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| Patrician (curule) and plebeian magistrates, who superintended the provisioning of Rome, trade, markets (especially weights and measures), public games, roadways, sanitation, and police. |
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| Roll of senators drawn up by the censors every five years, later by the emperor. The senators were classed in order of seniority according to the offices they had held: first former consuls, next former preaetors, aediles, and tribunes, lastly former quaestors. |
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| Ceremony whereby a mortal was admitted to the number of the gods (divus). It was customary under the Empire, decided by the Senate as the prerogative of "good" emperors. "Bad" emperors (those who had persecuted the Senate) were subjected to the condemnation of their memory (damnatio memoriae); their names were struck off inscriptions and their enactments canceled. |
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| The first day of the month; belonged to Janus |
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| Magistrate charged with the task of conducting a census ever five years of citizens and their possessions, and of drawing up a list of senators. |
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| Ascending order of Roman magistracies. The political career ladder. |
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| Magistrate appointed legally with full powers, but for a specified period (less than six months) and in order to accomplish a precise task, when grave danger threatened the state. |
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| College of 20 diplomat-priests entrusted with international affairs: declarations of war, making peace and treaties. |
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| College of 15 priests attached to the worship of a divinity: 3 major flamines (Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus) and 12 minor. In Italy and provincial towns, the flamines administered the imperial cult. |
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| A god's power of creation. Each man also had his protective genius, as each woman had her Juno. |
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| Day of the month: the 15th in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months; belonged to Jupiter. |
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| Day of the month: the 7th in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in other months. The Nones were related to the Nundinae, the market days which fell on the eighth day of the eight-day market week (the Nundinae are so called because in the Roman system of inclusive counting they came every nine days). |
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Term
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Definition
| College of six, later nine, and then 16 priests with the duty of administering sacred and family law, religious jurisdiction, and keeping the Annales. They set the calendar, and their Books were a liturgical manual. At their head was the great pontiff (pontifex maximus), who also had authority over all the other priests, whom he appointed and inaugurated. |
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| Senior magistrate specially responsible for justice. Performed some of the functions of the consuls in their absence. |
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| Minor magistrate whose special task was finance. |
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| quindecimviri sacris faciundis |
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Definition
| College of two (duumviri), later ten (decemviri), then 15 (quindecimviri) priests charged with custody and interpertation of the Sibylline Books, the worship of Apollo, and overseeing cults established in Rome. |
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| First of the Roman priests, successor to the kinds, from whom he inherited religious authority. Entrusted with the worship of Janus. |
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| A platform from which speakers delivered their addresses, situated near the Curia under the Republic and subsequently moved farther west. Decorated with the prows of boats captured at the Battle of Antium (388 BC), whence its name rostra (cutwaters). |
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| Fraternity of 12, later 24 priests of Mars and Quirinus. They opened and closed the war cycle of the year: March - October |
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| Decision of the Senate which, under the Empire, had the force of a law. In the event of major danger, under the Republic, the senatus consultum ultimum, or ultimate senatorial decree, gave gull powers to the consuls. |
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| seviri augustales (priests of Augustus) |
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| Associations of six people, generally freedmen, formed to celebrate imperial worship at municipal level. |
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Term
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| Collection of prophecies attributed to the Sibyl, preserved by the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, who were specialist in the interpretation of these writings. From 38 BC they were kept in the Palatine temple of Apollo |
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| A village or hamlet; or a district or quarter of a city. |
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