Aulus Gellius was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his Attic Nights, a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today.
Clotho or Klotho, is a mythological figure. She is the youngest goddess of the Three Fates or Moirai. In ancient Greek mythology, she spins the thread of human life, her sisters draw out (Lachesis) and cut (Atropos) the thread. Her Roman equivalent is Nona. She also made major decisions, such as when a person was born, thus in effect controlling people's lives. This power enabled her not only to choose who was born, but also to decide when deities or mortals were to be saved or put to death. For example, Clotho resurrected Pelops when his father killed him.
In ancient Roman religion and myth, the Parcae were the female personifications of destiny who directed the lives of humans and gods. They are often called the Fates in English, and their Greek equivalent were the Moirai. They did not control a person's actions except when they are born, when they die, and how much they suffer.
Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later a goddess of fertility, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23.
The gens Gavia, or occasionally Gabia, was a Roman family of plebeian descent. It first appears in history during the first century BC, but none of its members obtained any of the curule magistracies until imperial times. The Gavi Arch at Verona was built in honor of one of the Gavii.
Cornelius Nepos was a Roman biographer. He was born at Hostilia, a village in Cisalpine Gaul not far from Verona.
In ancient Greek religion and myth, the Anemoi were wind gods who were each ascribed a cardinal direction from which their respective winds came, and were each associated with various seasons and weather conditions. They were the progeny of the goddess of the dawn Eos and her husband, the god of the dusk, Astraeus.
The gens Terentia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Dionysius mentions a Gaius Terentius Arsa, tribune of the plebs in 462 BC, but Livy calls him Terentilius, and from inscriptions this would seem to be a separate gens. No other Terentii appear in history until the time of the Second Punic War. Gaius Terentius Varro, one of the Roman commanders at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, was the first to hold the consulship. Members of this family are found as late as the third century AD.
The gens Sempronia was one of the most ancient and noble houses of ancient Rome. Although the oldest branch of this gens was patrician, with Aulus Sempronius Atratinus obtaining the consulship in 497 BC, the thirteenth year of the Republic, but from the time of the Samnite Wars onward, most if not all of the Sempronii appearing in history were plebeians. Although the Sempronii were illustrious under the Republic, few of them attained any importance or notice in imperial times.
The Fates are a common motif in European polytheism, most frequently represented as a trio of goddesses. The Fates shape the destiny of each human, often expressed in textile metaphors such as spinning fibers into yarn, or weaving threads on a loom. The trio are generally conceived of as sisters and are often given the names Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, which are the names of the Moirai, the version of the Fates who appear in Greek mythology. These divine figures are often artistically depicted as beautiful maidens with consideration to their serious responsibility: the life of mortals. Poets, on the other hand, typically express the Fates as ugly and unwavering, representing the gravity of their role within the mythological and human worlds.
Decima was one of the three Parcae in Roman mythology. The Parcae goddess Nona was responsible for pregnancy; Decima was responsible for measuring a person's lifespan; and Morta was charged with overseeing death. They distributed to mankind all the good and bad things in life, and according to some classical writings even Jupiter had to bend to their will. Decima measured the thread of life with her rod, like her Greek equivalent Lachesis. In some accounts, her mother was Nox the goddess of night and her father was Scotus the god of darkness; while in other accounts, her parents were Jupiter and Themis.
Aulus Postumius Albinus was a statesman of the Roman Republic, notably consul in 151 BC. He was also a historian and wrote the Annals in Greek.
In ancient Roman mythology, Salacia was the female divinity of the sea, worshipped as the goddess of salt water who presided over the depths of the ocean. Neptune was her consort. That Salacia was the consort of Neptune is implied by Varro, and is positively affirmed by Seneca, Augustine and Servius. She is identified with the Greek goddess Amphitrite, consort of Poseidon, or Tethys who was also a marine deity.
Pamphile or Pamphila of Epidaurus was a historian of Egyptian descent who lived in Greece during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero and wrote in Greek. She was the first known female Greco-Roman historian and, along with Ban Zhao, one of the first known female historians. She is best known for her lost Historical Commentaries, a collection of miscellaneous historical anecdotes in thirty-three books, which is frequently cited by the Roman writer Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights and by the Greek biographer Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. She is also described in the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda, and by the Byzantine writer Photios. According to the Suda, she wrote a large number of epitomes of the works of other historians as well as treatises on disputes and sex. She may be the author of the anonymous surviving Greek treatise Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello, which gives brief biographical accounts of the lives of famous women.
Aulus Postumius Tubertus was a Roman military leader in the wars with the Aequi and Volsci during the fifth century BC. He served as Magister Equitum under the dictator Mamercus Aemilius Mamercinus in 434 BC, and was dictator himself in 431.
The gens Antonia was a Roman family of great antiquity, with both patrician and plebeian branches. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Titus Antonius Merenda, one of the second group of Decemviri called, in 450 BC, to help draft what became the Law of the Twelve Tables. The most prominent member of the gens was Marcus Antonius.
The gens Gellia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, where they settled after the Second Punic War or earlier. The first of the Gellii to obtain the consulship was Lucius Gellius Poplicola, in 72 BC, but the most famous member of this gens is probably the grammarian Aulus Gellius, who flourished during the second century AD.
The gens Mummia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned after the Second Punic War, and within a generation, Lucius Mummius Achaicus became the first of the family to obtain the consulship. Although they were never numerous, Mummii continued to fill the highest offices of the state through the third century AD.
Marcus Porcius M. f. M. n. Cato was the father of Cato the Younger. His promising political career was cut short by his sudden death, early in the first century BC.
