|
Silvanus (mythology)
Silvanus (; meaning "of the woods" in Latin) was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and uncultivated lands. As protector of the forest (''sylvestris deus''), he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild.Tibullus II.5.27, 30. Lucan. ''Pharsalia'' III.402.Pliny the Elder. ''Naturalis historia'' XII.2. He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields. Horace. '' Epodes'' II.21-22. The similarly named Etruscan deity Selvans may be a borrowing of Silvanus, or not even related in origin.Peter F. Dorcey, ''The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion'' (Brill, 1992), pp. 10–1online noting earlier efforts to press an Etruscan etymology on Silvanus. Silvanus is described as the divinity protecting the flocks of cattle, warding off wolves, and promoting their fertility.Virgil. ''Aeneid'' VIII.600-1.Cato the Elder. ''De Re Rustica'' 83 Dolabella, a rural engineer of whom only a fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nocera Inferiore
Nocera Inferiore ( nap, Nucèrä Inferiórë or simply , , locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Salerno, in Campania in southern Italy. It lies west of Nocera Superiore, at the foot of Monte Albino, some 20 km east-southeast of Naples by rail. History The ancient city of ''Nuceria Alfaterna'' was situated nearby in Nocera Superiore. Some of the city's necropoli were located in the area of Nocera Inferiore. Its post-Roman history until 1851 is in common with Nocera Superiore. Post-Roman History At an early date, the city became an episcopal see, and in the 12th century, it sided with Innocent II against Roger of Sicily, suffering severely for its choice. By the end of the 15th century, until 1806, Nuceria had the epithet ("of the pagans", ''Nuceria Paganorum''). Today the town of Pagani lies about one 1.5 km to the west. In 1385 Pope Urban VI was besieged in the castle by Charles III of Naples. The origins of the name The current name, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epodes (Horace)
The ''Epodes'' ( la, Epodi or ''Epodon liber''; also called ''Iambi'') are a collection of iambic poems written by the Roman poet Horace. They were published in 30 BC and form part of his early work alongside the ''Satires''. Following the model of the Greek poets Archilochus and Hipponax, the ''Epodes'' largely fall into the genre of blame poetry, which seeks to discredit and humiliate its targets. The 17 poems of the ''Epodes'' cover a variety of topics, including politics, magic, eroticism and food. A product of the turbulent final years of the Roman Republic, the collection is known for its striking depiction of Rome's socio-political ills in a time of great upheaval. Due to their recurring coarseness and explicit treatment of sexuality, the ''Epodes'' have traditionally been Horace's least regarded work. However, the last quarter of the 20th century saw a resurgence in scholarly interest in the collection. Names The modern standard name for the collection is ''Epodes' ... [...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] |
Aegipan
Aegipan ( grc, Αἰγίπαν, Αἰγίπανος, "Goat-Pan") was a mythological being, either distinct from or identical to Pan. His story appears to be of late origin. Mythology According to Hyginus, Aegipan was the son of Zeus (some sources say his son Apollo) and Aega (also named Boetis or Aix), and was transferred to the stars. Others again make Aegipan the father of Pan, and state that he as well as his son were represented as half goat and half fish, similar to a satyr. In Greek art, Aegipan is thus often depicted as a sea goat, the mythical creature represented by the constellation Capricornus. When Zeus in his contest with the Titans was deprived of the sinews of his hands and feet, Hermes and Aegipan secretly restored them to him and fitted them in their proper places. According to a Roman tradition mentioned by Plutarch, Aegipan sprang from the incestuous intercourse of Valeria of Tusculum and her father Valerius, and was considered only a different name for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inuus
In ancient Roman religion, Inuus () was a god, or aspect of a god, who embodied sexual intercourse. The evidence for him as a distinct entity is scant. Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that Inuus is an epithet of Faunus (Greek Pan), named from his habit of intercourse with animals, based on the etymology of ''ineundum'', "a going in, penetration," from '' inire'', "to enter" in the sexual sense. Other names for the god were Fatuus and Fatuclus (with a short ''a''). Walter Friedrich Otto disputed the traditional etymology and derived ''Inuus'' instead from ''in-avos'', "friendly, beneficial" (cf. ''aveo'', "to be eager for, desire"), for the god's fructifying power. Lupercalia Livy is the sole source for identifying Inuus as the form of Faunus for whom the Lupercalia was celebrated: "naked young men would run around venerating Lycaean Pan, whom the Romans then called Inuus, with antics and lewd behavior." Although Ovid does not name Inuus in his treatment of the Lupercalia, he may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faunus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the rustic god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan, after which Romans depicted him as a horned god. Faunus was one of the oldest Roman deities, known as the ''di indigetes''. According to the epic poet Virgil, he was a legendary king of the Latins. His shade was consulted as a goddess of prophecy under the name of Fatuus, with oracles in the sacred grove of Tibur, around the well Albunea, and on the Aventine Hill in ancient Rome itself.Peck 1898 Marcus Terentius Varro asserted that the oracular responses were given in Saturnian verse. Faunus revealed the future in dreams and voices that were communicated to those who came to sleep in his precincts, lying on the fleeces of sacrificed lambs. Fowler (1899) suggested that ''Faunus'' is identical with ''Favonius'', one of the Roman wind gods (compare the Anemoi). Etymology T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pan (mythology)
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan (; grc, Πάν, Pán) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens, and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. In Roman religion and myth, Pan's counterpart was Faunus, a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna; he was also closely associated with Sylvanus, due to their similar relationships with woodlands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement. Origins Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god ''*Péh₂usōn'', whom th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the sound and the meaning of a word, cognates may not be obvious, and often it takes rigorous study of historical sources and the application of the comparative method to establish whether lexemes are cognate or not. Cognates are distinguished from Loanword, loanwords, where a word has been borrowed from another language. The term ''cognate'' derives from the Latin noun '':wikt:cognatus, cognatus blood relative'. Characteristics Cognates need not have the same meaning, which semantic drift, may have changed as the languages developed independently. For example English language, English ''wikt:starve#English, starve'' and Dutch language, Dutch ''wikt:sterven#Dutch, sterven'' 'to die' or German languag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lares
Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ''Lar'') were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these. Lares were believed to observe, protect, and influence all that happened within the boundaries of their location or function. The statues of domestic Lares were placed at the table during family meals; their presence, cult, and blessing seem to have been required at all important family events. Roman writers sometimes identify or conflate them with ancestor-deities, domestic Penates, and the hearth. Because of these associations, Lares are sometimes categorised as household gods, but some had much broader domains. Roadways, seaways, agriculture, livestock, towns, cities, the state, and its military were all under the protection of their particular Lar or Lares. Those who protected local neighbourhoods ('' vici'') were housed in the crossroad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonnus
Nonnus of Panopolis ( grc-gre, Νόννος ὁ Πανοπολίτης, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century CE) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid and probably lived in the 5th century CE. He is known as the composer of the ''Dionysiaca'', an epic tale of the god Dionysus, and of the ''Metabole'', a paraphrase of the ''Gospel of John''. The epic Dionysiaca describes the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return. It was written in Homeric Greek and in dactylic hexameter, and it consists of 48 books at 20,426 lines. Life There is almost no evidence for the life of Nonnus. It is known that he was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in Upper Egypt from his naming in manuscripts and the reference in epigram 9.198 of the ''Palatine Anthology''. Scholars have generally dated him from the end of the 4th to the central years of the 5th century CE. He must have lived af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cato The Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write history in Latin with his ''Origines'', a now fragmentary work on the history of Rome. His work '' De agri cultura'', a rambling work on agriculture, farming, rituals, and recipes, is the oldest extant prose written in the Latin language. His epithet "Elder" distinguishes him from his great-grandson Cato the Younger, who opposed Julius Caesar. He came from an ancient Plebeian family who were noted for their military service. Like his forefathers, Cato was devoted to agriculture when not serving in the army. Having attracted the attention of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome and began to follow the ''cursus honorum'': he was successively military tribune (214 BC), quaestor (204), aedile (199), praetor (198), consul (195) together ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_01.jpg "Click for more on -> Lares")
