1.
Tiber
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It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres. The river has achieved lasting fame as the watercourse of the city of Rome. The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in central Italy and flows in a southerly direction past Perugia. However, it does not form a delta, owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, to the steep shelving of the coast. The source of the Tiber consists of two springs 10 metres away from each other on Mount Fumaiolo and these springs are called Le Vene. The springs are in a beech forest 1,268 metres above sea level, during the 1930s, Benito Mussolini placed an antique marble Roman column at the point where the river arises, inscribed QUI NASCE IL FIUME SACRO AI DESTINI DI ROMA. There is an eagle on the top of this column, the first miles of the Tiber run through Valtiberina before entering Umbria. It is probable that the genesis of the name Tiber was pre-Latin, like the Roman name of Tibur, the same root is found in the Latin praenomen Tiberius. There are also Etruscan variants of this praenomen in Thefarie and Teperie, the legendary king Tiberinus, ninth in the king-list of Alba Longa, was said to have drowned in the river Albula, which was afterward called Tiberis. Yet another etymology is from *dubri-, water, considered by Alessio as Sicel and this root *dubri- is widespread in Western Europe e. g. Dover, Portus Dubris. According to the legend, Jupiter made him a god and guardian spirit of the river and this gave rise to the standard Roman depiction of the river as a powerfully built reclining god, also named Tiberinus, with streams of water flowing from his hair and beard. The Tiber was also believed to be the river into which Romulus and Remus were thrown as infants, according to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on the banks of the Tiber about 25 kilometres from the sea at Ostia. The island Isola Tiberina in the centre of Rome, between Trastevere and the ancient center, was the site of an important ancient ford and was later bridged. Legend says Romes founders, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, were abandoned on its waters, the river marked the boundary between the lands of the Etruscans to the west, the Sabines to the east and the Latins to the south. Benito Mussolini, born in Romagna, adjusted the boundary between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, so that the springs of the Tiber would lie in Romagna and it was later used to ship stone, timber and foodstuffs to Rome. During the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, the harbour at Ostia became a key naval base and it later became Romes most important port, where wheat, olive oil, and wine were imported from Romes colonies around the Mediterranean. Wharves were also built along the riverside in Rome itself, lining the riverbanks around the Campus Martius area, the Romans connected the river with a sewer system and with an underground network of tunnels and other channels, to bring its water into the middle of the city. Wealthy Romans had garden-parks or horti on the banks of the river in Rome up through the first century BC and these may have been sold and developed about a century later
2.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
3.
Arch bridge
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An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side, a viaduct may be made from a series of arches, although other more economical structures are typically used today. Possibly the oldest existing bridge is the Mycenaean Arkadiko bridge in Greece from about 1300 BC. The stone corbel arch bridge is used by the local populace. The well-preserved Hellenistic Eleutherna Bridge has a corbel arch. The 4th century BC Rhodes Footbridge rests on an early voussoir arch, a more complete survey by the Italian scholar Vittorio Galliazzo found 931 Roman bridges, mostly of stone, in as many as 26 different countries. Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular, although a number were segmental arch bridges, generally, Roman bridges featured wedge-shaped primary arch stones of the same in size and shape. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia Aqueduct. Their bridges featured from an early time onwards flood openings in the piers, e. g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome, Roman engineers were the first and until the industrial revolution the only ones to construct bridges with concrete, which they called Opus caementicium. The outside was covered with brick or ashlar, as in the Alcántara bridge. The Romans also introduced segmental arch bridges into bridge construction, trajans bridge over the Danube featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood. This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length, while the longest extant Roman bridge is the 790 m long Puente Romano at Mérida. The late Roman Karamagara Bridge in Cappadocia may represent the earliest surviving bridge featuring a pointed arch, in medieval Europe, bridge builders improved on the Roman structures by using narrower piers, thinner arch barrels and lower span-rise ratios on bridges. Gothic pointed arches were introduced, reducing lateral thrust. The 14th century in particular saw bridge building reaching new heights, the bridge at Trezzo sullAdda, destroyed in the 15th century, even featured a span length of 72 m, not matched until 1796. Constructions such as the acclaimed Florentine segmental arch bridge Ponte Vecchio combined sound engineering with aesthetical appeal, the three elegant arches of the Renaissance Ponte Santa Trinita constitute the oldest elliptic arch bridge worldwide. In China, the oldest existing bridge is the Zhaozhou Bridge of 605 AD. The Zhaozhou Bridge, with a length of 167 feet and span of 123 feet, is the worlds first wholly stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge, Bridges with perforated spandrels can be found worldwide, such as in China
4.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an Italian artist famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric prisons. Piranesi was born in Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso, then part of the Republic of Venice, from 1740 he had an opportunity to work in Rome as a draughtsman for Marco Foscarini, the Venetian ambassador of the new Pope Benedict XIV. He resided in the Palazzo Venezia and studied under Giuseppe Vasi, Giuseppe Vasi found Piranesis talent was beyond engraving. According to Legrand, Vasi told Piranesi that you are too much of a painter, my friend, from 1743 to 1747 he sojourned mainly in Venice where, according to some sources, he often visited Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a leading artist in Venice. It was Tiepolo who expanded the restrictive conventions of reproductive, topographical and he then returned to Rome, where he opened a workshop in Via del Corso. In 1748–1774 he created a series of vedute of the city which established his fame. In the meantime Piranesi devoted himself to the measurement of many of the ancient edifices, in 1761 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca and opened a printing facility of his own. In 1762 the Campo Marzio dellantica Roma collection of engravings was printed, the following year he was commissioned by Pope Clement XIII to restore the choir of San Giovanni in Laterano, but the work did not materialize. He combined certain ancient architectural elements, trophies and escutcheons, with a venetian whimsicality for the facade of the church and this was the only time he expressed himself in actual marble and stone. In 1767 he was made a knight of the Golden Spur, in 1776 he created his best known work as a restorer of ancient sculpture, the Piranesi Vase, and in 1777–78 he published Avanzi degli Edifici di Pesto. He died in Rome in 1778 after an illness, and was buried in the Church he had helped restore. His tomb was designed by Giuseppi Angelini, the idea of Enlightenment by theorists and artists traveled all over the Europe including Paris, Dresden, and London. The developing center of the Grand Tour was Rome, Rome became a new meeting place and intellectual capital of Europe for the leaders of a new movement in the arts. The city was attracting artists and architects all over the Europe beside the Grand Tourists, dealers. While many came though official institutions such as the French Academy, others came to see the new discoveries at Heraculaneum, Piranesi was not only aware of the engineering of the ancient buildings but also the poetic aspects of the ruins from his experience in Venice. One distinctive feature of Piranesis work is based on the interpretation of Classical antiquity by adding his imagination to increase the originality, through the works of Marco Ricci and particularly Giovanini Paolo Pannini, Piranesi became familiar with the architectonic values as well as the ruin fantasy. The remains of Rome kindled Piranesis enthusiasm, some of his later work was completed by his children and several pupils. Piranesis son and coadjutor, Francesco, collected and preserved his plates, twenty-nine folio volumes containing about 2000 prints appeared in Paris
5.
Battle of the Milvian Bridge
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The Battle of the Milvian Bridge took place between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on October 28,312. It takes its name from the Milvian Bridge, an important route over the Tiber, Constantine won the battle and started on the path that led him to end the Tetrarchy and become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Maxentius drowned in the Tiber during the battle and his body was taken from the river. According to chroniclers such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius, the battle marked the beginning of Constantines conversion to Christianity, Eusebius of Caesarea recounts that Constantine and his soldiers had a vision sent by the Christian God. This was interpreted as a promise of victory if the sign of the Chi-Rho, the underlying causes of the battle were the rivalries inherent in Diocletians Tetrarchy. After Diocletian stepped down on 1 May 305, his successors began to struggle for control of the Roman Empire almost immediately, although Constantine was the son of the Western Emperor Constantius, the Tetrarchic ideology did not necessarily provide for hereditary succession. When Constantius died on 25 July 306, his fathers troops proclaimed Constantine as Augustus in Eboracum, in Rome, the favorite was Maxentius, the son of Constantius imperial colleague Maximian, who seized the title of emperor on 28 October 306. But whereas Constantines claim was recognized by Galerius, ruler of the Eastern provinces, Galerius, however, recognized Constantine as holding only the lesser imperial rank of Caesar. Galerius ordered his co-Augustus, Severus, to put Maxentius down in early 307, once Severus arrived in Italy, however, his army defected to Maxentius. Severus was captured, imprisoned, and executed, Galerius himself marched on Rome in the autumn, but failed to take the city. Constantine avoided conflict with both Maxentius and the Eastern emperors for most of this period, by 312, however, Constantine and Maxentius were engaged in open hostility with one another, although they were brothers-in‑law through Constantines marriage to Fausta, sister of Maxentius. In the spring of 312, Constantine gathered his forces and decided to oust Maxentius himself. He easily overran northern Italy, winning two battles, the first near Turin, the second at Verona, where the praetorian prefect Ruricius Pompeianus, Maxentius most senior general, was killed. It is commonly understood that on the evening of 27 October with the armies preparing for battle, some details of that vision, however, differ between the sources reporting it. Lactantius states that, in the night before the battle, Constantine was commanded in a dream to delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers and he followed the commands of his dream and marked the shields with a sign denoting Christ. Lactantius describes that sign as a staurogram, or a Latin cross with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion, there is no certain evidence that Constantine ever used that sign, opposed to the better known Chi-Rho sign described by Eusebius. From Eusebius, two accounts of the battle survive, the first, shorter one in the Ecclesiastical History promotes the belief that God helped Constantine but does not mention any vision. In his later Life of Constantine, Eusebius gives an account of a vision
6.
Carthage
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Carthage was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage and during the 7th to 3rd centuries BC, included its sphere of influence, the Carthaginian Empire. The empire extended over much of the coast of North Africa as well as encompassing substantial parts of coastal Iberia, Carthage was founded in 814 BC. At the height of the prominence it served as a major hub of trade. The city also had to deal with potentially hostile Berbers, the inhabitants of the area where Carthage was built. In 146 BC, after the third and final Punic War, Roman forces destroyed, redesigned, nearly all of the other Phoenician city-states and former Carthaginian dependencies subsequently fell into Roman hands. According to Roman sources, Phoenician colonists from modern-day Lebanon, led by Dido, Queen Elissa was an exiled princess of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. At its peak, the metropolis she founded, Carthage, came to be called the city, ruling 300 other cities around the western Mediterranean Sea. Elissas brother, Pygmalion of Tyre, had murdered Elissas husband, Elissa escaped the tyranny of her own country, founding the new city of Carthage and subsequently its later dominions. Details of her life are sketchy and confusing, but the following can be deduced from various sources, according to Justin, Princess Elissa was the daughter of King Belus II of Tyre. When he died, the throne was jointly bequeathed to her brother, Pygmalion and she married her uncle Acerbas, also known as Sychaeus, the High Priest of Melqart, a man with both authority and wealth comparable to the king. This led to increased rivalry between the elite and the monarchy. Pygmalion was a tyrant, lover of both gold and intrigue, who desired the authority and fortune enjoyed by Acerbas, Pygmalion assassinated Acerbas in the temple and kept the misdeed concealed from his sister for a long time, deceiving her with lies about her husbands death. At the same time, the people of Tyre called for a single sovereign, in the Roman epic of Virgil, the Aeneid, Queen Dido, the Greek name for Elissa, is first introduced as a highly esteemed character. In just seven years, since their exodus from Tyre, the Carthaginians have rebuilt a successful kingdom under her rule and her subjects adore her and present her with a festival of praise. Her character is perceived by Virgil as even more noble when she offers asylum to Aeneas and his men, who have recently escaped from Troy. A spirit in the form of the god, Mercury, sent by Jupiter, reminds Aeneas that his mission is not to stay in Carthage with his new-found love, Dido. Virgil ends his legend of Dido with the story that, when Aeneas tells Dido, her heart broken, as she lay dying, she predicted eternal strife between Aeneas people and her own, rise up from my bones, avenging spirit she says, an invocation of Hannibal. The settlements at Crete and Sicily were in conflict with the Greeks
7.
Catiline
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He is also known for several acquittals in court, including one for the charge of adultery with a Vestal Virgin. Catiline was born in 108 BC to one of the oldest patrician families in Rome, although his family was of consular heritage, they were then declining in both social and financial fortunes. Virgil later gave the family an ancestor, Sergestus, who had come with Aeneas to Italy, presumably because they were notably ancient, the last Sergius to be consul had been Gnaeus Sergius Fidenas Coxo in 380 BC. Later, these factors would dramatically shape Catilines ambitions and goals as he would desire above all else to restore the heritage of his family along with its financial power. An able commander, Catiline had a military career. He served in the Social War with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Cicero, during the regime of Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, Catiline played no major role, but he remained politically secure. He later supported Lucius Cornelius Sulla in the war of 84–81 BC. Catiline is also accused of murdering his first wife and son so that he could marry the wealthy and beautiful Aurelia Orestilla, daughter of the Consul of 71 BC, in the early 70s BC he served abroad, possibly with Publius Servilius Vatia in Cilicia. He was praetor in 68 BC, and for the two years was the propraetorian governor for Africa. He was finally brought to trial in 65 BC, where he received the support of distinguished men. Even one of the consuls for 65 BC, Lucius Manlius Torquatus, Cicero also contemplated defending Catiline in court. The first Catilinarian conspiracy was a plot to murder the consuls of 65 BC, historians consider it unlikely that Catiline would have been involved in the First Catilinarian Conspiracy or, indeed, that the conspiracy existed at all. During 64 BC, Catiline was officially accepted as a candidate in the election for 63 BC. He ran alongside Gaius Antonius Hybrida, who some suspect may have been a fellow conspirator, nevertheless, Catiline was defeated by Cicero and Antonius Hybrida in the consular election, largely because the Roman aristocracy feared Catiline and his economic plan. The Optimates were particularly repulsed because he promoted the plight of the urban plebs along with his policy of tabulae novae. He was brought to later that same year, but this time it was for his role in the Sullan proscriptions. At the insistence of Cato the Younger, who was then quaestor, other allegations claimed that he murdered several other notable men. Despite this, Catiline was acquitted again, though some surmise that it was through the influence of Caesar, Catiline chose to stand for the consulship again in the following year
8.
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
9.
Constantine the Great
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Constantine the Great, also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman Army officer and his father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west, in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian, in 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia. As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, the government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation and it would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was adopted by Christians, in military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. The age of Constantine marked an epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself. It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years and his more immediate political legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletians tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign, the medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a tyrant, trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on his orders at the site of Jesus tomb in Jerusalem. The Papal claim to power in the High Middle Ages was based on the supposed Donation of Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics, though Constantine has historically often been referred to as the First Christian Emperor, scholars debate his actual beliefs or even his actual comprehension of the Christian faith itself. Constantine was a ruler of major importance, and he has always been a controversial figure, the fluctuations in Constantines reputation reflect the nature of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed, but have strongly influenced by the official propaganda of the period. There are no surviving histories or biographies dealing with Constantines life, the nearest replacement is Eusebius of Caesareas Vita Constantini, a work that is a mixture of eulogy and hagiography
10.
Maxentius
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For the saint of the same name see Saint Maxentius Maxentius was Roman Emperor from 306 to 312. He was the son of former Emperor Maximian and the son-in-law of Emperor Galerius, the latter part of his reign was preoccupied with civil war, allying with Maximinus II against Licinius and Constantine. The latter defeated him at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, Maxentius exact date of birth is unknown, it was probably around 278. He was the son of the Emperor Maximian and his wife Eutropia, as his father became emperor in 285, he was regarded as crown prince who would eventually follow his father on the throne. He seems not to have served, however, in any important military or administrative position during the reign of Diocletian, the exact date of his marriage to Valeria Maximilla, daughter of Galerius, is unknown. He had two sons, Valerius Romulus and an unknown one, in 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, and the former caesares Constantius and Galerius became Augusti. Although two sons of emperors were available, Constantine and Maxentius, they were passed over for the new tetrarchy, Maxentius retired to an estate some miles from Rome. When Constantius died in 306, his son Constantine was crowned emperor on July 25 and this set the precedent for Maxentius accession later in the same year. Maxentius accepted the honour, promised donations to the citys troops, the usurpation obviously went largely without bloodshed, the prefect of Rome went over to Maxentius and retained his office. Apparently the conspirators turned to Maximian as well, who had retired to a palace in Lucania, Maxentius managed to be recognized as emperor in central and southern Italy, the islands of Corsica and Sardinia and Sicily, and the African provinces. Northern Italy remained under the control of the western Augustus Severus, Maxentius refrained from using the titles Augustus or Caesar at first and styled himself princeps invictus, in the hope of obtaining recognition of his reign by the senior emperor Galerius. However, the latter refused to do so, apart from his alleged antipathy towards Maxentius, Galerius probably wanted to deter others from following the examples of Constantine and Maxentius and declaring themselves emperors. Galerius reckoned that it would be not too difficult to quell the usurpation, and early in 307, the Augustus Severus marched on Rome with a large army. When Maximian himself finally left his retreat and returned to Rome to assume the office once again and support his son. Shortly after he surrendered to Maximian, who promised that his life be spared, the joint rule of Maxentius and Maximian in Rome was tested further when Galerius himself marched to Italy in the summer of 307 with an even larger army. While negotiating with the invader, Maxentius could repeat what he did to Severus, by the promise of large sums of money, Galerius was forced to withdraw, plundering Italy on his way. Some time during the invasion, Severus was put to death by Maxentius, after the failed campaign of Galerius, Maxentius reign over Italy and Africa was firmly established. However, Constantine tried to avoid breaking with Galerius, and did not openly support Maxentius during the invasion
11.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
12.
Monk
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A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of other monks. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions, in the Greek language the term can apply to women, but in modern English it is mainly in use for men. The word nun is typically used for female monastics, although the term monachos is of Christian origin, in the English language monk tends to be used loosely also for both male and female ascetics from other religious or philosophical backgrounds. However, being generic, it is not interchangeable terms that denote particular kinds of monk, such as cenobite, hermit, anchorite, hesychast. In Eastern Orthodoxy monasticism holds a special and important place. Orthodox monastics separate themselves from the world in order to pray unceasingly for the world and they do not, in general, have as their primary purpose the running of social services, but instead are concerned with attaining theosis, or union with God. However, care for the poor and needy has always been an obligation of monasticism, the level of contact though will vary from community to community. Hermits, on the hand, have little or no contact with the outside world. Orthodox monasticism does not have religious orders as are found in the West, basil the Great and the Philokalia, which was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. Hesychasm is of importance in the ascetical theology of the Orthodox Church. Meals are usually taken in common in a dining hall known as a trapeza. Food is usually simple and is eaten in silence while one of the brethren reads aloud from the writings of the Holy Fathers. The monastic lifestyle takes a deal of serious commitment. Within the cenobitic community, all monks conform to a way of living based on the traditions of that particular monastery. In struggling to attain this conformity, the comes to realize his own shortcomings and is guided by his spiritual father in how to deal honestly with them. For this same reason, bishops are almost always chosen from the ranks of monks, Eastern monasticism is found in three distinct forms, anchoritic, cenobitic, and the middle way between the two, known as the skete. One normally enters a community first, and only after testing and spiritual growth would one go on to the skete or, for the most advanced. However, one is not necessarily expected to join a skete or become a solitary, in general, Orthodox monastics have little or no contact with the outside world, including their own families
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