Look up saeculum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population. [1]
A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population. [1]
Originally it meant the time from the moment that something happened (for example the founding of a city) until the point in time that all people who had lived at the first moment had died. At that point a new saeculum would start. According to legend, the gods had allotted a certain number of saecula to every people or civilization; the Etruscans, for example, had been given ten saecula. [2]
By the 2nd century BC, Roman historians were using the saeculum to periodize their chronicles and track wars. [3] At the time of the reign of emperor Augustus, the Romans decided that a saeculum was 110 years. In 17 BC, Caesar Augustus organized Ludi saeculares ("saecular games") for the first time to celebrate the "fifth saeculum of Rome". [4] Augustus aimed to link the saeculum with imperial authority. [5]
Emperors such as Claudius and Septimius Severus celebrated the passing of saecula with games at irregular intervals. In 248, Philip the Arab combined Ludi saeculares with the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Rome. The new millennium that Rome entered was called the saeculum novum, [6] a term that received a metaphysical connotation in Christianity, referring to the worldly age (hence "secular"). [7]
Roman emperors legitimised their political authority by referring to the saeculum in various media, linked to a golden age of imperial glory. In response, Christian writers began to define the saeculum as referring to 'this present world', as opposed to the expectation of eternal life in the 'world to come'. [5] This results in the modern sense of 'secular' as 'belonging to the world and its affairs'. [8]
The English word secular, an adjective meaning something happening once in an eon, is derived from the Latin saeculum. [9] The descendants of Latin saeculum in the Romance languages generally mean "century" (i.e., 100 years): French siècle, [10] Spanish siglo, [11] Portuguese século, [12] Italian secolo, [13] etc.
Ab urbe condita, or anno urbis conditae, abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an expression used in antiquity and by classical historians to refer to a given year in Ancient Rome. In reference to the traditional year of the foundation of Rome, the year 1 BC would be written AUC 753, whereas AD 1 would be AUC 754. The foundation of the Roman Empire in 27 BC would be AUC 727. The current year AD 2024 would be AUC 2777.
In Roman mythology and religion, Quirinus is an early god of the Roman state. In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus.
Festivals in ancient Rome were a very important part in Roman religious life during both the Republican and Imperial eras, and one of the primary features of the Roman calendar. Feriae were either public (publicae) or private (privatae). State holidays were celebrated by the Roman people and received public funding. Games (ludi), such as the Ludi Apollinares, were not technically feriae, but the days on which they were celebrated were dies festi, holidays in the modern sense of days off work. Although feriae were paid for by the state, ludi were often funded by wealthy individuals. Feriae privatae were holidays celebrated in honor of private individuals or by families. This article deals only with public holidays, including rites celebrated by the state priests of Rome at temples, as well as celebrations by neighborhoods, families, and friends held simultaneously throughout Rome.
Maris was an Etruscan god often depicted as an infant or child and given many epithets, including Mariś Halna, Mariś Husrnana, and Mariś Isminthians. He was the son of Hercle, the Etruscan equivalent of Heracles. On two bronze mirrors, Maris appears in scenes depicting an immersion rite presumably to ensure his immortality. Massimo Pallottino noted that Maris might have been connected to stories about the centaur Mares, the legendary ancestor of the Ausones, who underwent a triple death and resurrection.
Secularity, also the secular or secularness, is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself and fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. In the medieval period there were even secular clergy. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally.
The Campus Martius was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about 2 square kilometres in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome. The IV rione of Rome, Campo Marzio, which covers a smaller section of the original area, bears the same name.
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.
Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counsellor of the state. She was equated to Hera, queen of the gods in Greek mythology and a goddess of love and marriage. A daughter of Saturn and Ops, she was the sister and wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona, Lucina and Juventas. Like Hera, her sacred animal was the peacock. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni, and she was said to also watch over the women of Rome. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina ("Queen") and was a member of the Capitoline Triad, centered on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and also including Jupiter, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom.
Lucius Caesar was a grandson of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder, Augustus' only daughter, Lucius was adopted by his grandfather along with his older brother, Gaius Caesar. As the emperor's adopted sons and joint-heirs to the Roman Empire, Lucius and Gaius had promising political and military careers. However, Lucius died of a sudden illness on 20 August 2 AD, in Massilia, Gaul, while traveling to meet the Roman army in Hispania. His brother Gaius also died at a relatively young age on 21 February 4 AD. The untimely loss of both heirs compelled Augustus to redraw the line of succession by adopting Lucius' younger brother, Agrippa Postumus as well as his stepson, Tiberius on 26 June 4 AD.
The Secular or Saecular Games was an ancient Roman religious celebration involving sacrifices, theatrical performances, and public games. It was held irregularly in Rome for three days and nights to mark the ends of various eras and to celebrate the beginning of the next. In particular, the Romans reckoned a saeculum as the longest possible length of human life, either 100 or 110 years in length; as such, it was used to mark various centennials, particularly anniversaries from the computed founding of Rome.
The Compitalia was an annual festival in ancient Roman religion held in honor of the Lares Compitales, household deities of the crossroads, to whom sacrifices were offered at the places where two or more ways met.
Orte is a town, comune, former Catholic bishopric and Latin titular see in the province of Viterbo, in the central Italian region of Lazio, located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Rome and about 24 kilometres (15 mi) east of Viterbo.
Augustus of Prima Porta is a full-length portrait statue of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman Empire.
John Franklin Hall was a professor of Classics and Ancient History at Brigham Young University. He was a student of R. E. A. Palmer. Hall specialized in Rome during the reign of Augustus. He also made contributions in the subdiscipline of Etruscology. Hall is best known for his work on the Secular Games, which was published in the well-respected ANRW. He has written on a variety of topics, a number of which focus on figures of Roman history with an Etruscan background. For example, he proposed that the Roman poet Virgil had Etruscan ancestry.
Marco is an Italian masculine given name of Etruscan and Latin origin, derived from Marcus. It derives from the Roman god Mars.
Ludi were public games held for the benefit and entertainment of the Roman people . Ludi were held in conjunction with, or sometimes as the major feature of, Roman religious festivals, and were also presented as part of the cult of state.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Mars is the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He is the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him, and in October, the months which traditionally began and ended the season for both military campaigning and farming.
In ancient Roman religion, the October Horse was an animal sacrifice to Mars carried out on October 15, coinciding with the end of the agricultural and military campaigning season. The rite took place during one of three horse-racing festivals held in honor of Mars, the others being the two Equirria on February 27 and March 14.
In the topography of ancient Rome, the Tarentum or Terentum was a religious precinct north of the Trigarium, a field for equestrian exercise, in the Campus Martius. The archaeological survey of the site shows that it had no buildings.
The gens Sanquinia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome, which rose out of obscurity in imperial times to attain the highest offices of the Roman state. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the time of Augustus, and Quintus Sanquinius Maximus held the consulship under Tiberius and Caligula. The family vanishes from history in the time of Claudius.
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