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Paganism

Paganism

Paganism (from Latin paganus) and Heathenry are catch-all terms which have come to connote a broad set of spiritual/religious beliefs and practices of a natural religion, as opposed to the Abrahamic religions. These beliefs, which are not necessarily compatible with each other, are usually characterized by polytheism and animism. Often, the term has pejorative connotations, comparable to infidel and Kafir in Islam. Kafir labelled their non-Muslim neighbours (such as this Kapsiki diviner) Kirdi, or "pagans".]]

Etymology

Pagan

The term pagan is from Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning "rural", "rustic" or "of the country". As a noun, paganus was used to mean "country dweller, villager". "Peasant" is a cognate, via Old French paisent. ([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999%2e04%2e0062&query=id%3dpagus#id,pagus Harry Thurston Peck, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquity, 1897; "pagus"]. In their distant origins, these usages derived from pagus, "province, countryside", cognate to Greek πάγος "rocky hill", and, even earlier, "something stuck in the ground", as a landmark: the root pag- means "fixed" and is also the source of the words "page", "pale" (stake), and "pole", as well as "pact" and "peace". Later, through metaphorical use, paganus came to mean 'rural district, village' and 'country dweller' and, as the Roman Empire declined into military autocracy and anarchy, in the 4th and 5th centuries it came to mean "civilian", in a sense parallel to the English usage "the locals". It was only after the Late Imperial introduction of serfdom, in which agricultural workers were legally bound to the land (see Serf), that it began to have negative connotations, and imply the simple ancient religion of country people, which Virgil had mentioned respectfully in Georgics. Like its approximate synonym heathen (see below), it was adopted by Middle English-speaking Christians as a slur to refer to those too rustic to embrace Christianity. Neoplatonists in the Early Christian church attempted to Christianize the values of sophisticated pagans such as Plato and Virgil. This had some influence among the literate class, but did little to counter the more general prejudice expressed in "pagan". While pagan is attested in English from the 14th century, there is no evidence that the term paganism was in use in English before the 17th century. The OED instances Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776): "The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of paganism." The term was not a neologism, however, as paganismus was already used by Augustine.

Heathen

Heathen is from Old English hæðen "not Christian or Jewish", (c.f. Old Norse heiðinn). Historically, the term was probably influenced by Gothic haiþi "dwelling on the heath", appearing as haiþno in Ulfilas' bible as "gentile woman," (translating the Greek in Mark 7:26). This translation probably influenced by Latin paganus, "country dweller", or it was chosen because of its similarity to the Greek ethne, "gentile". It has even been suggested that Gothic haiþi is not related to "heath" at all, but rather a loan from Armenian hethanos, itself loaned from Greek ethnos.

Terminology

Common Word Usage

The term has historically been used as a pejorative by adherents of monotheistic religions (such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam) to indicate a disbeliever in their religion. "Paganism" is also sometimes used to mean the lack of (an accepted monotheistic) religion, and therefore sometimes means essentially the same as atheism. "Paganism" frequently refers to the religions of classical antiquity, most notably Greek mythology or Roman religion, and can be used neutrally or admiringly by those who refer to those complexes of belief. However, until the rise of Romanticism and the general acceptance of freedom of religion in Western civilization, "paganism" was almost always used disparagingly of heterodox beliefs falling outside of the established political framework of the Christian Church. It has more recently (from the 19th century) been used admiringly by those who believe the monotheistic religions to be confining or colourless. "Pagan" came to be equated with a popular, Christianized sense of "epicurean" to signify a person who is sensual, materialistic, self-indulgent, unconcerned with the future and uninterested in sophisticated religion. The word was usually used in this worldly sense by those who were drawing attention to the limitations of paganism, as when G.K. Chesterton wrote: "The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else." Perhaps such usages reflect more light on Victorians than on the world of Antiquity.

Heathenry

"Heathen" (Old English hæðen) is a translation of paganus. The term is used for Germanic paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, in particular. Originating with the Jastorf culture, the Germanic tribes were distributed over Eastern and Central Europe by the 5th century, and their dialects ceased to be mutually intelligible from around that time. Christianization of the Germanic peoples took place from the 4th (Goths) to the 6th (Anglo-Saxons, Alamanni) or 8th (Saxons) centuries on the continent, and from the 9th to 12th centuries in Iceland and Scandinavia.

Pagan classifications

Pagan subdivisions coined by Isaac Bonewits [http://www.neopagan.net/PaganDefs.html]
- Paleo-Paganism: A retronym coined to contrast with "neopaganism", denoting a pagan culture that has not been disrupted by other cultures. The term applies to Hinduism, Shinto, pre-Migration period Germanic paganism as described by Tacitus, and Graeco-Roman religion.
- Meso-Paganism: A group, which is, or has been, significantly influenced by monotheistic, dualistic, or nontheistic worldviews, but has been able to maintain an independence of religious practices. This includes Native Americans and Australian Aborigine Bushmen, Viking Age Norse paganism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, as well as Sikhism, and the many Afro-Diasporatic faiths like Haitian Vodou, and Santería.
- Neo-Paganism: An attempt by modern people to reconnect with nature, pre-Christian religions, or other nature-based spiritual paths. This definition includes such religions as Ásatrú, Neo-Druidism, and Wicca.

Pagan religions

- Ancient Greek religion
- Roman religion
- Finnish paganism
- Ancient Near East Paganism
- Paganism in the Eastern Alps
- Uniterranism
- Asatru

Neo-pagan religions

Neopaganism

In another sense, as used by modern practitioners, paganism is a polytheistic, panentheistic or pantheistic often nature-based religious practice, but again can be atheism sometimes as well. This includes reconstructed religions such as revivalist Hellenic polytheism and Ásatrú, as well as more recently founded religions such as Wicca c. 1960, and these are normally categorised as "Neopaganism". Although many Neopagans often refer to themselves simply as "Pagan", for purposes of clarity this article will focus on the ancient religion, while Neopaganism is discussed in its own article. This also includes religions such as Forn Sed, Celtic Neo-druidism, Longobardic odinism, Lithuanian Romuva, and Slavic Rodoverie that claim to revive an ancient religion rather than reconstruct it, though in general the difference is not absolutely fixed. Many of these revivals, Wicca, Asatru and Neo-druidism in particular, have their roots in 19th century Romanticism and retain noticeable elements of occultism or theosophy that were current then, setting them apart from historical rural (paganus) folk religion. The Íslenska Ásatrúarfélagið is a notable exception in that it was derived more or less directly from remnants in rural folklore. Still, some practitioners even of syncretized directions tend to object to the term "Neopaganism" for their religion as they consider what they are doing not to be a new thing. It must be said, also, that since the 1990s, the number of reconstructionist movements that reject romantic or occult influences has increased, even if those Neopagans who make a conscious effort to separate pre-Christian from romantic influences are still a minority.

Modern nature religion

Many current pagans in industrial societies base their beliefs and practices on a connection to Nature, and a divinity within all living things, but this may not hold true for all forms of paganism, past or present. Some believe that there are many deities, while some believe that the combined subconscious spirit of all living things forms the universal deity. Paganism predates modern monotheism, although its origins are lost in prehistory. Ancient paganism, which tended in many cases to be a deification of the local deity, as Athena in Athens, saw each local emanation as an aspect of an Olympian deity during the Classical period and then after Alexander to syncretize the deity with the political process, with "state divinities" increasingly assigned to various localities, as Roma personified Rome. Many ancient regimes would claim to be the representative on earth of these gods, and would depend on more or less elaborate bureaucracies of state-supported priests and scribes to lend public support to their claims. This is something paganism shares with more 'mainstream' revealed religions, as can be seen in the history of the Catholic church, the Church of England and the ancient and current trends in Islam. In one well-established sense, paganism is the belief in any non-monotheistic religion, which would mean that the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece would not be considered pagan in that sense, since they were monotheist, but not in the Abrahamic tradition. In an extreme sense, and like the pejorative sense below, any belief, ritual or pastime not sanctioned by a religion accepted as orthodox by those doing the describing, such as Burning Man, Halloween, or even Christmas, can be described as pagan by the person or people who object to them.

External links

- James J. O'Donnell, "[http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/demise.html The Demise of Paganism]," Traditio 35(1979), 45-88
- [http://www.wwpn.org/Pages/pagan_faq.htm WorldWide Pagan Network Paganism FAQ] (neopagan)
- [http://www.paganassociation.co.uk Pagan Associatin UK] (neopagan)
- [http://www.uniterran-church.org The Universal Terran Church]
- [http://www.religioustolerance.org/ Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance]
- [http://www.cuups.org/ Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans] (neopagan)
- [http://paganwiki.org/ Pagan Wiki]
- [http://www.sacredhearth.com/Whatispagan.html What is Pagan Religion?] Category:Christian history Category:Paganism

Latin

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages, those being most notably Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian, are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The Latin alphabet, derived from the Greek, remains the most widely-used alphabet in the world. It is said that 80 percent of scholarly English words are derived from Latin (in a large number of cases by way of French). Moreover, in the Western world, Latin was a lingua franca, the learned language for scientific and political affairs, for more than a thousand years, being eventually replaced by French in the 18th century and English in the late 19th. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church to this day, and thus the official national language of the Vatican. The Church used Latin as its primary liturgical language until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Latin is also still used (drawing heavily on Greek roots) to furnish the names used in the scientific classification of living things. The modern study of Latin, along with Greek, is known as Classics.

Main features

Latin is a synthetic inflectional language: affixes (which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, which is called declension; and person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect in verbs, which is called conjugation. There are five declensions (declinationes) of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. There are six noun cases: #nominative (used as the subject of the verb or the predicate nominative), #genitive (used to indicate relation or possession, often represented by the English of or the addition of s to a noun), #dative (used of the indirect object of the verb, often represented by the English to or for), #accusative (used of the direct object of the verb, or object of the preposition in some cases), #ablative (separation, source, cause, or instrument, often represented by the English by, with, from), #vocative (used of the person or thing being addressed). In addition, some nouns have a locative case used to express location (otherwise expressed by the ablative with a preposition such as in), but this survival from Proto-Indo-European is found only in the names of lakes, cities, towns, small islands, and a few other words related to locations, such as "house", "ground", and "countryside". Latin itself, being a very old language, is far closer to Proto-Indo-European than are most modern Western European languages; it has, in fact, about the same relationship with PIE as modern Italian or French has to Latin. There are six general tenses in Latin (technically they are tense/aspect/mood complexes). The indicative mood can be used with all of them. The subjunctive mood, however, has only present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses. These tenses in the subjunctive mood do not completely correlate in meaning to the tenses in the indicative. The following examples are of the first conjugation verb "laudare" ("to praise") in the indicative mood and the active voice:
Primary sequence tenses
# present (laudo, "I praise") # imperfect (laudabam, "I was praising") # future (laudabo, "I shall praise," "I will praise")
Secondary sequence tenses
# perfect (laudavi, "I praised", "I have praised") # pluperfect (laudaveram, "I had praised") # future perfect (laudavero, "I shall have praised," "I will have praised") The future perfect tense can also imply a normal future idea (like in "When I will have run...") and so may also sometimes be included in the primary sequence.
Latin and Romance
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into the various Romance languages. These were for many centuries only spoken languages, Latin still being used for writing. For example, Latin was the official language of Portugal until 1296 when it was replaced by Portuguese. The Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of common usage, which in turn evolved from an older speech which also produced the formal classical standard. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress, whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French even stress is no longer distinctive. Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that all Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words except for some pronouns. Romanian retains a direct case (nominative/accusative), an indirect case (dative/genitive), and vocative. In Italy, Latin is still compulsory in secondary schools as Liceo Classico and Liceo Scientifico which are usually attended by people who aim to the highest level of education. In Liceo Classico Ancient Greek is a compulsory subject.
Latin and English
See Latin influence in English for a more complete exposition. English grammar is independent of Latin grammar, though prescriptive grammarians in English have been heavily influenced by Latin. Attempts to make English grammar follow Latin rules — such as the prohibition against the split infinitive — have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English were derived from Latin, including many words of Greek origin first adopted by the Romans, not to mention the thousands of French, hundreds of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English. During the 16th and on through the 18th century English writers created huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words were dubbed "inkhorn" or "inkpot" words (as if they had spilled from a pot of ink). Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some remain. Imbibe, extrapolate, dormant and inebriation are all inkhorn terms carved from Latin words. In fact, the word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymologia, meaning "true sense of the word." Latin was once taught in many of the schools in Britain with academic leanings - perhaps 25% of the total [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/teachem2/thennow/]. However, the requirement for it was gradually abandoned in the professions such as the law and medicine, and then, from around the late 1960s, for admission to university. After the introduction of the Modern Language GCSE in the 1980s, it was gradually replaced by other languages, although it is now being taught by more schools along with other classical languages.
Latin education
The linguistic element of Latin courses offered in high schools or secondary schools, and in universities, is primarily geared toward an ability to translate Latin texts into modern languages, rather than using it in oral communication. As such, the skill of reading is heavily emphasized, whereas speaking and listening skills are barely touched upon. However, there is a growing movement, sometimes known as the Living Latin movement, whose supporters believe that Latin can, or should, be taught in the same way that modern "living" languages are taught, that is, as a means of both spoken and written communication. One of the most interesting aspects of such an approach is that it assists speculative insight into how many of the ancient authors spoke and incorporated sounds of the language stylistically; without understanding how the language is meant to be heard it is very difficult to identify patterns in Latin poetry. Institutions offering Living Latin instruction include the Vatican and the University of Kentucky. In Britain the Classical Association encourages this approach, and there has been something of a vogue for books describing the adventures of a mouse called Minimus. In the United States there is a thriving competitive organization for high school Latin students, the National Junior Classical League (the second-largest youth organization in the world after the Boy Scouts), backed up by the Senior Classical League for college students. Many would-be international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin, and the moderately successful Interlingua considers itself to be the modernized and simplified version of the language (le latino moderne international e simplificate). Latin translations of modern literature such as Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Le Petit Prince, Max und Moritz, and The Cat in the Hat have also helped boost interest in the language.
See also

About the Latin language

- Latin grammar
- Latin spelling and pronunciation
- Latin declension
- Latin conjugation
- Latin alphabet
- List of Latin words with English derivatives
- Latin verbs with English derivatives
- Latin nouns with English derivatives
- ablative absolute
- Word order in Latin
About the Latin literary heritage

- Latin literature
- Romance languages
- Loeb Classical Library
- List of Latin phrases
- List of Latin proverbs
- Brocard
- List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
- List of Latin place names in Europe
- Carmen Possum
Other related topics

- Roman Empire
- Internationalism
References

- Bennett, Charles E. Latin Grammar (Allyn and Bacon, Chicago, 1908)
- N. Vincent: "Latin", in The Romance Languages, M. Harris and N. Vincent, eds., (Oxford Univ. Press. 1990), ISBN 0195208293
- Waquet, Françoise, Latin, or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Verso, 2003) ISBN 1859844022; translated from the French by John Howe.
- Wheelock, Frederic. Latin: An Introduction (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0060784237
External links

- [http://www.jambell.com/latin.html Latin Phrases for after dinner conversation (Thanks to Elaine Poole)]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lat Ethnologue report for Latin]
- [http://forumromanum.org/literature/index.html Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum] is a comprehensive webography of Latin texts and their translations.
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Project] has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin an interactive Latin dictionary].
- [http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe words by William whitaker] is a dictionary program online capable of looking up various word forms.
- [http://retiarius.org/ Retiarius.Org] includes a Latin text search engine.
- [http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm Latin-English dictionary and Latin grammar from U of Notre Dame]
- [http://latin-language.co.uk/ Latin language] History of Latin language, Latin texts with English translation and a collection of dictionaries.
- [http://augustinus.eresmas.net/scl/ Societas Circulorum Latinorum] gathers together Latin Circles all over the world.
- [http://www.learnlatin.tk LearnLatin.tk] - Free online course in Latin
- [http://www.latintests.net/ LatinTests.net] - Lets Latin learners test their grammar and vocabulary with self-checking quizzes.
- [http://thelatinlibrary.com/ The Latin Library] contains many Latin etexts
- [http://www.textkit.com/ Textkit] has Latin textbooks and etexts.
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Latin-english/ Latin–English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.language-reference.com/ Language reference] Cross-foreign-language lexicon powered by its own search engine. All cross combinations between Latin and French, German, Italian, Spanish.
- [http://comp.uark.edu/~mreynold/rhetor.html Rhetor by Gabriel Harvey] was originally published in 1577 and never again reprinted.
- [http://freewebs.com/omniamundamundis omniamundamundis] Latin hypertexts from fourteen ancient Roman authors.
- [http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm Pronunciation of Biological Latin, Including Taxonomic Names of Plants and Animals]
- [http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii Nuntii Latini (News in Latin)], written and spoken (RealAudio) news in latin. Weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
- [http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=Replace%20Me&from=eng&to=ltt InterTran Latin], Translate from Latin to ENGLISH or vice versa.
- [http://www.latinvulgate.com Latin Vulgate] The Latin and English of the Old & New Testaments in parallel, along with the Complete Sayings of Jesus in parallel Latin and English. Category:Classical languages Category:Ancient languages Category:Fusional languages Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Vatican City als:Latein zh-min-nan:Latin-gí ko:라틴어 ja:ラテン語 simple:Latin language th:ภาษาละติน

Polytheism

Polytheism is belief in, or worship of, multiple gods or divinities. The word comes from the Greek words poly+theoi, literally "many gods." Most ancient religions were polytheistic, holding to pantheons of traditional deities, often accumulated over centuries of cultural interchange and experience. The belief in many gods does not contradict or preclude also believing in an all- powerful all-knowing supreme being. In polytheistic belief systems, gods are conceived as complex personages of greater or lesser status, with individual skills, needs, desires and stories. Usually such gods are not omnipotent or omniscient; rather, they are often portrayed as similar to humans in their personality traits, but with additional individual powers, abilities, knowledge or perceptions. In a polytheistic pantheon, the gods may have multiple names, each with its own significance in specific roles, and have dominion or authority over specified areas of life and the cosmos. Thus a god may be the god of music (Apollo) or herding, the god of a particular food (Dionysus, Cerce) or emotion (Venus), have a particular role in the god-hierachy (Jupiter, Loki), or be the "patron god" of a geographical or cosmological phenomenon, or a region, town, stream or family. In some polytheistic beliefs, such as the Greek or Norse parthenae, gods have complex social arrangements, for example, they have friends, allies, spouses, lovers and enemies, they experience human emotions such as jealousy, whimsy or uncontrolled rage, may practise infidelity or be punished, and can be born or die. Most pre-Christian cultures of Europe, and indeed many cultures around the world, have been and in some cases remain polytheistic, and polytheism is reviving in popularity in the West, often accompanied by a return to old texts and recreation of the rituals and way of life they describe. Present-day polytheistic religions include revivalist Hellenic polytheism, Shinto, some forms of Wicca, and Ásatrú. Polytheistic views should be carefully distinguished within religions such as Hinduism, which present multiple divinities in a so-called "soft" polytheistic manner. Hindu writers are often at pains to clarify that to practitioners, these are intended to represent different aspects of the one god, and thus provide many paths to the same ultimate truth.

Overview

Jenny Blain's 2004 article, [http://www.manygods.org.uk/articles/traditions/polytheism.html An Understanding of Polytheism], published here with the author's permission, gives us the following insight: "Polytheism refers to the honouring of 'many deities', each of whom is experienced and acknowledged as an independent, individual personality, not as an aspect or archetype of something else. Polytheist belief systems have a number of deities or sacred beings. Some may have jurisdiction or governance over a large area, others may be associated with (e.g.) a particular river or town, or a particular family. Sacred beings may include spirits, wights, ancestors, 'small gods'. Often individuals within polytheistic cultures will form relationships with a small number of specific goddesses, gods, or other beings while acknowledging their kinship to other discrete entities who are important within the culture, cosmology, and landscape. In polytheistic cultures, deities are experienced as complex personages. Many have particular skills or abilities but are not restricted to these. A goddess is unlikely to be, for instance, simply a 'goddess of grain' or a 'goddess of weaving', although she may have particular interest in these areas, just as a human musician is also a member of a family and a community, visiting shops and participating in political debates. Most pre-Christian cultures of Europe, and indeed many cultures around the world, have been and in some cases remain polytheistic. Today many people in the 'Western' world are returning to polytheism. Often they will attempt to reconstruct or re-establish a specific pre-Christian belief system, by studying its history and archaeology, ancient writings (which may or may not be viewed as 'sacred texts'), and the cultures which embraced it, to recreate a living spirituality that works within today's world. Examples of ancient texts include the Odyssey, Sumerian poems, or the Eddas - writings which make reference to deities and other non-human beings, and give insight into the worldviews of those who composed them. Individual deities may be known by more than one name, just as human people may be known by different names or titles (Doctor, Dad, etc.) to different individual people. For instance, Odhinn has over 100 names in mediæval texts, and is a master of disguises. He remains distinct from other gods such as Thor or Vidar, just as a cousin who is an actor (taking many parts) is distinct from other relatives or members of the wider community (including other actors)."

Ancient polytheism

Well-known polytheistic pantheons in history include the Sumerian gods, the Egyptian gods, the Greek religion, Norse Æsir and Vanir, the Yoruba Orisha, the Aztec gods, and many others. Today, most historical polytheistic religions are referred to as "mythology", though the stories cultures tell about their gods should be distinguished from their cultus or religious practice. Few ancient religions, indeed, were not polytheistic. Those that weren't include early Vedic Hinduism (which has been termed at the most henotheistic with groundings of monistic, monotheistic and naturalist polytheistic philosophy), henotheistic Greek and the Roman Classical Pantheon of gods, the Abrahamic religions, dualistic Zoroastrianism and Mithraism, and possibly the short-lived Atenism promulgated by Akhenaton in Egypt in the 1350s BC. In many civilizations, pantheons tended to grow over time. Deities first worshipped as the patrons of cities or places came to be collected together as empires extended over larger territories. Conquests could lead to the subordination of the elder culture's pantheon to a newer one, as in the Greek Titanomachia, and possibly also the case of the Æsir and Vanir in the Norse mythos. Cultural exchange could lead to "the same" deity being renowned in two places under different names, as with the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, and also to the introduction of elements of a "foreign" religion into a local cult, as with Egyptian Osiris worship brought to ancient Greece.

Gods and divinity

Hard polytheists believe that the gods are distinct and separate beings. Hard polytheists may believe in a unifying principle such as the One of the Platonists. Soft polytheists regard their multiplicity of gods as simply representing different aspects or facets of a single god, as many modern neopagan groups and Hinduism. The Greek gods provide an example. The ancient Greeks believed that their gods were independent deities who weren't aspects of a great deity and did stand on their own. Soft polytheism means that the person practicing a polytheistic religion believes that their gods are aspects of another god or goddess and it usually comes in the form of triads or triple gods or goddesses. This was the case with the Ancient Egyptians. They believed that certain Gods were aspects of a great God like Amon was an aspect of Ra and was usually known as Amon-Ra. The triple gods Ptah-Sokar-Osiris to give an example shows that even though their Gods may have distinct personalities and traits, they are considered to be aspects of an another deity.

The Indic Traditions

Buddhism and Hinduism are regarded by some non-practitioners as polytheistic although this view of the religion is rejected by most Hindus and Buddhists themselves. The system prevalent in Hinduism is defined by the Smartha philosophy; this theory allows for the veneration of numberless deities, but on the understanding that all of them are but manifestation of the ONE divine power. That ultimate power is termed Brahman or Atman, and is believed to have no specific form, name or attribute. Only a Smartha, or follower of the Advaita philosophy, would have no problem worshiping every imaginable deity with equal veneration; he views these different deities as being manifestations of the same God. Other (somewhat peripheral) Hindu sects, such as Vaishnavism and Shaivism conform more closely to a Western understanding of what a monotheistic faith is. For instance, a Vaishnavite considers Vishnu as being the one and only true God, an attitude that resonates with that of the semitic religions. However, the Smartha philosophy defines the mainstream of Hinduism, and imparts to Indic spiritual and religious traditions their renowned liberalism. In Buddhism the gods, devas, though powerful beings in their own right, are still mortal. Therefore, their worship is held to be unnecessary.g

External links

- [http://www.religioustolerance.org/glossary.htm religioustolerance.org's glossary of religious terms]
- [http://www.godchecker.com godchecker.com] – a very lighthearted and irreverent God database
- [http://www.manygods.org.uk/ The Association of Polytheist Traditions - APT ] A UK-based community of Polytheists with a website and a discussion group open to non-members, and a closed list for paid-up members.
- [http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Britpoly/ BritPoly discussion group] The Association of Polytheist Tradition's (APT) discussion group open to non-members. All polytheists are welcome, though the emphasis and style of the group is based on that of the UK. Category:Polytheism
- [http://www.paganfed.org/] The Pagan Federation - A predominantly polytheistic educational and campaigning organisation serving the Pagan community. ja:多神教

Pejorative

A word or phrase is a pejorative (occasionally misspelled perjorative) if it expresses contempt or disapproval. The adjective pejorative is synonymous with derogatory and dyslogistic (noun: dyslogism) (antonyms: meliorative, eulogistic, noun eulogism). Dyslogisms such as "pea-brain" and "bottom-feeder" are words and phrases essentially pejorative by their nature. Although pejorative (adj.) means much the same thing as disparaging, the latter term may be applied to a look or gesture as well as to spoken language— in the evocative languages of gesture, it is not easy to distinguish a disparaging gesture from a dismissive or merely skeptical one, however. Pejorative expressions that are not dyslogisms may also be used in a non-pejorative way, however, and determining the intent of the speaker is problematic— as with any implied meaning. Conversely, a common rhetorical ploy is to apply "pejorative" to a factual descriptor— as "toxic" might be applied to poison— and then decry it as "pejorative" to suit the agenda of those defending the substance as harmless. Not every breath of criticism is pejorative: a "petty distinction" is indeed a petty distinction: in that case, the defender must demonstrate the authenticity and seriousness of the distinction, which may then be simply recognized as dismissive rather than pejorative. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense. This happened with the terms Quaker, Yankee and Ham radio operator, which were originally slang insults which came to be worn with pride. In other cases, some groups have attempted to reclaim formerly offensive words applied against them, with limited success: when usage of a term like nigger, redneck, "white cracker", dyke, queer, faggot, tranny, pervert, Kraut, geek, chav or cripple by someone outside the group is still considered offensive, that is a sign this process of neutralization is incomplete. British English also incorporates many British regional slurs Conversely, a neutral (non-pejorative) term may grow to become pejorative: the term retard, to refer to a person whose mental capacity is permanently held back from development, was originally used as a euphemism, as had been moron before, itself a euphemism for idiot, in order to avoid true dyslogisms like feebleminded, and half-witted. But it quickly grew to have a pejorative sense of its own. Another example is the use of the word cripple being replaced by handicapped. Both of these are considered pejorative with the term "physically challenged" as the current euphemism. This same progression, from neutral to pejorative, may be happening with the words challenged and special, used in the same sense, today. Language writer Steven Pinker has called this process "the euphemism treadmill." Since meanings change over time, an up-to-date dictionary should be consulted for information on specific words.

Etymology

Unrelated to perjury, pejorative comes from the Latin pejoratus, "made worse," and made a surprisingly late entry in written English, 1882, probably deriving from a contemporary French usage, péjoratif. [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p&p=8]. It is so frequently misspelled as perjorative that the Oxford English Dictionary [http://www.askoxford.com/ website] contains a FAQ [http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/perjorative entry] about this misspelling.

Infidel

- An infidel is an unbeliever in respect to a particular religion, especially Christianity or Islam.
- Some say that in an Islamic context, infidel is the common translation of Arabic kafir. Actually, the Arabic word "kafir" means to cover or conceal the truth.
- In general, an infidel is one who doubts or rejects a particular doctrine, system, or principle.
- see Infidel (computer game) for the 1983 computer text adventure from Infocom.

Diviner

: divination

Kirdi

, tells the future by interpreting the changes in position of various objects as caused by a fresh-water crab.]] Kirdi is a word of Kanuri origin, denoting non-Muslims, referring to the ethnic group of the Northern Mandaras in Cameroon and north-eastern Nigeria. Derogatory in its origin, the term has been accepted as a self-designation and may be used by montagnards to refer to their ethnic pride. In a generalized context, Kirdi can be interpreted as denoting resistance against Islamization and the holding on to a traditional local paganism. The first mentioning of Kirdi is by Denham in 1826 (1985:145) who translates the word Kerdies as "Negroes who have never embraced the Mohammedan faith".

External links

- http://www.mandaras.info/ Category:Ethnic groups of Cameroon Category:Ethnic groups of Nigeria Category:Religion in Nigeria

Latin

Main features

Rural

]] Rural areas are sparsely settled places away from the influence of large cities and towns. Such areas are distinct from more intensively settled urban and suburban areas, and also from unsettled lands such as outback or wilderness. People live in villages, on farms and in other isolated houses. Rural areas can have an agricultural character, though many rural areas are characterized by an economy based on logging, mining, oil and gas exploration, or tourism. Lifestyles in rural areas are different than those in urban areas, mainly because limited services are available. Governmental services like law enforcement, schools, fire departments, and libraries may be distant, limited in scope, or unavailable. Utilities like water, sewer, street lighting, and garbage collection may not be present. Public transport is absent or very limited, people use their own vehicles, walk, bicycle, or ride an animal. See also:
- the digital divide and rural areas
- rural crafts

Bibliography

Hart, John Fraiser. The Rural Landscape, ISBN 0801857171.

External links

- [http://topics.developmentgateway.org/poverty/rc/BrowseContent.do~source=RCContentUser~folderId=3331 Rural Poverty]
- [http://www.ruraljournalism.org Rural Journalism]
- [news:misc.rural A newsgroup discussing rural issues] Category:Urban studies and planning ja:田舎

Peasant

A peasant, from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, the countryside or region, (from Latin pagus, country district) is an agricultural worker with roots in the countryside in which he dwells, either working for others or, more specifically, owning or renting and working by his own labour a small plot of ground, in England a "cottager". Peasants exist in a world before the modern division of labor: a peasant must be a jack-of-all trades, handy at everything. Peasants depend on the cultivation of their land; without stockpiles of provision they thrive or starve according to the most recent harvest (illustration, above right). Peasants live to agricultural time; the "world-time", in Fernand Braudel's term, of politics and economics does not directly affect the peasant. Peasants typically make up the majority of the agricultural labour force in a pre-industrial society. Though a word of not very strict application, once a market economy has taken universal root, it is now frequently used of the traditionalist rural population in countries where the land is chiefly held by smallholders, peasant proprietors. In the great majority of pre-industrial societies, peasants constitute the bulk of the population, the authentic "silent majority". A rural peasant population differs enormously in its values and economic behavior from an urban worker population. Peasants tend to be more conservative than urbanites, and are often very loyal to inherited power structures that define their rights and privileges and protect them from interlopers, despite their generally low status within them. Peasant societies generally have very well developed social support networks. Especially in harder climates, members of the community who have a poor harvest or suffer some form of hardship will be taken care of by the rest of the community. Loyalties and vengeance both run very deep. Peasant communities are extremely tight, and are often difficult to access or understand by outsiders. Peasant societies can often have very stratified social hierarchies within them. stratified In a barter economy, peasants characteristically have a different attitude to work than peasants— or towndwellers— in a money economy would. Most of them are content to live at a subsistence level and will not expend unnecessary labour raising their standard of living. Traditionally many non-peasants have viewed this as laziness. However, it does make sense from their perspective, since there would rarely be any point in producing more than could be consumed. Fernand Braudel devoted the first volume of his major work, Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century to the largely silent and invisible world that existed below the market economy, in The Structures of Everyday Life. Fernand Braudel, Paris, Ms 7310]] Since the literate classes who left the most record tended to dismiss the peasants as figures of coarse appetite and rustic comedy, "peasant" may have a pejorative rather than descriptive connotation in historical memory. However, it was not always that way; peasants were once viewed as pious and seen with respect and pride. Life was hard for peasants, but before technology and a money economy created a chasm between rich and poor, life was hard for everyone. Society was theorized as organized in three "estates": those who work, those who pray and those who fight. Those who theorized did so for those whose recent ancestors did little but fight, ecclesiastics and nobles who increasingly lived more private lives. A new consciousness of inalienable rights and new, unjust impositions from above contributed to the popular (or peasant) uprisings of the 14th century, the breakdown of the feudal system and the rise of modernity. Once a money economy had intruded on the old agricultural order, the peasant was slowly transformed into the laborer for wages, or he might hold a precarious position as an independent smallholder, one of the "yeomen" of sentimental history. In some countries in central and eastern Europe where a barter economy obtained in self-sufficient societies, reintroduced serfdom continued up to the 19th century in places, and in some third world countries the term is still broadly applicable today.

Peasant Sayings

- "Arbeit macht frei" German peasant saying that means "Work makes free" literally, but conveys the meaning "Labor/Work liberates."

References

- Braudel, Fernand, The Structures of Everyday Life vol I of Civilization and Capitalism
- Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, Montaillou : The Promised Land of Error
- Mollat, Michael, The Poor in the Middle Ages, 1986.

External links

- [http://www.ditext.com/blum/title.html Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century] (Princeton University Press, 1961). ---- Category:Feudalism

Cognate

Cognates are words that have a common origin. Examples of cognates are the words night (English), Nacht (German), nicht (Scots), noc (Czech), nox (Latin), nakti- (Sanskrit), noche (Spanish) and naktis (Lithuanian), all meaning night and all deriving from PIE
- nekwt-, "night". Another Indo-European example is star (English), str (Sanskrit), star (Sinhala), aster (Greek), stella (Latin, Italian), stairno (Gothic), Stern (German), starn (Scots), stjärna (Swedish), setare (Persian), steren (Cornish), ster (Afrikaans), estel (Catalan), estrella (Spanish) and estêre (Kurdish), from PIE
- ster-, "star". Hebrew shalom and Arabic salaam are also cognates deriving from a common Semitic root. Cognates can exist within the same language. For example, English ward and guard (
- wer-, "to perceive, watch out for") are cognate as are shirt and skirt (
- sker-, "to cut"). In some cases, one of the cognate pairs has an ultimate source in another language related to English, while the other one is native; in others both come from other languages, often the same one but at different times. Cognates may often be less easily recognised than the above examples and authorities sometimes differ in their interpretations of the evidence. The English word milk is clearly a cognate of German Milch and of Russian moloko (
- melg-, "to milk"). On the other hand, French lait and Spanish leche (both meaning "milk") are less obviously cognates of Greek galaktos (genitive form of gala, milk) (<
- g(a)lag-, galakt-). Cognates may not have the same meaning: dish (English) and Tisch ("table", German), or starve (English) and sterben ("die", German), or head (English) and chef ("chief, head", French), serve as examples as to how cognate terms may diverge in meaning as languages develop separately. In addition to having separate meanings, cognates through processes of linguistic change may no longer resemble each other phonetically: cow and beef both derive from the same Indo-European root, cow having developed through the Germanic language family while beef has arrived in English from the Italo-Romance family descent. Cognates may thus also arise through borrowings into languages. So the resemblance between English to pay and French payer originates through English borrowing to pay from Norman which, like French, had derived its word from Gallo-Romance.

False cognates

False cognates are words that are commonly thought to be related (have a common origin) whereas linguistic examination reveals they are unrelated. Thus, for example, on the basis of superficial similarities one might suppose that the Latin verb habere and German haben, both meaning 'to have', are cognates. However, an understanding of the way words in the two languages evolve from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots shows that they cannot be cognate. German haben (like English have) in fact comes from PIE
- kap, 'to grasp', and its real cognate in Latin is capere, 'to seize, grasp, capture'. Latin habere, on the other hand, is from PIE
- ghabh, 'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with English give and German geben. The similarity of words between languages is not enough to demonstrate that the words are related to each other, in much the same way that facial resemblance does not determine whether two people are genetically related. Over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, words may change their sound completely. Thus, for example, English five and Sanskrit pança are cognates, while English over and Hebrew a'var are not, and neither are English dog and Mbabaram dog. Contrast this with false friends, which frequently are cognate.

Old French

Old French is a term sometimes used to refer to the langue d'oïl, the continuum of varieties of Romance language spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of Belgium and Switzerland during the period roughly from 1000 to 1300 A.D. It was known at the time as the langue d'oïl to distinguish it from the langue d'oc, (also then called Provençal) which bordered these areas to the south. Provençal to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste.]]

Grammar and phonology

Historical influences

Gaulish

The Gaulish language, a Celtic language, slowly became extinct during the long centuries of Roman domination. A handful of Gaulish words survive in contemporary French: words like chêne, "oak tree", and charrue, "plough", mon, "my", are Gaulish survivals, but fewer than two hundred words of modern French have a Gaulish etymology; Delamarre (2003 pp.389-90) lists 167. Latin was the common language of the western Roman world, and opened up a wider world to its speakers than Gaulish did, so it grew at the expense of Gaulish.

Latin

In one sense, Old French began when the Roman Empire conquered the territory it called Gaul during the conquests of Julius Caesar, which were substantially completed by 51 BC. The Romans introduced the Latin language into southern France starting in around 120 BC, when they occupied southern Gaul during the Punic Wars. Starting during the period when Plautus was writing, the common Latin of the Roman world, the phonological structure of classical Latin began to change, yielding the vulgar Latin that was the common spoken language of the western Roman world. This vulgar Latin began to vary strongly from the classical language in its phonology; spoken Latin, rather than the somewhat artificial literary language of classical Latin, was the ancestor of the Romance languages including Old French. Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and thus, not only Old French but also other Romance languages. For example classical latin equus was replaced in comon parlance by vulgar Latin caballus, derived from Gaulish caballos (Delamare 2003 p.96) thus giving Modern French cheval, Italian cavallo and (borrowed from French) English cavalry.

Frankish

The Frankish language had a much larger impact on the vocabulary of Old French as a result of the Frankish conquest of much of the territory of modern France by the Franks during the Migration Period. The current and older names of the language, français, derives from the name of the Franks. A number of other Germanic peoples, including the Burgundians, were active in the territory at that time; the Germanic languages spoken by the Franks, Burgundians, and others were not written languages, and at this remove it is often difficult to identify from which specific Germanic source a given Germanic word in French is derived. Philologists such as Pope (1934) estimate that perhaps fifteen percent of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources; this vocabulary includes a large number of common words like haïr, "to hate"; bateau, "boat", and hache, "axe", all derive from Germanic sources. It has been suggested that the passé composé and other compound verbs used in French conjugation are also the result of Germanic influences. It is important to distinguish however words which came from Germanic initially, via Frankish, and those that were introduced later, via the Normans in the 10th century.

Earliest written Old French

The earliest documents said to be in French are the Oaths of Strasbourg, which are treaties and charters entered by king Charles the Bald in 842. These documents are written in a mixture of vulgar Latin and early Romance, and it is hard to determine from the text we have how they were pronounced: :Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d’ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa. . . ::(For the love of God and for the christian people, and our common salvation, from this day forward, as God will give me the knowledge and the power, I will defend my brother Charles with my help in everything. . .) Beginning with the Capetian dynasty, which was begun by Hugh Capet in 987, the culture of northern France began to develop, and its political ascendency over the southern areas of Aquitaine and Toulouse was slowly but firmly asserted. The current French language, however, did not begin to become the common speech of the entire nation of France until after the French revolution.

From Vulgar Latin to Old French

One profound change that affected French, and every other Romance language, reordered the vowel system of classical Latin. Latin had ten distinct vowels: long and short versions of A, E, I, O, U, and three (or four) diphthongs, AE, OE, AU, and according to some, UI.¹ What happened to Vulgar Latin is set forth in the table. Both the diphthongs AE and OE also fell in with /e/. AU was initially retained, and turned into /O/ after the original /O/ fell victim to further changes. Thus, the ten vowel system of Classical Latin, which relied on phonemic vowel length was new-modelled into a system in which vowel length distinctions were suppressed and alterations of vowel quality became phonemic. Because of this change, the stress on accented syllables became much more pronounced in Vulgar Latin than in Classical Latin. This tended to cause unaccented syllables to become less distinct, while working further changes on the sounds of the accented syllables. Old French underwent more thorough alterations of its sound system than did the other Romance languages. Vowel breaking was something that occurred generally in Proto-Western-Romance (here, Proto-Romance), although with different results in each of the daughter languages; Latin FOCU(M) (originally "hearth") becomes Italian fuoco, Spanish fuego, French feu (all meaning "fire"). But in Old French the phenomenon went further than in any other Romance language; of the seven vowels inherited from Latin, only remained essentially unchanged. In stressed syllables:
- The sound of Latin E (short), turning to in Proto-Romance, became ie in Old French: Latin MEL, "honey" > OF miel
- The sound of Latin O (short) > Proto-Romance > OF uo: COR > cuor, "heart"
- Latin Ê > Proto-Romance > OF ei: HABÊRE > aveir, "to have"; this later becomes /oi/ in many words, as in avoir
- Latin Ô > Proto-Romance > OF ou: FLÔRE(M) > flour, "flower"
- Latin > OF , probably through an intervening stage of ; MARE > mer, "sea" This change is found in no other Romance language. Note that Latin AU did not share the fate of or ; Latin AURUM > OF or, "gold": not
- oeur nor
- our. Latin AU must have been retained at the time these changes were affecting Proto-Romance. Changes affecting the consonants were also quite pervasive in Old French. Old French shared with the rest of the Vulgar Latin world the loss of final -M. Since this sound was basic to the Latin noun case system, its loss levelled the distinctions upon which the synthetic Latin syntax relied, and forced the Romance languages to adapt a more analytic syntax based on word order. Old French also dropped many internal consonants when they followed the strongly stressed syllable; Latin PETRA

Roman Empire

:For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation) The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Ancient Roman polity in the centuries following its reorganization under the leadership of Octavian (better known as Caesar Augustus), until its radical reformation in what was later to be known as the Byzantine Empire. Roman Empire is also used as translation of the expression Imperium Romanum, probably the best known Latin expression where the word "imperium" is used in the meaning of a territory, the "Roman Empire", as that part of the world where Rome ruled. The expansion of this Roman territory beyond the borders of the initial city-state of Rome had started long before the state organisation turned into an Empire. One of the first historians to describe this expansion of the Roman territory was the Greek Polybius, writing in the Epoch of the Roman Republic. In the centuries before the autocracy of Augustus, Rome had already accumulated a collection of tribute-states beyond the Italian Peninsula, including former Mediterranean competitors Syracuse and Carthage. In the late Republic Augustus (then still "Octavian") added Egypt definitively to the Imperium Romanum. The remainder of this article treats the Roman Empire as Imperial state (see Roman Kingdom and Roman Republic for development of the territory in earlier times). Augustus' reforms turning the Roman state into an Empire survived mostly unchanged until the Diocletian reform at end of the 3rd century, which turned the empire into a tetrarchy. While the political form given by Diocletian was short-lived, it led to the division of the Empire into two halves. This allowed Roman rule to continue for two more centuries over the whole empire, although divided into the Eastern and the Western Roman Empire. The end of the Western Empire is traditionally set in 476, when Odovacar deposed the last Emperor and sent the Imperial insignia to Constantinople; henceforth he nominally ruled as dux on behalf of Constantinople. After another millennium, in 1453, the Eastern Empire, better known as the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Turks. From Augustus to the Fall of the Western Empire Rome dominated the region of Western Eurasia, comprising over half its population. The Roman Empire's influence on government, law, military, and monumental architecture, as well as many other aspects of Western life remains inescapable. The Greeks adopted the Roman name in the Middle Ages and were known as Romans, a trend that survives until today in Greece, a result of their cultural position (see Names of the Greeks). Roman titles of power were adopted by successor states and other entities with imperial pretensions, including the Frankish kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire, the first and second Bulgarian empires, the Russian/Kiev dynasties, and the German Empire. See also Roman culture.
Historians' viewpoints on the evolution of Imperial Rome
Because the empire of Rome lasted for such a long period of time (31 BC–1453), there are certain alternative names used by historians to distinguish various semantic periods or eras. Such names include Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire, which are used interchangeably throughout this article to mean the same as Roman Empire (or the Western or Eastern part thereof). For many years historians made a distinction between the Principate, the period from Augustus until the Crisis of the Third Century, and the Dominate, the period from Diocletian until the end of the Empire in the West. According to this theory, during the Principate (from the Latin word princeps, meaning "first citizen", the only title Augustus would permit himself) the realities of dictatorship were concealed behind Republican forms; while during the Dominate (from the word dominus, meaning "Master") imperial power showed its naked face, with golden crowns and ornate imperial ritual. More recently historians established that the situation was far more nuanced: certain historical forms continued until the Byzantine period, more than one thousand years after they were created, and displays of imperial majesty were common from the earliest days of the Empire.
Age of Augustus (31 BC–AD 14)

Political developments
Latin As a matter of convenience, the Roman Empire is held to have begun with the constitutional settlement following the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In fact the Republican institutions at Rome had been destroyed over the preceding century and Rome had been in continuous crisis with periods of dictatorial rule since Sulla. The long, peaceful and consensual reign of Augustus greatly changed the view toward hereditary monarchy. Rome–the city that had not too long before assassinated its leader, Julius Caesar, when his ambitions seemed to threaten the republic–now placidly accepted one man rule. Augustus' reign was notable for several long-lasting achievements that would define the Empire:
- Creation of an hereditary office, which we refer to as Emperor of Rome.
- Fixation of the payscale. Duration of Roman military service marked the final step in the evolution of the Roman Army from a citizen army to a professional one.
- Creation of the Praetorian Guard, which would make and unmake emperors for centuries.
- Expansion to the natural borders of the Empire. The borders reached upon Augustus' death remained the limits of Empire, with minimal exceptions, for the next four hundred years.
- Development of trade links with regions as far as India and China.
- Creation of a civil service outside of the Senatorial structure, leading to a continuous weakening of Senatorial authority.
- Enactment of the lex Julia of 18 BC and the lex Papia Poppaea of AD 9, which rewarded childbearing and penalized celibacy.
- Promulgation of the cult of the Deified Julius Caesar throughout the Empire. This tradition of deifying the Emperor upon his death lasted until the time of Constantine, who was made both a Roman god and "the Thirteenth Apostle" upon his death.
Cultural developments
:Main article: Roman culture The Augustan period saw a tremendous outpouring of cultural achievement in the areas of poetry, history, sculpture and architecture. At the same time, a tremendous outpouring of energy in founding colonies and municipia, unrivalled in Rome before or after, succeeded in Romanizing extensive territories in the East, in Africa, in Hispania and Gaul, beyond those areas that were traditionally within the Roman sphere of influence.
Sources
The Age of Augustus is paradoxically far more poorly documented than the Late Republican period that preceded it. While Livy wrote his magisterial history during Augustus' reign and his work covered all of Roman history through 9 BC, only epitomes survive of his coverage of the Late Republican and Augustan periods. Our important primary sources for this period include the:
- Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Augustus' highly partisan autobiography,
- Historiae Romanae by Velleius Paterculus, a disorganized work which remains the best annals of the Augustan period, and
- Controversiae and Suasoriae of Seneca the Elder. Though primary accounts of this period are few, works of poetry, legislation and engineering from this period provide important insights into Roman life. Archeology, including maritime archeology, aerial surveys, epigraphic inscriptions on buildings, and Augustan coinage, has also provided valuable evidence about economic, social and military conditions. Secondary sources on the Augustan Age include Tacitus, Dio Cassius, Plutarch and Suetonius. Josephus' Jewish Antiquities is the important source for Judea in this period, which became a province during Augustus' reign.
Julio-Claudian dynasty: Augustus' heirs
Augustus, leaving no sons, was succeeded by his stepson Tiberius, the son of his wife Livia from her first marriage. Augustus was a scion of the gens Julia (the Julian family), one of the most ancient patrician clans of Rome, while Tiberius was a scion of the gens Claudia, only slightly less ancient than the Julians. Their three immediate successors were all descended both from the gens Claudia, through Tiberius' brother Nero Claudius Drusus, and from gens Julia, either through Julia Caesaris, Augustus' daughter from his first marriage (Caligula and Nero), or through Augustus' sister Octavia (Claudius). Historians thus refer to their dynasty as "Julio-Claudian".
Tiberius (14–37)
The early years of Tiberius' reign were peaceful and relatively benign. Tiberius secured the power of Rome and enriched her treasury. However, Tiberius' reign soon became characterized by paranoia and slander. In 19, he was popularly blamed for the death of his nephew, the popular Germanicus. In 23 his own son Drusus died. More and more, Tiberius retreated into himself. He began a series of treason trials and executions. He left power in the hands of the commander of the guard, Aelius Sejanus. Tiberius himself retired to liv