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Pollice Verso
' or ' () is a Latin phrase, meaning "with a turned thumb", that is used in the context of gladiatorial combat. It refers to a hand gesture or thumb signal used by Ancient Roman crowds to pass judgment on a defeated gladiator following duels in colloseums. The precise gesture described by the phrase ''pollice verso'', and its meaning, are the subject of scholarly debate. According to Anthony Corbeill, a classical studies professor who has extensively researched the practice, thumbs up signalled killing a gladiator, while "a closed fist with a wraparound thumb" meant sparing him.Where Does the 'Thumbs-Up' Gesture Really Come From? ''Time'' Zoologist |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic (''Natural History''), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is Lost literary work, no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pollice Verso (Gérôme)
''Pollice Verso'' (from ) is an 1872 painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, featuring the eponymous Roman gesture directed to the winning gladiator. The thumbs-down gesture in the painting is given by spectators at the Colosseum, including the Vestals, to the victorious murmillo, while the defeated retiarius raises two fingers to plead for mercy. The painting was an inspiration for the 2000 film ''Gladiator'', where Commodus holds out a raised thumb to spare the film's hero, Maximus. The painting Along with gladiators, Vestals, and spectators, the picture shows the emperor in his box. Alexander Turney Stewart purchased the painting from Gérôme at a price of 80,000 francs, setting a new record for the artist, and exhibited it in New York City. It is now in the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona. File:Jean-Leon Gerome Pollice Verso (cropped2).jpg, Detail: the Vestal virgins signal death for the defeated gladiator. Historical accuracy The painting almost immediately k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme (; 11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academic painting, academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The range of his works includes historical paintings, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects. He is considered among the most important painters from the academic period and was, with Ernest Meissonier, Meissonier and Cabanel, one of "the three most successful artists of the Second French Empire, Second Empire". He was also a teacher with a long List of pupils of Jean-Léon Gérôme, list of students, including Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, and Osman Hamdi Bey, among others. Early life Jean-Léon Gérôme was born at Vesoul, Haute-Saône. It was here that Gérôme first received instruction in drawing during his youth in school. He was instructed by local artist and teacher Claude-Basile Cariage, under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible stories, opposed to a specific and static subject, as in portrait, still life, and landscape painting. The term is derived from the wider senses of the word ''historia'' in Latin and ''histoire'' in French, meaning "story" or "narrative", and essentially means "story painting". Most history paintings are not of scenes from history, especially paintings from before about 1850. In modern English, "historical painting" is sometimes used to describe the painting of scenes from history in its narrower sense, especially for 19th-century art, excluding religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects, which are included in the broader term "history painting", and before the 19th century were the most common subjects for history paintings. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus Nickname, signo Eusebius (, ; c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and intellectual. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa (province), Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and Roman consul, consul in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional Religion in ancient Rome, religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Emperor Gratian's order to remove the Altar of Victory from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. After the death of Theodosius I, he became an ally of Stilicho, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vestal Virgin
In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals (, singular ) were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame. The Vestals were unlike any other public priesthood. They were chosen before puberty from several suitable candidates, freed from any legal ties and obligations to their birth family, and enrolled in Vesta's priestly college of six priestesses. They were supervised by a senior vestal but chosen and governed by Rome's leading male priest, the -- in the Imperial era, this meant the emperor. Vesta's acolytes vowed to serve her for at least thirty years, study and practise her rites in service of the Roman State, and maintain their chastity throughout. In addition to their obligations on behalf of Rome, Vestals had extraordinary rights and privileges, some of which were granted to no others, male or female. The Vestals took turns to supervise Vesta's sacred hearth so that at least one Vestal was stationed there at all times. Vestals who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prudentius
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens () was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.H. J. Rose, ''A Handbook of Classical Literature'' (1967) p. 508 He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula some time after 405, possibly around 413. The place of his birth is uncertain, but it may have been Caesaraugusta ( Saragossa), Tarraco ( Tarragona), or Calagurris ( Calahorra). Life Prudentius practiced law with some success, and was twice provincial governor, perhaps in his native country, before the emperor Theodosius I summoned him to court. Towards the end of his life (possibly around 392) Prudentius retired from public life to become an ascetic, fasting until evening and abstaining entirely from animal food; and writing poems, hymns, and controversial works in defence of Christianity. Prudentius later collected the Christian poems written during this period and added a preface, which he himself dated 405. Poetry The poetry of Prudentius ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satire 3
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. Satire may also poke fun at popular themes in art and film. A prominent feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm—"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very thing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satires (Juvenal)
The ''Satires'' () are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written between the end of the first and the early second centuries A.D. Juvenal is credited with sixteen poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire. The genre is defined by a wide-ranging discussion of society and social in dactylic hexameter. The sixth and tenth satires are some of the most renowned works in the collection. *Book I: Satires 1–5 *Book II: Satire 6 *Book III: Satires 7–9 *Book IV: Satires 10–12 *Book V: Satires 13–16 (Satire 16 is incompletely preserved) In a tone and manner ranging from irony to rage, Juvenal criticizes the actions and beliefs of many of his contemporaries, providing insight into value systems and questions of morality as opposed to the realities of Roman life. The author makes constant allusion to history and myth as a source of object lessons or exemplars of particular vices and virtues. Coupled with his dense and elliptica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people from the late first and early second centuries AD suggest that he began writing no earlier than that time. One recent scholar argues that his first book was published in 100 or 101. A reference to a political figure dates his fifth and final surviving book to sometime after 127. Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in the verse form dactylic hexameter. These poems cover a range of Roman topics. This follows Lucilius—the originator of the Roman satire genre, and it fits within a poetic tradition that also includes Horace and Persius. The ''Satires'' are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome from a number of perspectives, although their comic mode of expression makes it problematic to accept the content as strictly factual. At firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
