LATIN 231 - Intermediate Latin

Cursus Honorum - General

“course of offices”

• The order of offices which a man in Rome had to move up through in order to eventually become a consul

• Only the quaestorship and praetorship were required

• Everything else was optional

• All of the offices above the military tribunate were ELECTIVE and ONE-YEAR TERMS

Cursus Honorum - Order

Consul

Praetor

Tribunus Plebis

Aedilis

Quaestor

Viginiti(Sex) Viri

Tribunus Militum

Consul

• 2 per year

• minimum age = 42

• chief CIVIL and MILITARY magistrate of Rome

• held imperium (supreme authority)

• escorted by 12 lictors

Praetor

• 6 or 8 per year

• minimum age = 39

• JUDICIAL magistrate in Rome

• held imperium (supreme authority)

• escorted by 6 lictors

Tribunus Plebis

• 10 per year

• plebeian tribune

• immunity from harm

• could veto any decree of the senate or any act of a magistrate

Aedilis

• 2 plebeian and 2 curule per year

• aedile

• CITY MANAGER of Rome

• in charge of markets, roads, sewers, baths, temples, theaters, public games

Quaestor

• 20 per year

• minimum age = 30

• FINANCIAL MANAGER who served in Rome OR as assistant to a proconsul or propraetor in a province

Viginiti(Sex) Viri

• 26, later 20 per year

• MINOR magistrates

• ran the mint and the prisons

• held executions

• judged minor law suits

• cleaned streets

• kept the peace at night in Rome

Tribunus Militum

• 6 per legion

• some elected, some appointed

• tribune of the soldiers

• SENIOR MILITARY OFFICER of a Roman legion

Restrictions for Magistrates - Plebeian vs. Patrician

Only men from plebeian families (ones that were not from the traditional social elite of Rome) were eligible to be plebeian tribunes and plebeian aediles.

• the other magistrates could be either patrician or plebeian

Curule Magistrates

Consuls, praetors, and curule aediles were called curule magistrates because they were entitled to use a special chair (sella curulis).

Lictors

Lictors = men who walked in front of consuls and praetors, carrying fasces (bundled rods) and clearing the way for the magistrates

Senate

After serving as a questor, a man was automatically admitted to the Roman senate.

Novus Homo

Someone who succeeded in becoming a senator (or better yet, even a consul) despite having no senators among his ancestors

• attaining a curule office (especially consulship) gave NOBILITAS to the man and his descendants

• a noble had the right to decorate the atrium of his home with wax masks (imagines) of all his ancestors who had been curule magistrates

Post-Consulship - Propraetors and Proconsuls

After holding the consulship, a man could not be consul again for TEN years.

• praetors and consuls were sent to govern provinces the year after they held office; they were then called PROPRAETORS or PROCONSULS

Post-Consulship - Censors

Every FIVE years, TWO EX-CONSULS were elected to be censors, whose job was to update the list of citizens.

• also had the power to add members to the senate OR expel senators guilty of illegal or immoral behavior

• NO OFFICE WAS MORE RESPECTED THAN THE CENSORSHIP

Dictator and Magister Equitum

In emergencies a dictator might be appointed to serve (with the imperium of a consul) until the crisis ended; he chose his own assistant, the magister equitum.

Pontifex Maximus

• elected for life

• CHIEF PRIEST in the state religion

Augurs

• elected officials who took the AUSPICES (interpreted the signs) before every major public undertaking to see whether the gods approved of it

When was Marcus Tullius Cicero born?

January 3, 106 BCE

When did Cicero serve as quaestor? Where did he serve?

75 BCE; Sicily

What did Cicero do in 70 BCE?

successfully prosecuted proconsul C. Verres for governing Sicily corruptly

When did Cicero serve as plebeian aedile?

69 BCE

When did Cicero serve as praetor? What else happened during this year?

66 BCE; Catiline’s 1st conspiracy

When did Cicero serve as consul? What else happened during this year?

63 BCE; Catiline’s 2nd conspiracy

When was the defeat and death of Catiline?

62 BCE

What happened in 58 BCE?

Clodius served as tribune and instigated the exile of Cicero. Cicero fled to Macedonia, and Clodius’ gangsters destroyed Cicero’s house on the Palatine Hill.

What happened in 57 BCE?

Pompey and T. Annius Milo promoted Cicero’s recall, and Cicero returned to Rome.

What happened in 56 BCE?

Cicero and Crassus successfully defended M. Caelius Rufus.

When was Cicero elected augur?

53 BCE

When did Cicero serve as proconsul? Where did he serve?

51-50 BCE; Cilicia

Cicero also corresponds with Caelius

What did Cicero do in 44-43 BCE?

wrote the Philippics against M. Antonius (Antony)

When did Cicero die?

murdered on December 7, 43 BCE

What era did Cicero live during?

the late Roman Republic

Where was Cicero born?

Arpinum, a town in Latium, the region around Rome

What order was Cicero’s family?

Despite coming from a wealthy family, since non of his ancestors had held political office, Cicero belonged to the EQUESTRIAN rather than the senatorial ORDER.

• social attitudes and the design of the system made it hard for a Roman with no family history of government service to become a senator, even harder for him to rise all the way through the cursus honorum to become consul.

• Cicero did it, and did it as quickly as the law permitted, being elected to each office at the MINIMUM AGE prescribed for it

What did Cicero do during his year as consul? (63 BCE)

• thwarted a dangerous conspiracy headed by Lucius Sergius Catilina (c. 108-62 BCE), usually called Catiline in English

Who was Catiline?

• member of a patrician family that had run into financial difficulties

• served as praetor in 68 BCE

• afterwards, was sent to Africa to be propraetor for a year

• governed so oppressively there that he was prosecuted for extortion as soon as he returned to Rome

• while the case was pending, he was forbidden to run for the consulship

First Catilinarian Conspiracy

• assuming that it was real and that Catiline’s enemies did not just fabricate the story

• Catiline was furious about being refused as a candidate

• allied himself with two other would-be consuls and devised a plan to kill the two men who had won the CONSULAR ELECTION FOR 65 BCE

• was apparently a disaster

• the attack was postponed one month

• day of attempt (New Year’s Eve, 66 BCE), Catiline gave the signal too soon, and the conspirators were caught

• thanks to support of Marcus Licinius Crassus, a rich Roman who thought he could use Catiline for his own ends, NONE of the conspirators was ever prosecuted

Post First Catilinarian Conspiracy

• Catiline won acquittal in his extortion trial in 65 by conniving with the prosecutor and bribing the jury

• again was refused as a candidate for the consulship (in the election for 64 BCE)

• he was finally allowed to run for office in 64 (running for the 63 BCE term)

• HE WAS BEATEN BY THE NOVUS HOMO CICERO

• Crassus withdrew his financial help and Catiline was nearly penniless

• ran again in the election of 63 (for 62 BCE), promising to cancel all debts if elected

• once more, he LOST

Second Catilinarian Conspiracy

• no doubt that this one was real

• Catiline gather with fifteen friends, most of them bankrupt young aristocrats

• planned to gather war veterans and other discontented people into a force that would march on Rome on OCTOBER 27, led by a centurion named Manlius

• Catiline + a band of hired gladiators would meet them

• together, they would start an uprising

Cicero’s Involvement in the Second Catilinarian Conspiracy

• Fulvia informed Cicero of the plots

• Quintus Curius, one of the conspirators, was the loudmouthed lover of Fulvia

• OCTOBER 21: Cicero convened the senate and was granted emergency power by a special decree (senatus consultum ultimum)

• immediately moved Rome’s gladiators to Capua and called out troops to protect the city

• Catiline met with some of the conspirators on the night of NOVEMBER 6-7 to make new plans, including the MURDER OF CICERO

• Fulvia told Cicero of these new plans

• NOVEMBER 8: Cicero delivered his FIRST ORATION AGAINST CATILINE before the senate, denouncing Catiline’s treachery and urging him to go into voluntary exile

• Catiline was present during the speech

What is the first line of In Catilinam?

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?

What are the basic parts of the Roman name?

praenomen, nomen, cognomen, agnomen

Praenomen

• corresponds to our FIRST NAME

• not used as a sign of familiarity or intimacy

• very limited number of praenomina

• EIGHTEEN most common ones were regularly abbreviated

Most Common Praenomina (+ abbreviations)

A. = Aulus

App. (Ap.) = Appius

C. = Gaius

Cn. = Gnaeus

D. = Decimus

K. = Kaeso

L. = Lucius

M. = Marcus

M’. = Manius

Mam. = Mamercus

N. (Num.) = Numerius

P. = Publius

Q. = Quintus

Ser. = Servius

Sex. (S.) = Sextus

Sp. = Spurius

T. = Titus

Ti. (Tib.) = Tiberius

*C was the original symbol for a G sound (so the abbreviations for Gaius and Gnaeus preserve the old value of C)

How do praenomina get “assigned”?

The ELDEST SON often took his FATHER’S PRAENOMEN; a WOMAN usually had NO PRAENOMEN.

Nomen

• name of the GENS or FAMILY

• an adjective identifying the person as “belonging to the ____ family”

• EVERY CHILD in the family had the SAME NOMEN

  • masculine form for sons

  • feminine form for daughters

• Ex: The sons of a man named C. Julius might be called C. Julius (the older son) and L. Julius (the younger son). The daughters would all be called Julia, distinguished by the addition of adjectives like maior, minor, altera, secunda, tertia, etc.

Cognomen

• semi-descriptive name that was usually handed down in a family

• MANY COGNOMINA WERE ORIGINALLY NICKNAMES, often describing a PHYSICAL FEATURE OF AN ANCESTOR

  • e.g. (exempli gratia = for example), Caesar = “hairy”; Naso = “nose”; Cicero = “chickpea” or perhaps “wart”

Names and Citizenship

Possession of three names (or just two since the cognomen was optional) was a sign of citizenship.

Agnomen

• additional cognomina might be added to a name to commemorate a notable event or accomplishment or to indicate adoption from another gens

  • for adoption, the original gens (nomen) becomes the agnomen and the adopted gens becomes the new nomen

• the Romans of the classical period had no special name for these extra cognomina, but later grammarians invented the word agnomina for them

Filiation

• The full formal name of a Roman citizen also included filiation

  • i.e. (id est = “that is”), the identification of his father’s praenomen; grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s praenomina might be mentioned as well

• Filiation showed that one’s father (grandfather and great-grandfather, too, in some cases) had been a citizen

• Ex: M. Tullius M. f. M. n. M. pr. Cicero

  • M. f. = “Marci filius” (son of Marcus)

  • M. n. = “Marci nepos” (grandson of Marcus)

  • M. pr. = “Marci pronepos” (great-grandson of Marcus)

• Membership in a tribe or voting group, another sign of citizenship, might also be noted

  • Ex: C. Julius C. f. Sergia tribu Caesar

    • Sergia tribu = from the Sergian tribe (ablative)

Slavery and Names

• Slaves were customarily given single names in the Greek fashion, whether or not they were Greeks or Greek-speaking (which most of them were).

  • Chryseros Gaii servus = “Goldy-love, slave of Gaius”

• A freed slave would adopt the praenomen and nomen of his former master and use his own old name as cognomen

  • C. Julius C. lib. Chryseros

    • C. lib. = Gaii libertus (freedman of Gaius)

• A slave freed by the emperor would be called Aug. lib. (Augusti libertus = “freedman of Augustus”)

• A freedman, even in his name, could not escape his servile past.

Roman Calendar - General Dating of the Year

• Traditionally, the Romans referred to a particular year by giving the names of the CONSULS OF THAT YEAR.

• Another method was to reckon the DATE RELATIVE TO THE FOUNDING OF ROME in 753 BCE

  • A.V.C. = ab urbe condita (“after the foundation of Rome”)

  • n.b. (nota bene = “note well”), V = “u”

  • A.V.C. 1 was the first year after the foundation of Rome (753 BCE)

  • A.V.C. 2 = 752 BCE

  • A.V.C. 753 = 1 BCE

  • A.V.C. 754 = 1 CE

Roman Calendar - Months

The Roman Year had 12 MONTHS

• Ianuarius (Ian.)

• Februarius (Feb.)

• Martius (Mart.)

• Aprilis (Apr.)

• Maius (Mai.)

• Iunius (Iun.)

• Iulius (Iul.)

• Augustus (Aug.)

• September (Sept.)

• October (Oct.)

• November (Nov.)

• December (Dec.)

The names are adjectives modifying mensis “month.”

n.b., I = “j”

Roman Calendar - Start of Year

• During the Republic, the year began on MAR. 1, the day military operations started, OR on MAR. 15, the day the consuls took office.

• In 153 BCE, the first day of the consulship was changed to JAN. 1, and that became the first day of the civil year.

Roman Calendar - Total Days

Until Julius Caesar REFORMED THE CALENDAR IN 46-45 BCE, a normal year consisted of 355 days.

• EACH MONTH had 29 DAYS

  • except MARCH, MAY, JULY, and OCTOBER which had 31 DAYS

  • and FEBRUARY which had 28 DAYS

• Every other year, an extra month of 22 or 23 days would have to be added (“intercalated”) between February 23 and February 24.

Caesar instituted a regular cycle of four years, of which THREE had 365 days, the FOURTH 366 days (with a leap or bissextile (“twice sixth
(day)”) day added after February 23).

Roman Calendar - Reference Points

Done using one of three reference points:

• Kalends

  • ALWAYS the FIRST of the month

• Nones

  • either the FIFTH or SEVENTH day of the month

• Ides

  • either the THIRTEENTH or FIFTEENTH day of the month

“Exceptions” - March, May, July, and October have the Ides on the 15th and the Nones on the 7th (all the other months have the Ides on the 13th and the Nones on the 5th)

Roman Calendar - Mnemonic (for Ides and Nones)

“In March, July, October, May, the Ides are on the 15th day, the Nones the 7th; all else besides have two days less for Nones and Ides”

• “Exception” months = 3, 7, 10, and 5 (their order in the calendar)

Roman Calendar - Indicating the Date of the Month

• As soon as one of the reference days had passed, a Roman would start counting HOW MANY DAYS WERE LEFT UNTIL THE NEXT REFERENCE POINT

  • e.g., March 2 ≠ the day after the Kalends of March; March 2 = 6 days BEFORE the Nones of March

• The Romans counted INCLUSIVELY, i.e., they included the present day in their caluclations

  • e.g., March 5 ≠ 2 days before the Nones of March (March 7); March 5 = 3 days before the Nones of March

Roman Calendar - Roman Numerals

I = 1

V = 5

X = 10

L = 50

C = 100

D = 500

M = 1000

• Usually, NO MORE THAN THREE of the SAME SYMBOL can stand in a row

• RIGHT = ADDITION

• LEFT = SUBTRACTION

• One symbol cannot be subtracted from two

  • e.g., 19 = XIX, not IXX

Roman Calendar - Abbreviations

March 1 = Kal. Mart. (Kalendis Martiis - “on the Kalends of March”)

March 2 = a. d. VI Non. Mart. (ante diem VI Nonas Martias - “on the 6th day before the Nones of March”)

March 6 = prid. Non. Mart. (pridie Nonas Martias - “on the day before the Nones of March”)

March 7 = Non. Mart. (Nonis Martiis - “on the Nones of March”)

March 8 = a. d. VIII Id. Mart. (ante diem VIII Idus Martias - “on the 8th day before the Ides of March”)

March 14 = prid. Id. Mart. (pridie Idus Martias - “on the day before the Ides of March”)

March 15 = Id. Mart. (Idibus Martiis - “on the Ides of March”)

March 16 = a. d. XVII Kal. Apr. (ante diem XVII Kalendas Apriles - “on the 17th day before the Kalends of April”)

March 31 = prid. Kal. Apr. (pridie Kalendas Apriles - “on the day before the Kalends of April”)

April 1 - Kal. Apr. (Kalendis Aprilibus - “on the Kalends of April”)

Alliteration

repetition of the same letter(s) at the beginning of successive words for an impressive sound effect

Anaphora

“carrying back”

repetition of the same word at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses for emphasis

Apostrophe

“turning away”

a dramatic address to a (usually absent) person or thing

Asyndeton

“not bound together”

omission of conjunctions; creates a staccato effect and allows rapid accumulation of ideas

Chiasmus

inverted (ABBA) word order, e.g., noun-adjective-adjective-noun; named after the x-shaped Greek letter “chi”

Climax

“ladder”

arrangement of ideas (often three) in ascending order (i.e., in phrases or clauses of increasing length or significance) for greater impact

Hendiadys

“one through two”

joining two nouns in the same case with a conjunction instead of (more logically) putting one of them in the genitive case or making one of them an adjective

• puts equal weight on the two nouns instead of subordinating one to the other

Irony

stating the opposite of what is meant; frequently associated with sarcasm and ridicule

Litotes

“plainness”

affirming a thing by denying its opposite

Metaphor

an implied comparison (i.e., not using “like” or “as”)

Oxymoron

“sharp-dull”

a seeming contradiction; its use startles the audience and gives emphasis to the idea

Paronomasia

a pun, a play on words that sharpens the meaning

Personification

attributing personal qualities to an inanimate object for greater vividness

Polysyndeton

“much bound together”

the use of more conjunctions than necessary; produces a smooth, dignified rhythm

Preterition

praeteritio, “passing over”

a pretended omission; it actually calls attention to the “passed over” topics

Prosopopoeia

“impersonation”

speaking in the character (literally, “wearing the mask”) of another person, dramatizing what someone else would say or would have said

Rhetorical Question

a type of question that does not expect a reply; the speaker is not in doubt about the answer; it is a forceful way of making a statement

Simile

an expressed comparison (i.e., using “like” or “as”)

Synecdoche

“understanding with”

naming just a part of something when the whole is meant, or vice versa, for variety; subcategory of metonymy

Metonymy

“change of name”

using a word as a substitute or a symbol for another word that is related to it in meaning