| A | B |
|---|
| Lupercalia | Pre-Roman pastoral annual festival, observed in the city of Rome to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility |
| Saturnalia | The ancient Roman festival of Saturn in December, which was a period of general merrymaking and was the predecessor of Christmas |
| Matronalia | A festival celebrating Juno Lucina, the goddess of childbirth, and of motherhood and women in general |
| Phythia | The name of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi who also served as the oracle, commonly known as the Oracle of Delphi |
| Nones | In the ancient Roman calendar, the ninth day before the ides by inclusive reckoning, that is, the 7th day of March, May, July, and October, or the 5th of other months |
| Ides | A day falling roughly in the middle of each month from which other dates were calculated |
| Calends | The first day of the month in the ancient Roman calendar |
| augur | A religious official who observed natural signs, especially the behavior of birds, interpreting these as an indication of divine approval or disapproval of a proposed action |
| haruspex | A religious official who interpreted omens by inspecting the entrails of sacrificial animals |
| pontifex maximus | The chief high priest of the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome |
| vestals | Were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth; regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome |
| penates | Household gods worshiped in conjunction with Vesta and the lares by the ancient Romans |
| lares | Gods of the household worshiped in ancient Rome |
| Liberalia | March 17th is the festival of Liber Pater and his consort Libera; The Romans celebrated Liberalia with sacrifices, processions, ribald and gauche songs, and masks which were hung on trees |
| conclÄmÄtiÅ | part of the service where the eldest mal relative called out the name of the deceased three times |
| laudÄtiÅ | Funeral oration, eulogy |
| toga pulla | "Dark toga", worn by mourners at funerals |
| imÄginÄs | Wax portraitāmasks of Romans who had held the higher magistracies |
| rogus | One of the most amazing architectural types on Roman Imperials is the ustrinum or "funeral pyre" |
| triumph | A ritual procession that was the highest honour bestowed upon a victorious general in the ancient Roman Republic; it was the summit of a Roman aristocratās career |
| toga | A garment worn by citizens that held in office |
| corona | A Roman military award, given to the first man who boarded an enemy ship during a naval engagement |
| Pliny | A Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire |
| Plautus | A Roman playwright of the Old Latin period; comedies are mostly adapted from Greek models for a Roman audience, and are often based directly on the works of the Greek playwrights |
| Cicero | English byname Tully; Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer; tried to uphold republican principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic |
| Horace | The leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus; regarded as the world's first autobiographer; In his writings, he tells us far more about himself, his character, his development, and his way of life than any other great poet in antiquity. |
| Ovid | the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus |
| Suetonius | A Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. |
| Plutarch | A Greek biographer and essayist; first biographical works were the Lives of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Vitellius |
| Juvenal | A Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the Satires |
| Sallust | A Roman historian, politician, and novus homofrom an Italian plebeian family; influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great wealth from his governorship of Africa |
| Sophocles | One of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived; first artistic triumph was in 468 BC, when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the reigning master of Athenian drama |
| Euripedes | Is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances |
| Homer | The legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are the central works of ancient Greek literature |
| Aeschylus | An ancient Greek tragedian; He is often described as the father of tragedy; Academics' knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays |
| Martial | A Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan |
| Livy | Only surviving work is the "History of Rome", which was his career from his mid-life, until he left Rome for Padua in old age, probably in the reign of Tiberius after the death of Augustus |
| Catullus | A Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, which is about personal life rather than classical heroes |
| Tacitus | a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire; from his seat in the Senate, he became suffect consul in 97 during the reign of Nerva |
| Sappho | Is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by a lyre |
| Seneca | A Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, andāin one workāsatirist of the Silver Age of Latin literature |
| Pliny the Younger | A lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome; served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan, and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the relationship between the imperial office and provincial governors |
| Tacitus | a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire; from his seat in the Senate, he became suffect consul in 97 during the reign of Nerva |
