Scipio Aemilianus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus known as Scipio Aemilianus, or Scipio Africanus Minor, or Scipio Africanus the Younger, was an important politician and general of the Roman Republic, who served as consul twice, in 147 and 134 BC. He was the natural son of Aemilius Paullus, but was adopted into the Cornelii Scipiones—the most prominent family at the time—by a son of Scipio Africanus. In 147 BC, he besieged and destroyed Carthage. In 134 BC he took over the Numantine War, restored the discipline of the Roman army, defeated Numantia, he was a prominent patron of writers and philosophers, the most famous of whom was the Greek historian Polybius. Scipio Aemilianus was the second son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the commander of the Romans' victorious campaign in the Third Macedonian War, his first wife, Papiria Masonis. Scipio was adopted by his first cousin, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of his aunt Aemilia Tertia and her husband Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the acclaimed commander who won the decisive battle of the Second Punic War against Hannibal.
This made Scipio Africanus the adoptive grandfather of Scipio Aemilianus. On adoption, he became Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, assuming the name of his adoptive father, but keeping Aemilianus as a fourth name to indicate his original nomen, his elder brother was adopted by a son or grandson of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, another prominent commander in the Second Punic War, whose name became Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus. Lucius Aemilius Paullus took his two older sons with him in his campaign in Greece. Plutarch wrote that Scipio was his favorite son because he "saw that he was by nature more prone to excellence than any of his brothers", he related that during mopping-up operations after the Battle of Pydna, Aemilius was worried because his younger son was missing. Plutarch wrote that "The whole army learned of the distress and anguish of their general, springing up from their suppers, ran about with torches, many to the tent of Aemilius, many in front of the ramparts, searching among the numerous dead bodies.
Dejection reigned in the camp, the plain was filled with the cries of men calling out the name of Scipio. For from the outset he had been admired by everybody, beyond any other one of his family, he had a nature adapted for leadership in war and public service. Well when it was late and he was despaired of, he came in from the pursuit with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain..." Scipio Aemilianus was seventeen at the time. In 152 BC, the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus urged the Senate to conclude a peace with the Celtiberians; the Senate rejected this proposal, instead sent one of the consuls of 151 BC, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, to Hispania to continue the war. However, there was a crisis of recruitment due to rumors of incessant battles and heavy Roman losses. Additionally, Marcellus appeared to be afraid of continuing the war. Young men avoided enrollment as soldiers through unverifiable excuses. Men eligible to be legates or military tribunes did not volunteer.
Scipio Aemilianus was thought to have advised for the prosecution of the war. He asked the Senate to be sent to Hispania either as a military tribune or a legate, due to the urgency of the situation though it would have been safer to go to Macedon, where he had been invited to settle domestic disputes; the Senate was at first surprised. Scipio's decision made him popular, many of those, avoiding their duty, ashamed by Scipio's example, began to volunteer as legates or to enroll as soldiers. Scipio served under Lucullus. Velleius Paterculus wrote that Scipio was awarded a mural crown, a military decoration awarded to the soldier who first climbed the wall of a besieged city or fortress and placed the military standard on it. Florus wrote that "having been challenged by king to a single combat, carried off the spolia opima, the armor and arms stripped from the body of an opposing commander slain in single combat; these were regarded as the most honorable of all war trophies." Although the power of Carthage had been broken with her defeat in the Second Punic War, there was still lingering resentment in Rome.
Cato the Elder ended every speech with, "Carthage must be destroyed." In 150 BC an appeal was made to Scipio Aemilianus by the Carthaginians to act as a mediator between them and the Numidian prince Massinissa who, supported by the anti-Carthaginian faction in Rome, was incessantly encroaching on Carthaginian territory. In 149 BC Rome declared war, a force sent to Africa, Carthage's homeland. In the early stages of the war, the Romans suffered repeated defeats. Scipio Aemilianus distinguished himself repeatedly. In 147 BC he was elected consul, while still under the minimum age required by law to hold this office. Without the customary procedure of drawing lots, he was assigned to the African theater of war. After a year of desperate fighting and stubborn heroism on the part of the defenders, he took the city of Carthage, taking prisoner about 50,000 survivors. Complying with the mandate of the Senate, he ordered the city evacuated, burnt it, razed it to the ground and plowed it over, ending the Third Punic War.
On his return to Rome he received a Triumph, having established a personal claim to his adoptive agnomen of Africanus. In 134 BC Scipio was elected consul again because the citizens thought that he was the only man capable of defeating the Numantines in the
Sicily
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions, in Southern Italy along with surrounding minor islands referred to as Regione Siciliana. Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina, its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, one of the most active in the world 3,329 m high. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate; the earliest archaeological evidence of human activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. By around 750 BC, Sicily had three Phoenician and a dozen Greek colonies and, for the next 600 years, it was the site of the Sicilian Wars and the Punic Wars. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Sicily was ruled during the Early Middle Ages by the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantine Empire, the Emirate of Sicily; the Norman conquest of southern Italy led to the creation of the Kingdom of Sicily, subsequently ruled by the Hohenstaufen, the Capetian House of Anjou and the House of Habsburg.
It was unified under the House of Bourbon with the Kingdom of Naples as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, a plebiscite. Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region on 15th May 1946, 18 days before the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Albeit, much of the autonomy still remains unapplied financial autonomy, because the autonomy-activating laws have been deferred to be approved by the parithetic committee, since 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture with regard to the arts, literature and architecture, it is home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples and Selinunte. Sicily has a triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, about 16 km wide in the southern part.
The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a straight line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, while the Autonomous Region of Sicily has an area of 27,708 km2; the terrain of inland Sicily is hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the mountain ranges of Madonie, 2,000 m, Nebrodi, 1,800 m, Peloritani, 1,300 m, are an extension of the mainland Apennines; the cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast. In the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains, 1,000 m; the mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, but have declined since the 1950s. Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions, it stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions.
It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km; this makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky. Mount Etna is regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily; the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, include Stromboli. The three volcanoes of Vulcano and Lipari are currently active, although the latter is dormant. Off the southern coast of Sicily, the underwater volcano of Ferdinandea, part of the larger Empedocles volcano, last erupted in 1831, it is located between the island of Pantelleria. The autonomous region includes several neighbouring islands: the Aegadian Islands, the Aeolian Islands and Lampedusa; the island is drained by several rivers, most of which flow through the central area and enter the sea at the south of the island.
The Salso flows through parts of Enna and Caltanissetta before entering the Mediterranean Sea at the port of Licata. To the east, the Alcantara flows through the province of Messina and enters the sea at Giardini Naxos, the Simeto, which flows into the Ionian Sea south of Catania. Other important rivers on the island are the Platani in the southwest. Sicily has a typical Mediterranean climate with mild and wet winters and hot, dry summers with changeable intermediate seasons. On the coasts the south-western, the climate is affected by the African currents and summers can be scorching. Sicily is seen as an island of warm winters but above all along the Tyrrhenian coast and in the inland areas, winters can be cold, with typical continental climate. Snow falls in abundance above 900–1000 metres, but stronger cold waves can carry it in the hills and in coastal cities on the northern coast of the island; the interi
Golden calf
According to the authors of the Bible, the golden calf was an idol made by the Israelites during Moses' absence, when he went up to Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as ḥēṭ’ ha‘ēggel or "The Sin of the Calf", it is first mentioned in Exodus 32:4. Bull worship was common in many cultures. In Egypt, whence according to the Exodus narrative the Hebrews had come, the Apis Bull was a comparable object of worship, which some believe the Hebrews were reviving in the wilderness. Among the Egyptians' and Hebrews' neighbors in the ancient Near East and in the Aegean, the aurochs, the wild bull, was worshipped as the Lunar Bull and as the creature of El; when Moses went up into Biblical Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "gods" to go before them. Aaron gathered up the Israelites' golden earrings and ornaments, constructed a "molten calf" and they declared: "These thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."
Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed the next day to be a feast to the LORD. So they rose up early the next day and "offered burnt-offerings, brought peace-offerings. God told Moses what the Israelites were up to back in camp, that they had turned aside out of the way which God commanded them and he was going to destroy them and start a new people from Moses. Moses besought and pleaded that they should be spared, God "repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." Moses went down from the mountain, but upon seeing the calf, he became angry and threw down the two Tablets of Stone, breaking them. Moses burnt the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on water, forced the Israelites to drink it; when Moses asked him, Aaron admitted collecting the gold, throwing it into the fire, said it came out as a calf. The Bible records; when Moses stood in the gate of the camp, said:'Whosoever is on the LORD's side, let him come unto me.' And all the sons of Levi gathered.
And he said unto them:'Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Put ye every man his sword upon his thigh, go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, slay every man his brother, every man his companion, every man his neighbour.' And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. The golden calf is mentioned in Nehemiah 9:16–21. "But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, they did not obey your commands. They failed to remember the miracles you performed among them, they became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love; therefore you did not desert them when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said,'This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt', or when they committed awful blasphemies. "Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take.
You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; the language suggests that there are some inconsistencies in the other accounts of the Israelites and their use of the calf. As the version in Exodus and 1 Kings are written by Deuteronomistic historians based in the southern kingdom of Judah, there is a proclivity to expose the Israelites as unfaithful; the inconsistency is located in Exodus 32:4 where "gods" is plural despite the construction of a single calf. When Ezra retells the story, he uses the capitalized God. Conversely, a more biblically conservative view offers a tenable explanation accounting for the discrepancy between "gods" in Exodus 32 and "God" in Nehemiah 9:18. In both instances, the Hebrew elohim is used. Since ancient Hebrew failed to distinguish elohim God from elohim gods, Biblical translations are either determined by context or adjacent verb.
In the original account in Exodus 32, the verb is in the 3rd person plural. In Nehemiah 9, the verb connected to elohim is singular. For the JEDP theorist, this inconsistency is confirmatory since the theory maintains a equivalent date for the composition of Exodus and Nehemiah. More conservative scholarship would argue that these two texts were composed about 1000 years apart: Exodus circa 1500 BCE, Nehemiah circa 500 BCE; the biblically conservative framework would therefore account for the verbal inconsistency from Exodus to Nehemiah as an evolution in the use of language over the approximate millennium separating the two books. According to 1 Kings 12:26–30, after Jeroboam establishes the northern Kingdom of Israel, he contemplates the sacrificial practices of the Israelites. Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom will now revert to the house of David. If these people go u
Citadel
A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be fortress, or fortified center; the term is a diminutive of "city" and thus means "little city", so called because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. Ancient Sparta had a citadel as did towns. In a fortification with bastions, the citadel is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy, it is positioned to be the last line of defense, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system. A citadel is a term of the third part of a medieval castle, with higher walls than the rest, it was to be the last line of defense. Some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley Civilisation, where the citadel represented a centralised authority; the main citadel in Indus Valley was 12 meters tall. The purpose of these structures, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive against enemy attacks.
Rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters. Several settlements in Anatolia, including the Assyrian city of Kaneš in modern-day Kültepe, featured citadels. Kaneš' citadel contained the city's palace and official buildings; the citadel of the Greek city of Mycenae was built atop a highly-defensible rectangular hill and was surrounded by walls in order to increase its defensive capabilities. In Ancient Greece, the Acropolis, placed on a commanding eminence, was important in the life of the people, serving as a refuge and stronghold in peril and containing military and food supplies, the shrine of the god and a royal palace; the most well-known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one – the Acrocorinth famed as a strong fortress. In a much period, when Greece was ruled by the Latin Empire, the same strong points were used by the new feudal rulers for much the same purpose. In the first millennium BCE, the Castro culture emerged in Northernwestern Portugal and Spain in the region extending from the Douro river up to the Minho, but soon expanding north along the coast, east following the river valleys.
It was an autochthonous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities. In 2008, the origins of the Celts were attributed to this period by John T. Koch and supported by Barry Cunliffe; the Ave River Valley in Portugal was the core region of this culture, with a large number of small settlements, but settlements known as citadels or oppida by the Roman conquerors. These had several rings of walls and the Roman conquest of the citadels of Abobriga and Cinania around 138 B. C. was possible only by prolonged siege. Ruins of notable citadels still exist, are known by archaeologists as Citânia de Briteiros, Citânia de Sanfins, Cividade de Terroso and Cividade de Bagunte. Rebels who took power in the city but with the citadel still held by the former rulers could by no means regard their tenure of power as secure. One such incident played an important part in the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire; the Hellenistic garrison of Jerusalem and local supporters of the Seleucids held out for many years in the Acra citadel, making Maccabean rule in the rest of Jerusalem precarious.
When gaining possession of the place, the Maccabeans pointedly destroyed and razed the Acra, though they constructed another citadel for their own use in a different part of Jerusalem. At various periods, during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the citadel – having its own fortifications, independent of the city walls – was the last defence of a besieged army held after the town had been conquered. Locals and defending armies have held out citadels long after the city had fallen. For example, in the 1543 Siege of Nice the Ottoman forces led by Barbarossa conquered and pillaged the town and took many captives – but the citadel held out. In the Philippines The Ivatan people of the northern islands of Batanes built fortifications to protect themselves during times of war, they built their so-called idjangs on elevated areas. These fortifications were likened to European castles because of their purpose; the only entrance to the castles would be via a rope ladder that would only be lowered for the villagers and could be kept away when invaders arrived.
In time of war the citadel in many cases afforded retreat to the people living in the areas around the town. However, Citadels were used to protect a garrison or political power from the inhabitants of the town where it was located, being designed to ensure loyalty from the town that they defended. For example, during the Dutch Wars of 1664-67, King Charles II of England constructed a Royal Citadel at Plymouth, an important channel port which needed to be defended from a possible naval attack. However, due to Plymouth's support for the Parliamentarians in the then-recent English Civil War, the Plymouth Citadel was so designed that its guns could fire on the town as well as on the sea approaches. Barcelona had a great citadel built in 1714 to intimidate the Catalans against repeating their mid-17th- and early-18th-century rebellions against the Spanish central government. In the 19th century, when the political climate had liberalized enough to permit it, the people of Barcelona had the citadel torn down, replaced it with the city's main central park, the Parc de la Ciutadella.
A similar example is the Citadella in Hungary. The attack on the Bastille in the French Revolution – though afterwards remembered for th
Phalaris (horse)
Phalaris was a British bred Thoroughbred racehorse a Leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland and a Leading broodmare sire in Great Britain & Ireland. He appears in the sireline of all racehorses. Phalaris was sired by the Champion Stakes winner Polymelus out of Bromus by the Epsom Derby winner Sainfoin, she being inbred in the second and third removes to Springfield. Bromus foaled Hainault by Swynford. Phalaris was from a long line of successful sires; the conformation of Phalaris was typical of a sprinter, upstanding in build, but he was back at the knee. At the age of two years he was rated 9 lbs below the champion filly Fifinella. At three years he was not up to the classic standard at a mile but he did win over 10 furlongs. At four and five years old he was a good sprinter, able to carry more than 10 stone and win on three occasions. Phalaris only raced at Newmarket where he won 16 of his 24 starts and was placed on another three occasions, he was the winner of the Stud Produce Stakes. Phalaris was the top sprinter in 1917 and 1918 when racing was restricted due to World War I.
Phalaris was kept in training for four seasons, was retired to Lord Derby's stud. Phalaris was one of the most influential sires to serve Lord Derby's interests, he had a major influence on modern Thoroughbred pedigrees the world over, he is today the most influential patriarch of the Bend Or dynasty and arguably the world's most influential sire of the 20th century. Nearly all runners in the main races of the leading racing nations are now from the Phalaris sire-line, he appears in the tail-male line of all nine horses. He was the Leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland in 1925, 1928, once second and third and was the Leading broodmare sire in Great Britain & Ireland in 1937, 1941 and 1942. Among his notable progeny, Phalaris sired five Classic race winners plus the following horses: Carpet Slipper, dam of Windsor Slipper Chatelaine, won the 1933 Epsom Oaks and £8,332 Colorado, won the 2,000 Guineas Stakes, Eclipse Stakes, Princess of Wales's Stakes and £30,358 Fair Isle, winner of the 1933 1,000 Guineas Stakes Fairway, won the St. Leger Stakes, Champion Stakes, Jockey Club Cup and four times Leading Sire in England Knockando, 2nd Two Thousand Guineas, sent to Venezuela.
Sire. Manna, won 2,000 Guineas Stakes, Epsom Derby and £11,210 Phaona, dam of Easton. Village Green, won Llangibby Stakes, October Nursery Stakes, Milton Plate. Warden Of The Marches, won Waterford Stakes, Chesterfield Cup and Suburban Handicap, Champion Stakes, 3rd St. Leger Stakes. Phalaris’ major tail-male descendants in the USA include, Native Dancer, Raise a Native, Mr. Prospector, Bold Ruler, Affirmed, Seattle Slew, of course the great Northern Dancer. Among many others, his tail-male line British descendants, or those that raced in Britain or Ireland, include such champions as Arkle, Blue Peter, Fair Trial, Royal Palace, Sir Ivor, Brigadier Gerard, Mill Reef, Troy, Galileo, Sea Bird II, Sea the Stars and High Chaparral. Phalaris dropped dead after covering a mare on 28 February 1931 at the age of 16 years. List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Designing Speed in the Racehorse by Ken McLean ISBN 978-0-929346-80-9 Observations on Thoroughbred Evolution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 345.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 