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Seneca The Elder
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder (; c. 54 BC – c. 39 AD), also known as Seneca the Rhetorician, was a Roman writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Corduba, Hispania. He wrote a collection of reminiscences about the Roman schools of rhetoric, six books of which are extant in a more or less complete state and five others in epitome only. His principal work, a history of Roman affairs from the beginning of the Civil Wars until the last years of his life, is almost entirely lost to posterity. Seneca lived through the reigns of three significant emperors; Augustus (ruled 27 BC – 14 AD), Tiberius (ruled 14–37 AD) and Caligula (ruled 37–41 AD). He was the father of Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, best known as a Proconsul of Achaia; his second son was the dramatist and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger (''Lucius''), who was tutor of Nero, and his third son, Marcus Annaeus Mela, became the father of the poet Lucan. Biography Seneca the Elder is the first of the gens A ...
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Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the 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 Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the 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 highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjuga ...
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Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century Common Era, BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve Eudaimonia, (happiness, ): one flourishes by living an Ethics, ethical life. The Stoics identified the path to with a life spent practicing the cardinal virtues and living in accordance with nature. The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or called in themselves (''adiaphora'') but have value as "material for virtue to act upon". Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and th ...
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Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics, and he is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC. His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime, and it has been said that subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century. Cicero introduced into Latin the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary ...
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Raphael Of Volterra
Raffaello Maffei (17 February 1451 – 25 January 1522) was an Italian humanist, historian and theologian; and member of the Servite Order. He was a native of Volterra, Italy, and therefore is called Raphael Volaterranus or Raphael of Volterra; also Maffeus Volaterranus, or Raffaello Volterrano. Raffaello Maffei wrote the ''Commentaria Urbana'', which was an encyclopedia divided into three parts. During his lifetime, Raffaello Maffei was in contact with many humanist philosophers including Pico della Mirandola, Angelo Poliziano, and Michele Marullo. He had an amicable relationship with the Florentine Lorenzo de Medici, despite Antonio Maffei's involvement in the Pazzi conspiracy. Raffaello and his brother Mario were close to the first Medici pope, Pope Leo X. When Raffaello left the Papal Curia, he remained aware of Roman events due to his correspondence with family members working in Rome. He was known in the Italian Peninsula and widely in Europe for his humanist writings. Li ...
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Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity. It occurred after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages and was associated with great social change. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. The traditional view focuses more on the early modern aspects of the Renaissance and argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it was an extension of the Middle Ages. However, the beginnings of the period – the early Renaissance of the 15th century and the Italian Proto-Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300 – overlap considerably with the Late Middle Ages, conventionally da ...
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William Smith (lexicographer)
Sir William Smith (20 May 1813 – 7 October 1893) was an English lexicographer. He became known for his advances in the teaching of Greek and Latin in schools. Early life Smith was born in Enfield in 1813 to Nonconformist parents. He attended the Madras House school of John Allen in Hackney. Originally destined for a theological career, he instead became articled to a solicitor. Meanwhile, he taught himself classics in his spare time, and when he entered University College London carried off both the Greek and Latin prizes. He was entered at Gray's Inn in 1830, but gave up his legal studies for a post at University College School and began to write on classical subjects. Lexicography Smith next turned his attention to lexicography. His first attempt was ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'', which appeared in 1842, the greater part being written by him. Then followed the ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' in 1849. A parallel '' Dictionary of ...
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Dictionary Of Greek And Roman Biography And Mythology
The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 pages. It is a classic work of 19th-century lexicography. The work is a companion to Smith's ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' and '' Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography''. Authors and scope The work lists thirty-five authors in addition to the editor, who was also the author of the unsigned articles. The other authors were classical scholars, primarily from Oxford, Cambridge, Rugby School, and the University of Bonn, but some were from other institutions. Many of the mythological entries were the work of the German expatriate Leonhard Schmitz, who helped to popularise German classical scholarship in Britain. With respect to biographies, Smith intended to be comprehensive. In the preface, he writes: Much of the value ...
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Annaea Gens
Annaea or Annaia ( grc, Ἄνναια) or Anaea or Anaia (Ἀναία), was a town of ancient Ionia. Stephanus of Byzantium placed it in Caria, opposite Samos. Pausanias also puts it on the mainland across from Samos and says it was fortified by the people of that island after being displaced by Androklos of Ephesos. After ten years of mustering forces at Anaia, they were able to launch a force back across and reclaim Samos. Ephorus says that it was named after Anaea, an Amazon who was buried there. If Anaea was opposite Samos, it was in Ionia (or, well into Roman times, Lydia), which did not extend south of the Maeander River. Thucydides suggests it was on or near the coast, and in or near the valley of the Maeander, and that it was a naval station, close enough Samos to annoy the Samians. Some Samian exiles lived there during the Peloponnesian War. It later became a bishopric, now a titular see (see Anaea (Asia)). Its site is located near Kadı Kalesi A ''kadi'' ( ar, قا ...
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Gens
In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same Roman naming conventions#Nomen, nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (plural: ''stirpes''). The ''gens'' was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Roman Italy, Italia during the period of the Roman Republic. Much of individuals' social standing depended on the gens to which they belonged. Certain gentes were classified as Patrician (ancient Rome), patrician, others as plebs, plebeian; some had both patrician and plebeian branches. The importance of membership in a gens declined considerably in Roman Empire, imperial times, although the ''gentilicium'' continued to be used and defined the origins and Roman dynasty, dynasties of Roman emperors. Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, ''Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities'', Second Edition, Harry Thurston Peck, E ...
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Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period, known in particular for his epic ''Pharsalia''. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets. Life Three brief ancient accounts allow for the reconstruction of a modest biography – the earliest attributed to Suetonius, another to an otherwise unknown Vacca, and the third anonymous and undated – along with references in Martial, Cassius Dio, Tacitus's ''Annals'', and one of Statius's ''Silvae''. Lucan was the son of Marcus Annaeus Mela and grandson of Seneca the Elder; he grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. Born into a wealthy family, he studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical and Stoic education by his uncle. His wife was Polla Argentaria, ...
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Poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or written), or they may also perform their art to an audience. The work of a poet is essentially one of communication, expressing ideas either in a literal sense (such as communicating about a specific event or place) or metaphorically. Poets have existed since prehistory, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed over time, resulting in countless poets as diverse as the literature that (since the advent of writing systems) they have produced. History In Ancient Rome, professional poets were generally sponsored by patrons, wealthy supporters including nobility and military officials. For inst ...
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