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Christian Persecution Of Paganism Under Theodosius I
The persecution of pagans under Theodosius I began in 381, after the first couple of years of his reign as co-emperor in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. In the 380s, Theodosius I reiterated the ban of Constantine the Great on animal sacrifices, prohibited haruspicy on pain of death, pioneered the criminalization of magistrates who did not enforce anti-pagan laws, broke up some pagan associations and destroyed pagan temples. Between 389 and 391 he issued the "Theodosian decrees," which established a practical ban on paganism; visits to the temples were forbidden, the remaining pagan holidays were abolished, the sacred fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished as the Vestal Virgins were disbanded, and auspices and witchcraft were deemed punishable offenses. Theodosius refused to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House, as requested by pagan Senators. In 392 he became emperor of the whole empire (the last one to be so). From this momen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustus (honorific)
''Augustus'' (plural ''Augusti''; , ; "majestic", "great" or "venerable") was an ancient Roman title given as both name and title to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (often referred to simply as Augustus), Rome's first Emperor. On his death, it became an official title of his successor, and was so used by Roman emperors thereafter. The feminine form '' Augusta'' was used for Roman empresses and other female members of the Imperial family. The masculine and feminine forms originated in the time of the Roman Republic, in connection with things considered divine or sacred in traditional Roman religion. Their use as titles for major and minor Roman deities of the Empire associated the Imperial system and Imperial family with traditional Roman virtues and the divine will, and may be considered a feature of the Roman Imperial cult. In Rome's Greek-speaking provinces, "Augustus" was translated as ''Sebastos'' (Σεβαστός, "venerable"), or Hellenised as ''Augoustos'' (); these titl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) (Kurdish languages, Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and bishopric Callinicum (formerly a Latin and now a Maronite Catholic titular see) was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 796 and 809, under the reign of Harun al-Rashid. It was also the capital of the Territory of the Islamic State, Islamic State from 2014 to 2017. With a population of 531,952 based on the 2021 official census, Raqqa is the sixth largest city in Syria. During the Syrian Civil War, the city was captured in 2013 by the Syrian opposition and then by the Islamic State. ISIS made the city its capital in 2014. As a result, the city was hit by airstrikes from the Syrian government, Russia, the United States, and Military intervention against ISIL, several other countries. Mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Sacrifice
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of one or more animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spread of Christianity in Late Antiquity, and continue in some cultures or religions today. Human sacrifice, where it existed, was always much rarer. All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered; some cultures, like the ancient and modern Greeks, eat most of the edible parts of the sacrifice in a feast, and burnt the rest as an offering. Others burnt the whole animal offering, called a holocaust. Usually, the best animal or best share of the animal is the one presented for offering. Animal sacrifice should generally be distinguished from the religiously prescribed methods of ritual slaughter of animals for normal consumption as food. During the Neolithic Revolution, early humans began to move from hunter-gatherer cultures toward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern. Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanking to the gods, goddesses or saints: they are called patronal festivals. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serapeum Of Alexandria
The Serapeum of Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom was an ancient Greek temple built by Ptolemy III Euergetes (reigned 246–222 BC) and dedicated to Serapis, who was made the protector of Alexandria. There are also signs of Harpocrates. It has been referred to as the daughter of the Library of Alexandria. The site has been heavily plundered. History The site is located on a rocky plateau, overlooking land and sea. By all detailed accounts, the Serapeum was the largest and most magnificent of all temples in the Greek quarter of Alexandria. Besides the image of the god, the temple precinct housed an offshoot collection of the great Library of Alexandria. The geographer Strabo tells that this stood in the west of the city. Nothing now remains above ground, except the enormous Pompey's Pillar. According to Rowe and Rees 1956, accounts of Serapeum's still standing buildings they saw there have been left by Aphthonius, the Greek rhetorician of Antioch "who visited it abou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gratian
Gratian (; la, Gratianus; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers and was raised to the rank of ''Augustus'' in 367. Upon the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian took over government of the west while his half-brother Valentinian II was also acclaimed emperor in Pannonia. Gratian governed the western provinces of the empire, while his uncle Valens was already the emperor over the east. Gratian subsequently led a campaign across the Rhine, attacked the Lentienses, and forced the tribe to surrender. That same year, the eastern emperor Valens was killed fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople, which led to Gratian elevating Theodosius to replace him in 379. Gratian favoured Nicene Christianity over traditional Roman religion, issuing the Edict of Thessalonica, refusing the office of '' pontifex maximus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Praefectus Praetorio Italiae Illyrici Et Africae Iterum
''Praefectus'', often with a further qualification, was the formal title of many, fairly low to high-ranking, military or civil officials in the Roman Empire, whose authority was not embodied in their person (as it was with elected Magistrates) but conferred by delegation from a higher authority. They did have some authority in their prefecture such as controlling prisons and in civil administration. Praetorian prefects The Praetorian prefect (''Praefectus praetorio'') began as the military commander of a general's guard company in the field, then grew in importance as the Praetorian Guard became a potential kingmaker during the Empire. From the Emperor Diocletian's tetrarchy (c. 300) they became the administrators of the four Praetorian prefectures, the government level above the (newly created) dioceses and (multiplied) provinces. Police and civil prefects *''Praefectus urbi'', or ''praefectus urbanus'': city prefect, in charge of the administration of Rome. *''Praefectus vigilu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vettius Agorius Praetextatus
Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (ca. 315 – 384) was a wealthy pagan aristocrat in the 4th-century Roman Empire, and a high priest in the cults of numerous gods. He served as the praetorian prefect at the court of Emperor Valentinian II in 384 until his death that same year. Sources His life is primarily known through the works of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus and Ammianus Marcellinus, supplemented by some epigraphical records. Symmachus (345 c. – 402 c.) was a leading member of the senatorial aristocracy of his time and the best orator of his age. Symmachus' letters, speeches and relations have been preserved and testify a sincere friendship between Symmachus and Praetextatus: according to Symmachus, Praetextatus was a good magistrate and a virtuous man.Kahlos (2002), Introduction. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in the early 390s, tells about Praetextatus in three passages of his ''Res Gestae'': in all of them Ammianus shows appreciation of Praetextatus' actions, while the same autho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus signo Eusebius (, ; c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Emperor Gratian's order to remove the Altar of Victory from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. After the death of Theodosius I, he became an ally of Stilicho, the guardian of emperor Honorius. In collaboration with Sti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnus Maximus
Magnus Maximus (; cy, Macsen Wledig ; died 8 August 388) was Roman emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 383 to 388. He usurped the throne from emperor Gratian in 383 through negotiation with emperor Theodosius I. He was made emperor in Britannia and Gaul the next year while Gratian's brother Valentinian II retained Italy, Pannonia, Hispania, and Africa. In 387, Maximus's ambitions led him to invade Italy, resulting in his defeat by Theodosius I at the Battle of Poetovio in 388. In the view of some historians, his death marked the end of direct imperial presence in Northern Gaul and Britain. Life Birth, army career Maximus was born in Gallaecia, on the estates of Count Theodosius (the Elder) of the Theodosian dynasty, to whom he claimed to be related.J. B. Bury ed. (1924)''The Cambridge Medieval History'' p. 238 Maximus was a distinguished general; he was probably a junior officer in Britain in 368, during the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. He served under Count Theodos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valentinian II
Valentinian II ( la, Valentinianus; 37115 May 392) was a Roman emperor in the western part of the Roman empire between AD 375 and 392. He was at first junior co-ruler of his brother, was then sidelined by a usurper, and only after 388 sole ruler, albeit with limited ''de facto'' powers. A son of emperor Valentinian I and empress Justina, he was raised to the imperial office at the age of 4 by military commanders upon his father's death. Until 383, Valentinian II remained a junior partner to his older half-brother Gratian in ruling the Western empire, while the East was governed by his uncle Valens until 378 and Theodosius I from 379. When Gratian was killed by the usurper emperor Magnus Maximus in 383, the court of Valentinian in Milan became the center of Italy where several religious debates took place. In 383, Maximus invaded Italy, spurring Valentinian and his family to escape to Thessalonica where they successfully sought Theodosius' aid. Theodosius defeated Maximus in bat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apostasy
Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who undertakes apostasy is known as an apostate. Undertaking apostasy is called apostatizing (or apostasizing – also spelled apostacizing). The term ''apostasy'' is used by sociologists to mean the renunciation ''and'' criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense, with no pejorative connotation. Occasionally, the term is also used metaphorically to refer to the renunciation of a non-religious belief or cause, such as a political party, social movement, or sports team. Apostasy is generally not a self-definition: few former believers call themselves apostates due to the term's negative connotation. Many religious groups and some states punish apostat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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