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Nenia Callistoglypta
Nenia Dea (Engl.: Goddess Nenia; rarely ''Naenia'') was an ancient funeral deity of Rome, who had a sanctuary outside of the Porta Viminalis. The cult of the Nenia is doubtlessly a very old one, but according to Georg Wissowa the location of Nenia's shrine ''(sacellum)'' outside of the center of early Rome indicates that she didn't belong to the earliest circle of Roman deities. In a different interpretation her shrine was located outside of the old city walls, because it had been custom for all gods connected to death or dying. Goddess of the Roman funerary lament Nenia shares her name with the ''nenia'' that sometimes took the meaning of ''carmen funebre'' ("dirge"), and Marcus Terentius Varro regarded the Nenia Dea as a personification of the funerary lament's protective power. She was therefore a goddess also connected to the end of a person's life. Varro assigned the Nenia Dea to a polar position with respect to the god Ianus, which was probably inspired by one of the ancient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually dominated the Italian Peninsula, assimilated the Greek culture of southern Italy ( Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture and acquired an Empire that took in much of Europe and the lands and peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelius Labeo
Cornelius Labeo was an ancient Roman theologian and antiquarian who wrote on such topics as the Roman calendar and the teachings of Etruscan religion ''(Etrusca disciplina)''. His works survive only in fragments and '' testimonia.'' He has been dated "plausibly but not provably" to the 3rd century AD. Labeo has been called "the most important Roman theologian" after Varro, whose work seems to have influenced him strongly. He is usually considered a Neoplatonist. Labeo and Censorinus are the only authors with demonstrable interests in writing about Roman religion during the Crisis of the Third Century, a time of "military anarchy" between the death of Caracalla and the accession of Diocletian when scholarship seems mostly to have ground to a halt.Phillips, "Approaching Roman Religion," p. 15. Because religious and civil law in ancient Rome may overlap, the fragments of this Labeo are sometimes confused with those of the jurists Pacuvius Labeo and Marcus Antistius Labeo. Influ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Di Inferi
The ''di inferi'' or ''dii inferi'' (Latin, "the gods below") were a shadowy collective of ancient Roman deities associated with death and the underworld. The epithet ''inferi'' is also given to the mysterious Manes, a collective of ancestral spirits. The most likely origin of the word ''Manes'' is from ''manus'' or ''manis'' (more often in Latin as its antonym ''immanis''), meaning "good" or "kindly," which was a euphemistic way to speak of the ''inferi'' so as to avert their potential to harm or cause fear. Sacrifices Varro (1st century BC) distinguishes among the ''di superi'' ("gods above"), whose sites for offerings are called ''altaria''; the ''di terrestres'' ("terrestrial gods"), whose altars are ''arae''; and ''di inferi'', to whom offerings are made by means of ''foci'', "hearths," on the ground or in a pit. In general, animal sacrifice to gods of the upper world usually resulted in communal meals, with the cooked victim apportioned to divine and human recipients. Inferna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ianus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus ( ; la, Ianvs ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (''Ianuarius''). According to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs, Juno was mistaken as the tutelary deity of the month of January; but, Juno is the tutelary deity of the month of June. Janus presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and hence war and peace. The gates of a building in Rome named after him (not a temple, as it is often called, but an open enclosure with gates at each end) were opened in time of war, and closed to mark the arrival of peace. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth and to journeys and exchange, and in his association with Portunus, a similar harbor and gateway god, he was concerned with travelling, trading and shipping. Janus had no flamen or specialised priest ''( sacerdos)' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion In Ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety ''(pietas)'' in maintaining Pax deorum, good relations with the gods. Their Polytheism, polytheistic religion is known for having honored List of Roman deities, many deities. The presence of Magna Graecia, Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Culture of ancient Rome, Roman culture, introducing some religious practices that became fundamental, such as the ''Cult (religious practice), cultus'' of Apollo. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks (''interpretatio graeca''), adapting Greek mythology, Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature and Roman art, as the Etruscans h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Mythology
Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to the subject matter as represented in the literature and art of other cultures in any period. Roman mythology draws from the mythology of the Italic peoples and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mythology. Roman mythology also draws directly on Greek mythology, potentially as early as Rome's protohistory, but primarily during the Hellenistic period of Greek influence and through the Roman conquest of Greece, via the artistic imitation of Greek literary models by Roman authors. The Romans identified their own gods with those of the ancient Greeks—who were closely historically related in some cases, such as Zeus and Jupiter—and reinterpreted myths about Greek deities under the names of their Roman counterparts. Greek and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Nature Of Things
''De rerum natura'' (; ''On the Nature of Things'') is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius ( – c. 55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics through poetic language and metaphors. Greenblatt (2011). Namely, Lucretius explores the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by ''fortuna'' ("chance"), and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities. Background To the Greek philosopher Epicurus, the unhappiness and degradation of humans arose largely from the dread which they entertained of the power of the deities, from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into English as ''On the Nature of Things''—and somewhat less often as ''On the Nature of the Universe''. Lucretius has been credited with originating the concept of the three-age system that was formalised in 1836 by C. J. Thomsen. Very little is known about Lucretius's life; the only certainty is that he was either a friend or client of Gaius Memmius, to whom the poem was addressed and dedicated. ''De rerum natura'' was a considerable influence on the Augustan poets, particularly Virgil (in his ''Aeneid'' and ''Georgics'', and to a lesser extent on the ''Eclogues'') and Horace. The work was almost lost during the Middle Ages, but was rediscovered in 1417 in a monastery in Germany by Poggio Bracciolini and it played an important role both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucius Afranius (poet)
Lucius Afranius was an ancient Roman comic poet, who lived at the beginning of the 1st century BC. Life Afranius' comedies described Roman scenes and manners (the genre called ''comoediae togatae'') and the subjects were mostly taken from the life of the lower classes (''comoediae tabernariae''). They were considered by some ancients to be frequently polluted with disgraceful amours, which, according to Quintilian, were only a representation of the conduct of Afranius. He depicted, however, Roman life with such accuracy that he is classed with Menander, from whom indeed he borrowed largely. He imitated the style of Gaius Titius, and his language is praised by Cicero. His comedies are spoken of in the highest terms by the ancient writers, and under the Empire they not only continued to be read, but were even acted, of which an example occurs in the time of Nero. They seem to have been well known even at the latter end of the 4th century AD. Quintilian's judgement The Spanish-R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tertullian
Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology". Tertullian originated new theological concepts and advanced the development of early Church doctrine. He is perhaps most famous for being the first writer in Latin known to use the term ''trinity'' (Latin: ''trinitas''). Tertullian was never recognized as a saint by the Eastern or Western Catholic churches. Several of his teachings on issues such as the clear subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father, as well as his condemnation of remarriage for widows and of fleeing from persecution, contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnobius
Arnobius (died c. 330) was an early Christian apologist of Berber origin during the reign of Diocletian (284–305). According to Jerome's ''Chronicle,'' Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished Numidian rhetorician at Sicca Veneria (El Kef, Tunisia), a major Christian center in Proconsular Africa, and owed his conversion to a premonitory dream. Arnobius writes dismissively of dreams in his surviving book, so perhaps Jerome was projecting his own respect for the content of dreams. According to Jerome, to overcome the doubts of the local bishop as to the earnestness of his Christian belief he wrote (c. 303, from evidence in IV:36) an apologetic work in seven books that St. Jerome calls ''Adversus gentes'' but which is entitled ''Adversus nationes'' in the only (9th-century) manuscript that has survived. Jerome's reference, his remark that Lactantius was a pupil of Arnobius and the surviving treatise are all that we know about Arnobius. ''Adversus nationes'' ''Adve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viminal Hill
The Viminal Hill ( ; la, Collis Vīminālis ; it, Viminale ) is the smallest of the famous Seven Hills of Rome. A finger-shape cusp pointing toward central Rome between the Quirinal Hill to the northwest and the Esquiline Hill to the southeast, it is home to the Teatro dell'Opera and the Termini Railway Station. At the top of Viminal Hill is the Palace of Viminale that hosts the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior; currently the term ''Il Viminale'' means the Ministry of the Interior. According to Livy, the hill first became part of the city of Rome, along with the Quirinal Hill, during the reign of Servius Tullius, Rome' sixth king, in the 6th century BC. The name of the hill derives from Latin ''viminalis'' (“pertaining to osiers”), from '' vimen'' (“a pliant twig A twig is a thin, often short, branch of a tree or bush. The buds on the twig are an important diagnostic characteristic, as are the abscission scars where the leaves have fallen away. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
