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CTC Glossary of the Classics Category: Language and Literature > Classical History Date & country: 11/09/2007, USA Words: 1434

Herba
(Latin) a green plant

Herm
a statue with the head of Hermes atop a rectangular block of stone that displays a large phallus on the front.

Hermes
son of Zeus and Maia, god who escorts Priam to the hut of Achilles in the Iliad; also known as Argeiphontes; read the Homeric Hymn to Hermes to learn more.

Hero
woman from Roman legend; her parents compelled her to be a celibate priestess to Venus in Sestos; during a festival, a handsome young man named Leander saw Hero and instantly fell in love with her; she also fell in love with him, but they could not marry because of her parents` objections; in order to meet each night in secret, Leander swam across the Hellespont, guided by the lantern that Hero set in her tower and, in the morning, he returned across the Hellespont; one night when a wind blew out Hero`s lantern, Leander became lost while swimming and drowned; Hero discovered his body on the shore and killed herself by jumping out her tower`s window.

Herod
King of Judaea; made the king by Mark Antony and the Senate; he rebuilt much of the buildlings and infrastructure of Judaea and gained prominence for himself in establishing the power of his land; he had ten wives and numerous children; however, he fell victim to a number of political intrigues which prompted savagery in him, leading him to kill his first wife, Maryamne, in 29 and her sons Alexander and Aristobulus in 7 BCE.

Herod Agrippa
King of Judaea from 41-44 CE; a friend to Caligula, who first gave Herod political power; after Caligula's death, Herod supported Claudius for emperor; because of that support, Claudius made him king of Judaea in 41; he died during games in honor of Claudius in 44 CE.

Herodotus
(5th century BCE) Greek historian and author of The Histories of Herodotus, a book that chronicles the battles between the Greeks and the Persians known as the Persian Wars; Herodotus has been dubbed The Father of History, but that title has become debated as his sources are questioned; he records stories and variants of those stories in order to support and broaden the scope of his historical inquiry.

Heroic Code
the unwritten rules which guide the conduct of the Homeric heroes; the heroic code is best explained by Sarpedon in the Iliad; essentially, he claims that it is necessary to fight in such a way that his men will be justified in having put him in charge and honored him.

Hesiod
epic poet, contemporary with Homer; composed Works and Days, Shield of Herakles (attributed to Hesiod) and The Theogony.

Hetaira (Hetaera)
a female concubine or courtesan.

Hiems
(Latin) winter; the opposite season of aestas, or summer.

Hieroglyphics
designating or pertaining to a pictographic script particularly that of the ancient Egyptians; in hieroglyphic writing, many of the symbols used by the ancient Egyptians are pictures of things represented by the words for which the symbols stand.

Hierokery
xan ancient Greek herald who called for silence at the beginning of the Eleusinian Mysteries, marking the start of the rites.

Hierophant
the most important ancient Greek priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries; the hierophant was the person who could approach the cult objects of Eleusis and reveal secrets to initiates during the Mysteries.

Himantes
a soft thong or strap of ox hide wrapped around the hands to strength their fingers and wrists worn by boxers in ancient Greece; soft himantes evolved into hard leather straps for harder blows; in the forth century, himantes evolved into gloves, oxeis himantes, with an layer of wool in the inside; later the Romans used the caestus, a weapon-like boxing glove, layered with iron and lead.

Himation
a large rectangular piece of cloth wore around the body and over the left shoulder.

Hippalektyon
a mythical being with the head, body and legs of a horse and the wings and tail of a cock.

Hipparchus
son of the tyrant Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias and Thessalus; Hipparchus was ostracized from Athens in 487 BCE; Cleisthenes promulgated the law of ostracism in 510 BCE and Hipparchus was the first Athenian citizen to be ostracized under the law; Hipparchus was slain by Aristogiton and Harmodius near the temple of the daughters of Leos as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession; Hipparchus had foreseen his death in a dream.

Hipparchus (2)
ancient Greek astronomer, who lived ca. 190 125 BCE; Hipparchus' discovered the precession of equinoxes and explained the eastward shift of the stars, having found that while the celestial longitude of the stars increased their latitude did not change, by the forward motion of the equinoxes; Hipparchus was also the first to catalog the stars, noting their position and brightness.

Hippias Of Elis
fifth century BCE author who compiled the list of victor at the first Olympic games.

Hippocamp
a mythical sea creature with the head, chest and forelegs of a horse and fins, body and tail of a sea serpent.

Hippocratic Oath
the oath taken by physicians in various forms for over 2,000 years; originally thought to have been composed by the Greek physician Hippocrates, researchers have shown that it most likely originated in a Pythagorean sect around the 4th century BCE; the oath originally prohibited physicians from participating in abortions and surgery; many modern physicians take a revised version of the oath upon finishing medical school.

Hippodrome
an arena in which ancient Greek equestrian events took place; the hippodrome had a large post at each end and was divided by the embolon, a stone or wood partition running down the middle; the perimeter was eight stades or a little over 1,500 meters.

Hispania
the area currently known as Spain; the territory had been settled by the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians before it became the Roman provinces of Hispania Citerior (the eastern section) and Hispania Ulterior (the south-eastern part) in 197 BCE; Augustus conquered more of Spain through the Cantabrian Wars from 26-19 BCE and added another province and greater territory to Hispania Citerior, which became Tarraconensis.

Hodometer
a Roman measuring device used to measure distances; the hodometer was attached to the side of a vehicle (e.g., a cart) and consisted of a gear assembly, which caused a pebble to fall into a metal bowl after the vehicle had traveled one Roman mile = 400 revolutions of the wheel; the vehicles used a specific wheel size, 4 feet in diameter and 12.5 feet in circumference.

Holitorius
(Latin) something related to herbs; comes to be a market where vegetables are sold.

Homer
epic poet, thought to be author of the Iliad and Odyssey.

Honor
(Latin) honor; public office.

Hoplite
a Greek infantry soldier of the citizen armies who defended Greek city-states; for more information on the hoplites see the Perseus Historical Overview subtopic '5.16. The so-called Hoplite Revolution.

Hoplitodromos
the contest or competitors who compete in a race while dressed in full armor of a hoplite (soldier), which included greaves, a helmet, and a shield; together, these weighed 50 to 60 pounds.

Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Roman satirical poet; born 65 BCE in Venusia; father was a manumitted slave; studied in Athens from 46 to 44 BCE; joined the staff of M. Brutus in Asia ca. 43 BCE; fought at the Battle of Philippi which ended in the defeat and suicides of Cassius and Brutus; he began writing in 41 BCE and around 39/38 BCE was introduced to C. Cilnius Maecenas, a patron of the arts, by fellow poets Vergil and Varius; Horace published his first book of satires in 35 BCE and his second in 31 BCE; Horace's Epistles 2.1 to Augustuts is commisioned and published in 12 BCE; he died suddenly in 8 BCE.

Horrea
(Latin) Roman granaries; structures used for storing grain that could be built from wood, stone or brick.

Hortensius
Quintus Hortensius, a plebeian who became dictator in 287 BCE after the final plebeian secession; he sponsored the Lex Hortensia that made plebiscites virtually the same as laws, thereby making the plebeians and the patrician class more equal; the Lex Hortensia was an important step in ending the conflict of orders.

Hortulanus
(Latin) gardener; a hortus is a garden and the hortulanus is the person who works in the garden.

Horus
the ancient Egyptians believed that their pharaohs were the earthbound embodiment of Horus, one of the greatest Egyptian gods; Egyptian pharaohs would take the name of Horus as their own to show their direct relation to him; Horus was often depicted as a child suckling at his mother`s breast; as a child, Horus was shown seated wearing a side lock and a royal crown and sucking his thumb.

Hostes
(Latin) the enemy.

Hostium
(Latin) an enemy.

Hours
three sisters named Eunomia, Dike and Eirene; these sisters are mentioned in the Iliad and are entrusted with guarding the gates of the sky.

Household."Old Comedy
form of comedy popular at Athens during the fifth century, characterized by the prominence of the chorus and political and social satire; the only extant Old Comedy playwright is Aristophanes.

Hubris (Hybris)
insolence, wanton violence; violent and outrageous acts against others.

Humus
(Latin) soil, earth, country.

Hydra
a mythical being with nine serpent heads that when cut off were replaced by two more heads; this monster was destroyed by Herakles.

Hydriaphos
a water-carrier.

Hyperion
a Titan, son of Gaia and Uranus; father of Eos (Dawn), Helios (Sun), and Selene by his sister, Theia; the Sun was sometimes referred to as Hyperion because the name means 'he who goes before' (the Earth).

Hypocausta
(Latin) hypocaustum (sg.), from the Greek words for 'under' and 'burning,' the central heating system invented by the Roman Gaius Sergius Orata ca. 80 BCE; a series of tanks, that made up the hypocasustra system, were propped up on little brick posts; hot air from a fire built on one side of a tank circulated through the space beneath the tank to warm it and this warmed the house; Orata also invented the balnae pensiles, raised bathrooms, heated by means of ducts under the floor.

Hysplex
the starting gate that ensured all runners started at the same time in ancient Greece running

Iambic
the meter of the spoken parts in tragedy and old comedy; an iamb consists of two syllables, a short syllable followed by a long syllable.

Iamblichus
Greek novelist of the 2nd century CE; his most famous work was entitled The Babylonian History, which supposedly told stories told to the novel`s author by a Babylonian captive.

Iapetus
a Titan, son of Gaia and Uranus; father of Atlas, Epimetheus, and Prometheus by his sister Clymene, though other myths maintain that he married Asia or Asopis; helped Zeus overthrow Cronus.

Ibex
a wild goat.

Ibidem
(Latin) literally in the same place; abbreviated in books and journals as ibid.; used in scholarly citation to indicate another citation from a directly previously cited source.

Iconographical Subjects
symbolic situations.

Idcirco
(Latin) for that purpose, on that account.

Ideo
(Latin) for that reason.

Ideoneus
(Latin) efficient ; in the Annales 1.58, Tacitus recounts a speech by Segestes in which he describes himself as an idoneus conciliator between the Romans and the Germans.

Ides
in the Roman calendar the Ides fell on the following days: January 13, February 13, March 15, April 13, May 15, June 13, July 15, August 13, September 13, October 15, November 13, December 13; often interest, debts, and tuition were paid on the Ides.

Ientaculum
(Latin) for the average Roman, a light breakfast of bread and fresh fruit, which would sustain him/her until prandium, lunch.

Imagery
the employment of images in a given passage of a literary work, a whole work or a group of works.

Immemor
(Latin) unmindful, forgetful; Virgil uses this term to describe Ascanius in Book 9 of the Aeneid, saying that Ascanius would never be unmindful of the sacrifices made on the battlefield; he also describes the Trojans of being immemores, or unmindful, of the destruction that bringing the Trojan Horse inside the city walls would bring in Book 2.

Immunes
(Latin) the skilled craftsmen in a legionary camp who were, as the Latin translate, 'the exempt;' these men did not perform such routine tasks as ditch-digging and patrolling the ramparts because they posessed some specialised skill or trade which qualified them for special duties. The immunes may have included engineers, carpenters, masons, wagon-makers, blacksmiths, painters, farriers, surveyors, shipwrights, glaziers, fletchers, armourers, hunters, butchers, grooms, plumbers, bronze-smiths, lime and charcoal burners, and keepers of sacrificial animals.

Imperial Cults
worship of a Roman emperor as a god; Julius Caesar first proclaimed himself god-like on a statue in 44 BCE and Augustus, his adopted heir, built a temple to Divus Julius in Rome; other emperors were made gods after their deaths; during Hadrian`s time and after, the emperors had so much power that they also could proclaim themselves to be gods during their lifetimes; after the emperor Constantine I, however, imperial cults were no longer celebrated.

Imperial Province
territory that was under the power of the emperor; imperial provinces included Syria, Cappadocia and Germany.

Imperium
(Latin) power; in Rome, power over a community was signified by the term imperium and was visually indicated by the fasces and the presence of lictors.

Imperium Maius
(Latin) 'the greatest power'; having imperius maius meant that the person holding the power was more powerful than all others; Augustus was given imperius maius proconsulare in 23 BCE.

Impius
(Latin) without respect, irreverent.

Impluvium
(Latin) in a Roman house, a basin built into the floor of the atrium that collected rain from the compluvium, or quadrangular skylight towards which the roof sloped that served as a source of light and air.

Impunitas
(Latin) this word means impunity or that one can avoid being punished for an action.

In Exergue
(Latin) in reference to coins, it is the position of a being or thing below the main subject of the coin imprint.

Inclinio
(Latin) to bend, to change, to waver.

Incuse
in reference to coins, the action of stamping or hammering a figure on a coin; it is the impression made by the stamping of a coin.

Industria
(Latin) hard-work, a Roman virtue.

Ineptio
(Latin) to act like a fool.

Infans
(Latin) literally means unable to speak; the word comes to mean child or infant.

Iniuria
(Latin) injury, injustice, wrong.

Insula
(Latin) Roman apartment complexes; an insula might have included up to eight apartment blocks built around an open courtyard, which provided much needed light; the complexes were three to five stories tall and could easily block the light for neighboring buildings; the first floor often housed merchants' shops, or tabernae; during the rise of the Roman empire, the majority of the Roman population was housed in rooms rented in insulae; these tenements became overcrowded and vulnerable to fire built with timber and mud bricks; thin walls were made out of opus craticum, which was a woven mixture of cane and mortar; the walls were neither waterproof nor fireproof; eventually emperors, such as Nero, imposed fire regulations; as a result of the upper stories lacked running water sanitation suffered; by the end of the fourth century BCE, insulae outnumbered domi twenty-six to one.

Integritas
(Latin) wholeness, integrity, health.

Intelligentia
(Latin) intelligence.

Investigo
(Latin) To investigate.

Ionia
a central portion of the coast of Asia Minor along with the islands off the coast which were inhabited by Greeks; in 499 BCE, the Ionians revolted against their Persian rulers, bringing about war between the Persians and the Greeks.

Ira
(Latin) Anger.

Irascor
(Latin) to be angry.

Iratus
(Latin) angry, wrathful.

Iris
goddess of the rainbow, daughter of Thaumas and Electra, sister of the harpies; messenger of the gods.

Ismene
daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, sister of the heroine in the Antigone.

Ithyphallic
an attribute referring to scenes of Bacchic festivals at which phalli were carried.

Iugerium
(Latin) Roman measurement of land, equal to 28,800 square feet or ~ 5/8 acre; in 367 BCE, the Lex Licinia Sextia limited how much public land a single person could have to 500 iugera.

Iulus
see Ascanius.

Iuniperus
(Latin) juniper tree.

Ius
(Latin) oath, right, justice.

Ius Latii
(Latin) Latin status; to areas that the Roman Empire did not deem Romanized enough, they applied the idea of ius Latii; these communities were treated in the same way as the older communities in Latium; the magistrates of the land were given full Roman citizenship and the area became a municipium.

Iustum
(Latin) what is right.

Iuvenis
(Latin) Young; as a noun, this word means a young man.

Jason
son of Aeson and Alcimede; hero who stole the Golden Fleece and husband of Medea (Medea).

Juba
(52 BCE-23 CE) ruler of Numidia and then Mauretania; he was the son of Juba I of Numidia who fought Julius Caesar in the African wars; he married Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra; he wrote books on history.

Jugurtha
King of Numidia in the 2nd century BCE; the consul Opimius began to wage war against Numidia in 112 BCE; Jugurtha was brought to Rome on bribery charges in 110 BCE; he was executed in Rome in 104 BCE as a part of Marius` triumph.

Julia
(39 BCE- 14 CE) daughter of Augustus and his first wife; she married three times, first to Marcellus, then to Agrippa, and finally to Tiberius; she had five children with Agrippa; in 2 BCE, Augustus sent his daughter into exile; Augustus wanted to tighten the morals of his empire but his daughter flagrantly committed adultery and caused vicious gossip; Augustus sent her to a small island where she died after his death and Tiberius' accession.

Julian Calendar
alteration of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar to correct errors in the calendar year; the accumulated errors that result through the use the Roman caledar moved the calendar approximately three months ahead of the seasons, e.g., fall started in July and winter started in September; in 46 BCE, Caesar asked the astronomer Sosigenes to review the Roman calendar and suggest methods for improving it; following Sosigenes suggestions, Caesar scapped the old Roman caledar that used the lunar cycle to calculate its length and instigated a 12 month year with 30 or 31 days in each month, except for February which had 29 days; during what the Romans deemed 'the year of confusion,' Caesar declared 46 BCE would have 445 days; in honor of Caesar, Quintilis, the fifth month of the Julian calendar, became July and Sextilis, the sixth month, became August in honor of the Emperor Augustus; legend says that Augustus took one day away from February and added it to the end of August so August had an equal number of days to July; lasting 365 1/4 days (11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the solar year), the Julian calendar was used until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII instigated the Gregorian calendar.

Juno
wife and sister of Jupiter (Aeneid), associated with childbirth and femininity; identified with Hera.

Jupiter
god of the sky, daylight and weather; king of the gods, husband and brother of Juno (Aeneid); associated with Zeus by Romans.

Jus Civile
(Latin) the laws and the legal system that developed around the Twelve Tables that applied only to Roman citizens; the jus civile became obsolete and merged with the jus gentium when all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire became citizens between 100 BCE and 212 CE.