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🔗 Religion 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Middle Ages 🔗 Middle Ages/History 🔗 Cryptography 🔗 Cryptography/Computer science 🔗 Latin 🔗 Christianity 🔗 Jewish history 🔗 Occult 🔗 Mysticism

The Sator Square (or Rotas Square) is a word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome. The earliest form has ROTAS as the top line, but in time the version with SATOR on the top line became dominant. It is a 5X5 square made up of five 5-letter words, thus consisting of 25 letters in total. These 25 letters are all derived from 8 Latin letters: 5 consonants (S, T, R, P, N) and 3 vowels (A, E, O).

In particular, this is a square 2D palindrome, which is when a square text admits four symmetries: identity, two diagonal reflections, and 180 degree rotation. As can be seen, the text may be read top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, left-to-right, or right-to-left; and it may be rotated 180 degrees and still be read in all those ways.

The Sator Square is the earliest dateable 2D palindrome. It was found in the ruins of Pompeii, at Herculaneum, a city buried in the ash of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It consists of a sentence written in Latin: "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas." Its translation has been the subject of speculation with no clear consensus; see below for details.

Other 2D Palindrome examples may be found carved on stone tablets or pressed into clay before being fired.

🔗 Religion 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Iraq 🔗 Christianity

Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Arabic: مَنْدَائِيَّة‎, Mandāʾīyah), also known as Sabaeanism (Arabic: صَابِئِيَّة‎, Ṣābiʾīyah), is a monotheistic and gnostic religion with a strongly dualistic cosmology. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Aram, and especially John the Baptist. The Mandaeans have been counted among the Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. The name 'Mandaean' is said to come from the Aramaic manda meaning "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis. Within the Middle East, but outside of their community, the Mandaeans are more commonly known as the Ṣubba (singular: Ṣubbī) or Sabians. The term Ṣubba is derived from the Aramaic root related to baptism, the neo-Mandaic is Ṣabi. In Islam, the "Sabians" (Arabic: الصَّابِئُون‎, aṣ-Ṣābiʾūn) are described several times in the Quran as People of the Book, alongside Jews and Christians. Occasionally, Mandaeans are called "Christians of Saint John".

According to most scholars, Mandaeaism originated sometime in the first three centuries AD, in either southwestern Mesopotamia or the Syro-Palestinian area. However, some scholars take the view that Mandaeanism is older and dates from pre-Christian times.

The religion has been practised primarily around the lower Karun, Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. There are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide. Until the Iraq War, almost all of them lived in Iraq. Many Mandaean Iraqis have since fled their country because of the turmoil created by the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation by U.S. armed forces, and the related rise in sectarian violence by Muslim extremists. By 2007, the population of Mandaeans in Iraq had fallen to approximately 5,000.

The Mandaeans have remained separate and intensely private. Reports of them and of their religion have come primarily from outsiders: particularly from Julius Heinrich Petermann, an Orientalist as well as from Nicolas Siouffi, a Syrian Christian who was the French vice-consul in Mosul in 1887, and British cultural anthropologist Lady E. S. Drower. There is an early if highly prejudiced account by the French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier from the 1650s.

🔗 Death 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Women's History

Laudatio Turiae ("In praise of Turia") is a tombstone engraved with a carved epitaph that is a husband's eulogy of his wife. It was made in the late 1st century BC. It portrays the love of a husband for his loyal wife.

🔗 London 🔗 British Museum 🔗 BBC 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Archaeology 🔗 Rome 🔗 East Anglia 🔗 East Anglia/Suffolk

The Hoxne Hoard ( HOK-sən) is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992. The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £3.79 million in 2021).

The hoard was buried in an oak box or small chest filled with items in precious metal, sorted mostly by type, with some in smaller wooden boxes and others in bags or wrapped in fabric. Remnants of the chest and fittings, such as hinges and locks, were recovered in the excavation. The coins of the hoard date it after AD 407, which coincides with the end of Britain as a Roman province. The owners and reasons for burial of the hoard are unknown, but it was carefully packed and the contents appear consistent with what a single very wealthy family might have owned. It is likely that the hoard represents only a part of the wealth of its owner, given the lack of large silver serving vessels and of some of the most common types of jewellery.

The Hoxne Hoard contains several rare and important objects, such as a gold body-chain and silver-gilt pepper-pots (piperatoria), including the Empress pepper pot. The hoard is also of particular archaeological significance because it was excavated by professional archaeologists with the items largely undisturbed and intact. The find helped to improve the relationship between metal detectorists and archaeologists, and influenced a change in English law regarding finds of treasure.

🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Turkey 🔗 Mills

The Hierapolis sawmill was a Roman water-powered stone sawmill at Hierapolis, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Dating to the second half of the 3rd century AD, the sawmill is considered the earliest known machine to combine a crank with a connecting rod to form a crank slider mechanism.

The watermill is evidenced by a raised relief on the sarcophagus of a certain Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, a local miller. On the pediment a waterwheel fed by a mill race is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws cutting rectangular blocks by the way of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, cranks (see diagram). The accompanying inscription is in Greek and attributes the mechanism to Ammianos' "skills with wheels".

🔗 Religion 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Mythology

Glycon (Ancient Greek: Γλύκων Glýkōn, gen: Γλύκωνος Glýkōnos), also spelled Glykon, was an ancient snake god. He had a large and influential cult within the Roman Empire in the 2nd century, with contemporary satirist Lucian providing the primary literary reference to the deity. Lucian claimed Glycon was created in the mid-2nd century by the Greek prophet Alexander of Abonoteichos. Lucian was ill-disposed toward the cult, calling Alexander a false prophet and accusing the whole enterprise of being a hoax: Glycon himself was supposedly a hand puppet.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Greece 🔗 Philosophy/Ancient philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Epistemology

Pyrrhonism is an Ancient Greek school of philosophical skepticism which rejects dogma and advocates the suspension of judgement over the truth of all beliefs. It was founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BCE, and said to have been inspired by the teachings of Pyrrho and Timon of Phlius in the fourth century BCE. Pyrrhonism is best known today through the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus, writing in the late second century or early third century CE. The publication of Sextus' works in the Renaissance ignited a revival of interest in Skepticism and played a major role in Reformation thought and the development of early modern philosophy.

🔗 Architecture 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome

The Roman architectural revolution, also known as the concrete revolution, is the name sometimes given to the widespread use in Roman architecture of the previously little-used architectural forms of the arch, vault, and dome. For the first time in history, their potential was fully exploited in the construction of a wide range of civil engineering structures, public buildings, and military facilities. These included amphitheatres, aqueducts, baths, bridges, circuses, dams, roads, and temples.

A crucial factor in this development that saw a trend to monumental architecture was the invention of Roman concrete (also called opus caementicium), which led to the liberation of the shape from the dictate of the traditional materials of stone and brick.

For the first time in recorded history we find evidence of an interest in the shapes of the space contained strong enough to outweigh the functional logic of the masonry masses that contained it. There was nothing new in the employment of curvilinear or polygonal forms, as such...But in so far as such buildings incorporated curvilinear or polygonal rooms and corridors, the shapes of these were determined by the form of the building as a whole, not by any aesthetic principle.

The development of Roman architecture, however, did not remain limited to these new forms and materials. An unrelated process of architectural innovation continued unabated, which, although less conspicuous, proved their usefulness for solving structural problems and found their way permanently into Western architecture, such as the lintel arch, the independent corbel, and the metal-tie.

During the Age of Augustus, almost the entire city of Rome was rebuilt causing an influx of craftsman and architects from all across Europe. Emperor Augustus aimed to develop new ideas in the construction of his buildings that would forever defy the limits that were ever thought possible. The Mausoleum in Campus Martius was one of the major monuments built by Augustus during his reign that was made almost entirely of concrete using updated construction techniques. The concrete is used in concentric rings that support the structure of the building like walls. The Theatre of Marcellus was another concrete triumph completed during the Age of Augustus, dedicated to the nephew of the emperor. The brick-faced concrete structure construction started under Julius Caesar but was completed under Augustus. It was this building that shows the integration of new concrete building techniques of Augustus's architects as opposed to those of Caesar. The Theatre of Marcellus uses a variety of materials that aid in the growth of the concrete revolution using readily available volcanic stones such as Tuscolo tuff and Tufo Lionato as aggregates in pozzolanic concretes.

These newly concocted recipes for concrete provided durability to walls and barrelled vaults as well as a unique aesthetic appeal. The integrated stone and masonry design illustrate a refinement that came with the concrete revolution as a result of the new techniques and styles developed under Augustus. The craftsmanship of the Theatre Marcellus demonstrated a skilled employment as well as rigorous technical supervision.

🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Board and table games

Ludus latrunculorum, latrunculi, or simply latrones (“the game of brigands”, from latrunculus, diminutive of latro, mercenary or highwayman) was a two-player strategy board game played throughout the Roman Empire. It is said to resemble chess or draughts, but is generally accepted to be a game of military tactics. Because of the scarcity of sources, reconstruction of the game's rules and basic structure is difficult, and therefore there are multiple interpretations of the available evidence.

🔗 Religion 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Greece

The agōgē (Greek: ἀγωγή in Attic Greek, or ἀγωγά, agōgā in Doric Greek) was the rigorous education and training program mandated for all male Spartan citizens, except for the firstborn son in the ruling houses, Eurypontid and Agiad. The training involved cultivating loyalty to the Spartan group, military training (e.g., pain tolerance), hunting, dancing, singing, and social (communicating) preparation. The word agōgē had various meaning in ancient Greek, but in this context it generally meant leading, guidance, or training.

According to folklore, agōgē was introduced by the semi-mythical Spartan law-giver Lycurgus but its origins are thought to be between the 7th and 6th centuries BC when the state trained male citizens from the ages of seven to twenty-one.

The aim of the system was to produce strong and capable warriors to serve the Spartan army. It encouraged conformity and the importance of the Spartan state over one's personal interest and generated the future elites of Sparta. The men would become the "walls of Sparta" because Sparta was the only Greek city with no defensive walls after they had been demolished at the order of Lycurgus. Discipline was strict and the males were encouraged to fight amongst themselves to determine the strongest member of the group.

The agōgē was prestigious throughout the Greek world, and many aristocratic families from other cities vied to send their sons to Sparta to participate in the agōgē for varying periods of time. The Spartans were very selective in which young men they would permit to enroll. Such honors were usually awarded to the próxenoi (πρόξενοι) of Sparta in other cities and to a few other families of supreme ancestry and importance.