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118-582: The archaeological museum of the Campi Flegrei in the Aragonese castle contains many finds from Cumae. The oldest archaeological finds by Emil Stevens in 1896 date to 900–850 BC and more recent excavations have revealed a Bronze Age settlement of the ‘ pit-culture ’ people, and later dwellings of Iron Age Italic peoples whom the Greeks referred to by the names Ausones and Opici (whose land

236-611: A carnelian bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I , whose reign is dated to 1971–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette of the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear when they first arrived at Ugarit. In the Amarna letters , messages from Ugarit c.  1350 BC written by Ammittamru I , Niqmaddu II , and his queen have been discovered. From

354-636: A "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two areas: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms eventually came into conflict, and

472-578: A 3rd-millennium BC culture postulated based on a collection of artefacts confiscated in 2001. In modern scholarship, the chronology of the Bronze Age Levant is divided into: The term Neo-Syria is used to designate the early Iron Age . The old Syrian period was dominated by the Eblaite first kingdom , Nagar and the Mariote second kingdom . The Akkadians conquered large areas of

590-400: A Scotsman involved in the first Jacobite uprising of 1715 was recaptured (and executed) because, having escaped, he yet lingered near the place of his captivity in "the hope of recovering his favourite Titus Livius ". The authority supplying information from which possible vital data on Livy can be deduced is Eusebius of Caesarea , a bishop of the early Christian Church . One of his works

708-620: A book on geography and a daughter married Lucius Magius, a rhetorician. Titus Livius died at his home city of Patavium in AD 17. The tombstone of Livy and his wife might have been found in Padua. Livy's only surviving work is commonly known as History of Rome (or Ab Urbe Condita , 'From the Founding of the City';). Together with Polybius it is considered one of the main accounts of

826-643: A celebration of the Divine Liturgy in which Peter Mongus and other Miaphysites were named in the diptychs , an event that led to the Acacian Schism . Misenus was excommunicated on his return but was later rehabilitated and took part as bishop of Cumae in two synods of Pope Symmachus . Pope Gregory the Great entrusted the administration of the diocese of Cumae to the bishop of Misenum . Later, both Misenum and Cumae ceased to be residential sees and

944-503: A century after Livy's time, described the Emperor Augustus as his friend. Describing the trial of Cremutius Cordus , Tacitus represents him as defending himself face-to-face with the frowning Tiberius as follows: I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius , whose careers many have described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cn. Pompeius in such

1062-442: A common pastime. He was familiar with the emperor Augustus and the imperial family. Augustus was considered by later Romans to have been the greatest Roman emperor, benefiting Livy's reputation long after his death. Suetonius described how Livy encouraged the future emperor Claudius , who was born in 10 BC, to write historiographical works during his childhood. Livy's most famous work was his history of Rome . In it he narrates

1180-502: A complete history of the city of Rome, from its foundation to the death of Augustus. Because he was writing under the reign of Augustus, Livy's history emphasizes the great triumphs of Rome. He wrote his history with embellished accounts of Roman heroism in order to promote the new type of government implemented by Augustus when he became emperor. In Livy's preface to his history, he said that he did not care whether his personal fame remained in darkness, as long as his work helped to "preserve

1298-473: A panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship. Livy's reasons for returning to Padua after the death of Augustus (if he did) are unclear, but the circumstances of Tiberius 's reign certainly allow for speculation. During the Middle Ages , due to the length of the work, the literate class was already reading summaries rather than the work itself, which

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1416-402: A permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts. These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication. The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of

1534-579: A power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At its beginning, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids . However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt allied to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power during the 14th century BC, Mitanni had outposts centred on its capital, Washukanni , which archaeologists have located on

1652-416: A result, standard information in a standard rendition is used, which gives the impression of a standard set of dates for Livy. There are no such dates. A typical presumption is of a birth in the 2nd year of the 180th Olympiad and a death in the first year of the 199th Olympiad, which are coded 180.2 and 199.1 respectively. All sources use the same first Olympiad , 776/775–773/772 BC by the modern calendar. By

1770-653: A search for the now missing books. Laurentius Valla published an amended text initiating the field of Livy scholarship. Dante speaks highly of him in his poetry, and Francis I of France commissioned extensive artwork treating Livian themes; Niccolò Machiavelli 's work on republics , the Discourses on Livy , is presented as a commentary on the History of Rome . Respect for Livy rose to lofty heights. Walter Scott reports in Waverley (1814) as an historical fact that

1888-481: A small administrative town) appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC. The Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over a century later, it briefly took over the other city-states and formed the short-lived First Babylonian Empire during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period . Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia used

2006-602: A tyrant himself. It was probably at this point that Cumae founded Neapolis (“new city”) in the late 6th century BCE. Further contact between the Romans and the Cumaeans occurred during the reign of Aristodemus . Tarquinius , the last of the legendary Kings of Rome , lived his life in exile with Aristodemus at Cumae after the Battle of Lake Regillus and died there in 495 BCE. Livy records that Aristodemus became

2124-639: Is an argument to be made that the Bronze Age never properly ended in China, as there is no recognisable transition to an Iron Age. Together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a fine material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone. Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou period, which some historians argue places it within the Shang. Others believe

2242-576: Is called the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex . The Kulli culture , similar to that of the Indus Valley Civilisation , was located in southern Balochistan (Gedrosia) c.  2500–2000 BC . The economy was agricultural. Dams were found in several places, providing evidence for a highly developed water management system. Konar Sandal is associated with the hypothesized Jiroft culture ,

2360-662: Is conjectured to have been associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples , the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived into the 8th century BC. Arzawa , in Western Anatolia, during the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, likely extended along southern Anatolia in a belt from near the Turkish Lakes region to the Aegean coast. Arzawa

2478-535: Is debated among scholars. An ancient civilisation is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin , arsenic , or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere. Bronze Age cultures were the first to develop writing . According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia , which used cuneiform script, and Egypt , which used hieroglyphs , developed

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2596-526: Is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the Uralic group of languages across Europe and Asia, with extant members of the family including Hungarian , Finnish and Estonian . In China, the earliest bronze artefacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (3100–2700 BC). The term "Bronze Age" has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there

2714-456: Is in continuous use today, connected to the via Appia, the artery of communication with Rome, as well as with Pozzuoli and Naples. The arch probably replaced a smaller gate from Greek times and in a higher position. The Crypta Romana is a tunnel dug into the tufa under the Cuma hill, crossing the acropolis in an east-west direction, giving an easier route from the city to the sea. Its construction

2832-599: Is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially between 850 and 550 BC. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago. The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of

2950-523: Is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the "Bronze Age" in the context of Chinese prehistory . The "Early Bronze Age" in China is sometimes taken to be coterminous with the reign of the Shang dynasty (16th–11th centuries BC), and the Later Bronze Age with the subsequent Zhou dynasty (11th–3rd centuries BC), from the 5th century, called Iron Age China although there

3068-575: Is part of the set of military enhancement works built by Agrippa for Augustus and designed by Lucius Cocceius Auctus in 37 BC, including the construction of the new Portus Iulius and its connection with the port of Cumae through the so-called Grotta di Cocceio and the Crypta Romana itself. With the displacement of the fleet from Portus Iulius to the port of Miseno in 12 BCE and the end of the Civil War between Octavian and Mark Antony in 31 BCE

3186-656: The Chronographia , a summary of history in annalist form, and the Chronikoi Kanones , tables of years and events. St. Jerome translated the tables into Latin as the Chronicon , probably adding some information of his own from unknown sources. Livy's dates appear in Jerome's Chronicon. The main problem with the information given in the manuscripts is that, between them, they often give different dates for

3304-621: The Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae in 474 BCE. The temple of Apollo sent the revered Sibylline Books to Rome in the 5th c. BCE. Also Rome obtained its priestesses who administered the important cult of Ceres from the temple of Demeter in Cumae. The Greek period at Cumae came to an end in 421 BC, when the Oscans allied to the Samnites broke down the walls and took

3422-568: The Igeum-dong site . Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and for mortuary offerings until 100 BC. Livy Titus Livius ( Latin: [ˈtɪtʊs ˈliːwiʊs] ; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( / ˈ l ɪ v i / LIV -ee ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled Ab Urbe Condita , ''From

3540-754: The Iranian plateau , centred in Anshan . From the mid-2nd millennium BC, Elam was centred in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in both the Gutian Empire and the Iranian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it. The Oxus civilisation was a Bronze Age Central Asian culture dated c.  2300–1700 BC and centred on the upper Amu Darya ( a.k.a. ). In

3658-709: The Iron Age . Conceived as a global era, the Bronze Age follows the Neolithic , with a transition period between the two known as the Chalcolithic . The final decades of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean basin are often characterised as a period of widespread societal collapse known as the Late Bronze Age collapse ( c.  1200  – c.  1150 BC ), although its severity and scope

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3776-529: The Kassite period c.  1500  – c.  1155 BC ). The usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used in the context of Mesopotamia. Instead, a division primarily based on art and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Ur , Kish , Isin , Larsa , and Nippur in

3894-576: The Latin alphabet , still used worldwide today. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus , Cumae was at that time celebrated throughout all Italy for its riches, power, and all the other advantages, as it possessed the most fertile part of the Campanian plain and was mistress of the most convenient havens round about Misenum. The growing power of the Cumaean Greeks led many indigenous tribes of

4012-586: The Majiayao site in Gansu rather than at Xinjiang . The production of Erlitou represents the earliest large-scale metallurgy industry in the Central Plains of China. The influence of the Saima-Turbino metalworking tradition from the north is supported by a series of recent discoveries in China of many unique perforated spearheads with downward hooks and small loops on the same or opposite side of

4130-608: The Phlegraean Fields with Cumaean territory. At this time the Roman senate sent agents to Cumae to purchase grain in anticipation of a siege of Rome. Then in 505 BCE Aristodemus led a Cumaean contingent to assist the Latin city of Aricia in defeating the Etruscan forces of Clusium (see also War between Clusium and Aricia ) and having attained the people's favour he overthrew the aristocratic faction and became

4248-427: The Roman army . However, he was educated in philosophy and rhetoric. It seems that Livy had the financial resources and means to live an independent life, though the origin of that wealth is unknown. He devoted a large part of his life to his writings, which he was able to do because of his financial freedom. Livy was known to give recitations to small audiences, but he was not heard of to engage in declamation , then

4366-610: The Second Punic War . When he began this work he was already past his youth, probably 33; presumably, events in his life prior to that time had led to his intense activity as a historian. He continued working on it until he left Rome for Padua in his old age, probably in the reign of Tiberius after the death of Augustus. Seneca the Younger says he was an orator and philosopher and had written some historical treatises in those fields. History of Rome also served as

4484-577: The southern Levant in cities such as Hazor , Jericho , and Beit She'an . The Hittite Empire was established during the 18th century BC in Hattusa , northern Anatolia . At its height in the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom encompassed central Anatolia, southwestern Syria as far as Ugarit , and upper Mesopotamia . After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant , which

4602-418: The via Appia , and allow easier access to Cumae along what was later called the via Domitiana while the bridge also carried a road along the ridge of the hill. It was built of brick and tiled in marble, and surmounted by two rows of arches of lighter concrete covered with brick. The piers had three niches on both sides where statues were placed. The via Domitiana, whose paving is still perfectly preserved and

4720-422: The 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant contact with Egypt and Cyprus ( Alashiya ). Mitanni was a loosely organised state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia, emerging c.  1500–1300 BC . Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class that governed a predominantly Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Kassite Babylon created

4838-430: The 3rd millennium BC. The Bronze Age is characterised by the widespread use of bronze , though the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous. Tin bronze technology requires systematic techniques: tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite ) and smelted separately, then added to hot copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and

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4956-422: The 40s BC, a period of civil wars throughout the Roman world . The governor of Cisalpine Gaul at the time, Asinius Pollio , tried to sway Patavium into supporting Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) , the leader of one of the warring factions during Caesar's Civil War (49-45 BC). The wealthy citizens of Patavium refused to contribute money and arms to Asinius Pollio, and went into hiding. Pollio then attempted to bribe

5074-776: The 6th century BC attests to knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this. W. C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze "at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC)" and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Eastern Han period , or to 221 BC. The Chinese bronze artefacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or "ritual bronzes" , which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are

5192-510: The BMAC had close international relations with the Indus Valley , the Iranian plateau , and possibly even indirectly with Mesopotamia. All civilisations were familiar with lost wax casting . According to a 2019 study, the BMAC was not a primary contributor to later South-Asian genetics. The Altai Mountains , in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia , have been identified as

5310-666: The Bronze Age began in the Protodynastic Period c.  3150 BC . The archaic Early Bronze Age of Egypt , known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt , immediately followed the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c.  3100 BC . It is generally taken to include the First and Second dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period until c.  2686 BC , or

5428-502: The Cave of the Sibyl and the Crypta Romana, while between 1938 and 1953 the lower city was explored. A chance discovery occurred in 1992 when during the construction of a gas pipeline near the beach a temple of Isis was discovered. In 1994 the "Kyme" project was activated for the restoration of the site. Excavation of the tholos tomb was completed, first partly explored in 1902. In the area of

5546-408: The Early Bronze Age, the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyndepe developed a proto-urban society. This corresponds to level IV at Namazga-Tepe . Altyndepe was a major centre even then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c.  2300 BC , corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe. This Bronze Age culture

5664-409: The Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia dynasty . The United States National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as c.  2000  – c.  771 BC , a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule. There is reason to believe that bronze work developed inside of China apart from outside influence. However,

5782-482: The Founding of the City'', covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on good terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was a friend of Augustus , whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius , he encouraged to take up the writing of history. Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy , now modern Padua , probably in 59 BC. At

5900-422: The Levant and were followed by the Amorite kingdoms , c.  2000–1600 BC , which arose in Mari , Yamhad , Qatna , and Assyria . From the 15th century BC onward, the term Amurru is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as Kadesh on the Orontes River . The earliest-known contact of Ugarit with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilisation) comes from

6018-469: The Middle Bronze Age and Babylon , Calah , and Assur in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) became the dominant power in the region. After its fall, the Sumerians enjoyed a renaissance with the Neo-Sumerian Empire . Assyria , along with the Old Assyrian Empire ( c.  1800–1600 BC ), became a regional power under the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I . The earliest mention of Babylon (then

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6136-411: The Middle Kingdom. During the Second Intermediate Period , Ancient Egypt fell into disarray a second time between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom, best known for the Hyksos , whose reign comprised the Fifteenth and Sixteenth dynasties. The Hyksos first appeared in Egypt during the Eleventh Dynasty, began their climb to power in the Thirteenth Dynasty, and emerged from

6254-408: The Monte di Cumae linking the forum with the port, the Grotta di Cocceio 1 km long to Lake Avernus and a third, the "Crypta Romana", 180m long between Lake Lucrino and Lake Averno. The temples of Apollo and Demeter were restored. The proximity to Puteoli , the commercial port of Rome and to Misenum , the naval fleet base, also helped the region to prosper. Another very important innovation

6372-401: The Osiris funerary cult rose to dominate popular Ancient Egyptian religion . The period comprises two phases: the Eleventh Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes, and the Twelfth and Thirteenth dynasties, centred on el-Lisht . The unified kingdom was previously considered to comprise the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, but historians now consider part of the Thirteenth Dynasty to have belonged to

6490-495: The Roman period from the 1st c. BCE along with all the cities of Campania and especially the bay of Naples as it became a desirable area for wealthy Romans who built large villas along the coast. The "central baths" and the amphitheatre are built. During the civil wars Cumae was one of the strongholds that Octavian used to defend against Sextus Pompey . Under Augustus extensive public building works and roads were begun and in or near Cumae several road tunnels were dug: one through

6608-511: The Samnite period and to a greater extent during the Roman age. The lower city was defended by walls and during the Greek age the acropolis had probably the same type of defences, even if the remains today dating back to the 6th century BCE are only on the southeastern part of the hill perhaps also used as retaining walls of the ridge. In the 6th c. BCE temples were built in tufa, wood and terracotta. Columns, cornices and capitals were made of yellow tufa, roofs and architraves of wood and to protect

6726-417: The Second Intermediate Period in control of Avaris and the Nile Delta . By the Fifteenth Dynasty, they ruled lower Egypt. They were expelled at the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty . The New Kingdom of Egypt , also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, existed during the 16th–11th centuries BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period . It

6844-481: The Theban kings conquered the north, reunifying Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the Eleventh Dynasty . The Bronze Age in Nubia started as early as 2300 BC. Egyptians introduced copper smelting to the Nubian city of Meroë in present-day Sudan c.  2600 BC . A furnace for bronze casting found in Kerma has been dated to 2300–1900 BC. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt spanned between 2055 and 1650 BC. During this period,

6962-403: The Underworld. Bronze Age The Bronze Age ( c.  3300  – c.  1200 BC ) was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system , following the Stone Age and preceding

7080-503: The Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record. The Japanese archipelago saw the introduction of bronze during the early Yayoi period ( c.  300 BC ), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilisations, particularly immigration and trade from

7198-425: The acropolis and the lower part on the plains and the coast. The acropolis was accessible only from the south side and it was on this area that the first nucleus of the city developed crossed by a road called Via Sacra leading to the main temples. The road began with two towers, one of which collapsed with part of the hill and the other was restored in the Byzantine era and is still visible. The lower city developed from

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7316-445: The ancient Korean peninsula, and ancient mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artefacts were mainly made of bronze. On the Korean Peninsula, the Bronze Age began c.  1000–800 BC . Initially centred around Liaoning and southern Manchuria, Korean Bronze Age culture exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects. The Mumun pottery period

7434-422: The beginning of the Old Kingdom . With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilisation, such as art, architecture and religion, took shape in the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis , in the Early Bronze Age, was the largest city of the time. The Old Kingdom of

7552-528: The church, who entrusts him with a text to read to the presbyters of the community in Cuma. At the end of the 4th century, the temple of Zeus at Cumae was transformed into a Christian basilica. The first historically documented bishop of Cumae was Adeodatus, a member of a synod convoked by Pope Hilarius in Rome in 465. Another was Misenus, who was one of the two legates that Pope Felix III sent to Constantinople and who were imprisoned and forced to receive Communion with Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople in

7670-417: The citizens from Cumae, including the clergy and the cathedral capitular, took shelter in Giugliano . In 1970, the diocese was nominally restored as a Latin titular see . The title has been held by: Despite the abandonment of the area of Cumae due to the formation of marshes, the memory of the ancient city remained alive. The ruins, although in a state of neglect, were later visited by many artists and with

7788-438: The city, ravaging the countryside. Some survivors fled to Neapolis. The walls on the acropolis were rebuilt from 343 BCE. Cumae came under Roman rule with Capua and in 338 BCE was granted partial citizenship, a civitas sine suffragio . In the Second Punic War , in spite of temptations to revolt from Roman authority, Cumae withstood Hannibal 's siege, under the leadership of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus . The city prospered in

7906-425: The development of trade networks. A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze was a foil dated to the mid-5th millennium BC from a Vinča culture site in Pločnik , Serbia , although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age; however, the dating of the foil has been disputed. West Asia and the Near East were the first regions to enter the Bronze Age, beginning with

8024-444: The discovery of the Europoid Tarim mummies in Xinjiang has caused some archaeologists such as Johan Gunnar Andersson , Jan Romgard, and An Zhimin to suggest a possible route of transmission from the West eastwards. According to An Zhimin, "It can be imagined that initially, bronze and iron technology took its rise in West Asia, first influenced the Xinjiang region, and then reached the Yellow River valley, providing external impetus for

8142-424: The driving force behind the "northern theory" regarding the Etruscans' origins. This is because in the book Livy states, "The Greeks also call them the 'Tyrrhene' and the 'Adriatic ... The Alpine tribes are undoubtedly of the same kind, especially the Raetii, who had through the nature of their country become so uncivilized that they retained no trace of their original condition except their language, and even this

8260-416: The earliest practical writing systems. Bronze Age civilisations gained a technological advantage due to bronze's harder and more durable properties than other metals available at the time. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, 1,250 °C (2,280 °F), in addition to the greater difficulty of working with it, placed it out of reach of common use until

8378-458: The end of the 2nd millennium BC. Tin's lower melting point of 232 °C (450 °F) and copper's moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed both these metals within the capabilities of Neolithic pottery kilns , which date to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures of at least 900 °C (1,650 °F). Copper and tin ores are rare since there were no tin bronzes in West Asia before trading in bronze began in

8496-474: The excavation of the necropolis, even though news of the various finds led to a continuous looting of the area. A disaster occurred between 1910 and 1922 when draining of Lake Licola caused part of the necropolis to be destroyed. The explorations of the acropolis started in 1911, bringing to light the Temple of Apollo. Between 1924 and 1934 Amedeo Maiuri and Vittorio Spinazzola investigated the Temple of Jupiter,

8614-716: The fall of the monarchy. The name "Israel" first appears c.  1209 BC , at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the Iron Age, on the Merneptah Stele raised by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah . The Arameans were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic pastoral people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram ) during the Late Bronze and early Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia, where they intermingled with

8732-567: The forum a basilica-shaped building, the Aula Sillana, was discovered, while along the coastline three maritime villas were found. Since 2001 the CNRS has been excavating a necropolis dating from 6th to 1st c. BCE outside the Porta mediana. In June 2018 a painted tomb dating to the 2nd century BCE and depicting a banquet scene was discovered. The ancient city was divided into two zones, namely

8850-685: The headwaters of the Khabur River . Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to the Hittites and later Assyrian attacks, eventually being reduced to a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire . The Israelites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th–6th centuries BC), and lived in the region in smaller numbers after

8968-431: The heir of Tarquinius , and in 492 BCE when Roman envoys travelled to Cumae to purchase grain, Aristodemus seized the envoys' vessels on account of the property of Tarquinius which had been seized at the time of Tarquinius' exile. Eventually, the dispossessed nobles and their sons were able to take over Cumae in 490 BCE, and executed Aristodemus . The combined fleets of Cumae and Syracuse (on Sicily) defeated

9086-508: The memory of the deeds of the world’s preeminent nation." Because Livy was mostly writing about events that had occurred hundreds of years earlier, the historical value of his work was questionable, although many Romans came to believe his account to be true. Livy was married and had at least one daughter and one son. He also produced other works, including an essay in the form of a letter to his son, and numerous dialogues, most likely modelled on similar works by Cicero . One of his sons wrote

9204-617: The native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. The Aramaeans never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC. The Mesopotamian Bronze Age began c.  3500 BC and ended with

9322-408: The numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings ; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the taotie motif, which involves stylised animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, symbolic animals, and abstract symbols. Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the bulk of

9440-453: The official trading language (180 BC) the city walls were restored and a large stadium built west of the Porta mediana. The central baths were built and major work was done on the acropolis temples. From the end of the 2nd c. BCE Cumae's architecture became increasingly romanised. The Augustan age saw many fine new buildings in the city such as the basilica or "Sullan Aula" south of the forum, decorated with polychrome marble. Water supply to

9558-698: The origins of agriculture. Foothill regions and glacial melt streams supported Bronze Age agro-pastoralists who developed complex east–west trade routes between Central Asia and China that introduced wheat and barley to China and millet to Central Asia. The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), also known as the Oxus civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in Central Asia, dated c.  2400  – c.  1600 BC , located in present-day northern Afghanistan , eastern Turkmenistan , southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan , centred on

9676-529: The overhang, terracotta tiles and elaborate antefix decorations. The city and acropolis walls were built from 505 BC, as well as the Sibyl's cave . When the city was allied with the Romans in 338 BCE a new temple was built with exceptional painted friezes and ornamentation which have been discovered though the temple was destroyed after a few decades by fire. Between the Punic Wars and the adoption of Latin as

9794-588: The point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon . It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region c.  2000 BC }}, and the ensuing ecological, economic, and political changes, triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China, and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 mi (6,000 km). This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in

9912-531: The region laid the foundations for astronomy , mathematics, and astrology . The following dates are approximate. The Bronze Age in the Near East can be divided into Early, Middle and Late periods. The dates and phases below apply solely to the Near East, not universally. However, some archaeologists propose a "high chronology", which extends periods such as the Intermediate Bronze Age by 300 to 500–600 years, based on material analysis of

10030-519: The region to organise against them, notably the Dauni and Aurunci with the leadership of the Capuan Etruscans . This coalition was defeated by the Cumaeans in 524 BCE at the first Battle of Cumae under the direction of Aristodemus . The glorious victories of the colony increased its prestige, so much so that according to Diodorus Siculus , it was usual to associate the whole region of

10148-473: The regional Bronze Age is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egyptian civilisation attained its first continuous peak of complexity and achievement—the first of three "Kingdom" periods which marked the high points of civilisation in the lower Nile Valley (the others being the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom ). The First Intermediate Period of Egypt , often described as

10266-569: The reign of Augustus, who came to power after a civil war with generals and consuls claiming to be defending the Roman Republic , such as Pompey . Patavium had been pro-Pompey. To clarify his status, the victor of the civil war, Octavian Caesar , had wanted to take the title Romulus (the first king of Rome) but in the end accepted the senate proposal of Augustus . Rather than abolishing the republic, he adapted it and its institutions to imperial rule. The historian Tacitus , writing about

10384-667: The repopulation of the area due to land reclamation, short excavation campaigns were made. The first excavations date to 1606 when thirteen statues and two marble bas-reliefs were found; later finds included the large statue of Jupiter from the Masseria del Gigante exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. However, after the discovery of the Vesuvian sites the attention of the Bourbon explorers

10502-526: The result of bad feelings he harboured toward the city of Patavium from his experiences there during the civil wars. Livy probably went to Rome in the 30s BC, and it is likely that he spent a large amount of time in the city after this, although it may not have been his primary home. During his time in Rome, he was never a senator nor held a government position. His writings contain elementary mistakes on military matters, indicating that he probably never served in

10620-654: The rise of the Mesopotamian civilisation of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. Cultures in the ancient Near East practised intensive year-round agriculture; developed writing systems ; invented the potter's wheel , created centralised governments (usually in the form of hereditary monarchies ), formulated written law codes, developed city-states , nation-states and empires; embarked on advanced architectural projects; and introduced social stratification , economic and civil administration, slavery , and practised organised warfare, medicine, and religion. Societies in

10738-539: The rise of the Shang and Zhou civilizations." According to Jan Romgard, "bronze and iron tools seem to have traveled from west to east as well as the use of wheeled wagons and the domestication of the horse." There are also possible links to Seima-Turbino culture , "a transcultural complex across northern Eurasia", the Eurasian steppe, and the Urals. However, the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at

10856-590: The same events or different events, do not include the same material entirely, and reformat what they do include. A date may be in Ab Urbe Condita or in Olympiads or in some other form, such as age. These variations may have occurred through scribal error or scribal license. Some material has been inserted under the aegis of Eusebius . The topic of manuscript variants is a large and specialized one, on which authors of works on Livy seldom care to linger. As

10974-616: The sea, and on the other by particularly fertile ground on the edge of the Campanian plain. While continuing their maritime and commercial traditions, the settlers of Cumae strengthened their political and economic power by exploitation of the land and extended their territory at the expense of neighbouring peoples. The colony thrived and in the 8th century BCE it was already strong enough to send Perieres to found Zancle in Sicily , and another group to found Tritaea in Achaea, Pausanias

11092-613: The slaves of those wealthy citizens to expose the whereabouts of their masters; his bribery did not work, and the citizens instead pledged their allegiance to the Senate . It is therefore likely that the Roman civil wars prevented Livy from pursuing a higher education in Rome or going on a tour of Greece , which was common for adolescent males of the nobility at the time. Many years later, Asinius Pollio derisively commented on Livy's "patavinity", saying that Livy's Latin showed certain "provincialisms" frowned on at Rome. Pollio's dig may have been

11210-706: The socket, which could be associated with the Seima-Turbino visual vocabulary of southern Siberia. The metallurgical centres of northwestern China, especially the Qijia culture in Gansu and Longshan culture in Shaanxi , played an intermediary role in this process. Iron use in China dates as early as the Zhou dynasty ( c.  1046  – 256 BC), but remained minimal. Chinese literature authored during

11328-517: The southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production ( c.  700–600 BC ) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artefacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula ( c.  900–700 BC ). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centres such as

11446-471: The structure and a large section of the vault collapsed. It was brought to light between 1925 and 1931 by the archaeologist Amedeus Maiuri. Cumae is perhaps most famous as the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl . Her sanctuary is now open to the public. In Roman mythology , there is an entrance to the underworld located at Avernus , a crater lake near Cumae, and was the route Aeneas used to descend to

11564-474: The surviving body of early Chinese writing and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty. The bronzes of the Western Zhou document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve

11682-675: The territory of Cumae became part of the diocese of Aversa after the destruction of Cumae in 1207. Accordingly, Cumae is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see . Under Roman rule, so-called "quiet Cumae" was peaceful until the disasters of the Gothic Wars (535–554), when it was repeatedly attacked, as the only fortified city in Campania aside from Neapolis: Belisarius took it in 536, Totila held it, and when Narses gained possession of Cumae, he found he had won

11800-607: The time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). Cisalpine Gaul was merged in Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar . In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the city was well known for its conservative values in morality and politics. Livy's teenage years were during

11918-690: The town was increased by an extension to the town of the great Serino aqueduct, the Aqua Augusta , after 20 BCE and paid for by local benefactors, the Lucceii family, praetors of the city, who also built an elaborate nymphaeum in the forum as well as several other monuments and buildings. In the 1st c. AD the "Temple of the Giant" was built, so-called because the famous giant bust of Jupiter (now in Naples Archaeological Museum)

12036-575: The tunnel lost its strategic value. The forum entrance was made monumental with 4 statue niches in 95 AD at the same time as the Arco Felice was built. An avalanche closed the sea entrance in the 3rd c. After 397 it was reopened. In the Christian age it was used as a cemetery area; in the 6th c. the Byzantine general Narsete tried to use it to reach the city during the siege of Cumae, but weakened

12154-570: The upper Amu Darya (Oxus River). Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra (modern Balkh ), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Marguš , the capital of which was Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. A wealth of information indicates that

12272-403: The west to Thailand in the east employing the same metalworking technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding. However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan ( Andronovo horizon) would rather support spreading of the bronze technology via Indo-European migrations eastwards, as this technology had been well known for quite a while in western regions. It

12390-566: The whole treasury of the Goths. A bishopric was established around 450 AD. In 700 it gained territory from the suppressed Diocese of Miseno . In 1207 it was suppressed when forces from Naples, acting for the boy- King of Sicily , destroyed the city and its walls, as the stronghold of a nest of bandits. Its territory was divided and merged into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aversa and Roman Catholic Diocese of Pozzuoli . Some of

12508-535: The written East Semitic Akkadian language for official use and as a spoken language. By that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use in Assyria and Babylonia, and would remain so until the 1st century AD. The Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Assyrian and Babylonian culture. Despite this, Babylonia, unlike the more militarily powerful Assyria,

12626-581: Was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of Egypt's power. The later New Kingdom, comprising the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties (1292–1069 BC), is also known as the Ramesside period , after the eleven pharaohs who took the name of Ramesses. Elam was a pre-Iranian ancient civilisation located east of Mesopotamia. In the Middle Bronze Age, Elam consisted of kingdoms on

12744-649: Was a summary of world history in ancient Greek , termed the Chronikon , dating from the early 4th century AD. This work was lost except for fragments (mainly excerpts), but not before it had been translated in whole and in part by various authors such as St. Jerome . The entire work survives in two separate manuscripts, Armenian and Greek (Christesen and Martirosova-Torlone 2006). St. Jerome wrote in Latin. Fragments in Syriac exist. Eusebius ' work consists of two books:

12862-515: Was called Opicia ). The Greek settlement was founded in the 8th century BCE by emigrants from cities of Eretria and Chalcis in Euboea , next to an Opician settlement . The Greeks were already established at nearby Pithecusae (modern Ischia ) and were led to Cumae by the joint oecists (founders): Megasthenes of Chalcis and Hippocles of Cyme . The site chosen was on the hill and later acropolis of Monte di Cuma surrounded on one side by

12980-417: Was discovered in its ruins; the walls of the temple are incorporated into a later farmhouse. After Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, survivors from Herculaneum came to Cumae and it became a well prosperous town. The visible monuments include: The Arco Felice was a 20 m high monumental entrance to the city built in a cut through Monte Grillo which Domitian made in 95 AD to avoid the long detour imposed by

13098-510: Was diverted there and the Cumae area was abandoned and plundered of numerous finds which were then sold to private individuals. A first campaign of systematic excavations took place between 1852 and 1857 under Prince Leopoldo, brother of Ferdinando II of the Two Sicilies when the area of the Masseria del Gigante and some necropoles were explored. Later Emilio Stevens was given the concession and worked at Cumae between 1878 and 1893, completing

13216-466: Was founded by non-native Amorites and often ruled by other non-indigenous peoples such as the Kassites , Aramaeans and Chaldeans , as well as by its Assyrian neighbours. For many decades, scholars made superficial reference to Central Asia as the "pastoral realm" or alternatively, the "nomadic world", in what researchers call the "Central Asian void": a 5,000-year span that was neglected in studies of

13334-590: Was not free from corruption". Thus, many scholars, like Karl Otfried Müller, utilized this statement as evidence that the Etruscans or the Tyrrhenians migrated from the north and were descendants of an Alpine tribe known as the Raeti. Livy's History of Rome was in high demand from the time it was published and remained so during the early years of the empire. Pliny the Younger reported that Livy's celebrity

13452-503: Was so widespread, a man from Cádiz travelled to Rome and back for the sole purpose of meeting him. Livy's work was a source for the later works of Aurelius Victor , Cassiodorus , Eutropius , Festus , Florus , Granius Licinianus and Orosius . Julius Obsequens used Livy, or a source with access to Livy, to compose his De Prodigiis , an account of supernatural events in Rome from the consulship of Scipio and Laelius to that of Paulus Fabius and Quintus Aelius. Livy wrote during

13570-511: Was tedious to copy, expensive, and required a lot of storage space. It must have been during this period, if not before, that manuscripts began to be lost without replacement. The Renaissance was a time of intense revival; the population discovered that Livy's work was being lost and large amounts of money changed hands in the rush to collect Livian manuscripts. The poet Beccadelli sold a country home for funding to purchase one manuscript copied by Poggio . Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V launched

13688-413: Was the construction of the great Serino aqueduct, the Aqua Augusta supplying many of the cities in the area from about 20 BC. Domitian 's via Domitiana provided an important highway to the via Appia and thence to Rome from 95 AD. The early presence of Christianity in Cumae is shown by the 2nd-century AD work The Shepherd of Hermas , in which the author tells of a vision of a woman, identified with

13806-527: Was the western neighbour of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms , at times a rival and, at other times, a vassal. The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia defeated by the Hittites under the earlier Tudhaliya I c.  1400 BC . Arzawa has been associated with the more obscure Assuwa generally located to its north. It probably bordered it, and may have been an alternative term for it during some periods. In Ancient Egypt ,

13924-567: Was told. Cuma established its dominance over almost the entire Campanian coast up to Punta Campanella over the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, gaining sway over Puteoli and Misenum . The colony spread Greek culture in Italy and introduced a dialect of Greek, and the Euboean alphabet , a variant of which was adapted and modified by the Etruscans and then re‑adapted by the Romans and became

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