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Taurian Games
The Taurian Games (Latin ''Ludi Taurii'' or ''Ludi Taurei'', rarely Taurilia) were games ''(ludi)'' held in ancient Rome in honor of the ''di inferi'', the gods of the underworld. They were not part of a regularly scheduled religious festival on the calendar, but were held as expiatory rites ''religionis causa'', occasioned by religious concerns. ''Ludi Taurii'' are recorded in 186 BC as a two-day event. Varro mentions them as occurring in the late Republic. During the reign of Antoninus Pius, they were held every five years from 140 to 160 AD, within a period beginning on the day after the Ides of May and continuing through the Kalends of June. Some scholars extrapolate that like the ''lustrum'' (purification ritual), the ''Ludi Taurii'' were regularly quinquennial. Others caution that the five-year schedule under Antoninus Pius, attested by the ''Fasti Ostienses'', is never mentioned in other sources. The limited evidence suggests the ''Ludi Taurii'' were important mainly in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a friend of Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history. Life Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy (Roman Empire), Italy, now modern Padua, probably in 59 BC. At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). Cisalpine Gaul was merged in Roman Italy, Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lustrum
A lūstrum (, plural lūstra) was a term for a five-year period in Ancient Rome. It is distinct from the homograph ''lustrum'' ( ): a haunt of wild beasts (and figuratively, a den of vice), plural ''lustra'' ( ).Oxford Latin Desk Dictionary (2005). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. vii, 109 History The lustration was originally a sacrifice for expiation and purification offered by one of the censors in the name of the Roman people at the close of the taking of the census. The sacrifice was often in the form of an animal sacrifice, known as a suovetaurilia. These censuses were taken at five-year intervals, thus a ''lūstrum'' came to refer to the five-year inter-census period. ' (from ', grc, λούω) is a lustration or purification of the whole Roman people performed by one of the censors in the Campus Martius, after the taking of the census was over. As this purification took place only once in five years, the word ''lūstrum'' was also used to designate the time between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LacusCurtius
LacusCurtius is a website specializing in ancient Rome, currently hosted on a server at the University of Chicago. It went online on August 26, 1997; in July 2021 it had "3707 webpages, 765 photos, 772 drawings & engravings, 120 plans, 139 maps." The site is the creation of William P. Thayer. Overview The main resources to be found on it include: * a number of Latin and Greek texts, usually in English translation, and often in the original language as well, * ''Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'', * ''Platner's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome'', * several secondary works, mostly on Rome and Roman Britain, * a photogazetteer of Roman remains and medieval churches of central Italy including the city of Rome, * an often-cited online copy of Richard Hinckley Allen's '' Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning'', * the Antiquary's Shoebox, a selection of articles from classical studies journals that are now in public domain. The parent site also includes a large Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen Saeculare
The ''Carmen Saeculare'' (Latin for "Secular Hymn" or "Song of the Ages") is a hymn in Sapphic meter written by the Roman poet Horace. It was commissioned by the Roman emperor Augustus in 17 BC. The hymn was sung by a chorus of twenty-seven maidens and the same number of youths on the occasion of the '' Ludi Saeculares'' (Secular Games), which celebrated the end of one '' saeculum'' (typically 110 years in length) and the beginning of another. The mythological and religious song is in the form of a prayer addressed to Apollo and Diana; it especially brings to prominence Apollo, functioning as a surrogate for and patron of the princeps (Augustus), for whom a new temple on the Palatine had recently been consecrated. A marble inscription recording the ceremony and the part played by Horace still survives. The ''Carmen Saeculare'' is the earliest fully preserved lyric poem for which there is definite information about the circumstances of its public performance.Michael C J Putnam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ''Odes'' as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."Quintilian 10.1.96. The only other lyrical poet Quintilian thought comparable with Horace was the now obscure poet/metrical theorist, Caesius Bassus (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient Receptions of Horace'', 280) Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (''Satires'' and '' Epistles'') and caustic iambic poetry ('' Epodes''). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 180318 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866. Bulwer-Lytton's works sold and paid him well. He coined famous phrases like "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", " dweller on the threshold", and the opening phrase "It was a dark and stormy night." The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually since 1982, claims to seek the "opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels". Life Bulwer was born on 25 May 1803 to General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon Hall and Wood Dalling, Norfolk and Elizabeth Barbara Lytton, daughter of Richard Warburton Lyt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Tradition
The Western classical tradition is the reception of classical Greco-Roman antiquity by later cultures, especially the post-classical West, involving texts, imagery, objects, ideas, institutions, monuments, architecture, cultural artifacts, rituals, practices, and sayings. Philosophy, political thought, and mythology are three major examples of how classical culture survives and continues to have influence. The West is one of a number of world cultures regarded as having a classical tradition, including the Indian, Chinese, and Islamic traditions. The study of the classical tradition differs from classical philology, which seeks to recover "the meanings that ancient texts had in their original contexts." It examines both later efforts to uncover the realities of the Greco-Roman world and "creative misunderstandings" that reinterpret ancient values, ideas and aesthetic models for contemporary use. The classicist and translator Charles Martindale has defined the reception of cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictionary Of Greek And Roman Antiquities
''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' is an English language encyclopedia first published in 1842. The second, improved and enlarged, edition appeared in 1848, and there were many revised editions up to 1890. The encyclopedia covered law, religion, architecture, warfare, daily life, and similar subjects primarily from the standpoint of a classicist. It was one of a series of reference works on classical antiquity by William Smith, the others cover persons and places. It runs to well over a million words in any edition, and all editions are now in the public domain. See also * '' Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'' * ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' References and sources ;References ;Sources * External links 1870 edition OCR at Ancient Library at LacusCurtius (about 50% of it: the Roman articles) 1890 editionat Perseus Project Also the Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonhard Schmitz
Leonhard Schmitz FRSE (1807 – May 1890) was a Prussian-born classical scholar and educational author, mainly active in the United Kingdom. He is sometimes referred to in the Anglicised version of his name Leonard Schmitz. Biography Schmitz was born in Eupen in what was then Prussia (now in Belgium) close to the Belgium/Germany border. He attended gymnasium in Aix-la-Chappelle to the east (now called Aachen and within modern day Germany). He lost his right arm in an accident at the age of 10, but nonetheless excelled academically. He studied at the University of Bonn, where he earned a PhD, and was in particular influenced by Barthold Georg Niebuhr; Schmitz later published in England a collection of notes taken from Niebuhr's lectures as ''Lectures on Roman History'' (1844). He became associated with a number of scholars there, writing many of the mythological entries for classicist William Smith's ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', and serving as "a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saecular Games
The Saecular Games ( la, Ludi saeculares, originally ) was a Roman religious celebration involving sacrifices and theatrical performances, held in ancient Rome for three days and nights to mark the end of a and the beginning of the next. A , supposedly the longest possible length of human life, was considered as either 100 or 110 years in length. According to Roman mythology, the Secular Games began when a Sabine man called Valesius prayed for a cure for his children's illness and was supernaturally instructed to sacrifice on the Campus Martius to Dis Pater and Proserpina, deities of the underworld. Some ancient authors traced official celebrations of the Games as far back as 509 BC, but the only clearly attested celebrations under the Roman Republic took place in 249 and in the 140s BC. They involved sacrifices to the underworld gods over three consecutive nights. The Games were revived in 17 BC by Rome's first emperor Augustus, with the nocturnal sacrifices on the Campus Marti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metae
The Roman circus (from the Latin word that means "circle") was a large open-air venue used for public events in the ancient Roman Empire. The circuses were similar to the ancient Greek hippodromes, although circuses served varying purposes and differed in design and construction. Along with theatres, amphitheatres, and the similar but much smaller stadiums, circuses were one of the main entertainment sites of the time. Circuses were venues for chariot races, horse races, gladiatorial combat, and performances that commemorated important events of the Empire were performed there. According to Edward Gibbon, in Chapter XXXI of his work ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', the Roman people, at the start of the 5th century: Architectural design The performance space of the Roman circus was normally, despite its name, an oblong rectangle of two linear sections of race track, separated by a median strip running along the length of about two thirds the track, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chariot Races
Chariot racing ( grc-gre, ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromia, la, ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games from a very early time. With the institution of formal races and permanent racetracks, chariot racing was adopted by many Greek states and their religious festivals. Horses and chariots were very costly. Their ownership was a preserve of the wealthiest aristocrats, whose reputations and status benefitted from offering such extravagant, exciting displays. Their successes could be further broadcast and celebrated through commissioned odes and other poetry. In standard racing practise, each chariot held a single driver and was pulled by four horses, or sometimes two. Drivers and horses risked serious injury or death through collisions and crashes; this added to the excitement and interest for spectators. Most charioteers were slaves or contract ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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