Saint Marcellus The Centurion
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Saint Marcellus The Centurion
Saint Marcellus of Tangier or Saint Marcellus the Centurion ( es, San Marcelo) (c. mid 3rd century – 298 AD) was a Roman centurion who is today venerated as a martyr-saint by the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. His feast day is celebrated on October 30. Life Marcellus was said to have been a centurion stationed at Tingis (modern-day Tangiers) who refused to participate in the general birthday celebrations of the Emperor Maximian, which would have entailed sacrifice to the Roman gods. Throwing off his military belt, weapons, and vine staff (the insignia of his rank), Marcellus was soon brought before a judge named Fortunatus. The judge remanded the saint to lay his case before Maximian and Constantius; the latter was friendly to Christians. However, Marcellus was taken to the deputy Praetorian prefect Aurelius Agricolanus instead. Marcellus pleaded guilty to repudiating his allegiance to an earthly leader. Marcellus was martyred with a sword by the deputy Pr ...
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Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 ''sui iuris'' churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it ...
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Vine Staff
__NOTOC__ The vine staff, vine-staff, or centurion's staff ( la, vitis) was a vinewood rod of about in length used in the ancient Roman Army and Navy. It was the mark and tool of the centurion: both as an implement in the direction of drill and maneuvers; and to beat wayward or laggard soldiers or sailors under his command. It was also borne by '' evocati'' who held an equivalent rank. Origin The vine staff may have derived from the Etruscan ''lituus'' and was certainly in use by the Punic Wars. Following the enactment of the Porcian Laws in the early 2nd century BC, it was the only manner by which Roman citizens could be beaten and is mentioned by various classical authors. A line in Ovid notes that "the good general commits the ''vitis'' to one to command one hundred." Pliny: "The centurion's vine staff is an excellent medicine for sluggish troops who don't want to advance..." "and when used to chastise offenses makes even the punishment respectable." It carried non ...
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Facundus And Primitivus
:''St. Primitivus is also the name of one of St. Symphorosa's sons.'' Saints Facundus ( es, Facundo) and Primitivus ( es, Primitivo) are venerated as Christian martyrs. According to tradition, they were Christian natives of León who were tortured and then beheaded on the banks of the River Cea. According to an account of their martyrdom, after the two saints were beheaded, ''lac et sanguis'' (“milk and blood”) gushed from their necks.James F. Burke, ''History and vision: the figural structure of the "Libro del cavallero Zifar."'' Volume 28 of Colección Támesis. Serie A, Monografías. (Tamesis Books, 1972), 27. Veneration The town of Sahagún Sahagún () is a town and municipality of Spain, part of the autonomous community of Castile and León and the province of León. It is the main populated place in the Leonese part of the Tierra de Campos natural region. Sahagún contains som ... arose around the Benedictine monastery dedicated to the two saints. The ...
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Decapitation
Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the autonomic nervous system, involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function. The term ''beheading'' refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an capital punishment, execution; it may be performed with an axe, sword, knife, machete or by mechanical means such as a guillotine or chainsaw. An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. Suicide by decapitation is rare but not unknown. The national laws of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Qatar permit beheading; however, in practice, Saudi Arabia i ...
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City Walls
A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates for access to the city. From ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements. Generally, these are referred to as city walls or town walls, although there were also walls, such as the Great Wall of China, Walls of Benin, Hadrian's Wall, Anastasian Wall, and the Atlantic Wall, which extended far beyond the borders of a city and were used to enclose regions or mark territorial boundaries. In mountainous terrain, defensive walls such as '' letzis'' were used in combination with castles to seal valleys from potential attack. Beyond their defensive utility, many walls also had important symbolic functions representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced. Existing ancient walls are almost always masonry ...
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Legio VII Gemina
__NOTOC__ Legio VII Gemina (Latin for "The Twins' Seventh Legion") was a legion of the Imperial Roman army. It was raised in AD 68 in Hispania by the general Galba to take part in his rebellion against the emperor Nero. "Gemina" means the legion was dedicated to the legendary twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a she-wolf. The legion was deployed in the city called ''Legio'' (modern-day León, Spain) in AD 74 and remained in Hispania to the end of the 4th century. Tacitus calls the legion "Galbiana", to distinguish it from the senior Legio VII ''Claudia'', but this appellation is not found on any inscriptions. It appears to have received the appellation of "Gemina" on account of its amalgamation by Vespasian with one of the German legions, not improbably the Legio I ''Germanica''. Between 86 and 89 the Legion was commanded by the future emperor and native of the region Trajan. After serving in Pannonia and in the civil wars, it was settled by Ves ...
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Patron Saint
A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholic Church, Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocacy, advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person. In Christianity Saints often become the patrons of places where they were born or had been active. However, there were cases in Middle Ages, Medieval Europe where a city which grew to prominence and obtained for its cathedral the remains or some relics of a famous saint who had lived and was buried elsewhere, thus making them the city's patron saint – such a practice conferred considerable prestige on the city concerned. In Latin America and the Philippines, Spanish and Portuguese explorers often named a location for the saint on whose feast or commemoration day they first visited the place, with that saint naturally becoming the area's patron. Occupations sometimes have a patron saint who had been connected so ...
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Relics
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, shamanism, and many other religions. ''Relic'' derives from the Latin ''reliquiae'', meaning "remains", and a form of the Latin verb ''relinquere'', to "leave behind, or abandon". A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In classical antiquity In ancient Greece, a city or sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the remains of a venerated hero as a part of a hero cult. Other venerable objects associated with the hero were more likely to be on display in sanctuaries, such as spears, shields, or other weaponry; chariots, ships or figureheads; furniture such as chairs or tripods; and clothi ...
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Cassian Of Tangier
Saint Cassian of Tangier (or of Tangiers or of Tingis) was a Christian saint of the 3rd century. He is traditionally said to have been beheaded on 3 December, AD 298, during the reign of Diocletian. The ''Passion'' of Saint Cassian is appended to that of Saint Marcellus of Tangier. According to it, he was a court recorder at the trial of St. Marcellus the Centurion. Aurelius Agricola, deputy prefect in the Roman province in North Africa, conducted the trial. When the death penalty was imposed on St. Marcellus, Cassian threw down his pen and declared that he was a Christian. He was arrested immediately and put to death. Cassian is the patron saint of modern stenographers. Saint Cassian of Tangier is the martyr mentioned by St. Prudentius Aurelius Prudentius Clemens () was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.H. J. Rose, ''A Handbook of Classical Literature'' (1967) p. 508 He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula s ...
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Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''stenos'' (narrow) and ''graphein'' (to write). It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek ''brachys'' (short), and tachygraphy, from Greek ''tachys'' (swift, speedy), depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal. Many forms of shorthand exist. A typical shorthand system provides symbols or abbreviations for words and common phrases, which can allow someone well-trained in the system to write as quickly as people speak. Abbreviation methods are alphabet-based and use different abbreviating approaches. Many journalists use shorthand writing to quickly take notes at press conferences or other similar scenarios. In the computerized world, several autocomplete programs, standalone or integrated in text editors, based on ...
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Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman Republic, the Praetorian Guard were an escort for high-rank political officials ( senators and procurators) and were bodyguards for the senior officers of the Roman legions. In 27 BC, after Rome's transition from republic to empire, the first emperor of Rome, Augustus, designated the Praetorians as his personal security escort. For three centuries, the guards of the Roman emperor were also known for their palace intrigues, by which influence upon imperial politics the Praetorians could overthrow an emperor and then proclaim his successor as the new '' caesar'' of Rome. In AD 312, Constantine the Great disbanded the and destroyed their barracks at the Castra Praetoria. In the Roman Republic In the period of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) the Praetorian Guard originated as bodygua ...
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Sword
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region. Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger; the earliest specimens date to about 1600 BC. The later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration Period sword, and only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical arming sword with crossguard. The word '' sword'' con ...
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