Actuarius: Clerks, both civil and military. In the legions, Actuarii existed from the very top command levels, down to century levels, where excused duty soldiers served in the role.
Ad aciem: military command essentially equivalent to ‘Battle stations!’
Amphora (pl. Amphorae): A large pottery storage container, generally used for wine or olive oil.
Aquilifer: a specialised standard bearer that carried a legion’s eagle standard.
Armilustrium: Festival of Mars in October, traditionally the date the Roman military campaigning season ends and weapons are purified and stored for winter.
Aurora: Roman Goddess of the dawn, sister of Sol and Luna.
Bacchanalia: the wild and often drunken festival of Bacchus.
Buccina: A curved horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the cornu.
Burial Club: A fund looked after by the standard bearer that each legionary pays into to cover costs of funerals and monuments to fallen colleagues.
Caligae: the standard Roman military boot. A sandal-style of leather strips laced to above the ankle with a hard sole, driven through with hob-nails.
Capsarius: Legionary soldiers trained as combat medics, whose job was to patch men up in the field until they could reach a hospital.
Carnarium: a wooden frame covered in hooks for hanging sides of meat.
Celeusta: The naval officer who, with pipe or drum, times the oar strokes of a vessel.
Civitas: Latin name given to a certain class of civil settlement, often the capital of a tribal group or a former military base.
Cloaca Maxima: The great sewer of republican Rome that drained the forum into the Tiber.
Contubernium (pl. Contubernia): the smallest division of unit in the Roman legion, numbering eight men who shared a tent.
Cornu: A G-shaped horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the buccina. A trumpeter was called a cornicen.
Corona: Lit: ‘Crowns’. Awards given to military officers. The Corona Muralis and Castrensis were awards for storming enemy walls, while the Aurea was for an outstanding single combat.
Curia: the meeting place of the senate in the forum of Rome.
Cursus Honorum: The ladder of political and military positions a noble Roman is expected to ascend.
Decimation: the worst (and fortunately rarest) form of Roman military punishment, saved generally for insurrection or cowardice of a whole unit. The entire unit would be lined up; the officer would walk down the line and mark every tenth man, who would then be beaten to death by his comrades.
Decurion: 1) The civil council of a Roman town. 2) Lesser cavalry officer, serving under a cavalry prefect, with command of 32 men.
Dolabra: entrenching tool, carried by a legionary, which served as a shovel, pick and axe combined.
Duplicarius: A soldier on double the basic pay.
Equestrian: The often wealthier, though less noble mercantile class, known as knights.
Equisio: A horse attendant or stable master.
Foederati: non-Roman states who held treaties with Rome and gained some rights under Roman law.
Forum Holitorium: The vegetable and flower market of Rome.
Fossa: Defensive ditches, such as those constructed round a Roman camp or fort.
Furca: T-shaped pole carried by legionaries which held all their standard travelling kit.
Gaesatus: a spearman, usually a mercenary of Gallic origin.
Galician: Breed of horse from the north of the Spanish peninsula, strong, hardy and short, bred from a mix of Roman and native Iberian horses.
Gladius: the Roman army’s standard short, stabbing sword, originally based on a Spanish sword design.
Groma: the chief surveying instrument of a Roman military engineer, used for marking out straight lines and calculating angles.
Haruspex (pl. Haruspices): A religious official who confirms the will of the Gods through signs and by inspecting the entrails of animals.
Honesta Missio: A soldier’s honourable discharge from the legions, with grants of land and money, after a term of service of varied length but rarely less than 5 years.
Immunes: Soldiers excused from routine legionary duties as they possessed specialised skills which qualified them for other duties.
Kalends: the first day of the Roman month, based on the new moon with the ‘nones’ being the half moon around the 5th-7th of the month and the ‘ides’ being the full moon around the 13th-15th.
Labrum: Large dish on a pedestal filled with fresh water in the hot room of a bath house.
Laconicum: the steam room or sauna in a Roman bath house.
Lanista: Trainer of gladiators, or owner of a gladiatorial school.
Laqueus: a garrotte usually used by gladiators to restrain an opponent’s arm, but also occasionally used to cause death by strangulation.
Latrunculi: Roman board game involving stones of two colours on a board, resembling the Chinese game of Go.
Legatus: Commander of a Roman legion
Lilia (Lit. ‘Lilies’): defensive pits three feet deep with a sharpened stake at the bottom, disguised with undergrowth, to hamper attackers.
Ludus: 1) a game, 2) a Gladiatorial School.
Magna Mater: The Goddess Cybele, patron of nature in its most raw form
Mansio and mutatio: stopping places on the Roman road network for officials, military staff and couriers to stay or exchange horses if necessary.
Mare Nostrum: Latin name for the Mediterranean Sea (literally ‘Our Sea’)
Marius’ Mules: nickname acquired by the legions after the General Marius made it standard practice for the soldier to carry all of his kit about his person.
Mars Gravidus: an aspect of the Roman war god, ‘he who precedes the army in battle’, was the God prayed to when an army went to war.
Miles: the Roman name for a soldier, from which we derive the words military and militia among others.
Nones: the half moon around the 5th-7th of the Roman month, with the Kalends being the first day of the month and the ‘ides’ being the full moon around the 13th-15th
Octodurus: now Martigny in Switzerland, at the Northern end of the Great Saint Bernard Pass.
Oppidum: The standard Gaulish hill town of the pre-Roman period. A walled settlement, sometimes quite large.
Optio: A legionary centurion’s second in command.
Patrician: The higher noble class of Rome, often Senatorial.
Phalanx: Greek/Macedonian infantry tactic in which rows of men form a hedge of long spears, backed with a shield wall.
Phalerae: (sing. Phalera) set of discs attached to a torso harness used as military decorations.
Pilum: the army’s standard javelin, with a wooden stock and a long, heavy lead point.
Pilus Prior: The most senior centurion of a cohort and one of the more senior in a legion.
Plebeian: The general mass and populace of Roman citizens.
Plumbata: Heavy military darts utilised largely in the Greek world of the east.
Pomerium: The sacred boundary of the city of Rome, within which weapons were forbidden on the streets.
Praetor: a title granted to the commander of an army. cf the Praetorian Cohort.
Praetorian Cohort: personal bodyguard of a General.
Praetorium: The area in the centre of a temporary camp reserved for the tent of the commander and where the legion’s eagle and the signifers’ standards were grounded.
Primus Pilus: The chief centurion of a legion. Essentially the second in command of a legion.
Pteruges: leather straps that hang from the shoulders and waist of the garment worn under a cuirass.
Pugio: the standard broad bladed dagger of the Roman military.
Quadriga: a chariot drawn by four horses, such as seen at the great races in the circus of Rome.
Rudis: The wooden sword given as a gift and symbol upon the manumission of a Gladiator.
Samarobriva: oppidum on the Somme River, now Amiens.
Scorpion, Ballista amp; Onager: Siege engines. The Scorpion was a large crossbow on a stand, the Ballista a giant missile throwing crossbow, and the Onager a stone hurling catapult.
Sica: A curved sword with a Thracian origin, used by gladiators to circumvent the large shield.
Signifer: A century’s standard bearer, also responsible for dealing with pay, burial club and much of a unit’s bureaucracy.
Subarmalis: a leather garment worn under armour to prevent chafing and rust, to which the pteruges are attached.
Subura: a lower-class area of ancient Rome, close to the forum, that was home to the red-light district’.
Tablinum: The office or reception room in a Roman house or villa.
Tabularium: The records office. In Rome the Tabularium is in the Forum, though each fort had its own based in the centre of the camp.
Tarpeian Rock: Cliff on the Capitoline Hill of Rome from which traitors were hurled.
Testudo: Lit- Tortoise. Military formation in which a century of men closes up in a rectangle and creates four walls and a roof for the unit with their shields.
Tolosa: Roman town in southwest France conquered at the end of the second century b.c., now Toulouse.
Tribunal: A platform, carefully constructed in forts, or temporarily made from turf or wood, from which a commander would address or review troops.
Triclinium: The dining room of a roman house or villa
Trierarch: Commander of a Trireme or other Roman military ship.
Tullianum: Rock-cut prison in the Roman forum used for high profile prisoners.
Turma: A small detachment of a cavalry ala consisting of 32 men led by a decurion.
Valetudinarium: The military hospital in a camp.
Vexillum (Pl. Vexilli): The standard or flag of a legion.
Via Decumana: The main street running east-west in a Roman town or fort.
Vindunum: later the Roman Civitas Cenomanorum, and now Le Mans in France.
Vineae: moveable wattle and leather wheeled shelters that covered siege works and attacking soldiers from enemy fire.