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

Louterion
a bath or water basin for bathing.

Lozenge
a rhomb, a four sided figure.

Lucanica
Roman sausage served over pottage with spuntature, pieces of pork ribs, braised in tomato, garlic, red wine, and herbs.

Lucina
Roman goddess of childbirth and midwifery.

Lucius Cassius Longinus
a Roman consul who was defeated in battle and killed by the Helvetti in 107 BCE; his army fell victim of a decoy plot orchestrated by the Helvetii; this defeat by a barbarian force caused other towns to rise up against the Romans.

Lucretia
a woman from Roman legend who was renowned for her virtue; Lucretia was the wife of Collatinus and lived during the end of the Roman monarchy; the king Sextus Tarquin (Tarquin the Proud) desired Lucretia from the first time he saw her and sought to meet her when her husband was absent; he then threatened her life and raped her; after Lucretia told her husband and father what had happened, she felt so ashamed that she killed herself with a dagger; her family then sought revenge on the Tarquins and destroyed the monarchy.

Lucretius
Roman poet and author; wrote On the Nature of the Universe on the philosophy of Epicureanism; lived 98 55 BCE.

Lucror
(Latin) to gain, to profit, to win.

Ludi
(Latin) a pair of players or gladiators; the name comes from the Latin verb ludere, to play; a female gladiators was known as a ludia, which also means actress.

Ludimagister
(Latin) teacher; this word is linked to the work ludus which means game and magister, which means director; the ludimagister was in charge of his students.

Ludiones
(Latin) Etruscan actor-dancers who performed at the sacred festivals; the Romans emulated these actor-dancers to develop their own form of dance and theater

Ludo
(Latin) to play, sport, imitate.

Ludus
(Latin) a training school for gladiators; game.

Ludus Litterarius
(Latin) a primary school for children founded by a magister, teacher; the school day lasted from early morning until noon; boys attended school from age seven to fifteen and girls from age seven to thirteen.

Lumen
(Latin) light, light of day.

Lupercalia
an annual festival celebrated in Rome to honor Faunus, the god of fertility and forests, who was also known as Lupercus; during the Lupercalia, two goats and a dog were sacrificed and two youths, who were anointed with their blood, ran around the Palatine Hill and lashed girls with whips made from the sacrificed goats.

Lusi
(Latin) to play.

Luxuria
(Latin) wastefulness.

Lydia
a land that bordered Ionia on the east, lay north of Caria and south of Mysia; capital, Sardis; Lydia was a small kingdom until it grew into an empire in the wake of the fall of the Neo-Hittite kingdom; the Mermnadae dynasty ruled Lydia from c. 700 BCE to 550 BCE; coined money was invented in Lydia in 625 BCE; Croesus, Lydia's last ruler, was defeated by Cyrus the Great of Persia c.546 BCE and Lydia was absorbed into the Persian Empire.

Lyra
a lyre or lute; a stringed instrument.

Lyric
a short non-narrative poem that has a solitary speaker, and that usually expresses a particular feeling, mood, or thought. [Contributor: Dr. Ismail S. Talib, National University of Singapore.]

Lysistrata
the comic heroine of the ancient Greek comedy, Lysistrata.

Ma'At
positive force in the life of the ancient Egyptians, Ma`at was the goddess of truth, order, and Egypt`s physical and moral law; depicted as a seated or standing woman, Ma`at held an ankh in one hand and a specter in the other. She wore an ostrich feather in her hair.

Macedonia
the area between Greece and the Balkans; in 288 BCE, Lysimachus and Pyrrhus partition Macedonia after the defeat of King Demetrius I; Phillip of Macedon worked to unite Macedonia and created there a strong army; his son, Alexander the Great, strengthened and added to the Macedonian territory; in 169 BCE, the Third Macedonian War began and in 167, the land was divided into four republics; in 146 BCE, Macedon became a Roman province.

Macedonians
Greek people who inhabited the northernmost part of the Greek mainland and whose blood lines had been mixed with non-Greek peoples; the Macedonians spoke a rather crude dialect of Greek.

Macto
(Latin) to magnity, to glorify, to honor; to punish.

Maecenas
the literary patron of Vergil and Horace who supported their work.

Maenad
a raving woman; a female worshipers of Dionysus. See Bacchae who takes part in Bacchic processions.

Maestus
(Latin) gloomy, dejected.

Magister
(Latin) a teacher; in Rome, the job of teacher was not held in high esteem and the teachers received little respect from students; the magister provided little in terms of lesson materials and their ludus litterarius was located under an awning often on a busy street.

Magna Cum Laude
(Latin) with great praise; a term used to describe academic records of great distinction.

Magna Mater
Great Mother Goddess or Cybele; a Temple of the Magna Mater was built on the Palatine Hill in Rome and dedicated in 191 BCE; the cult of the Magna Mater was imported from Asia Minor after the 2nd Punic War; under the Republic, it was not allowed for male Roman citizens to belong to the Magna Mater`s cult; part of the ritual of the goddess` cult was the slaughter of a bull.

Mainomenos
crazed, refers to Dionysus, 'Dionysos Mainomenos'.

Makellarios
(Latin) butcher; the makellarios prepared the meats in and sold them from a makelleion, or a butcher`s stall; another word for makellarios is laniator.

Malta
an island in the Mediterranean Sea; known as Melita to the Romans; once controlled by the Carthaginians, it was added to the Roman Republic in 218 BCE and became attached to the province of Sicily.

Maltho
an ancient Greek gymnasium at Olympia used to train youths.

Maneo
(Latin) to remain, to stay, to stay the night.

Marathon
plain in Attica where the Athenians defeated the Persians in 490 BCE;

Marcellus
nephew of Augustus and son of Augustus` sister Octavia; he was married to Augustus` daughter Julia; he was positioned to be Augustus` heir until his death at the age of 19 in 23 BCE.

Mare
(Latin) sea.

Marius
Gaius Marius, 157-86 BCE; soldier and politican; a skilled soldier, he worked in Spain (Hispania) and gained wealth there; Marius served as quaestor, tribune, and, later, had his second consulship in 104; in 100 BCE, Marius was given power through a senatus consultum ultimum to fight against an uprising in the Roman republic led by L. Appuleius Saturninus and C. Servilius Glaucia; he later fought in the Social War; Sulla seized the city of Rome when it was supposed to be led by Marius, causing Marius to flee the city; he died in 86 BCE.

Mark Antony
see Antony, Mark.

Maro
the surname of P. Vergilius Maro.

Mars
Roman god of war and agriculture; son of Jupiter and Juno; father of Romulus and Remus; identified with Ares.

Martial
(43 CE-103/104 CE) Marcus Valerius Martialis; Roman poet who specialized in epigrammatic poetry; his literary texts include Epigrammata, Xenia and Apophoreta.

Massalia
an originally independent area that became, after 125 BCE, a province of Rome; Massalia is currently known as Marseille; Massalia became less important after it politically backed Pompey against Caesar; the area developed into an important economic and academic site.

Matrimonium Iustum
(Latin) in ancient Rome, a legal union; matrimonium iustum had three requirements, 1) both partners must have coniubium, the right to marry, 2) the couple was expected to have reached puberty, thought to be 14 years old for boys and 12 for girls, and 3) consent of the paterfamilias of the girl and the groom, or his paterfamilias if he had not reached puberty yet; the validity of a marriage would later affect the inheritance rights of any children produced by the marriage as well as the inheritance rights from husband to wife and vice versa.

Maturitas
(Latin) maturity.

Matutinalis
(Latin) morning; the Roman goddess of dawn and morning, Matuta, had a temple in the Forum Boarium in Rome.

Mauretania
a province created in 44 CE during the reign of Claudius; the area spanned northwest Africa, ranging from Numidia to the Atlantic ocean.

Meander
a winding line shape sometimes found on vases.

Mechane
(plural mechanai) in ancient Greek a machine, crane; a crane used in the Greek theater to which a cable with a harness for an actor was attached and which was used whenever the plot required a character to fly (e.g., a divinity).

Medea
daughter of Aeetes, king of Colchis who helps Jason steal the Golden Fleece; sorceress heroine of the Medea by Euripides that was first performed in 431 BCE at a tragic competition and won third prize; in the play, Medea murders he two children as a result of learning that her husband, Jason, will take a new wife.

Medicamen
(Latin) medicine, something to fight illness.

Melankomas
Melankomas, a ancient Greek boxer and Olympic champion from Karia, floated like a butterfly but did not sting like a bee; he did not believe a brave man caused injury to others or allowed others to injure him; his style of boxing was purely defensive; during a match, Melankomas exhausted his opponent by defending himself against punches but never throwing any; frustrated and exhausted, his opponents gave up.

Meleagros
Greek hero who, when angered by his mother, withdrew from battle.

Melians
inhabitants of the island of Melos who rejected Athens' invitation to join the Delian League and whose men were put to death and women and children enslaved by the Athenians.

Melicus
of or related to music.

Melissa
a nymph and daughter of King Melisseus; she nursed the infant Zeus with goat milk on Mt. Ida; she taught humans how to use honey and her name comes from the Greek word for bee, melitta.

Melpomene
the Muse of tragedy; the Muses were nine goddesses whom artists appealed to in order to inspire their works.

Memoria
(Latin) memory; in Book 9 of the Aeneid, Virgil sings that Nisus and Euryalus will live in the memoriae of all for as long as his poem`s fame lasts.

Menelaos
brother of Agamemnon and husband of Helen who is abducted by Paris while Menelaos is away.

Menenius Agrippa
Roman consul in 503 BCE; famously told the parable of the Belly and Limbs to the plebs in 494 BCE to try to convince them that secession would not help their situation.

Mensa Prima
(Latin) the main course in a Roman meal; this course could be cooked meats and/or vegetables.

Mensa Secunda
(Latin) the sweet course of a Roman meal, including pastries, fruits, or sweets.

Mercatus
(Latin) any kind of trade, market, a place where business is conducted.

Mercedinus
a month of 22 or 23 days inserted into the Roman calendar by the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius to make the calender correspond approximately to the solar year; Mercedinus was added to the calender every other year, inserted after February 23 or 24; the final days of February were then moved to the end of Mercedinus.

Mercury (Mercurius)
protector of merchants and travelers; carried a caduceus, wears a broad-brimmed hat and winged sandals, and carries a purse (kibisis); messenger god; equated with Hermes in Latin poetry.

Messis
(Latin) harvest; to harvest their crops, the Romans might use an aratrum, a tribulum, or a vallus.

Metal
ancient Greek coins could be made of Bi, gold, silver, bronze and electrum. Coins were made of the metal(s) most readily available in the region where the coins were minted.

Metaphor
a word which does not precisely or literally refer to the entity to which it is supposed to refer. Metaphors are sometimes thought to exist only in works of literature, but is actually prevalent in language in general. One engages in the metaphorical use of language, for instance, when one says that one is feeling 'down'.

Meter
the arrangement of words in a rhythmical pattern of verse.

Metope
in a sculpture frieze, the square sections between the triglyphs.

Mile
Latin mille passus (1,000 paces); 5,000 Roman feet are approximately 0.92 English mile or approximately 4,850 English feet .

Miles
(Latin) soldier; the miles was the primary agent in the Roman military; the greatness of Rome and political power in Rome depended on its military for support and continued service.

Militia
(Latin) warfare, service in war.

Milo
Titus Annius Milo, politician; elected tribune in 57 BCE, Milo worked to end Cicero`s exile; he was a political rival of Clodius; Milo and Clodius each had armed gangs in Rome who caused unrest in the city of Rome; Milo was forced into exile in 52 after he ordered the murder of Clodius and he died in 48 BCE.

Min
an ancient Egyptian god, Min was the god of the sky and chief of heaven; Min was depicted as a bearded ithyphallic man carrying a lightening bolt in one raised arm; from the time of the Middle Kingdom to the New Kingdom, Min was called Shu or Re and was identified with Horus the Elder.

Minae
(Latin) threats.

Minax
(Latin) threatening.

Minerva
goddess of intellectual thought and academic activities; brought to Rome by Numa; identified with Athena.

Mint
the place where a coin was created under government authority; the first silver coins in Rome were minted in 269 BCE.

Misera
(Latin) sad, unhappy.

Mithras
a Persian god whose cult and popularity grew in Rome; Mithras was originally worshipped by outsiders of the Roman state pirates and thieves; however, the military began to participate in his worship and thus it spread throughout the empire; Mithras' cult was a mystery cult with seven different stages of initiation.

Mithridates
(132 BCE-63 BCE) king of Pontus, in Asia Minor, from 120â€`-63 BCE; following a successful invasion of Crimea, Mithridates attempts to conquer the Roman client of Bithynia but is unsuccessful; angered, Mithridates invades the province of Asia and causes the death of eighty-thousand Italians and Greek commercial representatives by encouraging Asian debtors to kill their Italian creditors; this invasion of Asia began 25 years of Mithridatic wars starting in 88 BCE; he was beaten back by the Romans, who sent an army led by Sulla to Greece, in 87; Pompey eventual takes command in the Mithridatic wars from Sulla and defeated Mithridates in Armenia in 63 BCE; Mithridates attempts to escape to Crimea but there, faced by a rebellion led by his son, commits suicide.

Mitis
(Latin) mild, ripe, mature.

Moderatio
(Latin) moderation, a Roman virtue; a Roman person should always control him or herself and remain balanced.

Modius
Roman dry measurement, 16 sextarii or approximately 1 peck.

Moirae
three sisters, Atropus, Clotho, and Lachesis, known as the Fates; daughters of Zeus and Themis and sisters of the Horae; in Homer, the Moirae regulated the length of each person's life; one of the sisters spun the thread of life, one wound it, and one cut it when life came to an end; each person has a moira and it cannot be altered not even by the gods; the Moirae resembled the Keres.

Monarchy
first period of Roman government; legend relates that Rome was governed by seven kings, the first of whom was Romulus; the Roman monarchy lasted from the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus and Remus to 509 BCE.

Morbus
(Latin) an illness or disease.

Mos Maiorum
(Latin) the custom of the forefathers; the mos maiorum came to refer to an idyllic idea of time past in which people had better morals and lived more correctly; when Cicero used the term, it meant to refer back to the time of Cato the Elder, although Cato also used it referring to ancestors before him; Vergil`s Aeneid also refers to the mos maiorum and creates through Aeneas a personification of it; Plautus generally parodied the mos maiorum for comic effect.

Motif
an element which recurs in a literary work, or across literary works. [Contributor: Dr. Ismail S. Talib, National University of Singapore.]

Mt. Olympus
the home of the gods, mountain in northern Greece.

Mulsum
(Latin) honeyed wine that was a very popular ancient Roman drink.

Munera
see munus.

Munerarius
(Latin) the sponsor of gladiatorial games in Rome.

Municipium
(Latin) a town, usually in Italy, whose inhabitants could but did not always have Roman citizenship; the municipia were governed by their own magistrates and laws; a free town.

Munus
(Latin) funeral gift or games for the dead paid for by the descendents of the dead person being honored; literally 'a duty'; these games, or munera, could be held annually or every five years for the purpose of keeping the dead person's memory alive.

Murex Shell
a sea shell.