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Second Decemvirate
The decemviri or decemvirs (Latin for "ten men") were some of the several 10-man commissions established by the Roman Republic. The most important were those of the two Decemvirates, formally the " decemvirate with consular power for writing laws" ( la, decemviri consulari imperio legibus scribundis) who reformed and codified Roman law during the Conflict of the Orders between ancient Rome's patrician aristocracy and plebeian commoners. Other decemviri include the "decemviri adjudging litigation" ('), the "decemviri making sacrifices" ('), and the "Decemviri Distributing Public Lands" ('). ''Decemviri consulari imperio legibus scribundis'' Background Gaius Terentilius Harsa, a plebeian tribune, wished to protect the plebeian population by curtailing the power of the Roman consuls. To do this, he proposed a law in 462 BC which provided for a five-man commission to define their power. The patricians were opposed to this curtailment and managed to postpone the debate on thi ...
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Latin Language
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italy (geographical region), Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a fusional language, highly inflected language, with three distinct grammatical gender, genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven ...
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Lictors
A lictor (possibly from la, ligare, "to bind") was a Roman civil servant who was an attendant and bodyguard to a magistrate who held ''imperium''. Lictors are documented since the Roman Kingdom, and may have originated with the Etruscans. Origin The lictors were instituted by Rome's first king, Romulus, who appointed twelve lictors to attend him. Livy refers to two competing traditions for the reason that Romulus chose that number of lictors. The first version is that twelve was the number of birds that appeared in the augury, which had portended the kingdom to Romulus. The second version, favoured by Livy, is that the number of lictors was borrowed from the Etruscan kings, who had one lictor appointed from each of their twelve states. Eligibility Originally, lictors were chosen from the plebeians, but through most of Roman history, they seemed to have been freedmen. Centurions from the legions were also automatically eligible to become lictors on retirement from the army. The ...
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Centurion
A centurion (; la, centurio , . la, centuriones, label=none; grc-gre, κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ) was a position in the Roman army during classical antiquity, nominally the commander of a century (), a military unit of around 80 legionaries. In a Roman legion, centuries were grouped into cohorts and commanded by their senior-most centurion. The prestigious first cohort was led by the ''primus pilus'', the most senior centurion in the legion and its fourth-in-command who was next in line for promotion to Praefectus Castrorum, and the primi ordines who were the centurions of the first cohort. A centurion's symbol of office was the vine staff, with which they disciplined even Roman citizens, who were otherwise legally protected from corporal punishment by the Porcian Laws. Centurions also served in the Roman navy. After the 107 BC Marian reforms of Gaius Marius, centurions were professional officers. In Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Byzantine army's cen ...
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Verginia
Verginia, or Virginia (c. 465 BC449 BC), was the subject of a story of ancient Rome, related in Livy's ''Ab Urbe Condita''.Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology > v. 3, page 1267 /ref> The story of Verginia In 451 BC, Appius Claudius began to lust after Verginia, a beautiful plebeian girl and the daughter of Lucius Verginius, a respected centurion. Verginia was betrothed to Lucius Icilius, a former tribune of the plebs, and when she rejected Claudius, Claudius had one of his clients, Marcus Claudius, claim that she was actually his slave. Marcus Claudius then abducted her while she was on her way to school. The crowd in the Forum objected to this, as both Verginius and Icilius were well-respected men, and they forced Marcus Claudius to bring the case before the decemvirs, led by Appius Claudius himself. Verginius was recalled from the field to defend his daughter, and Icilius, after threats of violence, succeeded in having Verginia returned to her ho ...
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Sexuality In Ancient Rome
Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual license" was characteristic of ancient Rome. Verstraete and Provençal opine that this perspective was simply a Christian interpretation: "The sexuality of the Romans has never had good press in the West ever since the rise of Christianity. In the popular imagination and culture, it is synonymous with sexual license and abuse." Sexuality was not excluded as a concern of the ''mos maiorum'', the traditional social norms that affected public, private, and military life. ''Pudor'', "shame, modesty", was a regulating factor in behavior, as were legal strictures on certain sexual transgressions in both the Republican and Imperial periods. The censors— public officials who determined the social rank of individuals—had the power to remove ...
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Aequi
300px, Location of the Aequi (Equi) in central Italy, 5th century BC. The Aequi ( grc, Αἴκουοι and Αἴκοι) were an Italic tribe on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains to the east of Latium in central Italy who appear in the early history of ancient Rome. After a long struggle for independence from Rome, they were defeated and substantial Roman colonies were placed on their soil. Only two inscriptions believed to be in the Aequian language remain. No more can be deduced than that the language was Italic. Otherwise, the inscriptions from the region are those of the Latin-speaking colonists in Latin. The colonial exonym documented in these inscriptions is Aequi and also Aequicoli ("colonists of Aequium"). The manuscript variants of the classical authors present Equic-, Aequic-, Aequac-. If the form without the -coli is taken as an original, it may well also be the endonym, but to date further evidence is lacking. Historical geography The historians made many entries co ...
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Sabines
The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided into two populations just after the founding of Rome, which is described by Roman legend. The division, however it came about, is not legendary. The population closer to Rome transplanted itself to the new city and united with the preexisting citizenry, beginning a new heritage that descended from the Sabines but was also Latinized. The second population remained a mountain tribal state, coming finally to war against Rome for its independence along with all the other Italic tribes. Afterwards, it became assimilated into the Roman Republic. Language There is little record of the Sabine language; however, there are some glosses by ancient commentators, and one or two inscriptions have been tentatively identified as Sabine. There are also ...
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Spurius Postumius Albus Regillensis (consul 466 BC)
Spurius Postumius Albus Regillensis (died 439 BC) was a patrician politician of Ancient Rome. His filiation as reported in the ''Fasti Capitolini'' suggests he was the son of Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis, consul 496 BC, and brother of Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis, consul 464 BC, although it must be observed that no great dependence can be placed upon genealogies from such early times. He, or possibly his brother Aulus, was appointed to dedicate the Temple of Castor in 484 BC as ''duumviri aedi dedicandae''. He was consul in 466 BC and is credited with the dedication of the temple of Dius Fidius while his consular colleague Quintus Servilius Priscus fought the Aequi. He was either a augur or pontifex as gathered from an inscription saying that he co-opted the year in 462 BC, a role traditionally ascribed to one of these posts. He was one of the three commissioners sent into Greece to collect information about the laws of that country leaving in 454 and returning in ...
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Titus Romilius Rocus Vaticanus
Titus Romilius Rocus Vaticanus was a Roman politician in the 5th century BC, consul in 455 BC, and decemvir in 451 BC. Family He was the only member of the patrician family to become consul. The '' gens Romilia'' disappears after him in the ancient accounts. He was the grandson of a Titus Romilius and the son of a Titus Romilius, his complete name being ''Titus Romilius T.f. T.n. Rocus Vaticanus''. The ''cognomen'' ''Vaticanus'' which he carried shows that the term was used at least as far back as the 5th century BC. He might be the founder of the '' tribus Romilia'' which included several immigrant districts. Biography Consulship In 455 BC, he was elected consul with Gaius Veturius Cicurinus. They issued orders during a period of high tension between the patricians and the plebeians. The tribunes of the plebs, representatives of the people, demanded in vain for many years that the power of the consuls be limited in written law. The ''Lex Terentilia'', first drafted in 462 BC, w ...
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Publius Curiatius Fistus Trigeminus
Publius Curiatius Fistus Trigeminus was a Roman politician in the 5th century BC, consul in 453 BC, and decemvir in 451 BC. Family He was named ''Publius Curiatius'' by Livy, but ''Publius Horatius'' by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which nevertheless confirms Livy's as fact. Diodorus Siculus himself only gives ''Trigeminus''. He could have been part of the ''gens Horatii'' and not in that of the ''Curiatii'', two ''gentes'' that had opposed each other during the Roman monarchy in the fight of the Horatii and the Curiatii. If he was part of the ''gens Curiatii'', he was the only member of the family to become consul. Biography Consulship In 453 BC, he was consul with Sextus Quinctilius. Rome was ravaged this year by a famine and an epidemic, which killed animals as well as people. It is thought to have been typhus, an epidemic that raged on for ten or more years. His colleague, Varus, and the consul suffect that replaced him both caught the disease that same year. ''Decemvirate' ...
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Servius Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus (consul 461 BC)
Servius Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus ( 461–446 BC) was a Roman politician in the 5th century BC, consul in 461 BC and ''decemvir'' in 451 BC. Family He was the son of Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus (consul in 490 BC), and father of Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus ( military tribune with consular power in 402 BC and 398 BC). Biography Consulship In 461 BC, he was consul with Publius Volumnius Amintinus Gallus. Their terms occurred during a period of political tensions between the tribunes of the plebs, who demanded that the rights of the consuls be written down (drafted in the ''lex Terentilia'') and the conservative patricians who opposed limitations to the consular power. The consuls tried to raise troops against the Aequi and the Volsci, traditional enemies of Rome. The tribunes used their veto to block the levy. Four of the tribunes called the people to vote on their legal draft (the ''lex Terentilia''). The consuls refused to preside over the ballot and young ...
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Aulus Manlius Vulso (decemvir)
Aulus Manlius Vulso was a Roman politician in the 5th century BC, and was a member of the first college of the ''decemviri'' in 451 BC. In 474 BC, he may have been elected consul with Lucius Furius Medullinus. Whether or not the decemvir is the same man as the consul of 474 BC remains unknown. Family He was the son of a Gnaeus Manlius, perhaps Gnaeus Manlius Cincinnatus (consul in 480 BC), and grandson of a Publius Manlius. His complete name is ''A. Manlius Cn.f. P.n. Vulso''. He had a son by the name of Aulus Manlius Vulso Capitolinus, who was consular tribune in 405, 402, and 397 BC. Biography In 454 BC, under pressure by the tribunes of the plebs, the patricians accepted sending a delegation of three former consuls, among which was Vulso, Spurius Postumius Albus Regillensis, and Servius Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, to Athens and Magna Graecia so that they could study Greek law. They returned in 452 BC and their report resulted in the creation of the First ''Decemvirate'' ('' ...
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