aquilifer: the man who carried the eagle standard (or aquila) of a legion.
aureus (pl. aurei): a gold coin equal to 25 silver denarii.
auxilia/auxiliaries: over half of the Roman army was recruited from non-citizens from all over (and even outside) the empire. These served as both infantry and cavalry and gained citizenship at the end of their twenty-five years of service.
barritus: Germanic battle cry that began as a low rumble of voices and rose to a crescendo.
Batavians: an offshoot of the Germanic Chatti, who fled after a period of civil war, the Batavians settled on what the Romans called the Rhine island in modern Holland. Famous as warriors, their only obligation to the empire was to provide soldiers to serve in Batavian units of the auxilia. Writing around the time of our story, the historian Tacitus described them as ‘like armour and weapons – only used in war’.
beneficiarii: experienced soldiers selected for special duties by the provincial governor. Each carried a staff with an ornate spearhead.
Brigantes: a large tribe or group of tribes occupying much of what would become northern England. Several sub-groups are known, including the Textoverdi and Carvetii (whose name may mean ‘stag people’).
caligae: the hobnailed military boots worn by soldiers.
centurio regionarius: a post attested in the Vindolanda tablets, as well as elsewhere in Britain and other provinces. They appear to have been officers on detached service placed in control of an area. A large body of evidence from Egypt shows them dealing with criminal investigations as well as military and administrative tasks.
centurion: a grade of officer rather than a specific rank, each legion had some sixty centurions, while each auxiliary cohort had between six and ten. They were highly educated men and were often given posts of great responsibility. While a minority were commissioned after service in the ranks, most were directly commissioned or served only as junior officers before reaching the centurionate.
clarissima femina: ‘most distinguished woman’ was a title given to women of a senatorial family.
classicum: the late afternoon/evening meal taken by soldiers.
cohort: the principal tactical unit of the legions. The first cohort consisted of 800 men in five double-strength centuries, while cohorts two to ten were composed of 480 men in six centuries of eighty. Auxiliaries were either formed in milliary cohorts of 800 or more often quingeniary cohorts of 480. Cohortes equitatae or mixed cohorts added 240 and 120 horsemen respectively. These troopers were paid less and given less expensive mounts than the cavalry of the alae.
colonia: a city with the status of colony of Roman citizens, which had a distinct constitution and followed Roman law. Many were initially founded with a population of discharged soldiers.
commilitones: ‘comrades’ or ‘fellow soldiers’.
consilium: the council of officers and other senior advisors routinely employed by a Roman governor or senator to guide him in making decisions.
contubernalis (pl. contubernales): originally meaning tent-companion and referring to the eight soldiers who shared a tent on campaign. It became more generally used as ‘comrade’.
cornicen (pl. cornicines): trumpeters who played the curved bronze horn or cornu.
cornicularius: military clerk.
cuneus: the triangular or wedge-shaped seating in an amphitheatre. It was also used for a military formation that may have had a similar shape or simply been a narrow column.
decurion: the cavalry equivalent to a centurion, but considered to be junior to them. He commanded a turma.
dolabra (pl. dolabrae): The military pick-axe, very similar in shape to the entrenching tool used by the army today.
duplicarius: a senior auxiliary soldier/NCO who earned double pay.
equestrian: (eques, pl. equites) the social class just below the Senate. There were many thousand equestrians in the Roman Empire, compared to six hundred senators, and a good proportion of equestrians were descendants of aristocracies within the provinces. Those serving in the army followed a different career path to senators.
exactus (pl. exacti): military clerks attached to a governor’s staff and in charge of the archives.
frumentarii: soldiers detached from their units with responsibility for supervising the purchase and supply of grain and other foodstuffs to the army.
galearius (pl. galearii): slaves owned by the army, who wore a helmet and basic uniform and performed service functions, such as caring for transport animals and vehicles.
gladius: Latin word for sword, which by modern convention specifically refers to the short sword used by all legionaries and most auxiliary infantry. By the end of the first century most blades were less than 2 feet long.
hastile: a spear topped by a disc or knob that served as a badge of rank for the optio, the second in command in a century of soldiers.
lancea: a type of spear or javelin.
lanista: the owner of a gladiatorial school.
legate (legionary): the commander of a legion was a legatus legionis and was a senator at an earlier stage in his career than the provincial governor (see below). He would usually be in his early thirties.
legate (provincial): the governor of a military province like Britain was a legatus Augusti, the representative of the emperor. He was a distinguished senator and usually at least in his forties.
legion: originally the levy of the entire Roman people summoned to war, legion or legio became the name for the most important unit in the army. In the last decades of the first century bc, legions became permanent with their own numbers and usually names and titles. In ad 98 there were twenty-eight legions, but the total was soon raised to thirty.
lemures: ghosts or unquiet spirits of the dead.
lillia: lilies were circular pits with a sharpened stake in the centre. Often concealed, they were a comman part of the obstacles outside Roman fortifications.
lixae: a generic term for the camp followers of a Roman army.
ludus (pl. ludi): a school of gladiators.
medicus: an army medical orderly or junior physician.
murmillones: heavily armoured gladiators wearing a masked helmet.
omnes ad stercus: a duty roster of the first century ad from a century of a legion stationed in Egypt has some soldiers assigned ad stercus, literally to the dung or shit. This probably meant a fatigue party cleaning the latrines – or just possibly mucking out the stables. From this I have invented omnes ad stercus as ‘everyone to the latrines’ or ‘we’re all in the shit’.