Galla Placidia
Aelia Galla Placidia, daughter of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, was regent to Valentinian III from 423 until his majority in 437, a major force in Roman politics for most of her life. She was queen consort to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths from 414 until his death in 415, empress consort to Constantius III in 421. Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I and his second wife, herself daughter of Valentinian I and his second wife, Justina, her older brother Gratian died young. Her mother died in childbirth in 394. Placidia was a younger, paternal half-sister of emperors Honorius, her older half-sister Pulcheria predeceased her parents according to Gregory of Nyssa, placing the death of Pulcheria prior to the death of Aelia Flaccilla, the first wife of Theodosius I, in 385. Placidia was granted her own household by her father in the early 390s and was thus financially independent while underage, she was summoned to the court of her father in Mediolanum during 394. She was present at Theodosius' death on January 17, 395.
She was granted the title of "nobilissima puella" during her childhood. Placidia spent most of her early years in the household of his wife, Serena, she is presumed to have learned embroidery. She might have been given a classical education, though no details are known. Serena was a first cousin of Arcadius and Placidia; the poem "In Praise of Serena" by Claudian and the Historia Nova by Zosimus clarify that Serena's father was an elder Honorius, a brother to Theodosius I. According to "De Consulatu Stilichonis" by Claudian, Placidia was betrothed to Eucherius, only known son of Stilicho and Serena, her scheduled marriage is mentioned in the text as the third union between Stilicho's family and the Theodosian dynasty, following those of Stilicho to Serena and Maria, their daughter, to Honorius. Stilicho was the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire, he was the only known person to hold the rank of "magister militum in praesenti" from 394 to 408 in both the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire.
He was titled "magister equitum et peditum", placing him in charge of both the cavalry and infantry forces of the Western Roman Empire. In 408, Arcadius was succeeded by his son Theodosius II, only seven years old. Stilicho planned to proceed to Constantinople and "undertake the management of the affairs of Theodosius", convincing Honorius not to travel to the East himself. Shortly after, Olympius, "an officer of rank in the court-guards" attempted to convince Honorius that Stilicho was in fact conspiring to depose Theodosius II, to replace him with Eucherius. Olympius proceeded to lead a military coup d'état which left him in control of Honorius and his court. Stilicho was arrested and executed on August 22, 408. Eucherius sought refuge in Rome but was arrested there by Arsacius and Tarentius, two eunuchs following imperial command, they executed him not long after. Honorius appointed Tarentius imperial chamberlain, gave the next post under him to Arsacius, their deaths left Placidia unattached.
In the disturbances that followed the fall of Stilicho, throughout the Italian Peninsula the wives and children of the foederati were slain. The foederati were treated accordingly; the natural consequence of all this was that these men, to the number of 30,000, flocked to the camp of Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, clamouring to be led against their cowardly enemies. Alaric accordingly led them across the Julian Alps and, in September 408, stood before the Aurelian Walls and began a strict blockade. Rome was under siege, with minor interruptions, from 408 to August 24, 410. Zosimus records; when Serena was accused of conspiring with Alaric, "the whole senate therefore, with Placidia, uterine sister to the emperor, thought it proper that she should suffer death". Her reasons for concurring to the execution of her cousin are not stated in the account. Prior to the fall of Rome, Placidia was captured by Alaric, her captivity was recorded by both Jordanes and Marcellinus Comes, though the exact circumstances are not mentioned.
She followed the Visigoths in their move from the Italian Peninsula to Gaul in 412. Their ruler Ataulf, having succeeded Alaric, entered an alliance with Honorius against Jovinus and Sebastianus, rival Western Roman emperors located in Gaul, he managed to defeat and execute both Gallo-Roman emperors in 413. After the heads of Sebastianus and Jovinus arrived at Honorius' court in Ravenna in late August, to be forwarded for display among other usurpers on the walls of Carthage, relations between Ataulf and Honorius improved sufficiently for Ataulf to cement them by marrying Galla Placidia at Narbonne on January 1, 414; the nuptials were celebrated with high Roman festivities and magnificent gifts from the Gothic booty. Priscus Attalus gave a classical epithalamium; the marriage was recorded by Hydatius. The historian Jordanes states. Jordanes's date may be when she and the Gothic king first became more than captor and captive. Placidia and Ataulf had Theodosius, he was born in Barcelona by the end of 414.
Theodosius died early in the following year, thus eliminating an opportunity for a Romano-Visigothic line. Years the corpse was exhumed and reburied in the imperial mausoleum in Old St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. In Hispania, Ataulf imprudently accepted into his service a man identified as "Dubius" or "Eberwolf", a former follower of Sarus. Sarus was a Germanic chieftain, killed while fighting under Jovinus and
Pingyao
Pingyao Pingyao Ancient City, is a settlement in central Shanxi, famed for its importance in Chinese economic history and for its well-preserved Ming and Qing urban planning and architecture. Administratively, it comprises the town of Gutao in Pingyao County in Jinzhong Prefecture, it has a population of about 50,000. The town is first recorded c. 800 BC and has been the seat of local government since at least the Qin. By the 16th century, it was a regional financial hub, it is a AAAAA-rated tourist attraction. There was a settlement in place at Pingyao by the reign of the Xuan King, when the Zhou raised earthen ramparts around the site. In the Spring and Autumn period, the county belonged to the kingdom of Jin, it was part of the kingdom of Zhao in the Warring States period. Under the Qin, it was known as Pingtao. During the Han Dynasty, it was known as the seat of Zhongdu County. Pingyao served as the financial center of the region from the 16th century and of the entire Qing Empire during the late 19th century.
During those times, there were more than 20 financial institutions within the city, comprising more than half of the total in the whole country. Rishengchang was the first and largest, controlling half of China's silver trade under the late Qing before going bankrupt in 1914 in the aftermath of the Xinhai Revolution. Organized restorations have been undertaken periodically since the 15th century, the most recent phase beginning in 1979. In 1986, China designated Pingyao as one of the Chinese Cultural Cities, it became a World Heritage Site in 1997, including the outlying Zhenguo Shuanglin Temple. In 2004, part of the southern walls collapsed. In 2015, Pingyao ancient city became a national 5A-class tourist attraction. Pingyao is located on the east bank of the Fen River near the southwestern edge of the Taiyuan Basin, it is 100 km south of central Taiyuan and 715 km southwest of Beijing, the national capital. Pingyao County is adjacent to Qi County, whose seat is a protected historic and cultural city.
The climate of Pingyao is temperate. It’s cold in winter having northwestern winds with little snow and severe fog. In the spring, the temperature varies between day and night, with a little rain and some winds. Summertime is hot and rainy. Autumn days have falling temperatures with little rain and are cool and clear with abundant sunshine. Pingyao still retains its urban layout from the Ming and Qing dynasties, conforming to a typical ba gua pattern. More than 300 sites in or near the city have ancient ruins; the city has over a hundred streets and lanes, lined with close to 4,000 17th–19th century shops and residences. The streets and storefronts still retain their historical appearance; the city walls of Pingyao were constructed in the 3rd year of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming. They enclose an area of about 2.25 km2. The town is accessed by six barbican gates, one each on the north and south walls and two each on the east and west walls; this pattern is similar to that of a turtle, earning Pingyao the moniker "Turtle City."
The walls measure about 12 m high, with a perimeter of 6,163 m. A 4 m wide and 4 m deep moat can be found just outside the walls. Aside from the four structured towers at the four corners, there are 72 watchtowers and more than 3,000 battlements; the number of defensive works represents the number of Confucius's disciples and other students. The walls are considered among the best-preserved ancient city walls on this scale; as of 2009, Pingyao had a population of 48,531 people living in 16,634 households. 12,132 residents held 36,399 were from other parts of China. Pingyao Ancient City and its environs are organized as the town of "Gutao", the seat of Pingyao County. Gutao directly oversees 10 administrative villages: As of 2009, the town had a labour pool of 19,059 people. 3,811 farmers worked 9977 mu of arable land, producing 33.7m RMB of crops and other goods. The local focus is on increased mechanization; the area is well known for its beef and produces grain and cotton. The rest of the workforce is divided between industry and the service sector tourism.
Industry was focused on improving the energy efficiency of its practices. A local specialty is lacquerware; the service sector, including tourism, produced less income than industry—790m RMB–but was growing and marked for special focus by local government. Increases in tourism have put pressure on Pingyao. During China's Golden Weeks, the number of visitors to the city has sometimes been as high as 2½ times its planned maximum capacity. During the single week around May Day in 2007, the town made about 94.5m RMB from visiting tourists. Since that high point in 2007, the government has reduced the number and length of China's "golden weeks", spreading domestic tourism more equitably throughout the year; the Global Heritage Fund has worked with the Pingyao County People's Government to protect the town against overdevelopment and damage from its high volume of visitors. The stated goal for their Pingyao Cultural Heritage Development Program is improved preservation of local vernacular architecture and traditional arts through improved planning and increased conservation efforts.
Local specialties include a favourite of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Other local products are Changshengyuan
Veterinary physician
A veterinary physician called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon, is a professional who practices veterinary medicine by treating diseases and injuries in animals. In many countries, the local nomenclature for a veterinarian is a regulated and protected term, meaning that members of the public without the prerequisite qualifications and/or licensure are not able to use the title. In many cases, the activities that may be undertaken by a veterinarian are restricted only to those professionals who are registered as a veterinarian. For instance, in the United Kingdom, as in other jurisdictions, animal treatment may only be performed by registered veterinary physicians, it is illegal for any person, not registered to call themselves a veterinarian or prescribe any treatment. Most veterinary physicians work in clinical settings; these veterinarians may be involved in a general practice. As with other healthcare professionals, veterinarians face ethical decisions about the care of their patients.
Current debates within the profession include the ethics of certain procedures believed to be purely cosmetic or unnecessary for behavioral issues, such as declawing of cats, docking of tails, cropping of ears and debarking on dogs. The word "veterinary" comes from the Latin veterinae meaning "working animals". "Veterinarian" was first used in print by Thomas Browne in 1646. Ancient Indian sage and veterinary physician Shalihotra, the son of a Brahmin sage, Hayagosha, is considered the founder of veterinary sciences; the first veterinary college was founded in France in 1762 by Claude Bourgelat. According to Lupton, after observing the devastation being caused by cattle plague to the French herds, Bourgelat devoted his time to seeking out a remedy; this resulted in his founding a veterinary college in Lyon in 1761, from which establishment he dispatched students to combat the disease. The Odiham Agricultural Society was founded in 1783 in England to promote agriculture and industry, played an important role in the foundation of the veterinary profession in Britain.
A 1785 Society meeting resolved to "promote the study of Farriery upon rational scientific principles." The professionalization of the veterinary trade was achieved in 1790, through the campaigning of Granville Penn, who persuaded the Frenchman Benoit Vial de St. Bel to accept the professorship of the newly established Veterinary College in London; the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was established by royal charter in 1844. Veterinary science came of age in the late 19th century, with notable contributions from Sir John McFadyean, credited by many as having been the founder of modern Veterinary research. Veterinarians treat disease, disorder or injury in animals, which includes diagnosis and aftercare; the scope of practice and experience of the individual veterinarian will dictate what interventions they perform, but most will perform surgery. Unlike in human medicine, veterinarians must rely on clinical signs, as animals are unable to vocalize symptoms as a human would. In some cases, owners may be able to provide a medical history and the veterinarian can combine this information along with observations, the results of pertinent diagnostic tests such as radiography, CT scans, MRI, blood tests and others.
Veterinarians must consider the appropriateness of euthanasia if a condition is to leave the animal in pain or with a poor quality of life, or if treatment of a condition is to cause more harm to the patient than good, or if the patient is unlikely to survive any treatment regimen. Additionally, there are scenarios where euthanasia is considered due to the constrains of the client's finances; as with human medicine, much veterinary work is concerned with prophylactic treatment, in order to prevent problems occurring in the future. Common interventions include vaccination against common animal illnesses, such as distemper or rabies, dental prophylaxis to prevent or inhibit dental disease; this may involve owner education so as to avoid future medical or behavioral issues. Additionally veterinarians have the prevention of zoonoses; the majority of veterinarians are employed in private practice treating animals. Small animal veterinarians work in veterinary clinics, veterinary hospitals, or both.
Large animal veterinarians spend more time travelling to see their patients at the primary facilities which house them, such as zoos or farms. Other employers include charities treating animals, colleges of veterinary medicine, research laboratories, animal food companies, pharmaceutical companies. In many countries, the government may be a major employer of veterinarians, such as the United States Department of Agriculture or the Animal and Plant Health Agency in the United Kingdom. State and local governments employ veterinarians. Veterinarians and their practices may be specialized in certain areas of veterinary medicine. Areas of focus include: Exotic animal veterinaria
Bendorf
Bendorf is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. 7 kilometres north of Koblenz. The town consists of the following districts: Bendorf Sayn Mülhofen Stromberg From the 18th century Bendorf was dominated by mining and the metallurgical industry; the most imposing relic of this era is the Sayner Hütte. The ores of the Bendorfer mine works came from the Trierischer Loh iron-ore mine; the Rhine port of Bendorf dates from 1900. In addition to handling clay and basalt it has the largest oil-storage facilities between Mainz and Cologne. Today the former industrial city is home to many retail stores. Bendorf Focus is an association of traders, the aim of, to improve the local economy; the Bendorf Vierwindenhöhe FM radio transmitter is situated on the hill known as Vierwindenhöhe. Heinrich Böll's short story Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa... is set in Bendorf. Theodor Wiegand, archaeologist Hermann Junker, born in Bendorf and Catholic priest Georg Bauer, German politician, Member of Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate, honorary citizen of the city of Bendorf Hans Werner Kettenbach, journalist and screenwriter Hans Müller, member of the Schleswig-Holstein State Parliament 2005-2012 Jutta Nardenbach, soccer player Media related to Bendorf at Wikimedia Commons Bendorf travel guide from Wikivoyage
Lycée Thibaut de Champagne
Lycée Thibaut de Champagne is a senior high school in Provins, Seine-et-Marne, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It is under the authority of the Académie de Créteil. Lycée Thibaut de Champagne
Ancona
Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 as of 2015. Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region; the city is located 280 km northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic Sea, between the slopes of the two extremities of the promontory of Monte Conero, Monte Astagno and Monte Guasco. Ancona is one of the main ports on the Adriatic Sea for passenger traffic, is the main economic and demographic centre of the region. Ancona was founded by Greek settlers from Syracuse in about 387 BC, who gave it its name: Ancona stems from the Greek word Ἀγκών, meaning "elbow". Greek merchants established a Tyrian purple dye factory here. In Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch, the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, continued the use of the Greek language; when it became a Roman town is uncertain. It was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian War of 178 BC. Julius Caesar took possession of it after crossing the Rubicon.
Its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia, was enlarged by Trajan, who constructed the north quay with his Syrian architect Apollodorus of Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch with a single archway, without bas-reliefs, erected in his honour in 115 by the Senate and Roman people. Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths and Saracens between the 3rd and 5th centuries, but recovered its strength and importance, it was one of the cities of the Pentapolis of the Exarchate of Ravenna, a lordship of the Byzantine Empire, in the 7th and 8th centuries. In 840, Saracen raiders burned the city. After Charlemagne's conquest of northern Italy, it became the capital of the Marca di Ancona, whence the name of the modern region. After 1000, Ancona became independent turning into an important maritime republic clashing against the nearby power of Venice. An oligarchic republic, Ancona was ruled by six Elders, elected by the three terzieri into which the city was divided: S. Pietro and Capodimonte.
It had a coin of its own, the agontano, a series of laws known as Statuti del mare e del Terzenale and Statuti della Dogana. Ancona was allied with the Republic of Ragusa and the Byzantine Empire. In 1137, 1167 and 1174 it was strong enough to push back the forces of the Holy Roman Empire. Anconitan ships took part in the Crusades, their navigators included Cyriac of Ancona. In the struggle between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors that troubled Italy from the 12th century onwards, Ancona sided with the Guelphs. Differently from other cities of northern Italy, Ancona never became a seignory; the sole exception was the rule of the Malatesta, who took the city in 1348 taking advantage of the black death and of a fire that had destroyed many of its important buildings. The Malatesta were ousted in 1383. In 1532 it definitively lost its freedom and became part of the Papal States, under Pope Clement VII. Symbol of the papal authority was the massive Citadel. Together with Rome, Avignon in southern France, Ancona was the sole city in the Papal States in which the Jews were allowed to stay after 1569, living in the ghetto built after 1555.
In 1733 Pope Clement XII extended the quay, an inferior imitation of Trajan's arch was set up. The southern quay was built in 1880, the harbour was protected by forts on the heights. From 1797 onwards, when the French took it, it appears in history as an important fortress. Ancona, as well as Venice, became a important destination for merchants from the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century; the Greeks formed the largest of the communities of foreign merchants. They were refugees from former Byzantine or Venetian territories that were occupied by the Ottomans in the late 15th and 16th centuries; the first Greek community was established in Ancona early in the 16th century. Natalucci, the 17th-century historian of the city, notes the existence of 200 Greek families in Ancona at the opening of the 16th century. Most of them came from northwestern Greece, i.e. the Ionian Epirus. In 1514, Dimitri Caloiri of Ioannina obtained reduced custom duties for Greek merchants coming from the towns of Ioannina and Avlona in Epirus.
In 1518 a Jewish merchant of Avlona succeeded in lowering the duties paid in Ancona for all “the Levantine merchants, subjects to the Turk”. In 1531 the Confraternity of the Greeks was established which included Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic Greeks, they secured the use of the Church of St. Anna dei Greci and were granted permission to hold services according to the Greek and the Latin rite; the church of St. Anna had existed since the 13th century as "Santa Maria in Porta Cipriana," on ruins of the ancient Greek walls of Ancona. In 1534 a decision by Pope Paul III favoured the activity of merchants of all nationalities and religions from the Levant and allowed them to settle in Ancona with their families. A Venetian travelling through Ancona in 1535 recorded that the city was "full of merchants from every nation and Greeks and Turks." In the second half of the 16th century, the presence of Greek and other merchants from the Ottoman Empire declined after a series of restrictive measures taken by the Italian authorities and the pope.
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Champagne fairs
The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle that lasted about 2 -3 weeks of trading fairs held in towns in the Champagne and Brie regions of France in the Middle Ages. From their origins in local agricultural and stock fairs, the Champagne fairs became an important engine in the reviving economic history of medieval Europe, "veritable nerve centers" serving as a premier market for textiles, leather and spices. At their height, in the late 12th and the 13th century, the fairs linked the cloth-producing cities of the Low Countries with the Italian dyeing and exporting centers, with Genoa in the lead; the fairs, which were well-organized at the start of the 12th century, were one of the earliest manifestations of a linked European economy, a characteristic of the High Middle Ages. From the 12th century, the fairs, conveniently sited on ancient land routes and self-regulated through the development of the Lex mercatoria, the "merchant law", dominated the commercial and banking relations operating at the frontier region between the north and the Mediterranean.
The towns in which the six fairs of the annual circuit were held had some features in common, but none that would have inexorably drawn the commerce of the fairs: each was situated at an intersection or former way-station of Roman roads and near a river, but only Lagny-sur-Marne had a navigable one. Troyes and Provins had been administrative centers in Charlemagne's empire that developed into the central towns of the County of Champagne and the Brie Champenoise; the self-interest and the political will of the Counts of Champagne was the over-riding factor. The series of six fairs, each lasting more than six weeks, were spaced through the year's calendar: the fair of Lagny-sur-Marne began on 2 January: the fair at Bar-sur-Aube on the Tuesday before mid-Lent; each fair began with the entrée of eight days during which merchants set up, followed by the days allotted for the cloth fair, the days of the leather fair, the days for the sale of spices and other things sold by weight. In the last four-day period of the fairs, accounts were settled.
In actual practice and departures were more flexible and efficient, relying on flexibly formed and dissolved partnerships, which freed the "silent" partners from undertaking the arduous journey on each occasion, delegated agents who could receive payment and undertake contracts, factors, integrated with communications and transportation, the extensive use of credit instruments in the trade. The towns provided huge warehouses. Furs and skins traveled in both directions, from Spain and North Africa in the south via Marseilles, the prized vair, rabbit and other skins from the north. From the north came woolens and linen cloth. From the south came silk and other spices, drugs and the new concepts of credit and bookkeeping. Goods converged from Spain, travelling along the well-established pilgrim route from Santiago de Compostela and from Germany. Once the cloth sales had been concluded, the reckoning of credit at the tables of Italian money-changers effected compensatory payments for goods, established future payments on credit, made loans to princes and lords, settled bills of exchange.
After trade routes had shifted away from the north-south axis that depended on the Champagne commodities fairs, the fairs continued to function as an international clearing house for paper debts and credits, as they had built up a system of commercial law, regulated by private judges separate from the feudal social order and the requirements of scrupulously maintaining a "good name", prior to the third-party enforcement of legal codes by the nation-state. To cross the Alps, the caravans of pack mules made their way over the Mont Cenis Pass, a journey that took more than a month from Genoa to the fair cities, along one of the varied options of the Via Francigena. Professional freight-handlers might make the trek, under contract to merchants. P. Huvelin documented the existence, by the second half of the thirteenth century, of a faster courier service facilitated the transfer of letters and market information between north and south, one organised for the particular advantage of the Arte di Calimala, the cloth-merchants' guild of Florence, others organised by cities of Siena and Genoa and by the mercantile houses.
In early February, 1290, it took a courier no more than twenty days to make the journey from Lagny to Florence, R. D. Face noted. Alternatively, north Italian goods were shipped to Aigues-Mortes up or along the Rhone, Saône and Seine; the fairs were important in the spread and exchange of cultural influences—the first appearance of Gothic architecture in Italy was the result of merchants from Siena rebuilding their houses in the Northern style. The phrase "not to know your Champagne fairs" meant not knowing, it was in the interest of the Count of Champagne independent of his nominal suzerain, the King of France, to extend the liberties and prerogatives of the towns, which were founded in the increased security of the feudal settlement following the feudal disorders of the tenth century. The predominance of the
