 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2008) |
The following list contains a selection from the Latin abbreviations that occur in the writings and inscriptions of the Romans. [1] [2] A few other non-classical Latin abbreviations are added.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his Te Deum, Marche en rondeau. This theme is still used today as a fanfare during television broadcasts of the Eurovision Network and the European Broadcasting Union.
Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood. The inflections are often changes in the ending of a word, but can be more complicated, especially with verbs.
Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an epigrapher or epigraphist. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy is a primary tool of archaeology when dealing with literate cultures. The US Library of Congress classifies epigraphy as one of the auxiliary sciences of history. Epigraphy also helps identify a forgery: epigraphic evidence formed part of the discussion concerning the James Ossuary.
A distinctive unit insignia (DUI) is a metallic heraldic badge or device worn by soldiers in the United States Army. The DUI design is derived from the coat of arms authorized for a unit. DUIs may also be called "distinctive insignia" (DI) or, imprecisely, a "crest" or a "unit crest" by soldiers or collectors. The U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry is responsible for the design, development and authorization of all DUIs.
Indirect speech, also known as reported speech, indirect discourse (US), or ōrātiō oblīqua, is the practice, common in all Latin historical writers, of reporting spoken or written words indirectly, using different grammatical forms. Passages of indirect speech can extend from a single phrase to an entire paragraph, and this style was generally preferred by Roman historians to the direct speech commonly found in Greek authors.
Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual license" was characteristic of ancient Rome, but sexuality was not excluded as a concern of the mos maiorum, the traditional social norms that affected public, private, and military life. Pudor, "shame, modesty", was a regulating factor in behavior, as were legal strictures on certain sexual transgressions in both the Republican and Imperial periods. The censors—public officials who determined the social rank of individuals—had the power to remove citizens from the senatorial or equestrian order for sexual misconduct, and on occasion did so. The mid-20th-century sexuality theorist Michel Foucault regarded sex throughout the Greco-Roman world as governed by restraint and the art of managing sexual pleasure.
Latin obscenity is the profane, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin, and its uses. Words deemed obscene were described as obsc(a)ena, or improba. Documented obscenities occurred rarely in classical Latin literature, limited to certain types of writing such as epigrams, but they are commonly used in the graffiti written on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Among the documents of interest in this area is a letter written by Cicero in 45 BC to a friend called Paetus, in which he alludes to a number of obscene words without actually naming them.
The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans. This legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on later juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Christian Church. This glossary provides explanations of concepts as they were expressed in Latin pertaining to religious practices and beliefs, with links to articles on major topics such as priesthoods, forms of divination, and rituals.
Anthony Hussey, Esquire, was an English merchant and lawyer who was President Judge of the High Court of Admiralty under Henry VIII, before becoming Principal Registrar to the Archbishops of Canterbury from early in the term of Archbishop Cranmer, through the restored Catholic primacy of Cardinal Pole, and into the first months of Archbishop Parker's incumbency, taking a formal part in the latter's consecration. The official registers of these leading figures of the English Reformation period were compiled by him. While sustaining this role, with that of Proctor of the Court of the Arches and other related ecclesiastical offices as a Notary public, he acted abroad as agent and factor for Nicholas Wotton.
Roman comedy is mainly represented by two playwrights, Plautus and Terence. The works of other Latin playwrights such as Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius, and Caecilius Statius are now lost except for a few lines quoted in other authors. 20 plays of Plautus survive complete, and 6 of Terence.
Latin word order is relatively free. The subject, object, and verb can come in any order, and an adjective can go before or after its noun, as can a genitive such as hostium "of the enemies". A common feature of Latin is hyperbaton, in which a phrase is split up by other words: Sextus est Tarquinius "it is Sextus Tarquinius".
The main Latin tenses can be divided into two groups: the present system, consisting of the present, future, and imperfect; and the perfect system, consisting of the perfect, future perfect, and pluperfect.
Conditional clauses in Latin are clauses which start with the conjunction sī 'if' or the equivalent. The 'if'-clause in a conditional sentence is known as the protasis, and the consequence is called the apodosis.
The Latin rhythmic hexameter or accentual hexameter is a kind of Latin dactylic hexameter which arose in the Middle Ages alongside the metrical kind. The rhythmic hexameter did not scan correctly according to the rules of classical prosody; instead it imitated the approximate sound of a typical metrical hexameter by having roughly the same number of syllables and putting word accents in approximately the same places in the line.