set terminal colours on command line

[hfruchtl]

I just installed Mint with Mate on my new PC. I typically have login sessions on half a dozen machines open. I open them using a short alias and try to keep an overview by giving them different background colours. I have lots of lines like the following in my .bashrc:

alias hector="xterm -bg 'spring green' -T hector -e 'ssh -X hf633@login.hector.ac.uk'&"

Is there an equivalent to the -bg and -T flags in Mate, or do I need to install xterm after all?

Thanks in advance,

Herbert