Amulius
In Roman mythology, Amulius was king of Alba Longa who ordered the death of his infant, twin grandnephews Romulus, the eventual founder and king of Rome, Remus. He was killed by them after they survived and grew to adulthood, he is son of Procas. He was said to have reigned 42 years before his death, his brother, had been king, but Amulius overthrew him, killed his son, took the throne. He forced Rhea Silvia, Numitor's daughter, to become a Vestal Virgin, a priestess of Vesta, so that she would never bear any sons that might overthrow him. However, she was seduced by the god Mars, resulting in the birth of the twins. Rhea was thrown into prison and her sons ordered to be thrown into the river Tiber; the twins were found by a she-wolf who suckled them. Their mother was saved by the river god Tiberinus who ended up marrying her. Romulus and Remus went on to found Rome and overthrow Amulius, reinstating their grandfather Numitor as king of Alba Longa. Dionysius was a Greek historian and librarian who wrote in the first century BC.
He writes that King Proca, willed the throne to Numitor but Amulius deposed him. For fear of a threat to his rule, the king had Numitor's son, Aegestus killed; the truth about the crime was known by some, including Numitor. Amulius appointed Numitor's daughter to the Vestal priestesshood, where her vow of chastity would prevent her from producing any further children. Despite this, she became pregnant a few years claiming to have been raped. In one of the sources, Amulius himself commits the rape. Ilia hid her pregnancy with claims of illness so as to avoid her vestal duties, but Amulius was suspicious and employed physicians and his own wife to monitor her for signs of being with child. When he discovered the truth, he placed her under armed guard. After being informed of the delivery of Romulus and Remus, Amulius suspected that she had in fact given birth to triplets; the third child having been concealed from the guards present. Ilia kept secretly in a hidden dungeon for the rest of her life. Citing Fabius Pictor, Cincius and Piso, Dionysius writes that the king ordered the twins to be tossed into the Tiber.
When his servants arrived at the riverbank, high waters had made it impossible to reach the stream. So they left the twin's basket in a pool of standing water on the site of the ficus Ruminalis. After the waters of the Tiber had carried the twins away, their basket was overturned by a rock and they were dumped into the mud, it was there, that a she-wolf famously nursed them in front of her lair. Amulius' servant Faustulus, happened upon the scene, he took the boys home, brought them up with his wife. Quoting Fabius' account of the overthrow of Amulius, Plutarch claims that Faustulus had saved the basket in which the boys had been abandoned. According to Fabius, when the twins were 18, they became embroiled in a violent dispute with some of Numitor's herdsmen. In retaliation, Remus was captured while Romulus was elsewhere. In Aelius Tubero's version, the twins were taking part in the festivities of the Lupercalia, requiring them to run naked through the village when Remus, defenseless as he was, was taken prisoner by Numitor's armed men.
After rounding up the toughest herdsmen to help him free Remus, Romulus rashly set out for Alba Longa. To avoid tragedy, Faustulus revealed the truth about the twins' parentage. With the discovery that Numitor was family, Romulus sets his sights on Amulius instead, he and the rest of his village set out in small groups toward the city so that their arrival would go unnoticed by the guards. Meanwhile, after Amulius turned Remus over to Numitor to determine his punishment, Remus was told of his origins by the former king and eagerly joined with him in their own effort to topple Amulius; when Romulus joined them, they began to plan their next move. Faustulus is caught by the Alban guards trying to sneak the infant twins' basket into the city and is brought before Amulius by none-other-than the servant who had taken the boys to the river those many years before. Amulius questions his insincerely claims he means the twins no harm. Faustulus, trying to protect Romulus and Remus, escape the king's clutches, claimed he had been bringing the basket to the imprisoned Ilia at the twins request and that they were at the moment tending their flocks in the mountains.
Amulius sent some of his men to find the boys. He tried to trick Numitor into coming to the palace so that the former king could be kept under guard until the situation had been dealt with. For the king, when the man he sent to lure Numitor into his clutches arrived at the deposed king's house, he betrayed Amulius and revealed everything that had happened at the palace; the twins and their grandfather led their joint supporters to the palace, killed Amulius, took control of the city
Hercules
Hercules is a Roman hero and god. He was the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures; the Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name Hercules. In Western art and literature and in popular culture, Hercules is more used than Heracles as the name of the hero. Hercules was a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled artists and writers to pick and choose how to represent him; this article provides an introduction to representations of Hercules in the tradition. Hercules is known for his many adventures, which took him to the far reaches of the Greco-Roman world. One cycle of these adventures became canonical as the "Twelve Labours". One traditional order of the labours is found in the Bibliotheca. Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra. Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis.
Capture the Erymanthian Boar. Clean the Augean stables in a single day. Slay the Stymphalian Birds. Capture the Cretan Bull. Steal the Mares of Diomedes. Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon. Steal the apples of the Hesperides. Capture and bring back Cerberus. Hercules had a greater number of "deeds on the side" that have been popular subjects for art, including: Side adventures The Latin name Hercules was borrowed through Etruscan, where it is represented variously as Heracle and other forms. Hercules was a favorite subject for Etruscan art, appears on bronze mirrors; the Etruscan form Herceler derives from the Greek Heracles via syncope. A mild oath invoking Hercules was a common interjection in Classical Latin. Hercules had a number of myths. One of these is Hercules' defeat of Cacus, terrorizing the countryside of Rome; the hero was associated with the Aventine Hill through his son Aventinus. Mark Antony considered him a personal patron god.
Hercules received various forms of religious veneration, including as a deity concerned with children and childbirth, in part because of myths about his precocious infancy, in part because he fathered countless children. Roman brides wore a special belt tied with the "knot of Hercules", supposed to be hard to untie; the comic playwright Plautus presents the myth of Hercules' conception as a sex comedy in his play Amphitryon. During the Roman Imperial era, Hercules was worshipped locally from Hispania through Gaul. Tacitus records a special affinity of the Germanic peoples for Hercules. In chapter 3 of his Germania, Tacitus states:... they say that Hercules, once visited them. They have those songs of theirs, by the recital of this barditus as they call it, they rouse their courage, while from the note they augur the result of the approaching conflict. For, as their line shouts, they feel alarm; some have taken this as Tacitus equating the Germanic Þunraz with Hercules by way of interpretatio romana.
In the Roman era Hercules' Club amulets appear from the 2nd to 3rd century, distributed over the empire made of gold, shaped like wooden clubs. A specimen found in Köln-Nippes bears the inscription "DEO HER", confirming the association with Hercules. In the 5th to 7th centuries, during the Migration Period, the amulet is theorized to have spread from the Elbe Germanic area across Europe; these Germanic "Donar's Clubs" were made from deer antler, bone or wood, more also from bronze or precious metals. They are found in female graves worn either as a belt pendant, or as an ear pendant; the amulet type is replaced by the Viking Age Thor's hammer pendants in the course of the Christianization of Scandinavia from the 8th to 9th century. After the Roman Empire became Christianized, mythological narratives were reinterpreted as allegory, influenced by the philosophy of late antiquity. In the 4th century, Servius had described Hercules' return from the underworld as representing his ability to overcome earthly desires and vices, or the earth itself as a consumer of bodies.
In medieval mythography, Hercules was one of the heroes seen as a strong role model who demonstrated both valor and wisdom, while the monsters he battles were regarded as moral obstacles. One glossator noted that when Hercules became a constellation, he showed that strength was necessary to gain entrance to Heaven. Medieval mythography was written entirely in Latin, original Greek texts were little used as sources for Hercules' myths. In 1600, the citizens of Avignon bestowed on Henry of Navarre the title of the Hercule Gaulois, justifying the extravagant flattery with a genealogy that traced the origin of the House of Navarre to a nephew of Hercules' son Hispalus; the Renaissance and the invention of the printing press brought a renewed interest in and publication of Greek literature. Renaissance mythography drew more extensively on the Greek tradition of Heracles under the Romanized name Hercules, or the alternate name Alcides. In a chapter of his book Mythologiae, the influential mythographer Natale Conti collected and summarized an extensive range of myths concerning the birth and death of the hero under his Roman name Hercules.
Conti begins his lengthy chapter on Hercules with an overview description that continues the moralizing i
Romulus
Romulus was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these traditions incorporate elements of folklore, it is not clear to what extent a historical figure underlies the mythical Romulus, the events and institutions ascribed to him were central to the myths surrounding Rome's origins and cultural traditions; the myths concerning Romulus involve several distinct episodes and figures: the miraculous birth and youth of Romulus and Remus, his twin brother. Romulus and Remus, his twin brother, were the sons of Rhea Silvia, herself the daughter of Numitor, the former king of Alba Longa. Through them, the twins are descended from the Trojan hero Aeneas and Latinus, the mythical founder of the kingdom of Latium. Before the twins' birth, Numitor had been usurped by Amulius. After seizing the throne, Amulius murdered Numitor's son, condemned Rhea to perpetual virginity by consecrating her a Vestal.
Rhea, became pregnant, ostensibly by the god Mars. Amulius had her imprisoned, upon the twins' birth, ordered that they be thrown into the rain-swollen Tiber. Instead of carrying out the king's orders, his servants left the twins along the riverbank at the foot of Palatine Hill. In the traditional telling of the legend, a she-wolf happened upon the twins, who were at the foot of a fig tree, she suckled and tended them by a cave until they were found by the herdsman Faustulus and his wife, Acca Larentia. The brothers grew to manhood among hill-folk. After becoming involved in a conflict between the followers of Amulius and those of their grandfather Numitor, they learned the truth of their origin, they restored Numitor to the throne. The princes set out to establish a city of their own, they returned to the hills overlooking the site where they had been exposed as infants. They could not agree on; when an omen to resolve the controversy failed to provide a clear indication, the conflict escalated and Remus was killed by his brother or by his brother's follower.
In a variant of the legend, the augurs favoured Romulus, who proceeded to plough a square furrow around the Palatine Hill to demarcate the walls of the future city. When Remus derisively leapt over the "walls" to show how inadequate they were against invaders, he was struck down by Romulus in anger. In another variant, Remus died during a melée, along with Faustulus; the founding of the city by Romulus was commemorated annually on April 21, with the festival of the Parilia. His first act was to fortify the Palatine, in the course, he laid out the city's boundaries with a furrow that he ploughed, performed another sacrifice, with his followers set to work building the city itself. Romulus sought the assent of the people to become their king. With Numitor's help, he received their approval. Romulus accepted the crown after he sacrificed and prayed to Jupiter, after receiving favourable omens. Romulus divided the populace into three tribes, known as the Ramnes and Luceres, for taxation and military purposes.
Each tribe was presided over by an official known as a tribune, was further divided into ten curia, or wards, each presided over by an official known as a curio. Romulus allotted a portion of land to each ward, for the benefit of the people. Nothing is known of the manner in which the tribes and curiae were taxed, but for the military levy, each curia was responsible for providing one hundred foot soldiers, a unit known as a century, ten cavalry; each Romulean tribe thus provided about one thousand infantry, one century of cavalry. Choosing one hundred men from the leading families, Romulus established the Roman senate; these men he called the city fathers. The other class, known as the "plebs" or "plebeians", consisted of the servants, fugitives who sought asylum at Rome, those captured in war, others who were granted Roman citizenship over time. To encourage the growth of the city, Romulus outlawed infanticide, established an asylum for fugitives on the Capitoline Hill, where freemen and slaves alike could claim protection and seek Roman citizenship.
The new city was filled with colonists, most of whom were unmarried men. With no intermarriage between Rome and neighboring communities, the new city would fail. Romulus sent envoys to neighboring towns, appealing to them to allow intermarriage with Roman citizens, but his overtures were rebuffed. Romulus formulated a plan to acquire women from other settlements, he announced a momentous festival and games, invited the people of the neighboring cities to attend. Many did, in particular the Sabines. At a prearranged signal, the Romans began to snatch and carry off the marriageable women among their guests; the aggrieved cities prepared for war with Rome, might have defeated Romulus had they been united. But impatient with the preparations of the Sabines, the Latin towns of Caenina and Antemnae took action without their allies. Caenina was the first to attack.
Terra (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Tellus Mater or Terra Mater is a goddess of the earth. Although Tellus and Terra are hardly distinguishable during the Imperial era, Tellus was the name of the original earth goddess in the religious practices of the Republic or earlier; the scholar Varro lists Tellus as one of the di selecti, the twenty principal gods of Rome, one of the twelve agricultural deities. She is associated with Ceres in rituals pertaining to the earth and agricultural fertility; the attributes of Tellus were bunches of flowers or fruit. She was depicted reclining, her male complement was a form of Jupiter. A male counterpart Tellumo or Tellurus is mentioned, though rarely, her Greek counterpart is Gaia, among the Etruscans she was Cel. Michael Lipka has argued that the Terra Mater who appears during the reign of Augustus is a direct transferral of the Greek Ge Mater into Roman religious practice, while Tellus, whose temple was within Rome's sacred boundary, represents the original earth goddess cultivated by the state priests.
The word tellus, telluris is a Latin common noun for "land, territory. In literary uses in poetry, it may be ambiguous as to whether the goddess, a personification, or the common noun is meant; this article preserves the usage of the ancient sources regarding Terra. The two words terra and tellus are thought to derive from the formulaic phrase tersa tellus, meaning "dry land"; the etymology of tellus is uncertain. The 4th-century AD Latin commentator Servius distinguishes between tellus and terra in usage. Terra, he says, is properly used of the elementum, earth as one of the four classical elements with air and fire. Tellus is the goddess, whose name can be substituted for her functional sphere the earth, just as the name Vulcanus is used for fire, Ceres for produce, Liber for wine. Tellus thus refers by extension the globe itself. Tellus may be an aspect of the numen called Dea Dia by the Arval priests, or at least a close collaborator with her as "divinity of the clear sky."Varro identifies Terra Mater with Ceres: Not without cause was the Earth called Mater and Ceres.
It was believed that those who cultivated her led a pious and useful life, that they were the sole survivors from the line of King Saturn. Ovid distinguishes between Tellus as the locus of growth, Ceres as its causa. Mater, the Latin word for "mother," is used as an honorific for goddesses, including Vesta, represented as a virgin. "Mother" therefore expresses the respect that one would owe a mother, though Tellus and Terra are both regarded as mothers in the genealogical sense as well. The Temple of Tellus was the most prominent landmark of the Carinae, a fashionable neighborhood on the Oppian Hill, it was near homes belonging to the Cicero family. The temple was the result of a votum made in 268 BC by Publius Sempronius Sophus when an earthquake struck during a battle with the Picenes. Others say, it occupied the former site of a house belonging to Spurius Cassius, torn down when he was executed in 485 BC for attempting to make himself king. The temple constructed by Sophus more than two centuries was most a rebuilding of the people's.
The anniversary of its dedication was December 13. A mysterious object called the magmentarium was stored in the temple, known for a representation of Italy on the wall, either a map or an allegory. A statue of Quintus Cicero, set up by his brother Marcus, was among those that stood on the temple grounds. Cicero claims that the proximity of his property caused some Romans to assume he had a responsibility to help maintain the temple. Festivals celebrated for Tellus were concerned with agriculture and connected with Ceres. In January, both goddesses were honored as "mothers of produce" at the moveable feast of Sementivae, a festival of sowing. On December 13, the anniversary of the Temple of Tellus was celebrated along with a lectisternium for Ceres, who embodied "growing power" and the productivity of the earth. Tellus received the sacrifice of a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia, a festival pertaining to fertility and animal husbandry held April 15, in the middle of the Cerialia. Festivals for deities of vegetation and the earth cluster in April on the Roman calendar.
The institution of the Fordicidia was attributed to the Sabine second king of Rome. During a time when Rome was struggling with harsh agricultural conditions, Numa was instructed by the rustic god Faunus in a dream that a sacrifice to Tellus was needed; as is the case with oracles, the message required interpretation: "By the death of cattle, Tellus must be placated: two cows, that is. Let a single heifer yield two lives for the rites." Numa solved the riddle by instituting the sacrifice of a pregnant cow. The purpose of the sacrifice, as suggested by the Augustan poet Ovid and by the 6th-century antiquarian John Lydus, was to assure the fertility of the planted grain growing in the womb of Mother Earth in the guise of Tellus; this public sacrifice was conducted in the form of a holocaust on behalf of the state at the Capitol, by each of the thirty curiae, the most ancient divisions of the city made by Romulus from the original three tribes. The state sacrifice was presided over by the Vestals, who used the ash from the holocaust to prepare suff
Plutarch
Plutarch named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, was a Greek biographer and essayist, known for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were intended for both Greek and Roman readers. Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, about 80 kilometres east of Delphi, in the Greek region of Boeotia, his family was wealthy. The name of Plutarch's father has not been preserved, but based on the common Greek custom of repeating a name in alternate generations, it was Nikarchus; the name of Plutarch's grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony. His brothers and Lamprias, are mentioned in his essays and dialogues, which speak of Timon in particular in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarch's wife, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not to grieve too much at the death of their two-year-old daughter, named Timoxena after her mother.
He hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation. The exact number of his sons is not certain, although two of them and the second Plutarch, are mentioned. Plutarch's treatise De animae procreatione in Timaeo is dedicated to them, the marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner parties recorded in the "Table Talk". Another person, Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch's son, but this is nowhere stated, his treatise on marriage questions, addressed to Eurydice and Pollianus, seems to speak of the latter as having been an inmate of his house, but without any clear evidence on whether she was his daughter or not. Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens under Ammonius from 66 to 67. At some point, Plutarch received Roman citizenship; as evidenced by his new name, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, his sponsor for citizenship was Lucius Mestrius Florus, a Roman of consular status whom Plutarch used as a historical source for his Life of Otho.
He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek god Apollo. For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the famous Delphic Oracle, twenty miles from his home. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, participated in local affairs serving as mayor. At his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, the 78 essays and other works which have survived are now known collectively as the Moralia. In addition to his duties as a priest of the Delphic temple, Plutarch was a magistrate at Chaeronea and he represented his home town on various missions to foreign countries during his early adult years. Plutarch held the office of archon in his native municipality only an annual one which he served more than once.
He undertook the humblest of duties. The Suda, a medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Emperor Trajan made Plutarch procurator of Illyria. However, most historians consider this unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, Plutarch did not speak Illyrian. According to the 8th/9th-century historian George Syncellus, late in Plutarch's life, Emperor Hadrian appointed him nominal procurator of Achaea – which entitled him to wear the vestments and ornaments of a consul. Plutarch spent the last thirty years of his life serving as a priest in Delphi, he thus connected part of his literary work with the sanctuary of Apollo, the processes of oracle-giving and the personalities who lived or traveled there. One of his most important works is the "Why Pythia does not give oracles in verse". More important is the dialogue "On the E in Delphi", which features Ammonius, a Platonic philosopher and teacher of Plutarch, Lambrias, Plutarch's brother. According to Ammonius, the letter E written on the temple of Apollo in Delphi originated from the following fact: the wise men of antiquity, whose maxims were written on the walls of the vestibule of the temple, were not seven but five: Chilon, Thales and Pittakos.
However, the tyrants Cleobulos and Periandros used their political power in order to be incorporated in the list. Thus, the E, which corresponds to number 5, constituted an acknowledgment that the Delphic maxims originated from the five real wise men; the portrait of a philosopher exhibited at the exit of the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, dating to the 2nd century AD, had been in the past identified with Plutarch. The man, although bearded, is depicted at a young age, his hair and beard are rendered in thin incisions. The gaze is due to the heavy eyelids and the incised pupils; the portrait is no longer thought to represent Plutarch. But a fragmentary hermaic stele next to the portrait did once bear a portrait of Plutarch, since it is inscribed, "The Delphians along with the Chaeroneans dedicated this to Plutarch, following the precepts of the Amphictyony". Plutarc
Faustulus
In Roman mythology, Faustulus was the shepherd who found the infants Romulus and Remus, who were being suckled by a she-wolf, known as Lupa, on the Palatine Hill. He, with Acca Larentia, raised the children. In some versions of the myth, Lupa was a prostitute; the name Faustulus was claimed by a Roman family, one of whom minted a coin showing Faustulus with the twins and she-wolf. Sextus Pompeius Fostlus issued a silver denarius in about 140 BCE that showed, on the twins and she-wolf with Faustulus to their left. Parallel Lives Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Public domain
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable; the works of William Shakespeare and Beethoven, most early silent films, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, are therefore in the public domain—among them the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes, all computer software created prior to 1974. Other works are dedicated by their authors to the public domain; the term public domain is not applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or "with permission". As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another; some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country.
The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". Although the term "domain" did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the concept "can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system." The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be owned" as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as things not yet appropriated; the term res communes was defined as "things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air and ocean." The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome. When looking at it from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res communes, res publicae, res universitatis in early Roman law.
When the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by French jurists in the 18th century. Instead of "public domain", they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law; the phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-19th century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of public domain" and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that, left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright and trademarks, expire or are abandoned. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a, "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain." Copyright law differs by country, the American legal scholar Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".
Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more regard the public domain as a negative space. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions; such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair-use rights and limitation on ownership. A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression". Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "here are certain materials – the air we breathe, rain, life, thoughts, ideas, numbers – not subject to private ownership.
The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival." The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". A public-domain book is a book with no copyright, a book, created without a license, or a book where its copyrights expired or have been forfeited. In most countries the term of protection of copyright lasts until January first, 70 years after the death of the latest living author; the longest copyright term is in Mexico, which has life plus 100 years for all deaths since July 1928. A notable exception is the United States, where every book and tale published prior to 1924 is in the public domain.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Acca Larentia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
