zompist bboard

So I'm planning for my novel for NaNoWriMo in November. It's going to be a high fantasy novel set in a secondary world, but with a few twists: it's set in antiquity rather than medieval times and a Roman Republic like society rather than a feudal one. I've hit a snag in my planning because, while I get and have ideas for much of how to form my conlang grammar and stuff, I have no idea about the phonology and syllable structure I should use. Like I don't know what kind of sounding language i should go for, and what sounds actually match that. So i could use some help.

A little more info, in the english or common tongue in the novel there will be a number of terms taken from latin and the Roman Republic/Empire, I don't know if i should base my language so those word's fit in it phonologically, or just have those be the common tongue words for it and it's not the actually words in the native language. But here are the words/titles so far

-magi - yes like the three wisemen from the christmas story, but based on before that, the magi of babylon/persia a court of lords who had governmental and religious power. These are lay people who have been anointed by a religious order who have magical power.
-magisinne - similar to magi, a person anointed by a religious order, but these are ones who have no magical ability
-consul - appointed representative of the republic, more like the modern concept of consul than the consul of the roman republic
-decant - a leader of tens. roughly equivalent to a 2nd Lt today.
-centurion - leader of hundred/hundreds.
-legion - same as in roman times

I could use any help specifically with the phonology and syllable structure anyone can and would be willing to lend me to help start with this naming language. Thanks!

There really isn't a right answer to the question. You can use any phonological system you want, so long as it conforms to what is physically possible for humans to do. Some like to make it exotic, some like to keep to phonemes that they can pronounce easily. Here's what I can suggest:
It is much easier to keep track of a conlang using a Latin-script alphabet if each phoneme is assigned one particular letter and it is associated with values the creator is familiar with. (Some are also concerned about readers, but I operate on the assumption of them horribly mangling all names, including ones in their native language.) A good resource for this is http://web.archive.org/web/200805150927 ... ransc.html. My style for Brazi is somewhat based off his suggestions.
Your word samples include <c>, which I try to avoid as much as possible. It is used for so many different things in various languages that seeing it does not really suggest a certain sound for me. I think most of active posters on this site would disagree with me, however.

What is the distinction between common and native language that you are making? Are the people in the story equivalent to a conquered peoples, while the common language is the equivalent in Latin?

Finally, more interesting than basing a story in another world which just happened to have its own version of Rome or Europe is to make cultures which are not specifically based on any specific Earth culture or group of cultures. Perhaps the people have a generally similar government and social classes to the Roman Republic, but everyday life resembles other cultures.