellenes took as a model for imitation, so soon as they thought of widening the sphere of their own industries, and bringing them to perfection. Since the 6th century B.C., or thereabouts, the definite impress of Asiatic manufacture disappears, and Greek trade, supported by a rapidly developing art, takes its own time. Not that it lost all contact with foreign work, for not only did the colonies keep up an active communication with the non-Hellenic world, but foreign craftsmen took up their permanent residence in Greek towns, such as Athens and Corinth. Manual labour, like every lucrative occupation, was generally held in low esteem among the Greeks, and especially among the Dorian tribes. But this state of opinion must have grown up comparatively late, as there is no trace of it in Homer or Hesiod. On the contrary, the Homeric princes do not think it beneath them to undertake the work of craftsmen. In later times we find the free citizens of many states entirely declining all manual labour. In Sparta, for instance, the handicrafts were only practised by the perioeci and helots, and mechanics were excluded from civic rights. At Athens all citizens were equal in the eyes of the law, and it was expressly forbidden to reproach a man for the character of his vocation, whatever it might be. The poorer citizens were compelled by law to practise some trade or other, and it was quite usual to engage in commerce. But still, in the opinion even of the wisest statesmen, mechanical labour was physically, intellectually, and morally prejudicial. The petty anxieties which it involved were held to be incompatible with the tone, and culture demanded by the active life of the citizen, with the qualities which would enable him to join in deliberation on great affairs of state, and conduct public business with hones and intelligence. It was thought, in fact, that all manual labour should be left to slaves and freedmen. Much of the mechanical industry of Athens was, accordingly, in the hands of slaves, freedmen, and resident aliens. The slaves worked sometimes on their own account, paying a certain amount of their earnings to their master; sometimes entirely for the profit of their masters, the latter taking no active part in the business; sometimes they acted as assistants to the citizens and resident aliens who carried on a business of their own. But in industrial cities the great mass of slaves was employed in factories, the owners of which left the superintendence of the work to a head man, usually himself a slave or freedman, reserving for themselves only the general management and the financial control of the business. The immense masses of slaves kept at Athens and Corinth, and in Aegina and Chios, show how numerous the factories were in industrial cities. The manufacture of metal wares, pottery, and other objects which could not be made at home, was the most extended of all. The division of labour kept pace with the development of trade and manufacture. This fact may partly explain how it is that, in spite of the comparative simplicity of their tools, the Greek craftsmen attained, especially in works of art, such admirable perfection of technical detail. In ancient Greece it would appear that there were no trade-guilds and corporations in the proper sense. But among the Romans these societies were an institution of old standing, the foundation of which was attributed to king Numa, like that of many others which had existed from time immemorial. The guilds of craftsmen (collegiaopificum), included flute-players, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, carpenters, fullers, dyers, potters, and shoemakers. There was originally a ninth collegium, which embraced all not included in the other eight; but in later times these, with the new industries that gradually arose, combined into special guilds. The object of the guilds undoubtedly was to maintain an unbroken tradition, and to watch over the common interest. But there seems to have been no compulsion exercised to make men join a guild. The Romans, like the Greeks, seem to have thought that there was something objectionable in mechanical labour; but it is uncertain whether the prejudice was of really old standing. It must be remembered that the Servian constitution threw the burden of military service entirely upon the landowners. Thus the craftsmen, who as a rule had no landed property, were practically, though not legally, excluded from the army. From this circumstance may have arisen the low estimation in which manual industry was consequently held. It was partly owing to this state of opinion that peasants, when they lost their land, were unwilling to win their bread as mechanics, and preferred to adopt the dependent position of clients livin on public alms and the bribes of candidates at elections. In Rome, as in Greece, the handicrafts tended more and more to pass into the hands of strangers, freedmen, and slaves. In wealthy houses most of the necessary manual work was done by slaves, whose talents were often, as in Greece, turned to account by their masters. They were often employed in manufactures, and specially in such branches of industry as could be combined with agriculture, tilemaking for instance, pottery, dying, tanning, felt-making, etc. No social stigma attached to manufacture in Rome any more than in Greece; indeed in the imperial age even the emperors and the members of the imperial household would, without scruple, invest their private capital in industrial undertakings of this sort. After the fall of the republic, and throughout the imperial age, Rome was the centre of the whole commercial activity of the ancient world, though the Romans made no special contribution to industrial progress. Having in former ages been dominated by Etruscan influence, Roman industry was in later times dependent on the art of the Eastern world, and especially of Greece.
BURIAL	6.24%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Roman. The worship of the dead among the Romans had, characteristically enough, a legal tinge, and formed a part of the pontifical law, which regulated the place and manner of the interment. The theory of the Romans, like that of the Greeks, was that there was an obligation to bury every dead body, except those of felons, suicides, and persons struck by lightning. Any one finding a corpse was expected at least to throw some earth upon it as a symbol of burial. The first duty of a man's survivors was to bury his body; if he died in a foreign country, the act had to be performed symbolically. If this duty was neglected, the offender incurred a taint of guilt from which he had to purify himself by an annually repeated atonement. After death the eyes and mouth were closed, the body bathed in hot water and then anointed fully dressed, and adorned with the fitting insignia in case of the deceased having held high office. The corpse was then laid out on a state-bed in the atrium, the feet turned towards the door. Near the bed were pans with burning odours, while in the vestibulum, branches of pine and cypress were put up as signs of mourning. The custom of putting a coin in the mouth is not mentioned in literature before the imperial period; but the relics found in tombs show that it is much older. It was, however, only under the Empire that it became general. In ancient times funerals took place after nightfall and by torchlight; and this was always the case with second burials, and if the deceased was a child, or a person of slender means. Hence the use of torches was never discontinued, even when the ceremony took place by day. It was held indispensable at every funeral, and became, in fact, the symbol of burial. The usual time at which funerals took place among the upper classes was the forenoon of the eighth day after death. In the laws of the Twelve Tables an attempt was made to check excess in funeral expenses, but with as little success as attended later enactments. If the funeral was one of unusual ceremony, the citizens were publicly invited by a herald to attend it. The arrangements were entrusted to a special functionary, who was assisted by lictors. The procession was headed by a band of wind instruments, the number of which was limited by the Twelve Tables to ten. In ancient times, and at least down to the Punic wars, these musicians were followed by professional female singers, chanting the praises of the dead (see NENIA). Then came a company of dancers and actors to amuse the spectators with their antics. Supposing the family was honorata, in other words, had it had one or more members who had held curule offices, and the consequent right of setting up masked statues of its forefathers in its house, the central point of the ceremony was the procession of ancestors. This consisted of persons dressed to represent the ancestors in their wax masks, their official robes, and other insignia. The indirect lines of relationship were represented as well as the direct. Each figure was mounted on a high carriage and preceded by lictors. The train included memorials of the deeds done by the deceased, torchbearers, and lictors with lowered fasces. The body followed, uncovered, on an elevated couch; sometimes in a coffin inside the bier. A wooden figure, clothed, and wearing the wax mask representing the dead, sat upright beside it in the attitude of life. The bearers were usually the sons, relations and friends of the deceased; in the case of emperors, they were senators and high officials. Behind the bier came the other mourners, men and women, the freedmen in mourning and without any ornaments. Arrived at the Forum, the bier was set down before the rostrum. The representatives of the ancestors sat down on wooden chairs; the rest arranged themselves in a circle round, while a son or kinsman ascended the rostrum and delivered a panegyric upon the dead. If the funeral was a public one, the orator was appointed by the senate. In the case of deceased ladies such speeches were not usual, until the last century of the Republic. After the speech, the procession moved on in the same order to the place of burial, which, according to the law of the Twelve Tables, must be situated outside the city. No one could be buried within the city but men of illustrious merit, as, for instance, generals who had won a triumph, and Vestal Virgins. By a special resolution of the popular assembly, these persons were allowed the honour of burial in the Forum. The tombs were in some cases situated on family estates, but the greater number formed a line extending from the gates of the city to some distance along the great roads, and especially the Via Appia. (Comp. fig. 4.) Burial was, among the Romans, the oldest form of disposing of the corpse. In certain families (e.g. the gens Cornelia), it long continued the exclusive custom. Infant children, and poor people in general, were always buried. Even when the body was burnt, an old custom prescribed that a limb should be cut off and buried, otherwise the family was not regarded as having discharged its obligations. The body was laid in its tomb in full dress, and placed in a special sarcopbagus. When the body was to be burnt, a pyre was erected on a specified place near the grave. The pyre was sometimes made in the form of an altar, and adorned in the costliest manner. The couch and the body were laid upon it, and with them anything which the deceased person bad used or been fond of, sometimes one of his favourite animals. The followers threw in a variety of gifts as a last remembrance. The pyre was then kindled by the nearest kinsman and friends, who performed the office with averted faces. The ashes were extinguished with water or wine, and the procession, after saying a last farewell, returned home, while the nearest of kin collected the ashes in a cloth and buried the severed limb. After somedays, the dry ashes were put by the nearest relations into an urn, which was deposited in deep silence in the sepulchral chamber, which they entered ungirt and bare-footed. After the burial or burning there was a funeral feast at the tomb. A sacrifice to the Lares purified the family and the house from the taint entailed by death. The mourning was ended on the ninth day after the burial by a sacrifice offered to the Manes of the dead, and a meal of eggs, lentils and salt, at which the mourning attire was laid aside. It was on this day that the games held in honour of the dead generally took place. (See MANES.) Everything necessary for the funeral was provided by contract by the libitinarii or officials of the temple of Libitina, at which a notification was made of all cases of death (see LIBITINA). There were public burial-places, but only for slaves and those who were too poor to buy burial-places for themselves. The bodies were thrown promiscuously into large common graves, called puticuli, or wells, on account of their depth. There was a burial place of this sort on the Esquiline, where the bodies of criminals were thrown to the dogs and birds, until Maecenas laid out his park there. Cheap and promiscuous burial was also provided by the so-called "dove-cots" or columbaria, a place in which could be purchased by persons of scanty means (see COLUMBARIUM). The graves of individuals and families were subterranean chambers, or buildings in the style of houses. Freedmen, and probably also clients and friends, were often buried with the family. The grave was regarded by the Romans and Greeks alike as the dwelling-place of the dead, and was accordingly decked out with every imaginable kind of domestic furniture. It is to this custom that we owe the preservation of so many remains of this sort. The monument often had a piece of land, with field and garden attached to it, surrounded by a wall, and intended to supply flowers, herbs, and other things necessary for the decoration of the tomb and maintenance of the attendants. Other buildings would often be attached, for burning the corpses, for holding the funeral feast, and for housing the freedmen who had the care of the spot. Inscriptions in verse and prose, giving information about the dead, would also be found there.
HOUSE	5.45%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Greek house (see plan, fig. 1) was divided into two chief parts, one of which was assigned to the men (andronitis) and the other to the women (gynaikonitis or gynaikeion). The women's division was situated at the back of the house, and sometimes in the upper story if there was one. The door of the house opened inwards. It was placed sometimes in a line with the facade, sometimes in a small recess called the prothyron or propylaion. In front of this there often stood an altar belonging to the house and consecrated to Apollo Agyieus, or the god of streets. In the interior, on both sides of the vestibule, were the doorkeeper's room and other chambers for work and business. The vestibule led into an open court (aule) surrounded on three sides with columns. In the middle of this was the altar of Zeus Herkeios, the patron deity of domestic life. At the sides were chambers for eating and sleeping, storerooms, and cells for slaves, which, like the front rooms, opened into the court. But the slaves sometimes lived in an upper story, co-extensive with the whole house. On the side of the court opposite the vestibule there were no columns, but two pilasters at some distance from each other marked the entrance of a hall called prostas or parastas, which measured in breadth two-thirds of the distance between the pilasters. Here the family met at their common meals and common sacrifices; here, too, in all probability stood the hearth or sanctuary of Hestia. On one side of the parastas was the thalamos or sleeping room for the master and mistress of the house. On the other side was the amphithalamos, where the daughters probably slept. In the under wall of the parastas was a door called metaulos or mesaulos, which led into the workroom of the female servants. Large houses bad a second court, peristylon, entirely surrounded by columns. The roof of the Greek house was generally, though not always, flat; the rooms were mostly lighted through the doors which opened into the court. The ancient Roman dwelling house (fig. 2) consisted of a quadrangular court called atrium (from ater, black), because the walls were blackened by the smoke from the hearth. The atrium was entered by the door of the house, and was the common meeting place for the whole family. It was lighted by an opening in the tiled roof, which was four-sided and sloped inwards. This opening was called the compluvium, and served both as a chimney for the hearth and as an inlet for the rain, which fell down into the impluvium, a tank sunk in the floor beneath. There was also, in more ancient times, a subterranean cistern (puteus) into which the rain out of the impluvium was collected. But in later times the water was carried off by pipes underground. At the back of the impluvium was the hearth with the Penates. At the side of the atrium was the room used for cooking, for meals, and for sacrifices. In the wall fronting the entrance was the marriage-bed and the master's money-chest. The mistress of the house sat in the atrium with her maids, spinning, weaving, and generally superintending the household. It was in the atrium that the family received their clients and friends, that the dead were laid out in state, and memorials of the departed were hung on the wall. Gradually it became the fashion to attach small rooms to the two sides as far as the hearth. These rooms had no light except that obtained from the atrium. But the space at the back was left quite free, and extended in its full width in two wings (aloe) behind these side chambers on right and left. In aristocratic houses the busts of the ancestors were set up in these wings. The marriagebed was also removed from the wall against which it stood; the wall was broken through, and the tablinum erected against it originally a wooden shed, which This was open at the back in summer, but closed in winter by a partition. The tablinum was used as the master's office. In later times a garden, surrounded. by side buildings and covered colonnades, was added at the back of the house. This was called peristylium, and was, as the name and the whole plan of it shows, an imitation of the Greek arrangement. The dining rooms, sleeping apartments, and living rooms (triclinium, cubiculum, dioeta) were transferred into the side buildings, as were also the entertaining room (exedra) and the hall (oecus), and above all the storerooms, hearth, and kitchen. The private chapel (sacrarium or lararium, see LARES) was also generally situated in the peristylium. The entrance into this from the atrium was through corridors (fauces) situated near the tablinum. The atrium now served merely as a state reception-room. It was splendidly decorated with pillars and other ornaments, and had a table (curtibulum) in the middle to represent the hearth. If the roof was simply supported on beams, the atrium was called tuscanicum (fig. 3); if the compluvium was supported on four columns, tetrastylum; if the roof-beams were let into the wall on one side, and supported on a column apiece on the other, it was styled corinthium. Great houses, like temples and large tombs, generally had a kind of entrance-hall or vestibalum [ve, stabulum, or an outside standing-place], raised above the street and approached by steps. This space was often adorned with arms taken in war, statues, colonnades, and flower-beds. It was here that visitors assembled for morning calls. In ordinary houses there was either no vestibulum or only an indication of one, effected by throwing the door a few steps back into the house. The door opened outwards, and generally consisted of two wings; but sometimes, if the entrance was a wide one, of several folds. It did not move on hinges, but on pegs let into the threshold above and below. The door led immediately into the ostium, a space opening directly into the atrium. At the side of the ostium was the room of the doorkeeper (ianitor,) with other rooms, which were sometimes let out as shops. The Roman house was originally calculated only for one story, but in course of time a second story became usual. As the dining-room was generally in this part of the house, all the rooms in the upper story were called cenacula. The upper story was approached by steps in the form of a ladder, and was lighted by openings which could be closed by shutters. Some of these windows were pierced in the outer wall, and some in the inner wall, carried round the roofs of the atrium and peristylium. There were three-storied houses in Rome as early as the end of the Republic. The upper stories were let to tenants, and as early as the time of Augustus it was found necessary to limit the height of the street frontage to 70 Roman feet, a maximum which was afterwards lowered to 60 feet. The roof was of tiles, and sometimes pointed and sloping on the four sides, sometimes flat, in which case it was often ornamented with flowering plants and shrubs. A flat roof of this sort was called solarium. The ancients heated their houses by means of portable fireplaces, braziers, and sometimes stoves. The Romans in the north of Italy, Gaul, and Germany used hot air for the purpose. (See BATHS.) Large lodging-houses were found both in Greek and Roman cities, the Greek name for such a house being synoikia and the Latin name insula.