Tiberius Denarius © Clipart.com.

On this day in 42 B.C., the future Roman emperor Tiberius (Tiberius Claudius Nero) was born. He died on March 16 A.D. 37. Tiberius was the adopted heir of the first emperor of Rome, Augustus, and became emperor upon his death in A.D. 14. In 26, Tiberius retired to the island of Capri. This left an unscrupulous, greedy and power hungry Praetorian Sejanus in charge at Rome. When Tiberius died, the crowds rejoiced... for a while. Then Caligula, who is known as a crazy and sadistic emperor, became the third emperor of Rome.

Suetonius on Tiberius

The most familiar story of Medea comes from the third-prize winning tragedy of that name by Euripides, first produced in 431 B.C., the year the Peloponnesian War began.

In Euripides' version of the story of Jason and Medea, Jason tells Medea he is marrying the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. This will enhance his social position, something he has been harming since he took up with the barbarian Medea.

Jason: Since I have here withdrawn from Iolcos with many a hopeless trouble at my back, what happier device could I, an exile, frame than marriage with the daughter of the king? .... Nay, 'tis that we-and this is most important-may dwell in comfort, instead of suffering want for well I know that every whilom friend avoids the poor, and that I might rear my sons as doth befit my house; further, that I might be the father of brothers for the children thou hast borne, and raise these to the same high rank, uniting the family in one,-to my lasting bliss.
Medea

Read more...

On this day in A.D. 354, Augustine was born in North Africa. Augustine was an important figure in the history of Christianity. He wrote about topics like predestination and original sin. Some of his doctrines separate Western and Eastern Christianity, with St. Augustine defining certain doctrines of Western Christianity. He lived and died in Africa during the time of the attack of the Vandals, A.D. 430.

Read more about Augustine:

• Profile of St. Augustine
• Alaric and Vandals
• Decay, Christianity, and Vandals and the Fall of Rome
• Paintings of Augustine - Artists' Visions of the Saint

Augustine image © Clipart.com.

Two reasons to bring this word to your attention:

1. It sounds impressive in the context of an English sentence;
2. I run across it regularly in my reading, so you may, too.

That said, The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms calls it an archaic scholarly term that has been replaced by the word 'nonce', which doesn't sound nearly so portentous.

Hapax legomenon (ἅπαξ λεγόμενον) is something that occurs once in the corpus of writing in a given language. It may be a word or phrase. Because of the very fragmentary transmission of ancient texts, hapaxes are more common that one might wish.

References:

• "hapax legomenon" The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Free Online Dictionary - Tells you how to pronounce it.

Martin of Tours died on this day in A.D. 397. He was made a Christian saint and became the patron of Gaul/France. His fame spread partly as a result of the writing of his disciple Sulpicius Severus who wrote a Life of Martin. Severus called Martin a model of sanctity. Before Martin became a monk and a bishop, he had been a Roman soldier. A famous legend about Martin explains that while he was a soldier in Gaul he met a shivering beggar and ripped his cloak in two to give half to the poor man. The 8th Bishop of Tours, Perpetuus, launched a cult of Martin as a protector against the evils of war and the Arian heresy.

Read more about St. Martin of Tours

St. Martin image © Clipart.com

CC Flickr User aantmoose

Need a clue?

1. The first clue is that I wasn't going to give you one.
2. The second clue is that he thought Octavian (Augustus) was on his side.
3. The third clue is that he and Mark Antony didn't see eye to eye.

Give up? Click the image or the photo credit for the answer.

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday

The Rogue Classicist (rogueclassicist on Twitter) tweeted that I should watch Don Chaffey's 1963 Jason movie, Jason and the Argonauts, for one of the November Medea Myth Mondays. Readily available through Netflix (R), I watched the movie last week -- at first half-heartedly, because I was interested only in the portrayal of Medea, but then attentively for the rerun, because I thought I must have missed the Medea bits. I hadn't. Read more...

On this day in 63 B.C. the Catilinarian conspiracy continued to take its toll on Republican Rome [See Cicero thwarts an assassination attempt]. A few centuries later -- and barely a half century after Constantine legalized Christianity -- Emperor Theodosius I banned pagan worship in 393. Emperor Theodosius had been tolerant of most pagan practices, but then in 391 he sanctioned the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria (the largest Greek temple in Alexandria, dedicated to Alexandria's protector deity, Serapis), enacted laws against pagan practices, and put an end to the Olympic games. He is also credited with putting an end to the power of the Arian and Manichean heresies in Constantinople, while establishing Catholicism as the state religion.

• Theodosius
• Why Was Theodosius called Theodosius the Great?
• Constantine

Saint Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius, by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)

In 63 B.C., the discontented patrician Catiline and his largely equestrian followers gathered an armed force to march on Rome. Catiline was upset because he had lost his bid for the top office (consul) after a politically charged campaign, in which he had promised debt cancellation, and an election in which Cicero wore a breastplate for personal safety Read more...

On this day in 8 B.C., one of the great patron of poets, Maecenas, died. His lineage was Etruscan, and it was probably from his family that he acquired great wealth. He was an advisor to the first Roman emperor, Augustus, which also made him a powerful Roman. Among the artists he helped financially were Vergil and Horace. Horace addresses Maecenas in his first Ode.
Horace
Vergil