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Ala (Roman Allied Military Unit)
An ''ala'' (Latin for "wing", plural: ''alae'') was the term used during the middle of the Roman Republic (338–88 BC) to denote a military formation composed of conscripts from the ''socii'', Rome's Italian military allies. A normal consular army during the period consisted of two legions, composed of only Roman citizens, and two allied ''alae''. The ''alae'' were somewhat larger than normal legions, 5,400 or 5,100 men against the legion's 4,500 men, and it contained a greater quantity of cavalry, usually 900 horsemen against the 300 supplied by the Romans. From the time of the first Roman emperor, Augustus (ruled 27 BC – AD 14), the term ''ala'' was used in the professional imperial army to denote a much smaller (ca. 500), purely cavalry unit of the non-citizen auxilia corps: see ala (Roman cavalry unit). History When the Roman armies started being composed partly of Roman citizens and partly of ''socii'' (allies from the rest of the Italian mainland), either Latini or Ita ... [...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] |
Polybius
Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, his in-depth discussion of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", which influenced Montesquieu's '' The Spirit of the Laws'', John Locke's '' Two Treatises of Government'', and the framers of the United States Constitution. The leading expert on Polybius for nearly a century was F. W. Walbank (1909–2008), who published studies related to him for 50 years, including a long commentary of his ''Histories'' and a biography. Early life Polybius was born around 200 BC in Megalopolis, Arcadia, when it was an active member of the Achaean League. The town was revived, along with other Achaean states, a century before he was born. Polybius' father, Lyc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Hyland
Ann Hyland is a writer and historian who specialises in equestrianism and the development of horses. She is also a consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary.StaffConsultants, advisers, and contributors Oxford English Dictionary Ann Hyland trains horses as well as being a freelance lecturer on equestrian topics.StaffAbout Ann Hyland Greenwood Publishing Select bibliography * ''Beginner's Guide to Western Riding'' (1971)World CatBooks by Ann Hyland World Cat * ''Foal to Five Years'' (1980) * ''The Endurance Horse'' (1988) * ''Riding Long Distance'' (1988) * ''Equus: The Horse in the Roman World'' (1990) * ''The Appaloosa'' (1990) * ''Training the Roman Cavalry'' (1993) * ''The Medieval Warhorse: From Byzantium to the Crusades'' (1994) * ''The Warhorse: 1250–1600'' (1998) * ''The Horse in the Middle Ages'' (1999) * ''The Quarter Horse'' (1999) * ''The Horse in the Ancient World'' (2003) * ''The Warhorse in the Modern Era: Breeder to Battlefield 1600 to 1865'' (2009) * ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission. As examples, the works of William Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci and Georges Méliès are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by a country's copyright laws, and are therefore in the public domain; for example, in the United States, items excluded from copyright include the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes,Copyright Protection ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers (known as E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill, Brill ()) is a Dutch international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, Netherlands. With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn and Singapore, Brill today publishes 275 journals and around 1200 new books and reference works each year all of which are "subject to external, single or double-blind peer review." In addition, Brill provides of primary source materials online and on microform for researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Areas of publication Brill publishes in the following subject areas: * Humanities: :* African Studies :* American Studies :* Ancient Near East and Egypt Studies :* Archaeology, Art & Architecture :* Asian Studies (Hotei Publishing and Global Oriental imprints) :* Classical Studies :* Education :* Jewish Studies :* Literature and Cultural Studies (under the Brill-Rodopi imprint) :* Media Studies :* Middle East and Islamic Studies :* Philosophy :* Religious Studie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrrhic War
The Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC) was largely fought between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been asked by the people of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy to help them in their war against the Romans. A skilled commander, with a strong army fortified by war elephants (which the Romans were not experienced in facing), Pyrrhus enjoyed initial success against the Roman legions, but suffered heavy losses even in these victories. Plutarch wrote that Pyrrhus said after the second battle of the war, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." He could not call up more men from home and his allies in Italy were becoming indifferent. The Romans, by contrast, had a very large pool of military manpower and could replenish their legions even if their forces were depleted in many battles. This has led to the expression " Pyrrhic victory", a term for a victory that inflicts losses the victor cannot afford in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Campanians
{{Short description, Ancient Italic tribe The Campanians (also Campani) were an ancient Italic tribe, part of the Osci nation, speaking an Oscan language. Descending from the Apennines, the proto-Osci settled in the areas of present-day Campania at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, or even before. They established themselves there over a previous Italic population of possible Latino-Faliscan origin. The Opici, Ausones and Aurunci were later linguistically and culturally Oscanized. From the 7th to the 5th century BC, Greek colonists submitted or expelled them from the area, but starting from the mid of the 5th century BC, the Osci reconquered many cities on the coasts of present-day Province of Caserta, Naples and Low Latium as also most of the inland.Diodorus Siculus, XII.31. Amongst those reconquered cities there were Cumae (taken from the Greeks) and Capua (from the Etruscans). From the Greeks and the Etruscans the Osci learnt of the institution of the ''Polis'', soo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frentani
The Frentani were an Italic tribe occupying the tract on the southeast coast of the Italian peninsula from the Apennines to the Adriatic, and from the frontiers of Apulia to those of the Marrucini. They were bounded on the west by the Samnites, with whom they were closely connected, and from whom they were originally descended. Hence Scylax assigns the whole of this line of coast, from the frontiers of Apulia to those of Picenum, to the Samnites. Their exact limits are less clearly defined, and there is considerable discrepancy in the statements of ancient geographers: Larinum, with its territory (extending from the Tifernus (modern Biferno) to the Frento), being by some writers termed a city of the Frentani, while the more general opinion included it in Apulia, and thus made the river Tifernus the limit of the two countries. The northern boundary of the Frentani is equally uncertain; both Strabo and Ptolemy concur in fixing it at the river Sagrus (modern Sangro), while Pliny exte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equites
The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an ''eques'' (). 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 '' centuriae'' of cavalry (300 horses for each consular legion). Around 400BC, 12 more ''centuriae'' 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 ''centuriae''. These new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the Centuriate Assembly org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Military Tribune
A military tribune (Latin ''tribunus militum'', "tribune of the soldiers") was an officer of the Roman army who ranked below the legate and above the centurion. Young men of Equestrian rank often served as military tribune as a stepping stone to the Senate. The ''tribunus militum'' should not be confused with the elected political office of tribune of the people ''(tribunus plebis)'' nor with that of '' tribunus militum consulari potestate''. Early Rome The word ''tribunus'' derives from '' tribus'', "tribe". In Rome's earliest history, each of the three tribes (Ramnes, Luceres, and Tities) sent one commander when an army was mustered, since there was no standing army. The tribunes were commanders of the original legion of 3,000. By the time of the Greek historian Polybius (d. 118 BC), the tribunes numbered six, and they were appointed by the consuls. However, the process by which tribunes were chosen and assigned is complex and varies at different times. Republican peri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formula Togatorum
The ''formula togatorum'' ("list of toga-wearers") was a schedule kept in Rome that listed the various military obligations that Rome's Italian allies were required to supply to Rome in times of war. ''Togati'', "those who wear the toga," is not precisely equivalent to "Roman citizens," and may mean more broadly " Romanized"; in the inscriptional context in which the phrase appears, ''togati'' seems to mean Romans, allies, or Latins who are subject to conscription. According to Polybius (3. 107. 12), in his day, Rome's allies supplied as many infantry soldiers as did Rome itself, but three times as much cavalry. Appian and Velleius Paterculus also mention allied contributions. Toynbee supposed that the ''formula'' listed the maximum number of troops that Rome could demand. Brunt, by contrast, argued that the obligation was set at a sliding scale, and that Rome could demand so many men per year from each community for every legion that it fielded.Brunt, ''Italian Manpower'', 6 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a 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, 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 Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the city was well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
