HSC Latin Continuers key terms

The formal power to command, held by magistrates and especially by consuls and emperors; it authorised military leadership, coercion and the execution of law within a defined sphere of authority.

The legal capacity or official power attaching to a magistracy, distinct from imperium in that it could be exercised by lesser officials such as quaestors, aediles and tribunes within Rome itself.

Informal prestige or moral weight that gave a person's advice decisive influence, most famously attached to the senate and to Augustus, who claimed to excel all in auctoritas though holding no more power than colleagues.

Literally 'the public thing' or commonwealth; denotes the Roman state and its constitutional order, and is used by writers such as Cicero and Sallust to mean the community's shared interest.

The council of former magistrates that advised magistrates, controlled finance and foreign policy in practice, and whose decree (senatus consultum) carried great weight though not formal legislative force.

One of two annually elected chief magistrates who held imperium, commanded armies, presided over the senate and gave their names to the year; the office was the summit of the cursus honorum.

A plebeian magistrate, sacred and inviolable, empowered to veto the acts of other magistrates and to summon the plebeian assembly; used by populares such as the Gracchi to bypass the senate.

The sequence of public offices-quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul-through which an aristocratic Roman advanced, subject to minimum ages and interval rules established by law.

A magistrate holding imperium, chiefly responsible for the administration of justice in Rome and, from the second century BC, for governing provinces abroad or commanding armies as a consul's deputy.

A sphere of duty assigned to a magistrate, such as a command or a territory to govern; by the late Republic it commonly meant an overseas territory administered by a governor after his year in office.

The formal address to the senate, meaning 'fathers and enrolled members', combining the patrician heads of families with those added to the roll; used when a speaker opened business in the house.

The common citizen body excluding patricians, organised in its own assembly and represented by tribunes; the term in late Republican rhetoric often denotes the poorer masses rather than the whole non-patrician order.

Members of the old hereditary aristocracy who alone originally held priesthoods and magistracies; by the late Republic their political privilege had faded though their social prestige remained considerable.

Families, patrician or plebeian, that had produced a consul; their descendants formed the dominant senatorial elite whose competition for office shaped late Republican politics.

Literally 'leading man'; the title adopted by Augustus to present his position as first among equals rather than as a monarch, from which the English term principate derives.

A commander holding imperium, acclaimed by troops after victory; from the late Republic it became a permanent part of the ruler's name and the source of the word emperor.

Political freedom understood as the absence of domination by one man and as participation in law and magistracy; a slogan claimed by both optimates and populares in late Republican debate.

Illegitimate or despotic power exercised by one man or faction, contrasted by Republican writers with lawful magistracy; Cicero applies it to Antony's and earlier to Caesar's position.

Kingship or royal rule; in Republican Latin a term of abuse implying tyranny, since the expulsion of the kings made the title rex deeply suspect in political speech.

Manly excellence or courage, and more broadly the moral worth expected of a Roman aristocrat, displayed in military achievement and public service and central to Roman self-definition.

Renown won through great deeds and acknowledged by others; the pursuit of lasting reputation motivated aristocratic competition and is a recurring theme in epic and historiography.

The custom of the ancestors, an unwritten body of traditional norms and precedents that governed conduct and was invoked to resist innovation in politics, religion and family life.

Good faith, trustworthiness and the mutual obligation created by a promise or treaty; also personified as a goddess, and a key value in Roman social and diplomatic relations.

Dutiful devotion owed to gods, country, parents and kin, exemplified by Aeneas; it denotes fulfilling obligations rather than emotional feeling, and is closely tied to religious correctness.

Careful observance of ritual obligations and the scruple attached to them; the term can also mean a binding oath or, in later writers, a system of belief.

An established form of religious ceremony or customary practice, such as sacrifice, procession or purification; Roman religion placed great weight on performing rites exactly as tradition prescribed.

An offering to the gods, typically an animal victim killed and shared at an altar, performed by a magistrate or priest on behalf of the community and accompanied by prayer and wine.

A diviner, often Etruscan, who interpreted the will of the gods from the entrails of sacrificed animals and from prodigies; consulted by generals and the state before major undertakings.

A member of the college of priests who observed and interpreted signs such as bird flight and thunder, and whose approval could be used to delay or annul public business.

Household and crossroads deities worshipped at the hearth and at neighbourhood shrines; the Lares familiares protected the home and were honoured in daily domestic ritual.

Guardian gods of the household store, worshipped alongside the Lares at the hearth; Aeneas carries the Trojan Penates to Italy, linking private cult with the city's destiny.

The eldest male head of a Roman household, holding legal authority over its members and property; his powers included control of marriage, punishment and the disposal of the estate.

A dependent who owed deference and services to a patron in exchange for protection and support; the reciprocal tie structured Roman social and political life, including the morning salutatio.

A protector who provided legal, financial or political help to dependants and received their respect and service in return; the role could extend to whole communities and freedmen.

Indirect speech, in which a speaker's words are reported with accusative-and-infinitive construction and subjunctive verbs; recognising its boundaries is essential for reading Latin historians and epic narrators.

The construction in which a verb of saying, thinking or perceiving takes a subject accusative with an infinitive; Latin uses it where English often uses a that-clause.

The rule governing tense choice in subordinate subjunctive clauses, where primary sequence takes present or perfect main verbs and historic sequence takes past ones, determining the subordinate tense.

A participial phrase in the ablative, with its own subject, grammatically detached from the main clause and usually rendered in English by a subordinate clause of time, cause or circumstance.

A verbal adjective in -ndus expressing obligation or necessity, as in delenda est Carthago, or agreeing with a noun to convey what must be done; common in prose and official language.

The mood of hypothetical, potential, optative and subordinate clauses; mastery of its uses in purpose, result, cum, indirect question and conditional sentences is central to unseen translation.