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Dīs Pater
Dīs Pater (; ; genitive ''Dītis Patris''), otherwise known as Rex Infernus or Pluto, is a Roman god of the underworld. Dis was originally associated with fertile agricultural land and mineral wealth, and since those minerals came from underground, he was later equated with the chthonic deities Pluto (Hades) and Orcus. Dīs Pater's name was commonly shortened to ''Dīs'', and this name has since become an alternative name for the underworld or a part of the underworld, such as the City of Dis of Dante's ''The Divine Comedy'', which comprises Lower Hell. Etymology The name ''Dīs'' is a contraction of the Latin adjective ''dīves'' ('wealthy, rich'), probably derived from ''dīvus, dīus'' ('godlike, divine') via the form ''*deiu-(o)t-'' or ''*deiu-(e)t-'' ('who is like the gods, protected by/from the gods'). The occurrence of the deity Dīs together with ''Pater'' ('father') may be due to association with ''Di(e)spiter'' (Jupiter). Cicero gave a similar etymology in ''De Na ...
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Votive Pillar
A votive column (also votive pillar) is the combination of a column (pillar) and a votive image. The presence of columns supporting votive sculptures in Ancient Greek temples is well attested since at least the Archaic period. The oldest known example of a Corinthian column is in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in Arcadia, c. 450–420 BC. It is not part of the order of the temple itself, which has a Doric colonnade surrounding the temple and an Ionic order within the cella enclosure. A single Corinthian column stands free, centered within the cella. It is often interpreted as a votive column.The Frederick A. Cooper, ''Temple of Apollo Bassitas: The architecture'' (1992), p. 305 In Imperial Rome, it was the practice to erect a statue of the Emperor atop a column. The last such a column was the Column of Phocas, erected in the Roman Forum and dedicated or rededicated in 608. The Christian adaptation is the Marian column, attested from at least the 10th century (in Cle ...
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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 voc ...
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Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, an informal political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as were opposed by the within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly extended Roman territory. During this time he both invaded Britain an ...
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Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome, Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Ancient Rome, Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', and fashioned th ...
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Maurus Servius Honoratus
Servius was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, ''In tria Virgilii Opera Expositio'', constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence, by Bernardo Cennini, in 1471. In the ''Saturnalia'' of Macrobius, Servius appears as one of the interlocutors; allusions in that work and a letter from Symmachus to Servius indicate that he was not a convert to Christianity. Commentary on Virgil The commentary on Virgil ( la, In Vergilii Aeneidem commentarii) survives in two distinct manuscript traditions. The first is a comparatively short commentary, attributed to Servius in the superscription in the manuscripts and by other internal evidence. The second class derive from the 10th and 11th centuries, embed the same text in a much expanded commentary. The copious additions are in contrasting style to ...
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Sabine
The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided into two populations just after the founding of Rome, which is described by Roman legend. The division, however it came about, is not legendary. The population closer to Rome transplanted itself to the new city and united with the preexisting citizenry, beginning a new heritage that descended from the Sabines but was also Latinized. The second population remained a mountain tribal state, coming finally to war against Rome for its independence along with all the other Italic tribes. Afterwards, it became assimilated into the Roman Republic. Language There is little record of the Sabine language; however, there are some glosses by ancient commentators, and one or two inscriptions have been tentatively identified as Sabine. There are also ...
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Death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death. Death is an inevitable process that eventually occurs in almost all organisms. Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the similar process seen in individual components of an organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis. Something that is not considered an organism, such as a virus, can be physically destroyed but is not said to die. As of the early 21st century, over 150,000 humans die each day, with ageing being by far the most common cause of death. Many cultures and religions have the idea of an afterlife, and also may hold the idea of judgement of good and bad deeds in one's life (hea ...
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Persephone
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone ( ; gr, Περσεφόνη, Persephónē), also called Kore or Cora ( ; gr, Κόρη, Kórē, the maiden), is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by and marriage to her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld.Martin Nilsson (1967). ''Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion'' Vol I pp 462–463, 479–480 The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her temporary return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown. In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a sheaf of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades. ...
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Poseidon
Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes. He also had the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however, it seems that he was originally a god of the waters.Seneca quaest. Nat. VI 6 :Nilsson Vol I p.450 He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses, and with a strike of his trident, he created springs which are related to the word horse.Nilsson Vol I p.450 His Roman equivalent is Neptune. Poseidon was the protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea when, following the overthrow of his father Cronus, the world was divided by lot among Cronus' three sons; Zeus was ...
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Neptune (mythology)
Neptune ( la, Neptūnus ) is the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the Greek tradition, he is a brother of Jupiter and Pluto; the brothers preside over the realms of heaven, the earthly world (including the underworld), and the seas. Salacia is his wife. Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics, especially those in North Africa, were influenced by Hellenistic conventions. He was likely associated with freshwater springs before the sea. Like Poseidon, he was also worshipped by the Romans as a god of horses, as ''Neptunus equestris'' (a patron of horse-racing). Worship The theology of Neptune is limited by his close identification with the Greek god Poseidon, one of many members of the Greek pantheon whose theology was later tied to a Roman deity. The '' lectisternium'' of 399 BC indicated that the Greek figures of P ...
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Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Indra, Dyaus, and Zojz. Entry: "Dyaus" Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom ...
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Rhea (mythology)
Rhea or Rheia (; Ancient Greek: Ῥέα or Ῥεία ) is a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, the Titaness daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, himself a son of Gaia. She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort, and the mother of the five eldest Olympian gods Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon and Zeus, and the king of the Underworld, Hades. When Cronus learnt that he was destined to be overthrown by one of his children like his father was before him, he swallowed all the children Rhea bore as soon as they were born. When Rhea had her sixth and final child, Zeus, she spirited him away and hid him in Crete, giving Cronus a rock to swallow instead, thus saving her youngest son who would go on to challenge his father's rule and rescue the rest of his siblings. Following Zeus' defeat of Cronus and the rise of the Olympian gods into power, Rhea withdraws her role as the queen of the gods to become a supporting fi ...
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