The Amber Road (47 page)

Thanks

Once again I thank almost all the same people, but my pleasure in doing so does not diminish.

Family at home in Woodstock and Newmarket: my wife, Lisa, and sons, Tom and Jack, my mother, Frances, and aunt, Terry.

Colleagues at Oxford: Maria Stamatopoulou of Lincoln College, John Eidinow of St Benet’s Hall and Richard Marshall of Wadham College. The latter exhibited even wider scholarship than before in helping compile the List of Characters and Glossary.

Students at Oxford, especially Tim Bano and Dan Draper, who both had far more talk of Ballista than tutorials.

Friends at various locations: Kate and Jeremy Habberley, especially in Cromer and Chipping Norton, and Peter Cosgrove and Jeremy Tinton all over the place.

Finally, the professionals: Alex Clarke, the editor of my first six novels, Sarah Day, the copy-editor of the same, and James Gill, my agent, for those and beyond.

Harry Sidebottom
Newmarket
February 2013

Glossary

The definitions given here are geared to
The Amber Road
. If a word or phrase has several meanings, only that or those relevant to this novel tend to be given.

A Memoria
: The emperor’s keeper of records.

A Rationibus
: Official in control of the emperor’s finances.

A Studiis
: Official who aided the literary and intellectual studies of the emperor.

Ab Epistulis
: Secretary in charge of the emperor’s correspondence.

Abalos
: Island famed in antiquity for its amber, visited by the Greek explorer Pythias in the fourth century
BC
, but whose exact location is now unknown. In
The Amber Road
, this island is identified with Bornholm and populated by the Brondings.

Abasgia
: Kingdom on the north-east shore of the Black Sea, divided into an eastern and a western half, each with its own king.

Abritus
: Battle fought in
AD
251 against the Goths in what is now eastern Bulgaria. A disaster for the Romans, the emperor Decius and his son were killed in combat.

Achilles Pontarches
: Achilles, Ruler of the Sea, a demi-god widely worshipped in the region surrounding the Black Sea.

Acropolis
: Sacred citadel of a Greek city.

Actio Gratiarum
: Speech of thanks delivered to the emperor by a newly appointed consul.

Adlected
: Someone personally promoted by the emperor to a higher social or civic status.

Aegir
: Norse god of the sea.

Aeneid
: Epic poem by Virgil recounting the ancestral myths of the Romans.

Aenus
: Modern river Inn, running from the Alps to the Danube.

Aestii
: German tribe living at the eastern end of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea.

Agora
: Greek term for a marketplace and civic centre.

Agoranomos
: Official in Greek cities, responsible for the
agora
and the food supplies of the population.

Ala
(plural,
alae
): Unit of Roman cavalry, usually numbering around five hundred cavalrymen.

Alamann
(plural,
Alamanni
): Federation of German tribes along the border of the Roman province of Germania Superior.

Alani
: Nomadic tribe north of the Caucasus.

Albania
: Kingdom to the south of the Caucasus, bordering the Caspian Sea (not to be confused with modern Albania).

Albingauni
: Gallic tribe living around modern Albenga on the Italian Riviera.

Alexandria
: Capital of the Roman province of Egypt, second-largest city in the empire.

Alfheim
: In Norse myth, the home of the light elves.

Allfather
: Epithet of Woden, the supreme god in Norse mythology.

Alpes Maritimae
: Roman province including the mountain ranges of the southern Alps and the Mediterranean coast roughly between Marseilles and Genoa.

Amazons
: In Greek mythology, a legendary tribe of female warriors.

Amber Road
: Collective name for a number of trade routes leading south from the Baltic to the Roman empire.

Amicitia
: Friendship. Important Roman concept that included notions of social obligation.

Amicus
(plural,
amici
): Latin, friend.

Amphitrite
: In Greek mythology, a sea goddess and wife of Poseidon.

Amphora
(plural,
amphorae
): Large Roman earthenware storage vessel.

Anabasis
: Greek term for an expedition upcountry.

Andreia
: Greek, manliness, courage.

Angeln
: Land of the Angles.

Angles
: North German tribe, living on the Jutland peninsula in the area now occupied by southern Denmark and the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, and in this novel on the Danish islands of Funen and Zealand.

Aphrodite
: Greek goddess of love.

Apollo
: Greek god adopted by the Romans, with many spheres of responsibility. Worshipped in Olbia as Apollo Prostates, Stands-in-Front, he seems to have been a protector of the city.

Aquileia
: Town in north-eastern Italy, where the emperor Maximinus Thrax was killed in
AD
238.

Aquitania
: Roman province covering south-west France.

Arabia
: Roman province including the Sinai peninsula and modern Jordan.

Arcadia
: Geographical region of Ancient Greece lying in the centre of the Peloponnese.

Archon
: Greek title for a leading civic official; literally, ruler, lord.

Arelate
: Modern Arles, city in the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis.

Arete
: Fictional town on the Euphrates, based on Dura-Europos, scene of the action in
Fire in the East.

Argestes
: Greek name for the north-west wind.

Armatura
: Roman military drill performed in full armour.

Armenia
: Kingdom bordered by the Roman empire and Parthia, over which both struggled for influence.

Arsacid
: Dynasty that ruled Parthia from 247
BC
–
AD
224.

Asclepius
: Greek god of healing and medicine.

Asgard
: In Norse mythology, the realm of the gods and site of Valhalla.

Assessor
: Advisor to a Roman judge.

Atheling
: Anglo-Saxon, lord.

Athena
: Greek goddess of wisdom and courage.

Atrebatic cloaks
: Produced by the Atrebates tribe in north-western France.

Atrium
: Central court of a Roman house.

Augusta Ambianorum
: The modern town of Eu, just inland from the coast of northern France.

Augusta Raurica
: The modern town of Augst in Switzerland, situated on the southern bank of the river Rhine.

Augustodunum
: Roman town, now Autun in eastern France.

Augustus
: Name of the first Roman emperor, subsequently adopted as one of the titles of the office.

Autochthonous
: From the Greek, literally, people sprung out of the earth.

Autocrator
: Greek, one who rules alone. Title applied to the Roman emperor.

Auxiliary
: Roman regular soldier serving in a unit other than a legion.

Avarini
: German tribe living along the Vistula river.

Aviones
: German tribe inhabiting a part of the Jutland peninsula.

Baetica
: Roman province occupying south-western Spain.

Balder
: In some Norse myths, the son of Woden, killed by a trick of Loki.

Banausic
: From the Greek term for a manual labourer, hence common or vulgar.

Barbaricum
: Lands of the barbarians. Anywhere beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire, which were thought to mark the limits of the civilized world.

Barritus
: German war cry.

Basilica
: Roman public hall, used as an audience chamber and law court.

Batavians
: German tribe living around the Rhine delta in the modern Netherlands.

Bifrost
: In Norse mythology, the bridge connecting the world of men and Asgard.

Boeotia
: Region of Greece north-west of Athens.

Borani
: German tribe living near the Sea of Azov.

Borysthenes
: Greek name for the Dnieper river.

Borysthenetica
: Literally, pertaining to or regarding the Borysthenes river.

Bosporus
: Roman client kingdom in the Crimea.

Boule
: Council of a Greek city; in the Roman period made up of local men of wealth and influence.

Bouleuterion
: Greek, council house, where the
Boule
met.

Bravoll
: Legendary battle mentioned in Norse sagas.

Brisings
: In Norse mythology, four dwarf smiths, makers of the goddess Freyja’s necklace.

Britannia Superior
: Roman province of southern England and Wales.

Brondings
: Unidentified tribe named in Beowulf; in this novel inhabiting the island of Abalos (Bornholm).

Bucinator
: Latin, trumpeter.

Bucolic
: From the Greek
boukolikos
; literally, pertaining to shepherds; rustic.

Byzantium
: Greek name for the modern city of Istanbul.

Caelian Hill
: One of the Seven Hills of Rome, a fashionable residential district in antiquity.

Caesar
: Name of the adopted family of the first Roman emperor, subsequently adopted as one of the titles of the office.

Caldarium
: Hot room in Roman baths.

Caledonian
: Roman name for people from the modern Highlands of Scotland.

Calumnia
: Roman legal term for a false or malicious accusation.

Camarae
: Flat-bottomed ships with arched covers used on the Black Sea.

Cambodunum
: Modern Kempten, a town in southern Germany at the foot of the Bavarian Alps.

Campania
: Region of west-central Italy, renowned in antiquity for its gentle climate and fertility.

Cantabrians
: Celtic peoples of northern Spain, long under Roman rule.

Cape Arcona
: Headland on the island of Rügen, lying off the eastern Baltic coast of Germany.

Cape Hippolaus
: Name given by Herodotus to a promontory lying between the Hypanis and Borysthenes rivers.

Capua
: Town in Campania, notorious for the luxurious lifestyle of its inhabitants.

Caracoticum
: Modern town of Harfleur, lying on the north-western coast of France.

Carpi
: Tribe living north-west of the Black Sea.

Carthage
: Ancient Punic city in North Africa, destroyed by the Romans in 146
BC
, and later rebuilt as a Roman colony.

Castle of Achilles
: In this novel, the most northerly Greek settlement along the Hypanis.

Castle of Alector
: According to Dio of Prusa, a fort near the mouths of the Hypanis and Borysthenes.

Centurion
: Officer of the Roman army with the seniority to command a company of around eighty to a hundred men.

Chalcedon
: Town sited opposite Byzantium on the shores of the Bosporus, now a suburb of the modern city of Istanbul.

Chali
: German tribe living on the Jutland peninsula.

Charon
: In Greek mythology, the ferryman who rowed the souls of the dead to the underworld.

Choosers of the Slain
: Literal meaning of ‘Valkyrie’. In Norse mythology, maidens who picked out men to be slain in battle and transported them to Valhalla.

Cilicia
: Roman province in the south of Asia Minor.

Cimbric peninsula
: Ancient name for the Jutland peninsula, from the Cimbri, an early tribe who migrated from there into Gaul in the first century
BC
.

Circus Maximus
: Great chariot-racing stadium in Rome.

Civilis Princeps
: Courteous or civil ruler, one who treats his subjects with respect.

Clavenna
: Modern Ciavenna, a town on the Italian side of the Alps near the border with Switzerland.

Clementia
: Latin, the virtue of mercy.

Cognomen
: Third name of a Roman citizen, often a family name or a nickname, but could also be earned in notable military victories.

Cohort
(plural,
cohortes
): From the Latin
cohors
. Unit of Roman soldiers, usually about five hundred men strong.

Cold Crendon
: In this novel, a village of the Angles on Varinsey; literally, Cold Creoda’s Hill.

Collegium
: Latin, an association or society.

Colonia Agrippinensis
: Important Roman city on the Rhine, capital of Postumus’s breakaway empire; modern Cologne.

Colonia Vienna
: Major Roman city on the banks of the Rhodanus river in western France; modern Vienne.

Comes
(plural,
comites
): Latin, companion; term applied to an emperor’s attendants.