The Wolves of the North (46 page)

Kalends
: First day of the month.

Kataskopoi
: Greek, literally, ‘an around-looker’; a scout or spy.

Keryneia
: Town on the north coast of Cyprus; its ancient name is still in use.

Kindly sea
: From the Greek name
Euxine
, the modern Black Sea.

Kurgan
: Name for a burial mound in the Slavic or Turkic languages of the Steppe.

Kyrios
: Greek for lord, master, sir; a title of respect.

Langobardi
: Tribe living on the banks of the river Elbe in central Germany.

Legate
: Latin, an ambassador, or a high-ranking officer in the Roman army, drawn from the senatorial classes.

Legatus extra ordinem Scythica
: Extraordinary envoy to the Scythians.

Legion
: Unit of heavy infantry, usually about 5,000 men-strong; from mythical times, the backbone of the Roman army; the numbers in a legion and the legions’ dominance in the army declined during the third century
AD
as more and more detachments,
vexillationes
, served away from the parent unit and became more or less independent units.

Legionary
: Roman regular soldier serving in a legion.

Lesbian
: From the Greek island of Lesbos; their wine was highly praised in antiquity, and was sometimes mixed with seawater.

Lesser Rhombites
: Ancient name for the river Kirpilli, flowing into the eastern shore of Lake Maeotis, the modern Sea of Azov.

Libation
: Offering of drink to the gods.

Libertas
: Latin term for freedom or liberty; a political slogan throughout much of Roman history, though its meaning changed according to an author’s philosophical principles or the system of government that happened to be in power. More technically, the state of being free as opposed to being a slave.

Libitinarii
: Funerary men, the carriers out of the dead; they had to
reside beyond the town limits, and had to ring a bell when they came into town to perform their duties.

Liburnian
: Name given in the time of the Roman empire to a small warship, possibly rowed on two levels.

Logos
: Greek philosophical term meaning ‘reason’; in many ancient theological systems, the mind was said to govern the universe.

Loki
: In Norse mythology, the trickster, bad god.

Lustral
: Pertaining to a religious ceremony of purification.

Lycia
: Region on the south coast of modern Turkey.

Lydia
: Kingdom in Asia Minor, conquered by the Persians in 546
BC
.

Macrophali
: Greek, literally ‘long-headed’, peoples who practised head-binding, leading to an elongated skull.

Maeotae
: Group of peoples living in the area of the Maeotian marshes, found on the eastern shores of Lake Maeotis, the modern Sea of Azov.

Maeotis
: The Sea of Azov.

Maiestas
: Latin, ‘majesty’; the majesty of the Roman
imperium
was a core component of imperial ideology, and maintaining Roman prestige among barbarian tribes was central to foreign policy; offences against Roman
maiestas
, personified by the emperor, were considered treasonous and punishable by death.

Mandata
: Instructions issued by the emperors to their governors and officials.

Manichaeism
: Religion founded by the ‘prophet’ Mani (
AD
216–76); a mixture of pagan, Christian and Persian beliefs, which opposed good (identified with the mind) against evil (identified with matter).

Manichaeans
: Followers of the religious leader Mani (
AD
216–76).

Manumission
: In Roman law, the legal act of freeing a slave.

Massilia
: Roman port on the southern shores of Gaul; modern Marseilles.

Mediolanum
: Roman city in north Italy; modern Milan.

Menog
: Persian word for spirit, immaterial; the spirit plane.

Middle Earth
: In Norse culture, the world of men, as opposed to Asgard, the realm of the gods.

Miles Arcana
: Latin,
miles
, ‘a soldier’,
arcana
, ‘secret’, so in English, ‘secret soldier’.

Milesians
: People of the city of Miletus, in Ionia.

Mithras
: Eastern god popular among Roman soldiers.

Mobads
: Persian priests of the Zoroastrian religion.

Moesia Inferior
: Roman province south of the Danube, running from Moesia Superior in the west to the Black Sea in the east.

Mordens
: Tribe living in the region of the river Volga.

Mural Crown
: Roman award for valour, for being the first over the wall of an enemy town; in the principate, reserved for officers.

Museum
: Temple of the Muses in Alexandria, an institution that attracted leading intellectuals from all over the Greek world, who came to study in its vast library and would lecture in its precincts; origin of the modern word ‘museum’.

Mycenae
: Seat of the legendary King Agamemnon in the epic poems of Homer.

Naglfar
: In Norse mythology, a ship made from the finger- and toenails of the dead, which will carry the armies to battle with the gods at the end of days.

Navarchos
: Greek, literally, ‘ship commander’; the commander of a squadron of ships.

Nemausus
: Town in Gaul (modern Nîmes); possibly the birthplace of Castricius.

Nerthus
: Germanic earth goddess.

Nervii
: Germanic tribe feared for their fighting skills, originally from the area of modern Belgium.

Niflheim
: In Norse mythology, the underworld for those who do not die in battle.

Nithing
: Germanic word for coward, wretch; highly derogatory.

Norns
: In Norse mythology, the three goddesses responsible for weaving the destinies of gods and men.

Novae
: Town on the south bank of the Danube; successfully defended from Gothic attack by the future emperor Gallus in
AD
250.

Obol
: Small-denomination Greek coin.

Olbia
: Town near the mouth of the Dnieper river.

Omega
: Last letter of the Greek alphabet, shaped like a curving ‘U’, with longer cross-pieces to the top which project at either side.

Ordo
: Latin term, meaning a social or professional class.

Ornamenta Consularia
: The ‘ornaments’ of a consul; often used by Rome as a diplomatic gift to foreigners.

Oxygala
: Greek sour milk or yoghurt.

Palmyra
: Now-abandoned city in central Syria; in the chaos of the third century
AD
, its ruler was put in charge of the Roman provinces of the east by the emperor Gallienus.

Pamphylia
: Region on the southern coast of modern Turkey.

Panticapaeum
: Greek, literally, ‘all-cradling’; a trading city at the eastern end of the Crimean peninsula, now modern Kerch.

Paraclete
: Greek for advocate, go-between; became a religiously charged term for someone able to intercede with the divine.

Paradise
: Persian for garden or game reserve.

Parthia
: Empire centred around north-eastern Iran, conquered in
AD
224 by Ardashir I, founder of the Sassanid empire.

Pataroue Point
: Headland on the eastern shores of the Sea of Azov.

Patronus
: Latin, ‘patron’; once a slave had been manumitted and become a freedman, his former owner became his
patronus
; there were duties and obligations on both sides.

Patronymic
: Ancient practice of taking a father’s name as part of the personal name.

Pepaideumenoi
: Greek, literally, ‘those who have been educated’; members of the intellectual elite.

Perge
: Regional capital of Pamphylia, an area on the southern coast of modern Turkey.

Phanagoria
: Town on the eastern shore of the straits of Kerch, leading into the Sea of Azov.

Pharos
: Greek term for a lighthouse.

Phasis
: Town on the eastern shores of the Black Sea.

Phoibos
: Title of the god Apollo, literally, ‘the Radiant’.

Physiognomy
: Ancient ‘science’ of studying people’s faces, bodies and deportment to discover their character, and thus both their past and future.

Pileus
: Felt cap, given to freed slaves as a symbol of their new liberty; adopted by French revolutionaries in the eighteenth century, and still worn by some modern personifications of France.

Platonic
: Pertaining to the philosopher Plato.

Polis
: Greek, a city state; living in one was a key marker in being considered Greek and/or civilized.

Poseidon
: Greek god of the sea.

Praeco
: Latin, ‘herald’.

Praenomen
and
nomen
: Latin, ‘forename’ and ‘family name’. Slaves were given only one name; if they were freed, they adopted the forename and family name of their previous masters, giving them the three names symbolizing a free Roman.

Prefect of Cavalry
: Senior military post introduced in the mid-third century
AD
.

Principate
: Rule of the
Princeps
; the rule of the Roman
imperium
by the emperors.

Procurator of the
Hellespontine Provinces
: In Roman imperial government, a procurator oversaw the collection of taxes and goods; the Hellespontine provinces bordered the northern shores of the Hellespont, the modern Dardanelles.

Prometheus
: Divine figure, one of the Titans; variously believed to have created mankind out of clay, tricked the gods into accepting only the bones and fat of sacrifices, and stolen fire from Olympus for mortals. Zeus chained him to a peak in the Caucasus, where an eagle daily ate his liver.

Proskynesis
: Greek, ‘adoration’; given to the gods and in some periods to some rulers, including emperors in the third century
AD
and
foreign potentates. There were two types: full prostration on the ground, or bowing and blowing a kiss with the fingertips. Barbarian princes merited the lesser form.

Psessoi
: One of the tribes of the Maeotae living on the eastern shore of Lake Maeotis, the modern Sea of Azov.

Puer
: Latin, ‘boy’; used by owners of male slaves, and by soldiers of each other.

Ragas
: Tribe living along the banks of the Volga.

Ragnarok
: In Norse paganism, the death of gods and men, the end of time.

Res Publica
: Latin, ‘the Roman Republic’; under the emperors, it continued to mean the Roman empire.

Reudigni
: Germanic tribe from the north.

Rha river
: The Volga.

Rhombites
: Ancient name for the modern river Yeia, flowing into the eastern shore of Lake Maeotis, the modern Sea of Azov.

Rogas
: Tribe living to the north of the Caucasus mountains.

Rosomoni
: Elite clan of the Heruli tribe; their name perhaps means ‘Red ones’, either referring to the colour of their tattoos or the dyeing of their hair.

Rune sticks
: Sticks marked with runes and thrown into the air; the patterns they made were used by the northern tribes to read the future.

Sacramentum
: Roman military oath, taken extremely seriously.

Sarmatians
: Nomadic peoples living north of the Danube.

Sassanid
: Persian, from the dynasty that overthrew the Parthians in the 220s
AD
and was Rome’s great eastern rival until the seventh century
AD
.

Saturnalia
: Roman festival in honour of the god Saturn, taking place over several days around midwinter, marked with feasting and gift-giving.

Saxones
: North Germanic tribe.

Scadinavia
: Ancient name for the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula, thought in antiquity to be an island; also called Scandza.

Scapulimancy
: Practice of telling the future from the cracks in burnt shoulder blades, known as
scapulae
in Latin.

Sceptouchos
: Greek, literally, ‘sceptre-bearer’; a high office in the Persian empire and the title of a noble in the region of the Caucasus.

Scrithiphini
: Scandinavian tribe.

Scythia
: Term used by Greeks and Romans of the lands to the north and east of the Black Sea, roughly bordered by the Danube in the west, the Volga in the east and the Caucasus to the south. Its nomadic peoples were a source of fantastical tales for ancient geographers and began to take on a terrifying aspect from the frequent raids they made on the Roman empire. Raiding increased in intensity throughout the third century
AD
.

Scythians
: Greek and Latin name for various northern and often nomadic barbarian peoples.

Seal of the Prophets
: The religious leader Mani claimed that his coming was foretold in the New Testament, and that he would be the final prophet sent from god.

Selene
: Greek moon goddess.

Senator
: Member of the senate, the council of Rome. The senatorial order was the richest and most prestigious group in the empire; in the third century
AD
, suspicious emperors were beginning to exclude them from military commands and imperial offices.

Sirachoi
: Tribe living on the north-western edge of the Caucasus mountains, subject to the Alani.

Skalks
: Gothic, ‘slave’.