[Roman military ranks vs. modern ranks]

Thank you for your reply, GhostOfClayton. As mentioned above, I gave up on mapping Roman ranks to modern equivalents because it became too complex for the story. Instead, I use the more well-known ranks (tribune, centurion, consul, and praetor) as classes of warships. In answer to your question about legionarii and classiarii, I use the former for ground troops that attack enemy planets and the latter for "navy" troops (a little like U.S. Marines, except that the classiarii's role is to defend spaceships from being boarded, as well as to board enemy vessels).

[Roman name for the underworld?]

Can someone please tell me the Roman name for the underworld. From what little I can find on the net, it's Hades (same as in Greek). Is that correct? I've also seen an article that Romans, like Greeks, believed in the river Styx and the ferryman. Correct?

 

Thanks

Dirk

 

[Roman military ranks vs. modern ranks]

Thank you for the detail reply, Caldrail. After culling together a list of ranks from several sites, I gave up on using Roman ranks. Except for centurion and tribune, the rest are not likely to be known to most readers (e.g., optio)? Can you tell me if I'm using legionarii, classiarii, candidati, and Praetorian Guard correctly? Those I'd like to keep using.

 

Thanks

Dirk

[Roman military ranks vs. modern ranks]

Hi. I was wondering if someone could help me map the following modern ranks to Roman equivalents. I'm aware that there were Roman ranks that had no modern equivalent, which is fine, since I have a limited list. This is for a sci-fi story.

 

Ground troops - I've been using legionarii

Marines - I've been using classiarii

Emperor's body guards - using candidatii

Emperor's legions - using Praetorian Guard

Lieutenant

Captain - using centurian

Major

Colonel

General - Wikipedia suggests prefect

Admiral

 

Ideally, the names would be easily recognized by those with a basic understanding of Roman history, to peak the reader's interest enough to learn the Roman ranks in the story. For example, tribune, praetor, prefect, centurian, etc.

 

Also, should the names of the Roman ranks be capitalized? Wikipedia doesn't do so.

 

I appreciate you time.

[Correct Latin words for Roman Empire?]

Wow! I don't even know my English as well as you know Latin. :-)

 

Thank you for the detailed response.

 

Dirk

[Correct Latin words for Roman Empire?]

Hi. I was wondering what the correct Latin words are for Roman Empire? I've been using Imperium Romanum, but I see this forum is called Imperium Romanorum. Which is correct?

 

Thank You.

Dirk