The Alemanni were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, expanded into present-day Alsace, northern Switzerland, leading to the establishment of the Old High German language in those regions, by the eighth century named Alamannia. In 496, the Alemanni were incorporated into his dominions. Mentioned as still pagan allies of the Christian Franks, the Alemanni were Christianized during the seventh century; the Lex Alamannorum is a record of their customary law during this period. Until the eighth century, Frankish suzerainty over Alemannia was nominal. After an uprising by Theudebald, Duke of Alamannia, Carloman executed the Alamannic nobility and installed Frankish dukes. During the and weaker years of the Carolingian Empire, the Alemannic counts became independent, a struggle for supremacy took place between them and the Bishopric of Constance.

The chief family in Alamannia was that of the counts of Raetia Curiensis, who were sometimes called margraves, one of whom, Burchard II, established the Duchy of Swabia, recognized by Henry the Fowler in 919 and became a stem duchy of the Holy Roman Empire. The area settled by the Alemanni corresponds to the area where Alemannic German dialects remain spoken, including German Swabia and Baden, French Alsace, German-speaking Switzerland and Austrian Vorarlberg; the French language name of Germany, Allemagne, is derived from their name, from Old French aleman, from French loaned into a number of other languages. The Spanish name for Germany is Alemania, the Portuguese is Alemanha, Welsh is Yr Almaen. According to Gaius Asinius Quadratus, the name Alamanni means "all men", it indicates. The Romans and the Greeks called them as such mentioned; this derivation was accepted by Edward Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and by the anonymous contributor of notes assembled from the papers of Nicolas Fréret, published in 1753.

This etymology has remained the standard derivation of the name. An alternative suggestion proposes derivation from *alah "sanctuary". Walafrid Strabo in the 9th century remarked, in discussing the people of Switzerland and the surrounding regions, that only foreigners called them the Alemanni, but that they gave themselves the name of Suebi; the Suebi are given the alternative name of Ziuwari in an Old High German gloss, interpreted by Jacob Grimm as Martem colentes. The Alemanni were first mentioned by Cassius Dio describing the campaign of Caracalla in 213. At that time, they dwelt in the basin of the Main, to the south of the Chatti. Cassius Dio portrays the Alemanni as victims of this treacherous emperor, they had asked for his help, according to Dio, but instead he colonized their country, changed their place names, executed their warriors under a pretext of coming to their aid. When he became ill, the Alemanni claimed to have put a hex on him. Caracalla, tried to counter this influence by invoking his ancestral spirits.

In retribution, Caracalla led the Legio II Traiana Fortis against the Alemanni, who lost and were pacified for a time. The legion was as a result honored with the name Germanica; the fourth-century fictional Historia Augusta, Life of Antoninus Caracalla, relates that Caracalla assumed the name Alemannicus, at which Helvius Pertinax jested that he should be called Geticus Maximus, because in the year before he had murdered his brother, Geta. Through much of his short reign, Caracalla was known for unpredictable and arbitrary operations launched by surprise after a pretext of peace negotiations. If he had any reasons of state for such actions, they remained unknown to his contemporaries. Whether or not the Alemanni had been neutral, they were further influenced by Caracalla to become thereafter notoriously implacable enemies of Rome; this mutually antagonistic relationship is the reason why the Roman writers persisted in calling the Alemanni ”barbari," meaning "savages." The archaeology, shows that they were Romanized, lived in Roman-style houses and used Roman artifacts, the Alemannic women having adopted the Roman fashion of the tunica earlier than the men.

Most of the Alemanni were at the time, in fact, resident in or close to the borders of Germania Superior. Although Dio is the earliest writer to mention them, Ammianus Marcellinus used the name to refer to Germans on the Limes Germanicus in the time of Trajan's governorship of the province shortly after it was formed, around 98-99 AD. At that time, the entire frontier was being fortified for the first time. Trees from the earliest fortifications found in Germania Inferior are dated by dendrochronology to 99-100 AD. Ammianus relates that much the Emperor Julian undertook a punitive expedition against the Alemanni, who by were in Alsace, crossed the Main, entering the forest, where the trails were blocked by felled trees; as winter was upon them, they reoccupied a "fortification, founded on the soil of the Alemanni that Trajan wished to be called with his own name". In this context, the use of Alemanni is an anachronism, but it reveals that Ammianus believed they were the same people, consistent with the location of the Alemanni of Caracalla's campaigns.

Germania by Tacitus in Chapter 42 states that the Hermunduri were a tribe located in th

The Trojan Horse is a story from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the independent city of Troy and win the war. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus; the Greeks pretended to sail away, the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night; the Greeks destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war. Metaphorically, a "Trojan Horse" has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer program that tricks users into willingly running it is called a "Trojan horse" or a "Trojan"; the main ancient source for the story is the Aeneid of Virgil, a Latin epic poem from the time of Augustus. The event is referred to in Homer's Odyssey.

In the Greek tradition, the horse is called the "wooden horse". According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Odysseus thought of building a great wooden horse, hiding an elite force inside, fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy. Under the leadership of Epeius, the Greeks built the wooden horse in three days. Odysseus's plan called for one man to remain outside the horse. An inscription was engraved on the horse reading: "For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this offering to Athena", they burned their tents and left to Tenedos by night. Greek soldier Sinon was "abandoned" and was to signal to the Greeks by lighting a beacon. In Virgil's poem, the only volunteer for the role convinces the Trojans that he has been left behind and that the Greeks are gone. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse is an offering to the goddess Athena, meant to atone for the previous desecration of her temple at Troy by the Greeks and ensure a safe journey home for the Greek fleet. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse was built to be too large for them to take it into their city and gain the favor of Athena for themselves.

While questioning Sinon, the Trojan priest Laocoön guesses the plot and warns the Trojans, in Virgil's famous line Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, Danai or Danaans being the ones who had built the Trojan Horse. However, the god Poseidon sends two sea serpents to strangle him and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus before any Trojan heeds his warning. According to Apollodorus the two serpents were sent by Apollo, whom Laocoon had insulted by sleeping with his wife in front of the "divine image". In the Odyssey, Homer says that Helen of Troy guesses the plot and tries to trick and uncover the Greek soldiers inside the horse by imitating the voices of their wives, Anticlus attempts to answer, but Odysseus shuts his mouth with his hand. King Priam's daughter Cassandra, the soothsayer of Troy, insists that the horse will be the downfall of the city and its royal family, she too is ignored, hence their loss of the war. This incident is mentioned in the Odyssey: What a thing was this, which that mighty man wrought and endured in the carven horse, wherein all we chiefs of the Argives were sitting, bearing to the Trojans death and fate!

4.271 ff But come now, change thy theme, sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena's help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilion. 8.492-3 ff The most detailed and most familiar version is in Virgil's Aeneid, Book II. After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the Greeks, opposed by the Fates, damaged by the war, build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas's divine art, weave planks of fir over its ribs: they pretend it's a votive offering: this rumour spreads, they secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot, there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge cavernous insides with armed warriors. Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd with him, shouts from far off: "O unhappy citizens, what madness? Do you think the enemy's sailed away? Or do you think any Greek gift's free of treachery? Is that Ulysses's reputation?

Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the wood, or it's been built as a machine to use against our walls, or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above, or it hides some other trick: Trojans, don't trust this horse. Whatever it is, I'm afraid of Greeks those bearing gifts."Book II includes Laocoön saying: "Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." Well before Virgil, the story is alluded to in Greek classical literature. In Euripides' play Trojan Women, written in 415 BC, the god Poseidon proclaims: "For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host, sent it within the battlements, fraught with death. Thirty of the Achaeans' best warriors hid in two spies in its mouth. Other sources give different numbers: The Bibliotheca 50.

Pontiflex is a mobile advertising company based in Brooklyn, NY. The company uses “Signup Ads” which enables businesses to get contact information of people interested in their products and offers; the ads which appear on mobile apps allow people to sign up with their email address without leaving the app. Advertisers pay only for valid signups. On the advertiser side Pontiflex launched its self-serve mobile advertising product for small businesses - AdLeads in March 2012; the product acquired 5000 customers as of July, 2012. On the publisher side Pontiflex allows app developers to serve ads on mobile apps via AppLeads. Pontiflex received attention in December 2012 when the Vatican announced Pope Benedict XVI’s Twitter handle as @pontifex. Hundreds of people started following the startup on Twitter which has a similar-sounding Twitter handle - @pontiflex The company has raised a total of $22.5 million in funding to date. In January 2013 the company completed $7.7 million in Series D funding led by Talus Holdings, a media technology holding company principally backed by Blackstone's GSO Capital.

Existing investors RRE Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners participated in the round. Pontiflex Website