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Equites
The (; , though sometimes referred to as " knights" in English) constituted the second of the property/social-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an (). Description During the Roman Kingdom and the first century of the Roman Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, who were expected to provide six (hundreds) of cavalry (300 horses for each consular legion). Around 400BC, 12 more of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians (plebeians). Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the normal annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 . These new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the Centuriate Assembly organisation, and were not granted the same privileges. By the time of t ...
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Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic peoples, Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greece, Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscans, Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its hei ...
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Augustus
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an Roman imperial cult, imperial cult and an era of regional hegemony, imperial peace (the or ) in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century. Octavian was born into an equites, equestrian branch of the plebeian Octavia gens, Octavia. Following his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar's assassination of Julius Caesar, assassination in 44 BC, Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his Adoption in ancient Rome, adopted son and heir, and inherited Caesar's name, estate, and the loyalty of his legions. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirat ...
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Lucius Tarquinius Priscus
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (), or Tarquin the Elder, was the legendary fifth king of Rome and first of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned for thirty-eight years.Livy, '' ab urbe condita libri'', I Tarquinius expanded Roman power through military conquest and grand architectural constructions. His wife was the prophetess Tanaquil. Not much is known about the early life of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. According to Livy, Tarquin came from Etruria. Livy claims that his original Etruscan name was , but since '' lucumo'' is the latinized form of the Etruscan word "king", there is reason to believe that his name and title have been confused in the official tradition. After inheriting his father's entire fortune, Lucius attempted to gain a political office. However, he was prohibited from obtaining political office in Tarquinii because of the ethnicity of his father, Demaratus, who came from the Greek city of Corinth. As a result, his wife Tanaquil advised him to relocate to Rome. Leg ...
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Roman Kingdom
The Roman Kingdom, also known as the Roman monarchy and the regal period of ancient Rome, was the earliest period of Ancient Rome, Roman history when the city and its territory were King of Rome, ruled by kings. According to tradition, the Roman Kingdom began with the Founding of Rome, city's founding , with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in central Italy, and ended with the Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Republic . Little is certain about the kingdom's history as no records and few inscriptions from the time of the kings have survived. The accounts of this period written during the Roman Republic, Republic and the Roman Empire, Empire are thought largely to be based on oral tradition. Origin The site of the founding of the Roman Kingdom (and eventual Roman Republic, Republic and Roman Empire, Empire) included a ford (crossing), ford where one could cross the river Tiber in central Roman Italy ...
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Samnite Wars
The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars (343–341 BC, 326–304 BC, and 298–290 BC) were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe. * The first of these wars was the result of Rome's intervention to rescue the Campanian city of Capua from a Samnite attack. * The second one was the result of Rome's intervention in the politics of the city of Naples and developed into a contest over the control of central and southern Italy. * Similarly the third war also involved a struggle for control of this part of Italy. The wars extended over half a century, and also drew in the peoples to the east, north, and west of Samnium (land of the Samnites) as well as those of central Italy north of Rome (the Etruscans, Umbri, and Picentes) and the Senone Gauls, but at different times and levels of involvement. Background By the time of the First Samnite War (343 BC), the southward exp ...
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Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned from 578 to 535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome's first Etruscan king, who was assassinated in 579 BC. The constitutional basis for his accession is unclear; he is variously described as the first Roman king to accede without election by the Senate, having gained the throne by popular and royal support; and as the first to be elected by the Senate alone, with support of the reigning queen but without recourse to a popular vote. Several traditions describe Servius' father as divine. Livy depicts Servius' mother as a captured Latin princess enslaved by the Romans; her child is chosen as Rome's future king after a ring of fire is seen around his head. The Emperor Claudius discounted such origins and described him as an originally Etruscan mercenary, named Mastarna, who fou ...
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Knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood may have been inspired by the ancient Greek '' hippeis'' (ἱππεῖς) and Roman ''equites''. In the Early Middle Ages in Western Christian Europe, knighthoods were conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, a knighthood was considered a class of petty nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior. Often, a knight was a vassal who served as an elite fighter or a bodyguard for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback. In the Middle Ages, a knighthood was closely linked with horsemanship (and especially the joust) from its orig ...
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Second Punic War
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Roman Italy, Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonia, Kingdom of Syracuse, Syracuse and several Numidians, Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Celtiberians, Iberian and Gauls, Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main Theater (military), military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal (Barcid), Hasdru ...
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Tarquinia Gens
The gens Tarquinia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, usually associated with Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the fifth and seventh Kings of Rome. Most of the Tarquinii who appear in history are connected in some way with this dynasty, but a few appear during the later Republic, and others from inscriptions, some dating as late as the fourth century AD. Origin The legendary origin of the Tarquinii who reigned at Rome begins with Demaratus of Corinth, a member of the house of the Bacchiadae at Corinth, which was expelled in 657 BC. Demaratus settled at Tarquinii in Etruria, where he married an Etruscan noblewoman, and had two sons, Lucius and Arruns, who took the surname ''Tarquinius'' after the town of their birth. Denied political advancement due to his father's foreign birth, Lucius, encouraged by his wife, Tanaquil, determined to settle at Rome, where he could hope to attain high station based solely on his merits. He fell into the retin ...
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Roman Senate
The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, to the Senate of the Roman Republic and Senate of the Roman Empire and eventually the Byzantine Senate of the Eastern Roman Empire, existing well into the post-classical era and Middle Ages. During the days of the Roman Kingdom, the Senate was generally little more than an advisory council to the king. However, as Rome was an electoral monarchy, the Senate 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 Roman magistrates who appointed the senators for life (or until expulsion by Roma ...
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Social Class In Ancient Rome
Social class in ancient Rome was hierarchical, with multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. An individual's relative position in one might be higher or lower than in another, which complicated the social composition of Rome. The status of freeborn Romans during the Republic was established by: * Ancestry ( patrician or plebeian). * Census rank (''ordo'') based on wealth and political privilege, with the senatorial and equestrian ranks elevated above the ordinary citizen. * Gender. * Citizenship, of which there were varying types * The commoners and slaves were in the lower class Patricians and Plebeians Traditionally, patrician refers to members of the upper-class, while Plebeian refers to lower-class. Economic differentiation saw a small number of families accumulate most of the wealth in Rome, thus giving way to the creation of the patrician and plebeian classes. After this initial distinction, however, the divide between patrician and plebeian families was stric ...
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Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean world. Roman society at the time was primarily a cultural mix of Latins (Italic tribe), Latin and Etruscan civilization, Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Ancient Roman religion and List of Roman deities, its pantheon. Its political organisation developed at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by Roman Senate, a senate. There were annual elections, but the republican system was an elective olig ...
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