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Ennius
Quintus Ennius (; c. 239 – c. 169 BC) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce, Apulia, (Ancient Calabria, today Salento), a town founded by the Messapians, and could speak Greek as well as Latin and Oscan (his native language). Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant, particularly in his use of Greek literary models. Biography Very little is reliably known about the life of Ennius. His contemporaries hardly mentioned him and much that is related about him could have been embroidered from references to himself in his now fragmentary writings. Some lines of the ''Annales'', as well as ancient testimonies, for example, suggest that Ennius opened his epic with a recollection of a dream in which the ancient epic-writer Homer informed him that his spirit had been reborn into Ennius. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aventine Hill
The Aventine Hill (; la, Collis Aventinus; it, Aventino ) is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the modern twelfth '' rione'', or ward, of Rome. Location and boundaries The Aventine Hill is the southernmost of Rome's seven hills. It has two distinct heights, one greater to the northwest (''Aventinus Major'') and one lesser to the southeast (''Aventinus Minor''), divided by a steep cleft that provides the base for an ancient roadway between the heights. During the Republican era, the two hills may have been recognized as a single entity. The Augustan reforms of Rome's urban neighbourhoods ('' vici'') recognised the ancient road between the two heights (the modern Viale Aventino) as a common boundary between the new Regio XIII, which absorbed Aventinus Maior, and the part of Regio XII known as Aventinus Minor. Etymology and mythology Most Roman sources trace the name of the hill to a legendary king Aventinus. Servius identifies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire, Rome's control rapidly expanded during this period—from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. Roman society under the Republic was primarily a cultural mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Roman Pantheon. Its political organization developed, at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a senate. The top magistrates were the two consuls, who had an extensive range of executive, legislative, judicial, military, and religious p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lecce
Lecce ( ); el, label= Griko, Luppìu, script=Latn; la, Lupiae; grc, Λουπίαι, translit=Loupíai), group=pron is a historic city of 95,766 inhabitants (2015) in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Lecce, the province of second-highest population in the region of Apulia, as well as one of that region's most important cities. It is the main city of the Salentine Peninsula, a sub-peninsula at the heel of the Italian Peninsula, and is over 2,000 years old. Because of the rich Baroque architectural monuments found in the city, Lecce is commonly nicknamed "The Florence of the South". In terms of industry, the "Lecce stone"—a particular kind of limestone—is one of the city's main exports, because it is very soft and workable, thus suitable for sculptures. Lecce is also an important agricultural centre, chiefly for its olive oil and wine production, as well as an industrial centre specializing in ceramic production. Lecce is home to the Universit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature would flourish for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into the following periods: Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period and Late Antiquity. Latin was the language of the ancient Romans, but it was also the '' lingua franca'' of Western and Central Europe throughout the Middle Ages, so Latin literature includes not only Roman authors like Cicero, Virgil, Ovid and Horace, but also includes European writers after the fall of the Empire, from religious writers like Aquinas (1225–1274), to secular writers like Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727). History Early Latin literature Although literature in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cato The Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write history in Latin with his '' Origines'', a now fragmentary work on the history of Rome. His work '' De agri cultura'', a rambling work on agriculture, farming, rituals, and recipes, is the oldest extant prose written in the Latin language. His epithet "Elder" distinguishes him from his great-grandson Cato the Younger, who opposed Julius Caesar. He came from an ancient Plebeian family who were noted for their military service. Like his forefathers, Cato was devoted to agriculture when not serving in the army. Having attracted the attention of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome and began to follow the ''cursus honorum'': he was successively military tribune (214 BC), quaestor (204), aedile (199), praetor (198), consul (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudiae
Rudiae (''Rusce'' in the local dialect and Ῥοδίαι in ancient Greek), was a former late 9th or early 8th centuries BCE human settlement. It is presently an archaeological park beside the San Pietro in Lama that runs south-west from the city of Lecce. The place was identified as the former home of the poet Ennius by the Renaissance Humanist, Antonio de Ferraris. History The ancient site of the city was first settled by the Messapians. In the late sixth century BCE it developed in importance and, even after it had been partially settled by Greeks during the period of Magna Graecia, it still retained some of its native traditions. Strabo called Rudiae a "Greek city". According to Aulus Gellius, the poet Ennius referred to the linguistic and cultural heritage given him by the city in asserting that he had "three hearts", Greek, Oscan and Latin (''Quintus Ennius tria corda habere sese dicebat, quod loqui Graece et Osce et Latine sciret''). Rudiae is identified with the archae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Poetry
The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205-184 BC. History Scholars conventionally date the start of Latin literature to the first performance of a play in verse by a Greek slave, Livius Andronicus, at Rome in 240 BC. Livius translated Greek New Comedy for Roman audiences, using meters that were basically those of Greek drama, modified to the needs of Latin. His successors Plautus ( 254 – 184 BC) and Terence ( 195/185 – 159? BC) further refined the borrowings from the Greek stage and the prosody of their verse is substantially the same as for classical Latin verse. Ennius (239 – 169 BC), virtually a contemporary of Livius, introduced the traditional meter of Greek epic, the dactylic hexameter, into Latin literature; he substituted it for the jerky Saturnian meter in which Livius had been composing e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the '' Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil has been traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His ''Aeneid'' is also considered a national epic of ancient Rome, a title held since composition. Life and works Birth and biographical tradition Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by the Roman p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caecilius Statius
Statius Caecilius, also known as Caecilius Statius (; c. 220 BC – c. 166 BC), was a Roman comic poet. Life and work A contemporary and intimate friend of Ennius, according to tradition he was born in the territory of the Insubrian Gauls, probably in Mediolanum, and was probably taken as a prisoner to Rome (c. 200), during the Roman-Gallic wars. Originally a slave, he assumed the name of Caecilius from his patron, probably one of the Metelli. However, according to one source he was free-born of Samnite stock whose family had settled in Cisalpine Gaul following the Second Punic War. In this case he would have been a native speaker of a language close to Latin, rather than Gaulish Insubrian. There he came to the attention of Marcus Caecilius Denter, the Legatus Legionibus Praepositus in Cisalpine Gaul in 200 BC who introduced him in Rome. He supported himself by adapting Greek plays for the Roman stage from the New Comedy writers, especially Menander, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quintus Fulvius Nobilior
Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was a Roman consul who obtained the consulship in 153 BC. His father Marcus Fulvius Nobilior and his brother Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (consul 159 BC) were also consuls. Nobilior and his father were patrons of the writer Quintus Ennius. Career In 153 BC, Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was in charge of a 30.000 strong army to campaign in Spain, which was largely unsuccessful. The Roman army was initially deployed against the ''oppidum'' of Segeda, whose Celtiberian inhabitants, the Belli, had been expanding its walls and attacking other nearby tribes. Segeda was destroyed, but the Belli assembled an army under chieftain Carus, which ambushed the Roman army in a move compared to the Battle of Lake Trasimene, inflicting heavy losses. Moving west to the meseta, Nobilior laid siege to Numantia, an oppidum whose inhabitants were to give Rome trouble for years and had sheltered the Belli when they fled their city. The Roman army faced difficult conditions in the winte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (consul 189 BC)
Marcus Fulvius Nobilior was a Roman general. He started his political career as curule aedile in 195 BC. When he was praetor (193 BC) he served with distinction in Spain, and as consul in 189 BC he completely broke the power of the Aetolian League. On his return to Rome, Nobilior celebrated a triumph (of which full details are given by Livy) remarkable for the magnificence of the spoils exhibited. On his Aetolian campaign he was accompanied by the poet Ennius, who made the capture of Ambracia, at which he was present, the subject of one of his plays. For this Nobilior was strongly opposed by Cato the Censor, on the ground that he had compromised his dignity as a Roman general. In 179 BC he was appointed censor together with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. He restored the temple of Hercules and the Muses in the Circus Flaminius, placed in it a list of Fasti drawn up by himself, and endeavoured to make the Roman calendar more generally known.Macrobius ''Saturnalia'' 1.12.16 He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (, , ; 236/235–183 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, most notable as one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the best military commanders and strategists of all time, his greatest military achievement was the defeat of Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. This victory in Africa earned him the epithet ''Africanus'', literally meaning “the African,” but meant to be understood as a conqueror of Africa. Scipio's conquest of Carthaginian Iberia culminated in the Battle of Ilipa in 206 BC against Hannibal's brother Mago Barca. Although considered a hero by the Roman people, primarily for his victories against Carthage, Scipio had many opponents, especially Cato the Elder, who hated him deeply. In 187 BC, he was tried in a show trial alongside his brother for bribes they supposedly received from the Seleucid king Antiochos III during the Roman–Seleucid War ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
