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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

epigraphy, Etruscan  

Jean Turfa

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
27 February 2017
Subjects:
  1. Linguistics
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion
The study of the inscriptions written in the Etruscan language and alphabet, usually texts incised on stone, pottery, or metal objects, or occasionally on more fragile media such as ink-on-cloth. Dipinti (painted inscriptions) appear on vases and frescoes, especially from tombs at Tarquinia, Chiusi, and Vulci. The unique characteristics of the non-Indo-European Etruscan language and its seminal place in transmission of the “Roman” alphabet and numerals make it impractical to divorce linguistic, historical, and social considerations from the study of Etruscan epigraphy. The gradual replacement of Etruscan with Latin characters and language may serve as an index of the political and social domination of the Roman state.The alphabet reached Etruria during the 8th centurybce; the earliest exemplar is a set of rocchetti (spools/tablet-weaving weights) incised with the letter A, in a woman’s burial at Veii, implying the involvement of women weavers in its dissemination.1 Early examples (7th-century, especially abecedaria or sample alphabets) retain letter forms developed in western Greek colonies such as Pithekoussai, including letters not used in the pronunciation of Etruscan.

Article

nimbus  

George M. A. Hanfmann and Roger Ling

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion
A circular cloud of light which surrounds the heads of gods or emperors (Serv. on Aen. 2. 616, 3. 587) and heroes. The belief that light radiates from a sacred or divine person is a common one and the nimbus only a special form which was developed in classical religion and art. Assyrian art, for instance, represents some gods with rays around their shoulders, and Greek art shows deities of light, such as *Helios, with a radiate crown. Greek vases and Etruscan mirrors of the 5th cent. bce afford the earliest examples of nimbus, often combined with the crown of rays. This hybrid form is also found at *Palmyra in the 1st cent. ad. Under the Roman empire the plain, smooth form tends to prevail. In Pompeian wall-paintings (see pompeii) it is still associated primarily with the deities of light, such as *Apollo-Helios and *Diana, but almost all pagan gods of any importance are occasionally represented with a nimbus; in the 2nd and 3rd cents.

Article

phallus  

Richard Seaford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Gender Studies
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Greek Material Culture
  4. Greek Myth and Religion
  5. Latin Literature
  6. Roman Material Culture
  7. Roman Myth and Religion
Phallus, an image of the penis, often as erect, to be found in various contexts, in particular (a) in certain rituals associated with fertility, notably Dionysiac *processions (see dionysus): see e.g. Ar. Ach.243 on the Attic rural Dionysia (see attic cults and myths), *Semos in Ath. 622b-c on groups of ‘ithyphallics’ and ‘phallus-bearers’, *Varro in Aug. Civ. 7. 21 ‘for the success of seeds’ at the Liberalia (see liber pater);(b) as a sacred object revealed in the Dionysiac *mysteries, as in the Villa of the Mysteries fresco at *Pompeii; *Iamblichus (2) (Myst. 1. 11) mentions it as a symbol of secret doctrine;(c) in the costume of comedy (see comedy (greek), old), *satyric drama, and various low theatrical genres; *Aristotle (Poet. 1449a11) says that comedy originated in phallic songs;(d) on permanent display, often as part of a statue such as those of *Priapus or the *herms identified with *Hermes;(e) as apotropaic: e.

Article

pomerium  

Ian Archibald Richmond, John North, and Andrew Lintott

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion
Pomerium—explained in antiquity as meaning what comes after, or before, the wall—was the line demarcating an augurally constituted city. It was a religious boundary, the point beyond which the auspicia urbana (see auspicium) could not be taken (Varro, Ling. 5. 143), and was distinct both from the city-wall and the limit of actual habitation, although it might coincide with the former and was often understood as the strip inside or outside the wall (cf. Livy 1. 44; Plut.Rom. 11). Almost every aspect of the history of the pomerium of Rome is debatable. Our sources refer to an original Palatine pomerium, later extended by Servius *Tullius and then unchanged until *Sulla’s day (sources in Lugli, Fontes 2. 125 ff.); Tacitus (Ann. 12. 24), perhaps following the emperor *Claudius, describes a circuit round the *Palatine. Although this circuit has been thought to result from confusion with the circuit of the *Lupercalia, recent excavations on the north-east slope of the Palatine have revealed a series of ditches and walls from the regal period, which seem from their size to be more of symbolic value than a real system of defence and thus perhaps confirm the literary tradition.

Article

Praeneste  

Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion
Praeneste (mod. Palestrina), with interesting polygonal walls, occupied a cool, lofty spur of the *Apennines 37 km. (23 mi.) east-south-east of Rome. Traditionally founded in the mythical period (Verg. Aen. 7. 678), the oldest finds belong to the recent bronze age. Immensely rich burials of *Etruscan type and 7th-cent. date show it to be the pre-eminent city in this region at that time. It first appears in history in the 5th cent. bce as a powerful Latin city (see latini) whose strategic site facing the Alban Hills was inevitably attacked by *Aequi. In the 4th cent. it frequently fought Rome and, after participating in the Latin War, was deprived of territory and became a civitas foederata which still possessed ius exilii 200 years later (Polyb. 6. 14) and apparently preferred its own to Roman citizenship (Livy 23. 19 f.; see citizenship, roman). After 90 bce Praeneste became a Roman municipium devoted to C.

Article

puteal  

Glenys Davies

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
  2. Roman Myth and Religion
Puteal, the circular stone surround of a well-head, but also the stone coping marking a place that was sacred. Thus the puteal Libonis or Scribonianum in the forum Romanum was a monument shaped like a well-head marking the spot where lightning had struck: the form of the monument is known from its representation on coins, but only the tufa foundations were excavated in 1950.

Article

Rediculus  

Herbert Jennings Rose

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
  2. Roman Myth and Religion
When *Hannibal, attempting to raise the siege of *Capua in 211 bce, made a demonstration against Rome, a shrine was erected at Rome to the unknown power which made him go back again, under the name of Rediculus, from redere, ‘to turn back’ (Festus 354. 25; 355. 6 Lindsay). It stood outside the porta Capena, and the deity may have been surnamed Tutanus (Varro, Sat.

Article

ships of Lake Nemi, the  

Deborah N. Carlson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
29 March 2017
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Science, Technology, and Medicine
  3. Roman Material Culture
  4. Roman Myth and Religion

Article

tabularium  

Janet DeLaine

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion
(1) The record-office at Rome (see archives (Roman)), possibly serving the adjacent *aerarium (treasury) of Saturn and built according to CIL 12. 737 by Q. *Lutatius Catulus(1) in 78 bce, but not mentioned in literary sources. It is traditionally associated with the trapezoidal building lying between the two summits of the *Capitol with its main front towards the Campus Martius. On the opposite side, closing the west end of the *forum Romanum, the elevation consisted of a massive substructure of ashlar masonry with an arcade of eleven arches flanked by Doric half-columns above it. A second storey of Corinthian columns, now disappeared, was probably added in Flavian times. A stairway from the Forum climbed through the ground floor of the substructure to the front hall of the building. The first floor contained a service corridor, leading from the top of the porticus Deorum Consentium to two floors of eastern strong-rooms.

Article

temple  

Richard Allan Tomlinson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Material Culture
  2. Greek Myth and Religion
  3. Roman Material Culture
  4. Roman Myth and Religion
The Greek temple was the house of the god, whose image it contained, usually placed so that at the annual festival it could watch through the open door the burning of the sacrifice at the altar which stood outside (see statues, cult of). It was not a congregational building, the worshippers instead gathering round the altar in the open air, where they would be given the meat of the victims to consume (see sacrifice, greek). *Orientation was generally towards the east, and often towards that point on the skyline where (allowing for the vagaries of ancient Greek calendars) the sun rose on the day of the festival. The temple also served as a repository for the property of the god, especially the more valuable possessions of gold and silver *plate (see votive offerings).The core of the temple is the cella, a rectangular room whose side walls are prolonged beyond one end to form a porch, either with columns between them (in antis) or in a row across the front (prostyle). More prestigious temples surround this with an external colonnade (and are described as peripteral). They generally duplicate the porch with a corresponding prolongation of the walls at the rear of the cella, without, however, making another doorway into the cella (the opisthodomus, or false porch).

Article

templum Pacis  

Janet DeLaine

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion

Templum Pacis, later called forum Pacis or Vespasiani, was the precinct of the temple of Peace at Rome, dedicated by *Vespasian in 75 ce. The area (145×100 m.) was surrounded by marble porticoes within an enclosure wall of peperino and laid out as a garden. The temple, a rectangular hall in the centre of the east side set flush with the portico, housed the spoils from *Jerusalem. It was flanked by a library, the bibliotheca Pacis, and various other halls. One of these carried the *Forma urbis and may have housed the office of the urban prefect. After the fire of *Commodus the complex was restored by *Septimius Severus.

Article

Vatican  

Bryan Ward-Perkins

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Late Antiquity
  3. Roman Material Culture
  4. Roman Myth and Religion

Vatican, an extramural area of the city of Rome, on the right bank of the *Tiber around the mons Vaticanus. In the early empire the Vatican was the site of an imperial park (the horti Agrippinae); and of entertainment structures, the Naumachiae (see naumachia), where mock sea-battles were exhibited, and the Vatican *circus, where *Gaius(1) set up a great obelisk from Heliopolis and which was traditionally the site of the martyrdom of St Peter. There was also an important shrine of *Cybele (or the Magna Mater) attested in inscriptions; and along the two roads that crossed the area, the via Cornelia and the via Triumphalis, were cemeteries. A group of mausolea on the foot-slopes of the mons Vaticanus were excavated under St Peter's in the 1940s, and within this cemetery (directly under the high altar of St Peter's) was found a small 2nd-cent. shrine, marking the probable burial-site of Peter, apostle and first bishop of Rome.

Article

via Sacra  

Ian Archibald Richmond and John Patterson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
  3. Roman Myth and Religion

Via Sacra, the ‘sacred way’, street connecting the *forum Romanum with the *Velia, affording access to the *Palatine. According to *Varro and *Pompeius Festus, the stretch of road popularly known as via Sacra lay between the *Regia and the house of the rex sacrorum, which was at a location known as Summa Sacra Via; as properly defined, however, the road led from the Sacellum Streniae (cf. strenae) on the Carinae to the Arx (Varro, Ling. 5. 47; Festus, 372 Lindsay). The position of Summa Sacra Via is, however, disputed by modern scholars, who variously locate it close to the Basilica of *Maxentius or near the arch of *Titus. Following the fire of ce 64, the street became a noble avenue, leading from the forum to the entrance to the *Domus Aurea, which was flanked by shops for jewellers, and other luxury-traders.