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Article

collegium  

Piero Treves, Cyril Bailey, and Andrew Lintott

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Law
  3. Roman Material Culture
  4. Roman Myth and Religion
(1) Magisterial or priestly: a board of officials. (2) Private: any private association of fixed membership and constitution (see clubs, roman).The principle of collegiality was a standard feature of republican magistracies at Rome. Although in some cases the common status of colleagues did not exclude seniority (originally one *consul may have been superior to the other and the consuls as a whole were senior colleagues of the *praetors), the principle in general was to avoid arbitrary power by ensuring that every magistracy should be filled by at least two officials, and in any case by an even number. They were to possess equal and co-ordinate authority, but subject to mutual control. Thus a decision taken by one consul was legal only if it did not incur the veto (*intercessio) of the other. This principle led to alternation in the exercise of power by the consuls each month. Under the Principate emperors might take as a colleague in their tribunician power (see tribuni plebis) their intended successors, who in many cases were co-emperors.

Article

Colonia Agrippinensis  

John Frederick Drinkwater

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Colonia Agrippinensis (mod. Cologne), command-centre of the Rhine frontier (see rhenus), and one of the most important cities of the western Roman empire.In 38 bce Agrippa transferred the *Ubii to the left bank of the Rhine. Around 9 bce their capital, Oppidum Ubiorum, was chosen to accommodate an altar for the imperial (*ruler-cult), and was therefore renamed Ara Ubiorum. This probably signifies the Roman intention to make the city the capital of a new province of Germany. About the same time two legions were stationed close by. However, the defeat of P. *Quinctilius Varus returned the frontier to the Rhine, and the legions were subsequently transferred. The city was henceforth capital of Lower Germany. In 50 Claudius founded a veteran colony (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium) in honour of *Iulia Agrippina his wife. A naval base, headquarters of the Rhine fleet, was established a little upstream. The colonists and the Ubii merged rapidly, and the latter adhered only unwillingly to *C.

Article

colonization, Roman  

A. N. Sherwin-White, Barbara Levick, and Edward Henry Bispham

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Material Culture
The earliest colonies of Roman citizens were small groups of 300 families at *Ostia, *Antium (338 bce), and *Tarracina (329 bce). Others were added as the Roman territory expanded, through reluctance to maintain a permanent fleet. In 218 there were 12 such ‘coloniae maritimae’. The older view that such small communities were to serve as garrisons guarding the coasts of Italy, and even their title, have been disputed and a more political ‘Romanizing’, or ‘urbanizing’ purpose envisaged. (See romanization; urbanism.) Coloni retained Roman citizenship because the early colonies were within Roman territory, and were too small to form an independent res publica; some colonies, such as those at Antium and *Minturnae (295 bce), seem to be part of a double community, rapidly assimilated, even if the relations between the two populations is obscure. Later ‘double communities’, though often doubted, are attested, as at *Interamnia Praetuttiorum (ILLRP 617 f.

Article

Colosseum  

Heinz-Jürgen Beste

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

The construction of the Flavian Amphitheatre was financed by the Emperor Vespasian in 71–72 ce with the riches from the conquest of Jerusalem and carried out by his son Titus, who inaugurated the building in 80 ce. Domitian (81–96) completed the amphitheatre district, which extended from the Velian Hill to the present Basilica of San Clemente, and included the four barracks (ludi), the infirmary (samiarium), the weapons store (armamentarium), the mortuary (spoliarium), and the barracks of the sailors of the fleet of Misenum (Castra Misenatium) whose task it was to oper­ate the velum, the awning that shaded the spectators from the sun. The building became known as the Colosseum from a colossal statue that stood near it. The amphitheatre was in use as such until 523 ce, when it is recorded that it was the scene of the last animal hunt, organized by Anicius Maximus at the beginning of his consulate.

Article

columbarium  

Ian Archibald Richmond and Glenys Davies

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
(1) a Roman dovecot. These were sometimes small and fixed in gables (columina), sometimes very large tower-like structures (turres), fitted with nesting-niches in rows, perches, and running water.JDJanet DeLaine(2) Columbarium is also a type of tomb, popular in early imperial Rome, so called because of its similarity to a dovecot. Often totally or partially subterranean, such tombs had niches (loculi) arranged in rows in the walls with pots (ollae) sunk into them to contain the ashes of the dead. These provided comparatively cheap but decent burial for the poorer classes: the occupants of each niche could be identified by an inscription, and might be commemorated by more expensive memorials (such as a portrait bust or marble ash-chest). The largest columbaria could hold the remains of thousands and were built to accommodate the slaves and freedmen of the Julio-Claudian imperial households (e.g. the columbaria of the freedmen of Augustus and *Livia Drusilla on the *via Appia, now virtually destroyed, or the three well-preserved columbaria of the Vigna Codini).

Article

Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus  

M. Stephen Spurr

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture
Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella (cf. CIL 9. 235) fl. 50 ce, b. *Gades in Spain (Rust. 8. 16. 9; 10. 185) author of the most systematic extant Roman agricultural manual (written c.60–5 ce) in twelve books. Book 1: introduction, layout of villa, organization of slave workforce; 2: arable cultivation; 3–5: viticulture (mainly) and other arboriculture; 6, 7: animal husbandry; 8, 9: pastio villatica (e.g. specialized breeding of poultry, fish and game, and bees); 10: horticulture (in hexameter verse); 11: duties of vilicus (slave estate-manager), calendar of farm work and horticulture; 12: duties of vilica (female companion of vilicus), wine and oil processing and food conservation. Another surviving book (the so-called Liber de arboribus) probably belonged to a shorter first version of the subject, while his works criticizing astrologers (11. 1. 31) and on religion in agriculture (if ever written, 2. 21. 5) are not extant. Columella defends the intensive slave-staffed villa—characterized by capital investment (1. 1. 18), close supervision by the owner (1. 1. 18–20), and the integration of arable and animal husbandry (6 praefatio 1–2)—against influential contrary views on agricultural management (1 praefatio 1).

Article

Column of Marcus Aurelius, the  

Martin Beckmann

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Material Culture

The Column of Marcus Aurelius is situated in Rome’s Campus Martius, on the west side of the ancient Via Flaminia and south of the Ara Pacis in the modern Piazza Colonna. It was probably begun in 175 ce as an honour to Marcus for his German and Sarmatian victories, but it was not completed until after his death. An inscription ( CIL VI 1585 = ILS 5920) of 193 ce gives permission to a procurator columnae divi Marci (Procurator of the Column of the Deified Marcus) to build a house near the column, so that he may better carry out his duties (it is not known what these duties were).1 The column was close to and above the level of the Via Flaminia and also near the funerary altars of the Antonine dynasty, to which monuments it may have had a connection.2 Its primary function, however, was triumphal, as a victory monument to the emperor, and as such it was carefully sited beside the road that Marcus Aurelius would have used when departing for and returning from the theatre of war.

Article

Column of Trajan, reception of  

Elizabeth R. Macaulay

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
19 July 2023
Subjects:
  1. Reception
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Material Culture

Since Late Antiquity, architects, leaders, and nations have emulated, adapted, and reinterpreted the Column of Trajan. Its appeal has been due to its height, ability to dominate the surrounding landscape, and complex spiral reliefs detailing the emperor Trajan’s annexation of Dacia as a Roman province. Its form has inspired countless honorific, triumphal, and commemorative monuments in the post-antique era.

Honorary columns were erected in Rome, possibly as early as 439bce; they were certainly known by 318bce. Rostral columns—columns with the beaks of captured warships attached—were erected in 260 and 255bce to celebrate Roman victories over the Carthaginians. None were so important in the tradition of erecting monumental, honorific, columns as the Column of Trajan (figure 1). Erected by the Senate in the Forum of Trajan in honour of Trajan’s two successful campaigns in Dacia (101–102ce; 105–106ce), it stood between the forum’s two libraries and the Basilica Ulpia. The Column (38 m tall and 3.7 m in diameter) was topped by a bronze statue (4.7 m) of Trajan in military attire. The column is hollow and contains a spiral staircase to the platform at the top of the column’s capital. The Column is famous for the finely carved helical sculptural relief program that depicted the Dacian wars. If rolled out, this frieze would be approximately 200 m long. There are 155 scenes with more than 2,600 figures, each at about two-thirds life size. The height of the frieze increases, as it spirals up the Column, from 0.89 m to 1.25 m.

Article

comitia  

Arnaldo Momigliano and Tim Cornell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Law
  2. Roman Material Culture
In Rome the *Comitium was the place of assembly. Comitia is a plural word meaning an assembly of the Roman people summoned in groups by a magistrate possessing the formal right to convoke them (ius agendi cum populo). The convocation had to be on a proper ‘comitial’ day (dies comitialis), after the auspices had been taken, on an inaugurated site. When only a part of the people was summoned, the assembly was strictly a concilium (Gell. NA 15. 27). When the whole people was summoned, but not by groups, the assembly was a *contio. In the comitia the majority in each group determined the vote of the group. The comitia voted only on proposals put to them by magistrates, and they could not amend them.The three types of comitia were the comitia curiata, the comitia centuriata, and the comitia tributa, the constituent voting groups being, respectively, curiae (see curia(1), *centuriae, and *tribus.

Article

Comitium  

Ian Archibald Richmond, Donald Emrys Strong, and Janet DeLaine

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Law
  3. Roman Material Culture
The chief place of political assembly in republican Rome (Varro, Ling. 5. 155; Livy 5. 55) occupying an area north of the *forum Romanum at the foot of the Capitoline. It is associated with nine levels of paving from the late 7th to the mid-1st cent. bce, after which it ceased to exist as a recognizable monument owing to Caesar's reorganization of the area, although individual elements remained into the empire. The natural topography and the archaeological evidence suggest it was an irregular triangular space, eventually flanked by three platforms: the Rostra to the south, the praetorian tribunal (whence justice was administered) to the east, and the Graecostasis (place where foreign embassies awaited reception by the Senate) to the west. Although in the mid-2nd cent. the rostra was replaced by a curved stepped structure, the rest of the Comitium retained its original form. The numerous monuments and statues which filled it have perished, except for the altar, truncated column, and archaic cippus (a stone marker), bearing a ritual inscription (ILS 4913), sealed below a black marble pavement (lapis niger) originally dating to the Caesarian alterations and subsequently incorporated into the Augustan paving.

Article

Comum  

John Bryan Ward-Perkins and T. W. Potter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Comum (mod. Como), birthplace of the elder and the younger *Pliny, the latter of whom owned large properties there and was a notable benefactor. A flourishing centre of the south Alpine iron age Golaseccan culture, it came under Gallic rule in the 4th cent. bce and in 196 bce it passed within the Roman orbit. After 89 bce it received a first group of colonial settlers, and in 59 bce, at the hands of Caesar, a second group, under the name of Novum Comum. During the empire it became a *municipium, with territories bordering on those of *Mediolanum (Milan) and Bergomum. In late antiquity it was an important military base for the protection of north Italy. The chequer-board street plan of the Roman town, a rectangle 445×500 m. (486×546 yds.), is still reflected by the modern layout of roads (see urbanism), and there are traces of the baths and library erected by *Pliny (2) the Younger.

Article

congiarium  

Michael Crawford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Roman Material Culture
Congiarium, from congius (a measure of capacity = 6 sextarii (see measures)), a quantity of oil, wine, etc. , distributed as a gift, later also the cash equivalent. From the time of Augustus onwards, congiaria were naturally an imperial monopoly, associated with accessions, birthdays, victories, etc. The recipients were identical with the plebs frumentaria, who received distributions of corn.

Article

convivium  

Oswyn Murray

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
The Roman convivium was modelled on the Etruscan version of the Greek *symposium. These Italian feasts differed from their Greek prototypes in four important respects: citizen women were present; equality was replaced by a hierarchy of honour; the emphasis was on eating and the cena, rather than on the comissatio, or later drinking session; the entertainment was often given by one man for his inferior amici and clientes (see cliens). The Roman convivium was therefore embedded in social and family structures, rather than largely independent of them; the difference is captured by the remark of *Cato (Censorius) in *Cicero, Sen. 13. 45, that the Romans were right to emphasize the aspect of ‘living together’ by calling a group of reclining friends a convivium rather than a symposium.The differences between Greek and Roman customs produced some tensions. The presence of respectable women is archaeologically attested in Etruria (see etruscans) and early Rome, and was already denounced by *Theopompus (3) (Athen.

Article

cookery  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
06 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
The religious importance of *sacrifice gave cooking a powerfully expressive role in ancient society: the order of the exposing of meat to different sources of heat, especially boiling and roasting, mattered ritually. The public meat-cook (mageiros) was a man; other food preparation was among the private, household tasks of an adult woman (see housework). Food could be prepared at the hearth of the city and consumed as a public activity, like the meals of the Athenian *prytaneion; it was more normally regarded as a household matter. But the staples of domestic diet (see meals), especially grains (of which there was a considerable variety, see cereals), could also be cooked in special forms as offerings (a wide range of sacred breads and *cakes is known).Cereals could be boiled (like pulses, which were also important) or made into coarse or fine flours, which could also be boiled; the heat necessary for bread-making makes provision of communal ovens desirable outside very large households. The spread of bakeries is a part of a gradual, partial, controversial, and never very advanced displacement of cookery from the household, reaching its acme in the Roman tavern, with its cheap wine and cooked food a sign of the advantages available to urban populations (see inns, restaurants).

Article

Cora  

Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Cora (mod. Cori), strongly placed at the NW angle of the Volscian mountains in *Latium. Latins and *Volsci disputed its possession before 340 bce. After 338 bce it was an ally of Rome and by 211 bce a *municipium (Livy 26. 7). Fine remains exist of polygonal walls and two temples.

Article

Coriosopitum  

Martin Millett

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Coriosopitum (also known as Corstopitum), a Roman military centre and town on the north bank of the Tyne near Corbridge, Northumberland. The name in its restored form suggests that it was a *pagus centre of the *Brigantes. Here the road from York (Eburacum) to Scotland bridged the Tyne, branching to Carlisle and Tweedmouth. A supply base at nearby Redhouse constructed under Cn. *Iulius Agricola is the earliest military installation in the area. This was replaced at the Corbridge site with an auxiliary fort (rebuilt once) which was occupied c. ce 85–105. The unit in occupation may have been the ala Petriana (RIB1172). A Trajanic fort, one of those on the Stanegate, replaced this c.105–20, being rebuilt c.120–30. A further reconstruction took place in the late 130s (RIB1147–8), and again in the late 150s, with the fort sequence ending c.

Article

Cortona  

D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Cortona (Etr. Curtun-), 30 km. (18 mi.) south-east of *Arretium, was an important *Etruscan stronghold with a commanding view of the Val di Chiana. The archaeological evidence indicates that its ‘*Pelasgian’ walls are no earlier than the 5th cent. bce; they are still largely extant, as are two earlier tumuli (meloni) and a Hellenistic mausoleum (the ‘Tanella di Pitagora’). After the defeat of the Etruscans in 311 bce by Q. *Fabius Maximus Rullianus, Cortona and the two other leading cities of the interior, *Pisae (mod. Pisa) and *Arretium, made treaties with Rome. The decontextualized tabula Cortonensis, written c.200 bce and the third longest extant Etruscan text (see etruscan language), came to light in 1992; it has been subjected to a variety of interpretations since the appearance of its editio princeps in 2000.

Article

Cosa  

John Bryan Ward-Perkins and D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Cosa (mod. Ansedonia), situated on a commanding rocky promontory on the coast of Etruria, 6 km. (4 mi.) south-east of Orbetello. Excavation has revealed no trace of *Etruscan Cusi, which may have occupied the site of Orbetello itself. The surviving remains are those of the Latin colony founded in 273 bce (Vell. Pat. 1. 14. 7), to which belong the irregular circuit of walls, of fine polygonal masonry, and the neatly rectangular street-plan (see urbanism). The majority of the individual buildings, including the arx and the forum, a basilica, and several temples, date from the town's period of maximum prosperity, in the 2nd cent. bce. underwater *archaeology has yielded convincing evidence that the harbour of Cosa accommodated a large-scale fishery project (see fishing).

Article

cosmetics  

Frederick Adam Wright and Michael Vickers

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

Most of the aids to beauty known today were to be found in ancient times on a woman's dressing-table; and both in Greece and Rome men paid great attention to cleanliness, applying *olive oil after exercise and bathing (see baths), and scraping the limbs with strigils: dandies went further and would remove the hair from every part of their body with tweezers, pitch-plaster, and depilatories.

Many specimens have been found of ancient cosmetic implements, such as *mirrors, combs, strigils, razors, scissors, curling-tongs, hairpins, nail-files, and ear-picks. Mirrors were usually made of polished metal, rather than glass. Combs were of the tooth-comb pattern, with one coarse and one fine row of teeth. Razors, made of bronze, were of various shapes, the handle often beautifully engraved. Safety-pins (fibulae) and brooches had many forms elaborately inlaid with enamel and metal. Ear-picks (auriscalpia) were in general use at Rome.

Article

court  

Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture
  2. Roman Material Culture
Court, in mediaeval and early-modern times the ruler's household and retinue, its spatial and institutional setting, and, by extension, the ruling power as constituted by monarch and helpers in governance. Ancient Greek ‘aulē’, a domestic ‘hall’ or ‘courtyard’, acquired some, if not all, of this abstract sense of ‘court’: cf. ‘hoi peri tēn aulēn’, literally ‘the people about the courtyard’, to describe *Alexander (3) the Great's courtiers (Diod. Sic. 17.101.3). Having come to denote the courts of the Hellenistic monarchs, the word, Latinized as ‘aula’, was taken over by the Romans as the normal term for the imperial court.Courts are best understood as ‘universal social configurations’ (G. Herman) which arise in societies where power becomes the monopoly of a monarch. Modern court studies owe much to the sociologist Norbert Elias. In The Court Society, based on a German PhD first published in 1933, Elias used the Versailles of Louis XIV of France to construct a model of the court as a system of power.