Giambattista della Porta
Giambattista della Porta known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Scientific Revolution and Reformation. Giambattista della Porta spent the majority of his life on scientific endeavors, he benefited from an informal education of visits from renowned scholars. His most famous work, first published in 1558, is entitled Magiae Naturalis. In this book he covered a variety of the subjects he had investigated, including occult philosophy, alchemy, mathematics and natural philosophy, he was referred to as "professor of secrets". Giambattista della Porta was born at Vico Equense, near Naples, to the nobleman Nardo Antonio della Porta, he was the third of four sons and the second to survive childhood, having an older brother Gian Vincenzo and a younger brother Gian Ferrante. Della Porta had a privileged childhood including his education, his father had a thirst for a trait he would pass onto all of his children. He surrounded himself with distinguished people and entertained the likes of philosophers, mathematicians and musicians.
The atmosphere of the house resembled an academy for his sons. The members of the learned circle of friends stimulated the boys and mentoring them, under strict guidance of their father, it is possible that his father's interest and influence in providing a well-rounded education helped to turn della Porta into the Renaissance man that he was to become. In addition to having talents for the sciences and mathematics, all the brothers were extremely interested in the arts, music in particular. Despite their interest none of them possessed any sort of talent for it, but they did not allow that to stifle their progress in learning of theory, they were all accepted into the Scuola di Pitagora, a exclusive academy of musicians. The pure impressiveness of their intellect was enough to allow three tone-deaf mathematicians into a school for the musically gifted; the status of the family as a symbol of knowledge and intellectual growth helped in their acceptance as well. More aware of their social position than the idea that his sons could have professions in science, Nardo Antonio was raising the boys more as gentlemen.
Therefore, the boys struggled with singing, as, considered a courtly accomplishment of gentlemen. They were taught to dance, ride, to take part and perform well in tournaments and games, dress well so they could look good doing all these noble activities; the training gave della Porta, at least earlier in his life, a taste for the finer aspects of his privileged living, where he surrounded himself in noble company and lavish things. This kind of lifestyle, the façade and showmanship involved in presenting one's self carried with Giambattista throughout his life. In 1563, della Porta published a work about cryptography. In it he described the first known digraphic substitution cipher. Charles J. Mendelsohn commented: He was, in my opinion, the outstanding cryptographer of the Renaissance; some unknown who worked in a hidden room behind closed doors may have surpassed him in general grasp of the subject, but among those whose work can be studied he towers like a giant. Della Porta invented a method.
During the Spanish Inquisition, some of his friends were imprisoned. At the gate of the prison, everything was checked except for eggs. Della Porta wrote messages on the egg shell using a mixture made of alum; the ink penetrated the egg shell, semi-porous. When the egg shell was dry, he boiled the egg in hot water and the ink on the outside of the egg was washed away; when the recipient in prison peeled off the shell, the message was revealed once again on the egg white. In 1586 della Porta published a work on physiognomy, De humana physiognomonia libri IIII; this influenced the Swiss eighteenth-century pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater as well as the 19th century criminologist Cesare Lombroso. Della Porta wrote extensively on a wide spectrum of subjects throughout his life – for instance, an agricultural encyclopedia entitled "Villa" as well as works on meteorology and astronomy. In 1589, on the eve of the early modern Scientific Revolution, della Porta became the first person to attack in print, on experimental grounds, the ancient assertion that garlic could disempower magnets.
This was an early example of the authority of early authors being replaced by experiment as the backing for a scientific assertion. Della Porta's conclusion was confirmed experimentally among others. In life, della Porta collected rare specimens and grew exotic plants, his work Phytognomonica lists plants according to their geographical location. In Phytognomonica the first observation of fungal spores is recorded, making him a pioneer of mycology, his private museum was visited by travelers and was one of the earliest examples of natural history museums. It inspired the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher to begin a similar more renowned, collection in Rome. Della Porta was the founder of a scientific society called the Academia Secretorum Naturae; this group was more known as the Otiosi. Founded sometime before 1580, the Otiosi were one of the first scientific societies in Europe and their aim was to study the "secrets of nature." Any person applying for membership had to demonstrate they had made a new discovery in the natural sciences.
The Academia Secretorum Naturae was compelled to disband when its members were suspected of dealing with the Occ
Matres and Matronae
The Matres and Matronae were female deities venerated in Northwestern Europe, of whom relics are found dating from the first to the fifth century. They are depicted on votive offerings and altars that bear images of goddesses, depicted entirely in groups of three, that feature inscriptions and were venerated in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, Northern Italy that were occupied by the Roman army from the first to the fifth century. Matres appear on votive reliefs and inscriptions in other areas occupied by the Roman army, including southeast Gaul, as at Vertillum. Matres and Matronae appear depicted on both stones with inscriptions and without, both as altars and votives. All depictions are frontal, they appear exclusively in threes with at least one figure holding a basket of fruit in her lap, the women are either standing or sitting. In some depictions, the middle figure is depicted with loose hair and wearing a headband, the other two wear head dresses. In addition, snakes and nappies appear.
Other motifs include depictions of sacrifice—including burning incense and bowls filled with fruit—and decorations of fruits and trees. In most cases, the votive stones and altars are not found singularly, but rather in groups around temple buildings and cult centers. Scholars connect the Germanic Matres with the dísir and norns attested in 13th century sources; the motif of triple goddesses was widespread in ancient Europe. Rudolf Simek comments that the loose hair may point to maidenhood, whereas the head dresses may refer to married women, the snakes may refer to an association with the souls of the dead or the underworld, the children and nappies seem to indicate that the Matres and Matronae held a protective function over the family, as well as a particular function as midwives. Information about the religious practices surrounding the Matres is limited to the stones on which their depictions and inscriptions are found, of which over 1,100 exist. Motifs include depictions of sacrifice—including burning incense and bowls filled with fruit—and decorations of fruits and trees.
In most cases, the votive stones and altars are not found singularly, but rather in groups around temple buildings and cult centers. R. Pascal theorizes that The Three Marys may be Christianized versions of the Matronae. Dea Matrona Mōdraniht Nehalennia Suleviae
Donkey
The donkey or ass is a domesticated member of the horse family, Equidae. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African wild ass, E. africanus. The donkey has been used as a working animal for at least 5000 years. There are more than 40 million donkeys in the world in underdeveloped countries, where they are used principally as draught or pack animals. Working donkeys are associated with those living at or below subsistence levels. Small numbers of donkeys are kept for breeding or as pets in developed countries. A male donkey or ass is called a female a jenny or jennet. Jack donkeys are used to mate with female horses to produce mules. Asses were first domesticated around 3000 BC in Egypt or Mesopotamia, have spread around the world, they continue to fill important roles in many places today. While domesticated species are increasing in numbers, the African wild ass is an endangered species; as beasts of burden and companions and donkeys have worked together with humans for millennia. Traditionally, the scientific name for the donkey is Equus asinus asinus based on the principle of priority used for scientific names of animals.
However, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled in 2003 that if the domestic species and the wild species are considered subspecies of one another, the scientific name of the wild species has priority when that subspecies was described after the domestic subspecies. This means that the proper scientific name for the donkey is Equus africanus asinus when it is considered a subspecies, Equus asinus when it is considered a species. At one time, the synonym ass was the more common term for the donkey; the first recorded use of donkey was in either 1784 or 1785. While the word ass has cognates in most other Indo-European languages, donkey is an etymologically obscure word for which no credible cognate has been identified. Hypotheses on its derivation include the following: for its don-like gravity. From the name Duncan. Of imitative origin. From the 18th century, donkey replaced ass, jenny replaced she-ass, now considered archaic; the change may have come about through a tendency to avoid pejorative terms in speech, be comparable to the substitution in North American English of rooster for cock, or that of rabbit for coney, homophonic with cunny.
By the end of the 17th century, changes in pronunciation of both ass and arse had caused them to become homophones. Other words used for the ass in English from this time include cuddy in Scotland, neddy in southwest England and dicky in the southeast. Donkeys vary in size, depending on breed and management; the height at the withers ranges from 7.3 to 15.3 hands, the weight from 80 to 480 kg. Working donkeys in the poorest countries have a life expectancy of 12 to 15 years. Donkeys are adapted to marginal desert lands. Unlike wild and feral horses, wild donkeys in dry areas do not form harems; each adult donkey establishes a home range. The loud call or bray of the donkey, which lasts for twenty seconds and can be heard for over three kilometres, may help keep in contact with other donkeys over the wide spaces of the desert. Donkeys have large ears, which may pick up more distant sounds, may help cool the donkey's blood. Donkeys can defend themselves by biting, striking with the front hooves or kicking with the hind legs.
A jenny is pregnant for about 12 months, though the gestation period varies from 11 to 14 months, gives birth to a single foal. Births of twins are rare, though less so than in horses. About 1.7 percent of donkey pregnancies result in twins. In general jennies have a conception rate, lower than that of horses. Although jennies come into heat within 9 or 10 days of giving birth, their fertility remains low, it is the reproductive tract has not returned to normal, thus it is usual to wait one or two further oestrous cycles before rebreeding, unlike the practice with mares. Jennies are very protective of their foals, some will not come into estrus while they have a foal at side; the time lapse involved in rebreeding, the length of a jenny's gestation, means that a jenny will have fewer than one foal per year. Because of this and the longer gestation period, donkey breeders do not expect to obtain a foal every year, as horse breeders do, but may plan for three foals in four years. Donkeys can interbreed with other members of the family Equidae, are interbred with horses.
The hybrid between a jack and a mare is a mule, valued as a working and riding animal in many countries. Some large donkey breeds such as the Asino di Martina Franca, the Baudet de Poitou and the Mammoth Jack are raised only for mule production; the hybrid between a stallion and a jenny is a hinny, is less common. Like other inter-species hybrids and hinnies are sterile. Donkeys can breed with zebras in which the offspring is called a zonkey. Donkeys have a notorious reputation for stubbornness, but this has been attributed to a much stronger sense of self-preservation than exhibited by
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae; the horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BC, their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses; these feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, colors, breeds and behavior. Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response.
Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep more than adults. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for 11 months, a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training in harness between the ages of two and four, they reach full adult development by age five, have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years. Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses. Horses and humans interact in a wide variety of sport competitions and non-competitive recreational pursuits, as well as in working activities such as police work, agriculture and therapy. Horses were used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control.
Many products are derived from horses, including meat, hide, hair and pharmaceuticals extracted from the urine of pregnant mares. Humans provide domesticated horses with food and shelter, as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians and farriers. Specific terms and specialized language are used to describe equine anatomy, different life stages and breeds. Depending on breed and environment, the modern domestic horse has a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years. Uncommonly, a few animals live into their 40s and beyond; the oldest verifiable record was "Old Billy", a 19th-century horse that lived to the age of 62. In modern times, Sugar Puff, listed in Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living pony, died in 2007 at age 56. Regardless of a horse or pony's actual birth date, for most competition purposes a year is added to its age each January 1 of each year in the Northern Hemisphere and each August 1 in the Southern Hemisphere; the exception is in endurance riding, where the minimum age to compete is based on the animal's actual calendar age.
The following terminology is used to describe horses of various ages: Foal: A foal of either sex less than one year old. A nursing foal is sometimes called a suckling and a foal, weaned is called a weanling. Most domesticated foals are weaned at five to seven months of age, although foals can be weaned at four months with no adverse physical effects. Yearling: A horse of either sex, between one and two years old. Colt: A male horse under the age of four. A common terminology error is to call any young horse a "colt", when the term only refers to young male horses. Filly: A female horse under the age of four. Mare: A female horse four years old and older. Stallion: A non-castrated male horse four years old and older; the term "horse" is sometimes used colloquially to refer to a stallion. Gelding: A castrated male horse of any age. In horse racing, these definitions may differ: For example, in the British Isles, Thoroughbred horse racing defines colts and fillies as less than five years old. However, Australian Thoroughbred racing defines fillies as less than four years old.
The height of horses is measured at the highest point of the withers. This point is used because it is a stable point of the anatomy, unlike the head or neck, which move up and down in relation to the body of the horse. In English-speaking countries, the height of horses is stated in units of hands and inches: one hand is equal to 4 inches; the height is expressed as the number of full hands, followed by a point the number of additional inches, ending with the abbreviation "h" or "hh". Thus, a horse described; the size of horses varies by breed, but is influenced by nutrition. Light riding horses range in height from 14 to 16 hands and can weigh from 380 to 550 kilograms. Larger riding horses start at about 15.2 hands and are as tall as 17 hands, weighing from 500 to 600 kilograms. Heavy or draft horses are at least 16 hands (64 inches, 16
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
Limes
The Latin noun līmes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. The term was commonly used after the 3rd century AD to denote a military district under the command of a dux limitis. Limes has sometimes been adopted in modern times for a border defence or delimiting system of Ancient Rome marking the boundaries and provinces of the Roman Empire, but it was not used by the Romans for the imperial frontier, fortified or not; some experts suggested that the so-called limes may have been called Munimentum Traiani, Trajan's Bulwark, referring to a passage by Ammianus Marcellinus, according to which emperor Julian had reoccupied this fortification in 360 AD. The limites represented the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD, it stretched more than 5,000 km from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast.
The remains of the limites today consist of vestiges of walls, forts and civilian settlements. Certain elements of the line have been excavated, some reconstructed, a few destroyed; the two sections of the limes in Germany cover a length of 550 km from the north-west of the country to the Danube in the south-east. The 118 km long Hadrian's Wall was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian c. AD 122 at the northernmost limits of the Roman province of Britannia, it is a striking example of the organization of a military zone and illustrates the defensive techniques and geopolitical strategies of ancient Rome. The Antonine Wall, a 60 km-long fortification in Scotland, was started by Emperor Antoninus Pius in AD 142 as a defense against the "Barbarians" of the north, it constitutes the northwestern-most portion of the Roman Limes. The most notable examples of Roman limites are: Hadrian's Wall – Limes Britannicus Antonine Wall – in Scotland Saxon Shore, late Roman limes in South-East England Limes Germanicus, with the Upper Germanic & Rhaetian Limes Limes Arabicus, the frontier of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea facing the desert Limes Tripolitanus, the frontier in modern Libya facing the Sahara Limes Alutanus, the eastern border of the Roman province of Dacia Limes Transalutanus, the frontier in the lower Danube Limes Moesiae, the frontier of the Roman province Moesia, from Singidunum Serbia along the Danube to Moldavia.
Limes Norici, the frontier of the Roman province Noricum, from the River Inn along the Danube to Cannabiaca in Austria. Limes Pannonicus, the frontier of the Roman province Pannonia, along the Danube from Klosterneuburg Austria to Taurunum in Serbia. Fossatum Africae, the southern frontier of the Roman Empire, extending south of the Roman province of Africa in North-Africa. A mediaeval limes is the Limes Saxoniae in Holstein; the stem of limes, limit-, which can be seen in the genitive case, marks it as the ancestor of an entire group of important words in many languages, for example, English limit. Modern languages have multiplied its abstract formulations. For example, from limit comes the abbreviation lim, used in mathematics to designate the limit of a sequence or a function: see limit. In metaphysics, material objects are limited by matter and therefore are delimited from each other. In ethics, men are wise if they do. An etymology was given in some detail by Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch.
According to him, it comes from Indo-European el-, elei-, lei-, "to bow", "to bend", "elbow". The Latin meaning was discussed in detail by W. Gebert; the sense is. The limes was a cross-path or a cross-wall, which the Romans meant to throw across the path of invaders to hinder them, it is a defensive strategy. The Romans never built limites; as the emperor had ordered the army to stay within the limites, except for punitive expeditions, these were as much a mental barrier as material. The groups of Germanic warriors harrying the limes during summer used the concept to full advantage, knowing that they could concentrate and supply themselves outside the limes without fear of preemptive strikes. In a few cases, they were wrong; the limit concept engendered a sentiment among the soldiers that they were being provoked by the Germanic raiders and were held back from just retaliation by a weak and incompetent administration: they were being sold out. So they mutinied; the best remedy for a mutiny was an expedition across the limes against the enemy.
Toward the empire, the soldiers assassinated emperors who preferred diplomacy and put their own most popular officers into the vacant office. Roman writers and subsequent authors who depended on them presented the limes as some sort of sacred border beyond which human beings did not transgress, if they did, it was evidence that they had passed the bounds of reason and civilization. To cross the border was the mark of a savage, they wrote of the Alemanni failing to respect the limes as if they had passed the final limitation of character and had committed themselves to perdition. The Alemanni, on the other hand, never regarded the border as legitimate in the first place, they viewed the Romans as foreigners, who changed native place names and intruded on native homes and families. They were only to be tolerated because they were willing to pay cash for the privilege and offered the blandishments of civilized life. According to Pokorny, Latin limen, "threshold"
Imperial cult of ancient Rome
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus, it was established throughout the Empire and its provinces, with marked local variations in its reception and expression. Augustus's reforms transformed Rome's Republican system of government to a de facto monarchy, couched in traditional Roman practices and Republican values; the princeps was expected to balance the interests of the Roman military and people, to maintain peace and prosperity throughout an ethnically diverse empire. The official offer of cultus to a living emperor acknowledged his office and rule as divinely approved and constitutional: his Principate should therefore demonstrate pious respect for traditional Republican deities and mores. A deceased emperor held worthy of the honor could be voted a state divinity by the Senate and elevated as such in an act of apotheosis.
The granting of apotheosis served religious and moral judgment on Imperial rulers and allowed living Emperors to associate themselves with a well-regarded lineage of Imperial divi from which unpopular or unworthy predecessors were excluded. This proved a useful instrument to Vespasian in his establishment of the Flavian Imperial Dynasty following the death of Nero and civil war, to Septimius in his consolidation of the Severan dynasty after the assassination of Commodus; the Imperial cult was inseparable from that of Rome's official deities, whose cult was essential to Rome's survival and whose neglect was therefore treasonous. Traditional cult was a focus of Imperial revivalist legislation under Diocletian. Christian apologists and martyrologists saw the cult of the Emperor as a offensive instrument of pagan impiety and persecution, it therefore became a focus of theological and political debate during the ascendancy of Christianity under Constantine I. The emperor Julian failed to reverse the declining support for Rome's official religious practices: Theodosius I adopted Christianity as Rome's state religion.
Rome's traditional gods and Imperial cult were abandoned. However, many of the rites and status distinctions that characterized the cult to emperors were perpetuated in the theology and politics of the Christianized Empire. For five centuries, the Roman Republic did not give worship to any historic figure, or any living man, although surrounded by divine and semi-divine monarchies. Rome's legendary kings had been its masters. Rome's ancestor-hero Aeneas was worshipped as Jupiter Indiges; the Romans worshipped several gods and demi-gods, human, knew the theory that all the gods had originated as human beings, yet Republican traditions were staunchly conservative and anti-monarchic. The aristocrats who held all Roman magistracies, thereby occupied all of the Senate, acknowledged no human as their inherent superior. No citizen, living or dead, was regarded as divine, but the honors awarded by the state — crowns, statues, processions — were suitable to the gods, tinged with divinity. Among the highest of honors was the triumph.
When a general was acclaimed imperator by his troops, the Senate would choose whether to award him a triumph, a parade to the Capitol in which the triumphator displayed his captives and spoils of war in the company of his troops. The triumphator rode in a chariot, bearing divine emblems, in a manner supposed to be inherited from the ancient kings of Rome, ended by dedicating his victory to Jupiter Capitolinus; some scholars have viewed the triumphator as impersonating or becoming a king or a god for the day but the circumstances of triumphal award and subsequent rites functioned to limit his status. Whatever his personal ambitions, his victory and his triumph alike served the Roman Senate and gods and were recognised only through their consent. In private life, tradition required that some human beings be treated as more or less divine; every head of household embodied the genius – the generative principle and guardian spirit – of his ancestors, which others might worship and by which his family and slaves took oaths.
A client could call his patron "Jupiter on earth". The dead and individually, were gods of the underworld or afterlife. A letter has survived from Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, expecting that when she was dead, her sons would venerate her as deus parens, a parental divinity. A prominent clan might claim divine influence and quasi-divine honors for its leader. Death masks were displayed in the atria of their houses; the mask of Scipio Africanus, Cornelia's father and victor over Hannibal, was stored in the temple of Jupiter. A tradition arose in the centuries after his death that Africanus had been inspired by prophetic dreams, was himself the son of Jupiter. There are several cases of unofficial cult directed at men viewed as saviors, political. In Further Spain i
