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Ancilia
In ancient Rome, the ''ancilia'' (Latin, singular ''ancile'') were twelve sacred shields kept in the Temple of Mars. According to legend, one divine shield fell from heaven during the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. He ordered eleven copies made to confuse would-be thieves, since the original shield was regarded as one of the '' pignora imperii (pledges of rule)'', sacred guarantors that perpetuated Rome as a sovereign entity. The shields are identified by their distinct 'figure of eight' shape which is said to be derived from Mycenaean art. As described by Plutarch, the shape of the ancile is a standard shield, neither round or oval, which has curved indentations on both sides. The ancilia were kept by the Salii, a body of twelve priests instituted for that purpose by Numa. The Salii wielded them ritually in a procession throughout March. According to Varro, the ancilia may have also made an appearance in the Armilustrium (‘Purification of the Arms’) in O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salii
The Salii, Salians, or Salian priests were the "leaping priests" of Mars in ancient Roman religion, supposed to have been introduced by King Numa Pompilius. They were twelve patrician youths dressed as archaic warriors with an embroidered tunic, a breastplate, a short red cloak (), a sword, and a spiked headdress called an apex. They were charged with the twelve bronze shields called , whichlike those of the Mycenaeansresembled a figure eight. One of the shields was said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of King Numa and eleven copies were made to protect the identity of the sacred shield on the advice of the nymph Egeria, consort of Numa, who prophesied that wherever that shield was preserved, the people would be the dominant people of the earth. Each year in March, the Salii made a procession round the city, dancing and singing the . Ovid, who relates the story of Numa and the heavenly in his , found the hymn and the Salian rituals outdated and hard to understand. Durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancilia
In ancient Rome, the ''ancilia'' (Latin, singular ''ancile'') were twelve sacred shields kept in the Temple of Mars. According to legend, one divine shield fell from heaven during the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. He ordered eleven copies made to confuse would-be thieves, since the original shield was regarded as one of the '' pignora imperii (pledges of rule)'', sacred guarantors that perpetuated Rome as a sovereign entity. The shields are identified by their distinct 'figure of eight' shape which is said to be derived from Mycenaean art. As described by Plutarch, the shape of the ancile is a standard shield, neither round or oval, which has curved indentations on both sides. The ancilia were kept by the Salii, a body of twelve priests instituted for that purpose by Numa. The Salii wielded them ritually in a procession throughout March. According to Varro, the ancilia may have also made an appearance in the Armilustrium (‘Purification of the Arms’) in O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mamurius Veturius
In ancient Roman religion, the Mamuralia or ''Sacrum Mamurio'' ('Rite for Mamurius') was a festival held on March 14 or 15, named only in sources from late antiquity. According to Joannes Lydus, an old man wearing animal skins was beaten ritually with sticks. The name is connected to Mamurius Veturius, who according to tradition was the craftsman who made the ritual shields ('' ancilia'') that hung in the temple of Mars. Because the Roman calendar originally began in March, the ''Sacrum Mamurio'' is usually regarded as a ritual marking the transition from the old year to the new. It shares some characteristics with scapegoat or ''pharmakos'' ritual. The craft of Mamurius According to legend, Mamurius was commissioned by Numa, second king of Rome, to make eleven shields identical to the sacred ''ancile'' that fell from the heavens as a pledge of Rome's destiny to rule the world. The ''ancile'' was one of the sacred guarantors of the Roman state ''( pignora imperii)'', and the rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pignora Imperii
The ''pignora imperii'' ("pledges of rule") were objects that were supposed to guarantee the continued ''imperium'' of Ancient Rome. One late source lists seven. The sacred tokens most commonly regarded as such were: - the ''Palladium'', the wooden image of Minerva (Greek Athena) that the Romans claimed had been rescued from the fall of Troy and was in the keeping of the Vestals; - the sacred fire of Vesta tended by the Vestals, which was never allowed to go out; - the '' ancilia'', the twelve shields of Mars wielded by his priests, the Salii, in their processions, dating to the time of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. In the later Roman Empire, the maintenance of the Altar of Victory in the Curia took on a similar symbolic value for those such as Symmachus who were trying to preserve Rome's religious traditions in the face of Christian hegemony. The extinguishing of the fire of Vesta by the Christian emperor Theodosius I is one of the events that mark the abolition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars (god)
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Mars (, ) is the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He is the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him ( Latin ''Martius''), and in October, the months which traditionally began and ended the season for both military campaigning and farming. Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares,''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. The character and dignity of Mars differs in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, who is often treated with contempt and revulsion in Greek literature. Mars's altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fasti (poem)
The ''Fasti'' ( , "the Calendar"), sometimes translated as ''The Book of Days'' or ''On the Roman Calendar'', is a six-book Latin poem written by the Roman poet Ovid and made public in AD 8. Ovid is believed to have left the ''Fasti'' incomplete when he was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in 8 AD. Written in elegiac couplets and drawing on conventions of Greek and Latin didactic poetry, the ''Fasti'' is structured as a series of eye-witness reports and interviews by the first-person '' vates'' ("poet-prophet" or "bard") with Roman deities, who explain the origins of Roman holidays and associated customs—often with multiple aetiologies. The poem is a significant, and in some cases unique, source of fact in studies of religion in ancient Rome; and the influential anthropologist and ritualist J.G. Frazer translated and annotated the work for the Loeb Classical Library series. Each book covers one month, January through June, of the Roman calendar, and was writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palladium (mythology)
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Palladium or Palladion (Greek Παλλάδιον (Palladion), Latin ''Palladium'') was a cult image of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend, the wooden statue ('' xoanon'') of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy and which was later taken to the future site of Rome by Aeneas. The Roman story is related in Virgil's ''Aeneid'' and other works. Rome possessed an object regarded as the actual Palladium for several centuries; it was in the care of the Vestal Virgins for nearly all this time. Since around 1600, the word palladium has been used figuratively to mean anything believed to provide protection or safety, and in particular in Christian contexts a sacred relic or icon believed to have a protective role in military contexts for a whole city, people or nation. Such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern church in the period after the reign of the Byzantine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buckler
A buckler (French ''bouclier'' 'shield', from Old French ''bocle, boucle'' ' boss') is a small shield, up to 45 cm (up to 18 in) in diameter, gripped in the fist with a central handle behind the boss. It became more common as a companion weapon in hand-to-hand combat during the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its size made it poor protection against missile weapons (e.g., arrows) but useful in deflecting the blow of an opponent's weapons, binding their arms, hindering their movements, or punching them. The seminal study of the topic has been undertaken by Herbert Schmidt and has devised the following typology: * Type I: round * Type II: rectangular or trapezoidal * Type III: oval or teardrop shaped with the cross-section of the buckler further refining these types: * Type a: flat * Type b: concave * Type c: convex * Type d: wavy The combination of the two classifiers determines the buckler type. Thus a Type Ia buckler is a round flat buckler; a Type IId buckler is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thracians
The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European languages, Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between Thrace, north-eastern Greece, Romania, and north-western Turkey. They shared the same language and culture. There may have been as many as a million Thracians, divided among up to 40 tribes." Thracians resided mainly in Southeast Europe in Present (time), modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, northern Greece and European Turkey, but also in north-western Anatolia, Anatolia (Asia Minor) in Turkey. The exact origin of the Thracians is uncertain, but it is believed that Thracians like other Indo-European speaking groups in Europe descended from a mixture of Proto-Indo-Europeans and Early European Farmers. Around the 5th millennium BC, the inhabitants of the eastern region of the Balkans became organized in different groups of Indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pelta
A ''peltast'' (, ) was a type of light infantry originating in Thrace and Paeonia and named after the kind of shield he carried.Williams, Mary Frances. "Philopoemen's special forces: Peltasts and a new kind of greek light-armed warfare (Livy 35.27) " ''Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte'' H. 3 (2004): 257-277. mentions the Thracian peltasts, while in the |
Odysseus
In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus ( ; , ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; ), is a legendary Greeks, Greek king of Homeric Ithaca, Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, epic poem, the ''Odyssey''. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's ''Iliad'' and other works in that same epic cycle. As the son of Laertes (father of Odysseus), Laërtes and Anticlea, husband of Penelope, and father of Telemachus, Acusilaus, and Telegonus (son of Odysseus), Telegonus, Odysseus is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility (''polytropos''), and he is thus known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning (). He is most famous for his ''nostos'', or "homecoming", which took him ten eventful years after the decade-long Trojan War. Name, etymology, and epithets The form ''Odys(s)eus'' is used starting in the epic period and through the classical period, but various other forms are also found. In vase inscriptions, there are the varian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
