Kokkola

Kokkola (; , ) is a town and municipality of Finland.
The town is located in the Central Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Neighbour municipalities are Halsua, Kalajoki, Kannus, Kaustinen, Kronoby, Lestijärvi, Larsmo and Toholampi.
The municipality is bilingual with being Finnish and Swedish speakers.
Kokkola celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2020.
Name.
The Finnish name "Kokkola" means "place of bonfire" or "place of eagle" because the Finnish root word means both bonfire and white-tailed eagle (the suffix "-la" denotes location). The town was known in Swedish by the name until 1 January 1977 when the surrounding land municipality of Kaarlela () was consolidated with Kokkola, and the town took over the Swedish name of . The word means "old", "karl" means "man" or "peasant" and "by" means "village", in turn literally meaning '"old village of peasants" or Anglicised as "Old Peasantville". The Latin name was "Carolina Vetus".
History.
The town of Kokkola was chartered in 1620 by King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden when Finland was a part of the Swedish Empire and is one among the oldest towns in Finland. The king also decided that a tar barrel, with three burning flames coming from both the ends and the plug, should be used as the town seal, because of the tar trade at that time, for which Kokkola was founded as a shipping port. Anders Chydenius (1729-1803) who was one of the leading politicians of Sweden-Finland, was a keen supporter of economic freedom and fought in the Swedish Parliament for free foreign trade and further social reforms. In 1765 the Swedish Parliament granted the city of Kokkola the staple rights. Kokkola also became an important shipbuilding centre in Finland. As a result of tar trade and shipbuilding industry, Kokkola was for a time one of the richest towns in Finland.
An interesting historical affair, known as the Skirmish of Halkokari, occurred at the town on 6 June 1854 during the Åland War, part of the Crimean War. Royal Marines from HMS Vulture and HMS Odin tried to come ashore to deal with public property in the town "in accordance with the usages of war". The marines were repelled by local defenders armed with hunting rifles supported by troops, artillery and possibly Russian advisors and military. One of the 9 smaller British craft (a gunboat) fell into the hands of the defenders. As such, this boat was the only Royal Navy vessel still in foreign possession in 1914. The boat is still today a museum-object and can be seen in Kokkola's English Park. The town council has refused to return the boat despite several requests by the United Kingdom, most recently by John Stuttard, the Lord Mayor of London. The British Treasury annually pays a small sum to the local church congregation for the maintenance of the graves of nine Royal Marines killed in action during the skirmish .
Interesting contemporaneous accounts of the disastrous action can be found in the British Newspaper Archive, citing Gamla Carleby.
The city had a Swedish-speaking majority until 1933.
In 1977, the surrounding municipality of Kaarlela () was consolidated into Kokkola (Swedish until then: ). In 2009, the municipalities of Lohtaja, Kälviä and Ullava were consolidated with Kokkola.
Geography.
Kokkola is the capital of the Central Ostrobothnia region, it is located on the coast of Gulf of Bothnia, the northernmost part of the Baltic Sea. The next larger cities are Vaasa is southwest, and Oulu is northeast. The distance to the capital Helsinki is to the south. Neighbouring cities and municipals are Kalajoki in the northern east, Kannus and Toholampi in the east, Halsua and Kaustinen in the southern east, Kronoby in the south and Larsmo in the southern west.
The landscape of the region around Kokkola is flat, typical for the area of Ostrobothnia, with numerous river courses flowing through the land. The biggest river in the area is Perhonjoki, which flows into Gulf of Bothnia, north of Kokkola.
The annual post-glacial rebound at Kokkola is 8.8 mm. Thus large areas of present-day Kokkola were under water when the town was founded.
Population.
Kokkola marks the northernmost settlement area of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland (Finland-Swedes) on the western coast of Finland. 84.0% of the inhabitants of Kokkola speak Finnish as their mother tongue, 12.6% Swedish. The remaining 3.4% speak Estonian, Russian or other mother tongues. Kokkola is an official bilingual city with Finnish as the language of the majority and Swedish as the language of the minority. The approximately 6,020 Swedish-speaking inhabitants of Kokkola are spread unevenly around Kokkola: Whereas the centre of the city is bilingual, the majority of the villages around Kokkola mostly speak Swedish. The districts which were consolidated in 2009 are, however, pure Finnish-speaking areas.
Education.
Kokkola has a lot of preschools, some of them offer children a bilingual education from an early age (mostly Finnish-English or Finnish-Swedish). There are 25 Finnish-speaking and 8 Swedish-speaking schools. Moreover, there are three secondary schools for Finnish-speaking pupils and one for Swedish-speaking. Some schools offer a dual vocational education and training. The Chydenius-Institution of Kokkola, a university consortium, carries out teaching and research under the auspices of the universities of Jyväskylä, Oulu and Vaasa. It is specialized in adult education. For Finnish and foreign students it arranges open university studies, further education for professionals in the fields of education, social services and health services and management. Centria University of Applied Sciences [Finnish name: "Centria ammattikorkeakoulu"] is also situated in Kokkola having its other partition in Ylivieska and Jakobstad is an international institute offering three different bachelor's degree program in English language along with Finnish.
Economy.
Kokkola is the capital and biggest city in the region of Central Ostrobothnia. The chemical industry is a major employer. An industrial area and the city's port are located in Ykspihlaja. OMG has a cobalt plant. The Freeport/Umicore refinery is the only large cobalt refinery outside China. Boliden has a zinc plant. Kemira, a chemical conglomerate, built an industrial park that is now divided among several corporations. In addition, industries represented in the town include metalworking, casting, textiles, plastics, food and carpentry. Largest employers are as follows (2011):
The Port of Kokkola is located in Ykspihlaja, approximately from the city center, and it is one of the busiest ports in Finland. Oil, ore and limestone are imported, refined products and timber are exported, and iron ore is transited.
Transport.
Kokkola is located on the coast of Gulf of Bothnia, and the coastal European route E8 (Finnish highway 8) goes through, connecting Oulu and Turku via Vaasa. Finnish highway 28 begins from Kokkola and runs to Kajaani. Finnish highway 13 begins from Kokkola and runs through Finland into the Nuijamaa border to Russia crossing via Jyväskylä and Mikkeli. The scenic '7 Bridges Archipelago Road' (road 749) runs along the coast between Kokkola and Jakobstad (). Kokkola-Pietarsaari Airport is situated from Kokkola in Kronoby. The Kokkola railway station is a stop along the Seinäjoki–Oulu railway, with service between Helsinki and Kemijärvi via Tampere and Seinäjoki, where the fast Pendolino bullet train operates. There is no passenger ferry traffic from Kokkola.
Politics.
Results of the 2017 Finnish municipal elections in Kokkola:
Culture and sights.
Kokkola provides a varying cultural offer. From rock, jazz and classical music to shows in the theatre of Kokkola in Finnish and Swedish (Catherine place/Katariinan tori). The city is the home of the world-renowned Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, which was founded by the conductor Juha Kangas in 1972. The Orchestra performs regularly in Kokkola and makes tours in other parts of Finland and even abroad. They performed 82 times in 2012, with a total number of listeners of about 17,470. Since fall time this year, the well-known Sakari Oramo, who was also the conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, has become the new conductor of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.
Buildings.
The area of old wooden houses in the downtown area of Neristan has been the setting for the life and livelihood of its inhabitants for hundreds of years. Today these houses are offering restaurants, cafés, little shops and even accommodation for tourists. With its old charm it invites visitors to discover Neristan step by step.
Tankar island, a lighthouse island, is in the outer archipelago, about northwest from Kokkola. The island houses a lighthouse which is still in use today, a museum of seal-hunting, a bird-watching tower, a lot of nature trails and even accommodations for tourists. It is easy to reach the island by ferry m/s Jenny from Kokkola.
The stone Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Kaarlela has been a landmark since 1550 and is a popular venue for weddings and concerts. Next to the church, there is a local history museum at Kirkonmäki with an Ostrobothnian farmhouse, as well as an old smithy, a tannery, a wool-carding workshop, a threshing barn, a smoke sauna, a granary barn and a loft.
K.H.Renlund Museum is devoted to Karl Herman Renlund, who donated his large art collection to the town of Kokkola. The museum houses some temporary exhibitions and the museum shop. Next to the museum is the Pedagogio, a school-house, which is Finland's oldest urban secular wooden building (built in 1696). In this quarter, there is also the Lassander House which offers a glimpse into a merchant home in the 18th century.
Sport.
During the winter time, Kokkola offers 20 skiing tracks with a total length of . Kokkola is the home of the ice hockeyclub Hermes, which plays in the second highest Finnish league (mestis). Moreover, there are the soccer clubs Kokkolan Palloveikot (KPV), which plays in the second highest Finnish league (Ykkönen) and Gamlakarleby Bollklubb (GBK), which plays in the third highest Finnish league (Kakkonen). Kokkola's volleyball team Kokkolan Tiikerit is active in the highest Finnish volleyball league and current Finnish champions for men (Lentopallon Mestaruusliiga). Sailing clubs include Gamlakarleby Segelförening, Kokkolan Purjehtijat and Kokkolan venekerho.
International relations.
Twin towns – Sister cities.
Kokkola is twinned with 15 cities:


Praetorium (Mehadia)


Melinno

Melinno () was a Greek lyric poet. She probably lived in the 2nd century BC, and was probably from Epizephyrian Locris in Magna Graecia, but because little biographical material on her is available, this is uncertain. She is credited with the work commonly called "Ode to Rome", which presents unique problems in the analysis of Greek poetry and is viewed as influential in the future course of Greek and Latin poetry. Her work has been characterised as "something of a sport, to which the extant remains of Greek poetry present no parallel."
Life.
Stobaeus, who lived approximately four-to-five centuries later, preserved Melinno's work in his "Eclogues". He attributes her work to Melinno the Lesbian, but a Lesbian origin is disputed by at least three modern scholars, who note that the stanzas show little trace of the Aeolic dialect used by the Lesbian poets Sappho and Alcaeus, and the few Aeolicisms observed are probably imitative of Sappho. It may be that Stobaeus meant to emphasize her imitation of the Sapphic stanza, not to say that she was from Lesbos; this is the view of George Stanley Farnell, who concludes that while it is possible and indeed probable that she was not from Lesbos, neither can the Locrian connection be proven, and that readers should "remain content to be in ignorance as to the identity of Melinno." CM Bowra denies that she was from Lesbos, but also refuses to take the step of saying definitely that she was from Locri, because the evidence of Locrian Melinna does not explicitly mention her as the poet Melinno.
If Melinno was Locrian, her native tongue was probably a Doric or Locrian Italiot Greek dialect. The main support for her Epizephyrian Locrian origin is an epigram of Nossis, herself a Locrian, who begins one of her poems by dedicating it her daughter "Automellina" (Αὐτομέλιννα, which can be read as "Mellino herself"). It is certainly noteworthy that another Greek female poet had a daughter named Melinna, whom Nossis describes in glowing terms as "just like her mother", but as Bowra and others point out, she does not explicitly say that the daughter was a poet, much less the poet who wrote "Ode to Rome".
Birth and death dates are not available, but analysis of the content of her work provides "termini post & ad quem" for her life and work. If Melinno was indeed Nossis's daughter, this would place her more firmly in the 2nd century BC. Bowra cites the calculations of other scholars and opines "Though we cannot date Melinno's hymn with any assurance, the first half of the second century is at least an appropriate time, since the cult of the goddes Rome was then lively in Greek cities". He notes that Greek appreciation of the cult of Roma seems to have declined a century later, "as might be expected after the behaviour of Mummius and Sulla."
Importance: Revival and reformation of the Sapphic metre.
Melinno is known for five Sapphic stanzas comprising an "Ode to Rome", praise poetry addressing the personified deity Roma. Its simultaneous praise of Rome but lack of references to the principate leads scholars to believe that it dates to the Republican Era, after the Pyrrhic War and the Roman conquest of Italy, but before the formation of the Roman Empire.
Melinno's work is important because it is a Hellenistic attempt at a revival of the moribund Sapphic stanza in Greek, keeping alive a tradition in the Greek world that was already being translated to Latin by Horace, and would continue with Catullus. But the Sapphic metre of Horace and Catullus imitated the flowing style of Sappho and Alcaeus, in which thoughts can cross metrical boundaries to reach their completion in another line or stanza, while Melinno does not. Melinno makes a sharp separation between each stanza, which has its antecedent in the sole surviving Sapphic stanza from the centuries that intervened between Alcaeus and Melinno, spuriously attributed to Sappho but likely composed or borrowed by Chamaeleon). Athenaeus quotes this stanza in his "Deipnosophists" and is adamant that it is not the work of Sappho. Bowra thinks its clumsiness compared to the work of the real Sappho means later Greeks – despite their admiration – were unable to master her style. Both this fragment and Melinno's ode are characterized by Bowra as possessing a "slow, cumbrous progress, quite unlike that of Sappho or Alcaeus", but which later becomes the style of Latin poet Statius, too, in his "Silvae".
Bowra also thinks that Melinno's ode may have been by influenced Pindar's ode "Olympian V", written for the tyrant Psaumis of Camarina, which could be a spurious attribution that is really the work of a Sicilian Greek imitator. This punctuated style, unusual for Greek poetry, could have arisen out of a need for it to be sung to accompany the three-stage Olympic mule-car race for which it was written. Melinno's ode could also have been performative, written for some five-stage event celebrating Roma. After being popularized by Melinno, this staged, puncuated Sapphic metre style potentially influenced not only Statius, but also Horace, who followed Sappho in his free-flowing Sapphic-style poetry, but used a punctuated style reminiscent of Melinno and the later Hellenistic Sapphics in his ceremonial "Carmen Saeculare". Melinno seems to have been conscious of and admired Sappho, but spoke a different form of Greek and lived in a different age that called for a recension of the Sapphic tradition.
Work.
Stobaeus lists her poem as among a group of other poems that he classifies as "peri andreias" ("concerning bravery") because he seems to interpret the addressee as a personification of "Strength" (ῥώμη), instead of Ῥώμη (Rome), an editorial choice that was first questioned by Hugo Grotius. (The words were homophones as well as homographs in Greek). Additionally, if the word is "Rome", there could be a variant spelling, as the city could be called either "Rṓmā" or "Rṓmē" depending on the dialect of Greek, and given overall Doricism of the piece, the holograph may well have used the Doric "Rṓmā", while Mediaeval Greek of Byzantine copyists would likely have encouraged standardisation to the Koine "Rṓmē". Since capitalisation was not practiced and because copyists often made editorial choices about proper spelling and accentuation long after the original composition of the work, the precise intent of the author is not always clear. Nevertheless, given other clues in the text, including a formulaic salutation reminiscent of other Greek poems dedicated to deities, like Pindar's ode to Apollo Delios — another deity with topographic associations — impels scholars in the direction of viewing the text as a praise poem to Roma as Rome personified. The Greek text is usually edited to Ῥώμa ("Rṓmā") in modern editions, such as the "Greek Anthology".
Bowra argues that the non-Aeolic forms κρατερῶν and κρατίστους in lines 9 and 17 of the poem (, , they would be , in Aeolic) balance out the archaizing (but strictly speaking, not Aeolic) elements in the work.
According to Melinno's entry in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology", some 19th-century scholars posited that the "Ode to Rome" was actually written by Erinna, although it does not specify their reasoning. Yet the chronology of Erinna is also in doubt, as is the reason for her writing in a mix of Aeolic and Doric Greek like Melinno, whether she was a native Dorian or Aeolian, whether she actually came from Lesbos or another island, and whether she actually knew Sappho or tried to imitate her. There is a debate concerning the disputed provenance of several epigrams attributed to Erinna, with some scholars pointing to Nossis as their likely composer. In any case Erinna ( either 7th-6th or 4th century BC) was too far removed in time and place from Roman influence to have been motivated to write verses praising late Republican Rome, which seems to be the consensus view of the poem's theme among modern scholars, "pace" Stobaeus. Yet — his editorial choices notwithstanding — without Stobaeus's efforts to preserve her work, Melinno would likely be completely unknown to history, as would many other Greek poets he records.


Prehistoric Rock-Art Site of Pala Pinta

The Prehistoric Rock-Art Site Pala Pinta () is a Paleolithic-era rock-art site, recognized for cave paintings in the Portuguese municipality of Alijó, in the civil parish of Carlão e Amieiro.
History.
The cave was occupied during the 3rd millennium, and the rock art paintings were likely created during this period.
After its discovery, on 30 December 1985, there was a move by the "Serviço Regional de Arqueologia da Zona Norte" ("North Zone Regional Archaeological Service") to have the site classified for protection. There was a positive reaction on 21 April 1986 to the endeavour by the Consultative Council of IPPC. Further initiatives were undertaken on 7 May by the "Secretária de Estado da Cultura" ("Secretary-of-State for Culture") to classify the archaeological site as a National Monument. Although this was never promulgated, on 18 July 2006, the area was defined as a "Zona Especial de Classificação" ("Special Classification Zone") by the DRPorto.
Architecture.
It was situated in an isolated, rural area in the middle of the hilltop facing the east.
The site includes rock-art paintings over granite surface, covering an area of long and high. There roughly two vertical panels, caused by fractures in the cave/clifftop, consisting of monochromatic paintings in ochre of radial imagery (likely sun or stars), points and anthropomorphic representations of figures.


Scottish Medical Journal

The Scottish Medical Journal is a general medical journal, which publishes original research in all branches of medicine, review articles, history of medicine articles, and clinical memoranda. The editor-in-chief is Ghulam Nabi (University of Dundee).
History.
The journal obtained its current form in 1956 after a merger of the "Glasgow Medical Journal" and the "Edinburgh Medical Journal", which were themselves founded in 1822 and 1855, respectively. It is published by Sage Publications and is supported and sponsored by a number of learned societies and colleges.
"Edinburgh Medical Journal".
The "Edinburgh Medical Journal" was the successor of the "Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal" (1805–1855) which in turn had predecessors that can be traced back to the 1733 "Medical Essays and Observations". It was the house journal of the Edinburgh College of Physicians and focused on scholarly papers such as articles and reviews, including translated extracts from German and French works, while also reporting on the meetings of medical societies. By 1874 it was widely distributed in England.


Ibrahim Pasha of Berat

Ibrahim Pasha of Berat was the second and last ruler of the Pashalik of Berat, in office from 1787 to 1809.
Ruler.
After the death of Ahmet Kurt Pasha, the territory of the pashalik was ruled by a close ally of him, Ibrahim Pasha of Berat. As this territory belonged to the Middle Albania, Ibrahim Pasha was roused at this encroachment. This made Ali Pasha start a war with the Pashalik of Berat.
Rivalry with Ali Pasha.
After some fruitless negotiation, Ibrahim Pasha sent a body of troops under the command of his brother Sephir, bey of Avlona. Against these, Ali summoned the armatoles of Thessaly; and after villages had been burnt, peasants robbed and hanged, and flocks carried off on both sides, peace was made. Ibrahim gave his daughter in marriage to Mukhtar, the eldest son of Ali, and the disputed territory as her dower. As Sephir bey had displayed qualities which might prove formidable hereafter, Ali contrived to have him poisoned by a physician ; and, after his usual fashion, he hanged the agent of the crime, that no witness might remain of it.
In 1808, Ali Pasha defeated Ibrahim Pasha, incorporating its territory in the Pashalik of Janina.


Samuel Watt

Samuel Watt CB CBE (6 April 1876–18 November 1927) was an Irish (later Northern Irish) civil servant.
Watt was born in Newry, County Down, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He served in the Public Record Office of Ireland and then the Local Government Board of Ireland, both in Dublin. He then joined the Office of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Following a stint at the Admiralty in London he returned to the Chief Secretary's Office and became Private Secretary to Edward Shortt from 1918 to 1919 and then to his successor, Ian Macpherson, from 1919 to 1920. With the partition of Ireland in December 1921, he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Ministry of Home Affairs, retiring due to ill-health.
He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1920 New Year War Honours and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1923 Birthday Honours.


Timeline of the city of Rome

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Rome, Italy.
Imperial city.

See also.
Other cities in the macroregion of Central Italy:()


Cumnoria

Cumnoria is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It was a basal iguanodontian that lived during the Late Jurassic period (Kimmeridgian age) in what is now Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
Description.
The holotype of "Cumnoria" is of a rather small bipedal animal with a slender build. about 3.5 metres (11.4 feet) long, The specimen is probably that of a juvenile though.
History of discovery.
"Cumnoria" is known from the holotype OXFUM J.3303, a partial skull and postcranium, recovered from the lower Kimmeridge Clay Formation, in the Chawley Brick Pits, Cumnor Hurst. Workers at first discarded the remains on a dump heap, but one of them later collected the bones in a sack and showed them to Professor George Rolleston, an anatomist at the nearby Oxford University. Rolleston in turn brought them to the attention of palaeontologist Professor Joseph Prestwich who in 1879 reported them as a new species of "Iguanodon", though without actually coining a species name. In 1880 Prestwich published an article on the geological stratigraphy of the find. The same year John Whitaker Hulke named the species "Iguanodon prestwichii", the specific epithet honouring Prestwich.
In 1888, Harry Govier Seeley decided the taxon represented a new and separate genus which he named "Cumnoria" after Cumnor, the village where it was discovered. Its type species "Iguanodon prestwichii" was thus recombined into "Cumnoria prestwichii" — though Seeley spelled the epithet as "prestwichi". The genus was quickly abandoned however: already in 1889 Richard Lydekker assigned the species to "Camptosaurus", as "Camptosaurus prestwichii". This opinion was generally accepted for over a century. In 1980 Peter Galton provided the first modern description of the species.
In 1998 David Norman concluded that Seeley's original generic distinction was valid. In 2008 this was supported by Darren Naish and David Martill. In 2010 and 2011 cladistic analyses by Andrew T. McDonald confirmed this by showing that "Cumnoria" had a separate phylogenetic position from "Camptosaurus dispar". However, in 2015, "Uteodon" and "Cumnoria" were synonymized with "Camptosaurus," but as distinct species.
Classification.
"Camptosaurus prestwichii" was traditionally assigned to the Camptosauridae. In the new analyses of McDonald "Cumnoria" has instead been recovered as a basal member of the Styracosterna, more closely related to more derived ("advanced") iguanodontians than to "Camptosaurus dispar". "Cumnoria" would then be the oldest known styracostern.


Ortona, Latium

Ortona was a town in ancient Latium in central Italy.
Livy records that in 481 BC the Aequi laid siege to Ortona.
References.
Livy, "Ab urbe condita", 2:43


Prehistoric Scotland

Archaeology and geology continue to reveal the secrets of prehistoric Scotland, uncovering a complex past before the Romans brought Scotland into the scope of recorded history. Successive human cultures tended to be spread across Europe or further afield, but focusing on this particular geographical area sheds light on the origin of the widespread remains and monuments in Scotland, and on the background to the history of Scotland.
The extent of open countryside untouched by intensive farming, together with past availability of stone rather than timber, has given Scotland a wealth of accessible sites where the ancient past can be seen.
The remote prehistory of Scotland.
Scotland is geologically alien to Europe, comprising a sliver of the ancient continent of Laurentia (which later formed the bulk of North America). During the Cambrian period the crustal region which became Scotland formed part of the continental shelf of Laurentia, then still south of the equator. Laurentia was separated from the continent of Baltica (which later became Scandinavia and the Baltic region) by the diminishing Iapetus Ocean. The two ancient continents moved toward one another through the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, with tectonic folding during the Silurian pushing the first Scottish land above water. The final collision occurred during the Devonian period, with the Scottish segment of the Laurentian plate smashing into Avalonia (which contained what is now most of England and Wales), a motile subcontinent which had previously joined with Baltica. This impact threw up a massive chain of mountains (at least as tall as the present-day Alps) and saw the formation of the granitic West Highland and Grampian mountain chains and (through the Carboniferous) a period of volcanic activity in central and eastern Scotland. During the Permian and Triassic periods, with the Iapetus Ocean entirely closed, Scotland lay near the centre of the Pangaean supercontinent. At the start of the Tertiary, a constructive plate boundary (at which tectonic plates move apart) became active between Laurentia and Eurasia, pushing the two apart (and parting Scotland from Laurentia). This recession opened the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, and the consequent subduction zone at the western plate margin led to a renewed period of volcanism, this time on Scotland's west coast, producing fresh mountains on Skye, Jura, Mull, Rùm, and Arran.
This tectonic activity produced the basis of Scotland's topography: ancient mountains in the North and South of the country, partially eroded by 400 million years of water and ice with a wide fertile valley between them, and a newer, wilder western terrain. With Scotland now in the northern temperate zone, it was subjected to numerous glaciations in the Neogene and Quaternary periods, the ice sheets and their attendant glaciers carving the landscape into a typical postglacial one, overdeepening river valleys into the characteristic U-shape and leaving the upland areas covered with glacial corries and dramatic pyramidal peaks. In lowland areas the ice deposited rich fields of fertile glacial till and eroded the softer material surrounding the extinct volcanoes (particularly the older Carboniferous ones), leaving many crags.
Before modern humans.
During the last interglacial, around 130,000–70,000 BC, there were times when the climate in Europe was warmer than it is today, and after the Neanderthals came to prominence there was another mild spell around 40,000 BC. Neanderthal sites have been found in the south of England from this era, though no traces of early modern humans have been found.
Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and it was only after the ice retreated about 15,000 years ago that Scotland again became habitable.
Hunter-gatherers.
As the climate improved, mesolithic hunter-gatherers extended their range into Scotland. The earliest evidence to date is the flint artefacts found at Howburn Farm, near Elsrickle in 2005. This is the first and so far the only evidence of Upper Paleolithic human habitation in Scotland, around 12,000 BC, which appears to fall between the Younger Dryas and Lomond Stadial periods when cold conditions returned relatively briefly.
An early settlement at Cramond, near what is today Edinburgh, has been dated to around 8500 BC. Pits and stakeholes suggest a hunter-gatherer encampment, and microlith stone tools made at the site predate finds of similar style in England. Although no bones or shells had survived the acid soil, numerous carbonised hazelnut shells indicate cooking in a similar way to finds at other Mesolithic period sites, including the slightly earlier Star Carr and the Howick house in Northumberland, dated to 7600 BC ("Britain's oldest house"), where post holes indicate a very substantial construction, interpreted as a permanent residence for hunting people. This suggests that hunter-gatherers could also have settled down in Scotland.
Other sites on the east coast and at lochs and rivers, and large numbers of rock shelters and shell middens around the west coast and islands, build up a picture of highly mobile people, often using sites seasonally and having boats for fishing and for transporting stone tools from sites where suitable materials were found. Finds of flint tools on Ben Lawers and at Glen Dee (a mountain pass through the Cairngorms) show that these people were capable of travelling well inland across the hills.
At a rock shelter and shell midden at Sand, Applecross in Wester Ross facing Skye, excavations have shown that around 7500 BC people had tools of bone, stone and antlers, were living off shellfish, fish, and deer using "pot-boiler" stones as a cooking method, were making beads from seashells, and had ochre pigment and used shellfish which can produce purple dye.
Farmers and monument builders.
Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements. At Balbridie in Aberdeenshire crop markings were investigated, and ditches and post holes found, revealing a massive timber-framed building dating to about 3600 BC. An almost identical building, with evidence of pottery, was excavated at Claish near Stirling. On the islet of Eilean Domhnuill, in Loch Olabhat on North Uist, Unstan ware pottery suggests a date of 3200–2800 BC for what may be the earliest crannog.
The remainder of this section focuses mainly on the Orkney Islands, where there is a Neolithic landscape rich in sites amazingly preserved by prevalent use of the local stone which appears on the shore ready-split into convenient building slabs. There are many other examples across the country, many under the care of Historic Scotland.
At the wonderfully well preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on the Orkney island of Papa Westray (occupied from 3500 BC to 3100 BC) the walls stand to a low eaves height, and the stone furniture is intact. Evidence from middens shows that the inhabitants kept cattle, sheep and pigs, farmed barley and wheat and gathered shellfish, as well as fishing for species which must be caught from boats using lines. Finely made and decorated Unstan ware pottery links the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby and to sites far afield, including Balbrindi and Eilean Domhnuill.
The houses at Skara Brae on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands are very similar, but are grouped into a village linked by low passageways. This settlement was occupied from about 3000 BC to 2500 BC. Pottery found here is of the grooved ware style which is found across Britain as far away as Wessex.
About 6 miles (10 km) from Skara Brae, grooved ware pottery was found at the Standing Stones of Stenness (originally a circle) which lie centrally in a close group of three major monuments. Maeshowe, the finest example of the passage grave type of chambered cairn (radiocarbon dated to before 2700 BC) lies just to the east. The Ring of Brodgar circle of standing stones is across a bridge immediately to the north. This circle was one of the first to be analysed by Professor Alexander Thom to establish the likely use of standing stones as astronomical observatories. Another Neolithic village has been found nearby at Barnhouse Settlement, and the inference is that these farming people were the builders and users of these mysterious structures.
Like the standing stones at Callanish on Lewis and other standing stones across Scotland, these monuments form part of the Europe-wide Megalithic culture which also produced Stonehenge in Wiltshire and the stone rows at Carnac in Brittany.
Further evidence can be found in Kilmartin Glen with its Stone Circles, Standing Stones and Rock Art
The widespread connections of these people are shown by offerings imported from Cumbria and Wales and left on the sacred hilltop at Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian, as early as 3500 BC.
Bronze Age.
The cairns and megalithic monuments continued into the Bronze Age, though there was a decline in both the building of large new structures and the total area under cultivation.
The Clava cairns and standing stones near Inverness show complex geometries and astronomical alignments, with smaller, perhaps individual, tombs instead of the communal Neolithic tombs.
Mummies dating from 1600–1300 BC have been discovered at Cladh Hallan on South Uist.
Hill forts were introduced, such as Eildon Hill near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, which goes back to around 1000 BC and which accommodated several hundred houses on a fortified hilltop. Excavation at Edinburgh Castle found late Bronze Age material from about 850 BC.
Iron Age.
From around 700 BC and extending into Roman times, the Iron Age was an age of forts and defended farmsteads, which support the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms recorded by the Romans. Evidence that at times occupants neglected the defences might suggest that symbolic power was as significant as warfare.
Brythonic (or "Pritennic") Celtic culture and language spread into southern Scotland at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed.
Larger fortified settlements expanded, such as the Votadini stronghold of Traprain Law, East Lothian, which was the size of a town. Huge numbers of small duns, hill forts and ring forts were built on any suitable crag or hillock. The spectacular brochs were built, most impressively the nearly complete Mousa Broch, Shetland. Many Souterrain underground passageways were constructed, though their purpose is obscure. Island settlements linked with land by a causeway, the crannogs, became common; it is thought that their function was defensive.
Access - guide books.
The government website, Historic Scotland, lists many accessible sites and monuments including most of those mentioned above, and others are also freely accessible, making exploration of the distant past open to anyone with a guide book and map. The following were used as references:


Chief Secretary for Ireland

The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, and officially the "Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant", from the early 19th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland, roughly equivalent to the role of a Secretary of State, such as the similar role of Secretary of State for Scotland. Usually it was the Chief Secretary, rather than the Lord Lieutenant, who sat in the British Cabinet. The Chief Secretary was "ex officio" President of the Local Government Board for Ireland from its creation in 1872.
British rule over much of Ireland came to an end as the result of the Irish War of Independence, which culminated in the establishment of the Irish Free State. In consequence the office of Chief Secretary was abolished, as well as that of Lord Lieutenant. Executive responsibility within the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland was effectively transferred to the President of the Executive Council (i.e. the prime minister) and the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland respectively.
History of the office.
The dominant position of the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle had been central to the British administration of the Kingdom of Ireland for much of its history. Poynings' Law in particular meant that the Parliament of Ireland lacked an independent power of legislation, and the Crown kept control of executive authority in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant and its own appointees, rather than in the hands of ministers responsible to the Irish parliament.
In 1560, Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland ordered the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Sussex, to appoint John Challoner of Dublin as Secretary of State for Ireland "because at this present there is none appointed to be Clerk of our Council there, and considering how more meet it were, that in our realm there were for our honour one to be our Secretary there for the affairs of our Realm". The appointment of a Secretary was intended to both improve Irish administration, and to keep the Lord Lieutenant in line. The role of Secretary of State for Ireland and Chief Secretary of Ireland were originally distinct positions, Thomas Pelham being the first individual appointed to both offices concurrently in 1796.
Over time, the post of Chief Secretary gradually increased in importance, particularly because of his role as manager of legislative business for the Government in the Irish House of Commons, in which he sat as an MP. While the Irish administration was not responsible to the parliament, it nevertheless needed to manage and influence it in order to ensure the passage of legislation.
Chief Secretary Viscount Castlereagh played a key role in the enactment of the Act of Union which passed in the Irish Parliament on its second attempt in 1800 through the exercise of patronage and direct bribery. Upon the Union on 1 January 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland was merged into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Irish parliament ceased to exist. However, the existing system of administration in Ireland continued broadly in place, with the offices of Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary retaining their respective roles.
The last Chief Secretary to represent an Irish constituency while in office was Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue, MP for County Louth, who served from 1868 to 1871.
The last Chief Secretary was Sir Hamar Greenwood, who left office in October 1922. The Irish Free State, comprising the greater part of Ireland, would become independent on 6 December 1922. In Northern Ireland, a new Government of Northern Ireland was established, with a Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. This government was suspended in 1972, and the position of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was created as a position in the British cabinet. In 1973 Cameron Mckenna has been denied the right to apply.
List of chief secretaries for Ireland.
This list includes holders of a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, from the late 18th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland; usually it was the Chief Secretary, rather than the Lord Lieutenant, who sat in the British Cabinet. Exceptions were the periods from 29 June 1895 to 8 August 1902, when the Lord Lieutenant Lord Cadogan sat in the Cabinet and the Chief Secretaries Gerald Balfour until 9 November 1900 did not sit there and George Wyndham from that date also sat there, and from 28 October 1918 to 2 April 1921, when both the Lord Lieutenant Lord French and the Chief Secretaries Edward Shortt, Ian Macpherson and Sir Hamar Greenwood sat in the Cabinet.


Germania Superior

Germania Superior ("Upper Germania") was an imperial province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of today's western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany. Important cities were Besançon ("Vesontio"), Strasbourg ("Argentoratum"), Wiesbaden ("Aquae Mattiacae"), and Germania Superior's capital, Mainz ("Mogontiacum"). It comprised the Middle Rhine, bordering on the Limes Germanicus, and on the Alpine province of Raetia to the south-east. Although it had been occupied militarily since the reign of Augustus, Germania Superior (along with Germania Inferior) was not made into an official province until c. 85 AD.
Origin.
Initial Roman involvement.
The terms, "Upper Germania" and "Lower Germania" do not appear in the "Gallic Wars" of Julius Caesar, yet he writes about reports that the people who lived in those regions were referred to as "Germani" locally, a term used for a tribe that the Romans called the Germani Cisrhenani, and that the name Germania seems to have been adopted to designate other indigenous tribes in the area. Lower Germania was occupied by the Belgae. Upper Germania was occupied by Gaulish tribes including the Helvetii, Sequani, Leuci, and Treveri, and, on the north bank of the middle Rhine, the remnant of the Germanic troops that had attempted to take Vesontio under Ariovistus, but who were defeated by Caesar in 58 BC.
The Romans did not abandon this region at any time after then. During a 5-year period in the initial years of his reign (28–23 BC), as Cassius Dio tells us (53.12), Octavian Caesar assumed direct governorship of the major senatorial provinces on grounds that they were in danger of insurrection and he alone commanded the troops required to restore security. They were to be restored to the senate in 10 years under proconsuls elected by the senate.
Among these independent provinces were upper Germania. Apparently it had become a province in the last years of the republic. Tacitus also mentions it as the province of Germania Superior in his "Annales" (3.41, 4.73, 13.53). Cassius Dio viewed the Germanic tribes as Celts, an impression given perhaps by Belgica, the name assigned to lower Germania at the time. Dio does not mention the border, but he views upper Germany as extending to the source of the Rhine. It is not clear if he was aware of the Upper Rhine in Switzerland, upstream from Lake Constance. Today the section of the Rhine running through upper Germania is called the middle Rhine.
Limit of the empire.
Augustus had planned to incorporate all of central Germania in one province, "Germania Magna". This plan was frustrated by the Germanic tribesmen at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Augustus decided to limit the empire at the Rhine-Danube border. Thereafter continual conflict prevailed along it, forcing the Romans to conduct punitive expeditions and fortify Germania Superior.
By 12 BC, major bases existed at Xanten (Castra Vetera) and Mainz (Mogontiacum), from which Drusus operated. A system of forts gradually developed around these bases. In 69–70, all the Roman fortications along the Rhine and Danube were destroyed by Germanic insurrections and civil war between the legions. At the conclusion of this violent but brief social storm they were rebuilt more extensively than before, with a road connecting Mainz and Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum).
Domitian went to war against the Chatti in 83–85, who were north of Frankfurt (in Hesse named after them). At this time the first line, or continuous fortified border, was constructed. It consisted of a cleared zone of observation, a palisade where practicable, wooden watchtowers and forts at the road crossings. The system reached maximum extent by 90. A Roman road went through the Odenwald and a network of secondary roads connected all the forts and towers.
Defensive strategy.
The plan governing the development of the limes was relatively simple. From a strategic point of view, the Agri Decumates, or region between the Rhine and Danube, offers a bulge in the line between the Celts and the Germanics, which the Germanics had tried to exploit under Ariovistus. The bulge divided the densely populated Celtic settlements along the entire river system in two. Invading forces could move up under cover of the Black Forest. Roman defensive works therefore cut across the base of the bulge, denying the protected corridor and shortening the line.
The key point was the shoulder of the bulge at Mogontiacum (Mainz) where the "masse de manoevre" or strategic reserves were located. The forts through the forest were relatively lightly defended and on that account were always being burned by the Alamanni. They gave advance notice, however. On being notified, the legions would strike out in preventative and punitive expeditions from Mainz or Strasburg, or Augsburg on the other side.
The entire system could only succeed if heavy troop concentrations were kept at Mainz. Fixed defenses alone are not much of a defense, in either ancient or modern times. Other forces are required for attack. At best the fixed defenses serve to warn or delay until a counterattack can be launched. For more complete details on the development of the limes, or frontier, see under "Limes Germanicus".
In the subsequent peaceful years, the limes lost its temporary character. Vici, or communities, developed around the forts. By 150, the towers and the bases had been rebuilt in stone. The soldiers now lived in good stone barracks within walls decorated by frescoes. Germanic civilization had changed as well. Where Caesar had described burning the wretched brush hovels of the Suebi who had come to fight for Ariovistus, the Chatti and the Alamanni now lived in comfortable Romanized villages around the limes.
Germania Superior was reestablished as an Imperial Roman province in 90, taking large amounts of territory from Gallia Lugdunensis. One of its first and most famous governors was the future Emperor Trajan, who ruled the province from 96 until his accession in 98. The Helvetii settlement area became part of the province of "Germania Superior".
End of the province.
Post 400, as Rome slowly was losing control over its northernmost provinces over a period of 50 years, the southern (Swiss) parts of Germania Superior were incorporated into the Provincia Maxima Sequanorum before they became part of Burgundy in the early 5th century. The northern parts became part of Alemannia.


Banu Amrus


Makedonomachoi


Battle of Carteia (naval)

The Battle of Carteia was a naval battle of the Second Punic War, fought between the navy of the Roman Republic and a Carthaginian fleet in 206 BC near the ancient city of Carteia in southern Spain. The Roman navy was commanded by Gaius Laelius and the Carthaginian navy by Adherbal. The battle resulted in a Roman victory.
Context.
After the Carthaginian defeat at the Battle of Ilipa, the Turdetani flocked en masse to the Roman banner. Hasdrubal Gisco and Mago, son of Hamilcar, were thereafter confined with their troops to Gades where they were protected from a Roman assault. After the Revolt of Sucro and the Revolt of Indíbil and Mandonio, Publius Cornelius Scipio sent Lucius Marcius Septimus with a small force uninhibited by baggage so as to augment their speed down the Guadalquivir River to the river mouth where he encountered the Carthaginian prefect Hanno (not to be confused with Hanno the Elder) who was attempting to recruit mercenaries for Mago. The Battle of Guadalquivir ensued resulting in another Carthaginian defeat.
Gaius Laelius was, at this time, in command of a small fleet of one quinquereme and seven triremes. He sailed to the port of Carteia where the local Punic population conspired to provide access to their city to the Romans. Mago discovered their conspiracy and the responsible parties were detained, locked up, and deported to Carthage by a fleet commanded by Adherbal, the governor of Gades. This fleet was composed of one quinquereme and eight triremes.
The battle.
When the Carthaginian navy was spotted leaving Carteia, Laelius' fleet gave battle in a formation where his own quinquereme was at the head of his fleet. He successfully surprised Adherbal, who was obliged to fight as the sea currents made an escape impossible.
The clashing of the fleets was a chaotic affair as the triremes jockeyed about with difficulty. There were numerous smaller battles between the ships and acts of bravery on both sides. After some time, Laelius' quinquereme was able to sink two of the Carthaginian triremes and to incapacitate a third.
Adherbal, conceding defeat, aimed his ship's bow towards the African coast and fled the action. Laelius made his way back to Carteia, where he was informed that the conspiracy at Gades had been discovered and that the responsible parties had been sent off to Carthage.
Consequences.
Scipio gave Laelius and Marcius orders to retire. Mago embarked the last of his forces, consisting of a few thousand troops, and departed for Cartago Nova. There he anchored his fleet and disembarked his troops to lay siege to the city, which was under Roman control. The Carthaginian army was repulsed at the Battle of Cartagena in 206 BC.
Mago returned to Gades, where he found that the local population had shut the gates on him, as they had been in negotiations with the Romans. Shortly thereafter, Mago abandoned the city and sailed to the Balearic Islands, spending the winter at Maó-Mahón. The following year, he sailed north to Italy, where he hoped to instigate the Ligures to revolt against the Romans.


Zenobia (Albinoni)

Zenobia, regina de’ Palmireni (Zenobia, Queen of the Palmyrans) is an opera in three acts by Tomaso Albinoni with a libretto by Antonio Marchi. It was Albinoni’s first opera, written when he was only 23, and was first performed at the 1694 carnival at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. The work was popular and performances continued for several weeks. Albinoni was also the first composer to write an opera on the theme of Zenobia.
Action.
Zenobia (soprano), queen of Palmyra, has been defeated by the Roman emperor Aureliano (alto) because of the treachery of the governor of Palmyra, Ormonte (tenor), who hopes to marry his daughter Filidea (soprano) to the emperor. Zenobia refuses to submit to him, even when he offers to marry her. Infuriated, Aureliano decides to put Zenobia and her son to death, but when he overhears Ormonte offer to kill him and Zenobia refuses, he thinks better of it. Instead, Aureliano restores Zenobia to her throne. Ormonte is exiled and unity and order restored.
The above Happy ending is contradictory to the facts of recorded history. Zenobia was taken as a captive to Rome, some sources state that she was ultimately beheaded, others that Aurelian spared her life and allowed her to live as private citizen. In either case, unlike in the opera, Zenobia's throne was irrevocably lost and her kingdom annexed to the Roman Empire.
Style.
Marchi’s libretto did not give his characters great emotional presence and offered little insight into their motivations. Albinoni was an experienced writer of instrumental music but a newcomer to opera; the sung music he wrote consisted mostly of standard da capo arias which overall lacked great dramatic power. The arias are generally short to keep the action moving and provide interest through contrast.
Modern revival.
The opera’s first modern performance was at the Damascus Opera House in 2008. It was also performed at La Fenice in Venice in 2018.


Domenico Sacchinelli

Domenico Sacchinelli (18 April 1766 - 6 July 1844) was an abbot of the Catholic church. He's best known for having followed and helped Fabrizio Ruffo and the "Sanfedisti" army to restore the Kingdom of Naples and the Bourbon dynasty, after the short-lived Parthenopean Republic (1799). In 1836, after a few decades, he published his memoirs of that period, titled "Memorie storiche sulla vita del cardinale Fabrizio Ruffo".
Life.
Domenico Sacchinelli was born in Pizzoni, Calabria (Italy), from Francesco Sacchinelli and Serafina Conciatore, who decided to give him a good education; they also wanted him to become a monk. Nonetheless, when he was just 18 years old, he decided to leave his hometown in order to get a job as a scribe in the city of Catanzaro, inside the "Cassa sacra"; this was an institution founded by king Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies to recover from the earthquake occurred in 1783. In this new position, thanks to the rigid education he had been given, he proved to be highly skilled and professional in his job, and because of this he was highly respected by his superior, the auditor and government inspector Carlo Pedicini, who wanted Sacchinelli to work for him in his new seat in Monteleone. There he could continue his education and in 1794 he was ordained as priest, thus becoming the priest in the diocese of Mileto.
The activities carried out inside the diocese and his intellectual skills (reported by his superiors) managed to bring him closer to Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, who was then in Calabria, busy in recruiting militias, which would form the Christian Royal Army, (, later known as Army of Holy Faith ). Ruffo wanted him to join the espedition, hiring him as undersecretary (), with a wage of twenty ducats per month
This episode was crucial in Sacchinelli's life, who switched from being a humble priest in a small town to being involved in battles which led to the fall of the Parthenopean Republic (1799) and to the Restoration of the Bourbon kings. In this period, he was close to Cardinal Ruffo, sharing all the most delicate moments and decision; later in his life, he wrote a memoir on Ruffo's life.
After the restoration, he continued to collaborate with Ruffo, travelling between Rome, Naples, Palermo and Paris and following, as a secretary, Ruffo's affairs. In this period, he was also promoted abbot, but the exact date is unknown. He's also remembered in history as an abbot, but he probably didn't belong to any religious order, and he may instead have been a "secular abbot".
On August 1823, he had the privilege to join the Conclave, where new Pope Leo XII was elected, following also in this situation the Cardinal Ruffo, who wanted Sacchinelli to accompany him as a conclavist.
After this last period in Naples, he eventually returned to his hometown Pizzoni after having been away from home for so long (except some short periods). He bought the from the "Cassa sacra", the ruins of what once was the ancient convent of San Basilio and the nearby church names "Chiesa del soccorso". On the area of the convent, he built a small building, for himself and his relatives, while the reconstruction of the church, later called "Vergine Santissima del Rosario", was attended by his two nieces Fortunata and Rosa, both of them sisters and daughters of Sacchinelli's brother Nicola.
He eventually left Pizzoni, in order to spend the last part of his life in Monteleone, where, as proposed by Giuseppa Ruffo of the princes of Scilla, wife of senator Enrico Gagliardi, was hired by don Francesco Gagliardi marquis of Panaya as his advisor, confirming the high esteem and trust gained by Sacchinelli among the most prominent members ruling class of the time.


Margus (city)

Margus was an ancient Roman city situated at locality of present-day Požarevac (Serbia). Latin name "Margus" was in use after the Roman conquest in the first century BC. Before the Roman conquest, the area was inhabited by Thracians, Dacians and Celts. Nearby Viminacium was the provincial capital of Moesia Superior, of which Margus was part.
In 435, the city of Margus, under the Eastern Roman Empire, was the site of a treaty between the Byzantine Empire and the Hun leaders Attila and Bleda. One pretext for the Hun invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire in 442 was that the Bishop of Margus had crossed the Danube to ransack and desecrate the royal Hun graves on the north bank of the Danube. When the Romans discussed handing over the Bishop, he slipped away and betrayed the city to the Huns, who then sacked the city and went on to invade as far as the gates of Constantinople itself.


List of Castilian counts

This is a list of counts of Castile.
The County of Castile had its origin in a fortified march on the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Asturias. The earliest counts were not hereditary, being appointed as representatives of the Asturian king. From as early as 867, with the creation of the County of Álava, Castile was subdivided into several smaller counties that were not reunited until 931. In the later 10th-century, while nominally in vassalage to the Kingdom of León, the counts grew in autonomy and played a significant role in Iberian politics. After the assassination in 1029 of Count García Sánchez of Castile, King Sancho III of Pamplona, because of his marriage to Muniadona, García's sister, governed the county although he never held the title of count: it was his son, Ferdinand Sánchez, the future King Ferdinand I of León who inherited the county from his mother.
Near the end of 1063, Fernando I convened the "Curia regis" to announce his testamentary dispositions pursuant to which he had decided to divide his dominions among his sons. His firstborn, Sancho, became the first king of the former county and reigned as Sancho II of Castile.
Counts of Castile.
"Beni Mamaduna".
Following the appointment of Fernán González in 931 to succeed both Gutier Núñez and Álvaro Herraméliz, he reunited the divided counties of Castile, Burgos, Álava, Cerezo and Lantarón into what would become a single semi-autonomous hereditary county of Castile. Al Andalus sources referred to the family as the "Beni Mamaduna", the descendants of Muniadona, Fernán's mother.
Jiménez Dynasty.
With the death of Garcia Sánchez, the county of Castile passed to the family of his eldest sister, Muniadona of Castile, wife of Sancho III of Pamplona. Sancho thus became "de facto" ruler of Castile, though he was never its count, nominating his younger son to succeed Garcia.


Mary Edwards (human computer)

Mary Edwards (c. 1750 – September 1815) was a human computer for the British Nautical Almanac and one of a very few women paid directly by the Board of Longitude, and to earn a living from scientific work at the time.
She was one of 35 human computers who calculated the position of the sun, moon and planets at different times of day for annual nautical almanacs used for navigation at sea.
Work.
Edwards was introduced to the almanac project and to Nevil Maskelyne, the fifth English Astronomer Royal, through her husband John Edwards (c 1748–1784) who had taken on piece-work as a computer to supplement the family income and received payment for work on 6 months' worth of each almanac from 1773 until his death in 1784. It was revealed that Mary had done most of the calculations when she wrote to Maskelyne to ask if she could continue work to support herself and her daughters after her husband's death. On her husband’s death Mary Edwards officially took over his computing work on a full-time basis and as her sole source of income. Maskelyne may have known all along that She undertook the calculations because he had visited the family on several occasions. However when Maskelyne died in 1811 she found that the new Astronomer Royal John Pond did not give her enough work. The Board of Longitude eventually ruled that Pond should continue to allocate work to her. Over time, her reputation for reliability and accuracy meant she could take on more work. She continued until her death in 1815.
Family.
Her daughter, Eliza Edwards (1779-1846), also worked as a computer, initially helping from a young age and then independently after her mother's death in 1815. She continued to work for the Nautical Almanac until 1832, at which date computing work was centralised in London and in the new HM Nautical Almanac Office there was no place for women employees as Civil Service rules made the employment of women very difficult.
Recognition.
The minor planet 12627 Maryedwards was named in her honour.


Edward Berry (actor)

Edward Berry (1706-1760) was a British stage actor. He was a long-standing member of the Drury Lane company, appearing frequently with David Garrick.


St James Street, Monmouth

St James Street is a historic street in the town centre of Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales. It appears as a segment of Whitecross Street on the 1610 map of the town by cartographer John Speed and is within the medieval town walls. On more recent maps, it extends from St James Square southwest to Almshouse Street. In 2010, the street was the site of discovery of Mesolithic era artefacts. St James Street is lined with numerous listed buildings.
History and location.
By the 14th century, a portion of the street plan of Monmouth had been determined. St James Street is located within the medieval walls of the town, built around 1300. It is depicted on the map of Monmouth (pictured below) created by John Speed in 1610. However, it is not referred to as St James Street on the map. Rather, as discussed by author William Meyler Warlow in 1899, Whitecross Street extended from Church Street all the way to Weirhead Street. Not only was St James Street part of Whitecross Street, so was Almshouse Street. St James Street is a more recent title. Further, the author relates that Whitecross Street derived its name from a white cross which was positioned in the future St James Square near the Dispensary. Inspection of Speed's map reveals the symbol of a cross near East Gate (Dixton Gate), at the expected level of St James Square.
St James Street intersects with the eastern end of St James Square, extending southwest to continue as Almshouse Street. The southern portion intersects with Wyebridge Street from the east. Beyond that, the southern tip of the street also intersects with St Mary's Street from the west. The buildings along the northwest side of St James Street are somewhat more ornate than those on the opposite side. On 8 November 2010, the "BBC News" reported that during the course of gas main replacement work at nearby St James Square and Wyebridge Street, Mesolithic era artefacts, including flints, were excavated "(link to photograph of flints below)". This represented the first discovery of Mesolithic human settlement in Monmouth. An article by Sion Morgan of the "Western Mail" which also ran on 8 Nov 2010 in "Wales Online" suggested that similar artefacts were found in St James Street as well.
The buildings.
The Queens Head at 1 St James Street is a 16th or 17th-century, grade II listed building. While the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and author John Newman indicate that it was constructed in 1630, other sources suggest that it was built in the 16th century. Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) is reputed to have frequented the accommodations at the Queens Head, and to have been the object of an assassination attempt at the inn. The building, which is on the southeast side of the street, was renovated in 1922. At that time, it received a timbered facade from Harry A. Dancey of Gloucester. The oriel window was present before the 1922 updating. The interior has an early 17th-century plaster ceiling. The building was listed on 27 June 1952, in part for the nature of its east gable end. In 2005, a group of Monmouth business people entered into a joint venture and assumed the tenancy of the building to form a community pub. The Queens Head currently serves as a public house, live music venue, restaurant, and bed and breakfast, and is run by only one member of the original, 2005 group.
Clent House at 5 St James Street is a late 18th-century, grade II listed building. The three-storey, brick house is remarkable for a pedimented, Doric entrance with a fanlight. The slate roof has a single dormer. The building was grade II listed on 27 June 1952.
The Grange at 12-16 St James Street consists of three connected buildings, all grade II listed, on the northwest side of the street. The three-storey, five-bay, main building features a pedimented, Doric entrance with a transom and a firemark. The 18th-century, listed building has a slate roof. The Grange, until recently one of the schools of the Haberdashers' Company, has served as a preparatory school for boys ages seven to eleven. In August 2010, the Monmouthshire County Council released details of an application to convert the prep school to a boarding house. In December 2010, it was announced that permission for the redevelopment of the school as a boarding house had been granted. The conversion of The Grange is a component of the first phase of The Heart Project, a substantial renovation of Monmouth School which has recently been undertaken. The new boarding house opened in September 2011.
18 St James Street, on the northwest side of the street, is described by author Newman as "something out of the ordinary." The 19th-century, three-storey building features a pedimented entrance with a radiating bar fanlight. The Ionic columns have angled volutes and the door is asymmetrically positioned.
The Hame on St James Street is also referred to as Kingdom Hall in one record. The early 19th-century, two-storey, listed building has a stucco exterior and a slate roof. It was grade II listed on 27 June 1952.
Kingdom Hall, a listed building on St James Street, is home to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Monmouth Methodist Church, also referred to as the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, wasn't built until 1837, although the congregation had purchased a parcel of land at St James Street for £500 at the turn of the 19th century. At that time, various Monmouth congregations were outgrowing their chapels. The building was designed by architect George Vaughan Maddox, who utilized a similar design for the Masonic Hall on Monk Street in 1846. By law, denominations that were considered to be Nonconformist were required to site their buildings in an inconspicuous area behind buildings along the street. The Methodist chapel was considered Nonconformist and, therefore, was set back from the street. (The regulation may have initially been enacted to target Catholics.) The building underwent renovation of its interior in 1885, including raising of the floor, to reduce the dominance of the pulpit. The Methodist chapel has a classical design with a gable entrance. The exterior is stucco, and there is a pedimented facade with a three-bay elevation, and Ionic columns at the ground and upper levels. The ground level windows are rectangular and pedimented, while the upper level windows are round-headed. The interior features Ionic columns, a prominent pulpit, coved ceilings, and high windows. The building was grade II* listed on 27 June 1952. Listing information indicates that it has "exceptional architectural interest as an important historic building with a well preserved interior." In September 2011, the Monmouth Methodist Church was one of the participants in "Open Doors 2011, European Heritage Days in Wales," welcoming members of the community into their facilities.
21 St James Street is a 19th-century, listed building. The three-storey, one bay elevation features an exterior which is stucco on the ground floor and roughcast on the upper levels. The entrance is to the right, with a canted bay to the left.
23 and 25 St James Street were grade II listed on 15 August 1974.


Alaric I

Alaric I (; , , "ruler of all"; ; c. 370 – 410 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia – territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.
Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the Roman army. Once an ally of Rome under the Emperor Theodosius, Alaric helped defeat the Franks and other allies of a would-be Roman usurper. Despite losing many thousands of his men, he received little recognition from Rome and left the Roman army disappointed. After the death of Theodosius and the disintegration of the Roman armies in 395, he is described as king of the Visigoths. As the leader of the only effective field force remaining in the Balkans, he sought Roman legitimacy, never quite achieving a position acceptable to himself or to the Roman authorities.
He operated mainly against the successive Western Roman regimes, and marched into Italy, where he died. He is responsible for the sack of Rome in 410, one of several notable events in the Western Roman Empire's eventual decline.
Early life, federate status in the Balkans.
According to Jordanes, a 6th-century Roman bureaucrat of Gothic origin—who later turned his hand to history—Alaric was born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania and belonged to the noble Balti dynasty of the Tervingian Goths. There is no way to verify this claim. Historian Douglas Boin does not make such an unequivocal assessment about Alaric's Gothic heritage and instead claims he came from either the Tervingi or the Greuthung tribes. When the Goths suffered setbacks against the Huns, they made a mass migration across the Danube, and fought a war with Rome. Alaric was probably a child during this period who grew up along Rome's periphery. Alaric's upbringing was shaped by living along the border of Roman territory in a region that the Romans viewed as a veritable "backwater"; some four centuries before, the Roman poet Ovid regarded the area along the Danube and Black Sea where Alaric was reared as a land of "barbarians", among "the most remote in the vast world."
Alaric's childhood in the Balkans, where the Goths had settled by way of an agreement with Theodosius, was spent in the company of veterans who had fought at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, during which they had annihilated much of the Eastern army and killed Emperor Valens. Imperial campaigns against the Visigoths were conducted until a treaty was reached in 382. This treaty was the first "foedus" on imperial Roman soil and required these semi-autonomous Germanic tribes—among whom Alaric was raised—to supply troops for the Roman army in exchange for peace, control of cultivatable land, and freedom from Roman direct administrative control. Correspondingly, there was hardly a region along the Roman frontier during Alaric's day without Gothic slaves and servants of one form or another. For several subsequent decades, many Goths like Alaric were "called up into regular units of the eastern field army" while others served as auxiliaries in campaigns led by Theodosius against the western usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius.
Rebellion against Rome, rise to Gothic leadership.
A new phase in the relationship between the Goths and the empire resulted from the treaty signed in 382, as more and more Goths attained aristocratic rank from their service in the imperial army. Alaric began his military career under the Gothic soldier Gainas, and later joined the Roman army. He first appeared as leader of a mixed band of Goths and allied peoples, who invaded Thrace in 391 but were stopped by the half-Vandal Roman General Stilicho. While the Roman poet Claudian belittled Alaric as "a little-known menace" terrorizing southern Thrace during this time, Alaric's abilities and forces were formidable enough to prevent the Roman Emperor Theodosius from crossing the Maritsa River.
Service under Theodosius I.
By 392, Alaric had entered Roman military service, which coincided with a reduction of hostilities between Goths and Romans. In 394, he led a Gothic force that helped Emperor Theodosius defeat the Frankish usurper Arbogast—fighting at the behest of Eugenius—at the Battle of Frigidus. Despite sacrificing around 10,000 of his men, who had been victims of Theodosius' callous tactical decision to overwhelm the enemies front lines using Gothic "foederati", Alaric received little recognition from the emperor. Alaric was among the few who survived the protracted and bloody affair. Many Romans considered it their "gain" and a victory that so many Goths had died during the Battle of Frigidus River. Recent biographer, Douglas Boin, posits that seeing ten thousand of his (Alaric's) dead kinsmen likely elicited questions about what kind of ruler Theodosius actually had been and whether remaining in direct Roman service was best for men like him. Refused the reward he expected, which included a promotion to the position of Magister militum and command of regular Roman units, Alaric mutinied and began to march against Constantinople.
On 17 January 395, Theodosius died of an illness, leaving his two young and incapable sons Arcadius and Honorius in Stilicho's guardianship. Modern writers regard Alaric as king of the Visigoths from 395. According to historian Peter Heather, it is not entirely clear in the sources if Alaric rose to prominence at the time the Goths revolted following Theodosius's death, or if he had already risen within his tribe as early as the war against Eugenius. Whatever the circumstances, Jordanes recorded that the new king persuaded his people to "seek a kingdom by their own exertions rather than serve others in idleness."
Semi-independent action in Eastern Roman interests, Eastern Roman recognition.
Whether or not Alaric was a member of an ancient Germanic royal clan—as claimed by Jordanes and debated by historians—is less important than his emergence as a leader, the first of his kind since Fritigern. Theodosius's death left the Roman field armies collapsing and the Empire divided again between his two sons, one taking the eastern and the other the western portion of the Empire. Stilicho made himself master of the West and attempted to establish control in the East as well, and led an army into Greece. Alaric rebelled again. Historian Roger Collins points out that while the rivalries created by the two halves of the Empire vying for power worked to Alaric's advantage and that of his people, simply being called to authority by the Gothic people did not solve the practicalities of their needs for survival. He needed Roman authority in order to be supplied by Roman cities.
Alaric took his Gothic army on what Stilicho's propagandist Claudian described as a "pillaging campaign" that began first in the East. Historian Thomas Burns' interpretation is that Alaric and his men were recruited by Rufinus's Eastern regime in Constantinople, and sent to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat. No battle took place. Alaric's forces made their way down to Athens and along the coast, where he sought to force a new peace upon the Romans. His march in 396 included passing through Thermopylae. Stilicho's propagandist Claudian accuses his troops of plundering for the next year or so as far south as the mountainous Peloponnese peninsula, and reports that only Stilicho's surprise attack with his western field army (having sailed from Italy) stemmed the plundering as he pushed Alaric's forces north into Epirus. Zosimus adds that Stilicho's troops destroyed and pillaged too, and let Alaric's men escape with their plunder.
Stilicho was forced to send some of his Eastern forces home. They went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome, who, Zosimus claims, controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep". A poem by Synesius advises Arcadius to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably referring to Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of this advice, but it had no recorded effect.
Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign indecisively against the Eastern empire; again he was opposed by Alaric and his men. During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as "magister militum per Illyricum" Alaric thus acquired entitlement to gold and grain for his followers and negotiations were underway for a more permanent settlement. Stilicho's supporters in Milan were outraged at this seeming betrayal; meanwhile, Eutropius was celebrated in 398 by a parade through Constantinople for having achieved victory over the "wolves of the North." Alaric's people were relatively quiet for the next couple of years. In 399, Eutropius fell from power. The new Eastern regime now felt that they could dispense with Alaric's services and they nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West. This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army—the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans—as a problem for Stilicho.
In search of Western Roman recognition; invading Italy.
According to historian Michael Kulikowski, sometime in the spring of 402 Alaric decided to invade Italy, but no sources from antiquity indicate to what purpose. Burns suggests that Alaric was probably desperate for provisions. Using Claudian as his source, historian Guy Halsall reports that Alaric's attack actually began in late 401, but since Stilicho was in "Raetia" "dealing with frontier issues" the two did not first confront one another in Italy until 402. Alaric's entry into Italy followed the route identified in the poetry of Claudian, as he crossed the peninsula's Alpine frontier near the city of Aquileia. For a period of six to nine months, there were reports of Gothic attacks along the northern Italian roads, where Alaric was spotted by Roman townspeople. Along the route on "Via Postumia", Alaric first encountered Stilicho.
Two battles were fought. The first was at Pollentia on Easter Sunday, where Stilicho (according to Claudian) achieved an impressive victory, taking Alaric's wife and children prisoner, and more significantly, seizing much of the treasure that Alaric had amassed over the previous five years' worth of plundering. Pursuing the retreating forces of Alaric, Stilicho offered to return the prisoners but was refused. The second battle was at Verona, where Alaric was defeated for a second time. Stilicho once again offered Alaric a truce and allowed him to withdraw from Italy. Kulikowski explains this confusing, if not outright conciliatory behavior by stating, "given Stilicho's cold war with Constantinople, it would have been foolish to destroy as biddable and violent a potential weapon as Alaric might well prove to be". Halsall's observations are similar, as he contends that the Roman general's "decision to permit Alaric's withdrawal into "Pannonia" makes sense if we see Alaric's force entering Stilicho's service, and Stilicho's victory being less total than Claudian would have us believe". Perhaps more revealing is a report from the Greek historian Zosimus—writing a half a century later—that indicates an agreement was concluded between Stilicho and Alaric in 405, which suggests Alaric being in "western service at that point", likely stemming from arrangements made back in 402. Between 404 and 405, Alaric remained in one of the four "Pannonian" provinces, from where he could "play East off against West while potentially threatening both".
Historian A.D. Lee observes, "Alaric’s return to the north-west Balkans brought only temporary respite to Italy, for in 405 another substantial body of Goths and other barbarians, this time from outside the empire, crossed the middle Danube and advanced into northern Italy, where they plundered the countryside and besieged cities and towns" under their leader Radagaisus. Although the imperial government was struggling to muster enough troops to contain these barbarian invasions, Stilicho managed to stifle the threat posed by the tribes under Radagaisus, when the latter split his forces into three separate groups. Stilicho cornered Radagaisus near Florence and starved the invaders into submission. Meanwhile, Alaric—bestowed with codicils of "magister militum" by Stilicho and now supplied by the West—awaited for one side or the other to incite him to action as Stilicho faced further difficulties from more barbarians.
Second invasion of Italy, agreement with Western Roman regime.
Sometime in 406 and into 407, more large groups of barbarians, consisting primarily of Vandals, Sueves and Alans, crossed the Rhine into Gaul while about the same time a rebellion occurred in Britain. Under a common soldier named Constantine it spread to Gaul. Burdened by so many enemies, Stilicho's position was strained. During this crisis in 407, Alaric again marched on Italy, taking a position in Noricum (modern Austria), where he demanded a sum of 4,000 pounds of gold to buy off another full-scale invasion. The Roman Senate loathed the idea of supporting Alaric; Zosimus observed that one senator famously declaimed "Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis" ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude"). Stilicho paid Alaric the 4,000 pounds of gold nevertheless. This agreement, sensible in view of the military situation, fatally weakened Stilicho's standing at Honorius's court. Twice Stilicho had allowed Alaric to escape his grasp, and Radagaisus had advanced all the way to the outskirts of Florence.
Renewed hostilities after Western Roman coup.
In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself. He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before Stilicho could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Honorius's minister, Olympius. Stilicho's small escort of Goths and Huns was commanded by a Goth, Sarus, whose Gothic troops massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and then withdrew towards the cities in which their own families were billeted. Stilicho ordered that Sarus's Goths should not be admitted, but, now without an army, he was forced to flee for sanctuary. Agents of Olympius promised Stilicho his life, but instead betrayed and killed him.
Alaric was again declared an enemy of the Emperor. Olympius's men then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected "en masse" to Alaric. Many thousands of barbarian auxiliaries, along with their wives and children, joined Alaric in Noricum. The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate, and had no policy except hunting down supporters of Stilicho. Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter.
As a declared 'enemy of the Emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes, but he was refused because Olympius's regime regarded him as a supporter of Stilicho.
First siege of Rome, agreed ransom.
When Alaric was rebuffed, he led his force of around 30,000 men—many newly enlisted and understandably motivated—on a march toward Rome to avenge their murdered families. He moved across the Julian Alps into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and in September 408 he menaced the city of Rome, imposing a strict blockade. No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. When the ambassadors of the Senate, entreating for peace, tried to intimidate him with hints of what the despairing citizens might accomplish, he laughed and gave his celebrated answer: "The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!" After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper. Alaric also recruited some 40,000 freed Gothic slaves. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome.
Failed agreement with the Western Romans, Alaric sets up his own emperor.
After having provisionally agreed to the terms offered by Alaric for lifting the blockade, Honorius recanted; historian A.D. Lee highlights that one of the points of contention for the emperor was Alaric's expectation of being named head of the Roman Army, a post Honorius was not prepared to grant to Alaric. When this title was not bestowed onto Alaric, he proceeded to not only "besiege Rome again in late 409, but also to proclaim a leading senator, Priscus Attalus, as a rival emperor, from whom Alaric then received the appointment" he desired. Meanwhile, Alaric's newly appointed "emperor" Attalus, who seems not to have understood the limits of his power or his dependence on Alaric, failed to take Alaric's advice and lost the grain supply in Africa to a pro-Honorian "comes Africae", Heraclian. Then, sometime in 409, Attalus—accompanied by Alaric—marched on Ravenna and after receiving unprecedented terms and concessions from the legitimate emperor Honorius, refused him and instead demanded that Honorius be deposed and exiled. Fearing for his safety, Honorius made preparations to flee to Ravenna when a ship carrying 4,000 troops arrived from Constantinople, restoring his resolve. Now that Honorius no longer felt the need to negotiate, Alaric (regretting his choice of puppet emperor) deposed Attalus, perhaps to re-open negotiations with Ravenna.
Sack of Rome.
Negotiations with Honorius might have succeeded had it not been for another intervention by Sarus, of the Amal family, and therefore a hereditary enemy of Alaric and his house. He attacked Alaric's men. Why Sarus, who had been in imperial service for years under Stilicho, acted at this moment remains a mystery, but Alaric interpreted this attack as directed by Ravenna and as bad faith from Honorius. No longer would negotiations suffice for Alaric, as his patience had reached its end, which led him to march on Rome for a third and final time.
On 24 August 410, Alaric and his forces began the sack of Rome, an assault that lasted three days. After hearing reports that Alaric had entered the city—possibly aided by Gothic slaves inside—there were reports that Emperor Honorius (safe in Ravenna) broke into "wailing and lamentation" but quickly calmed once "it was explained to him that it was the city of Rome that had met its end and not 'Roma'," his pet fowl. Writing from Bethlehem, St. Jerome (Letter 127.12, to the lady "Principia") lamented: "A dreadful rumour reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold . . . The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell to the sword." Nonetheless, Christian apologists also cited how Alaric ordered that anyone who took shelter in a Church was to be spared. When liturgical vessels were taken from the basilica of St. Peter and Alaric heard of this, he ordered them returned and had them ceremoniously restored in the church. If the account from the historian Orosius can be seen as accurate, there was even a celebratory recognition of Christian unity by way of a procession through the streets where Romans and barbarians alike "raised a hymn to God in public"; historian Edward James concludes that such stories are likely more political rhetoric of the "noble" barbarians than a reflection of historical reality.
According to historian Patrick Geary, Roman booty was not the focus of Alaric's sack of Rome; he came for needed food supplies. Historian Stephen Mitchell asserts that Alaric's followers seemed incapable of feeding themselves and relied on provisions "supplied by the Roman authorities." Whatever Alaric's intentions were cannot be known entirely, but Kulikowski certainly sees the issue of available treasure in a different light, writing that "For three days, Alaric’s Goths sacked the city, stripping it of the wealth of centuries." The barbarian invaders were not gentle in their treatment of property as substantial damage was still evident into the sixth century. Certainly the Roman world was shaken by the fall of the Eternal City to barbarian invaders, but as Guy Halsall emphasizes, "Rome’s fall had less striking political effects. Alaric, unable to treat with Honorius, remained in the political cold." Kulikowski sees the situation similarly, commenting:
But for Alaric the sack of Rome was an admission of defeat, a catastrophic failure. Everything he had hoped for, had fought for over the course of a decade and a half, went up in flames with the capital of the ancient world. Imperial office, a legitimate place for himself and his followers inside the empire, these were now forever out of reach. He might seize what he wanted, as he had seized Rome, but he would never be given it by right. The sack of Rome solved nothing and when the looting was over Alaric’s men still had nowhere to live and fewer future prospects than ever before.
Still, the importance of Alaric cannot be "overestimated" according to Halsall, since he had desired and obtained a Roman command even though he was a barbarian; his real misfortune was being caught between the rivalry of the Eastern and Western empires and their court intrigue. According to historian Peter Brown, when one compares Alaric with other barbarians, "he was almost an Elder Statesman." Nonetheless, Alaric's respect for Roman institutions as a former servant to its highest office did not stay his hand in violently sacking the city that had for centuries exemplified Roman glory, leaving behind physical destruction and social disruption, while Alaric took clerics and even the emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, with him when he left the city. Many other Italian communities beyond the city of Rome itself fell victim to the forces under Alaric, as Procopius ("Wars" 3.2.11–13) writing in the sixth-century later relates:
For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated.
Whether Alaric's forces wrought the level of destruction described by Procopius or not cannot be known, but evidence speaks to a significant population decrease, as the number of people on the food dole dropped from 800,000 in 408 to 500,000 by 419. Rome's fall to the barbarians was as much a psychological blow to the empire as anything else, since some Romans citizens saw the collapse as resulting from the conversion to Christianity, while Christian apologists like Augustine (writing "City of God") responded in turn. Lamenting Rome's capture, famed Christian theologian Jerome, wrote how "day and night" he could not stop thinking of everyone's safety, and moreover, how Alaric had extinguished "the bright light of all the world." Some contemporary Christian observers even saw Alaric—himself a Christian—as God's wrath upon a still pagan Rome.
Move to southern Italy, death from disease.
Not only had Rome's sack been a significant blow to the Roman people's morale, they had also endured two years' worth of trauma brought about by fear, hunger (due to blockades), and illness. However, the Goths were not long in the city of Rome, as only three days after the sack, Alaric marched his men south to Campania, from where he intended to sail to Sicily—probably to obtain grain and other supplies—when a storm destroyed his fleet. During the early months of 411, while on his northward return journey through Italy, Alaric took ill and died at Consentia in Bruttium. His cause of death was likely fever, and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento in accordance with the pagan practices of the Visigothic people. The stream was temporarily turned aside from its course while the grave was dug, wherein the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were interred. When the work was finished, the river was turned back into its usual channel and the captives by whose hands the labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret.
Aftermath.
Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius' sister Galla Placidia three years later. Following in the wake of Alaric's leadership, which Kulikowski claims, had given his people "a sense of community that survived his own death...Alaric’s Goths remained together inside the empire, going on to settle in Gaul. There, in the province of Aquitaine, they put down roots and created the first autonomous barbarian kingdom inside the frontiers of the Roman empire." The Goths were able to settle in Aquitaine only after Honorius granted the once Roman province to them, sometime in 418 or 419. Not long after Alaric's exploits in Rome and Athaulf's settlement in Aquitaine, there is a "rapid emergence of Germanic barbarian groups in the West" who begin controlling many western provinces. These barbarian peoples included: Vandals in Spain and Africa, Visigoths in Spain and Aquitaine, Burgundians along the upper Rhine and southern Gaul, and Franks on
the lower Rhine and in northern and central Gaul.
Sources.
The chief authorities on the career of Alaric are: the historian Orosius and the poet Claudian, both contemporary, neither disinterested; Zosimus, a historian who lived probably about half a century after Alaric's death; and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation in 551, basing his work on Cassiodorus's "Gothic History".