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 is a mythological figure. She is the one of the Three Fates or Moirai who spins the thread of human life; the other two draw out (Lachesis) and cut (Atropos) in ancient Greek mythology. 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 gods or mortals were to be saved or put to death. For example, Clotho brought Pelops back to life 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.
Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later goddess of fertility, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23.
In ancient Rome, the Vestals or Vestal Virgins were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The college of the Vestals was regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome. These individuals cultivated the sacred fire that was not allowed to go out. Vestals were freed of the usual social obligations to marry and bear children and took a 30-year vow of chastity in order to devote themselves to the study and correct observance of state rituals that were forbidden to the colleges of male priests.
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.
The Robigalia was a festival in ancient Roman religion held April 25, named for the god Robigus. Its main ritual was a dog sacrifice to protect grain fields from disease. Games (ludi) in the form of "major and minor" races were held. The Robigalia was one of several agricultural festivals in April to celebrate and vitalize the growing season, but the darker sacrificial elements of these occasions are also fraught with anxiety about crop failure and the dependence on divine favor to avert it.
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 Eos and Astraeus.
In Roman mythology, Decima was one of the three Parcae, or often known in English as the Fates. Nona and Decima were responsible for birth, while Morta was charged with overseeing death. They distributed to mankind all the good and bad things in life, and even Jupiter had to bend to their will. She measured the thread of life with her rod, like her Greek equivalent Lachesis. Her mother is the goddess of night and her father is the god of darkness.
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.
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 the Greek language. 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 work Historical Commentaries, a collection of miscellaneous historical anecdotes in thirty-three books. Although this collection has been lost, it 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 also 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.
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.
Titus Annianus was a poet of ancient Rome, who lived in the time of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, and wrote erotic or light verse, possibly in the Faliscan language.
The gens Gellia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, where they settled after the Second Punic War. 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 Laelia was a plebeian family at Rome. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gaius Laelius in 190 BC.
The gens Lavinia was a minor family at ancient Rome.
