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Geminia Gens
The gens Geminia was a plebeian family at Rome. The only member of this gens to hold any of the higher offices of the Roman state under the Republic was Gaius Geminius, praetor in 92 BC. Origin The nomen ''Geminius'' is derived from the common surname ''Geminus'', meaning a "twin", from which it may be inferred that the family took its name from one of twin brothers. The family may have originated at Tusculum, where Mettius Geminius was a cavalry commander in BC 340. Members * Mettius Geminius, commander of the Tusculan cavalry during the last war between Rome and the Latin League. He challenged Titus Manlius, son of the consul Titus Manlius Torquatus, to single combat, but was slain by the young man; but Manlius did not live to savor his victory, as he was put to death by his own father for disobeying his orders, and quitting his post to fight the enemy. * Gaius Geminius was praetor in Macedonia in 92 BC. He was badly defeated by the Maedians, a Thracian tribe, who then in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire. Antony was a relative and supporter of Julius Caesar, and served as one of his generals during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War. Antony was appointed administrator of Italy while Caesar eliminated political opponents in Greece, North Africa, and Spain. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Antony joined forces with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, another of Caesar's generals, and Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, forming a three-man dictatorship known to historians as the Second Triumvirate. The Triumvirs defeated Caesar's killers, the ''Liberatores'', at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, and divided the government of the Republic between themselves. Antony was assigned Rome's eastern provinces, includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Lives
Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', commonly called ''Parallel Lives'' or ''Plutarch's Lives'', is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably written at the beginning of the second century AD. The surviving ''Parallel Lives'' (Greek: Βίοι Παράλληλοι, ''Bíoi Parállēloi'') comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman of similar destiny, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes and Cicero. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived. Motivation ''Parallel Lives'' was Plutarch's second set of biographical works, following the Lives of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Vitellius. Of these, only the Lives of Galba and Otho survive. As he explains in the first paragraph of his ''Life of Alexander'', Pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and ''Moralia'', a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (). Life Early life Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, about east of Delphi, in the Greek region of Boeotia. His family was long established in the town; his father was named Autobulus and his grandfather was named Lamprias. His name is derived from Pluto (πλοῦτον), an epithet of Hades, and Archos (ἀρχός) meaning "Master", the whole name meaning something like "Whose master is Pluto". His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annals (Tacitus)
The ''Annals'' ( la, Annales) by Roman historian and senator Tacitus is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero, the years AD 14–68. The ''Annals'' are an important source for modern understanding of the history of the Roman Empire during the 1st century AD; it is Tacitus' final work, and modern historians generally consider it his greatest writing. Historian Ronald Mellor (historian), Ronald Mellor calls it "Tacitus's crowning achievement", which represents the "pinnacle of Roman historical writing". Tacitus' Histories (Tacitus), ''Histories'' and ''Annals'' together amounted to 30 books; although some scholars disagree about which work to assign some books to, traditionally 14 are assigned to ''Histories'' and 16 to ''Annals''. Of the 30 books referred to by Jerome about half have survived. Modern scholars believe that as a Roman senator, Tacitus had access to ''Acta Senatus''—the Roman senate's records—which provided a solid basis for hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals (Tacitus), ''Annals'' (Latin: ''Annales'') and the Histories (Tacitus), ''Histories'' (Latin: ''Historiae'')—examine the reigns of the Roman emperor, emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD). These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus (14 AD) to the death of Domitian (96 AD), although there are substantial Lacuna (manuscripts), lacunae in the surviving texts. Tacitus's other writings discuss Public speaking, oratory (in dialogue format, see ''Dialogus de oratoribus''), Germania (in Germania (book), ''De origine et situ Germanorum''), and the life of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Agricola (t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valerius Maximus
Valerius Maximus () was a 1st-century Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes: ''Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX'' ("Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings", also known as ''De factis dictisque memorabilibus'' or ''Facta et dicta memorabilia''). He worked during the reign of Tiberius (14 AD to 37 AD). During the Middle Ages, Valerius Maximus was one of the most copied Latin prose authors, second only to Priscian. More than 600 medieval manuscripts of his books have survived as a result.Briscoe, ''Valerius Maximus'', p. 15. Biography Nothing is known of his life except that his family was poor and undistinguished, and that he owed everything to Sextus Pompeius (consul AD 14), proconsul of Asia, whom he accompanied to the East in 27. Pompeius was the center of a literary circle to which Ovid belonged; he was also an intimate friend of the most literary prince of the imperial family, Germanicus. Although he shared the same name as a prestigious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Livy)
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Roman Gentes
The gens (plural gentes) was a Roman family, of Italic or Etruscan origins, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same '' nomen'' and claimed descent from a common ancestor. It was an important social and legal structure in early Roman history.'' Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities'', Second Edition, Harry Thurston Peck, Editor (1897)'' Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 2nd Ed. (1970) The distinguishing characteristic of a gens was the , or ''gentile name''. Every member of a gens, whether by birth or adoption, bore this name. All nomina were based on other nouns, such as personal names, occupations, physical characteristics or behaviors, or locations. Consequently, most of them ended with the adjectival termination ''-ius'' (''-ia'' in the feminine form). Nomina ending in , , , and are typical of Latin families. Faliscan gentes frequently had nomina ending in ''-ios'', while Samnite and other Oscan-speaking peoples of southern Italy h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sejanus
Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian Guard (the Roman imperial bodyguard), of which he was commander from AD 14 until his execution for treason in AD 31. While the Praetorian Guard was formally established under Emperor Augustus, Sejanus introduced a number of reforms which saw the unit evolve beyond a mere bodyguard into a powerful and influential branch of the government involved in public security, civil administration and ultimately political intercession; these changes had a lasting impact on the course of the Principate. During the 20s, Sejanus gradually accumulated power by consolidating his influence over Tiberius and eliminating potential political opponents, including the emperor's son Drusus Julius Caesar. When Tiberius withdrew to Capri in AD 26, Sejanus was left in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father was the politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his mother was Livia Drusilla, who would eventually divorce his father, and marry the future-emperor Augustus in 38 BC. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus' two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus' successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat, and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier. Early in his career, Tiberius was happily married to Vipsania, daughter of Augustus' friend, distinguished general and intended heir, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. They had a son, Drusus Jul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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