Carpe diem
Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work Odes. Carpe is the second-person singular present active imperative of carpō "pick or pluck" used by Horace to mean "enjoy, make use of". Diem is the accusative of dies "day". A more literal translation of carpe diem would thus be "pluck the day "—that is, enjoy the moment. Text from Odes 1.11: Perhaps the first written expression of the concept is the advice given by Siduri to Gilgamesh, telling him to forgo his mourning and embrace life although some scholars see it as urging Gilgamesh to abandon his mourning, "reversing the liminal rituals of mourning and returning to the normal and normative behaviors of Mesopotamian society." In Horace, the phrase is part of the longer carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, which can be translated as "Seize the day, put little trust in tomorrow". The ode says that the future is unforeseen and that one should not leave to chance future happenings, but rather one should do all one can today to make one's future better.
This phrase is understood against Horace's Epicurean background. The meaning of carpe diem as used by Horace is not to ignore the future, but rather not to trust that everything is going to fall into place for you and taking action for the future today. Collige, rosas appears at the end of the poem "De rosis nascentibus" attributed to Ausonius or Virgil, it encourages youth to enjoy life. "De Brevitate Vitae" referred to as "Gaudeamus igitur", is a popular academic commercium song, on taking joy in student life, with the knowledge that one will someday die. It is medieval Latin, dating to 1287. Related but distinct is the expression memento mori which carries some of the same connotation as carpe diem. For Horace, mindfulness of our own mortality is key in making us realize the importance of the moment. "Remember that you are mortal, so seize the day." Over time the phrase memento mori came to be associated with penitence, as suggested in many vanitas paintings. Today many listeners will take the two phrases as representing opposite approaches, with carpe diem urging us to savour life and memento mori urging us to resist its allure.
This is not the original sense of the memento mori phrase. In modern English, the expression "YOLO", meaning "you only live once", expresses a similar sentiment. In the 1989 American film Dead Poets Society, the English teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams, famously says: "Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." This line was voted as the 95th greatest movie quote by the American Film Institute. Media related to Carpe diem at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of'carpe diem' at Wiktionary
Crank (mechanism)
A crank is an arm attached at a right angle to a rotating shaft by which reciprocating motion is imparted to or received from the shaft. It is used to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion, or vice versa; the arm may be a separate arm or disk attached to it. Attached to the end of the crank by a pivot is a rod called a connecting rod; the end of the rod attached to the crank moves in a circular motion, while the other end is constrained to move in a linear sliding motion. The term refers to a human-powered crank, used to manually turn an axle, as in a bicycle crankset or a brace and bit drill. In this case a person's arm or leg serves as the connecting rod, applying reciprocating force to the crank. There is a bar perpendicular to the other end of the arm with a rotatable handle or pedal attached. Familiar examples include: Mechanical pencil sharpener Fishing reel and other reels for cables, ropes, etc. Manually operated car window The carpenter's brace is a compound crank; the crank set.
Hand winches The crankset that drives a bicycle via the pedals. Treadle sewing machine Almost all reciprocating engines use cranks to transform the back-and-forth motion of the pistons into rotary motion; the cranks are incorporated into a crankshaft. The earliest hand-operated cranks appeared in China during the Han Dynasty, as Han era glazed-earthenware tomb models portray, was used thereafter in China for silk-reeling and hemp-spinning, for the agricultural winnowing fan, in the water-powered flour-sifter, for hydraulic-powered metallurgic bellows, in the well windlass. In order to create a handle by means of a wheel to rotate their grain winnowers, the Chinese invented the crank handle and applied the centrifugal fan principle in the 2nd century BC; the crank handle was used in well-windlasses, querns and many silk making machines. The rotary winnowing fan increased the efficiency of separating grain from husks and stalks. Harvesting grain by the use of rotary winnowing fan would not reach the Western World until the eighteenth century, where harvested grain was thrown up in the air by shovels or winnowing baskets.
China was one of the earlist civilizations of using cranks to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion. The Han Dynasty Chinese mechanical engineer Du Shi is credited with being the first to use double-action piston pumps to apply hydraulic power, through a waterwheel, to operate bellows in metallurgy, his invention was used to operate piston bellows of blast furnaces. The handle of the rotary handmill which appeared in either 6th century BC Carthage or 5th century BC Celtiberian Spain and spread across the Roman Empire constitutes a crank. A Roman iron crank of yet unknown purpose dating to the 2nd century AD was excavated in Augusta Raurica, Switzerland; the 82.5 cm long piece has fitted to one end a 15 cm long bronze handle, the other handle being lost. A ca. 40 cm long true iron crank was excavated, along with a pair of shattered mill-stones of 50−65 cm diameter and diverse iron items, in Aschheim, close to Munich. The crank-operated Roman mill is dated to the late 2nd century. An cited modern reconstruction of a bucket-chain pump driven by hand-cranked flywheels from the Nemi ships has been dismissed though as "archaeological fantasy".
Evidence for the crank combined with a connecting rod appears in the Hierapolis sawmill in Asia Minor from the 3rd century and two stone sawmills at Gerasa, Roman Syria, Ephesus, Asia Minor. On the pediment of the Hierapolis mill, a waterwheel fed by a mill race is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws which cut rectangular blocks by the way of some kind of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, cranks; the accompanying inscription is in Greek. The crank and connecting rod mechanisms of the other two archaeologically attested sawmills worked without a gear train. In ancient literature, there is a reference to the workings of water-powered marble saws close to Trier, now Germany, by the late 4th century poet Ausonius. According to Tullia Ritti, Klaus Grewe, Paul Kessener: With the crank and connecting rod system, all elements for constructing a steam engine — Hero's aeolipile, the cylinder and piston, non-return valves, gearing — were known in Roman times; the crank appears in the mid-9th century, in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū Mūsā brothers in their Book of Ingenious Devices.
These devices, made only partial rotations and could not transmit much power, although only a small modification would have been required to convert it to a crankshaft. Al-Jazari described a crank and connecting rod system in a rotating machine in two of his water-raising machines, his twin-cylinder pump incorporated a crankshaft, including both the crank and shaft mechanisms. The crank became common in Europe by the early 15th century, seen in the works of those such as the military engineer Konrad Kyeser. A rotary grindstone − the earliest representation thereof −, operated by a crank handle is shown in the Carolingian manuscript Utrecht Psalter. A musical tract ascribed to th
John Ausonius
John Wolfgang Alexander Ausonius, known in the media as Lasermannen, is a Swedish convicted murderer, bank robber, attempted serial killer. From August 1991 to January 1992 he shot eleven people in the Stockholm and Uppsala area, most of whom were immigrants, killing one and injuring the others, he first used a rifle equipped with a laser sight, switched to a revolver. He was arrested in June 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment in January 1994. Ausonius was born Wolfgang Alexander Zaugg in Lidingö, northeast of Sweden, he is the son of a German mother, both of whom had emigrated to Sweden. He grew up in a working class suburb of Stockholm. According to newspaper reports, he was bullied as a child because of his non-Swedish background, which manifested in him being teased for having black hair and brown eyes; as an adult, he bleached his hair blonde, used blue contact lenses and changed his name. He changed his name to John Wolfgang Alexander Stannerman, to John Wolfgang Alexander Ausonius, he dropped out before graduating.
He completed his secondary school education in an adult education programme. Ausonius was accepted into the Royal Institute of Technology, but dropped out after a couple of years of unsuccessful study. In 1986, following the Olof Palme assassination, Ausonius named John Stannerman, was one of the police's initial suspects. However, Stannerman could not be linked to the murder as he was incarcerated at the time, serving a sentence for multiple counts of assault. In prison he became an acquaintance of Miro Barešić, a member of Croatian National Resistance, a Croatian émigré anti-communist organization created by members of the fascist Ustaše movement. Barešić was imprisoned for the 1971 murder of the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden. Ausonius developed a hatred for Communists, Social Democrats, immigrants while fostering an ambition of gaining wealth, he worked a low-paying job as a taxi driver, but started trading in stocks and bonds. His talent for the market earned him a large fortune resulting him adopting the yuppie lifestyle.
By the late 1980s he owned a luxurious apartment, a Toyota Supra, a mobile phone. However, poorly chosen investments depleted his fortune; this was further aggravated by an addiction to gambling. As a result of the latter, during a trip to Germany he found himself in dire economic circumstances. With funds running out, Ausonius turned to bank robbing to maintain his lifestyle, he performed more than eighteen robberies in identical fashion. In 1979, Ausonius became a Swedish citizen, he had a strong hatred for foreigners. These beliefs led him to start looking for immigrant criminals to kill, he was tired of this and decided to kill any immigrant. He hoped that this way, he would scare all immigrants out of Sweden. Between 1981 and 1982, Ausonius thus learnt how to use weapons. However, his personal weapons were of poor quality likely because Ausonius had modified them, he sawed off the barrel and the stock of his first rifle to make it shorter, he fitted the Smith & Wesson revolver with a silencer.
This modification may have been the key to his failures in killing most of his victims as it deviated the bullet's trajectory and caused him to miss his victims. It was damaged the weapon's performance. 3 August 1991: Ausonius shot David Gebremariam, a 21-year-old immigrant from Eritrea. Gebremariam survived. Two of the victim's friends said they saw a circle of red light on his body before they heard the shot. 21 October 1991: Shahram Khosravi, a 25-year-old student of Iranian origin, was shot in the face outside the Stockholm University. Khosravi survived the attack. 27 October 1991: Dimitrios Karamalegos, a homeless man of Greek origin, was shot twice in the stomach. Although wounded, he survived. Karamalegos reported seeing a bright red light prior to hearing the shots. 1 November 1991: During the middle of the day, Ausonius walked into a restaurant kitchen in Stockholm and shot Heberson Vieira Da Costa, a musician from Brazil. Da Costa was shot once in several times in the stomach. Despite these injuries, Da Costa survived.
He reported to police. Da Costa was able to provide a good description of Ausonius. 8 November 1991: Ausonius mortally wounded Jimmy Ranjbar, another Iranian student, who died the following day. Between the first and second wave of shooting, Ausonius took a trip to the United States, he visited Las Vegas, to see the Grand Canyon. He returned to Sweden. 22 January 1992: In Uppsala, Ausonius walked up to a couple in a café outside the Linnaeus Garden, shot Erik Bongcam-Rudloff, a Ph. D. student in medical sciences, in the head. Bongcam-Rudloff survived, is now a scientist representing Sweden in several international scientific networks. 23 January 1992: Having returned to Stockholm, Ausonius shot Charles Dhlakama, a bus driver from Zimbabwe, in the middle of the day. Dhlakama survived; that evening, Ausonius shot two men, both of whom survived. 28 January 1992: Ausonius shot Isa Aybar, an immigrant of Syrian/Assyrian/Aramean origin, four times in the head and arm. Aybar was wounded, but managed to call the police and survived.
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Roman consul
A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, ancient Romans considered the consulship the highest level of the cursus honorum. Each year, the citizens of Rome elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term; the consuls alternated in holding imperium each month, a consul's imperium extended over Rome and the provinces. However, after the establishment of the Empire, the consuls became mere symbolic representatives of Rome's republican heritage and held little power and authority, with the Emperor acting as the supreme authority. After the legendary expulsion of the last Etruscan King, Tarquin the Proud, a harsh ruler at the end of the Roman Kingdom, most of the powers and authority of the king were ostensibly given to the newly instituted consulship; this change in leadership came about when the king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped the wife and daughter of powerful Roman nobles. A group of nobles led by Lucius Junius Brutus, with the support of the Roman Army, expelled Tarquinius and his family from Rome in 509 BC.
Consuls were called praetors, referring to their duties as the chief military commanders. By at least 300 BC the title of Consul became used. Ancient writers derive the title consul from the Latin verb consulere, "to take counsel", but this is most a gloss of the term, which derives—in view of the joint nature of the office—from con- and sal-, "get together" or from con- and sell-/sedl-, "sit down together with" or "next to". In Greek, the title was rendered as στρατηγὸς ὕπατος, strategos hypatos, simply as ὕπατος; the consul was believed by the Romans to date back to the traditional establishment of the Republic in 509 BC, but the succession of consuls was not continuous in the 5th century BC. During the 440s, the office was quite replaced with the establishment of the Consular Tribunes, who were elected whenever the military needs of the state were significant enough to warrant the election of more than the two usual consuls; these remained in place until the office was abolished in 367/366 BC and the consulship was reintroduced.
Consuls had extensive powers in peacetime, in wartime held the highest military command. Additional religious duties included certain rites which, as a sign of their formal importance, could only be carried out by the highest state officials. Consuls read auguries, an essential step before leading armies into the field. Two consuls were elected each year, serving together, each with veto power over the other's actions, a normal principle for magistracies, it is thought that only patricians were eligible for the consulship. Consuls were elected by the Comitia Centuriata, which had an aristocratic bias in its voting structure which only increased over the years from its foundation. However, they formally assumed powers only after the ratification of their election in the older Comitia Curiata, which granted the consuls their imperium by enacting a law, the "lex curiata de imperio". If a consul died during his term or was removed from office, another would be elected by the Comitia Centuriata to serve the remainder of the term as consul suffectus.
A consul elected to start the year - called a consul ordinarius - held more prestige than a suffect consul because the year would be named for ordinary consuls. According to tradition, the consulship was reserved for patricians and only in 367 BC did plebeians win the right to stand for this supreme office, when the Lex Licinia Sextia provided that at least one consul each year should be plebeian; the first plebeian consul, Lucius Sextius, was elected the following year. The office remained in the hands of a few families as, according to Gelzer, only fifteen novi homines - "new men" with no consular background - were elected to the consulship until the election of Cicero in 63 BC. Modern historians have questioned the traditional account of plebeian emancipation during the early Republic, noting for instance that about thirty percent of the consuls prior to Sextius had plebeian, not patrician, names, it is possible that only the chronology has been distorted, but it seems that one of the first consuls, Lucius Junius Brutus, came from a plebeian family.
Another possible explanation is that during the 5th century social struggles, the office of consul was monopolized by a patrician elite. During times of war, the primary qualification for consul was military skill and reputation, but at all times the selection was politically charged. With the passage of time, the consulship became the normal endpoint of the cursus honorum, the sequence of offices pursued by the ambitious Roman who chose to pursue political power and influence; when Lucius Cornelius Sulla regulated the cursus by law, the minimum age of election to consul became, in effect, 41 years of age. Beginning in the late Republic, after finishing a consular year, a former consul would serve a lucrative term as a proconsul, the Roman Governor of one of the provinces; the most chosen province for the proconsulship was Cisalpine Gaul. Although throughout the early years of the Principate, the consuls were still formally elected by the Comitia Centuriata, they were in fact nominated by the princeps.
As the years progressed, the distinction between the Comitia Centuriata and the Comitia Tributa appears to have disappeared, so for the purposes of the consular
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Alemanni
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, 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 the region that became
Magnus Maximus
Magnus Maximus was Roman Emperor in the western portion of the Empire from 383 to 388. In 383, as commander of Britain, he usurped the throne against emperor Gratian, by negotiation with emperor Theodosius I, he was made emperor in Britannia and Gaul the next year while Gratian's brother Valentinian II retained Italy, Pannonia and Africa. In 387, Maximus's ambitions led him to invade Italy, resulting in his defeat by Theodosius I at the Battle of the Save in 388. In the view of some historians, his death marked the end of direct imperial presence in Northern Gaul and Britain. Maximus was born c. 335 on the estates of Count Theodosius, to whom he was a nephew. Maximus was the brother of Marcellinus. Near contemporaries described his dignity as offended when lesser men were promoted to high positions. Maximus was a distinguished general, it is he may have been a junior officer in Britain in 368, during the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. Assigned to Britain in 380, he defeated an incursion of the Picts and Scots in 381.
The Western emperor Gratian had become unpopular because of perceived favouritism toward Alans--an Iranian speaking people who were early adopters of Christianity and migrated both east and west from their homeland--over Roman citizens. In 383 Maximus was proclaimed emperor by his troops, he went to Gaul to pursue his imperial ambitions, taking a large portion of the British garrison with him. Following his landing in Gaul, Maximus went out to meet his main opponent, emperor Gratian, whom he defeated near Paris. Gratian, after fleeing, was killed at Lyon on August 25, 383. Continuing his campaign into Italy, Maximus was stopped from overthrowing Valentinian II, only twelve, when Theodosius I, the Emperor in the East, sent Flavius Bauto with a powerful force to stop him. Negotiations followed in 384 including the intervention of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, leading to an accord with Valentinian II and Theodosius I in which Maximus was recognized as Augustus in the West. Maximus made his capital at Augusta Treverorum in Gaul, ruled Britain, Gaul and Africa.
He issued a number of edicts reorganizing Gaul's system of provinces. Some scholars believe, he became a popular emperor. He used foederati forces such as the Alamanni to great effect, he was a stern persecutor of heretics. It was on his orders that Priscillian and six companions were executed for heresy, in this case of Priscillianism, although the actual civil charges laid by Maximus himself were for the practice of magic; these executions went ahead despite the wishes of prominent men such as St. Martin of Tours. Maximus's edict of 387 or 388, which censured Christians at Rome for burning down a Jewish synagogue, was condemned by bishop Ambrose, who said people exclaimed, ‘the emperor has become a Jew’. In 387 Maximus managed to force emperor Valentinian II out of Milan, after which he fled to Theodosius I. Theodosius and Valentinian invaded from the east, campaigned against Maximus in July–August 388, their troops being led by Richomeres and other generals. Maximus was defeated in the Battle of the Save, retreated to Aquileia.
Meanwhile, the Franks under Marcomer had taken the opportunity to invade northern Gaul, at the same time further weakening Maximus's position. Andragathius, magister equitum of Maximus and the killer of Emperor Gratian, was defeated near Siscia, while Maximus's brother, fell in battle at Poetovio. Maximus surrendered in Aquileia, although he pleaded for mercy was executed; the Senate passed a decree of Damnatio memoriae against him. However, his mother and at least two daughters were spared. Theodosius's trusted general Arbogast strangled Maximus's son, Flavius Victor, at Trier in the fall of the same year. What happened to Maximus's family after his downfall is not recorded, he is known to have had a wife, recorded as having sought spiritual counsel from St. Martin of Tours during his time at Trier, her ultimate fate, her name, have not been preserved in definitive historic records. The same is true of Maximus's mother and daughters, other than that they were spared by Theodosius I. One of Maximus's daughters may have been married to Ennodius, proconsul Africae.
Ennodius's grandson was Petronius Maximus, another ill-fated emperor, who ruled in Rome for only 77 days before he was stoned to death while fleeing from the Vandals on May 24, 455. Other descendants of Ennodius, thus of Maximus, included Anicius Olybrius, emperor in 472, but several consuls and bishops such as St. Magnus Felix Ennodius. We encounter an otherwise unrecorded daughter of Magnus Maximus, Sevira, on the Pillar of Eliseg, an early medieval inscribed stone in Wales which claims her marriage to Vortigern, king of the Britons. Maximus's bid for imperial power in 383 coincides with the last date for any evidence of a Roman military presence in Wales, the western Pennines, the fortress of Deva. Coins dated than 383 have been found in excavations along Hadrian's Wall, suggesting that troops were not stripped from it, as was once thought. In the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae written c. 540, Gildas says that Maximus "deprived" Britain not only of its Roman troops, but of its "armed bands...governors and of the flower of her youth", never to return.
Having left with the tro
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 935–936.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
