|
Princeps Senatus
The ''princeps senatus'' ( ''principes senatus'') was the first member by precedence on the membership rolls of the Roman Senate. Although officially out of the ''cursus honorum'' and possessing no '' imperium'', this office conferred prestige on the senator holding it. History The ''princeps senatus'' was chosen by the pair of censors (that is, every 5 years on average) whenever there was a vacancy on the seat during their tenure. The ''princeps senatus'' was not a lifetime appointment. However, in practice, the incumbent ''princeps senatus'' was always re-appointed by the censors. Traditionally, the ''princeps senatus'' had the honour of speaking first on any motion or topic presented by the presiding magistrate. By the middle republic, the ''princeps senatus'' was the most prestigious position in Rome and had adduced further privileges: he moved all routine senate business, having power to have his input directly moulded into them by choosing their wording. He also set out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC). It survived the overthrow of the Roman monarchy in 509 BC; the fall of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC; the division of the Roman Empire in AD 395; and the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476; Justinian's attempted reconquest of the west in the 6th century, and lasted well into the Eastern Roman Empire's history. During the days of the Roman Kingdom, most of the time the Senate was little more than an advisory council to the king, but it also elected new Roman kings. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was overthrown following a coup d'état led by Lucius Junius Brutus, who founded the Roman Republic. During the early Republic, the Senate was politically weak, while the various executive magistr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aemilia (gens)
The gens Aemilia, originally written Aimilia, was one of the greatest patrician families at ancient Rome. The gens was of great antiquity, and claimed descent from Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome. Its members held the highest offices of the state, from the early decades of the Republic to imperial times.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. I, p. 30 (" Aemilia Gens"). The Aemilii were almost certainly one of the ''gentes maiores'', the most important of the patrician families. Their name was associated with three major roads (the ''Via Aemilia'', the '' Via Aemilia Scauri'', and the '), an administrative region of Italy, and the Basilica Aemilia at Rome. Origin Several stories were told of the foundation of the Aemilii, of which the most familiar was that their ancestor, Mamercus, was the son of Numa Pompilius. In the late Republic, several other gentes claimed descent from Numa, including the Pompilii, Pomponii, Calpurnii, and Pina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, surnamed Cunctator ( 280 – 203 BC), was a Roman statesman and general of the third century BC. He was consul five times (233, 228, 215, 214, and 209 BC) and was appointed dictator in 221 and 217 BC. He was censor in 230 BC. His agnomen, ''Cunctator'', usually translated as "the delayer", refers to the strategy that he employed against Hannibal's forces during the Second Punic War. Facing an outstanding commander with superior numbers, he pursued a then-novel strategy of targeting the enemy's supply lines, and accepting only smaller engagements on favourable ground, rather than risking his entire army on direct confrontation with Hannibal himself. As a result, he is regarded as the originator of many tactics used in guerrilla warfare. Beginnings Born at Rome c. 280 BC, Fabius was a descendant of the ancient patrician Fabia gens. He was the son or grandson of Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, three times consul and ''princeps senatus'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publius Sempronius Tuditanus
Publius Sempronius C.f. Tuditanus (fl. 3rd century BC) was a Roman Republican consul and censor, best known for leading about 600 men to safety at Cannae in August, 216 BC and for the Treaty of Phoenice which ended the First Macedonian War, in 205 BC. Tuditanus at Cannae The consul L. Aemilius Paullus (who died at Cannae) had left a reserve camp of about 10,000 men on the other bank. These men who did not participate in the battle had three choices after the disastrous battle: surrender to Hannibal, attempt to break through the Carthaginian lines and escape, or stand their ground and die fighting. The smaller of the two camps was besieged by the Carthaginians. One of the few Roman officers who survived that fatal day, Publius Sempronius C.f. Tuditanus, along with his fellow tribune Gaius Octavius, advised that the men put on their shields, form a shield-wall, and break out through the lines of the exhausted Carthaginian army. Very few men agreed to go with him, the rest decidi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus
Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus (or Rullus), son of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, of the patrician Fabii of ancient Rome, was five times consul and a hero of the Samnite Wars. He was brother to Marcus Fabius Ambustus (magister equitum 322 BC). His first appearance in surviving records is as magister equitum in 325 BC, when he won a daring victory against the Samnites at Imbrinium. However, he had acted without the authority of the dictator Lucius Papirius Cursor, who was angry and demanded that the Senate punish Fabius for disobeying orders. Livy (8.31-36) describes a tense scene where Papirius stood nearly alone against the Senate and people, who supported Fabius because of his victory, but who also did not wish to undercut the absolute authority they had given Papirius; finally Fabius threw himself at the feet of the dictator and asked forgiveness, which was granted. Fabius became consul for the first time in 322 BC, although little is said of his time in office. He appears nex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrrhus Of Epirus
Pyrrhus (; grc-gre, Πύρρος ; 319/318–272 BC) was a Greek king and statesman of the Hellenistic period.Plutarch. '' Parallel Lives'',Pyrrhus... He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house, and later he became king (Malalas also called him toparch) of Epirus. He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome, and had been regarded as one of the greatest generals of antiquity. Several of his victorious battles caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined. Pyrrhus became king of Epirus in 306 BC at the age of 13, but was dethroned by Cassander four years later. He saw action during the Wars of the Diadochi and regained his throne in 297 BC with the support of Ptolemy I Soter. During what came to be known as the Pyrrhic War, Pyrrhus fought Rome at the behest of Tarentum, scoring costly victories at Heraclea and Asculum. He proceeded to take over Sicily from Carthage but was soon driven out, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 conjug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhotacism (sound Change)
Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a sound, this is sometimes known as ''zetacism''. The term comes from the Greek letter ''rho'', denoting . Albanian The southern, Tosk dialects, the base of Standard Albanian, changed to , but the northern, Gheg dialects did not: * vs. 'the voice' * vs. 'the knee' * vs. 'Albania' * vs. 'cheerful' * vs. 'lost' * vs. 'smiling' * vs. 'broken' * vs. 'touched' * vs. 'amazed' * vs. 'Albania' (older name of the country) * vs. 'burnt' * vs. 'drunk' * vs. 'baked' * vs. 'wood' * vs. 'did' * vs. 'put' * vs. 'caught' * vs. 'dust' * vs. 'happy' * vs. 'love' Aramaic In Aramaic, Proto-Semitic ''n'' changed to ''r'' in a few words: * ''bar'' "son" as compared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appius Claudius Caecus
Appius Claudius Caecus ( 312–279 BC) was a statesman and writer from the Roman Republic. The first Roman public figure whose life can be traced with some historical certainty, Caecus was responsible for the building of Rome's first road (the Appian Way) and first aqueduct (the Aqua Appia), as well as instigating controversial popular-minded reforms. He is also credited with the authorship of a juristic treatise, a collection of moral essays, and several poems, making him one of Rome's earliest literary figures. A patrician of illustrious lineage, Caecus first came to prominence with his election to the position of censor in 312 BC, which he held for five years. During Caecus's time in office, aside from his building projects, he introduced several controversial but poorly-understood constitutional reforms: he increased the voting power of the poor and landless in the legislative assemblies, and admitted lower-class citizens to the Roman Senate, though these measures wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plebiscitum Ovinium
The Plebiscitum Ovinium (often called the ''Lex Ovinia'') was an initiative by the Plebeian Council that transferred the power to revise the list of members of the Roman Senate (the ''lectio senatus'') from consuls to censors. Date Since Appius Claudius Caecus is said to have changed the membership of the senate during his censorship in 312 BCE, the law must have been passed by then, but not much earlier because the censors of 319 removed a man from his tribe, but not from the Senate. Reaction The patricians did not recognize the validity of the ''Plebiscitum Ovinium'', but nevertheless did not attempt to prevent the ''lectio senatus'' being carried out by the censors rather than the consuls. See also *Conflict of the Orders *Ovinia gens The gens Ovinia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens occur in history toward the end of the Republic, and from then to at least the fourth century. They produced generations of Roman senators, with Gaius Ovinius Tertullus obtai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conflict Of The Orders
The Conflict of the Orders, sometimes referred to as the Struggle of the Orders, was a political struggle between the plebeians (commoners) and patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient Roman Republic lasting from 500 BC to 287 BC in which the plebeians sought political equality with the patricians. It played a major role in the development of the Constitution of the Roman Republic. Shortly after the founding of the Republic, this conflict led to a secession from Rome by Plebeians to the Sacred Mount at a time of war. The result of this first secession was the creation of the office of plebeian tribune, and with it the first acquisition of real power by the plebeians. At first, only patricians were allowed to stand for election to political office, but over time these laws were revoked, and eventually all offices were opened to the plebeians. Since most individuals who were elected to political office were given membership in the Roman Senate, this development helped to transform th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
