Italy

How did Rome get its name?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/city_of_rome/

Rome is now the capital city of Italy. 2,000 years ago it was the centre of the Roman Empire. Building started in 753 BC. The Romans had a story to explain how Rome began. Twin boys, Romulus and Remus, were the sons of Mars (the Roman god or war). An evil uncle took them as babies from their mother and threw them into the River Tiber to drown. The babies floated to land, and a mother wolf fed and cared for them. Later a herdsman looked after the twins until they grew up.

Years later, Mars told his twin sons to build a city where they had been found. The city was Rome. One day, Remus made fun of the wall Romulus had built around the city. The twins argued, fought, and Romulus killed Remus. Today, historians and archaeologists agree that people were living in Rome long before 753 BC, but the legend is one of the most famous in world history.

Romulus & Remus, The Story of

https://youtu.be/wA1D9wd29jI?list=RDt4z-QNdXxb4

THE MYSTERIOUS ETRUSCAN CIVILIZATION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bvOBB9hP_c

Albani of ancient Italy whom were descendants of ancient Troy prior to migrating to Italy?...

Albani people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albani_people

Albani was the Latin name in the Roman Republic for the inhabitants of Alba Longa, southeast of Rome....

According to legend, Ascanius, son of Trojan War hero Aeneas, founded the Albani tribe when he settled Alba Longa around 1152 BC. Literary sources suggest the city’s name is derived from the white (alba) sow Aeneas saw when arriving in Latium. Based on limited archaeological evidence, experts say the Albani tribe inhabited the long ridge between the modern-day Lake Albano and Monte Cavo ... the destruction of Alba Longa in the mid-7th century BC... communities of Latium gathered at Alba Longa for sacrificial rites. Every year in the spring, the tribes would congregate on Mons Albanus (Monte Cavo) to worship Iuppiter Latiaris. The festival was known as Feriae Latinae. The major custom in this ceremony was a great banquet, which required all attending cities to bring food, especially meat.

The prosperity of the Albani people declined in the seventh century BC. Tullus Hostilius waged war against Alba Longa and ultimately devastated the city, sparing only the temples. Historians attribute our lack of archaeological evidence to Tullus Hostilius’ campaign. Indeed, portions of the city wall’s foundation are all that remain. After this victory, Rome assumed the command that had long been held by the Albani. Many from Alba Longa immigrated to Rome following the war and some of Rome’s most elite patrician families (including the Julii) trace their heritage back to Alba Longa, which illustrates its importance in the history of Rome.

Alba means White...

Alba Longa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba_Longa

Alba Longa (occasionally written Albalonga in Italian sources) was an ancient city of Latium in central Italy, 19 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Rome, in the Alban Hills... t was destroyed by Rome around the middle of the 7th century BC. In legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, had come from the royal dynasty of Alba Longa, which in Virgil's Aeneid had been the bloodline of Aeneas, a son of Venus....Noting that alba means "white" (and longa "long") ...

According to Roman legend, after the fall of Troy in 1184 BC, Aeneas led a group of surviving Trojans through the Mediterranean to Sicily, Carthage, and eventually Italy. On landing in Italy he was welcomed by Latinus, king of the early Latins. Soon, Aeneas married king Latinus' daughter, Lavinia, ...

War with Rome: in the seventh century BC, the Roman king Tullus Hostilius for war. When a dispute erupted between a group of Romans and Albans, he seized upon the mutual accusations of robbery as a pretext for conflict....Livy describes the war as being akin to a civil war, because the Romans were said to be descended from the Albans... The combat commenced. Two of the Romans were the first to fall. Then the remaining Roman, Publius Horatius, slew the three Albans, and thus won victory for Rome....The Albans became, in substance, a vassal state of Rome.... Roman soldiers demolished the 400-year-old city of Alba Longa, leaving only the temples standing, and the entire population of Alba Longa was transported to Rome,...The Alban immigrants lived on the Caelian Hill in Rome....

Worship of Vesta in Italy began in Lavinium, the mother-city of Alba Longa and the first Trojan settlement. From Lavinium worship of Vesta was transferred to Alba Longa....were Trojan gods first introduced to Italy by Aeneas. Among these household gods must have been Vesta who has been referred to as Vesta Iliaca (Vesta of Troy), with her sacred hearth being named Ilaci foci (Trojan hearth)...

On the top of the Monte Cavo (Mons Albanus) was a very ancient shrine consecrated to Jupiter Latiaris. Florus (2nd century) states that the site was selected by Ascanius, who, having founded Alba, invited all the Latins to celebrate sacrifices there to Jupiter, a custom which eventually led to the annual celebration there of the Feriae Latinae, at which all the cities that belonged to the Latin Confederation would gather under the aegis of Alba, sacrificing a white bull, the flesh of which was distributed among all the participants. After Alba Longa was destroyed and her leadership role was assumed by Rome, tradition records the building of a full-scale temple to Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount...

Feriae Latinae

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feriae_Latinae

The Feriae Latinae or Latin Festival was an ancient Roman religious festival held in April on the Alban Mount. The date varied, and was determined and announced by the consuls each year when they took office. It was one of the most ancient festivals celebrated by the Roman state and is supposed to have predated the founding of Rome—in historical terms, to have dated to a pre-urban pastoral age. It continued to be held into the 3rd century AD, and perhaps later. The rite was a reaffirmation of the alliance among members of the Latin League, and a truce was honored throughout the festival. ...

Is there any link between the Albans of Scotland, with Paleolithic, or Bronze Age Albania? Are these Albani people the same people as the Alban Scots?

Albania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania

The term Albania is the medieval Latin name of the country. It may be derived from the Illyrian tribe of Albani (Albanian: Albanët) recorded by Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer from Alexandria, who drafted a map in 150 AD, which shows the city of Albanopolis located northeast of the city of Durrës....

The first traces of human presence in Albania, dating to the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic eras, were found in the village of Xarrë close to Sarandë and Dajti near Tiranë....Aurignacian culture.....

Several Bronze Age artefacts from tumulus burials have been unearthed in central and southern Albania that show close connection with sites in south-western Macedonia and Lefkada, Greece. Archaeologists have come to the conclusion that these regions were inhabited from the middle of the third millennium BC by Indo-European people who spoke a Proto-Greek language. A part of this population later moved to Mycenae around 1600 BC and founded the Mycenaean civilisation there.

Another population group, the Illirii, probably the southernmost Illyrian tribe of that time that lived on the border of Albania and Montenegro, possibly neighbored the Greek tribes....In ancient times, the territory of modern Albania was mainly inhabited by a number of Illyrian tribes. This territory was known as Illyria...

What Was the Vulcanalia?

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-roman-vulcanalia-festival-2561471

Vulcanalia August 23.... The Vulcanalia was celebrated with large bonfires – this gave Roman citizens some degree of control over the powers of fire. Sacrifices of small animals and fish were devoured by the flames, offerings presented in place of the burning of the city, its grain stores, and its residents....

In 64 c.e., an event took place which many saw as message from Vulcan. The so-called Great Fire of Rome burned for nearly six days...

Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii in 79 c.e., on the day after the Vulcanalia....

Vulcan (mythology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(mythology)

God of fire, metalworking, and the forge ...

Consort: Venus, Parents: Jupiter and Juno, Siblings: Mars, Minerva, Hercules, Bellona, Apollo, Diana, Bacchus, etc.

The Vulcanalia was part of the cycle of the four festivities of the second half of August (Consualia on August 21, Vulcanalia on 23, Opiconsivia on 25 and Vulturnalia on 27)a was the annual festival held August 23 in his honor. ...

VulcanaliDuring the festival bonfires were created in honour of the god, into which live fish or small animals were thrown as a sacrifice, to be consumed in the place of humans....

Vulcan was among the gods placated after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. In response to the same fire, Domitian (emperor 81–96) established a new altar to Vulcan on the Quirinal Hill. At the same time a red bull-calf and red boar were added to the sacrifices made on the Vulcanalia, at least in that region of the city....

Later Velchanos was depicted as a bull as testified in the myths of Pasiphae and Europa...

The theological profile of Velchanos looks identical to that of Jupiter Dolichenus, a god of primarily Hittite ascendence in his identification with the bull, who has Sumero-Accadic, Aramaic and Hittito-Hurrite features as a god of tempest, according for example to the researches conducted in Syria by French scholar Paul Merlat. His cult enjoyed a period of popularity in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries and the god had a temple in Rome on the Aventine...

Hephaestus: God Of Fire and Forges - (Greek Mythology Explained)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j29kROCHcjY

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 (August 22 - 24)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_79

Mount Vesuvius, a stratovolcano in modern-day Italy, erupted in 79 AD in one of the most catastrophic volcanic eruptions in European history. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet....The total inhabitants of both cities were 16,000–20,000; the remains of over 1,500 people have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but the overall death toll is still unclear. ...

The Romans grew accustomed to minor earth tremors in the region; the writer Pliny the Younger wrote that they "were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania". Small earthquakes started taking place on 20 August 79, becoming more frequent over the next four days, but the warnings were not recognized.... The eruption lasted for two days. The morning of the first day, August 22,, was perceived as normal by the only eyewitness to leave a surviving document, Pliny the Younger,... August 23, pyroclastic flows in the close vicinity of the volcano began...By evening of the second day, the eruption was over, ... the eruption of Vesuvius of AD 79 unfolded in two phases:[10] a Vesuvian eruption that lasted eighteen to twenty hours...

The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger, who was 17 at the time of the eruption, to the historian, Tacitus....the first surge to reach Pompeii – temperatures reached 300 °C (572 °F). Volcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo, who led the study, noted that "(It was) enough to kill hundreds of people in a fraction of a second"....In the year after the eruption, AD 80, he faced another disaster, a great fire at Rome. ...

Ancient Prostitution of Pompeii - History Documentary HD ✪ History Channel Documentaries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy1Ufz37u_E

Pompeii (2014 Movie)

https://123freemovies.net/watch-pompeii-2014-free-123movies.html

Pompeii: The Last Day: (Documentary)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkcczJeVnoA

Roman Government was a Pimp State run prostitution enterprise, regulated, and taxed.

Rome would enslave the Native Europeans with men sent to dangerous labor, and their women turned into sex slaves...

Prostitution in ancient Rome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_ancient_Rome

Prostitution in Ancient Rome was legal and licensed. In Ancient Rome, even Roman men of the highest social status were free to engage prostitutes of either sex without incurring moral disapproval...Some large brothels in the 4th century, when Rome was becoming officially Christianized, seem to have been counted as tourist attractions and were possibly even state-owned....

A girl might live with a procuress or madame (lena) or even go into business under the management of her mother ...Prostitutes could also work out of a brothel or tavern for a procurer or pimp (leno). Most prostitutes seem to have been slaves or former slaves....

Some passages in Roman authors seem to indicate that prostitutes displayed themselves in the nude. Nudity was associated with slavery, as an indication that the person was literally stripped of privacy and the ownership of one's own body. A passage from Seneca describes the condition of the prostitute as a slave for sale:

"Naked she stood on the shore, at the pleasure of the purchaser; every part of her body was examined and felt. Would you hear the result of the sale? The pirate sold; the pimp bought, that he might employ her as a prostitute." ...

Most prostitutes were slaves or freedwomen, and it is difficult to determine the balance of voluntary to forced prostitution. Because slaves were considered property under Roman law, it was legal for an owner to employ them as prostitutes. ...Although rape was a crime in ancient Rome, the law only punished the rape of a slave if it "damaged the goods," since a slave had no legal standing as a person. The penalty was aimed at providing the owner compensation for the "damage" of his property....

A law of Augustus allowed that women guilty of adultery could be sentenced to forced prostitution in brothels....

Prostitution was regulated to some extent, not so much for moral reasons as to maximize profit. ...Caligula inaugurated a tax upon prostitutes (the vectigal ex capturis), as a state impost: "he levied new and hitherto unheard of taxes; a proportion of the fees of prostitutes;--so much as each earned with one man. A clause was also added to the law directing that women who had practiced prostitutery and men who had practiced procuration should be rated publicly; and furthermore, that marriages should be liable to the rate."...

Villabruna Hunter-Gatherer R1b (Qiaomei Fu et al, 2016)

https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2016/05/villabruna-hunter-gatherer-r1b-qiaomei.html

There's a lot to digest out of the Qiaomei Fu et al, 2016 paper.

As to be expected, the overwhelming majority of Paleolithic Europeans belonged to paternal lineages that have effectively gone extinct or have been several times superseded. Maternal lineages have mostly suffered from frequency changes because most women who ever lived had offspring.

The most interesting part of the paper is the blue-eyed, dark-skinned man from Villabruna Cave 1, directly dated to about 14,000 years ago and belonging to paternal haplogroup R1b1. He was buried with a bag of implements and covered in red-painted rocks in the Dolomite Mountains....

Ripari Villabruna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripari_Villabruna

Ripari Villabruna is a small rock shelter in northern Italy with neolithic burial remains. It contains several Cro-Magnon burials, with bodies and grave goods dated to 14,000 years BP....Located at a height of 500 m (1,600 ft) above sea level they show impressive traces of the settlement by prehistoric people and their activities.... Epigravettian cultural context...

The corpse was placed into a narrow, shallow pit of 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 in) depth, the head turned to the left with arms stretched touching the body. Six grave attachments were placed to the body's left. The typical equipment of a hunter-gatherer included a fire stone knife, a fire stone core, another stone as hammer, a blade of fire stone, a bone tip, a pellet of ochre and Propolis (a resinous matter, produced by bees). Limestone platelets decorated with ochre drawings had been placed on top of the tomb....

the remains were found to carry Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1a (R-L754). This is the oldest documented example of haplogroup R1b in Western Europe.

Haplogroup U5 (mtDNA)

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_U5_mtDNA.shtml#famous_people

Two Italian Epigravettian samples, one from the Paglicci Cave in Apulia (18,500 ybp), and another one from Villabruna in Veneto (14,000 ybp), belonged to U5b2b, as did two slightly more recent Epipaleolithic samples from the Rhône valley in France. U5b1 samples were found in Epipalaeolithic Germany, Switzerland (U5b1h in the Grotte du Bichon) and France. More 80% of the numerous Mesolithic European mtDNA tested to date belonged to various subclades of U5.

The discreet Origin of H2a1 MtDNA and its sudden Eurasian Expansion offer a unique Testimony about what remained from the Natufians, the Neolithic Revolution in Near East and Chalcolithic in Lesser Caucasus

https://www.iglesiaehistoria.com/assets/27-reflex-var--the_discreet_origin_of_h2a1_mtdna_and_it.pdf

the Epigravettian individual (hp R1b1 YDNA/ U5b2b MtDNA dated from ~ 14 Kya)found in ‘Villabruna Cluster’ (Italy)...

Large Paleoeuropean DNA survey

http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2016/05/large-paleoeuropean-dna-survey.html

Villabruna had the same Y DNA(R1b1) and mtDNA(U5b2)

JASs Reports Journal of Anthropological Sciences the JASs is published by the Istituto Italiano di Antropologia www.isita-org.comVol. 86 (2008), pp. 143-163 The Late Upper Paleolithic skeleton Villabruna 1 (Italy): a source of data on biology and behavior of a 14.000 year-old hunter

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.605.45&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Intralimb indices of Villabruna 1 provide values similar to those of the North African sample... In this respect, Villabruna 1 is more similar to recent Europeans, LUP and Mesolithic populations, and differs from African samples....When compared with modern samples, the specimen shows highest similarities with North Africans populations....In conclusion, the results of both bivariate and multivariate analyses demonstrate that Villabruna 1 had body proportions intermediate between those of EUP and LUP and generally very similar to the pattern presently exhibited by recent North African populations. Thus, this specimen fits well in the general microevolutionary trend which took place during the Upper Paleolithic and led to the progressive acquisition of body propor-tions characterizing recent European populations....

Size and shape of the skull and face...Villabruna 1 shows highest similarities with the contemporaneous LUP Le Bichon 1, found in the Swiss Alps (Neuchâtel)....These striking similarities between Villabruna 1 and Le Bichon 1 suggest genetic affinity among the late hunter and gath-erers from the alpine region....

This suggests genetic affinity among paleo-mesolithic popula-tions from the alpine region. However, mitocon-drial DNA analyses carried out on prehistoric human remains from this region highlighted in Villabruna 1 a sequence not observed in con-temporary European populations (Di Benedetto et al., 2000), raising the possibility of genetic discontinuity between the last hunter-gatherers from the Alps and subsequent populations....

Genomics of Mesolithic Scandinavia reveal migration routesand high-latitude adaptation

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2017/07/30/164400.DC2/164400-1.pdf

U5 is by far the most commonly foundhaplogroup among European Mesolithic individuals... U5 is thought to have arisen in Upper Paleolithic Europe and molecular dating of modern mitochondrial genomes estimates the age of the haplogroup to ca. 25,000-36,000 years... U5b lineages found in individualsfrom Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland dated to 19,000-12,000 BP (ElMiron,Paglicci71, Villabruna, Iboussieres31-2, Iboussieres25-1, Iboussieres, Rochedane, Oberkasseland Bichon)... Villabruna Paleolithic Hunter-gatherer Europe, Italy...

THIS ARTICLE CLAIMS H mtDNA FOR VILLABRUNA...

Mitochondrial DNA sequences in prehistoric human remains from the Alps

http://www.guidobarbujani.it/images/Publications/pr-447-file_it-European-Journal-of-Human-Genetics-8.pdf

TABLE 3. Villabruna Haplogroup H

Discussion: The three mtDNA sequences described here, together withthe ‘ice man’ sequence,are the only prehistoric Europeanmt DNA sequences determined to date. This small sample size reflects, at least to some extent, the great difficulty inauthenticating DNA extracted from ancient human remains(particularly when the remains are from the same geographicregion as the people performing the analysis). The largeamount of effort that has gone into obtaining the sequencesreported here (ie reconstruction of each 360-bp sequencefrom clones of five overlapping PCR products) and ensuringtheir authenticity (including rigorous controls to detectcontamination, multiple extractions from the same sample,and independent analysis in another laboratory), guaranteesthat sample sizes for such studies will remain small.Nonetheless, these four sequences provide some insightinto prehistoric European mtDNA diversity. The three neo-lithic sequences have a mean pairwise difference (MPSD) of3.3, whereas estimates from contemporary sequences fromcomparable regions fall between 1.9 and 7.0.28,29Althoughthese neolithic sequences range in age from 5200 to about6400 years, this suggests that the mtDNA diversity in Europewas not much different in the neolithic period than it is atpresent. Analysis of mtDNA restriction site polymorphismsin 3000–5000-year-old remains from Iberia leads to the sameconclusion. Moreover, sequences identical to those deter-mined in our neolithic samples are observed over much ofEurope (Table 4). In particular, the Borgo Nuovo and ‘iceman’ sequences are fairly common all across Europe, whereasthe rarer Mezzocorona sequence is documented not far fromthe Alps, in Germany, and closely related sequences are widespread in Europe. These results suggest that there hasbeen some degree of continuity between the early neolithicand present-day inhabitants of Europe.In contrast to the Neolithic sequences, the one Mesolithicsequence (Villabruna) has not been observed in any individ-ual from the present day sample of over 2600 European...

It seems that either the Villabruna sequence has left very few descendants, if any, in contemporary Europe, or that these descendants differ by a retro-mutation. This result may thus be an indication of a genealogical discordancy betweenmesolithic and present-day inhabitants of Europe, althoughobviously additional mesolithic sequences are needed to gainan accurate picture of the relationship between mesolithicand present-day Europe.Other workers have designated mtDNA haplogroups (clus-ters of related mtDNA types) based on HVR I sequences or on restriction site polymorphisms of the entire mitochondrialgenome, and used these to classify European mtDNAs....The Mezzocorona sequence,with substitutions at 16126 and 16294, falls into haplogroupT, whereas the Borgo Nuovo and Villabruna sequences fallinto haplogroup H, and the ‘ice man’ sequence belongs tohaplogroup K. Thus, each neolithic sequence falls into a different haplogroup, further testifying to the high level of mtDNA diversity in the Alps at the beginning of the neolithic period. And these three haplogroups are among the most common in Europe today, with overall frequencies (esti-mated by Macaulay et al) of 50% for H, 8% for T, and 7% for K. The fact that haplogroups that are common in Europetoday are also found at the beginning of the neolithic period further supports a genealogical continuity in Europe betweenthe neolithic period and the present....

Gory Fresco of Gladiator Fight Found in Sleazy Pompeii Tavern

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/gladiator-fresco-0012709

since the very first gladiatorial contest in Rome in 264 BC, these brutal spectacles contained one underlying theme - death. Each gladiator is tasked with the single and clear goal of killing his opponent and, if like in the fresco a gladiator was wounded, the sponsor or the crowd gave the thumbs up or down, for mercy or death.

According to a ThoughtCo article, most gladiators were criminals and slaves trained to fight with armor and from chariots with lassoes and nets and a gladiator who killed scores of opponents might win his release from the arena with considerable fame. But on the opposite side of the coin, if a man showed fear or reluctance to fight, they were driven into the blood-fest gladiatorial arena with red-hot irons and whips. ...

10 Fierce But Often Forgotten Enemies of Rome

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/enemies-rome-0014372

Rome has some very interesting myths regarding its foundation story too. When the Trojan War broke out in the epic Iliad, the city of Troy was breached and destroyed by a cunning ploy. But a young man called Aeneas survived, and his tale has been narrated extensively in the epic Aeneid, created by the Latin poet Virgil. Aeneas supposedly travelled far and wide, came to ancient Carthage where he courted their Queen Dido, and left her heart-broken to go to a new place – and thus he created the city of Rome.

Another story tells us about its legendary founder Romulus, who along with his twin Remus (whom he murdered later on), were reared and brought up by a she-wolf. Romulus then went on to create the city of Rome and became its first king....

The last legendary king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was said to be cruel and haughty and hence his misrule saw him being deposed by an uprising which led to the birth of the Roman Republic in c. 509 BC. We have to note here, that one of the men who were responsible for overthrowing this king was called Brutus – Lucius Junius Brutus, a predecessor of Marcus Junius Brutus who was responsible for the assassination of Julius Caesar and later immortalized by Shakespeare....

Brennus we are talking about here was the one who famously sacked Rome in the 4th century BC. He belonged to the Gallic tribe called Senones from present-day France....The Commander of the Gaul’s was finally defeated and probably killed by an army commanded by Marcus Furius Camillus, now hailed as the second founder of ancient Rome after the legendary Romulus....

This Celtic-Iberian warrior belonged to the Lusitani tribe of Hispania in Roman times. Their tribe controlled areas that corresponded to present-day Portugal....The Lusitani tribe clashed with the Romans on and off starting from the 3rd century BC, when Rome started capturing these areas as an extension of their subjugation of Carthage, which controlled some parts of Southern Hispania/Iberia at that time. Due to the misrule of Rome in the subsequent years, the Lusitani rose in revolt in c. 194 BC....

Jugurtha had served in the Roman army in his youth and knew everything about their weaknesses and strengths. The ancient kingdom of Numidia was located in North Africa...

Rome had sent the commander Lucius Calpurnius Bestia to Numidia in c. 111 BC.... Jugurtha was finally betrayed by his son-in-law and brought to Rome in chains, where he died in c. 104 BC in a Roman prison. Thus ended the life of one of the most cunning enemies of ancient Rome.

In Belgium, Ambiorix is now considered a national hero who valiantly fought Caesar’s forces of ancient Rome in the famous Gallic Wars of c. 54/53 BC....During Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul and Belgica, a minor tribe by the name of Eburones surprisingly rose in revolt....

Roman army suffered at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. The man who was responsible for this Roman defeat was Arminius of the German Cherusci tribe, who is now hailed as a German national hero and called Hermann....Arminius or Hermann was probably brought up in the city of Rome, where he was interred as a hostage from some war booty. He grew up to be an able soldier in the Roman army and was given charge of some units comprising soldiers derived from his original native lands. But when he was sent to Germania to join forces with the Governor there - Publius Quinctilius Varus, he somehow felt the call of his native lands and rose in revolt against the Romans by gathering the other tribes....

Vercingetorix was born to Celtillus, the leader of the powerful Arverni tribe of Gaul. When he grew up and was made the leader of his tribe in c. 52 BC, he united the other Gallic tribes and rose in revolt against Julius Caesar...Initially, the Gauls were themselves recruited by the Romans to check the incursion of the Germanic tribes into Gaul. But soon Caesar began to impose Roman laws into that land, which insulted the Gallic tribes....

This British Queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe rose in revolt against Rome when she was grossly mistreated by the Roman Army in c. 60/61 AD. Boudicca, sometimes spelt as Boadicea, was probably born into royalty and grew up at a place called Camulodunum - which is now Colchester. Boudicca was married to Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni tribe... When the Roman Empire conquered south of the British Isles in c. 43 AD, Prasutagus was allowed to rule as an independent ally of Rome. He left his kingdom to his two daughters and to the Roman Emperor in his will. However, when Prasutagus died, Rome totally annexed his kingdom - and while doing so, they publicly flogged Boudicca and raped her two daughters. But the Queen was not to give in so easily. She rose in revolt with her armies and massacred some 70 to 80 thousand Roman soldiers while desecrating several Roman strongholds. However, the Roman Governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus soon regrouped his army and defeated the forces of Boudicca....

Vandals...This vandalism of Rome was done in 455 AD under a leader called Genseric or Gaiseric. He remained one of the fiercest enemies of Rome. Gaiseric was born to the Vandal King Godigisel. The Vandals were a Germanic tribe who primarily inhabited present-day Southern Poland, but would go on to establish their strongholds in the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Africa....In 455 AD, he took his huge force from Carthage over to Italy, then systematically seized and plundered Rome...

Alaric I was a leader of a Germanic tribe called the Visigoths....Alaric was initially a soldier in the Roman army who helped Rome in defeating the Franks and some other enemies....Alaric rose to power as the leader of his tribe probably in c. 395 AD, following the Roman Emperor Theodosius’s death. The Roman Emperor’s two incompetent sons divided the empire then into the Eastern and Western halves. However, general Flavius Stilicho originally controlled the Western half. Alaric took advantage of this East-West divide and started raiding the Roman territories of the Balkans and Greece. Soon, as tensions rose between the Western Roman Empire and the Goths, Alaric sacked Rome in 410 AD, an incident of epic proportion....

Shapur the Great was one of the most powerful rulers of Persia and was born to King Ardeshir I, the founder of the Sassanian Empire. Shapur I expanded his empire far and wide, and looking at the political turmoil of Rome at that time, he raided their territories several times in the 3rd century AD....

U5 mt HG MAY BE THE FIRST MODERN FEMALE IN PALEOLITHIC ITALY, AND R1b LINEAGE HER PALEOLITHIC COMPANION. THE MORE RECENT NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE MALES MUST HAVE REPLACED THE FIRST MALE PALEOLITHIC R1b LINEAGE MALES WITH RECENT R1b, G, J, AND E HG's. ITALY MAY HAVE BEEN AN ICE AGE REFUGE BASED ON mtDNA, EPIGRAVETTIAN SITES, AND H1 AND H3 IS OLDER IN ITALY THAN IN FRANCO CANTABRIAN REFUGE. BUT MOST mt DNA ORIGINATE DURING OR IMMEDIATLEY AFTER LGM. YDNA IN ITALY IS FROM LATE NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE. ITALY IS DIFFERENTIATED GEOGRAPHICALLY LONGITUDINALLY BY A NORTHWEST GROUP RELATED TO WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE, AND A SOUTHEAST GROUP RELATED TO THE BALKANS. A THIRD GROUP OF SARDINIANS IS AN ISOLATED I-M26 WHICH IS ABSENT ON CONTINENT OF ITALY. FROM OTHER RESEARCH THIS I-M26 GROUP PROBABLY ARRIVED IN SARDINIA 9000YA....

Uniparental Markers in Italy Reveal a Sex-Biased Genetic Structure and Different Historical Strata

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0065441

different demographic histories for males and females. Besides the genetic outlier position of Sardinians, a North West–South East Y-chromosome structure is found in continental Italy.... indicating two independent and parallel processes of Neolithisation. In addition, date estimates pinpoint the importance of the cultural and demographic events during the late Neolithic and Metal Ages. On the other hand, mitochondrial diversity is distributed more homogeneously in agreement with older population events that might be related to the presence of an Italian Refugium during the last glacial period in Europe....

Populated by early modern humans since approximately 30,000–40,000 years before present (YBP) during the LGM (~25,000 YBP) it was involved in the southward contraction of human groups from Central Europe that rapidly retreated to the Mediterranean coastlines, occupying refuge areas, such as in the well-known cases of Iberia and the Balkans. After contributing to the substantial re-shaping of the early Paleolithic genetic composition of glacial Refugia, northward re-peopling processes started approximately 16,000–13,000 YBP...

The most recent archaeological syntheses describe the early Neolithisation of Italy as the result of two independent and parallel processes, involving respectively the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian coasts and dating as early as 8,100 YBP (Apulia, South-Eastern Italy) and 7,900 YBP (Liguria, North-Western Italy).... During the first millennium BC, Italy hosted a vast set of different peoples whose origins in some cases remain unknown (e.g. Etruscans, Ligurians, Veneti), while in other cases are the result of specific migration processes (Celts in North-Western Italy; Greeks in Southern Italy and Sicily). In addition, independent and/or intersecting subsequent historic events (related with the trade and expansion of different populations in our era: Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Arabic and Barbaric) also contributed to the present genetic composition of Italy....

based on mtDNA variability, identified a North-South gradient within the peninsula, confirming what was previously revealed by classical genetic markers, while underlying the genetic differentiation between Sardinia and the mainland. More recent studies focused only on specific regions of Italy and revealed a homogeneous pattern of distribution for mtDNA haplogroups. These findings point towards a substantial homogeneity of the mtDNA gene pool within the different areas of the Peninsula... On the paternal perspective, Di Giacomo et al. (2003) carried out an investigation of Y-chromosome diversity in continental Italy. They identified a single decreasing North-South major cline within the Peninsula... more than 70% of the detected diversity was distributed along latitude-related gradients. A certain level of discontinuity was suggested between Northern and Southern portions of the Italian peninsula that, according to the authors, may be related to differential Neolithic/Mesolithic contributes in the two regions

Although a common north-south cline has been described for maternal and paternal lineages in Italy, recent data on the Neolithisation of southern Europe suggest a sex-biased Neolithic migration that might account for an asymmetrical pattern of structure in Italy. Eventually more recent migrations could have magnified these sex-biased patterns. For example, this seems to be the case for the first Greek groups in Southern Italy and Sicily, reportedly biased towards a low number of females. Such differential sex-specific demographic events could therefore have affected the genetic structure of Italy in a way that might have been ignored in recent whole-genome analyses.... For the first time, we present an extensive study of both mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal variation in the Italian Peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia....

Y-chromosome lineages in Italy: The most frequent haplogroups in Italy are R-U152* (12.1%), G-P15 (11.1%), E-V13 (7.8%) and J-M410* (7.6%). They are followed by three R1b-lineages (R-M269*, R-P312* and R-L2*), whose frequencies ranged from 6.9% to 5.7%; and finally from I-M26, which embraced more than the 4% of total variability. On the whole these haplogroups encompass ~62% of Y-chromosomes lineages, while the remaining 38 haplogroups show frequencies lower or equal to 3.3%.... In summary, sPC1 and sPC2 depict a three-partitioned structure of Italian population: 1) North-Western Italy (from now on NWI), 2) South-Eastern Italy (from now onSEI), and 3) Sardinia (from now on SAR)....

BATWING modelled population growth starting at 12,890 YBP...Our results suggest that the split happened around 5,490 YBP...These results suggest that most of the Y-chromosomal diversity present in modern day Italians was originated from few common ancestors living during late Neolithic times and the Early Metal Ages. However, if we would take into account evolutionary rates, we would observe results three times higher than those above mentioned, meaning that most dates would shift to late Paleolithic....

Mitochondrial DNA lineages in Italy: The haplogroup distribution in Italy reflects the typical pattern of mtDNA variability of Western Europe. As described for other European and Italian populations most of the sequences belong to the super-haplogroup H, which includes 44.4% of the Italian mtDNA lineages. In particular, H1 turned out to represent a large proportion of H samples... Most of the remaining samples belong to haplogroups frequently found in western Eurasia, including U5, K1, J1, J2, T1, T2, and HV. Among the U5 lineages, U5a is the most frequent (3.70%). Haplogroups K1a, HV and J1c take into account respectively the 4.39%, 4.05% and the 3.93% of the total mtDNA variability. The remaining lineages reach frequencies that do not exceed a 3.5% threshold.... These results point to a strong homogeneity within the Italian Peninsula for the mtDNA gene pool composition.... Comparisons with other European samples confirm that great part of Italian mtDNA haplotypes share a wide range of affinities spanning from Iberia to Eastern Europe, but haplotypes from H1 and H3 appear to be related mostly with Western and Central Europe.

Date estimates for maternal variation: TMRCA estimates for the most frequent haplogroups could be classified in two groups: ‘‘old’’ haplogroups, predating the Last Glacial Maximum, LGM (31,600 YBP for HV, 28,300 YBP for U5a and,19,500 YBP for J1c), and haplogroups dating after the LGM (16,200 YBP for H*, 15,600 YBP for H1, 15,500 YBP for H3, 14,700 YBP for H5, 16,700 YBP for K1a). Estimates for H1 and H3 haplogroups are slightly older than estimates in Western Eurasia for the same haplogroups...

Discussion: Previous reconstructions of the genetic structure of Italy agreed on two points: the peculiarity of the population of Sardinia – due to a distinct background and a high degree of isolation – and the clinal pattern of variation in the Italian Peninsula, which has been explained by differential migration patterns.... Our results show that the Y-chromosomal genetic diversity of Italy is not clinal but structured in three geographical areas: North-Western Italy (NWI), South-Eastern Italy (SEI) and Sardinia (SAR). The outlier position of SAR described in previous studies is mainly due to the high frequency of I-M26 haplogroup, that in turn is almost completely absent in continental Italy....However, the structure observed for paternal lineages in continental Italy and Sicily was not characterised by North-South gradients as previously described: our results show a NWI-SEI clustering, suggesting a shared genetic background between Southern Italy and the Adriatic coast from one side, and between Northern Italy and Tuscany from the other side....

In particular, NWI is mostly related with Western and Central Europe, while SEI seems to indicate more affinities with the Balkans.... In contrast to the results obtained for Y-chromosome, the mtDNA diversity in Italy is characterised by a high degree of homogeneity: the only exception...found in the Sardinian samples compared to continental Italy and Sicily...suggest at least partially different demographic histories for SEI-NWI populations on one hand and SAR on the other hand, the latter being less affected to the gene flow of different migrations occurred in the Italian Peninsula and Sicily.... Age estimates for mtDNA haplogroups - even if past demographic events affecting error rates cannot be excluded - point almost unanimously to pre-Neolithic times, ranging approximately from 13,000 (H1*) to 31,600 (HV) YBP.... such estimates might reflect the haplogroups pre-existent diversity previous to their establishment in Italy (which could be the case of HV,... this does not seem to hold for most of the mtDNA haplogroups analysed. Indeed, most of our mtDNA time estimates are consistent with the hypothesis of the existence of a Glacial Refugium in the Italian Peninsula and its probable role in subsequent post-glacial expansions.

Actually, the role of Italy as a Southern European Glacial Refugium – together with the Iberian and Balkan peninsulas – is demonstrated for a high number of animal and plant species. The presence of numerous Epigravettian sites suggests strongly that Italy could have acted as such also for humans. Nevertheless, molecular evidences going in the same direction are still scarce, the only exception being mitochondrial haplogroup U5b3 whose frequency in Italy is relatively low (U5b lineages account for 1.73% in our data). Our results suggest that most of Italian mitochondrial diversity originated during and immediately after LGM. In particular, estimates for H1 and H3 are even older in Italy than in the Franco-Cantabrian area where these clades have been postulated to originate.... Italy, in most cases, is characterised by the highest number of different haplotypes. On the whole, these observations not only are in agreement with the existence of a human Glacial Refugium in Italy, but also suggest that its relevance has been until now largely underrated....

in contrast to mtDNA age estimates, almost all Y chromosome estimates fall between late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. This finding supports the hypothesis that group-specific clusters of haplotypes did originate after the split between NWI and SEI...the NWI and SEI structure detected might be traced back around 5,500 YBP indicating relevant demographic events within continental Italy in this period. Anyway, this value has to be considered as a lower bound, given that the model used does not account for migration that would bias the split time towards recent dates. In fact, given a specific level of populations differentiation, the separation time estimated between these populations has necessarily to be higher (i.e. more ancient) as migration is considered.

According to the most recent syntheses, the Neolithic revolution diffused in Italy following two independent routes along the Adriatic (Eastern) and the Tyrrhenian (Western) coasts. Furthermore, archaeological sites from NWI are characterized by a deeper continuity with earlier Mesolithic cultures and a higher degree of local variability than SEI, while this last area, besides being culturally more homogeneous, shows clear links with the Southern Balkans.... Thus, we can hypothesize that the NWI-SEI structure detected with paternal lineages could have its origins after these different Neolithic processes. Indeed, comparisons with other European and Near-Eastern populations suggest a stronger affinity between NWI with Iberia and Central Europe, while SEI is more related to the Balkans and Anatolia... Our results confirm these findings and emphasize the role of demographic expansions and cultural advances related to the Neolithic revolution in shaping human genetic diversity, at least for male lineages. Nonetheless, such pattern might have been further influenced and/or re-shaped also by more recent events. For instance, the dates of several DAPC clusters fall within the range of the Metal Ages. During this long period (third and second millennia BC) Italy underwent important technological and social transformations finally leading to the ethnogenesis of the most important proto-historic Italic peoples. On the whole, our results indicate that these transformations, far from being exclusively cultural phenomena, actually involved relevant population events....

Conclusions: three different and well-defined groups of populations: the Sardinia island (SAR), North-Western Italy (NWI) and South-Eastern Italy (SEI). Furthermore, we observed that NWI and SEI are not separated according to latitude but following a longitudinal line. Such discontinuity may date at the Neolithic revolution in Italy, which was characterised by (at least) two independent diffusion processes involving the Western and Eastern coasts, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA, despite showing some correspondence with Y-chromosome results, depicts a substantially homogeneous genetic landscape for the Italian peninsula. Significantly different ages were estimated for mtDNA and Y chromosome systems. mtDNA variability dates back to Paleolithic and supports the existence of an Italian human Refugium during the last glacial maximum whereas Y-chromosome points to the importance that the demographic events happened during the Neolithic and the Metal Ages had in the male Italian patterns of diversity and distribution.

Roman Law and Its Lasting Influence On the Legal System of Europe

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/roman-law-0015436

The Romans split the law into the written law, which they called jus scriptum, and the non-written law, known as jus non scriptum . The difference lay in the fact that the written law had been established from legislation...Unwritten law was based upon both custom and its everyday usage.... There was at least one part of the Roman Empire that would not embrace these laws - the island of Great Britain, but otherwise most of Western Europe adopted the Roman legal system....

As the Roman Empire expanded, Roman law also grew steadily and accumulated over time. In fact, it grew so much that the Romans found that many of their laws were now becoming both confusing and contradictory...early sixth century AD he even set up a commission to review the entire body of Roman law and come up with recommendations as to what should be kept or discarded. The resulting collection came to be known as the Corpus Juris Civilis , also known as the Code of Justinian....

Mysterious Origins of the Etruscans: DNA Study Solves the Riddle

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/etruscans-origin-0015872

remains of 82 humans living in central and southern Italy between 800 BC and 1000 BC to genome sequencing. The Etruscan civilization came up in the region that is modern-day Tuscany—spreading from the Tiber River in the north to parts of the Po Valley in the south--and flourished between the eighth and third centuries BC. Known for its rich mineral resources and its trading prowess, much of its culture was destroyed or assimilated by its Roman conquerors...

their language is only partially understood by modern-day historians. The Etruscan alphabet derived from the Greek one, but they spoke a language that was most likely not Indo-European. Therefore, much of what is known about them comes from the writings of ancient Greek and Roman historians. In fact, even the term Etruscan comes from Etruria, the name given by the Romans to the region. Given the history of bitter conflict between the Etruscans and the Romans, the Roman accounts are bound to have been biased....

Herodotus ‘the father of history’ himself, was of them being Greek migrants from Anatolia, sent out by the king of Lydia in western Anatolia following a major famine....

On the other hand, another ancient scholar, the first-century BC Dionysus, believed that the Etruscans had local Italic origins...Bronze Age Villanovian culture... The new study shows that the Near East component of modern Tuscan genes came long after the Etruscan civilization fell to the Romans, in fact from around the first century BC....

Their genes were in fact seen to be a more or less equal mix of local Neolithic farmers and Bronze Age pastoralists from the Eurasian steppe. This is similar in fact to populations across Europe, not just in Italy.... how the Etruscans retained a non-Indo-European language remains a mystery...

The origin and legacy of the Etruscans

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210924182513.htm

The current study, with a time transect of ancient genomic information spanning almost 2000 years collected from 12 archaeological sites, resolves lingering questions about Etruscan origins, showing no evidence for a recent population movement from Anatolia. In fact, the Etruscans shared the genetic profile of the Latins living in nearby Rome, with a large proportion of their genetic profiles coming from steppe-related ancestry that arrived in the region during the Bronze Age....

Despite a few individuals of eastern Mediterranean, northern African, and central Europeanorigins, the Etruscan-related gene pool remained stable for at least 800 years, spanning the Iron Age and Roman Republic period. The study finds, however, that during the subsequent Roman Imperial period, central Italy experienced a large scale genetic shift, resulting from admixture with eastern Mediterranean populations, which likely included slaves and soldiers relocated across the Roman Empire. "This genetic shift clearly depicts the role of the Roman Empire in the large-scale displacement of people in a time of enhanced upward or downward socioeconomic and geographic mobility,"... The main gene pool of present-day people from central and southern Italy was largely formed at least 1000 years ago.... historical events during the first millennium CE had a major impact on the genetic transformations over much of the Italian peninsula...."The Roman Empire appears to have left a long-lasting contribution to the genetic profile of southern Europeans, bridging the gap between European and eastern Mediterranean populations on the genetic map of western Eurasia,"...

CURRENT AMERICA IS MUCH LIKE ANCIENT ROME. BLONDES WERE PROSTITUTES FROM CAPTURED BARBARIAN TRIBES TURNED INTO SLAVES. SLAVES HAVE NO RIGHTS. ROMAN CIVI WOMEN LATER ENVIED THE PROSTITUTES AND BLONDE WIGS BECAME POPULAR. ROME ORIGINALLY VIEWED CHRISTIANITY AS A BLOOD CULT BUT, IT CONSUMED HUMAN BODY PARTS FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES. ROMES PUBLIC SOCIAL SPOT WAS THE PUBLIC TOILETS WHERE THEY SHARED A SPONGE ON A STICK FOR CLEANUP....

10 Shocking Facts about the Ancient Romans

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/shocking-roman-facts-0017584

1.Wearing Purple Was Banned... In Roman society, the color purple was associated with glory, power, and royalty. As such the wearing of a purple toga was reserved for only the Emperor and other very high-ranking Romans....

2.Prostitutes Had to Dye Their Hair Blonde... This rule once again has a lot to do with the Roman obsession with class and social standing. The vast majority of natively-born Roman women were dark-haired. Blonde hair was associated with the Gauls and Barbarians....To make sure that no good and honest Roman woman was mistaken for a prostitute a law was brought in that stated prostitutes (many of whom were slaves and as such had no choice anyway) had to dye their hair blonde....Unfortunately for the lawmakers, noble Roman women soon started to envy the sexy blonde look....

3.Fathers Could Sell Their Sons into Slavery... empire built on the backs of their defeated foes. Slaves in Rome had no rights and lived miserable lives. For the most part, Roman citizens were free from the dangers of slavery, unless they broke the law....Roman fathers could sell (or more like rent out) their sons into slavery, but it was only temporary.... He could sell the same son twice ...

4.Originally Father’s Were Legally Allowed to Kill Their Families... In early Rome, the members of a man’s family were essentially his possessions. He could do with them what he wished... the first century BC, a mans right to murder his family had been abolished, for the most part...

5.Rome’s Ultimate Punishment...The Romans had lots of inventive ways to kill criminals and prisoners. They could be beheaded, thrown from a height, or forced to take part in gladiatorial games and spectacles.... the ultimate crime, patricide...large body of water. Once there they were beaten with rods to within an inch of their lives...then bound and thrown into a large..leather sack along with a snake, dog, ape, and rooster...then thrown into the water where they either drowned or were killed by the thrashing animals....

6.They Had Confusing Rules Regarding Adultery...husbands were pretty much free to do what they liked....When a husband found his wife in the throes of passion with another man he was obligated to lock the two lovers in the room. The clock then began ticking and he had 20 hours to gather as many people as he could to act as witnesses....the husband had to divorce his wife....if the husband failed to divorce his wife he faced being charged with pimping his spouse out.... he could kill his wife's lover as long as he was a slave or prostitute (neither of whom enjoyed any rights in Roman society)....

7.They Thought Christianity Was a Cannibalistic Blood Cult...

8.Gladiator Body Parts for Medicinal Use...Roman physicians believed consuming gladiator body parts could help treat various ailments... When the gladiator games were banned after 400 AD the Romans began using the blood of executed criminals instead....

9.Urine Was a Valuable Commodity...sold as a chemical used in laundry and tanning leather....

10.Roman Public Toilets Were Disturbing...Rome was home to over 140 communal public toilets. These weren’t private spaces but places where people socialized while they did their business....Each public toilet housed only one solitary sponge on a stick, known as a tersorium. This was used to “wipe” after defecating. This also never got cleaned....