User:Haploidavey/sandbox

Chariot racing; graffiti

A single graffito in the Hagia Sophia shows a charioteer named Samonas, performing a victory lap; an engraved cross solicits God's help in securing the victory.

Parentage and birth
Most Roman sources name Servius' mother as Ocrisia, a young noblewoman taken at the Roman siege of Corniculum and brought to Rome, either pregnant by her husband, who was killed at the siege: or as a virgin. She was given to Tanaquil, wife of king Tarquinius, and though slave, was treated with the respect due her former status. In one variant, she became wife to a noble client of Tarquinius. In others, she served the domestic rites of the royal hearth as a Vestal Virgin, and on one such occasion, having damped the hearth flames with a sacrificial offering, she is penetrated and impregnated by a disembodied phallus that rose from the hearth. According to Tanaquil, this is a divine manifestation, either of the household Lar or Vulcan himself. Thus Servius is divinely fathered and already destined for greatness, despite his mother's servile status; for the time being, Tanaquil and Ocrisia keep this a secret.

Early life
Servius' birth to a slave of the royal household would have made him a member of Tarquin's extended domestic familia. Livy describes Servius as simply as a youth singled out for special favour when members of the royal household witness a nimbus of fire about his head while he sleeps, a sign of divine favour, and a great portent. In Livy's version, this supernatural event causes Servius to become a protégé of the royal family ("like a son"). He later marries the daughter of Tarquinius and Tanaquil, Tarquinia. For Livy, the great honour this marriage undermines the traditional narrative in which Ocrisia, and thus her son Servius, are household slaves; no slave, nor any descendant of slaves, could have been granted the great honour of marriage into Rome's ruling family. Livy makes Ocrisia a member of a royal house, brought to Rome in conquest but kindly treated. He provides Servius with a human royal father, now deceased. Plutarch, citing Valerius Antias "and his school", names Servius' wife as Gegania. He proves a loyal, responsible son-in-law. When given governmental and military responsibilities, he excels in both.

Bond, Sarah E., "Mortuary Workers, the Church, and the Funeral Trade in Late Antiquity", Journal of Late Antiquity 6.1 (Spring, 2013), 135-151



Hall, Natalie A., The Spatial Agency of the Catacombs: An Analysis of the Interventions of Damasus I (305-384), University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2018, pp. 1-4,



Nocturnal Rites to Appease the Untimely Dead: The Lemuria in Its Socio-Historical Context

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chariot_racing&diff=prev&oldid=381667992 (dated 29 Aug 2010,

In any given race, there might be a number of teams put up by each faction, who would cooperate to maximize their chances of victory by ganging up on opponents, forcing them out of the preferred inside track or making them lose concentration and expose themselves to accident and injury.

Hannibal coins

https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=131661 cng coins, with scholarly sources and credits African head and Elephant

genuine coins combined with faked scholarly source and comments --

Aqueducts;

Aldrete, Gregory S., Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome, Johns Hopkins University Press, March, 2007, pp   ISBN: 9780801884054

Faeces and urine, human and animal, were commodities. Private dwellings had cess-pits; domstorage jars

The Tiber, its flood plain; and its five largest tributaries played a major role in ancient Rome's development and economy. The Tiber was a highway to the sea, and towards Romes territories furthr inland. Its alluvial plains created rich soil for agriculture, quarries for rock mining and enough water to sustain Rome’s population. The Tiber’s many smaller tributaries were diverted and used as underground streams that formed Rome’s sewer system.

Marshes The Tiber’s many small tributaries formed a marshy, swampy region, which the ancient Romans drained and transformed into a port and meat market known as the Forum Boarium, a chariot-racing track known as the Circus Maximus and residential areas. Perhaps the most important impact of the marshes, however, was the development of the hydraulic engineering systems used to drain them. Some of these systems are still in operation today.

http://engineeringrome.org/water-and-the-development-of-ancient-rome/#

http://www.romanaqueducts.info/picturedictionary/pd_onderwerpen/wastewater1.htm

The Cloaca Maxima began as an open drainage canal following the path of an existing stream. Lined with massive blocks of tufa and limestone stone to improve its efficiency, it brought water through the city’s central Forum and then out to the Tiber. As Rome grew, so too did the canal, with shifts in direction corresponding to grand new civic buildings, and the addition of man-made channels leading from it. In the second century BC, the canal was covered to become Rome’s first true underground drainage system.

A map of central Rome during the time of the Roman Empire, showing the path of Cloaca Maxima in red.

The Cloaca Maxima was part of a sophisticated urban water system. In the first century CE, its entire length was traveled by Marcus Agrippa, a Roman statesman, soldier, architect, and the city’s first water commissioner. Agrippa oversaw the extension and improvement of Rome’s hydrology by adding new aqueducts, improving street cleaning, and expanding the sewer system. Waste water and unused overflow were channeled into the sewer.

The economy of ordure

Miko Flohr

Andrew Wilson 838 Views 10 Pages 1 File ▾ Roman Economy, Vespasian, Roman Toilets, Roman Sanitation Show less ▴ More Info: Co-authored with Andrew Wilson. In: Jansen, G., Koloski-Ostrow, A., Moormann, E. (eds.) Roman Toilets. Their Archaeology and Cultural History. Leuven, 127 - 136.

https://www.academia.edu/1394298/The_economy_of_ordure

https://www.academia.edu/704035/Urination_and_defecation_Roman_style

https://www.academia.edu/435936/Incurring_the_wrath_of_Mars_sanitation_and_hygiene_in_Roman_North_Africa

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=65960&section=2



One of the major reasons for Rome's most fundamental problems was too much water. The lower parts of the city were subected to annual floods of 3m depth, rising to 6m depth every few years. from the Tiberiber was subject to regular flts founders would have encountered

--



We don't need to resort to personal opinions about primary sources, because (in accordance with Wikipedia policy) that should be the job of modern, scholoarly secondary sources. Crake is not the beginning and end of secondary source evaluations of this material. And no, we don't plonk down a whole ream of primary source material for the reader to make up their own mind about. We find the most reputable and relevant secondary source material we can. See below.

Legends are not lies - any more than myths are lies. There is such a thing as Christian mythology. Such legends place the Church centre stage of Rome's moral and political life from the very beginning of Church history. Something that would not be borne out in reality for several centuries yet, except in this kind of Christian legend. It's no coincidence that notoriously 'bad' emperors in particular (Nero and Domitian, and Tiberius - don't forget his bad reputation and the fact that he wasn't deified at death) are thus retrospectively offered redemption through a defense of Christ, or even through belief in Christ; and the Church plays out a central role in its claims to provide the agency for this. Some samples below, taken from Google Scholar

See Harmes, Marcus, (2010) "Domitian, the fathers and the persecution of the church". In: Leeds International Medieval Congress 2010, 12-15 Jul 2010, Leeds, United Kingdom https://eprints.usq.edu.au/20033/1/Harmes__LeedsIMC_2010_AV.pdf

Regarding the legend in question (Tiberius, Christ and the senate, as conveyed by Tertullian et al), I quote: 'Barnes stresses the 'utter implausibiity' of the story. Crake argues that it is difficult to take Tertullian's tale at all seriously'.

And Barnes (see above):

Barnes, T.D., The Journal of Roman Studies, Volume 58 , Issue 1-2 , November 1968 , pp. 32 - 50 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/299693