complete study guide for exam 2

StudyBlue printing of complete study guide for exam 2 html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td { margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; outline: 0; font-size: 100%; background: transparent; } body { line-height: 1; } blockquote, q { quotes: none; } blockquote:before, blockquote:after, q:before, q:after { content: ''; content: none; } /* remember to define focus styles! */ :focus { outline: 0; } /* remember to highlight inserts somehow! */ ins { text-decoration: none; } del { text-decoration: line-through; } /* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */ table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; } /* end RESET */ .header { min-width:800px; } .logo { padding:6px 20px 2px 20px; margin:0; font-size:25px; font-weight:bold; color:#808285; position:relative; border-bottom: 1px solid #c5c5c5; } .logo-blue { color:#70adc4; } .logo-desc { font-weight:normal; font-size:19px; color:#cccccc; margin-top:50px; position:absolute; display: none; } .back-button { position:absolute; top:20px; right:20px; font-size:13px; line-height:25px; color:rgb(0,175,225); font-weight:normal; } .back-button a { color:rgb(0,175,225); } .instructions { padding:0; margin:0; width:100%; position:relative; color:rgb(100,100,100); } .step-holder { border-left:1px solid #ededed; margin-left:20px; } .steps { padding:15px 0; float:left; width:24%; border-right:1px solid #ededed; text-align:center; } .steps-01 { } .steps-02 { } .steps-03 { } .steps-04 { } .label { padding:5px 10px; } .print-button { } .print-button a { background-color:rgb(0,175,225); color:white; line-height: 19px; padding:9px 8px 5px 30px; font-size:14px; text-decoration:none; background-image: url(images/printer.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 7px 50%; -moz-border-radius: 5px; -webkit-border-radius: 5px; } .print-button a:hover { background-color:black; } .theNote .content { width: 8.0in !important; margin: 5px auto; padding:20px; background-color:white; } .theNote .header { border-bottom: 1px dashed #C8C8C8; font-size: 17px; padding: 0 0 10px; line-height: 19px; color: #00ADE1; min-width:500px; } .theNote .body { font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 10px 0; } .theNote{ padding:6px 0; clear:both; background-color: rgb(200,200,200); } .theNote h3{ color: rgb(100,100,100); } .theNote h1, .theNote h3{ background-color:white; padding:2px 20px; width:8.0in !important; margin: 0 auto; font-size: 15px; } .theNote h1{ padding-top: 10px; font-size: 15px; } .theNote h1:first-child{ font-size: 20px; } .theNote h3 { font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; } #options { border: 3px double #ccc; padding: 5px 12px; margin: 10px 50px 10px 20px; float: left; } #info { border-top: 1px solid #ccc; padding-top: 5px; font-style: italic; } li { margin: 5px 10px 5px 25px; } ul li { list-style: disc; } ol li { list-style: decimal; } img { border: 0; } table { clear: both; width: 100%; border: 1px solid #c5c5c5; border-width: 1px 0; margin: 0; page-break-after: always; } table#page { page-break-after: auto; } td { text-align: center; font-size: 12px; border-bottom: 1px dashed #c5c5c5; height: 1.75in; width: 50%; padding-left: 15px; } .leftside { border-right: 1px solid #cccccc; padding: 0 15px 0 0; } .bottom td { border-bottom: none; } .clearfix { clear:both; line-height:1px; height:1px; } img { max-width:80%; max-height:150px; margin:20px; } @media print {.header { display: none; } .content .header{ display:inherit; } table { border: 1px dashed #bbb; border-width: 1px 0; } .theNote{ background-color:white; } } null Chapter 4 Etruscans - Scholars think that the Etruscans were a seafaring people from Asia Minor. As early as 1000 BC they were living in Italy in an area that was roughly equivalent to modern Tuscany, from the Tiber River north almost to the Arno River. Later their rule embraced a large part of western Italy, including Rome. Sicily - the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, comprising an autonomous region of Italy. Minor islands around it, such as the Aeolian Islands, are part of Sicily. Its official name is Regione Autonoma Siciliana Magna Graecia - is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north. The colonists, who began arriving in the eighth century BC, brought with them their Hellenic civilization, which was to leave a lasting imprint in Italy, particularly on the culture of ancient Rome. Consuls - During the Roman Republic, the consuls were the highest civil and military magistrates, serving as the heads of government for the Republic. New consuls were elected every year. There were two consuls and they ruled together. However, after the establishment of the Empire, the consuls were merely a figurative representative of Rome’s republican heritage and held very little power and authority, with the emperor acting as the supreme leader. Senate - The Roman Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being founded in the first days of the city (traditionally founded in 753 BC). It survived the fall of the kings in 509 BC, the fall of the Roman Republic in the first century BC, the split of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, and the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. During the days of the kingdom, it was little more than an advisory council to the king. dictator - A Roman dictator was the incumbent of a political office of the Roman Republic. Roman dictators were allocated absolute power during times of emergency. Their power was originally neither arbitrary nor unaccountable, being subject to law and requiring retrospective justification. There were no such dictatorships after the beginning of the 2nd century BC, and later dictators such as Sulla and the Roman Emperors exercised power much more personally and arbitrarily. A government controlled by one person or a small group of people. In this form of government the power rests with one person. Such power is often obtained forcibly. A dictator usually takes away much of people's freedom. Assemblies - People were permitted to come together and appeal to the senate to suggest laws and other issues in government. The assemblies are like safety valves. THe assemblies had little real authority, but they did provide a place in which grievances could be stated. Over time, they represented classes Imperium - a Latin word which, in a broad sense, translates as 'power'. In ancient Rome the concept applied to people and meant something like 'power status' or 'authority' or could be used with a geographical connotation and meant something like 'territory'. It is not to be mistaken with authority Forum - where the senate house was patrician - A small percentage of wealthy families (5 to 7 precent) were senatorial families. The senate became known as the Patricians. plebian - THe rest of the class became known as the plebeians (93 to 95 precent) They had no social mobility. Struggle of the Orders - plebians won a number of privlages. When the struggle ended the plebians could point to significant gains, but the great families were still secure in their domination. Indeed, one effect of the struggle was to make the state an even more efficient machine for conquest: the plebians could now feel that they had a more favorable position within the system and were thus more willing to fight for their country. Tribunes – 494bc - Tribunes win right to appoint two tribunes. They have right to veto a bill and it would not go into affect. They had the right to investigate consoles and prosecute them. Both of those powers were highly controversial. There will be days when consuls want to kill the tribunes. In 450bc, the laws were finally committed to writing sacrosanctity - The persons of the tribunes were declared sacrosanct, holy in the sense that they were untouchable. No violence could be done to them. By 450bc, other plebeian discontents led to strikes and forced negotiations. Lex Hortensia – is a law that gave common people legal right to pass law that was binding on the whole state. paterfamilias – “Father of the family” the absolute owner of the whole family including the children, land, other property, animals and slaves. As long as he lived, his sons, even if married with their own households, remained under his power. Scipio Africanus (Publius Cornelius Scipio) - was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic. He was best known for defeating Hannibal at the final battle of the Second Punic War at Zama, a feat that earned him the agnomen Africanus, the nickname "the Roman Hannibal", as well as recognition as one of the finest commanders in military history. An earlier great display of his tactical abilities had come already at the Battle of Ilipa. Cornelia – daughter of Scipio Africanus, very eminent woman in Greece, on the death of her husband she refused all offers for marriage (including one from a King of Egypt). She devoted herself to the education of her 12 children, among whom were the tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus - The Gracchi, Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus (Gracchi is the plural of Gracchus), were two Roman brothers who tried to reform Rome's social and political structure to help the lower classes in the second century B.C. The Gracchi are at the beginning of the period of the decline of the Roman Republic, when personalities came to dominate Roman politics, and the major battles were civil. This period ends with the assassination of Caesar and the rise of the first Roman emperor Augustus. The Roman Federation - To rule their new conquests, the Romans created the Roman Confederation. Under this system, Romans granted full citizenship to some peoples, especially other Latins. They could vote and participate in the government, and they were treated the same as other citizens under the law. The Romans granted other peoples the status of allies. Carthage – controlled cities in northern Africa, parts of Spain, the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, and much of Sicily. It was the leading naval power in the western Mediterranean. Hannibal - a Carthaginian military commander and tactician who is popularly credited as one of the most talented commanders in history. His father, Hamilcar Barca, was the leading Carthaginian commander during the First Punic War, his younger brothers were Mago and Hasdrubal, and he was brother-in-law to Hasdrubal the Fair. Hannibal lived during a period of tension in the Mediterranean, when Rome (then the Roman Republic) established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage, the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid empire. One of his most famous achievements was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy. In his first few years in Italy, he won three dramatic victories, Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae, and won over several Roman allies. Hannibal occupied much of Italy for 15 years, but a Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced Hannibal to return to Carthage, where he was decisively defeated by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama. Scipio studied Hannibal's tactics and brilliantly devised some of his own, and finally defeated Rome's nemesis at Zama having previously driven Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, out of Spain. After the war Hannibal successfully ran for the office of suffete. He enacted political and financial reforms to enable the payment of the war indemnity imposed by Rome. However, Hannibal's reforms were unpopular with members of the Carthaginian aristocracy and Rome, and he fled into voluntary exile. During his exile, he lived at the Seleucid court, where he acted as military adviser to Antiochus III in his war against Rome. After Antiochus met defeat and was forced to accept Rome's terms, Hannibal fled again, making a stop in Armenia. His flight ended in the court of Bithynia, where he achieved an outstanding naval victory against a fleet from Pergamum. He was afterwards betrayed to the Romans. Often regarded as the greatest military tactician and strategist in history, Hannibal would later be considered as one of the greatest generals of antiquity, together with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio, and Pyrrhus of Epirus. Plutarch states that, when questioned by Scipio as to who was the greatest general, Hannibal is said to have replied either Alexander, Pyrrhus, then himself,[11] or, according to another version of the event, Pyrrhus, Scipio, then himself.[12] Military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge once famously called Hannibal the "father of strategy",[13] because his greatest enemy, Rome, came to adopt elements of his military tactics in its own strategic arsenal. This praise has earned him a strong reputation in the modern world, and he was regarded as a "gifted strategist" by men like Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington. The Punic Wars - The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 to 146 BC.[1] At the time, they were probably the largest wars that had ever taken place.[2] The term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus (or Poenicus), meaning "Carthaginian", with reference to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry. The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflict of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily (which at that time was a cultural melting pot), part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in Italy, but lacked the naval power of Carthage. By the end of the third war, after more than a hundred years and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire and razed the city, becoming the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean. With the end of the — which ran concurrently with the Punic Wars — and the defeat of the Seleucid King Antiochus III the Great in the Roman–Syrian War (Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and one of the most powerful cities in the classical world. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars gave Rome a preeminent status it would retain until the fifth century A.D. Eastern Mediterranean expansion - Rome then became the leading force in the Mediterranean region. The Romans soon spread east taking Greece, and the Greek heritage played an important role in the Roman Empire. By this point the coastal trading cultures were thoroughly dominant over the inland river valleys that had once been the heart of the great powers. Egyptian power moved from the Nile cities to the coastal ones, especially Alexandria. Mesopotamia became a fringe border region between the Roman Empire and the Persians. Proconsul - a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. Publicani - were public contractors, in which role they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the collection of port duties, and oversaw public building projects. In addition, they served as tax collectors for the Republic (and later the Roman Empire), bidding on contracts (from the Senate in Rome) for the collection of various types of taxes. Importantly, this role as tax collectors was not emphasized until late into the history of the Republic (c. 1st century BC). The publicans were usually of the class of equites. Equestrians - constituted the lower of the two aristocratic classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the patricians (patricii), a hereditary caste that monopolised political power during the regal era (to 501 BC) and during the early Republic (to 338 BC). A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques (plural: equites). Equites in Latin has the general meaning of "horsemen" or "cavalry" (from equus = "horse"), but in this context carries the specific meaning of "knights" in the sense of members of an aristocratic group. Marius -157 BC–January 13, 86 BC was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminated the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the structure of the legions into separate cohorts. His life and career were significant in Rome's transformation from Republic to Empire. novus homo - was the term in ancient Rome for a man who was the first in his family to serve in the Roman Senate or, more specifically, to be elected as consul. When a man entered public life on an unprecedented scale for a high communal office, then the term used was novus civis (plural: novi cives) or "new citizen." Sulla - 138 BC – 78 BC a Roman general and statesman. He had the rare distinction of holding the office of consul twice as well as the dictatorship. He was one of the canonical great men of Roman history; included in the biographical collections of leading generals and politicians, originating in the biographical compendium of famous Romans, published by Marcus Terentius Varro. In Plutarch's Sulla, in the famous series - Parallel Lives, Sulla is paired with the Spartan general and strategist Lysander. Sulla's dictatorship came during a high point in the struggle between optimates and populares, the former seeking to maintain the power of the oligarchy in the form of the Senate while the latter resorted in many cases to naked populism, culminating in Caesar's dictatorship. Sulla was a highly original, gifted and skillful general, never losing a battle; he remains the only man in history to have attacked and occupied both Athens and Rome. His rival, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, described Sulla as having the cunning of a fox and the courage of a lion - but that it was the former attribute that was by far the most dangerous. This mixture was later referred to by Machiavelli in his description of the ideal characteristics of a ruler.[2] Sulla used his armies to march on Rome twice, and after the second he revived the office of dictator, which had not been used since the Second Punic War over a century before. He used his powers to enact a series of reforms to the Roman constitution, meant to restore the balance of power between the Senate and the Tribunes; he then stunned the Roman World (and posterity) by resigning the dictatorship, restoring normal constitutional government, and after his second Consulship, retiring to private life. Proscription - Proscription was developed by Sulla as a way to dispose of the property of those who were condemned. The proscribed individuals were called proscripti. The law the Romans passed to grant Sulla this extraordinary power was called lex Cornelia de proscriptione et proscriptis and was known as the lex Cornelia or lex Valeria. In 82 B.C. Sulla created proscription as a means of disposing of his enemies -- the supporters of Marius. He posted a list of those he wanted killed (like the wanted dead or alive posters of the Old West). The property of the proscribed was confiscated and sold and those who killed or revealed the whereabouts of the proscribed were rewarded. Proscription was adopted again under the second triumvirate in 43 B.C. Cicero was a victim of this second proscription. Periods of proscription were reigns of terror Pompey – September 29, 106 BC – September 29, 48 BC was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic. He came from a wealthy Italian provincial background, and established himself in the ranks of Roman nobility by successful leadership in several campaigns. Sulla addressed him by the cognomen Magnus (the Great) and he was awarded three triumphs. Pompey joined his rival Marcus Licinius Crassus and his ally and father-in-law Julius Caesar in the military-political alliance known as the First Triumvirate. After the deaths of Crassus and Julia, Pompey's wife and Caesar's daughter, Pompey and Caesar contended the leadership of the Roman state in a civil war. Pompey sided with the optimates, the conservative and aristocratic majority of the Roman Senate. When Caesar defeated him at the battle of Pharsalus he sought refuge in Egypt, where he was assassinated. His career and defeat are significant in Rome's subsequent transformation from Republic to Principate and Empire. Crassus - 115 BC – 53 BC a Roman general and politician who commanded the left wing of Sulla's army at the Battle of the Colline Gate, suppressed the slave revolt led by Spartacus, and entered into the political alliance known as the First Triumvirate with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Gaius Julius Caesar. At the height of his fortune he was allegedly worth more than 200,000,000 sestertii. Considered the wealthiest man in Roman history, and perhaps the richest man in all history, he is ranked in the top 10 List of most wealthy historical figures. Crassus nonetheless desired recognition for his military victories in the form of a triumph. This ambition for acclaim eventually led him into Syria, where he was defeated and killed in the Roman defeat at Carrhae against a Parthian Spahbod (general) named Surena. Crassus' significance in world history, however, stems from his financial and political support of the impoverished young Julius Caesar, which allowed Caesar to embark upon his own political career. Julius Caesar - 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC was a Roman general and statesman. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar entered into a political alliance with Crassus and Pompey that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power for themselves through populist tactics were opposed within the Roman Senate by the conservative elite, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul extended Rome's territory to the North Sea, and in 55 BC he conducted the first Roman invasion of Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's standing. The balance of power was further upset by the death of Crassus in 53 BC. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a stand-off between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. Ordered by the senate to stand trial in Rome for various charges, Caesar marched from Gaul to Italy with his legions, crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC. This sparked a civil war from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world. After assuming control of government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity". A group of senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated the dictator on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, hoping to restore the constitutional government of the Republic. However, the result was a series of civil wars, which ultimately led to the establishment of the permanent Roman Empire by Caesar's adopted heir Octavius (later known as Augustus). Much of Caesar's life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources. Triumvirate - is a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals, each a triumvir (pl. triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal, and though the three are usually equal on paper, in reality this is rarely the case. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all claim to be the sole leader. The so-called First Triumvirate was an informal political alliance of Julius Caesar, Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") and Marcus Crassus.[9] The arrangement had no legal status, and its purpose was to consolidate the political power of the three and their supporters against the senatorial elite. After the death of Crassus in 53 BC, the two survivors fought a civil war, during which Pompey was killed and Caesar established his sole rule as perpetual dictator. The Second Triumvirate was recognized as a triumvirate at the time. A Lex Titia formalized the rule of Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. The legal language makes reference to the traditional triumviri. This "three-man commission for restoring the constitution of the republic" (triumviri rei publicae constituendae) in fact were given the power to make or annul law without approval from either the senate or the people; their judicial decisions were not subject to appeal, and they named magistrates at will. Although the constitutional machinery of the Republic was not irrevocably dismantled by the Lex Titia, in the event it never recovered.[10] Lepidus was sidelined early in the triumvirate, and Antony was eliminated in civil war, leaving Octavian the sole leader. Gaul - During the time of Ancient Rome, Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a region of Western Europe encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of the Gaulish language (an early variety of Celtic) native to Gaul. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, the Gaulish language proper was distinct from the Aquitanian language and the Belgic language[1]. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia and southwestern Germania. Gauls under Brennus defeated Roman forces in a battle circa 390 BC. The peak of Gaulish expansion was reached in the 3rd century BC, in the wake of the Gallic invasion of the Balkans of 281-279 BC, Gaulish settlers moved as far afield as Asia Minor.[2] During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded by the Cimbri and the Teutons after 120 BC, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 101 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC. Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486. During this time, The Celtic culture had become amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture and the Gaulish language was likely extinct by the 6th century. Marc Antony - January 14, 83 BC – August 1, 30 BC was a Roman politician and general. He was an important supporter and the loyal friend of Gaius Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator, despite his blood ties, through his mother Julia, to the branch of Caesars opposed to the Marians and murdered by them. After Caesar's assassination, Antony formed an official political alliance with Octavian (Augustus) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, known to historians today as the Second Triumvirate. The triumvirate broke up in 33 BC. Disagreement between Octavian and Antony erupted into civil war, the Final War of the Roman Republic, in 31 BC. Antony was defeated by Octavian at the naval Battle of Actium, and in a brief land battle at Alexandria. He and his lover Cleopatra committed suicide shortly thereafter. His career and defeat are significant in Rome's transformation from Republic to Empire. Octavius - about 100 BC-59 BC was an ancestor to the Roman Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He was the father of the Emperor Augustus, step-grandfather of the Emperor Tiberius, great-great grandfather of the Emperor Caligula, great-grandfather of the Emperor Claudius, and great-great-great grandfather of the Emperor Nero. He descended from an old, wealthy equestrian branch of the Octavii family. Despite being from a wealthy family, his family was plebeian, rather than patrician. As a novus homo ("new man"), he was not of a senatorial family. His grandfather, Gaius Octavius, fought as a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War. His father Gaius Octavius was a municipal magistrate who lived to an advanced age. He was distantly related to Gnaeus Octavius, the consul of 87 BC who led the opposition to Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Cleopatra - (Late 69 BC – August 12, 30 BC) was the last person to rule Ancient Egypt as an Egyptian pharaoh. She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and therefore a descendant of one of Alexander the Great's generals who had seized control over Egypt after Alexander's death.Most Ptolemeis spoke Greek and refused to learn Egyptian, which is the reason that Greek as well as Egyptian languages were used on official court documents like the Rosetta Stone. By contrast, Cleopatra learned Egyptian and represented herself as the reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess Isis. Cleopatra originally ruled jointly with her father Ptolemy XII Auletes and later with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as per Egyptian custom, but eventually she became sole ruler. As pharaoh, she consummated a liaison with Julius Caesar that solidified her grip on the throne. She later elevated her son with Caesar, Caesarion, to co-ruler in name. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, she aligned with Mark Antony in opposition to Caesar's legal heir, Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus (later known as Augustus). With Antony, she bore the twins Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios, and another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus. Her unions with her brothers produced no children. After losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian's forces, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra followed suit, according to tradition killing herself by means of an asp bite on August 12, 30 BC. She was briefly outlived by Caesarion, who was declared pharaoh, but he was soon killed on Octavian's orders. Egypt became the Roman province of Aegyptus. To this day, Cleopatra remains a popular figure in Western culture. Her legacy survives in numerous works of art and the many dramatizations of her story in literature and other media, including William Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, Jules Massenet's opera Cléopâtre and the 1963 film Cleopatra. In most depictions, Cleopatra is put forward as a great beauty and her successive conquests of the world's most powerful men are taken to be proof of her aesthetic and sexual appeal. In his Pensées, philosopher Blaise Pascal contends that Cleopatra's classically beautiful profile changed world history: "Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed." Augustus - (23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.[note 1] Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.[note 2] Because of the various names he bore, it is common to call him Octavius when referring to events between 63 and 44 BC, Octavian (or Octavianus) when referring to events between 44 and 27 BC, and Augustus when referring to events after 27 BC. In Greek sources, Augustus is known as Ὀκτάβιος (Octavius), Καῖσαρ (Caesar), Αὔ γουστος (Augustus), or Σεβαστός (Sebastos), depending on context. The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces[note 3] The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by the fleet of Octavian commanded by Agrippa in 31 BC. After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Octavian restored the outward facade of the Roman Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, but in practice retained his autocratic power. It took several years to determine the exact framework by which a formally republican state could be led by a sole ruler; the result became known as the Roman Empire. The emperorship was never an office like the Roman dictatorship which Caesar and Sulla had held before him; indeed, he declined it when the Roman populace "entreated him to take on the dictatorship".[1] By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including those of tribune of the plebs and censor. He was consul until 23 BC.[2] His substantive power stemmed from financial success and resources gained in conquest, the building of patronage relationships throughout the Empire, the loyalty of many military soldiers and veterans, the authority of the many honors granted by the Senate,[3] and the respect of the people. Augustus' control over the majority of Rome's legions established an armed threat that could be used against the Senate, allowing him to coerce the Senate's decisions. With his ability to eliminate senatorial opposition by means of arms, the Senate became docile towards him. His rule through patronage, military power, and accumulation of the offices of the defunct Republic became the model for all later imperial governments. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana, or Roman peace. Despite continuous wars on the frontiers, and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus enlarged the empire dramatically, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Raetia, expanded possessions in Africa, and completed the conquest of Hispania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the empire with client states, and made peace with Parthia through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, and created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome. Much of the city was rebuilt under Augustus; and he wrote a record of his own accomplishments, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which has survived. Upon his death in 14 AD, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate - to be worshipped by the Romans.[4] His names Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor, and the month of Sextilis was officially renamed August in his honour. He was succeeded by his stepson, former son-in-law and adopted son, Tiberius princeps/ Principiate - is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate. The Principate is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of the Emperors to preserve the illusion of the formal continuance of the Roman Republic. It is etymologically derived from the Latin word princeps, meaning chief or first, the political regime dominated by such a political leader, whether or not he is formally head of state and/or head of government; this reflects the Principate Emperors' assertion that they were merely "first among equals" among the citizens of Rome. In practice, the Principate was a period of enlightened absolutism, with occasional forays into quasi-constitutional monarchy; Emperors tended not to flaunt their power and usually respected the rights of citizens (although they never let this fact bind them). Pax Romana – Roman Peace - was the long period of relative peace and minimal expansion by military force experienced by the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Since it was established by Caesar Augustus it is sometimes called Pax Augusta. Its span was approximately 207 years (27 BC to 180 AD). Chapter 5 Julio-Claudian dynasty - normally refers to the first five Roman Emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula (also known as: Gaius), Claudius, and Nero, or the family to which they belonged; they ruled the Roman Empire from its formation, in the second half of the first century ( 44/31/27 ) BC, until AD 68, when the last of the line, Nero, committed suicide. None of the Julio-Claudians were succeeded by their sons; only one of them had a legitimate son survive him. The ancient historical writers, chiefly Suetonius and Tacitus, write from the point of view of the Roman senatorial aristocracy, and portray the Emperors in generally negative terms, whether from preference for the Roman Republic or love of a good scandalous story. Tacitus wrote this of the Julio-Claudian Emperors and history: But the successes and reverses of the old Roman people have been recorded by famous historians; and fine intellects were not wanting to describe the times of Augustus, till growing sycophancy scared them away. The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred. Tiberius - (November 16, 42 BC – March 16, AD 37), born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced his father and was remarried to Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian. Tiberius would later marry Augustus' daughter Julia the Elder (from his marriage to Scribonia) and even later be adopted by Augustus, by which act he officially became a Julian, bearing the name Tiberius Julius Caesar. The subsequent emperors after Tiberius would continue this blended dynasty of both families for the next forty years; historians have named it the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In relations to the other emperors of this dynasty, Tiberius was the stepson of Augustus, great-uncle of Caligula, paternal uncle of Claudius, and great-great uncle of Nero. Tiberius was one of Rome's greatest generals, conquering Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and temporarily Germania; laying the foundations for the northern frontier. But he came to be remembered as a dark, reclusive, and somber ruler who never really desired to be emperor; Pliny the Elder called him tristissimus hominum, "the gloomiest of men." After the death of Tiberius’ son Drusus Julius Caesar in 23, the quality of his rule declined and ended in a terror. In 26, Tiberius exiled himself from Rome and left administration largely in the hands of his unscrupulous Praetorian Prefects Sejanus and Macro. Caligula, Tiberius' grand-nephew and adopted grandson, succeeded the emperor upon his death. Caligula - Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August AD 12 – 24 January AD 41), commonly known as Caligula and sometimes Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 to 41. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most beloved public figures. The young Gaius earned the nickname Caligula (the diminutive form of caliga meaning "little soldier's boot") from his father's soldiers while accompanying him during his campaigns in Germania. When Germanicus died at Antioch in 19 AD, his mother Agrippina the Elder returned to Rome with her six children where she became entangled in an increasingly bitter feud with Tiberius. This conflict eventually led to the destruction of her family, with Caligula as the sole male survivor. Unscathed by the deadly intrigues, Caligula accepted the invitation to join the emperor on the island of Capri in 31, where Tiberius himself had withdrawn five years earlier. At the death of Tiberius in 37, Caligula succeeded his great-uncle and adoptive grandfather. There are few surviving sources on Caligula's reign, although he is described as a noble and moderate ruler during the first two years of his rule. After this, the sources focus upon his cruelty, extravagance, and sexual perversity, presenting him as an insane tyrant. While the reliability of these sources has been questioned, what is known is that during his brief reign, Caligula worked to increase the authority of the emperor. He directed much of his attention to ambitious construction projects and notoriously luxurious dwellings for himself. However, he initiated the construction of two new aqueducts in Rome: the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. During his reign, the empire annexed the Kingdom of Mauretania and made it into a province. In early 41, Caligula was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy involving officers of the Praetorian Guard, as well as members of the Roman Senate and of the imperial court. The conspirators' attempt to use the opportunity to restore the Roman Republic was thwarted, as the same day the Praetorian Guard declared Caligula's uncle Claudius emperor in his place. Nero - Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68),[2] born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and commonly known as Nero, was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68. He was the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor. He succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death. During his reign, Nero focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade, and increasing the cultural capital of the empire. He ordered the building of theaters and promoted athletic games. His reign included a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire, the suppression of a revolt in Britain, and the beginning of the First Roman–Jewish War. In 64, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome. In 68, the rebellion of Vindex in Gaul and later the acclamation of Galba in Hispania drove Nero from the throne. Facing assassination, he committed suicide on 9 June 68. Nero's rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for a number of executions, including those of his mother and stepbrother. He is also infamously known as the emperor who "fiddled while Rome burned", and as an early persecutor of Christians. This view is based upon the main surviving sources for Nero's reign - Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Few surviving sources paint Nero in a favorable light. Some sources, though, including some mentioned above, portray him as an emperor who was popular with the common Roman people, especially in the East. The study of Nero is problematic as some modern historians question the reliability of ancient sources when reporting on Nero's tyrannical acts. Claudius - Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), born Tiberius Claudius Drusus, then Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus until his accession, was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54 AD. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul, and was the first emperor to be born outside Italy. Afflicted with a limp and slight deafness due to sickness at a young age, his family ostracized him and excluded him from public office until his consulship with his nephew Caligula in 37 AD. Claudius' infirmity probably saved him from the fate of many other nobles during the purges of Tiberius' and Caligula's reigns; potential enemies did not see him as a serious threat. His survival led to his being declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard after Caligula's assassination, at which point he was the last adult male of his family. Despite his lack of experience, Claudius proved to be an able and efficient administrator. He was also an ambitious builder, constructing many new roads, aqueducts, and canals across the empire. During his reign the empire conquered Britain, Thrace, Noricum, Pamphylia, Lycia, and Judaea. He took a personal interest in law, presided at public trials, and issued up to twenty edicts a day. However, he was seen as vulnerable throughout his reign, particularly by the nobility. Claudius was constantly forced to shore up his position; this resulted in the deaths of many senators. These events damaged his reputation among the ancient writers, though more recent historians have revised this opinion. After his death in 54, his grand-nephew and adopted son Nero succeeded him as emperor. Praetorian Guard - a force of bodyguards used by Roman Emperors. The title was already used during the Roman Republic for the guards of Roman generals, at least since the rise to prominence of the Scipio family around 275 BC. The Guard was dissolved by Emperor Constantine I in the fourth century AD. Five Good Emperors - The five good emperors were a series of five emperors of the Roman Empire who ruled in the 2nd century A.D. The five emperors were known for their moderation and their reign corresponds to the period known as the Pax Romana. Lasting from AD 96 to 180, these emperors were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Among the Roman emperors, the period of the five good emperors was particularly notable for the peaceful method of succession. Each emperor chose his successor by adopting an heir, thus preventing the political turmoil associated with the succession either before and after this period. Because none of the emperors were related, the five good emperors are not considered a dynasty. Trajan - Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus (18 September 53 – 9 August 117), commonly known as Trajan, was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a general in the Roman army along the German frontier, Trajan successfully put down the revolt of Antonius Saturninus in 89. In September 96, Domitian was succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva, an old and childless senator who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard compelled him to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and successor. Nerva died on 27 January 98, and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident. As a civilian administrator, Trajan is best known for his extensive public building program which reshaped the city of Rome and left multiple enduring landmarks such as Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Market and Trajan's Column. Early in his reign he annexed the Nabataean kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea. His conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly - the new province possessed many valuable gold mines. His war against the Parthian Empire ended with the sack of the capital Ctesiphon and the annexation of Armenia and Mesopotamia. His campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117 while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and died of a stroke in the city of Selinus. He was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under Trajan's Column. He was succeeded by his adopted son Hadrian. As an emperor, Trajan's reputation has endured — he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the prayer felicior Augusto, melior Traiano, meaning "may he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan". Among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan, while the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon popularized the notion of the Five Good Emperors, of which Trajan was the second. Hadrian - Publius Aelius Hadrianus ( 24 January 76 – 10 July 138), commonly known as Hadrian and after his apotheosis Divus Hadrianus, was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best-known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman territory in Britain. In Rome, he built the Pantheon and the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and deeply Hellenophile in all his tastes. A member of the gens Aelia, Hadrian was the third of the so-called Five Good Emperors. Hadrian was born Publius Aelius Hadrianus to a Hispano-Roman family, probably in Italica (near Seville). His predecessor Trajan was a maternal cousin of Hadrian's father. Trajan never officially designated an heir, but according to his wife Pompeia Plotina, Trajan named Hadrian emperor immediately before his death. Trajan's wife and his friend Licinius Sura were well-disposed towards Hadrian, and he may well have owed his succession to them. During his reign, Hadrian traveled to nearly every province of the empire. An ardent Philhellene, Hadrian sought to make Athens the cultural capital of the empire - ordering the construction of many opulent temples in the city. Hadrian spent extensive amounts of his time with the military; he usually wore military attire and even dined and slept amongst the soldiers. He ordered military training and drilling to be more rigorous and even made use of false reports of attack to keep the army alert. Despite his fondness for the army, Hadrian's reign is marked by a lack of military activity throughout the empire. Upon his ascension to the throne, Hadrian withdrew from Trajan's conquests in Mesopotamia and Armenia, and even considered abandoning Dacia. Late in his reign he suppressed the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea, renaming the province Syria Palaestina. In 136 an ailing Hadrian adopted Lucius Aelius as his heir, but he died suddenly two years later. In 138, Hadrian resolved to adopt Antoninus Pius if he would in turn adopt Marcus Aurelius and Aelius' son Lucius Verus as his own eventual successors. Antoninus agreed, and soon afterward Hadrian died at his villa near Tibur. Latifundia - pieces of property covering tremendous areas. The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic of Magna Graecia and Sicily, of Egypt and the North African Maghreb and of Hispania Baetica in southern Spain. The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slave labour. Ovid - Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria. He is also well known for the Metamorphoses, a mythological hexameter poem, the Fasti, about the Roman calendar, and the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, two collections of poems written in exile on the Black Sea. Ovid was also the author of several smaller pieces, the Remedia Amoris, the Medicamina Faciei Femineae, and the long curse-poem Ibis. He also authored a lost tragedy, Medea. He is considered a master of the elegiac couplet, and is traditionally ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonic poets of Latin literature. The scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the canonical Latin love elegists. His poetry, much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, decisively influenced European art and literature and remains as one of the most important sources of classical mythology. Tacitus - Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus ( AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in AD 14 to (presumably) the death of emperor Domitian in AD 96. There are enormous lacunae in the surviving texts, including one four books long in the Annals. Other works by Tacitus discuss oratory (in dialogue format, see Dialogus de oratoribus), Germania (in De origine et situ Germanorum), and biographical notes about his father-in-law Agricola, primarily during his campaign in Britannia (see De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae). Tacitus was an author writing in the latter part of the Silver Age of Latin literature. His work is distinguished by a boldness and sharpness of wit, and a compact and sometimes unconventional use of Latin. Crises of the Third Century – (235–284 AD) was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. The Crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus at the hands of his own troops, initiating a fifty-year period in which 20–25 claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman Army generals, assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire. By 258–260, the Empire split into three competing states, with the Gallic Empire including the Roman provinces of Gaul, Britannia and Hispania; and the Palmyrene Empire, including the eastern provinces of Syria Palaestina and Aegyptus; becoming independent from the Italian-centered Roman Empire proper between them. The Crisis ended with the ascension of Diocletian. The Crisis resulted in such profound changes in the Empire's institutions, society, economic life, and eventually, religion, that it is increasingly seen by historians as the transition period between the historical periods of Classical antiquity and late antiquity. colonus/ colonate/ coloni - a type of Roman peasant farmer, a serf. This designation was carried into the Medieval period for much of Europe. Coloni worked on large Roman estates called "latifundia" and could never leave. Latifundia raised sheep and other types of cattle. The latifundia typically used slave labor, but in some cases the land was worked by free, serf-like, tenant farmers. The tenant farmers were known as coloni (singular: colonus). The coloni farmed the land and paid rent to the owner of the latifundium. Their rent usually consisted of a portion of their harvest, labor, or money. Coloni could be hunted or flogged if they left the latifundium although technically still free. Increasing numbers of people were forced to become coloni due to the decreasing number of slaves to support the economy because of Rome's failure to win battles. Coloni became bandits, with Bulla Felix as a prime example, which further harmed the trade system ***dominus Diocletian - Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus (c. 22 December 244[3] – 3 December 311), commonly known as Diocletian, was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305. Born to an Illyrian family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia, Diocletian rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was acclaimed emperor. The title was also claimed by Carus' other surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus. With his accession to power, Diocletian ended the Crisis of the Third Century. He appointed fellow-officer Maximian Augustus, his senior co-emperor, in 285. He delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors. Under this "Tetrarchy", or "rule of four", each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. Diocletian secured the empire's borders and purged it of all threats to his power. He defeated the Sarmatians and Carpi during several campaigns between 285 and 299, the Alamanni in 288, and usurpers in Egypt between 297 and 298. Galerius, aided by Diocletian, campaigned successfully against Sassanid Persia, the empire's traditional enemy. In 299 he sacked their capital Ctesiphon - Diocletian led the subsequent negotiations and achieved a lasting and favorable peace. Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and reorganised the empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the empire. He established new administrative centers in Nicomedia, Mediolanum, Antioch, and Trier, closer to the empire's frontiers than the traditional capital at Rome had been. Building on third-century trends towards absolutism, he styled himself an autocrat, elevating himself above the empire's masses with imposing forms of court ceremonial and architecture. Bureaucratic and military growth, constant campaigning, and construction projects increased the state's expenditures and necessitated a comprehensive tax reform. From at least 297 on, imperial taxation was standardized, made more equitable, and levied at generally higher rates. Not all Diocletian's plans were successful: the Edict on Maximum Prices (301), his attempt to curb inflation via price controls, was counterproductive and quickly ignored. Although effective while he ruled, Diocletian's Tetrarchic system collapsed after his abdication under the competing dynastic claims of Maxentius and Constantine, sons of Maximian and Constantius respectively. The Diocletianic Persecution (303–11), the empire's last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity, did not destroy the empire's Christian community; indeed, after 324 Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine. In spite of his failures, Diocletian's reforms fundamentally changed the structure of Roman imperial government and helped stabilize the empire economically and militarily, enabling the empire to remain essentially intact for another hundred years despite having seemed near the brink of collapse in Diocletian's youth. Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on May 1, 305, and became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate the position. He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to his vegetable gardens. His palace eventually became the core of the modern-day city of Split. Tetrarchy - Greek: "leadership of four [people]") describes any system of government where power is divided among four individuals, but usually refers to the tetrarchy instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293, marking the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the recovery of the Roman Empire. This Tetrarchy lasted until c.313, when internecine conflict eliminated most of the claimants to power, leaving Constantine in the West and Licinius in the East. Edict on Prices - was issued in 301 by Roman Emperor Diocletian. During the Crisis of the Third Century, Roman coinage had been greatly debased by the numerous emperors and usurpers who minted their own coins, using base metals to reduce the underlying metallic value of coins used to pay soldiers and public officials. Earlier in his reign, as well as in 301 around the same time as the Edict on Prices, Diocletian issued Currency Decrees, which attempted to reform the system of taxation and to stabilize the coinage. It is difficult to know exactly how the coinage was changed, as the values and even the names of coins are often unknown. All coins in the Decrees and the Edict were valued according to the denarius, which Diocletian hoped to replace with a new system based on the silver argenteus and its fractions. The argenteus seems to have been set at 100 denarii, the silver-washed nummus at 25 denarii, and the bronze radiate at 4 or 5 denarii. The copper laureate was raised from 1 denarius to 2 denarii. The gold aureus, which by this time had risen to 833 denarii, was replaced with a solidus, worth 1,000 denarii (this was different from the solidus introduced by Constantine a few years later). These coins held their value during Diocletian's reign, but aside from the bronze and copper coins, which were mass produced, they were minted only very rarely and had little effect on the economy. These new coins actually added to inflation, and in an attempt to combat this he issued his Edict on Maximum Prices in 301. The first two-thirds of the Edict doubled the value of the copper and bronze coins, and set the death penalty for profiteers and speculators, who were blamed for the inflation and who were compared to the barbarian tribes attacking the empire. Merchants were forbidden to take their goods elsewhere and charge a higher price, and transport costs could not be used as an excuse to raise prices. The last third of the Edict, divided into 32 sections, imposed a price ceiling - a maxima - for over a thousand products. These products included various food items (beef, grain, wine, beer, sausages, etc), clothing (shoes, cloaks, etc), freight charges for sea travel, and weekly wages. The highest limit was on one pound of purple-dyed silk, which was set at 150,000 denarii (the price of a lion was set at the same price). However, the Edict did not solve the problem, as Diocletian's mass minting of coins of low metallic value continued to increase inflation, and the maximum prices in the Edict were apparently too low. Merchants either stopped producing goods, sold their goods illegally, or used barter. The Edict tended to disrupt trade and commerce, especially among merchants. Sometimes entire towns could no longer afford to produce trade goods. Because the Edict also set limits on wages, those who had fixed salaries (especially soldiers) found that their money was increasingly worthless as the artificial prices did not reflect actual costs. The Edict was probably issued from Antioch or Alexandria and was set up in inscriptions in Greek and Latin. It now exists only in fragments found mainly in the eastern part of the empire, where Diocletian ruled. It is still the longest surviving piece of legislation from the period of the Tetrarchy. The Edict was criticized by Lactantius, a rhetorician from Nicomedia, who blamed the emperors for the inflation and told of fighting and bloodshed that erupted from price tampering. By the end of Diocletian's reign in 305, the Edict was virtually ignored, and the economy was not stabilized until Constantine's coinage reform. Constantine - Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (c. 27 February 272[2] – 22 May 337), commonly known as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Best known for being the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine reversed the persecutions of his predecessor, Diocletian, and issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of Christians throughout the empire. The foremost general of his time, Constantine defeated the emperors Maxentius and Licinius during civil wars. He also fought successfully against the Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, and Sarmatians during his reign – even resettling parts of Dacia which had been abandoned during the previous century. Constantine also transformed the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium into a new imperial residence, Constantinople, which would be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over one thousand years. Byzantium - an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BCE and named after their king Byzas. The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion. The city was later renamed Constantinople and briefly became the imperial residence of the classical Roman Empire, and then subsequently was, for more than a thousand years, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks, becoming the capital of their empire, in 1453. The name of the city was changed to Istanbul in 1930 following the establishment of modern Turkey. Theodosius - Flavius Theodosius (11 January 347 – 17 January 395), commonly known as Theodosius I or Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 378 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War - establishing their homeland south of the Danube within the empire's borders. He is known for making Nicene Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire, issuing decrees that effectively made the Catholic Church the state religion of the Roman Empire. He is recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church as Saint Theodosius. He defeated the usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius and fostered the destruction of some prominent pagan temples: the Serapeum in Alexandria, the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, and the Vestal Virgins in Rome. After his death, Theodosius' sons Arcadius and Honorius inherited the East and West halves respectively, and the Roman Empire was never again re-united. ***villas Odoacer - Flavius Odoacer (435–493), also known as Flavius Odovacer, was the 5th-century King of Italy, whose reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the classical Roman Empire in Western Europe and the beginning of the Middle Ages. He is considered the first non-Roman to ever have ruled all of Italy. Odoacer was a Germanic foederati general in Italy who led a revolt that deposed the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus on 4 September AD 476. Though the real power in Italy was in his hands, he ruled as a nominal client of Julius Nepos and, after Nepos' death in 480, as a client of the Emperor in Constantinople. Odoacer is referred to as a king (Latin rex) in many documents and he himself used it at least once and on another occasion it was used by the consul Basilius. Antiochus IV - Antiochus IV Epiphanes ("Manifest (God)", "the Illustrious"; born c. 215 BC; died 163 BC) ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 163 BC. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great and the brother of Seleucus IV Philopator. His original name was Mithridates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he assumed the throne. Notable events during the reign of Antiochus IV include his near-conquest of Egypt, which led to a confrontation that became an origin of the metaphorical phrase, "line in the sand" (see below), and the rebellion of the Jewish Maccabees.He assumed divine epithets, which no other Hellenistic king had done, such as Theos Epiphanes ("God Manifest") and after his defeat of Egypt, Nikephoros ("Bearer of Victory"). But his often-eccentric behavior, capricious actions and even insanity led some of his contemporaries to call him Epimanes ("The Mad One"), a word play on his title Epiphanes. Maccabean Revolt - In the narrative of I Maccabees, after Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, a rural Jewish priest from Modiin, Mattathias the Hasmonean, sparked the revolt against the Seleucid Empire by refusing to worship the Greek gods. Mattathias killed a Hellenistic Jew who stepped forward to offer a sacrifice to an idol in Mattathias' place. He and his five sons fled to the wilderness of Judah. After Mattathias' death about one year later in 166 BCE, his son Judah Maccabee led an army of Jewish dissidents to victory over the Seleucid dynasty in guerrilla warfare, which at first was directed against Hellenizing Jews, of whom there were many. The Maccabees destroyed pagan altars in the villages, circumcised children and forced Jews into outlawry. The term Maccabees as used to describe the Jewish army is taken from its actual use as Judah's surname. The revolt itself involved many battles, in which the Maccabean forces gained notoriety among the Syrian army for their use of guerrilla tactics. After the victory, the Maccabees entered Jerusalem in triumph and ritually cleansed the Temple, reestablishing traditional Jewish worship there and installing Jonathan Maccabee as high priest. A large Syrian army was sent to quash the revolt, but returned to Syria on the death of Antiochus IV. Its commander Lysias, preoccupied with internal Syrian affairs, agreed to a political compromise that restored religious freedom. The Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple following Judah Maccabee's victory over the Seleucids. According to Rabbinic tradition, the victorious Maccabees could only find a small jug of oil that had remained uncontaminated by virtue of a seal, and although it only contained enough oil to sustain the Menorah for one day, it miraculously lasted for eight days, by which time further oil could be procured Pharisees - were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE) in the wake of the Maccabean Revolt. Conflicts between the Pharisees and the Sadducees took place in the context of much broader and longstanding social and religious conflicts among Jews dating back to the Babylonian captivity and exacerbated by the Roman conquest. One conflict was class, between the wealthy and the poor, as the Sadducees included mainly the priestly and aristocratic families. Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored hellenization and those who resisted it. A third was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Temple, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic laws and prophetic values. A fourth, specifically religious, involved different interpretations of the Bible (or Tanakh), and how to apply the Torah to Jewish life, with the Sadducees recognizing only the written letter of the Tanakh or Torah and rejecting life after death, while the Pharisees held to Rabbinic interpretations additional to the written texts. Josephus indicates that the Pharisees received the backing and goodwill of the common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees. Pharisees claimed prophetic or Mosaic authority for their interpretation of Jewish laws, while the Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon, when Zadok, their ancestor, officiated as High Priest. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE Pharisaic beliefs became the basis for Rabbinic Judaism, which ultimately produced the normative traditional Judaism which is the basis for all contemporary forms of Judaism except for the Karaism. Outside of Jewish history and writings, the Pharisees have been made notable by references in the New Testament to conflicts between themselves and John the Baptist and with Jesus. There are also several references in the New Testament to Paul of Tarsus being a Pharisee before he became a Christian. Christian traditions have been a cause of widespread awareness of the Pharisees. Essenes - were a Jewish religious group that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE that some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests. Being much fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the other two major sects at the time) the Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to asceticism, voluntary poverty, daily baptisms, and abstinence from worldly pleasures, including marriage. Many separate but related religious groups of that era shared similar mystic, eschatological, messianic, and ascetic beliefs. These groups are collectively referred to by various scholars as the "Essenes." Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Judæa. The Essenes believed they were the last generation of the last generations and anticipated Teacher of Righteousness, Aaronic High Priest, and High Guard Messiah, similar to the Prophet, Priest and King expectations of the Pharisees. The Essenes have gained fame in modern times as a result of the discovery of an extensive group of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, commonly believed to be their library. These documents include preserved multiple copies of the Hebrew Bible untouched from as early as 300 BCE until their discovery in 1946. Some scholars, however, dispute the notion that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. One scholar, Rachel Elior, even argues that the group never existed Jesus of Nazareth - also known as Jesus Christ or simply Jesus, is the central figure of Christianity. Christians view him as the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament and as the Son of God, who provided salvation and reconciliation with God to humankind by dying for their sins, then raising himself from the dead. The principal sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels, especially the Synoptic Gospels, though some scholars believe apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Thomas are also relevant. Some parts of the gospels are considered to be historically reliable while others are not, and the elements whose historical authenticity is disputed include the two accounts of the nativity of Jesus, as well as the resurrection and certain details about the crucifixion. Most critical scholars in biblical studies believe that some parts of the New Testament are useful for reconstructing Jesus' life, agreeing that Jesus was a Jew who was regarded as a teacher and healer, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, on the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire. Aside from these few conclusions, academic debate continues regarding the chronology, the central message of Jesus' preaching, his social class, cultural environment, religious orientation and his historical existence. Critical Biblical scholars and historians have offered competing descriptions of Jesus as a self-described messiah, as the leader of an apocalyptic movement, as an itinerant sage, as a charismatic healer, and as the founder of an independent religious movement. Most contemporary scholars of the historical Jesus consider him to have been an independent, charismatic founder of a Jewish restoration movement, anticipating an imminent apocalypse. Other prominent scholars, however, contend that Jesus' "Kingdom of God" meant radical personal and social transformation instead of a future apocalypse. Christians traditionally believe that Jesus was born of a virgin,:529-532 performed miracles,:358-359 founded the Church, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven,:616-620 from which he will return :1091-1109 Most Christian scholars today present Jesus as the awaited Messiah and as God, arguing that he fulfilled many Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. While the doctrine of the Trinity is accepted by most Christians, a few groups reject it, wholly or partly, believing it to be non-scriptural. Judaism rejects assertions that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh. In Islam, Jesus is considered one of God's important prophets, a bringer of scripture, the product of a virgin birth, and a worker of miracles. Islam also teaches that Jesus ascended bodily to heaven without experiencing death at the crucifixion.[48] Islam and the Baha'i Faith use the title "Messiah" for Jesus, but do not teach that he was God incarnate. Saul/Paul of Tarses - Paul the Apostle, also called the Apostle Paul, Paul of Tarsus, and Saint Paul, (Saul), (Saulos), and (Paulos); Paulus or Paullus; (Saul of Tarsus) (c. 5 - c. 67 ), was a Jew who referred to himself as the "Apostle to the Gentiles".[Rom 11:13] According to the Acts of the Apostles, his conversion to faith in Jesus took place in a profound life-changing experience on the road to Damascus. Together with Simon Peter and James the Just, he is considered among the most notable of early Christian leaders. He was also a Roman citizen—a fact that afforded him a privileged legal status with respect to laws, property, and governance. Thirteen epistles, or letters, in the New Testament are attributed to Paul. Within these epistles other letters are referenced that do not appear in the Bible, such as a Laodicean epistle.[Col. 4:1] His authorship of six of the thirteen is questioned by some scholars, three of which are widely thought not to be his work. Paul's influence on Christian thinking arguably has been more significant than any other New Testament author. Augustine of Hippo developed Paul's idea that salvation is based on faith and not works. Martin Luther's interpretation of Paul's writings heavily influenced Luther's doctrine of sola fide. Paul's conversion dramatically changed the course of his life. Through his activity and writings, his beliefs eventually changed religious belief and philosophy throughout the Mediterranean basin. His leadership, influence and legacy led to the formation of communities dominated by gentile groups that adhered to the Judaic "moral code" but relaxed or abandoned the "ritual" obligations of the Mosaic law on the basis of the life and works of Jesus Christ and the New Covenant. These communities eventually formed Christianity, in the split of early Christianity and Judaism. martyr - is somebody who suffers persecution and death for the people, a country or an organization, or refusing to renounce a belief, usually religious, political or rights. Heresy - is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion. The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy, are known as heretics. Heresiology is the study of heresy. bishop - is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the Anglican churches, bishops claim Apostolic succession, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original Twelve Apostles. Within these churches, bishops can ordain clergy including other bishops. Some Protestant churches including the Lutheran and Methodist churches have bishops serving similar functions as well, though not always understood to be within Apostolic succession in the same way. The office of bishop was already quite distinct from that of priest in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 107), and by the middle of the second century all the chief centres of Christianity were headed by bishops, a form of organization that remained universal until the Protestant Reformation. Pope - is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church (that is, the Latin Rite and the Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the see of Rome). The current office-holder is Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected in a papal conclave on 19 April 2005. The office of the pope is known as the Papacy. His ecclesiastical jurisdiction is often called the "Holy See" (Sancta Sedes in Latin), or the "Apostolic See" based upon the Church tradition that the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul were martyred in Rome. The pope is also head of state of Vatican City State, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the city of Rome. Early popes helped to spread Christianity and resolve doctrinal disputes. After the conversion of the rulers of the Roman Empire (the conversion of the populace was already advanced even before the Edict of Milan, 313), the Roman emperors became the popes' secular allies until the 8th century when Pope Stephen II was forced to appeal to the Franks for help, beginning a period of close interaction with the rulers of the west. For centuries, the Donation of Constantine, later proved to be a forgery, provided support for the papacy's claim of political supremacy over the entire former Western Roman Empire. In medieval times, popes played powerful roles in Western Europe, often struggling with monarchs for control over the wide-ranging affairs of church and state, crowning emperors (Charlemagne was the first emperor crowned by a pope), and regulating disputes among secular rulers. Gradually forced to give up secular power, popes now focus almost exclusively on religious matters. Over the centuries, papal claims of spiritual authority have been ever more clearly expressed, culminating in 1870 with the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility for rare occasions when the pope speaks ex cathedra (literally "from the chair (of St. Peter)") to issue a formal definition of faith or morals. The first (after the proclamation) and so far the last such occasion was in 1950, with the definition of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. Donatists - were followers of a belief considered a schism by the broader churches of the Catholic tradition, and most particularly within the context of the religious milieu of the provinces of Roman North Africa in Late Antiquity. They lived in the Roman province of Africa and flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries. Like the Novatianist schism of the previous century, the Donatists were rigorists, holding that the church must be a church of saints, not sinners, and that sacraments, such as baptism, administered by traditors (Christians who surrendered the Scriptures to the authorities who outlawed possession of them) were invalid. Probably in 311, a new bishop of Carthage was consecrated by someone who had allegedly been a traditor; his opponents consecrated a short-lived rival, who was succeeded by Donatus, after whom the schism was named. In 313, a commission appointed by Pope Miltiades found against the Donatists, but they continued to exist, viewing themselves, and not what was known as the Catholic Church, as the true Church, the only one with valid sacraments. Because of their association with the Circumcellions, they brought upon themselves repression by the imperial authorities, but they drew upon African regional sentiment, while the Catholic party had the support of Rome. They were still a force at the time of Saint Augustine of Hippo at the end of the fourth century, and disappeared only after the Arab conquest of the 7th-8th century. Arians - ancient tribe, living in western Afghanistan. Their name means 'noblemen'. In historical times, the Arians lived in the country along the river Arios (the modern Hari Rûd), which is more or less identical to the Afghanian province of Herât. There were large deserts surrounding the fertile river valley. It is possible to say something of the prehistory of the Arians. They must have been nomads from central Asia, who settled in Iran at the end of the second millennium. After some time, new tribal coalitions came into being: in the west, the Medes; in the south, the Persians; in the east the Bactrians and in the center the Arians. From the late seventh or early sixth century BCE, the Arians were subjects of the Medes, and their country became a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire when king Cyrus the Great defeated the Medes (550 BC). Nicene Creed - is the creed or profession of faith that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in A.D. 325. The Nicene Creed has been normative to the Anglican, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic Eucharistic rite as well as Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgies. The Creed is recited in the Roman Rite Mass directly after the homily on all Sundays and Solemnities (Tridentine Feasts of the First Class), and in the Byzantine Rite Liturgy following the Litany of Supplication on all occasions.It is given high importance in the Anglican Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Oriental Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church including the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Old Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and most Protestant denominations. Latin Fathers - The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come, see Proto-orthodox Christianity. The term was used of writers and teachers of the Church, not necessarily saints. A rough classification of these patristic writings is as: Apostolic Fathers and the Second Century; Third Century; Fourth Century; Fifth Century; and Sixth Century. Those fathers who wrote in Latin are called the Latin (Church) Fathers. Famous Latin Fathers include Tertullian (who later in life converted to Montanism), Cyprian of Carthage, Gregory the Great, Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose of Milan, and Jerome. Augustine - was Bishop of Hippo Regius. He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity. Augustine, a Latin church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. He "established anew the ancient faith" according to his contemporary, Jerome. In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus.[6] After his conversion to Christianity and baptism (387), Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the church, the community that worshipped God. In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order; his memorial is celebrated 28 August, the day of his death. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation due to his teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is blessed, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June. Among the Orthodox, he is called "Blessed Augustine", or "St. Augustine the Blessed". Chapter 6 Germans/Goths - were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe, who played an important role in the history of the Roman Empire after they appeared on its lower Danube frontier in the third century. The first recorded incursion of Goths into the Roman Empire took place in 238. Written records about the Goths prior to this date are scarce, the most important source is Jordanes' 6th-century, semi-fictional Getica which describes a migration from Scandza, believed to be located somewhere in modern Götaland (Sweden), to Gothiscandza, which is believed to be the lower Vistula region in modern Pomerania (Poland), and from there to the coast of the Black Sea (Scythia, now Ukraine, Romania and Moldova). The Pomeranian Wielbark culture and the Chernyakhov culture northeast of the lower Danube are widely believed to be the archaeological traces of this migration. During the third and fourth centuries, the Goths were divided into at least two distinct groups, the Thervingi and the Greuthungi, separated by the Dniester River. They repeatedly attacked the Roman Empire during the Gothic War (376-382). In the late fourth century, the Huns invaded the Gothic region from the east. While many Goths were subdued and integrated into the Hunnic Empire, others were pushed towards the Roman Empire and converted to Arian Christianity by the half-Gothic missionary Wulfila, who devised a Gothic alphabet to translate the Bible. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Goths separated into two tribes, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Both established powerful successor states of the Western Roman Empire. In Italy the Ostrogothic Kingdom established by Theodoric the Great was defeated by the forces of the Eastern Roman Empire after the Gothic War (535–554). The fifth-century Visigothic Kingdom in Aquitaine was pushed to Hispania by the Franks in 507, converted to Catholicism by the late sixth century, and in the early eighth century fell to the Muslim Moors. While its influence continued to be felt in small ways in some west European states, the Gothic language and culture largely disappeared during the Middle Ages. In the 16th century a small remnant of a Gothic dialect was described as surviving in the Crimea. Huns - a group of nomadic pastoral people who, appearing from beyond the Volga, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and built up an enormous empire in Europe. Since De Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years earlier to the emergence of Huns, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted in investigating such a connection. However, there is no evidence for a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns. A contemporary mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; very little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. According to some theories, it was a Turkic language. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun pax including East Germanic. Their main military technique was mounted archery. The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the western Roman Empire. They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453; their empire broke up the next year. Their descendants, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighbouring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia roughly from the 4th century to the 6th century. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century Visigoths - one of two main branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe; the Ostrogoths being the other. Together these tribes were among the barbarians who disturbed the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period. The romanized Visigoths first emerged as a distinct people during the 4th century, initially in the Balkans, where they participated in several wars with Rome. A Visigothic army under Alaric I eventually moved into Italy and famously sacked Rome in 410. Eventually the Visigoths were settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans, the reasons for which are still subjects for debate among scholars. They soon fell out with their hosts and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. They slowly extended their authority into Hispania, displacing the Vandals and Alans. Their rule in Gaul was cut short in 507 at the Battle of Vouillé, when they were defeated by the Franks under Clovis I. Thereafter the only territory north of the Pyrenees that the Visigoths held was Septimania and their kingdom was limited to Hispania, which came completely under the control of their small governing elite, at the expense of the Byzantine province of Spania and the Suebic Kingdom of Galicia. In or around 589, the Visigoths, under Reccared I, formerly Arian Christians, converted to the Nicene faith as the ethnic distinction (ancestry, language, religion, tribal dress, etc.) between the increasingly Romanized Visigoths and their Hispano-Roman subjects gradually disappeared. Liber Iudiciorum (completed in 654) abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans and for Visigoths; all the subjects of the kingdom would stop being romani and gothi to become hispani. The century that followed was dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy. Historical sources for the 7th century are relatively sparse. In 711 or 712 the Visigoths, including their king and many of their leading men, were killed in the Battle of Guadalete by a force of invading Arabs and Berbers. The kingdom quickly collapsed thereafter, a phenomenon which has led to much debate among scholars concerning its causes. Gothic identity survived the fall of the kingdom, however, especially in the Kingdom of Asturias and the Marca Hispanica. Of what remains of the Visigoths in Spain and Portugal there are several churches and an increasing number of archaeological finds, but most notably a large number of Spanish, Portuguese, and other Romance language given names and surnames. The Visigoths were the only people to found new cities in western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the rise of the Carolingians. Until the Late Middle Ages, the greatest Visigothic legacy, which is no longer in use, was their law code, the Liber iudiciorum, which formed the basis for legal procedure in most of Christian Iberia for centuries after their kingdom's demise. Comitatus - was a Germanic friendship structure that compelled kings to rule in consultation with their warriors. The comitatus, as described in the Roman historian Tacitus's treatise Germania (98.AD), is the bond existing between a Germanic warrior and his Lord, ensuring that neither leaves the field of battle before the other. The translation is as follows: Moreover, to survive the leader and retreat from the battlefield is a lifelong disgrace and infamy Comitatus, being the agreement between a Germanic lord and his subservients, is the direct source of the practice of Feudalism. Partly influenced by the Roman practice of a general distributing land to his officers after their retirement, the Germanic comitatus eventually evolved into a wholesale exchange between a social superior and inferior. The social inferior (in Feudalism, the Vassal) would pledge military service and protection to the superior (Lord). In return, the superior would reward the inferior with land, compensation, or privileges. Wergeld - was a value placed on every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code (Salic Law). If property was stolen, or someone was injured or killed, the guilty person would have to pay weregild to the victim's family or to the owner of the property. The payment of weregild was an important legal mechanism in early Germanic society; the other common form of legal reparation at this time was blood revenge. The payment was typically made to the family or to the clan. No distinction was made between murder and manslaughter until these distinctions were instituted by the Holy Roman imperial law in the 12th century. Payment of the weregild was gradually replaced with capital punishment, starting around the 9th century, and almost entirely by the 12th century when weregild began to cease as a practice throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Franks - a West Germanic tribal confederation first attested in the third century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. In the climate of the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians and conquered all of Gaul except Septimania in the 6th century. The Salian political elite would be one of the most active forces in spreading Christianity over western Europe. The Merovingian dynasty, descended from the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the fifth century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire which dominated most of Western Europe. This empire would gradually evolve into France and the Holy Roman Empire. Contemporary definitions of the ethnicity of the Franks vary by period and point of view. Many in the East used the term "Franks" to describe or refer to Western Europeans and Roman Catholic Christians in general. It is unclear, though, to what extent different Western European groups described or referred to themselves as the Franks. The cultural and linguistic descendants of the Franks, the modern Dutch-speakers of the Netherlands and Flanders, seem to have broken with this endonym around the 9th century as Frankish identity had gradually changed from an ethnic identity to a national identity and was now mostly used by, and referring to, Old Gallo-Romance-speaking inhabitants of the Frankish Empire; the future French. Clovis - (c. 466–511) was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul (France). He was the son of Childeric I and Basina. In 481, when he was fifteen, he succeeded his father. The Salian Franks were one of two Frankish tribes who were then occupying the area west of the lower Rhine, with their center in an area known as Toxandria, between the Meuse and Scheldt (in what is now the Netherlands and Belgium). Clovis's power base was to the southwest of this, around Tournai and Cambrai along the modern frontier between France and Belgium. Clovis conquered the neighboring Salian Frankish kingdoms and established himself as sole king of the Salian Franks before his death. The small church in which he was baptized is now named Saint-Remi, and a statue of him being baptized by Saint Remigius can be seen there. Clovis and his wife Clotilde are buried in the St. Genevieve church (St. Pierre) in Paris. An important part of Clovis's legacy is that he reduced the power of the Romans in 486 by beating the Roman ruler Syagrius in the famous battle of Soissons. Clovis was converted to Catholicism, as opposed to the Arian Christianity common among the Goths who ruled most of Gaul at the time, at the instigation of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian Gothic princess who was a Catholic in spite of the Arianism which surrounded her at court. He was baptized in a small church which was on or near the site of the Cathedral of Rheims, where most future French kings would be crowned. This act was of immense importance in the subsequent history of Western and Central Europe in general, for Clovis expanded his dominion over almost all of the old Roman province of Gaul (roughly modern France). He is considered the founder of the Merovingian dynasty which ruled the Franks for the next two centuries. Merovingians - a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region (known as Francia in Latin) largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the 5th century. Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family. During the final century of the Merovingian rule, the dynasty was increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role. The Merovingian rule was ended March 752 when Pope Zachary formally deposed Childeric III. Zachary's successor, Pope Stephen II, re-confirmed and crowned Pepin the Short in Childeric's place in 754 beginning the Carolingian monarchy and early introduction of the Holy Roman Empire. They were sometimes referred to as the "long-haired kings" (Latin reges criniti) by contemporaries, for their symbolically unshorn hair (traditionally the tribal leader of the Franks wore his hair long, as distinct from the Romans and the tonsured clergy). The term "Merovingian" comes from medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingi ("sons of Merovech"), an alteration of an unattested Old West Low Franconian form, akin to their dynasty's Old English name Merewīowing, with the final -ing being a typical patronymic suffix. mayor of the palace - an early medieval title and office, also called majordomo, from the Latin title maior domus ("superior of the house"), used most notably in the Frankish kingdoms in the 7th and 8th centuries. During the 7th century, the office of Mayor of the Palace developed into the true power behind the throne in Austrasia, the northeastern portion of the Kingdom of the Franks under the Merovingian dynasty. The Major Domo held and wielded the real and effective power to make decisions affecting the Kingdom, while in the mid to late Merovingian period, kings had been reduced to performing merely ceremonial functions, which made them little more than nominal kings or figureheads. Compare with the figures of peshwa, shogun, and prime minister, which have similarly been the real powers with a ceremonial king. The office became hereditary in the family of the Pippinids with powerful mayors of the palace such as Charles Martel, who proclaimed himself Duke of the Franks, and for the last four years of his reign did not even bother with the façade of a King. After Austrasia and Neustria were reunited in one kingdom, Pepin III — Major Domo since 747 — took the crown of the Merovingians in 751 to establish the line of Carolingian kings. His son Charlemagne assumed even greater power when he was crowned emperor in 800, thus becoming one of the most prominent figures in European history. Charles Martel - literally Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum (737–43) at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the title of Consul by the Pope, but he refused. He is remembered for winning the Battle of Tours in 732, in which he defeated an invading Muslim army and halted northward Islamic expansion in western Europe. A brilliant general, he lost only one battle in his career, (the Battle of Cologne). He is a founding figure of the Middle Ages, often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood, and laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire. He was also the grandfather of Charlemagne. Pepin the Short - (died 24 September 768), called the Short, or the Younger, rarely the Great, was the first King of the Franks (751–68) of the Carolingian dynasty. In 741 he and his brother Carloman succeeded their father, Charles Martel, as mayors of the palace and de facto rulers of the kingdom during an interregnum (737–43). After the retirement of Carloman (747), Pepin obtained the permission of Pope Zachary to depose the last of the Merovingian kings, Childeric III, and assume the throne (751). As he was named for his grandfather, Pepin of Heristal, in turn named for his grandfather, Pepin of Landen, both mayors of the palace, Pepin the Short has sometimes been numbered Pepin III. Lombards - were a Germanic people originally from Northern Europe who settled in the valley of the Danube and from there invaded Byzantine Italy in 568 under the leadership of Alboin. They established a Lombard Kingdom, later named Kingdom of Italy, which lasted until 774, when it was conquered by the Franks. Their influence on Italian political geography is apparent in the regional appellation Lombardy. Heavy-wheel plow - 6 th century, used on the plains of northern Europe included 3 indispensable parts : a coltor ( knife) to cut the soil, a share (wedge) to widen the breech and break up the clods, and a moldboard to lift the earth and turn the furrow. three-field system - method of agricultural organization introduced in Europe in the Middle Ages and representing a decisive advance in production techniques. In the old two-field system half the land was sown to crop and half left fallow each season; in the three-field system, however, only a third of the land lay fallow. In the autumn one third was planted to wheat, barley, or rye, and in the spring another third of the land was planted to oats, barley, and legumes to be harvested in late summer. The legumes (peas and beans) strengthened the soil by their nitrogen-fixing ability and at the same time improved the human diet. Doctrine of Petrine Succession - based upon Catholic tradition, which proclaims the legitimacy and supremacy of the Pope over all other bishops of the Catholic Church. This Doctrine is founded upon the book of Matthew in the Bible. Matthew 16: 18-19 states: "18 And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." These verses tell of Jesus's proclamation that Peter, and thus his successors, shall be the head of the Church as the sole custodians of the Christian faith. Vatican Council I defined the primacy of the bishop of Rome over the whole Catholic Church as an essential institution of the Church that can never be relinquished. This primacy is thus crucial to the understanding of the church from a Catholic viewpoint. At the same time, the history of papal primacy has always been imperfect and much-debated. According to Karl Schatz, both Catholic and non-Catholic scholars agree that multiple Biblical texts, in addition to the three Classical Petrine texts found in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, allude to the primacy of the papal line from Peter. They also point to the fact that the strongest writings of Peter's primacy were written after his death, meaning that Peter was not just a figure in history, but one that remained of importance to the body of the Catholic Church. However, scholars do not agree on whether the papal lineage was allotted for in Jesus’ proclamation of Peter as the "rock" of the Church. Papal primacy - The doctrine of papal primacy upholds the divine authority of the Successor of St. Peter to rule over the entire Church with ordinary and immediate jurisdiction. Two Magisterial texts are key to understanding its supreme nature and the obligation of all who are not invincibly ignorant of this truth to submit to Papal authority for the sake of their salvation. Gregory the Great - Pope Gregory I (c. 540 – 12 March 604), better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death. Gregory is well-known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as pope. He is also known as St. Gregory the Dialogist in Eastern Orthodoxy because of his Dialogues. For this reason, English translations of Orthodox texts will sometimes list him as "Gregory Dialogus". He was the first of the popes to come from a monastic background. Gregory is a Doctor of the Church and one of the six Latin Fathers. He is considered a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, and some Lutheran churches. Immediately after his death, Gregory was canonized by popular acclaim. John Calvin admired Gregory and declared in his Institutes that Gregory was the last good pope. He is the patron saint of musicians, singers, students, and teachers. monasticism - a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work. The origin of the word is from Ancient Greek, and the idea originally related to Christian monks. In the Christian tradition, males pursuing a monastic life are usually called monks or brethren (brothers), and if females nuns or sisters. Both monks and nuns may also be called monastics. Some other religions also include what could be described as "monastic" elements, most notably Buddhism, but also Hinduism and Jainism, though the expressions differ considerably. Benedictine Rule - To control the monks of Monte Cassino St. Benedict framed a Rule, or constitution, which was modelled in some respects upon the earlier Rule of St. Basil. The monks formed a sort of corporation, presided over by an abbot, who held office for life. To the abbot every candidate for admission took the vow of obedience. Any man, rich or poor, noble or peasant, might enter the monastery, after a year's probation; having once joined, however, he must remain a monk for the rest of his days. The monks were to live under strict discipline. They could not own any property; they could not go beyond the monastery walls without the abbot's consent; they could not even receive letters from home; and they were sent to bed early. A violation of the regulations brought punishment in the shape of private admonitions, exclusion from common prayer, and, in extreme cases, expulsion.