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Fonteia Gens
The gens Fonteia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned toward the end of the third century BC; Titus Fonteius was a legate of Publius Cornelius Scipio during the Second Punic War. The first of the Fonteii to obtain the consulship was Gaius Fonteius Capito, consul ''suffectus'' in 33 BC.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', William Smith, Editor. Origin In his oration, ''Pro Fonteio'', Cicero mentions that the Fonteii came originally from Tusculum, of which municipium it was one of the most distinguished families. The Fonteii claimed descent from Fontus, the son of Janus. A two-faced head appears on a coin of Gaius Fonteius, which Jean Foy Vaillant and others suppose to be the head of Janus, in reference to this tradition. But as Janus is always represented in later times with a beard, Eckhel maintains that the two heads refer to the Dioscuri, who were worshipped at Tusculum with especial honours, and who may be ...
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Plebs
In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizenship, Roman citizens who were not Patrician (ancient Rome), patricians, as determined by the capite censi, census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of the group and the term are unclear, but may be related to the Greek, ''plēthos'', meaning masses. In Latin, the word is a grammatical number, singular collective noun, and its genitive is . Plebeians were not a monolithic social class. Those who resided in the city and were part of the four urban tribes are sometimes called the , while those who lived in the country and were part of the 31 smaller rural tribes are sometimes differentiated by using the label . (List of Roman tribes) In ancient Rome In the annalistic tradition of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius, the distinction between patricians and plebeians was as old as Rome itself, instituted by Romulus' a ...
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Castor And Pollux
Castor; grc, Κάστωρ, Kástōr, beaver. and Pollux. (or Polydeukes). are twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri.; grc, Διόσκουροι, Dióskouroi, sons of Zeus, links=no, from ''Dîos'' ('Zeus') and '' koûroi'' ('boys'). Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who raped Leda in the guise of a swan. The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini (literally "twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids.. Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded ...
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Ab Urbe Condita (book)
The work called ( en, From the Founding of the City), sometimes referred to as (''Books from the Founding of the City''), is a monumental history of ancient Rome, written in Latin between 27 and 9 BC by Livy, a Roman historian. The work covers the period from the legends concerning the arrival of Aeneas and the refugees from the fall of Troy, to the city's founding in 753 BC, the expulsion of the Kings in 509 BC, and down to Livy's own time, during the reign of the emperor Augustus. The last event covered by Livy is the death of Drusus in 9 BC. 35 of 142 books, about a quarter of the work, are still extant. The surviving books deal with the events down to 293 BC (books 1–10), and from 219 to 166 BC (books 21–45). Contents Corpus The ''History of Rome'' originally comprised 142 "books", thirty-five of which—Books 1–10 with the Preface and Books 21–45—still exist in reasonably complete form. Damage to a manuscript of the 5th century resulted in ...
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Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a friend of Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history. Life Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy (Roman Empire), Italy, now modern Padua, probably in 59 BC. At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). Cisalpine Gaul was merged in Roman Italy, Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection an ...
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Hispania
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Hispania Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the western part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova, later renamed "Callaecia" (or Gallaecia, whence modern Galicia). From Diocletian's Tetrarchy (AD 284) onwards, the south of the remainder of Tarraconensis was again split off as Carthaginensis, and all of the mainland Hispanic provinces, along with the Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later grouped into a civil diocese headed by a ''vicarius''. The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The mod ...
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Roman Tribe
A ''tribus'', or tribe, was a division of the Roman people, constituting the voting units of a legislative assembly of the Roman Republic.''Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities'', "Tribus."''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', "Tribus." The word is probably derived from ''tribuere'', to divide or distribute; the traditional derivation from ''tres'', three, is doubtful. According to tradition, the first three tribes were established by Romulus; each was divided into ten ''curiae'', or wards, which were the voting units of the ''comitia curiata''. Although the curiae continued throughout Roman history, the three original tribes that they constituted gradually vanished from history. Perhaps influenced by the original division of the people into tribes, as well as the number of thirty wards, Servius Tullius established thirty new tribes, which later constituted the ''comitia tributa''. This number was reduced to twenty at the beginning of the Roman Republic; but ...
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Etruria
Etruria () was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and northern and western Umbria. Etruscan Etruria The ancient people of Etruria are identified as Etruscan civilization, Etruscans. Their complex Etruscan civilization, culture centered on numerous city-states that arose during the Villanovan period in the ninth century BCE, and they were very powerful during the Orientalizing Archaic period in Greece, Archaic periods. The Etruscans were a dominant culture in Italy by 650 BCE,Rix, Helmut. "Etruscan." In ''The Ancient Languages of Europe,'' ed. Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 141–164. surpassing other ancient Italic peoples such as the Ligures. Their influence may be seen beyond Etruria's confines in the Po River Valley and Latium, as well as in Campania and through their contact with the Magna Graecia, Greek colonies in Southern Italy (including Sicily). Indeed, at some Etrusc ...
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Lucius (praenomen)
Lucius ( , ) is a Latin ''praenomen'', or personal name, which was one of the most common names throughout Roman history. The feminine form is ''Lucia'' ( , ). The praenomen was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and gave rise to the patronymic '' gentes Lucia'' and '' Lucilia'', as well as the ''cognomen'' ''Lucullus''. It was regularly abbreviated L.''Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology'' Throughout Roman history, Lucius was the most common praenomen, used slightly more than ''Gaius'' and somewhat more than ''Marcus''. Although a number of prominent families rarely or never used it, it was amongst the most frequently given names in countless others. The name survived the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, and has continued into modern times. Origin and meaning In ''De Praenominibus'' (''Concerning Praenomina''), Julius Paris asserts that Lucius is derived from ''lux'', ''light'', and that the name was originally given to children who were ...
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Manius (praenomen)
Manius ( , ; feminine form: ''Mania'') is a Latin , or personal name, which was used throughout the period of the Roman Republic, and well into imperial times. The name was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and gave rise to the patronymic and . Manius was originally abbreviated with an archaic five-stroke "M" (in Unicode ), which was not otherwise used in Latin. In place of this letter, the praenomen came to be abbreviated M'.''Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology'' Although regularly used by certain , such as the Acilii, Aemilii, Aquilii, Papirii, Sergii, and Valerii, Manius was not used by the majority of families, and was never particularly common. Between ten and twelve other praenomina were used more frequently. It became less common during the period of the Roman Empire, eventually falling out of use. Origin and meaning of the name The Roman scholar Sextus Pompeius Festus Sextus Pompeius Festus, usually known simply as Festus, was a Roman gram ...
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Gaius (praenomen)
Gaius () is a Latin praenomen, or personal name, and was one of the most common names throughout Roman history. The feminine form is Gaia.Chase, pp. 174–176. The praenomen was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and gave rise to the patronymic gens Gavia. The name was regularly abbreviated C., based on the original spelling, Caius, which dates from the period before the letters "C" and "G" were differentiated. Inverted, Ɔ. stood for the feminine, Gaia.''Liber de Praenominibus''.Quintilian, ''Institutes'', i. 7. § 28. Throughout Roman history, Gaius was generally the second-most common praenomen, following only ''Lucius''. Although many prominent families did not use it at all, it was so widely distributed amongst all social classes that ''Gaius'' became a generic name for any man, and ''Gaia'' for any woman. A familiar Roman wedding ceremony included the words, spoken by the bride, ''ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia'' ("as you are Gaius, I am Gaia"), to which the bridegroom r ...
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Marcus (praenomen)
Marcus () is a Latin '' praenomen'', or personal name, which was one of the most common names throughout Roman history. The feminine form is ''Marca'' or ''Marcia''. The praenomen was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and gave rise to the patronymic '' gens Marcia'', as well as the ''cognomen Marcellus''. It was regularly abbreviated M.''Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology''''Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft''Mika Kajava, ''Roman Female Praenomina: Studies in the Nomenclature of Roman Women'' (1994) At all periods of Roman history, Marcus was the third-most popular praenomen, trailing only ''Lucius'' and ''Gaius''. Although many prominent families did not use it, it was a favorite of countless others. The name survived the Roman Empire and has continued to be used, in various forms, into modern times. Origin and meaning of the name The praenomen Marcus is generally conceded to be derived from the name of the god Mars. It has been pr ...
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Publius (praenomen)
Publius is a Latin ''praenomen'', or personal name. It was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and was very common at all periods of Roman history. It gave rise to the patronymic '' gens Publilia'', and perhaps also '' gens Publicia''. The feminine form is ''Publia''. The name was regularly abbreviated P.''Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology''''Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft''Mika Kajava, ''Roman Female Praenomina: Studies in the Nomenclature of Roman Women'' (1994) Throughout Roman history, Publius was one of the most frequently-used praenomina, typically occupying fourth or fifth place, behind ''Lucius'', ''Gaius'', and ''Marcus'', and occurring with about the same frequency as ''Quintus''. The feminine form, ''Publia'', was also quite common, and is found in numerous inscriptions as late as the 3rd century, and perhaps beyond. Origin and meaning of the name Publius is thought to derive from the same root as ''populus'' and ''pub ...
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