Related Research Articles
Alexander I of Epirus, also known as Alexander Molossus, was a king of Epirus (343/2–331 BC) of the Aeacid dynasty. As the son of Neoptolemus I and brother of Olympias, Alexander I was an uncle of Alexander the Great. He was also an uncle of Pyrrhus of Epirus.
During the 290s BC, Hellenistic civilization begins its emergence throughout the successor states of the former Argead Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, resulting in the diffusion of Greek culture throughout the Levant and advances in science, mathematics, philosophy, etc. Meanwhile, the Roman Republic is embroiled in war against the Samnites, the Mauryan Empire continues to thrive in Ancient India, and the Kingdom of Qin in Ancient China, the one which in the future will conquer its adversaries and unite China, begins to emerge as a significant power during the Warring States period.
Year 305 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Megellus and Augurinus. The denomination 305 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains to the south of Rome and the north of the Lucanians. The first of these wars was the result of Rome's intervention to rescue the Campanian city of Capua from a Samnite attack. The second one was the result of Rome's intervention in the politics of the city of Naples and developed into a contest over the control of much of central and southern Italy. The third war also involved a struggle over the control of this part of Italy. The wars extended over half a century and the peoples to the east, north, and west of Samnium as well as the peoples of central Italy north of Rome and the Senone Gauls got involved to various degrees and at various points in time. The Samnites were one of early Rome's most formidable rivals.
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.
Samnium is a Latin exonym for a region of Southern Italy anciently inhabited by the Samnites. Their own endonyms were Safinim for the country and Safineis for the people. The language of these endonyms and of the population was the Oscan language. However, not all the Samnites spoke Oscan, and not all the Oscan-speakers lived in Samnium.
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus was one of the two elected Roman consuls in 298 BC. He led the Roman army to victory against the Etruscans near Volterra. A member of the noble Roman family of Scipiones, he was the father of Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina and great-grandfather of Scipio Africanus.
The Samnites were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium in south-central Italy. They became involved in several wars with the Roman Republic until the 1st century BC.
The Battle of Sentinum was the decisive battle of the Third Samnite War, fought in 295 BC near Sentinum, in which the Romans were able to overcome a formidable coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians and Senone Gauls. The Romans won a decisive victory which broke up the tribal coalition and paved the way for the Romans' complete victory over the Samnites. The Romans involved in the battle of Sentinum were commanded by consuls Publius Decius Mus and Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus.
Arpino is a comune (municipality) in the province of Frosinone, in the Latin Valley, region of Lazio in central Italy, about 100 km SE of Rome. Its Roman name was Arpinum. In Roman times, the town produced two consuls of the Roman Republic: Gaius Marius and Marcus Tullius Cicero.
The Battle of Lautulae was a battle fought in 315 BC during the Second Samnite War, opposing the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who defeated the Romans.
The Battle of Bovianum was fought in 305 BC between the Romans and the Samnites.
Gellius Egnatius was the leader of the Varriani, a leading clan of the Samnites during the Third Samnite War, which broke out in 298 BC. By the end of the second campaign the Samnites appeared completely defeated, however in the following year Gellius Egnatius marched into Etruria, and roused the Etruscans to a close co-operation against Rome. This had the effect of withdrawing Roman troops from Samnium for a period of time; but the forces of the confederates were defeated by the combined armies of consuls Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens and Appius Claudius Caecus.
Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens was a consul of the Roman Republic, a novus homo who was the first consul to come from his plebeian gens. Volumnius served as consul twice, in 307 BC and 296 BC, both times in partnership with the patrician Appius Claudius Caecus. He took an active role in leading Roman forces during the Third Samnite War.
The gens Carvilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first distinguished itself during the Samnite Wars. The first member of this gens to achieve the consulship was Spurius Carvilius Maximus, in 293 BC.
Gnaeus Gellius was a Roman historian. Very little is known about his life and work, which has only survived in scattered fragments. He continued the historical tradition set by Fabius Pictor of writing a year-by-year history of Rome from mythological times to his day. However, with about a hundred books, Gellius' Annales were massively more developed than the other Roman annalists, and was only surpassed by Livy's gigantic History of Rome.
The Roman expansion in Italy covers a series of conflicts in which Rome grew from being a small Italian city-state to be the ruler of the Italian peninsula. Roman tradition attributes to the Roman kings the first war against the Sabines and the first conquests around the Alban Hills and down to the coast of Latium. The birth of the Roman Republic after the overthrow of the Etruscan monarch of Rome in 509 BC began a series of major wars between the Romans and the Etruscans. In 390 BC, Gauls from the north of Italy sacked Rome. In the second half of the 4th century BC Rome clashed repeatedly with the Samnites, a powerful tribal coalition of the Apennine region. By the end of these wars, Rome had become the most powerful state in central Italy and began to expand to the north and to the south. The last threat to Roman hegemony came during the Pyrrhic war when Tarentum enlisted the aid of the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus to campaign in the South of Italy. Resistance in Etruria was finally crushed in 265-264 BC, the same year the first punic war began and brought Roman forces outside of the peninsula for the first time.
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.
References
- ↑ Livy, ix. 44. 13.
 | This ancient Roman biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |