50 Fun Facts About Roman Republic

The Latin word senatus, which gave the Roman Senate its name, comes from a word meaning what?

Old man is what the Latin senex means, so the Senate was literally an assembly of elders. In the Republic a seat there was held for life.

Which birds, sacred to Juno, are said to have woken Rome's defenders during a Gallic night attack on the Capitol?

Geese raised the alarm after both the guards and the watchdogs had failed to hear the Gauls climbing the hill. The attackers had already sacked the rest of the city.

Which Roman farmer left his plough to take emergency command, beat the Aequi and resigned barely two weeks later?

Cincinnatus became a byword for civic virtue because he went straight back to his farm. The city of Cincinnati, Ohio, takes its name from a society of officers named in his honour.

Roman office-seekers campaigned in a toga chalked to a brilliant white, a custom that gave English which word?

Candidate comes from candidus, Latin for shining white: men seeking office wore the bleached toga candida to speeches and public debates.

Which four letters, an emblem of the Roman Republic's government, still appear on the coat of arms of modern Rome?

SPQR is short for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and People of Rome. Before the letters came into use, the state's name on its coins was simply ROMA.

Which crisis office of the Roman Republic did Julius Caesar hold for life just before his murder?

Dictator was a temporary post, given to one man to solve one named problem. After Caesar's assassination the office was formally abolished and never revived.

Which mountain range did Hannibal cross in 218 BC to launch a surprise invasion of Italy from the north?

The Alps cost Hannibal thousands of men, and most of his war elephants died of cold in the winter that followed. He still went on to occupy much of southern Italy for 15 years.

Which Thracian gladiator escaped from a training school near Capua and led a huge slave uprising against Rome?

Spartacus broke out in 73 BC with about 70 other gladiators, who armed themselves with kitchen utensils. His army grew into a force that defeated several Roman armies.

Which small river did Julius Caesar cross with a single legion in January 49 BC, igniting a civil war?

Rubicon was the boundary between Caesar's province and Italy proper, so leading troops over it was an act of war. He is said to have remarked that the die was cast.

Which two officials, elected together for a one-year term, headed the Roman Republic's government and led its armies?

Consuls came in pairs so that the powers of the old kings were never again in one man's hands. Romans even named each year after the two men who opened it in office.

Which king, the seventh and last to rule Rome, was driven into exile before the Republic was founded?

Tarquin the Proud was said to have won the throne through a string of family murders. His expulsion is traditionally dated to 509 BC.

Which Greek king beat Rome at Heraclea and Asculum at such cost that ruinous wins now bear his name?

Pyrrhus is said to have remarked after Asculum in 279 BC that one more such victory would undo him. His casualties, unlike Rome's, could not be replaced.

Which Roman army punishment for cowardice saw one soldier in every ten, chosen by lot, killed by his own comrades?

Decimation takes its name from the Latin decimatio, the destruction of a tenth. It was the most extreme penalty the Roman army could impose on a unit.

Which open space in the heart of Rome, originally a marketplace, hosted the Republic's public speeches and trials?

The Forum was for centuries the centre of day-to-day life in Rome, the route of victory processions and even a venue for gladiator fights.

Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a Senate meeting in 44 BC on which date in the Roman calendar?

The Ides of March fell on the 15th, and a seer is said to have warned Caesar about the date. Around 60 conspirators took part, and he was stabbed some 23 times.

Which queen of Egypt had a son said to be Julius Caesar's and later sided with Mark Antony against Octavian?

Cleopatra named the boy Caesarion and made him her co-ruler. When her kingdom fell after her defeat, Egypt became a Roman province.

Which hereditary class of ruling families held every priesthood and high office when the Roman Republic began?

Patricians took their name from patres, the fathers: the first hundred senators said to have been chosen by Romulus. Everyone outside those families was a plebeian.

Which orator was hailed as father of the fatherland for crushing Catiline's plot, then killed on Mark Antony's orders?

Cicero paid dearly for his speeches against Antony: his severed head and hands were put on show on the Rostra, the speakers' platform in the middle of Rome.

Which general, nicknamed 'the Great', was handed sweeping powers in 67 BC to clear the Mediterranean of pirates?

Pompey spread his fleets across the whole sea at once, so that the pirates could not escape one squadron by sailing somewhere else.

How was Octavian, the heir named in Julius Caesar's will, related by blood to the man who adopted him?

Great-nephew is the link, since his mother, Atia, was Caesar's niece. He inherited the estate and took Caesar's name after the assassination.

Which honorific, meaning 'the revered', did the Senate grant Octavian in 27 BC as the Republic ended?

Augustus became the name by which Rome's first emperor is remembered. Historians call him Octavian only for the years between 44 and 27 BC.

Which family name links the semi-legendary founder of the Roman Republic with the most infamous of Caesar's killers?

Brutus the founder, Lucius Junius, was claimed as an ancestor by Marcus Junius more than four centuries later. Tradition says his own two sons were condemned to death for plotting to restore the king.

Which Mediterranean island, won from Carthage in the First Punic War, became the Roman Republic's first province?

Sicily began to come under Roman control in 241 BC and went on to be the city of Rome's main supplier of grain throughout the Republic.

Which law code, formally issued in 449 BC after plebeian agitation, stood at the foundation of all later Roman law?

The Twelve Tables set out the rights and duties of every Roman citizen. They were won by plebeians who had until then been shut out of the higher benefits of the Republic.

Which bundle of wooden rods bound around an axe was carried by lictors before a Roman magistrate as a sign of power?

Fasces were the origin of the name of Mussolini's National Fascist Party, and so of the word fascism. The symbol also appeared on the American Mercury dime.

Which Latin word meaning 'I forbid' names the power by which one Roman magistrate could block another's action?

Veto began in the Roman Republic, where each of the two chief magistrates could block the other's military or civil actions. Presidents and monarchs later inherited the idea.

Which Roman magistrate kept the roll of citizens and policed public morals, giving English a word for banning speech?

Censor was the most dignified of the regular offices, reserved with rare exceptions for men who had already held the top elected office. Two of them served together.

Which sacrosanct officials were created in the 490s BC to protect Rome's plebeians from the magistrates?

Tribunes could not be touched: anyone who laid a finger on one was outlawed and could be killed without penalty. Only plebeians were eligible for the office.

What Latin name is given to the sequence of public offices, starting with quaestor, that Roman politicians climbed?

Cursus honorum means course of honours, or more loosely ladder of offices. Its rules were altered and flagrantly ignored during the Republic's last century.

Which tactic did Rome's plebeians use in 494 BC, much like a general strike, to win officials of their own?

Walking out of the city en masse shut its shops and workshops and left the ruling families to fend for themselves. The plebeians came back only when given protectors of their own.

Which Roman officer is said to have held the Sublician bridge against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsena?

Horatius held off the attackers long enough for other Romans to destroy the bridge behind him. His nickname Cocles, meaning one-eyed, is said to recall an eye lost in the fight.

Which grand victory parade through Rome saw a general ride a four-horse chariot wearing laurel and a purple toga?

Triumph regalia made the general look near-divine or near-kingly for a day. The procession of soldiers, captives and spoils ended at the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill.

Which mountain people of the Apennines fought three wars against the Roman Republic between 343 and 290 BC?

The Samnites once trapped a whole Roman army in a valley at the Caudine Forks and, in Livy's telling, made it surrender and pass under a yoke as a ritual humiliation.

At which battle in 216 BC did Hannibal surround and all but wipe out a larger Roman army in a double envelopment?

Cannae saw Hannibal's centre give ground on purpose while his African infantry closed in on both Roman flanks, one of the earliest known pincer movements.

At which battle in North Africa in 202 BC did Scipio finally defeat Hannibal, despite facing 80 war elephants?

Zama was such a severe defeat that Carthage capitulated. The peace that Rome imposed afterwards stripped it of all its territory outside Africa.

Which Roman senator reputedly ended every speech, whatever its subject, by demanding that Carthage be destroyed?

Cato the Elder had visited Carthage as an envoy and came home convinced that its growing prosperity made its annihilation essential to Rome's security.

Which family name was shared by Tiberius and Gaius, reforming brothers both killed after pushing land redistribution?

Gracchus was the name of both brothers, whose commission surveyed public land and gave it to poor farmers. Their violent deaths are widely seen as a step in the Republic's collapse.

Which general held Rome's highest elected office seven times, more than anyone else in the Republic?

Marius died within weeks of taking up the post for the seventh time, in 86 BC. He was also Julius Caesar's uncle, having married Caesar's aunt Julia.

Which general was the first of the late Republic to march his army on Rome and win a civil war?

Sulla purged his opponents, took sweeping powers to rewrite the constitution in the Senate's favour, and then resigned those powers once his reforms were in place.

Against whom did Rome fight the Social War of 91 to 87 BC, named from the Latin word socii?

Its Italian allies had long fought in Rome's wars without sharing its citizenship. Rome drained the revolt of support by offering that citizenship to towns that laid down their arms.

Which member of the First Triumvirate, often called the richest man in Rome, died after his defeat at Carrhae?

Crassus created Rome's first fire brigade and, in Plutarch's telling, drew most of his wealth from fire and war. His invasion of Parthia ended in disaster.

Which Gallic leader beat Julius Caesar at Gergovia but was forced to surrender at Alesia in 52 BC?

Vercingetorix was imprisoned in Rome for six years and executed once Caesar had finally held his victory celebrations in 46 BC.

At which battle in central Greece in 48 BC did Julius Caesar's veterans rout a much larger senatorial army?

Pharsalus decided the civil war. Caesar's beaten rival eventually reached Egypt, where he was assassinated on arrival on the orders of Ptolemy XIII.

At which battle in Macedonia in 42 BC did Mark Antony and Octavian defeat the leaders of Caesar's assassins?

Philippi was fought in two stages. After the first, Cassius took his own life on a false report that his fellow commander had also been beaten.

At which naval battle off Greece in 31 BC did Octavian's fleet, led by Agrippa, defeat Mark Antony?

Actium was the climax of more than a decade of rivalry between the two men. Octavian's forces invaded Egypt the following year.

Which third man joined Mark Antony and Octavian in the Second Triumvirate that ruled Rome from 43 BC?

Lepidus has always been portrayed as the least influential of the three. In 36 BC his legions defected to Octavian, who stripped him of power and confined him to the town of Circeii.

Which title of Rome's chief priest did Julius Caesar win by election in 63 BC, and do popes still use today?

Pontifex Maximus means supreme pontiff, the most important post in Roman religion. Its holder worked from the Regia, by tradition once the palace of the kings.

What were the published lists of Romans whose lives and property were forfeit after the civil war of 82 BC called?

Proscriptions named hundreds of men in that purge, and anyone who killed one of them earned a reward. Supporters of the victor grew rich on bounties and cut-price confiscated estates.

Which label is given to late Republic politicians who used the assemblies against the Senate, unlike the optimates?

Populares is Latin for supporters of the people, while optimates meant the best ones. Both labels come from Roman writers of the 1st century BC.

Which silver coin, introduced around 211 BC during the war with Hannibal, became the standard money of Rome?

Denarius lives on in the Spanish dinero and the Portuguese dinheiro, both meaning money, and in the dinar still used as a currency today.