1.
1st century BC
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The 1st century BC, also known as the last century BC, started on the first day of 100 BC and ended on the last day of 1 BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a zero, however, astronomical year numbering does use a zero, as well as a minus sign. This is the 100th century in the Holocene calendar, it spans the years 9,901 to 10,000, octavians ascension to total power as the emperor Augustus is considered to mark the point in history where the Roman Republic ends and the Roman Empire begins. Some scholars refer to this event as the Roman Revolution and it is believed that the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity took place at the close of this century. In the eastern mainland, the Han Dynasty began to decline, trapped in a difficult situation, the Xiongnu had to begin emigration to the west or attach themselves to the Han. 97 BC, Ariarathes VIII forced out of Cappadocia by Mithridates VI of Pontus,96 BC, Cyrene is left to the people of Rome by its ruler Ptolemy Apion. 96 BC, King Alexander Jannaeus of Judea wins the Siege of Gaza,95 BC, Tigranes the Great becomes king of Armenia 93 BC, Ariobarzanes I Philoromaios becomes king of Cappadocia with Roman backing. 91 BC, The assassination of Marcus Livius Drusus leads to the Social War in Italy 91 BC,89 BC, Mithridates VI of Pontuss invasion of Cappadocia leads to the First Mithridatic War with the Roman Republic. 88-87 BC, Sullas first civil war - Sulla marches on Rome and defeats Gaius Marius 86 BC,86 BC, The death of the regent of China Jin Midi unleashes the rivalry of his co-regents Shangguang Jie and Huo Guang. 85 BC, Sulla defeats the forces of Mithridates VI in Greece at the Battle of Orchomenus 85 BC,83 BC, Sulla makes peace with Mithridates VI and marches on Rome. 83-81 BC, Lucius Licinius Murena wages the Second Mithridatic War,82 BC, Sertorius flees from Sulla to North Africa via Hispania c.83 BC, Tigranes of Armenia takes control of Syria after the implosion of the Seleucid dynasty. 81 BC, End of Sullas second civil war - Sulla is appointed dictator of the Roman state,80 BC, Sertorius invades Hispania and sets up his own regime, beginning the Sertorian War. 80 BC, Conflict between the regents Shangguang Jie and Huo Guang results in the destruction of the Shangguang clan, C.80 BC, Maues, King of the Sakas, conquers Gandhara and Taxila. 77 BC, Fu Jiezi assassinated the king of Loulan on behalf of the Han dynasty, C.75 BC, Kanva dynasty replaces the Shunga dynasty in Magadha. 74 BC, Mithridates VI of Pontus disputes Nicomedes IV of Bithynias bequest of his kingdom to the Roman Republic,74 BC, Emperor Zhao of Han dies and is succeeded by the unsuitable Prince He of Changyi and then by Xuan. Huo Guang continues to be de facto ruler of China,73 BC, A slave rebellion led by the escaped gladiator Spartacus leads to the Third Servile War. 73-72 BC, Lucullus defeats Mithridates at Tenedos, Cyzicus, and the Rhyndacus and he flees east to Armenia 71 BC, Pompey the Great ends the Sertorian War,71 BC, Wusun and China attack the Xiongnu. 69 BC, Lucullus invades Armenia and reestablishes the Seleucids in Syria,68 BC, Pompey replaces Lucullus as leader of the Roman forces in the Third Mithridatic War
2.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
3.
Rieti
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Rieti is a city and comune in Lazio, central Italy, with a population of 47,700. It is the capital of province of Rieti and see of the diocese of Rieti, the town centre rests on a small hilltop, commanding from the southern edge the wide Rieti valley, at the bottom of Sabine mountains and of monti Reatini, among which mount Terminillo. The plain was once a lake, drained by ancient Romans. Only the small Ripasottile and Lungo lakes remain of the large one. According to the legend, Reate was founded by Rea, a divinity and it was founded at the beginning of the Iron Age. Probably in earlier times the lands around Rieti were inhabited by Umbri, then by Aborigines and later on by Sabines, Reate was originally a major site of the Sabine nation well before the foundation of Rome. According to the legend, when Romulus founded Rome, Romans kidnapped Sabine women in order to populate the town, so there was a war between Romans and Sabines. The battle of the Lacus Curtius came to an end only when the women threw themselves among the armies, Romulus and Titus Tatius reprieved and a collaboration between the two people started. According to a version based on history, Sabines settled on the Quirinale because of their continuous need. Many lands of Reate and Amiternum were confiscated and allocated to Romans, at the very beginning, Sabines were offered Roman citizenship but with no right of voting, but yet in 268 BC they gained the full citizenship, being included in two new tribes. Curius Dentatus drained a large portion of the lake by making the Velino a distributary of the Nera river, the wide area once occupied by the lake turned into a fertile plain. Following Roman customs, the land was split into characteristic square allotments, the town itself underwent significant development, being re-organised according to typical Roman urbanistic standards, and was fortified with strong walls. A stone bridge was laid across the Velino river, and a viaduct was built to bring goods from the Salaria road directly to Rietis southern door. Roman Reate receives a number of mentions in Latin literature, thanks to its soil, its valued assets. Cicero, for instance, describes the tensions between Reate and Interamna following the drainage, and refers to the country houses that his friend Q. One of the most important Sabine families that gained success in Rome was the Gens Flavia, the Reatin poet and writer Marcus Terentius Varro was born in 116 BC and he is usually referred to as the father of Roman erudition. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire Rieti suffered destruction by Barbarians, under the Franks, it was county capital. It was sacked by the Saracens in the 9th and 10th century, the city was rebuilt with the help of the Roman comune, and from 1198 was also a free commune, of Guelph orientation, with a podestà of its own
4.
Equestrian (Roman)
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A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques. During the Roman kingdom and the 1st century of the Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, around 400 BC,12 more centuriae of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians. Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 centuriae and these new recruits came from the First Class of commoners in the centuriate organisation and were not granted the same privileges. By the time of the Second Punic War, all the members of the First Class of commoners were required to serve as cavalrymen. After c.88 BC, equites were no longer drafted into the legionary cavalry and they continued to supply the senior officers of the army throughout the Principate. With the exception of the purely hereditary patricians, the equites were originally defined by a property threshold, in the later Republican period, Roman Senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order. As senators ability to engage in commerce was limited by law. As well as holding large landed estates, equites came to dominate mining, shipping and manufacturing industry, in particular, tax farming companies were almost all in the hands of equites. Under Augustus, the elite was given formal status with a higher wealth threshold and superior rank. During the Principate, equites filled the senior administrative and military posts of the imperial government, there was a clear division between jobs reserved for senators and those reserved for non-senatorial equites. Senators and equites formed an elite of under 10,000 members who monopolised political, military. This effectively reduced the Italian aristocracy to an idle, but immensely wealthy group of large landowners, during the 4th century, the status of equites was debased to insignificance by excessive grants of the rank. At the same time the ranks of senators were swollen to over 4,000 by the establishment of a second senate in Constantinople, the senatorial order of the 4th century was thus the equivalent of the equestrian order of the Principate. According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, however, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state until ca.625 BC. This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Tarquinius Priscus and that the cavalry was increased to 600 during the regal era is plausible, as in the early Republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong. However, according to Livy, king Servius Tullius established a further 12 centuriae of equites, apparently, equites were originally provided with a sum of money by the state to purchase a horse for military service and for its fodder. This was known as an equus publicus, mommsen argues that the royal cavalry was drawn exclusively from the ranks of the Patricians, the aristocracy of early Rome, which was purely hereditary
5.
Pompey
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Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, usually known in English as Pompey /ˈpɒmpiː/ or Pompey the Great, was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic. He came from a wealthy Italian provincial background, and his father had been the first to establish the family among the Roman nobility, Pompeys immense success as a general while still very young enabled him to advance directly to his first consulship without meeting the normal requirements for office. His success as a commander in Sullas Second Civil War resulted in Sulla bestowing the nickname Magnus. He was consul three times and celebrated three triumphs, after the deaths of Julia and Crassus, Pompey sided with the optimates, the conservative faction of the Roman Senate. Pompey and Caesar then contended for the leadership of the Roman state, when Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, he sought refuge in Egypt, where he was assassinated. His career and defeat are significant in Romes subsequent transformation from Republic to Empire, Pompeys family first gained the position of Consul in 141 BC. Pompeys father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, was an equestrian from Picenum. He fought the Social War against Romes Italian allies and he supported Sulla, who belonged to the optimates, the pro-aristocracy faction, against Marius, who belonged to the populares, in Sullas first civil war. He died during the siege of Rome by the Marians in 87 BC, either as a casualty of an epidemic and his twenty-year-old son Pompey inherited his estates, and the loyalty of his legions. Pompey had served two years under his fathers command, and had participated in the part of the Social War. When his father died, Pompey was put on due to accusations that his father stole public property. As his father’s heir Pompey could be held to account and he discovered that this was committed by one of his fathers freedmen. Following his preliminary bouts with his accuser, the took a liking to Pompey and offered his daughter. Another civil war broke out between the Marians and Sulla, Cassius Dio added that Pompey had sent a detachment to pursue him, but he outstripped them by crossing the River Phasis. He reached the Maeotis and stayed in the Cimmerian Bosporus and he had his son Machares, who ruled it and gone over to the Romans, killed and recovered that country. Meanwhile, Pompey set up a colony for his soldiers at Nicopolitans in Cappadocia, in Plutarchs account Pompey was invited to invade Armenia by Tigranes’ son, who rebelled against his father. The two men received the submission of several towns, when they got close Artaxata Tigranes, knowing Pompey’s leniency, surrendered and allowed a Roman garrison in his palace. Pompey offered the restitution of the Armenian territories in Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia, Galatia and he demanded an indemnity and ruled that the son should be king of Sophene
6.
Praetor
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Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities, the commander of an army, or, an elected magistratus, assigned various duties. The prefix prae is an indication that the title-holder was prior, in some way. Livy mentions that the Latini were led and governed in warfare by two of them and the Samnites by one, a dictator was called the praetor maximus. The use of the adjectives in a number of circumstances testify to a general sense. The leadership functions of any body at Rome might be termed praetorial. The praetoria potestas in Republican Rome was at first held by the consuls and these two officials, elected on a yearly basis, inherited the power of the king. Very likely, the king himself was the first praetor, Let there be two with the authority of the king, and let them be called praetors, judges and consuls from their going before, judging and consulting. Let them have the right of command of the military. This etymology of praetor became and remains the standard, cicero considers the word to contain the same elemental parts as the verb praeire. In exactly what way he goes before did not survive, livy explains that in the year 366 BC the praetura was created to relieve the consuls of their judicial duties. The praetor was, in an English sense, the chief justice, the consuls were his peers, he was elected by the same electorate and sworn in on the same day with the same oath. Until 337 BC the praetor was chosen only from the patricians, from then on, praetors appear frequently in Roman history, first as generals and judges, then as provincial governors. Beginning in the late Republic, a former Praetor could serve as a Propraetor, the elected praetor was a magistratus curulis, exercised imperium, and consequently was one of the magistrati majores. He had the right to sit in the sella curulis and wear the toga praetexta and he was attended by six lictors. A praetor was a magistrate with imperium within his own sphere, the potestas and imperium of the consuls and the praetors under the Republic should not be exaggerated. They did not use independent judgment in resolving matters of state, unlike todays executive branches, they were assigned high-level tasks directly by senatorial decree under the authority of the SPQR. Livy describes the assignments given to consuls or praetors in some detail. As magistrates, they had standing duties to perform, especone principle that limited what could be assigned to them was that their duties must not concern them with minima and they were by definition doers of maxima
7.
Tribune of the Plebs
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The tribunes of the plebs were sacrosanct, meaning that any assault on their person was prohibited by law. In imperial times, the powers of the tribunate were granted to the emperor as a matter of course, during the day the tribunes used to sit on the tribune benches on the Forum Romanum. Fifteen years after the expulsion of the kings and establishment of the Roman Republic, a series of clashes between the people and the ruling patricians in 495 and 494 BC brought the plebeians to the brink of revolt, and there was talk of assassinating the consuls. Instead, on the advice of Lucius Sicinius Vellutus, the plebeians seceded en masse to the Mons Sacer, the senate agreeing to these terms, the people returned to the city. The first tribuni plebis were Lucius Albinius Paterculus and Gaius Licinius, soon afterward, the tribunes themselves appointed Sicinius and two others as their colleagues. However, they functioned very much like magistrates of the Roman state and they could convene the concilium plebis, which was entitled to pass legislation affecting the plebeians alone, and beginning in 493 BC to elect the plebeian tribunes and aediles. From the institution of the tribunate, any one of the tribunes of the plebs was entitled preside over this assembly, the tribunes were entitled to propose legislation before the assembly. By the third century BC, the also had the right to call the senate to order. Ius intercessionis, or intercessio, the power of the tribunes to intercede on behalf of the plebeians, because they were not technically magistrates, and thus possessed no maior potestas, they relied on their sacrosanctity to obstruct actions unfavourable to the plebeians. Being sacrosanct, no person could harm the tribunes or interfere with their activities, to do so, or to disregard the veto of a tribune, was punishable by death, and the tribunes could order the death of persons who violated their sacrosanctity. This could be used as a protection when a tribune needed to arrest someone and this sacrosanctity also made the tribunes independent of all magistrates, no magistrate could veto the action of a tribune. If a magistrate, the senate, or any other assembly disregarded the orders of a tribune, only a dictator was exempted from the veto power. Tribunes also possessed the authority to enforce the right of provocatio ad populum and this entitled a citizen to appeal the actions of a magistrate by shouting, ego te provoco. Once invoked, this right required one of the tribunes to assess the situation, any action taken in defiance of this right was illegal on its face. Although a tribune could veto any action of the magistrates, senate, or other assemblies, once the tribune was no longer present, the action could be completed as if the veto had not occurred. Because the sacrosanctity of the depended on the oath of the plebeians to defend them. A tribune traveling abroad could not rely on his authority to intervene on behalf of the plebeians, for this reason, the activities of the tribunes were normally confined to the city itself, and a one-mile radius beyond. The reconciliation of the patricians and plebeians brought about by the institution of the tribunate in 493 BC was temporary, in 462, the tribune Gaius Terentillius Arsa alleged that the consular government had become even more oppressive than the monarchy that it had replaced
8.
Quaestor
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A quaestor was a public official in Ancient Rome. The position served different functions depending on the period, in the Roman Kingdom, quaestores parricidii were appointed by the king to investigate and handle murders. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials that supervised the state treasury and it was the lowest ranking position in the cursus honorum. In modern usage in Italy and Romania, a quaestor is a ranking officer on the police force. In some organizations, a quaestor is the officer that oversees its finances, the earliest quaestors were quaestores parricidii, an office dating back to the Kingdom of Rome. Quaestores parricidii were chosen to investigate crimes, and may have been appointed as needed rather than holding a permanent position. Ancient authors disagree on the manner of selection for this office as well as on its earliest institution. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who supervised the treasury and financial affairs of the state, its armies, the quaestors tasked with financial supervision were also called quaestores aerarii, because they oversaw the aerarium in the Temple of Saturn. The earliest origins of the office is obscure, but by about 420 BC there were four quaestors elected each year by the Comitia Tributa, after 267 BC, the number was expanded to ten. The office of quaestor, usually a former broad-striped tribune, was adopted as the first official post of the cursus honorum, once elected as quaestor, a Roman man earned the right to sit in the Senate and began progressing through the cursus honorum. Quaestors were also given a fasces and were entitled to one lictor, every Roman consul, the highest elected official in the cursus honorum, and every provincial governor was appointed a quaestor. Some quaestors were assigned to work in the city and others in the provinces where their responsibilities could include being recruited into the military, some provincial quaestors were assigned as staff to military generals or served as second-in-command to governors in the Roman provinces. Still others were assigned to oversee military finances, lucius Cornelius Sullas reforms in 81 BC raised the number of quaestors to 20 and the minimum age for a quaestorship was 30 for patricians and 32 for plebeians. There were at that time twenty Quæstors elected annually, some of whom remained in Rome, when a Consul took the field with an army, he always had a Quæstor with him. This had become the case so generally that the Quæstor became, as it were, constantine the Great created the office quaestor sacri palatii which functioned as the Roman Empires senior legal official. The quaestor sacri palatii survived long into the Byzantine Empire, although its duties were altered to match the quaesitor, the term is last attested in 14th century Byzantium as a purely honorific title. Quaestor derives from the Latin verb quaero, quaerere, meaning to inquire, the job title has traditionally been understood as deriving from the original investigative function of the quaestores parricidii. However, this connection has been questioned by modern scholars, in Italy a quaestor heads the police of his province, and his office is called questura
9.
Curule aedile
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Aedile was an office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings and they also had powers to enforce public order. An aedilis curulis was classified as a magister curulis, the office of the aedilis was generally held by young men intending to follow the cursus honorum to high political office, traditionally after their quaestorship but before their praetorship. It was not a part of the cursus, and hence a former quaestor could be elected to the praetorship without having held the position of aedile. The plebeian aediles were created in the year as the Tribunes of the People. Originally intended as assistants to the tribunes, they guarded the rights of the plebs with respect to their headquarters, subsequently, they assumed responsibility for maintenance of the citys buildings as a whole. Their duties at first were simply ministerial and they were the assistants to the tribunes in whatever matters that the tribunes might entrust to them, although most matters with which they were entrusted were of minimal importance. Around 446 BC, they were given the authority to care for the decrees of the senate, when a senatus consultum was passed, it would be transcribed into a document, and deposited in the public treasury, the Aerarium. They were given power because the Roman Consuls, who had held this power before. They also maintained the acts of the Plebeian Council, the plebiscites, plebiscites, once passed, were also transcribed into a physical document for storage. While their powers grew over time, it is not always easy to distinguish the difference between their powers, and those of the Roman Censors, occasionally, if a Censor was unable to carry out one of his tasks, an Aedile would perform the task instead. Curule Aediles, as magistrates, held certain honors that Plebeian Aediles. Besides having the right to sit on a Curule Chair and to wear a toga praetexta and these edicts often pertained to matters such as the regulation of the public markets, or what we might call economic regulation. Livy suggests, perhaps incorrectly, that both Curule as well as Plebeian Aediles were sacrosanct, although the curule aediles always ranked higher than the plebeian, their functions gradually approximated and became practically identical. Within five days after the beginning of their terms, the four Aediles were required to determine, by lot or by agreement among themselves, there was a distinction between the two sets of Aediles when it came to public festivals. Some festivals were Plebeian in nature, and thus were under the superintendence of Plebeian Aediles, other festivals were supervised exclusively by the Curule Aediles, and it was often with these festivals that the Aediles would spend lavishly. This was often done so as to secure the support of voters in future elections, because Aediles were not reimbursed for any of their public expenditures, most individuals who sought the office were independently wealthy. Since this office was a stone to higher office and the Senate
10.
Julius Caesar
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Gaius Julius Caesar, known as Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician, general, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed an alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate. Caesars victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Romes territory to the English Channel, Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both the Channel and the Rhine, when he built a bridge across the Rhine and crossed the Channel to invade Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, with the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province, Civil war resulted, and Caesars victory in the war put him in an unrivalled position of power and influence. After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms and he centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed dictator in perpetuity, giving him additional authority. But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March 44 BC, a new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesars adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power after defeating his opponents in the civil war. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began, much of Caesars life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources, Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. Caesar was born into a family, the gens Julia. The cognomen Caesar originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by Caesarean section. The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations, that the first Caesar had a head of hair, that he had bright grey eyes. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name, despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, although they had enjoyed some revival of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesars father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia and his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesars childhood, in 85 BC, Caesars father died suddenly, so Caesar was the head of the family at 16
11.
Capua
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Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. Ancient Capua was situated where Santa Maria Capua Vetere is now, the name of Capua comes from the Etruscan Capeva. The meaning is City of Marshes and its foundation is attributed by Cato the Elder to the Etruscans, and the date given as about 260 years before it was taken by Rome. If this is true it refers not to its capture in the Second Punic War but to its submission to Rome in 338 BC, placing the date of foundation at about 600 BC, while Etruscan power was at its highest. In the area several settlements of the Villanovian civilization were present in prehistoric times, Etruscan supremacy in Campania came to an end with the Samnite invasion in the latter half of the 5th century BC. About 424 BC it was captured by the Samnites and in 343 BC besought Roman help against its conquerors, the citizens of Capua received the civitas sine suffragio. In the second Samnite War with Rome, Capua proved an untrustworthy Roman ally, so that after the defeat of the Samnites and it was the capital of Campania Felix. In 312 BC, Capua was connected with Rome by the construction of the Via Appia, the most important of the military highways of Italy. The gate by which it left the Servian walls of Rome bore the name Porta Capena, livy and others have suggested that the luxurious conditions were Hannibals Cannae because his troops became soft and demoralized by luxurious living. Historians from Bosworth Smith onwards have been skeptical of this, observing that his troops gave as good an account of themselves in battle after that winter as before. Considerable difficulties occurred in preventing illegal encroachments by private persons, and it was, after that period, let, not to large but to small proprietors. Frequent attempts were made by the leaders to divide the land among new settlers. Brutus in 83 BC actually succeeded in establishing a colony, but it was soon dissolved, the town of Capua belonged to none of these organizations, and was entirely dependent on the praefecti. Its luxury remained proverbial, and Campania is especially spoken of as the home of gladiatorial combats, from the gladiatorial schools of Campania came Spartacus and his followers in 73 BC. The number of colonists was increased by Mark Antony, Augustus, in the war of 69 it took the side of Vitellius. Under Constantine we hear of the foundation of a Christian church in Capua, in 456 it was taken and destroyed by the Vandals under Gaiseric, but must have been soon rebuilt. During the Gothic War, Capua suffered greatly, when the Lombards invaded Italy in the second half of the 6th century, Capua was ravaged, later, it was included in the Duchy of Benevento, and ruled by an official styled gastald. In 839, the prince of Benevento, Sicard, was assassinated by Radelchis I of Benevento, sicards brother Siconulf was proclaimed independent prince in Salerno and the gastald of Capua declared himself independent
12.
Campania
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Campania is a region in Southern Italy. Located on the Italian Peninsula, with the Mediterranean Sea to the west, it includes the small Phlegraean Islands, Campania was colonised by Ancient Greeks and was part of Magna Græcia. During the Roman era, the area maintained a Greco-Roman culture, the capital city of Campania is Naples. Campania is rich in culture, especially in regard to gastronomy, music, architecture, archeological and ancient sites such as Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum and Velia. The name of Campania itself is derived from Latin, as the Romans knew the region as Campania felix, the rich natural sights of Campania make it highly important in the tourism industry, especially along the Amalfi Coast, Mount Vesuvius and the island of Capri. During the 8th century BC, people from Euboea in Greece, known as Cumaeans, another Oscan tribe, the Samnites, moved down from central Italy into Campania. The Roman consul Quintus Publilius Filo recaptured Neapolis by 326 BC, the Second Samnite War ended with the Romans controlling southern Campania and additional regions further to the south. Campania was a part of the Roman Republic by the end of the 4th century BC, valued for its pastures. Its Greek language and customs made it a centre of Hellenistic civilization, during the Pyrrhic War the battle took place in Campania at Maleventum in which the Romans, led by consul Curius Dentatus, were victorious. They renamed the city Beneventum, which grew in stature until it was only to Capua in southern Italy. During the Second Punic War in 216 BC, Capua, in a bid for equality with Rome, the rebellious Capuans were isolated from the rest of Campania, which remained allies of Rome. Naples resisted Hannibal due to the imposing walls, Capua was eventually starved into submission in the Roman retaking of 211 BC, and the Romans were victorious. The rest of Campania, with the exception of Naples, adopted the Latin language as official and was Romanised. As part of the Roman Empire, Campania, with Latium, Roman Emperors chose Campania as a holiday destination, among them Claudius and Tiberius, the latter of whom is infamously linked to the island of Capri. It was also during this period that Christianity came to Campania, Two of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, are said to have preached in the city of Naples, and there were also several martyrs during this time. Unfortunately, the period of calm was violently interrupted by the epic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 which buried the cities of Pompeii. The area had many duchies and principalities during the Middle Ages, in the hands of the Byzantine Empire, under the Normans, the smaller independent states were brought together as part of the Kingdom of Sicily, before the mainland broke away to form the Kingdom of Naples. It was during this period elements of Spanish, French
13.
Caesar's Civil War
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The Great Roman Civil War, also known as Caesars Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire. The changes to Roman government concomitant to the war eliminated the political traditions of the Roman Republic. The First Triumvirate, comprising Julius Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, ascended to power with Caesars election as consul, the First Triumvirate was unofficial, a political alliance the substance of which was Pompeys military might, Caesars political influence, and Crassus money. The alliance was further consolidated by Pompeys marriage to Julia, daughter of Caesar, at the conclusion of Caesars first consulship, the Senate tasked him with watching over the Roman forests. This job, specially created by his Senate enemies, was meant to him without giving him command of armies, or garnering him wealth. Caesar, with the help of Pompey and Crassus, evaded the Senates decrees by legislation passed through the popular assemblies, by these acts, Caesar was promoted to Roman Governor of Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul. The various governorships gave Caesar command of an army of four legions, the term of his proconsulship, and thus his immunity from prosecution, was set at five years, rather than the customary one year. His term was extended by another five years. During this ten-year period, Caesar used his forces to conquer Gaul and invade Britain. In 52 BC, at the First Triumvirates end, the Roman Senate supported Pompey as sole consul, meanwhile, Caesar had become a military hero and champion of the people. Knowing he hoped to become consul when his governorship expired, the Senate, politically fearful of him, in December of 50 BC, Caesar wrote to the Senate agreeing to resign his military command if Pompey followed suit. Offended, the Senate demanded he immediately disband his army, or be declared an enemy of the people, a secondary reason for Caesars immediate want for another consulship was delaying the inevitable senatorial prosecutions awaiting him upon retirement as governor of Illyricum and Gaul. These potential prosecutions were based upon alleged irregularities that occurred in his consulship, moreover, Caesar loyalists, the tribunes Mark Antony and Quintus Cassius Longinus, vetoed the bill, and were quickly expelled from the Senate. They then joined Caesar, who had assembled his army, whom he asked for support against the Senate, agreeing. The proscription protected the Roman Republic from a coup détat, thus and this act of war on the Roman Republic by Caesar led to widespread approval amongst the Roman civilians, who regarded him as a hero. The historical records differ about which decisive comment Caesar made on crossing the Rubicon, Caesars march on Rome was a triumphal progress. The Senate, not knowing that Caesar possessed only a single legion, feared the worst, Pompey declared that Rome could not be defended, he escaped to Capua with those politicians who supported him, the aristocratic Optimates and the regnant consuls. Cicero later characterised Pompeys outward sign of weakness as allowing Caesars consolidation of power, as Caesar progressed southwards, Pompey retreated towards Brundisium, initially ordering Domitius to stop Caesars movement on Rome from the direction of the Adriatic seaboard
14.
Battle of Ilerda
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The Battle of Ilerda took place in June 49 BC between the forces of Julius Caesar and the Spanish army of Pompey the Great, led by his legates Lucius Afranius and Marcus Petreius. Unlike many other of the battles of the war, this was more a campaign of maneuvre than actual fighting. After having driven the optimates from Italy, in March 49 BC, on his way to Spain, Caesar was delayed when in April the port city of Massilia rebelled under Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. When he arrived on the Spanish border, Caesar was able to seize the Pyrenees passes from the republicans, near Ilerda, the Pompeians made camp on a hill and Caesar endeavoured to camp about 400 paces from the foot of the hill. As night came, Caesar withdrew his army behind the ditch, the next day was spent creating the rest of the ditch and the rampart which would form the defenses of Caesars camp. For this operation Caesar kept a part of his force on guard, in the midst of the plain there was a portion of rising ground which Caesar wanted to occupy. The contest for this led to a protracted battle. Both armies sent detachments towards the hill and the Pompeians occupied it first and this, combined with their skirmish-like combat technique overwhelmed the Caesarian detachment, and his troops were forced to give ground, eventually retreating to safety. This minor reverse would result in a renewed attack spurned by Caesar, as Caesar tells it, Caesar, contrary to his expectation, finding the consternation like to spread through the whole army, encouraged his men, and led the ninth legion to their assistance. He soon put a stop to the vigorous and insulting pursuit of the enemy, obliged them to turn their backs, still however they supported themselves by their courage and patience, and were not disheartened by the many wounds they received. The enemys forces increased every moment, fresh cohorts being sent from the camp through the town, Caesar was likewise obliged to detach small parties to maintain the battle, and bring off such as were wounded. The pursuit was continued to the walls of Lerida, and some out of fear took shelter in the town. Thus the engagement was attended with various turns of fortune, Caesar lost about seventy men in the first encounter, among whom was Q. Fulginius, first centurion of the Hastati of the fourteenth legion, upwards of six hundred were wounded. On Afraniuss side was slain T. Caecilius, first centurion of a legion, also four centurions of inferior degree, the spring storms and the melting snow from the mountains then caused flooding, which particularly affected the lower situated Caesarians whose camp was flooded. This meant that the Caesarian troops were unable to forage and famine struck the army, Caesar ordered a pursuit which overtook the retreating rear guard of the republican army and he was able to block the route on which the republicans were retreating. The two armies again camped close to other and confraternization between the two armies started. Petreius, wanting to stop this confraternization, had the Caesarian soldiers who had wandered into the republican camp rounded up, after this the republicans again retreated towards Ilerda, only to become besieged by the Caesarians in their new camp
15.
Battle of Pharsalus
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The Battle of Pharsalus was a decisive battle of Caesars Civil War. On 9 August 48 BC at Pharsalus in central Greece, Gaius Julius Caesar, Pompey had the backing of a majority of the senators, of whom many were optimates, and his army significantly outnumbered the veteran Caesarian legions. The two armies confronted each other several months of uncertainty, Caesar being in a much weaker position than Pompey. Pompey wanted to delay, knowing the enemy would eventually surrender from hunger, pressured by the senators present and by his officers, he reluctantly engaged in battle and suffered an overwhelming defeat, ultimately fleeing the camp and his men, disguised as an ordinary citizen. Caesar, lacking a fleet to give chase, solidified his control over the western Mediterranean – Spain specifically – before assembling ships to follow Pompey. Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, whom Pompey had appointed to command his 600-ship fleet, set up a blockade to prevent Caesar from crossing to Greece. Caesar, defying convention, chose to cross the Adriatic during the winter and this move surprised Bibulus and the first wave of ships managed to run the blockade easily. Now prepared, Bibulus managed to prevent any ships from crossing. Caesars only choice was to fortify his position, forage what supplies he could, Pompey by now had a massive international army, however, his troops were mostly untested raw recruits, while Caesars troops were hardened veterans. Realizing Caesars difficulty in keeping his troops supplied, Pompey decided to simply mirror Caesars forces, Caesar began to despair and used every channel he could think of to pursue peace with Pompey. When this was rebuffed he made an attempt to back to Italy to collect his missing troops but was turned back by a storm. Finally, Mark Antony rallied the forces in Italy, fought through the blockade and made the crossing, reinforcing Caesars forces in both men and spirit. Now at full strength Caesar felt confident to take the fight to Pompey, Pompey was camped in a strong position just south of Dyrrhachium with the sea to his back and surrounded by hills, making a direct assault impossible. Caesar ordered a wall to be built around Pompeys position in order to cut off water, Pompey built a parallel wall and in between a kind of no mans land was created, with fighting comparable to the trench warfare of World War I. Finally the standoff was broken by a traitor in Caesars army, Pompey immediately exploited this information and forced Caesars army into a full retreat, but ordered his army not to pursue, fearing Caesars reputation for setting elaborate traps. This caused Caesar to remark, Today the victory had been the enemys, had there been any one among them to gain it, Pompey continued his strategy of mirroring Caesars forces and avoiding any direct engagements. After trapping Caesar in Thessaly, the prominent senators in Pompeys camp began to argue loudly for a decisive victory. Although Pompey was strongly against it—he wanted to surround and starve Caesars army instead—he eventually gave in, the date of the actual decisive battle is given as 9 August 48 BC according to the republican calendar
16.
Mark Antony
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Antony was a supporter of Julius Caesar, and served as one of his generals during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War. Antony was appointed administrator of Italy while Caesar eliminated political opponents in Greece, North Africa, the Triumvirs defeated Caesars murderers, the Liberatores, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, and divided the government of the Republic between themselves. Antony was assigned Romes eastern provinces, including the client kingdom of Egypt, then ruled by Cleopatra VII Philopator, relations among the Triumvirs were strained as the various members sought greater political power. Civil war between Antony and Octavian was averted in 40 BC, when Antony married Octavians sister, Octavia, despite this marriage, Antony carried on a love affair with Cleopatra, who bore him three children, further straining Antonys relations with Octavian. Lepidus was expelled from the association in 36 BC, and in 33 BC disagreements between Antony and Octavian caused a split between the remaining Triumvirs. Their ongoing hostility erupted into war in 31 BC, as the Roman Senate, at Octavians direction, declared war on Cleopatra. Later that year, Antony was defeated by Octavians forces at the Battle of Actium, Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, where they committed suicide. With Antony dead, Octavian was the master of the Roman world. In 27 BC, Octavian was granted the title of Augustus, marking the stage in the transformation of the Roman Republic into an empire. A member of the plebeian Antonia gens, Antony was born in Rome on January 14,83 BC. His father and namesake was Marcus Antonius Creticus, son of the noted orator by the name who had been murdered during the Marian Terror of the winter of 87–86 BC. His mother was Julia Antonia, a distant cousin of Julius Caesar, Antony was an infant at the time of Lucius Cornelius Sullas march on Rome in 82 BC. According to the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, Antonys father was incompetent and corrupt, in 74 BC he was given military command to defeat the pirates of the Mediterranean, but he died in Crete in 71 BC without making any significant progress. Lentulus, despite exploiting his political success for financial gain, was constantly in debt due to the extravagance of his lifestyle and he was a major figure in the Second Catilinarian Conspiracy and was summarily executed on the orders of the Consul Cicero in 63 BC for his involvement. His death resulted in a feud between the Antonia and the famous orator, Antonys early life was characterized by a lack of proper parental guidance. According to the historian Plutarch, he spent his teenage years wandering through Rome with his brothers and friends gambling, drinking, Antonys contemporary and enemy, Cicero, claimed he had a homosexual relationship with Gaius Scribonius Curio. There is little information on his political activity as a young man, although it is known that he was an associate of Publius Clodius Pulcher. He may also have involved in the Lupercal cult as he was referred to as a priest of this order later in life
17.
Proscription
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Proscription is, in current usage, a decree of condemnation to death or banishment and can be used in a political context to refer to state-approved murder or banishment. The term originated in Ancient Rome, where it included public identification, during the dictatorial reign of Sulla, the word took on a more sinister meaning. In 82 or 81 BC, Sulla instituted the process of proscription in order to avenge the massacres of Gaius Marius and Gaius Marius’ son. He instituted a notice for the sale of confiscated property belonging to those declared public enemies of the state, there were multiple reasons why the ancient Roman government may have desired to proscribe or attribute multiple other forms of pain. One of the most prevalent reasons for punishment are treason crimes, treason crimes consisted of a very broad and large number of regulations, and such crimes had a negative effect on the government. Overall, crimes in which the state, emperor, the tranquility, or offenses against the good of the people would be considered treason. Punishments for treason were quite harsh for today’s standards and were meant to highlight the seriousness and shamefulness of the crimes committed. There were a variety of punishments for crimes, including death, loss of a freedman’s status, loss of citizenship with a loss of family rights. Death was a common punishment and was referred to as summum supplicium. The death sentence was often the punishment for all but the mildest forms of treason, Julius Caesar was an influential framer on the law on treason. The Interdiction from Water and Fire was a civil excommunication resulting in ultimate exile and those who were condemned would be deported to an island. Emperor Augustus frequently utilized this method of exile, as he desired to keep banished men from banding together in large groups, such punishment was only given for the mildest forms of treason, in comparison to the death penalty served for most other treason crimes. Augustus also created the prefect, whose powers included the ability to banish, deport, an early instance of mass proscription took place in 82 BC, when Lucius Cornelius Sulla was appointed dictator rei publicae constituendae. Sulla proceeded to have the Senate draw up a list of those he considered enemies of the state, no person could inherit money or property from proscribed men, nor could any woman married to a proscribed man remarry after his death. Many victims of proscription were decapitated and their heads were displayed on spears in the Forum and this gave rise to a general fear of being taken from ones home at night as a consequence of any outwardly seditious behaviour. Sullas proscription was bureaucratically overseen, and the names of informers, because Roman law could criminalise acts ex post facto, many informers and profiteers were later prosecuted. The proscription of 82 BC was overseen by Sullas freedman steward Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus, the proscription lists created by Sulla led to mass terror in Rome. During this time, the cities of Italy became theaters of execution, citizens were terrified to find their names on the lists
18.
Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War
19.
Athens
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
20.
Academy
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An academy is an institution of secondary education, higher learning, research, or honorary membership. The name traces back to Platos school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the site of Akademia was sacred to Athena and other immortals. Platos immediate successors as scholarch of Akademia were Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, Crates, later scholarchs include Lacydes of Cyrene, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo of Larissa. Other notable members of Akademia include Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Philip of Opus, Crantor, however, there cannot have actually been any geographical, institutional, economic or personal continuity with the original Academy in the new organizational entity. The emperor Justinian closed the school in AD529, a date that is cited as the end of Antiquity. After a peace treaty between the Persian and the Byzantine empire in 532 guaranteed their personal security, some members found sanctuary in the stronghold of Harran. One of the last leading figures of this group was Simplicius, a pupil of Damascius and it has been speculated that Akademia did not altogether disappear. After his exile, Simplicius, may have travelled to Harran, from there, the students of an Academy-in-exile could have survived into the 9th century, long enough to facilitate the Arabic revival of the Neoplatonist commentary tradition in Baghdad. With the Neoplatonist revival that accompanied the revival of humanist studies, Cosimo had been inspired by the arrival at the otherwise ineffective Council of Florence of Gemistos Plethon, who seemed a dazzling figure to the Florentine intellectuals. In 1462 Cosimo gave Ficino a villa at Careggi for the Academys use, situated where Cosimo could see it from his own villa, the academy remained a wholly informal group, but one which had a great influence on Renaissance Neo-Platonism. The Vatican Library was not coordinated until 1475 and was never catalogued or widely accessible and his valuable Greek as well as Latin library was at the disposal of the academicians. Bessarion, in the years of his life, retired from Rome to Ravenna. He was a worshipper not merely of the literary and artistic form, but also of the ideas and spirit of classic paganism, which made him appear a condemner of Christianity, in his academy every member assumed a classical name. The prisoners begged so earnestly for mercy, and with such protestations of repentance, in Naples, the Quattrocento academy founded by Alfonso of Aragon and guided by Antonio Beccadelli was the Porticus Antoniana, later known as the Accademia Pontaniana, after Giovanni Pontano. The 16th century saw at Rome a great increase of literary and aesthetic academies, more or less inspired by the Renaissance, all of which assumed, as was the fashion, odd and fantastic names. We learn from various sources the names of such institutes, as a rule, they soon perished. In the 1520s came the Accademia degl Intronati, for the encouragement of theatrical representations, there were also the Academy of the Vignaiuoli, or Vinegrowers, and the Accademia della Virtù, founded by Claudio Tolomei under the patronage of Cardinal Ippolito de Medici. These were followed by a new academy in the Orti or Farnese gardens, there were also the academies of the Intrepidi, the Animosi, and the Illuminati, this last, founded by the Marchesa Isabella Aldobrandini Pallavicino
21.
Varronian chronology
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If a consul died during his year of office, another was elected to replace him. Because of this method of dating events, it was important to keep records of each years eponymous magistrates, although these lists account for the entire period of the Republic, and most of Imperial time, there are discrepancies due to gaps and disagreement in different sources. Many no doubt arose as simple copying errors, especially those involved the substitution of a familiar name for a less common one. Occasionally, the authority of the consuls was temporarily superseded by the appointment of a dictator, however, in four years at the end of the fourth century BC, dictators are said to have continued in office the year following their nomination in place of consuls. Modern scholarship is skeptical of these years, which represent one example of later editing to the lists of magistrates in order to fill a gap. All known dictators have included in this table. Two other types of magistrates are listed during the period of the Republic, among the disputes which the decemvirs failed to resolve was the relationship between the patricians, Romes hereditary aristocracy, and the plebeians, or common citizens. Although it has argued that some of the consuls prior to the decemvirate may have been plebeians. As a means of preventing open hostility between the two orders, the office of military tribune with consular power, or consular tribune, was established, in place of patrician consuls, the people could elect a number of military tribunes, who might be either patrician or plebeian. In imperial times the consulship became the administrative office under the emperors, who frequently assumed the title of consul themselves. The consulship was often bestowed as a favour, or a reward for faithful service. Because there could only be two consuls at once, the emperors frequently appointed several sets of suffecti in the course of a year, in many cases there are statements to the effect that a particular person had been consul, but the exact time cannot be firmly established. The last consuls appointed represented only the Eastern Empire, until finally the title became the province of the Emperor. This becomes the year 1 ab urbe condita, or AUC, the Republic was established in 245 AUC, or 509 BC. For Imperial times, the dates of the consules ordinarii are far more certain than those of the suffecti and their identification and dating is far more controversial, and despite the efforts of generations of scholars, gaps in coverage remain. Consuls for the Republic and the early Empire are identified as consul prior and consul posterior, the consul prior was the more senior and esteemed of the pair. When the emperor assumed the consulship, he was necessarily consul prior and these designations were used until the end of the consulship in the sixth century. For a list of consuls whose year of office is uncertain or entirely unknown, for those individuals who were elected consul but never assumed the office due to death, disgrace, or any other reason, see List of Roman consuls designate
22.
Pliny the Elder
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In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncles now missing work on the History of the German Wars. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and Pliny probably died during this event. Plinys dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names and their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through, whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from a source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus, additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the scholar to use his unknown source. He kept statues of his ancestors there, a statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncles breakfasts would be light and simple following the customs of our forefathers. This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a good Roman and this statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory, one commemorates the youngers career as imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another identifies his father Lucius village as Fecchio near Como and it is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens and he did not take his fathers cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, no earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Plinys birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat
23.
Liberal arts education
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Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were the core liberal arts, while arithmetic, geometry, the theory of music, and astronomy also played a part in education. In modern times, liberal arts education term that can be interpreted in different ways and it can refer to academic subjects such as literature, philosophy, mathematics, and social and physical sciences, or it can also refer to overall studies in a liberal arts degree program. For example, Harvard University offers a Bachelor of Arts degree, for both interpretations, the term generally refers to matters not relating to the professional, vocational, or technical curriculum. The four scientific artes – music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy – were known from the time of Boethius onwards as the Quadrivium. After the 9th century, the three arts of the humanities – grammar, logic, and rhetoric – were classed as well as the Trivium. It was in that form that the seven liberal arts were studied in the medieval Western university. During the Middle Ages, logic gradually came to take predominance over the parts of the Trivium. In the Renaissance, the Italian humanists and their Northern counterparts, despite in many respects continuing the traditions of the Middle Ages, the ideal of a liberal arts, or humanistic education grounded in classical languages and literature, persisted until the middle of the twentieth century. Some subsections of the arts are in the trivium—the verbal arts, grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and in the quadrivium—the numerical arts, arithmetic, geometry, music. Analyzing and interpreting information is also included, the liberal arts education at the secondary school level prepares the student for higher education at a university. They are thus meant for the more academically minded students, in addition to the usual curriculum, students of a liberal arts education often study Latin and Ancient Greek. Some liberal arts education provide general education, others have a specific focus, today, a number of other areas of specialization exist, such as gymnasiums specializing in economics, technology or domestic sciences. In some countries, there is a notion of progymnasium, which is equivalent to beginning classes of the full gymnasium, here, the prefix pro is equivalent to pre. In the United States, liberal arts colleges are schools emphasizing undergraduate study in the liberal arts, in most parts of Europe, liberal arts education is deeply rooted. In Germany, Austria and countries influenced by their education system, the term is not to be mixed up with some modern educational concepts that use a similar wording. Educational institutions that see themselves in that tradition are often a Gymnasium and they aim at providing their pupils with comprehensive education in order to form personality with regard to a pupils own humanity as well as his/her innate intellectual skills. Going back to the tradition of the liberal arts in Europe, education in the above sense was freed from scholastic thinking. In particular, Wilhelm von Humboldt played a key role in that regard, universities encourage students to do so and offer respective opportunities, but do not make such activities part of the universitys curriculum
24.
Roman calendar
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The Roman calendar is the calendar used by the Roman kingdom and republic. The original calendar consisted of 10 months beginning in spring with March and these months ran for 38 nundinal cycles, each forming a kind of eight day week ended by religious rituals and a public market. The winter period was used to create January and February. The legendary early kings Romulus and Numa were traditionally credited with establishing this early fixed calendar, in particular, the kalends, nones, and ides seem to have derived from the first sighting of the crescent moon, the first-quarter moon, and the full moon respectively. The system ran well short of the year, and it needed constant intercalation to keep religious festivals. For superstitious reasons, such intercalation occurred within the month of February even after it was no longer considered the last month. Having won his war with Pompey, Caesar used his position as Romes chief pontiff to enact a calendar reform in 46 BC, in order to bring the calendar back to its proper place, Augustus was obliged to suspend intercalation for a few decades. The original Roman calendar is believed to have been a lunar calendar whose months began from the first signs of a new crescent moon. Because a lunar cycle is about 29½ days long, such months would have varied between 29 and 30 days, Romes 8-day week, the nundinal cycle, was shared with the Etruscans, who used it as the schedule of royal audiences. It was presumably a feature of the calendar and was credited in Roman legend variously to Romulus and Servius Tullius. The Romans themselves described their first organized year as one with ten fixed months, such a decimal division fit general Roman practice. The four 31-day months were called full and the others hollow and its 304 days made up exactly 38 nundinal cycles. Later Roman writers credited this calendar to Romulus, their legendary first king and culture hero, although this was common with other practices and traditions whose origin had been lost to them. Rüpke also finds the coincidence of the length of the supposed Romulan year with the length of the first ten months of the Julian calendar to be suspicious, other traditions existed alongside this one, however. Plutarchs Parallel Lives recounts that Romuluss calendar had been solar but adhered to the principle that the year should last for 360 days. Months were employed secondarily and haphazardly, with some counted as 20 days, the attested calendar of the Roman Republic was quite different. It followed Greek calendars in assuming a lunar cycle of 29½ days and a year of 12½ synodic months. The additional two months of the year were January and February, the month was sometimes known as Mercedonius
25.
Quintilis
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In the ancient Roman calendar, Quintilis or Quinctilis was the month following Junius and preceding Sextilis. Quintilis is Latin for fifth, it was the month in the earliest calendar attributed to Romulus. After the calendar reform that produced a 12-month year, Quintilis became the seventh month, in 45 BC, Julius Caesar instituted a new calendar that corrected astronomical discrepancies in the old. After his death in 44 BC, the month of Quintilis, his month, was renamed Julius in his honor. Quintilis was under the guardianship of the Romans supreme deity Jupiter, with sacrifices made particularly to Neptune, ten days of games were celebrated in honor of Julius Caesar at the end of the month. Like the modern month of July, this was one of the months that had 31 days. The Romans did not number days of a month sequentially from the 1st through the last day, instead, they counted back from the three fixed points of the month, the Nones, the Ides, and the Kalends of the following month. Thus the last day of Quintilis was the pridie Kalendas Sextilis, Roman counting was inclusive, July 5 was ante diem III Nonas Quintilis, the 3rd day before the Nones of Quintilis, usually abbreviated a. d. Sext. the 10th day before the Kalends of Sextilis, on a dies religiosus, individuals were not to undertake any new activity, nor do anything other than tend to the most basic necessities. On the calendar of religious observances known as the Feriale Duranum. After the latter 1st century AD, a number of dates are added to calendars for spectacles and games held in honor of deities in the venue called a circus. By the late 2nd century AD, extant calendars no longer show days marked with letters to show their religious status, probably in part as a result of calendar reforms undertaken by Marcus Aurelius. Unless otherwise noted, the dating and observances on the table are from H. H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic. Month names, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Sextilis, September, October, November, December
26.
Intercalary month
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Intercalation or embolism in timekeeping is the insertion of a leap day, week, or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases. Lunisolar calendars may require intercalations of both days and months, the solar or tropical year does not have a whole number of days, but a calendar year must have a whole number of days. The most common way to reconcile the two is to vary the number of days in the calendar year. In solar calendars, this is done by adding to a year of 365 days. In the Julian calendar, as well as in the Gregorian calendar, in the Julian calendar this was done every four years. In the Gregorian, years divisible by 100 but not 400 were exempted in order to improve accuracy, thus,2000 was a leap year,1700,1800, and 1900 were not. Epagomenal days are days within a calendar that are outside any regular month. Usually five epagomenal days are included within every year, but a sixth day is intercalated every four years in some. The Baháí calendar includes enough epagomenal days before the last month to ensure that the year starts on the March equinox. These are known as the Ayyám-i-Há, the solar year does not have a whole number of lunar months, so a lunisolar calendar must have a variable number of months in a year. Regular years have 12 months, but embolismic years insert a 13th intercalary or embolismic month every second or third year, whether to insert an intercalary month in a given year may be determined using regular cycles such as the 19-year Metonic cycle or using calculations of lunar phases. The Buddhist calendar adds both a day and month on a usually regular cycle. Some historians also linked the practice of Nasi to intercalation. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service can insert or remove leap seconds from the last day of any month and these are sometimes described as intercalary. ISO8601 includes a specification for a 52-week year, any year that has 53 Thursdays has 53 weeks, this extra week may be regarded as intercalary
27.
Roman history
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The city of Rome originated as a village of the Latini in the 9th century BC. It was initially ruled by kings, but the Roman Republic was established in 509 BC, during the 5th century BC, Rome gained regional dominance in Latium, and eventually the entire Italian peninsula by the 3rd century BC. The population of the city at this point is estimated at about 310,000 people, with the Punic Wars, Rome gained dominance over the Western Mediterranean, displacing Carthage as the dominant regional power. The Roman Empire was established under Octavian in 27 BC, after Julius Caesars conquest of Gaul, the city of Rome now surpassed a population of one million, likely the first city in history to reach this size. Following the Crisis of the Third Century and the transfer of the capital to Constantinople in AD330. But the city was reduced to a fraction of its size, being sacked several times in the 5th to 6th centuries. With the final loss of control in Italy, Rome became the capital of the Papal States in medieval Italy. The Papacy struggled to influence in the emerging Holy Roman Empire, and during the Saeculum obscurum. Rome began to some importance in the late 15th and 16th century. The Sistine Chapel was restored in 1480 and decorated by Michelangelo in 1508–1512, construction of the Apostolic Palace began in 1589. Construction of St. Peters Basilica was begun in 1506, the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture, Rome was annexed by Napoleon and was technically part of France during 1798–1814. During the Italian unification in the 19th century, the Roman Question referred to the status of Rome under the power of the popes. Rome was declared the capital of the kingdom of Italy on 27 March 1861, Rome was eventually captured in 1870, and the dispute was finally resolved with the Lateran Pacts of 1929 establishing the Vatican State. Rome served as the capital of the Italian Empire and Fascist Italy from 1870 to 1943, during this period, population hextupled from about 250,000 to 1.5 million. The Palace of Justice was completed 1910, Rome was under siege by the Allied invasion of Italy and was bombed several times. It was declared a city on 14 August 1943. It became the capital of the Italian Republic, with a population of 4.4 million in its metropolitan area —is the largest city in Italy and it is among the largest urban areas of the European Union and classified as a global city. The evidence suggesting the citys ancient foundation is also obscured by the legend of Romes beginning involving Romulus and Remus, excavations made in 2014 have revealed a wall built long before the citys official founding year
28.
Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
29.
Fasti Capitolini
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For the poem by Ovid, see Fasti, for the inscribed versions of the calendar, see Roman calendar. In ancient Rome, the fasti were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other records or plans of official. After Romes decline, the word continued to be used for similar records in Christian Europe. Public business, including the business of the Roman state, had to be transacted on dies fasti. The fasti were the records of this business, in addition to the words general sense, there were fasti that recorded specific kinds of events, such as the fasti triumphales, lists of triumphs celebrated by Roman generals. The divisions of time used in the fasti were based on the Roman calendar, the yearly records of the fasti encouraged the writing of history in the form of chronological annales, annals, which in turn influenced the development of Roman historiography. Fasti is the plural of the Latin adjective fastus, most commonly used as a substantive, the word derives from fas, meaning that which is permitted, that is, that which is legitimate in the eyes of the gods. Fasti dies were the days on which business might be transacted without impiety, in contrast to dies nefasti, days on which assemblies, the word fasti itself came to denote lists organized by time. The temporal structure distinguished fasti from regesta, which were simple lists of property, or assets, such as land or documents and they came to be denominated magni, great, by way of distinction from the bare calendar, or fasti diurni. The word fasti thus came to be used in the sense of annals or historical records. Michelangelo, who designed the complex of three palaces on the hill, also restored the tables of the fasti, the Palazzo today is one of the Capitoline Museums, which serve a double duty as museums and city government buildings. The fasti are located in the Sala della Lupa, the room as the bronze wolf. More pieces discovered after the Renaissance were placed with it, the fasti consulares were discovered as 30 marble fragments in the forum. With them were 26 fragments of Acta Triumpharum, since called the fasti triumphales, both lists were restored as distinct records. Pope Paul III had authorized the mining of stone for St. Peters in 1540, the pope was following the widespread convention that prevailed in the Renaissance of ripping up the structures of the past to reuse in building structures they considered even more magnificent. The scholars were collaborating to save what they could, a resident colony of quarrymen did not pause in the slightest but went on dismantling buildings. All trace of structures in that part of the forum vanished between August 15 and September 14,1546, the stone was sold to cutters for reuse or to lime burners for the creation of cement. None of these proceedings were in any way archaeological, cardinal Farnese assigned the scholars to watch the diggings
30.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl
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Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl was a German scholar best known for his studies of Plautus. He was born in Großvargula, in present-day Thuringia and his family, in which culture and poverty were hereditary, were Protestants who had migrated several generations earlier from Bohemia. Ritschl was fortunate in his training, at a time when the great reform in the higher schools of Prussia had not yet been thoroughly carried out. His chief teacher, Spitzner, a pupil of Gottfried Hermann, divined the boys genius and allowed it free growth, after a wasted year at the University of Leipzig, where Hermann stood at the zenith of his fame, Ritschl passed in 1826 to Halle. The great controversy between the Realists and the Verbalists was then at its height, and Ritschl naturally sided with Hermann against Böckh, the remainder of his life was largely occupied in working out the material then gathered and the ideas then conceived. Bonn, where he moved on his marriage in 1839, in 1854 Otto Jahn took the place of the venerable Welcker at Bonn, and after a time succeeded in dividing with Ritschl the empire over the philological school there. The two had been friends, but after gradual estrangement a violent dispute arose between them in 1865, which for many months divided into two forces the universities and the press of Germany. Both sides were steeped in fault, but Ritschl undoubtedly received harsh treatment from the Prussian government and he accepted a call to Leipzig, where he died in harness in 1876. Ritschl was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and he was warmly attached to family and friends, and yearned continually after sympathy, yet he established real intimacy with only a few. This volume presents in admirable facsimile, with notices and indexes. It forms a volume to the Berlin Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. The results of Ritschls life are mainly gathered up in a series of monographs, for the most part of the highest finish. As a scholar, Ritschl was of the lineage of Bentley, to whom he looked up, like Hermann and his best efforts were spent in studying the languages and literatures of Greece and Rome, rather than the life of the Greeks and Romans. He was sometimes, but most unjustly, charged with taking a view of philology. That he keenly appreciated the importance of ancient institutions and ancient art both his papers and the records of his lectures amply testify. He devoted himself for the most part to the study of ancient poetry and this formed the centre from which his investigations radiated. Starting from this he ranged over the remains of pre-Ciceronian Latin. Before Ritschl the acquaintance of scholars with early Latin was so dim, to the world in general Ritschl was best known as a student of Plautus
31.
Attic Nights
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Aulus Gellius was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome, the only source for the life of Aulus Gellius is the details recorded in his writings. He was of good family and connections, possibly of African origin and he traveled much, especially in Greece, and resided for a considerable period in Athens. He returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office and he was appointed by the praetor to act as an umpire in civil causes, and much of the time which he would gladly have devoted to literary pursuits was consequently occupied by judicial duties. The precise date of his birth, as of his death, is unknown, but from the names of his teachers and companions, he must have lived under Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. His only known work, the Attic Nights, takes its name from having been begun during the nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. He afterwards continued it in Rome, one story is the fable of Androcles, which is often included in compilations of Aesops fables, but was not originally from that source. The work, deliberately devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books, all these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The Attic Nights are valuable for the insight they afford into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, the Attic Nights found many readers in Antiquity. The editio princeps appeared at Rome in 1469, the earliest critical edition is that of Jakob Gronovius. A later edition is that of M. Hertz, revised by C, a volume of selections, with notes and vocabulary, was published by Nall. There is an English translation by W. Beloe, and a French translation, a more recent English translation is by John Carew Rolfe for the Loeb Classical Library. Gellia Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, george Herbert Nall, ed. Stories from Aulus Gellius. John Carew Rolfe, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, ISBN0674992156, ISBN0674992202, ISBN0674992342 G. Anderson, Aulus Gellius, a Miscellanist and His World, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. Marie-Luise Lakmann, Der Platoniker Tauros in der Darstellung des Aulus Gellius Leofranc Holford-Strevens, an Antonine Scholar and his Achievement Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Amiel Vardi, eds. The Worlds of Aulus Gellius Wytse Keulen, Gellius the Satirist, Works by Aulus Gellius at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Aulus Gellius at Internet Archive The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius,1795 translation, Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III
32.
Quintilian
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Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is referred to as Quintilian, although the alternate spellings of Quintillian and Quinctilian are occasionally seen. Quintilian was born c.35 in Calagurris in Hispania and his father, a well-educated man, sent him to Rome to study rhetoric early in the reign of Nero. While there, he cultivated a relationship with Domitius Afer, who died in 59 and it had always been the custom … for young men with ambitions in public life to fix upon some older model of their ambition … and regard him as a mentor. Quintilian evidently adopted Afer as his model and listened to him speak, Afer has been characterized as a more austere, classical, Ciceronian speaker than those common at the time of Seneca the Younger, and he may have inspired Quintilian’s love of Cicero. Sometime after Afers death, Quintilian returned to Hispania, possibly to practice law in the courts of his own province, however, in 68, he returned to Rome as part of the retinue of Emperor Galba, Neros short-lived successor. Quintilian does not appear to have been an advisor of the Emperor. After Galbas death, and during the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors which followed, among his students were Pliny the Younger, and perhaps Tacitus. The Emperor Vespasian made him a consul, the emperor in general was not especially interested in the arts, but … was interested in education as a means of creating an intelligent and responsible ruling class. This subsidy enabled Quintilian to devote time to the school. In addition, he appeared in the courts of law, arguing on behalf of clients, of his personal life, little is known. In the Institutio Oratoria, he mentions a wife who died young, Quintilian retired from teaching and pleading in 88, during the reign of Domitian. His retirement may have been prompted by his achievement of financial security, Quintilian survived several emperors, the reigns of Vespasian and Titus were relatively peaceful, but that of Domitian was reputed to be difficult. Domitian’s cruelty and paranoia may have prompted the rhetorician to distance himself quietly, the emperor does not appear to have taken offence as he made Quintilian tutor of his two grand-nephews in 90 CE. He is believed to have died sometime around 100, not having long survived Domitian, the only extant work of Quintilian is a twelve-volume textbook on rhetoric entitled Institutio Oratoria, published around AD95. An earlier text, De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae has been lost, in addition, there are two sets of declamations, Declamationes Maiores and Declamationes Minores, which have been attributed to Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria is a textbook on the theory and practice of rhetoric by Roman rhetorician Quintilian. It was published around year 95 CE, the work deals also with the foundational education and development of the orator himself
33.
Cicero
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Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order. According to Michael Grant, the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature, Cicero introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars, following Julius Caesars death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. His severed hands and head were then, as a revenge of Mark Antony. Petrarchs rediscovery of Ciceros letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, according to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity. Cicero was born in 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome and his father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life, although little is known about Ciceros mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Ciceros brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife, Ciceros cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was given to one of Ciceros ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is likely that Ciceros ancestors prospered through the cultivation. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames, the family names of Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this name when he entered politics. During this period in Roman history, cultured meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek, Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience. It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite, according to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Ciceros fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the latter two became Ciceros friends for life, and Pomponius would become, in Ciceros own words, as a second brother, with both maintaining a lifelong correspondence. Cicero wanted to pursue a career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum
34.
Virgil
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Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature, the Eclogues, the Georgics, a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Romes greatest poets and his Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Virgils work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dantes Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through Hell, the tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists, modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgils father was of a background, however. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples, after considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. From Virgils admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, according to Servius, schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed Parthenias or maiden because of his social aloofness. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life, according to the Catalepton, he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples. A group of works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen poems, some of which may be Virgils, and another. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, the Eclogues are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. The loss of his farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgils motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues, the ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside,2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love and attraction toward people of any gender. Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called Messianic Eclogue uses the imagery of the age in connection with the birth of a child. Virgil came to many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus. At Maecenas insistence Virgil spent the years on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics which he dedicated to Maecenas
35.
Columella
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Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was the most important writer on agriculture of the Roman empire. Little is known of his life and he was probably born in Gades, Hispania Baetica, possibly of Roman parents. After a career in the army, he took up farming, a smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him. Columella used many sources no longer extant, to which he is one of the few references, these include Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the Carthaginian writer Mago, Tremellius Scrofa, and many Greek sources. Columella owned farms in Italy, he refers specifically to estates at Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba, in 1794 the Spanish botanists Jose Antonio Pavón y Jimenez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour. The book is presented as advice to a certain Publius Silvinus and it may initially have been intended to be the concluding volume, books 11 and 12 being perhaps an addition to the original scheme. A complete but anonymous translation into English was published by Millar in 1745, excerpts had previously been translated by Bradley. The short work De arboribus, On Trees, is in manuscripts, however it is clear from the opening sentences that it is part of a separate work. As the anonymous translator of the Millar edition notes, there is in De arboribus no mention of the Publius Silvinus to whom the Res rustica is addressed. A recent critical edition of the Latin text of the Res Rustica of Columella includes it, cassiodorus mentions sixteen books of Columella, which has led to the suggestion that De arboribus formed part of a work in four volumes. The earliest editions of Columella group his works with those on agriculture of Marcus Priscus Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro, some modern library catalogues follow Brunet in listing these under Rei rusticae scriptores or Scriptores rei rusticae. Iunii Moderati Columellae hortulus Georgius Merula, Franciscus Colucia De re rustica Opera et impensa Nicolai Ienson, lucii Iunii Moderati Columellae de Cultu hortorum Liber. xi. D S, Opera Agricolationum, Columellæ, Varronis, Catonisque, nec non Palladii, Philippi Beroaldi, & commentariis quæ in aliis impressionibus non extāt. Parisiis, Venundantur parisiis in aedibus Radulphi Laliseau, Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella De cultu ortorum, impressum Bononiae, a Hieronymo de Benedictis bibliopola et calcographo,1520 mense Augusto Libri De Re Rustica. Additis Nuper Commentariis Iunii Pompo. Fortunati in Librum De Cultu Hortorum, Cum Adnotationibus Philippi Beroaldi, florence, Filippo Giunta,1521 De re rustica libri XII. Euisdem de Arboris liber, separatus ab aliis, lyon, Sébastien Gryphe,1541 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus De lagricoltura libri XII. / Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella. Trattato de gli alberi, tradotto nuouamente di latino in lingua italiana per Pietro Lauro Modonese In Venetia,1544 Les Douze livres des choses rustiques, traduicts de Latin en François, par feu maistre Claude Cotereau Chanoine de Paris. Des choses rustiques, tr. par C, la tr. corrigée & illustrée de doctes annotations par J. Thiery de Beauoisis Paris,1555 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella De lagricoltura libri XII
36.
Aulus Gellius
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Aulus Gellius was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome, the only source for the life of Aulus Gellius is the details recorded in his writings. He was of good family and connections, possibly of African origin and he traveled much, especially in Greece, and resided for a considerable period in Athens. He returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office and he was appointed by the praetor to act as an umpire in civil causes, and much of the time which he would gladly have devoted to literary pursuits was consequently occupied by judicial duties. The precise date of his birth, as of his death, is unknown, but from the names of his teachers and companions, he must have lived under Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. His only known work, the Attic Nights, takes its name from having been begun during the nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. He afterwards continued it in Rome, one story is the fable of Androcles, which is often included in compilations of Aesops fables, but was not originally from that source. The work, deliberately devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books, all these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The Attic Nights are valuable for the insight they afford into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, the Attic Nights found many readers in Antiquity. The editio princeps appeared at Rome in 1469, the earliest critical edition is that of Jakob Gronovius. A later edition is that of M. Hertz, revised by C, a volume of selections, with notes and vocabulary, was published by Nall. There is an English translation by W. Beloe, and a French translation, a more recent English translation is by John Carew Rolfe for the Loeb Classical Library. Gellia Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, george Herbert Nall, ed. Stories from Aulus Gellius. John Carew Rolfe, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, ISBN0674992156, ISBN0674992202, ISBN0674992342 G. Anderson, Aulus Gellius, a Miscellanist and His World, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. Marie-Luise Lakmann, Der Platoniker Tauros in der Darstellung des Aulus Gellius Leofranc Holford-Strevens, an Antonine Scholar and his Achievement Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Amiel Vardi, eds. The Worlds of Aulus Gellius Wytse Keulen, Gellius the Satirist, Works by Aulus Gellius at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Aulus Gellius at Internet Archive The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius,1795 translation, Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III
37.
Macrobius
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Only in later manuscripts were his names reversed as Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, which James Willis then adopted for his edition of the Commentary. Little is known for certain about Macrobius, but there are many theories and he states at the beginning of his Saturnalia that he was born under a foreign sky, and both of his major works are dedicated to his son, Eustachius. His major works have led experts to assume that he was a pagan, which foreign sky Macrobius was born under has been the subject of much speculation. Terrot Glover considers Macrobius either an ethnic Greek, or born in one of the Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire, such as Egypt, J. E. Sandys went further and argued that Macrobius was born in one of the Greek provinces. Scholars have attempted to identify him with a Macrobius who is mentioned in the Codex Theodosianus as a prefect of Spain. The Codex Theodosianus also records a praepositus named Macrobius in 422, a number of older authorities go so far as to identify Macrobius the author with the first, and date his floruit to 399–410. Further, Cameron points out that during his lifetime Macrobius was referred to as Theodosius and it is significant that the only surviving law addressed to this Theodosius sanctions a privilege for Africa Proconsularis on the basis of information received concerning Byzacena, Cameron notes. Macrobiuss most influential one of the most widely cited books of the Middle Ages—was a commentary in two books on the Dream of Scipio narrated by Cicero at the end of his Republic. In astronomy, this work is noted for giving the diameter of the Sun as twice the diameter of the Earth. Of a third work On the Differences and Similarities of the Greek and Latin Verb, we possess an abstract by a certain Johannes. See editions by Ludwig von Jan, Franz Eyssenhardt, James Willis, the grammatical treatise will be found in Jans edition and Heinrich Keils Grammatici latini, see also Georg Friedrich Schömann, Commentatio macrobiana. Macrobiuss Saturnalia consists of an account of the held at the house of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus during the holiday of the Saturnalia. It contains a variety of curious historical, mythological, critical, antiquarian. The work takes the form of a series of dialogues among learned men at a fictional banquet. The latter part of the book is taken up with a dissertation upon luxury and the sumptuary laws intended to check it. The seventh book consists largely of the discussion of various physiological questions, the primary value of the work lies in the facts and opinions quoted from earlier writers. Cambridge, MA/ London, Harvard University Press,2011, percival Vaughan Davies, Macrobius, The Saturnalia. New York, Columbia University Press,1969, william Harris Stahl, Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
38.
Augustine of Hippo
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Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia, Augustine is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions, according to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine established anew the ancient Faith. In his early years, he was influenced by Manichaeism. After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin, when the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview, the segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustines On the Trinity. Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Christian Church, and he is also the patron of the Augustinians. His memorial is celebrated on 28 August, the day of his death, Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him to be one of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation. Lutherans, and Martin Luther in particular, have held Augustine in preeminence, Luther himself was a member of the Order of the Augustinian Eremites. In the East, some of his teachings are disputed and have in the 20th century in particular come under attack by such theologians as John Romanides, but other theologians and figures of the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant appropriation of his writings, chiefly Georges Florovsky. The most controversial doctrine surrounding his name is the filioque, which has been rejected by the Orthodox Church, other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. Nevertheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is considered a saint. In the Orthodox Church his feast day is celebrated on 28 August and he was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions, Augustine was born in the year 354 AD in the municipium of Thagaste in Roman Africa. His mother, Monica or Monnica, was a devout Christian, in his writings, Augustine leaves some information as to the consciousness of his African heritage
39.
Vitruvius
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His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body, led to the famous Renaissance drawing by Da Vinci of Vitruvian Man. By his own description Vitruvius served as an artilleryman, the class of arms in the military offices. He probably served as a officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum. Little is known about Vitruvius life, most inferences about him are extracted from his only surviving work De Architectura. Even his first name Marcus and his cognomen Pollio are uncertain. Cetius Faventinus writes of Vitruvius Polio aliique auctores, this can be read as Vitruvius Polio, and others or, less likely, as Vitruvius, Polio, Vitruvius was a military engineer, or a praefect architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group. He is mentioned in Pliny the Elders table of contents for Naturalis Historia, frontinus refers to Vitruvius the architect in his late 1st-century work De aquaeductu. Likely born a free Roman citizen, by his own account, Vitruvius served the Roman army under Caesar with the otherwise poorly identified Marcus Aurelius, Publius Minidius and these names vary depending on the edition of De architectura. Publius Minidius is also written as Publius Numidicus and Publius Numidius, as an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. It is speculated that Vitruvius served with Caesars chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus, the locations where he served can be reconstructed from, for example, descriptions of the building methods of various foreign tribes. Although he describes places throughout De Architectura, he not say he was present. His service likely included north Africa, Hispania, Gaul and Pontus, the position of the camp, the direction of the entrenchments, the inspection of the tents or huts of the soldiers and the baggage were comprehended in his province. His authority extended over the sick, and the physicians who had the care of them and he had the charge of providing carriages, bathhouses and the proper tools for sawing and cutting wood, digging trenches, raising parapets, sinking wells and bringing water into the camp. He likewise had the care of furnishing the troops with wood and straw, as well as the rams, onagri, balistae, at various locations described by Vitruvius, battles and sieges occurred. He is the source for the siege of Larignum in 56 BC. The broken siege at Gergovia in 52 BC, and the siege of Uxellodunum in 51 BC. These are all sieges of large Gallic oppida, a legion that fits the same sequence of locations is the Legio VI Ferrata, of which ballista would be an auxiliary unit. Mainly known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect, frontinus mentions him in connection with the standard sizes of pipes
40.
Microbiology
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Microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms, those being unicellular, multicellular, or acellular. Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, mycology, parasitology, microbiologists traditionally relied on culture, staining, and microscopy. However, less than 1% of the present in common environments can be cultured in isolation using current means. Microbiologists often rely on extraction or detection of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA sequences, viruses have been variably classified as organisms, as they have been considered either as very simple microorganisms or very complex molecules. As an application of microbiology, medical microbiology is often introduced with medical principles of immunology as microbiology and immunology, otherwise, microbiology, virology, and immunology as basic sciences have greatly exceeded the medical variants, applied sciences. The existence of microorganisms was hypothesized for many centuries before their actual discovery, the existence of unseen microbiological life was postulated by Jainism which is based on Mahavira’s teachings as early as 6th century BCE. Paul Dundas notes that Mahavira asserted existence of unseen microbiological creatures living in earth, water, air, in 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that epidemic diseases were caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact, or vehicle transmission. However, early claims about the existence of microorganisms were speculative, actual observation and discovery of microbes had to await the invention of the microscope in the 17th century. In 1676, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who lived most of his life in Delft, Holland, observed bacteria and other microorganisms using a single-lens microscope of his own design. While Van Leeuwenhoek is often cited as the first to observe microbes, Robert Hooke made the first recorded microscopic observation, of the bodies of moulds. It has, however, been suggested that a Jesuit priest called Athanasius Kircher was the first to observe micro-organisms and he was among the first to design magic lanterns for projection purposes, so he must have been well acquainted with the properties of lenses. One of his books contains a chapter in Latin, which reads in translation – Concerning the wonderful structure of things in nature, here, he wrote who would believe that vinegar and milk abound with an innumerable multitude of worms. He also noted that material is full of innumerable creeping animalcule. These observations antedate Robert Hookes Micrographia by nearly 20 years and were published some 29 years before van Leeuwenhoek saw protozoa and 37 years before he described having seen bacteria. Joseph Lister was the first person who said infectious diseases are caused by micro-organism and was first person who used phenol as disinfectant on the wounds of patients. Cohn was also the first to formulate a scheme for the classification of bacteria. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch were contemporaries of Cohn’s and are considered to be the father of microbiology and medical microbiology. Pasteur is most famous for his series of experiments designed to disprove the widely held theory of spontaneous generation
41.
Epidemiology
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Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. It is the cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease, epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and statistical analysis of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results. Epidemiology has helped develop methodology used in research, public health studies. However, the term is used in studies of zoological populations, although the term epizoology is available. The distinction between epidemic and endemic was first drawn by Hippocrates, to distinguish between diseases that are visited upon a population from those that reside within a population. The term epidemiology appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Villalba in Epidemiología Española, epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a syndemic. Therefore, this epidemiology is based upon how the pattern of the disease cause changes in the function of everyone, Hippocrates believed sickness of the human body to be caused by an imbalance of the four humors. The cure to the sickness was to remove or add the humor in question to balance the body and this belief led to the application of bloodletting and dieting in medicine. He coined the terms endemic and epidemic, in the middle of the 16th century, a doctor from Verona named Girolamo Fracastoro was the first to propose a theory that these very small, unseeable, particles that cause disease were alive. They were considered to be able to spread by air, multiply by themselves, in this way he refuted Galens miasma theory. In 1543 he wrote a book De contagione et contagiosis morbis, the development of a sufficiently powerful microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1675 provided visual evidence of living particles consistent with a germ theory of disease. Wu Youke developed the concept that some diseases were caused by transmissible agents and his book Wenyi Lun can be regarded as the main etiological work that brought forward the concept, ultimately attributed to Westerners, of germs as a cause of epidemic diseases. His concepts are considered in current scientific research in relation to Traditional Chinese Medicine studies. Another pioneer, Thomas Sydenham, was the first to distinguish the fevers of Londoners in the later 1600s and his theories on cures of fevers met with much resistance from traditional physicians at the time. He was not able to find the cause of the smallpox fever he researched and treated. John Graunt, a haberdasher and amateur statistician, published Natural and Political Observations, upon the Bills of Mortality in 1662. In it, he analysed the mortality rolls in London before the Great Plague, presented one of the first life tables and he provided statistical evidence for many theories on disease, and also refuted some widespread ideas on them. John Snow is famous for his investigations into the causes of the 19th century cholera epidemics and he began with noticing the significantly higher death rates in two areas supplied by Southwark Company
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