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148-563: Although historically part of a separate region (known during the Roman period as Arabia Petraea ), the Negev was added to the proposed area of Mandatory Palestine , of which large parts later became Israel , on 10 July 1922, having been conceded by British representative St John Philby "in Trans-Jordan 's name". Despite this, the region remained exclusively Arab until 1946; in response to

296-405: A priestly role . He could not marry a woman from a senatorial family, nor achieve legitimate senatorial rank himself, but during the early Empire, freedmen held key positions in the government bureaucracy, so much so that Hadrian limited their participation by law. The rise of successful freedmen—through political influence or wealth—is a characteristic of early Imperial society. The prosperity of

444-554: A cessasion of the international trade with luxury goods such as Gaza wine, grape production in the Negev settlements again giving way to subsistence farming, focused on barley and wheat . Repeated earthquakes hit the region during the Byzantine period, with numerous revetment walls added to buildings to support them against collapse; a large 7th-century seismic event though led to the abandonement of Avdat and Rehovot-in-the-Negev. This recent analysis of newly obtained data has proven

592-656: A few individuals in the Negev. The dorcas gazelle is more numerous, with some 1,000–1,500 individuals in the Negev. Some 350 to 500 Nubian ibex live in the Negev Highlands and in the Eilat Mountains . The Negev shrew is a species of mammal of the family Soricidae that is found only in Israel. A population of the critically endangered Kleinmann's tortoise (also known as the Negev tortoise ) survives in

740-425: A fifth of the population and played a major role in the economy. Slavery was a complex institution that supported traditional Roman social structures as well as contributing economic utility. In urban settings, slaves might be professionals such as teachers, physicians, chefs, and accountants; the majority of slaves provided trained or unskilled labour. Agriculture and industry, such as milling and mining, relied on

888-640: A fine for a crime for which an humilior might receive a scourging . Execution, which was an infrequent legal penalty for free men under the Republic, could be quick and relatively painless for honestiores , while humiliores might suffer the kinds of torturous death previously reserved for slaves, such as crucifixion and condemnation to the beasts . In the early Empire, those who converted to Christianity could lose their standing as honestiores , especially if they declined to fulfil religious responsibilities, and thus became subject to punishments that created

1036-425: A freedman were born free, with full rights of citizenship. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a Roman citizen enjoyed active political freedom ( libertas ), including the right to vote. His former master became his patron ( patronus ): the two continued to have customary and legal obligations to each other. A freedman was not entitled to hold public office or the highest state priesthoods, but could play

1184-426: A high cation exchange capacity (the ability of the soil to retain nutrients) and porosity (the air-filled space in the soil). The fertility of loess is not due to organic matter content, which tends to be rather low, unlike tropical soils which derive their fertility almost wholly from organic matter. Even well managed loess farmland can experience dramatic erosion of well over 2.5 kg/m per year. In China,

1332-578: A high-achieving group of freedmen is attested by inscriptions throughout the Empire . The Latin word ordo (plural ordines ) is translated variously and inexactly into English as "class, order, rank". One purpose of the Roman census was to determine the ordo to which an individual belonged. Two of the highest ordines in Rome were the senatorial and equestrian. Outside Rome, cities or colonies were led by decurions , also known as curiales . "Senator"

1480-571: A higher social class. Most of the emperors were bilingual but had a preference for Latin in the public sphere for political reasons, a "rule" that first started during the Punic Wars . Different emperors up until Justinian would attempt to require the use of Latin in various sections of the administration but there is no evidence that a linguistic imperialism existed during the early Empire. After all freeborn inhabitants were universally enfranchised in 212 , many Roman citizens would have lacked

1628-401: A household or workplace, a hierarchy of slaves might exist, with one slave acting as the master of others. Talented slaves might accumulate a large enough peculium to justify their freedom, or be manumitted for services rendered. Manumission had become frequent enough that in 2 BC a law ( Lex Fufia Caninia ) limited the number of slaves an owner was allowed to free in his will. Following

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1776-573: A hundred meters in areas of Northwestern China and tens of meters in parts of the Midwestern United States. Loesses generally occur as blanket deposits that cover hundreds of square kilometers. The deposits are often tens of meters thick. Loesses often have steep or vertical faces. Because the grains are angular, loesses will often stand in banks for many years without slumping . This type of soil has "vertical cleavage", and thus, it can be easily excavated to form cave dwellings, which

1924-472: A knowledge of Latin. The wide use of Koine Greek was what enabled the spread of Christianity and reflects its role as the lingua franca of the Mediterranean during the time of the Empire. Following Diocletian's reforms in the 3rd century CE, there was a decline in the knowledge of Greek in the west. Spoken Latin later fragmented into the incipient romance languages in the 7th century CE following

2072-522: A lasting influence on the development of language , religion , art , architecture , literature , philosophy , law , and forms of government across its territories. Latin evolved into the Romance languages while Medieval Greek became the language of the East. The Empire's adoption of Christianity resulted in the formation of medieval Christendom . Roman and Greek art had a profound impact on

2220-459: A man as an equestrian. The census of 28 BC uncovered large numbers of men who qualified, and in 14 AD, a thousand equestrians were registered at Cádiz and Padua alone. Equestrians rose through a military career track ( tres militiae ) to become highly placed prefects and procurators within the Imperial administration. The rise of provincial men to the senatorial and equestrian orders

2368-560: A married woman could have sex only with her husband, but a married man did not commit adultery if he had sex with a prostitute or person of marginalized status. Childbearing was encouraged: a woman who had given birth to three children was granted symbolic honours and greater legal freedom (the ius trium liberorum ). At the time of Augustus, as many as 35% of the people in Roman Italy were slaves, making Rome one of five historical "slave societies" in which slaves constituted at least

2516-496: A persistent grassland biome . When the valuable A-horizon topsoil is eroded or degraded, the underlying loess soil is infertile, and requires the addition of fertilizer in order to support agriculture . The loess along the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Mississippi , consists of three layers. The Peoria Loess , Sicily Island Loess , and Crowley's Ridge Loess accumulated at different periods of time during

2664-652: A railway station. The authority of the tribal chiefs over the region was recognized by the Ottomans. A railroad connected it to the port of Rafah . In 1914, the Ottoman authorities estimated the nomadic population at 55,000. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France placed the Negev in Area B, "Arab state or states" under British patronage. The Negev was taken from the Ottoman army by British forces during 1917 and became part of Mandatory Palestine . In 1922,

2812-427: A sense of "Romanness". Roman society had multiple, overlapping social hierarchies . The civil war preceding Augustus caused upheaval, but did not effect an immediate redistribution of wealth and social power. From the perspective of the lower classes, a peak was merely added to the social pyramid. Personal relationships— patronage , friendship ( amicitia ), family , marriage —continued to influence politics. By

2960-513: A slave's rapist had to be prosecuted by the owner for property damage under the Aquilian Law . Slaves had no right to the form of legal marriage called conubium , but their unions were sometimes recognized. Technically, a slave could not own property, but a slave who conducted business might be given access to an individual fund ( peculium ) that he could use, depending on the degree of trust and co-operation between owner and slave. Within

3108-691: A sudden fall. It's when two major calamities strike the Byzantine Empire and large parts of the world: the Late Antique Little Ice Age (536-545), caused by huge volcanic eruptions in the world, with the resulting extreme weather events of 535–536 ; and in the 540s the first outbreak of bubonic plague in the Old World , known as the Justinianic Plague . It seems likely that these two events resulted in almost

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3256-523: A toxic waste incinerator at Ne'ot Hovav , cell towers, a power plant, several airports, a prison, and two rivers of open sewage. In 2005, the Tel Aviv municipality was accused of dumping waste in the Negev at the Dudaim dump  [ he ] . The Manufacturers Association of Israel established an authority in 2005 to move 60 industrial enterprises active in the Tel Aviv region to the Negev. In 1979,

3404-560: Is a clastic , predominantly silt -sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust . Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposits . A loess is a periglacial or aeolian (windborne) sediment, defined as an accumulation of 20% or less of clay with a balance of roughly equal parts sand and silt (with a typical grain size from 20 to 50 micrometers), often loosely cemented by calcium carbonate . Usually, they are homogeneous and highly porous and have vertical capillaries that permit

3552-622: Is a popular method of making human habitations in some parts of China. However, loesses can readily erode. In several areas of the world, loess ridges have formed that had been aligned with the prevailing winds during the last glacial maximum . These are called " paha ridges" in America and "greda ridges" in Europe. The formation of these loess dunes has been explained as a combination of wind and tundra conditions. The word loess , with connotations of origin by wind-deposited accumulation,

3700-662: Is a rocky desert. It is a melange of brown, rocky, dusty mountains interrupted by wadis (dry riverbeds that bloom briefly after rain) and deep craters. It can be split into five different ecological regions: northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau and the Arabah Valley. The northern Negev, or Mediterranean zone, receives 300 mm (12 in) of rain annually and has fairly fertile soils. The western Negev receives 250 mm (9.8 in) of rain per year, with light and partially sandy soils. Sand dunes can reach heights of up to 30 metres (98 ft) here. Home to

3848-570: Is accordingly defined as "the eastern (biblical) Negev". According to the Book of Genesis chapter 13, Abraham lived for a while in the Negev after being banished from Egypt ( Genesis 13:1,3 ). During the Exodus journey to the Promised Land, Moses sent twelve scouts into the Negev to assess the land and population ( Numbers 13:17 ). Later the northern part of biblical Negev was inhabited by

3996-466: Is also found in Australia and Africa. Loess tends to develop into very rich soils. Under appropriate climatic conditions, it is some of the most agriculturally productive terrain in the world. Soils underlain by loess tend to be excessively drained. The fine grains weather rapidly due to their large surface area, making soils derived from loess rich. The fertility of loess soils is due largely to

4144-490: Is also known as brickearth . Non-glacial loess can originate from deserts , dune fields , playa lakes , and volcanic ash . Some types of nonglacial loess are: The thick Chinese loess deposits are non-glacial loess having been blown in from deserts in northern China. The loess covering the Great Plains of Nebraska , Kansas , and Colorado is considered to be non-glacial desert loess. Non-glacial desert loess

4292-545: Is an aspect of social mobility in the early Empire. Roman aristocracy was based on competition, and unlike later European nobility , a Roman family could not maintain its position merely through hereditary succession or having title to lands. Admission to the higher ordines brought distinction and privileges, but also responsibilities. In antiquity, a city depended on its leading citizens to fund public works, events, and services ( munera ). Maintaining one's rank required massive personal expenditures. Decurions were so vital for

4440-573: Is credited with introducing copper mining and smelting in both the Negev and the Sinai between 1400 and 1300 BCE. According to Israeli archaeologists, in the Hebrew Bible , the term Negev only relates to the northern, semiarid part of what we call Negev today; of this, the Arad - Beersheba Valley, which receives enough rain as to allow agriculture and thus sedentary occupation (the " desert fringe "),

4588-580: Is mainly deposited in plateau-like situations in the Danube basins , likely derived from the Danube River system. In south-western Europe, relocated loess derivatives are mostly restricted to the Ebro Valley and central Spain. The Loess Hills of Iowa owe their fertility to the prairie topsoils built by 10,000 years of post-glacial accumulation of organic-rich humus as a consequence of

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4736-619: Is traditionally regarded as the Pax Romana ("Roman Peace"). The cohesion of the empire was furthered by a degree of social stability and economic prosperity that Rome had never before experienced. Uprisings in the provinces were infrequent and put down "mercilessly and swiftly". The success of Augustus in establishing principles of dynastic succession was limited by his outliving a number of talented potential heirs. The Julio-Claudian dynasty lasted for four more emperors— Tiberius , Caligula , Claudius , and Nero —before it yielded in 69 AD to

4884-418: Is zero. Snow and frost are rare in the northern Negev, and snow and frost are unknown in the vicinity of Eilat in the southernmost Negev. Nomadic life in the Negev dates back at least 4,000 years and perhaps as much as 7,000 years. The first urbanized settlements were established by a combination of Canaanite , Amalekite , Amorite , Nabataean and Edomite groups c.  2000 BCE . Pharaonic Egypt

5032-604: The Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In 27 BC the Senate gave him the title Augustus ("venerated") and made him princeps ("foremost") with proconsular imperium , thus beginning the Principate , the first epoch of Roman imperial history. Although the republic stood in name, Augustus had all meaningful authority. During his 40-year rule, a new constitutional order emerged so that, upon his death, Tiberius would succeed him as

5180-475: The Dominate . The emperor was the ultimate authority in policy- and decision-making, but in the early Principate, he was expected to be accessible and deal personally with official business and petitions. A bureaucracy formed around him only gradually. The Julio-Claudian emperors relied on an informal body of advisors that included not only senators and equestrians, but trusted slaves and freedmen. After Nero,

5328-694: The Huns of Attila , led to the decline of the Western Roman Empire . With the fall of Ravenna to the Germanic Herulians and the deposition of Romulus Augustus in 476 by Odoacer , the Western Empire finally collapsed. The Eastern Roman Empire survived for another millennium with Constantinople as its sole capital, until the city's fall in 1453. Due to the Empire's extent and endurance, its institutions and culture had

5476-611: The Israel Defense Forces ' major bases – a process accelerating in the past two decades. As of 2010, the Negev was home to some 630,000 people, or 8.2% of Israel 's population, even though it comprises over 55% of the country's area. 470,000 Negev residents (75% of the population) are Jews , while 160,000 or 25% are Bedouin. Of the Bedouin population (a demographic with a semi-nomadic tradition), half live in unrecognized villages , and half live in towns built for them by

5624-552: The Italian Renaissance . Rome's architectural tradition served as the basis for Romanesque , Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture , influencing Islamic architecture . The rediscovery of classical science and technology (which formed the basis for Islamic science ) in medieval Europe contributed to the Scientific Renaissance and Scientific Revolution . Many modern legal systems, such as

5772-658: The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies , both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus adjacent to Sde Boker . In October 2012, global travel guide publisher Lonely Planet rated the Negev second on a list of the world's top ten regional travel destinations for 2013, noting its current transformation through development. The origin of

5920-640: The Mediterranean and beyond. However, it was severely destabilised by civil wars and political conflicts , which culminated in the victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate granted Octavian overarching military power ( imperium ) and

6068-619: The Nabataeans , a theory proven wrong by more recent studies, which dated the massive agricultural and demographic growth in the area to the Byzantine period . The older explanation for the Tuleilat el-Anab , lit. 'grape mounds' phenomenon, has also been discarded: these large piles of rocks probably served two purposes, of removing the rocks from the cultivated plots, and of accelerating the erosion and water transportation of topsoil from

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6216-718: The Napoleonic Code , descend from Roman law. Rome's republican institutions have influenced the Italian city-state republics of the medieval period, the early United States , and modern democratic republics . Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the Roman Republic in the 6th century BC, though not outside the Italian Peninsula until the 3rd century BC. Thus, it was an "empire" (a great power) long before it had an emperor. The Republic

6364-472: The Nile Valley in Egypt. The empire completely circled the Mediterranean  ... referred to by its conquerors as mare nostrum —'our sea'. Trajan's successor Hadrian adopted a policy of maintaining rather than expanding the empire. Borders ( fines ) were marked, and the frontiers ( limites ) patrolled. The most heavily fortified borders were the most unstable. Hadrian's Wall , which separated

6512-566: The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region , and parts of others. Loess deposits of varying thickness (decimeter to several tens of meters) are widely distributed over the European continent. The northern European loess belt stretches from southern England and northern France to Germany, Poland and the southern Ukraine and deposits are characterized by strong influences of periglacial conditions. South-eastern European loess

6660-501: The Pax Romana ( lit.   ' Roman Peace ' ). Rome reached its greatest territorial extent under Trajan ( r.  98–117 AD ), but a period of increasing trouble and decline began under Commodus ( r.  180–192 ). In the 3rd century, the Empire underwent a 49-year crisis that threatened its existence due to civil war, plagues and barbarian invasions . The Gallic and Palmyrene empires broke away from

6808-557: The Pleistocene , the Negev fluctuated between intervals of relative humidity and intervals of aridity similar to or even more severe than the present day; from around 80,000 to 13,000 years BP , during a time interval roughly corresponding to the Last Glacial Period , the Negev was significantly more humid than today. It covers more than half of Israel, over some 13,000 km (5,000 sq mi), or at least 55% of

6956-654: The Pleistocene . Ancient soils, called paleosols , have developed on the top of the Sicily Island Loess and Crowley's Ridge Loess. The lowermost loess, the Crowley's Ridge Loess, accumulated during the late Illinoian Stage . The middle loess, Sicily Island Loess, accumulated during the early Wisconsin Stage . The uppermost loess, the Peoria Loess in which the modern soil has developed, accumulated during

7104-656: The Ramat Hovav toxic waste facility was established in Wadi el-Na'am because the area was perceived as invulnerable to leakage. However, within a decade, cracks were found in the rock beneath Ramat Hovav. In 2004, the Israeli Ministry of Health released Ben Gurion University research findings describing the health problems in a 20 km (12 mi) vicinity of Ramat Hovav. The study, funded in large part by Ramat Hovav, found higher rates of cancer and mortality for

7252-596: The Servile Wars of the Republic, legislation under Augustus and his successors shows a driving concern for controlling the threat of rebellions through limiting the size of work groups, and for hunting down fugitive slaves. Over time slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters. A bill of sale might contain a clause stipulating that the slave could not be employed for prostitution, as prostitutes in ancient Rome were often slaves. The burgeoning trade in eunuchs in

7400-656: The Tribe of Judah and the southern part of biblical Negev by the Tribe of Simeon . The Negev was later part of the Kingdom of Solomon (in its entirety, all the way to the Red Sea), and then, with varied extension to the south, part of the Kingdom of Judah . In the 9th century BCE, development and expansion of mining in both the Negev and Edom (modern Jordan) coincided with the rise of the Assyrian Empire . Beersheba

7548-615: The Wadi Musa and Petra areas in present-day Jordan . The Bedouins of the Negev historically survived chiefly on sheep and goat husbandry. Scarcity of water and of permanent pastoral land required them to move constantly. The Bedouin in years past established few permanent settlements, although some were built, leaving behind remnants of stone houses called 'baika.' In 1900, the Ottoman Empire established an administrative center for southern Syria at Beersheba including schools and

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7696-689: The loess deposits which give the Yellow River its color have been farmed and have produced phenomenal yields for over one thousand years. Winds pick up loess particles contributing to the Asian Dust pollution problem. The largest deposit of loess in the United States which is the Loess Hills along the border of Iowa and Nebraska , has survived intensive farming and poor farming practices . For almost 150 years, this loess deposit

7844-441: The 350,000 people in the area. Prematurely released to the media by an unknown source, the preliminary study was publicly discredited; However, its final conclusions – that Bedouin and Jewish residents near Ramat Hovav are significantly more susceptible than the rest of the population to miscarriages, severe birth defects, and respiratory diseases – passed a peer review several months later. Roman Empire The Roman Empire

7992-439: The 4th century introduced Christianity to the population. Agriculture-based cities were established and the population grew exponentially. As shown by the research done by Michael Evenari , novel techniques were employed, such as runoff rainwater collection and management systems, which harvested water from larger areas and directed it onto smaller plots. This allowed the cultivation of plants with much higher water needs than

8140-621: The 600-member body by appointment. A senator's son belonged to the ordo senatorius , but he had to qualify on his own merits for admission to the Senate. A senator could be removed for violating moral standards. In the time of Nero, senators were still primarily from Italy , with some from the Iberian peninsula and southern France; men from the Greek-speaking provinces of the East began to be added under Vespasian. The first senator from

8288-400: The 6th and 7th centuries with the disintegration of the complex Imperial economy. Laws pertaining to slavery were "extremely intricate". Slaves were considered property and had no legal personhood . They could be subjected to forms of corporal punishment not normally exercised on citizens, sexual exploitation , torture, and summary execution . A slave could not as a matter of law be raped;

8436-457: The Augustan programme to restore traditional morality and social order, moral legislation attempted to regulate conduct as a means of promoting " family values ". Adultery was criminalized, and defined broadly as an illicit sex act ( stuprum ) between a male citizen and a married woman, or between a married woman and any man other than her husband. That is, a double standard was in place:

8584-556: The Austrian and Hungarian loess stratigraphy, respectively. Since the 1980s, thermoluminescence (TL), optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) dating have been available, providing the possibility for dating the time of loess (dust) depositions, i.e., the time elapsed since the last exposure of the mineral grains to daylight. During the past decade, luminescence dating has significantly improved by new methodological improvements, especially

8732-465: The Bedouin component of the population was estimated at 72,898 out of a total of 75,254 for the Beersheba sub-district. The 1931 census estimated that the population of the Beersheba sub-district was 51,082. This large decrease was considered to be an artifact of incorrect enumeration methods used in 1922. An Arabic history of tribes around Beersheba, published in 1934 records 23 tribal groups. Most of

8880-418: The British Morrison–Grady Plan which would have allotted the area to an Arab state, the Jewish Agency enacted the 11 points in the Negev plan to begin Jewish settlement in the area. A year later, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine allotted a larger part of the area to the Jewish State which became Israel. The desert is home to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , whose faculties include

9028-409: The Empire was engulfed by the Crisis of the Third Century , a period of invasions , civil strife , economic disorder , and plague . In defining historical epochs , this crisis sometimes marks the transition from Classical to Late Antiquity . Aurelian ( r.  270–275 ) stabilised the empire militarily and Diocletian reorganised and restored much of it in 285. Diocletian's reign brought

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9176-432: The Huangtu Plateau, is a plateau that covers an area of some 640,000 km around the upper and middle reaches of China's Yellow River . The Yellow River was so named because the loess forming its banks gave a yellowish tint to the water. The soil of this region has been called the "most highly erodible soil on earth". The Loess Plateau and its dusty soil cover almost all of Shanxi , Shaanxi , and Gansu provinces;

9324-484: The Israeli government between the 1960s and 1980s; the largest of these is Rahat . The population of the Negev is expected to reach 1.2 million by 2025. It was projected that the Beersheba metropolitan area would reach a population of 1 million by 2020, and Arad , Yeruham , and Dimona would triple in size by 2025. A large part of the Negev Bedouins inhabit small communities or villages. Israel has refused to recognize certain Bedouin villages that were founded after

9472-524: The Jordanian border stretches 180 km (110 mi) from Eilat in the south to the tip of the Dead Sea in the north. The Arabah Valley is very arid with barely 50 mm (2.0 in) of rain annually. It has inferior soils, in which little can grow without irrigation and special soil additives. Vegetation in the Negev is sparse, but certain trees and plants thrive there, among them Acacia , Pistacia , Retama , Urginea maritima and Thymelaea . Hyphaene thebaica or doum palm can be found in

9620-499: The Middle East. The Latin phrase imperium sine fine ("empire without end" ) expressed the ideology that neither time nor space limited the Empire. In Virgil 's Aeneid , limitless empire is said to be granted to the Romans by Jupiter . This claim of universal dominion was renewed when the Empire came under Christian rule in the 4th century. In addition to annexing large regions, the Romans directly altered their geography, for example cutting down entire forests . Roman expansion

9768-402: The Negev is known as an-Naqab or an-Naqb ('the [mountain] pass'), though it was not thought of as a distinct region until the demarcation of the Egypt-Ottoman frontier in the 1890s and has no single Arabic name. During the British Mandate , it was called "Beersheba sub-district". The Negev contains the oldest discovered surface on Earth, with an approximate age of 1.8 million years. During

9916-433: The Negev was earmarked by the November 1947 UN Partition Plan for the future Jewish state. During the 1947–49 War of Independence, Israel secured its sovereignty over the Negev. In the early years of the state, it absorbed many of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries , with the Israeli government setting up many development towns , such as Arad , Sderot and Netivot . Since then, the Negev has also become home to many of

10064-402: The Rhine and Danube. Roman jurists also show a concern for local languages such as Punic , Gaulish , and Aramaic in assuring the correct understanding of laws and oaths. In Africa , Libyco-Berber and Punic were used in inscriptions into the 2nd century. In Syria , Palmyrene soldiers used their dialect of Aramaic for inscriptions, an exception to the rule that Latin was the language of

10212-455: The Rhine valley near Heidelberg . Charles Lyell (1834) brought the term into widespread usage, observing similarities between "loess" and its derivatives along the loess bluffs in the Rhine and in Mississippi . At the time, it was thought that the yellowish brown silt-rich sediment was of fluvial origin and had been deposited by large rivers. The aeolian origin of the loesses was recognized later (Virlet D'Aoust 1857), particularly due to

10360-501: The Roman Republic ) while greatly extending its power beyond Italy. In 44 BC Julius Caesar was briefly perpetual dictator before being assassinated by a faction that opposed his concentration of power. This faction was driven from Rome and defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC by Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian . Antony and Octavian divided the Roman world between them, but this did not last long. Octavian's forces defeated those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at

10508-430: The Roman legal concept of imperium , meaning "command" (typically in a military sense). Occasionally, successful consuls or generals were given the honorary title imperator (commander); this is the origin of the word emperor , since this title was always bestowed to the early emperors. Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts, conspiracies, and civil wars from the late second century BC (see Crisis of

10656-500: The Roman world from what was perceived as an ever-present barbarian threat, is the primary surviving monument of this effort. Latin and Greek were the main languages of the Empire, but the Empire was deliberately multilingual. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill says "The main desire of the Roman government was to make itself understood". At the start of the Empire, knowledge of Greek was useful to pass as educated nobility and knowledge of Latin

10804-633: The Southern Negev. The Evrona Nature Reserve is the most northerly point in the world where this palm can be found. A small population of Arabian leopards , an endangered animal in the Arabian peninsula, has survived in the southern Negev but is now likely extinct. Other carnivora found in the Negev are the caracal , the striped hyena , the Arabian wolf , the golden jackal and the marbled polecat . The Arabah Arabian gazelle survives with

10952-449: The account of his achievements ( Res Gestae ) prominently featured the geographical cataloguing of the Empire. Geography alongside meticulous written records were central concerns of Roman Imperial administration . The Empire reached its largest expanse under Trajan ( r.  98–117 ), encompassing 5 million km . The traditional population estimate of 55–60 million inhabitants accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth of

11100-496: The autumn and winter, when the melting of the ice sheets and ice caps ceased, the flow of meltwater down these rivers either ceased or was greatly reduced. As a consequence, large parts of the formerly submerged and unvegetated floodplains of these braided rivers dried out and were exposed to the wind. Because the floodplains consist of sediment containing a high content of glacially ground flour-like silt and clay , they were highly susceptible to winnowing of their silts and clays by

11248-604: The city of Beersheba , the central Negev has an annual precipitation of 200 mm (7.9 in) and is characterized by impervious soil, known as loess , allowing minimum penetration of water with greater soil erosion and water runoff. The high plateau area of Negev Mountains /Ramat HaNegev ( Hebrew : רמת הנגב , The Negev Heights ) stands between 370 metres (1,210 ft) and 520 metres (1,710 ft) above sea level with extreme temperatures in summer and winter. The area gets 100 mm (3.9 in) of rain per year, with inferior and partially salty soils. The Arabah Valley along

11396-418: The collapse of the Empire's west. The dominance of Latin and Greek among the literate elite obscure the continuity of other spoken languages within the Empire. Latin, referred to in its spoken form as Vulgar Latin , gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages . References to interpreters indicate the continuing use of local languages, particularly in Egypt with Coptic , and in military settings along

11544-482: The conditions of martyrdom . The three major elements of the Imperial state were the central government, the military, and the provincial government. The military established control of a territory through war, but after a city or people was brought under treaty, the mission turned to policing: protecting Roman citizens, agricultural fields, and religious sites. The Romans lacked sufficient manpower or resources to rule through force alone. Cooperation with local elites

11692-572: The convincing observations of loesses in China by Ferdinand von Richthofen (1878). A tremendous number of papers have been published since then, focusing on the formation of loesses and on loess/ paleosol (older soil buried under deposits) sequences as the archives of climate and environment change. These water conservation works have been carried out extensively in China, and the research of loesses in China has been ongoing since 1954. [33] Much effort

11840-539: The cost of eight rounds of demolition to the state. Blueprint Negev is a Jewish National Fund project introduced in 2005. The $ 600 million project hopes to attract 500,000 new Jewish residents to the Negev by improving transportation infrastructure, establishing businesses, developing water resources and introducing programs to protect the environment. A planned artificial desert river, swimming pools and golf courses raised concerns among environmentalists. Critics oppose those plans, calling instead for an inclusive plan for

11988-558: The country's land area. It forms an inverted triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula , and whose eastern border is the Arabah valley. The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features. Among the latter are three enormous, craterlike makhteshim (box canyons), which are unique to the region: Makhtesh Ramon , HaMakhtesh HaGadol , and HaMakhtesh HaKatan . The Negev

12136-481: The deceased emperor's deification. The dominance of the emperor was based on the consolidation of powers from several republican offices. The emperor made himself the central religious authority as pontifex maximus , and centralized the right to declare war, ratify treaties, and negotiate with foreign leaders. While these functions were clearly defined during the Principate , the emperor's powers over time became less constitutional and more monarchical, culminating in

12284-501: The descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron", a comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon , to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the Empire's decline . In 212, during the reign of Caracalla , Roman citizenship was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. The Severan dynasty was tumultuous; an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution and, following its collapse,

12432-459: The development of single aliquot regenerative (SAR) protocols (Murray & Wintle 2000) resulting in reliable ages (or age estimates) with an accuracy of up to 5 and 10% for the last glacial record. More recently, luminescence dating has also become a robust dating technique for penultimate and antepenultimate glacial loess (e.g. Thiel et al. 2011, Schmidt et al. 2011) allowing for a reliable correlation of loess/palaeosol sequences for at least

12580-472: The easternmost province, Cappadocia , was admitted under Marcus Aurelius. By the Severan dynasty (193–235), Italians made up less than half the Senate. During the 3rd century, domicile at Rome became impractical, and inscriptions attest to senators who were active in politics and munificence in their homeland ( patria ). Senators were the traditional governing class who rose through the cursus honorum ,

12728-514: The empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of Christianity , the " Great Persecution ". Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate tetrarch . Confident that he fixed the disorder plaguing Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, but the Tetrarchy collapsed shortly after . Order was eventually restored by Constantine the Great , who became

12876-506: The empire. This legal egalitarianism required a far-reaching revision of existing laws that distinguished between citizens and non-citizens. Freeborn Roman women were considered citizens, but did not vote, hold political office, or serve in the military. A mother's citizen status determined that of her children, as indicated by the phrase ex duobus civibus Romanis natos ("children born of two Roman citizens"). A Roman woman kept her own family name ( nomen ) for life. Children most often took

13024-565: The end of the Western Roman Empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer . Odoacer ended the Western Empire by declaring Zeno sole emperor and placing himself as Zeno's nominal subordinate. In reality, Italy was ruled by Odoacer alone. The Eastern Roman Empire, called the Byzantine Empire by later historians, continued until the reign of Constantine XI Palaiologos ,

13172-622: The establishment of the state. Under Israel's 2011-adopted and enacted Begin-Prawer plan – officially the Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev – some Bedouins are being moved to newly created townships. Bedouin villages established after the state without proper approvals are illegal under Israeli law. They are consequently destroyed or threatened with destruction. An Israeli court ruling in 2017 forced six residents to pay

13320-504: The exploitation of slaves. Outside Italy, slaves were on average an estimated 10 to 20% of the population, sparse in Roman Egypt but more concentrated in some Greek areas. Expanding Roman ownership of arable land and industries affected preexisting practices of slavery in the provinces. Although slavery has often been regarded as waning in the 3rd and 4th centuries, it remained an integral part of Roman society until gradually ceasing in

13468-457: The father's name, with some exceptions. Women could own property, enter contracts, and engage in business. Inscriptions throughout the Empire honour women as benefactors in funding public works, an indication they could hold considerable fortunes. The archaic manus marriage in which the woman was subject to her husband's authority was largely abandoned by the Imperial era, and a married woman retained ownership of any property she brought into

13616-640: The first emperor to convert to Christianity , and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the Eastern Empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the empire was divided along an east–west axis, with dual power centres in Constantinople and Rome. Julian , who under the influence of his adviser Mardonius attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion , only briefly interrupted

13764-411: The formation of loess: a dust source, adequate wind energy to transport the dust, a suitable accumulation area, and a sufficient amount of time. Periglacial (glacial) loess is derived from the floodplains of glacial braided rivers that carried large volumes of glacial meltwater and sediments from the annual melting of continental ice sheets and mountain ice caps during the spring and summer. During

13912-456: The functioning of cities that in the later Empire, as the ranks of the town councils became depleted, those who had risen to the Senate were encouraged to return to their hometowns, in an effort to sustain civic life. In the later Empire, the dignitas ("worth, esteem") that attended on senatorial or equestrian rank was refined further with titles such as vir illustris ("illustrious man"). The appellation clarissimus (Greek lamprotatos )

14060-407: The given arid environment could provide for. Evenari researched the ancient mechanisms, rediscovered the ratio of water collection area to cultivation area, and explained the various ancient techniques of land amelioration , such as wadi terracing and flash-flood dams, and the features used for collecting and directing runoff water. He thought that the creators of this elaborate systems had been

14208-462: The green vitalization of existing population centers, investment in Bedouin villages, clean-up of toxic industries and development of job options for the unemployed. A major Israel Defense Forces training base is being constructed in the Negev to accommodate 10,000 army personnel and 2,500 civilian staff. Three more bases will be built by 2020 as part of a plan to vacate land and buildings in Tel Aviv and central Israel, and bring jobs and investment to

14356-546: The hands of humans in later centuries. The Negev region is arid ( Eilat receives on average only 24 mm (0.94 in) of rainfall a year), receiving very little rain due to its location to the east of the Sahara (as opposed to the Mediterranean, which lies to the west of Israel), and extreme temperatures due to its location 31 degrees north . However the northernmost areas of the Negev, including Beersheba , are semi-arid . The usual rainfall total from June through October

14504-692: The historian Christopher Kelly described it: Then the empire stretched from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria; from the great Rhine – Danube river system, which snaked across the fertile, flat lands of Europe from the Low Countries to the Black Sea , to the rich plains of the North African coast and the luxuriant gash of

14652-652: The influence of the latter was regarded with suspicion, and the emperor's council ( consilium ) became subject to official appointment for greater transparency . Though the Senate took a lead in policy discussions until the end of the Antonine dynasty , equestrians played an increasingly important role in the consilium . The women of the emperor's family often intervened directly in his decisions. Loess A loess ( US : / ˈ l ɛ s , ˈ l ʌ s , ˈ l oʊ . ə s / , UK : / ˈ l oʊ . ə s , ˈ l ɜː s / ; from German : Löss [lœs] )

14800-630: The largest solar dishes in the world. Technically, however, the Arava is a separate desert with its own unique climate and ecology. A 250 MW solar park in Ashalim , an area in the northern Negev, the Ashalim Power Station , produces 121 Megawatts of power, using solar mirrors and thermal water heating. It is currently the largest in Israel. The Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, Israel , has dozens of solar mirrors that focus

14948-521: The last Roman emperor. He died in battle in 1453 against Mehmed II and his Ottoman forces during the siege of Constantinople . Mehmed II adopted the title of caesar in an attempt to claim a connection to the former Empire. His claim was soon recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople , but not by most European monarchs. The Roman Empire was one of the largest in history, with contiguous territories throughout Europe, North Africa, and

15096-556: The last two interglacial/glacial cycles throughout Europe and the Northern Hemisphere (Frechen 2011). Furthermore, the numerical dating provides the basis for quantitative loess research applying more sophisticated methods to determine and understand high-resolution proxy data including the palaeodust content of the atmosphere, variations of the atmospheric circulation patterns and wind systems, palaeoprecipitation, and palaeotemperature. Besides luminescence dating methods,

15244-592: The late 1st century prompted legislation that prohibited the castration of a slave against his will "for lust or gain". Roman slavery was not based on race . Generally, slaves in Italy were indigenous Italians, with a minority of foreigners (including both slaves and freedmen) estimated at 5% of the total in the capital at its peak, where their number was largest. Foreign slaves had higher mortality and lower birth rates than natives, and were sometimes even subjected to mass expulsions. The average recorded age at death for

15392-688: The late Wisconsin Stage. Animal remains include terrestrial gastropods and mastodons . Extensive areas of loess occur in New Zealand including the Canterbury Plains and on the Banks Peninsula . The basis of loess stratigraphy was introduced by John Hardcastle in 1890. Much of Argentina is covered by loess. Two areas of loess are usually distinguished in Argentina: the neotropical loess north of latitude 30° S and

15540-486: The marriage. Technically she remained under her father's legal authority, even though she moved into her husband's home, but when her father died she became legally emancipated. This arrangement was a factor in the degree of independence Roman women enjoyed compared to many other cultures up to the modern period: although she had to answer to her father in legal matters, she was free of his direct scrutiny in daily life, and her husband had no legal power over her. Although it

15688-416: The members of the three higher "orders", along with certain military officers. The granting of universal citizenship in 212 seems to have increased the competitive urge among the upper classes to have their superiority affirmed, particularly within the justice system. Sentencing depended on the judgment of the presiding official as to the relative "worth" ( dignitas ) of the defendant: an honestior could pay

15836-730: The military. The last reference to Gaulish was between 560 and 575. The emergent Gallo-Romance languages would then be shaped by Gaulish. Proto-Basque or Aquitanian evolved with Latin loan words to modern Basque . The Thracian language , as were several now-extinct languages in Anatolia, are attested in Imperial-era inscriptions. The Empire was remarkably multicultural, with "astonishing cohesive capacity" to create shared identity while encompassing diverse peoples. Public monuments and communal spaces open to all—such as forums , amphitheatres , racetracks and baths —helped foster

15984-444: The new de facto monarch. As Roman provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status which made it domina provinciarum ("ruler of the provinces"), and – especially in relation to the first centuries of imperial stability – rectrix mundi ("governor of the world") and omnium terrarum parens ("parent of all lands"). The 200 years that began with Augustus's rule

16132-407: The new title of Augustus , marking his accession as the first Roman emperor . The vast Roman territories were organized into senatorial provinces, governed by proconsuls who were appointed by lot annually, and imperial provinces, which belonged to the emperor but were governed by legates . The first two centuries of the Empire saw a period of unprecedented stability and prosperity known as

16280-525: The pampean loess. The neotropical loess is made of silt or silty clay. Relative to the pampean loess the neotropical loess is poor in quartz and calcium carbonate . The source region for this loess is thought by some scientists to be areas of fluvio-glacial deposits the Andean foothills formed by the Patagonian Ice Sheet . Other researchers stress the importance of volcanic material in

16428-412: The political career track, but equestrians often possessed greater wealth and political power. Membership in the equestrian order was based on property; in Rome's early days, equites or knights had been distinguished by their ability to serve as mounted warriors, but cavalry service was a separate function in the Empire. A census valuation of 400,000 sesterces and three generations of free birth qualified

16576-507: The poor were other sources. Vernae , by contrast, were "homegrown" slaves born to female slaves within the household, estate or farm. Although they had no special legal status, an owner who mistreated or failed to care for his vernae faced social disapproval, as they were considered part of the family household and in some cases might actually be the children of free males in the family. Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become citizens; any future children of

16724-599: The previously widely accepted theory to be wrong, namely that the Muslim conquest , which came a century after these events, and specifically the Muslim ban on alcoholic beverages , was the cause for the decline of the wine industry in the Negev. In Nessana, the number of grape pips is even seen to rise again during the Early Islamic period , probably due to the needs of a local Christian monastery. This disappearance of

16872-472: The runoff collection area onto those plots. Along with Avdat (Oboda), Mamshit (Mampsis), Shivta (Sobata), Haluza (Elusa), and Nitzana (Nessana), the settlements at Rehovot-in-the-Negev /Ruheibeh (the second largest by population of the Byzantine-era "Negev towns") and Saadon are also significant for this period. A massive rise in grape production in the northwestern Negev for the needs of

17020-560: The sands of the western and central Negev Desert. Animals that were reintroduced after their extinction in the wild or localized extinction respectively are the Arabian oryx and the Asiatic wild ass , which in the Negev counts about 250 animals. Like many areas in Israel and the rest of the Middle East, the Negev used to host in the distant past the Asiatic lion and the Asiatic cheetah , right until their complete extinction at

17168-444: The sediment to fracture and form vertical bluffs . Loesses are homogeneous ; porous ; friable ; pale yellow or buff ; slightly coherent ; typically, non- stratified ; and often calcareous . Loess grains are angular , with little polishing or rounding, and composed of quartz , feldspar , mica , or other mineral crystals. Loesses have been described as rich, dust-like soil. Loess deposits may become very thick: at more than

17316-528: The slaves of the city of Rome was seventeen and a half years (17.2 for males; 17.9 for females). During the period of republican expansionism when slavery had become pervasive, war captives were a main source of slaves. The range of ethnicities among slaves to some extent reflected that of the armies Rome defeated in war, and the conquest of Greece brought a number of highly skilled and educated slaves. Slaves were also traded in markets and sometimes sold by pirates . Infant abandonment and self-enslavement among

17464-560: The south. The Negev Desert and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley , are the sunniest parts of Israel and little of this land is arable , which is why it has become the center of the Israeli solar industry. David Faiman , an expert on solar energy, feels the energy needs of Israel's future could be met by building solar energy plants in the Negev. As director of Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center , he operates one of

17612-646: The state and a series of short-lived emperors led the Empire, which was later reunified under Aurelian ( r.  270–275 ). The civil wars ended with the victory of Diocletian ( r.  284–305 ), who set up two different imperial courts in the Greek East and Latin West . Constantine the Great ( r.  306–337 ), the first Christian emperor , moved the imperial seat from Rome to Byzantium in 330, and renamed it Constantinople . The Migration Period , involving large invasions by Germanic peoples and by

17760-529: The strife-torn Year of the Four Emperors , from which Vespasian emerged as the victor. Vespasian became the founder of the brief Flavian dynasty , followed by the Nerva–Antonine dynasty which produced the " Five Good Emperors ": Nerva , Trajan , Hadrian , Antoninus Pius , and Marcus Aurelius . In the view of contemporary Greek historian Cassius Dio , the accession of Commodus in 180 marked

17908-461: The succession of Christian emperors. Theodosius I , the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 after making Christianity the state religion . The Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the early 5th century. The Romans fought off all invaders, most famously Attila , but the empire had assimilated so many Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome that the empire started to dismember itself. Most chronologies place

18056-555: The sun's rays on a tower that in turn heats a water boiler to create steam, turning a turbine to create electricity. Luz II, Ltd., plans to use the solar array to test new technology for the three new solar plants to be built in California for Pacific Gas and Electric Company . Vines have been planted in the Negev since ancient times. In modern times, vineyards have been established in the northern Negev hills using innovative computerized watering methods for irrigation. Carmel Winery

18204-562: The time of Nero , however, it was not unusual to find a former slave who was richer than a freeborn citizen, or an equestrian who exercised greater power than a senator. The blurring of the Republic's more rigid hierarchies led to increased social mobility , both upward and downward, to a greater extent than all other well-documented ancient societies. Women, freedmen, and slaves had opportunities to profit and exercise influence in ways previously less available to them. Social life, particularly for those whose personal resources were limited,

18352-538: The trade on the spice route between their capital Petra and the Gazan seaports. Nabatean currency and the remains of red and orange potsherds , identified as a trademark of their civilization, have been found along the route, remnants of which are also still visible. Nabatean control of the Negev ended when the Roman empire annexed their lands in 106 CE. The population, largely made up of nomads, venerated deities such as Dushara , Allat , and others. Byzantine rule in

18500-506: The use of radiocarbon dating in loess has increased during the past decades. Advances in methods of analyses, instrumentation, and refinements to the radiocarbon calibration curve have made it possible to obtain reliable ages from loess deposits for the last 40–45 ka. However, the use of this method relies on finding suitable in situ organic material in deposits such as charcoal, seeds, earthworm granules, or snail shells. According to Pye (1995), four fundamental requirements are necessary for

18648-411: The vicinity of modern Eilat , along with copper and gold mines and stone quarries, and a sophisticated irrigation system and road network. The economic center was the port of Ayla (Aqaba). Nomadic tribes ruled the Negev largely independently and with a relative lack of interference for the next thousand years. What is known of this time is largely derived from oral histories and folk tales of tribes from

18796-644: The wind. Once entrained by the wind, particles were then deposited downwind. The loess deposits found along both sides of the Mississippi River alluvial valley are a classic example of periglacial loess. During the Quaternary , loess and loess-like sediments were formed in periglacial environments on mid-continental shield areas in Europe and Siberia as well as on the margins of high mountain ranges like in Tajikistan and on semi-arid margins of some lowland deserts as in China. In England, periglacial loess

18944-462: The wine industry from the semiarid northern Negev shows that it was technically possible to sustain it over centuries, but that the grape monoculture was economically unsustainable in the long run due to its dependence on empire-wide trading networks, which required stability and prosperity over a vast territory. The southern Negev saw a flourishing of economic activity during the 8th to 10th or 11th centuries. Six Islamic settlements have been found in

19092-401: The wine industry was noted for the early 6th century, documented by studying ancient trash mounds at Shivta, Elusa and Nessana . There is a sharp peak in the presence of grape pips and broken " Gaza jars " used to export wine and other Levantine goods from the port of Gaza (see " Gaza wine "), after a slower rise during the fourth and fifth centuries, and followed in the mid-6th century by

19240-524: The word Negev is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'; in the Hebrew Bible , the word Negev is also used for the direction 'south'. Some English-language translations use the spelling Negeb . The Negev mentioned in the Bible (see below ) consisted only of the northernmost part of the modern Israeli Negev, with the semiarid Arad - Beersheba Valley defined as "the eastern (biblical) Negev". In Arabic,

19388-411: The world's total population and made it the most populous unified political entity in the West until the mid-19th century. Recent demographic studies have argued for a population peak from 70 million to more than 100 million . Each of the three largest cities in the Empire – Rome, Alexandria , and Antioch – was almost twice the size of any European city at the beginning of the 17th century. As

19536-442: Was a point of pride to be a "one-man woman" ( univira ) who had married only once, there was little stigma attached to divorce , nor to speedy remarriage after being widowed or divorced. Girls had equal inheritance rights with boys if their father died without leaving a will. A mother's right to own and dispose of property, including setting the terms of her will, gave her enormous influence over her sons into adulthood. As part of

19684-526: Was farmed with mouldboard ploughs and tilled in the fall, both intensely erosive practices. At times it suffered erosion rates of over 10 kilograms per square meter per year. Today this loess deposit is worked as low till or no till in all areas and is aggressively terraced . An area of multiple loess deposits spans from southern Tajikistan up to Almaty , Kazakhstan . The Loess Plateau ( simplified Chinese : 黄土高原 ; traditional Chinese : 黃土高原 ; pinyin : Huángtǔ Gāoyuán ), also known as

19832-475: Was further defined by their citizenship. Most citizens held limited rights (such as the ius Latinum , "Latin right"), but were entitled to legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by non-citizens. Free people not considered citizens, but living within the Roman world, were peregrini , non-Romans. In 212, the Constitutio Antoniniana extended citizenship to all freeborn inhabitants of

19980-466: Was further fostered by a proliferation of voluntary associations and confraternities ( collegia and sodalitates ): professional and trade guilds, veterans' groups, religious sodalities, drinking and dining clubs, performing troupes, and burial societies . According to the jurist Gaius , the essential distinction in the Roman " law of persons " was that all humans were either free ( liberi ) or slaves ( servi ). The legal status of free persons

20128-693: Was introduced into English from the German Löss , which can be traced back to Swiss German and is cognate with the English word loose and the German word los . It was first applied to the Rhine River valley loesses around 1821. The term "Löß" was first described in Central Europe by Karl Cäsar von Leonhard (1823–1824), who had reported yellowish brown, silty deposits along

20276-550: Was mostly accomplished under the Republic , though parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century, when Roman control in Europe, Africa, and Asia was strengthened. Under Augustus , a "global map of the known world" was displayed for the first time in public at Rome, coinciding with the creation of the most comprehensive political geography that survives from antiquity, the Geography of Strabo . When Augustus died,

20424-671: Was necessary to maintain order, collect information, and extract revenue. The Romans often exploited internal political divisions. Communities with demonstrated loyalty to Rome retained their own laws, could collect their own taxes locally, and in exceptional cases were exempt from Roman taxation. Legal privileges and relative independence incentivized compliance. Roman government was thus limited , but efficient in its use of available resources. The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with divinely sanctioned authority ( auctoritas ). The rite of apotheosis (also called consecratio ) signified

20572-416: Was never a legal requirement for Latin in the Empire, but it represented a certain status. High standards of Latin, Latinitas , started with the advent of Latin literature. Due to the flexible language policy of the Empire, a natural competition of language emerged that spurred Latinitas , to defend Latin against the stronger cultural influence of Greek. Over time Latin usage was used to project power and

20720-445: Was not a nation-state in the modern sense, but a network of self-ruled towns (with varying degrees of independence from the Senate ) and provinces administered by military commanders. It was governed by annually elected magistrates ( Roman consuls above all) in conjunction with the Senate. The 1st century BC was a time of political and military upheaval, which ultimately led to rule by emperors. The consuls' military power rested in

20868-426: Was not itself an elected office in ancient Rome; an individual gained admission to the Senate after he had been elected to and served at least one term as an executive magistrate . A senator also had to meet a minimum property requirement of 1 million sestertii . Not all men who qualified for the ordo senatorius chose to take a Senate seat, which required legal domicile at Rome. Emperors often filled vacancies in

21016-407: Was put into setting up regional and local loess stratigraphies and their correlations (Kukla 1970, 1975, 1977). However, even the chronostratigraphical position of the last interglacial soil correlating with marine isotope substage 5e was a matter of debate, due to the lack of robust and reliable numerical dating, as summarized, for example, by Zöller et al. (1994) and Frechen et al. (1997) for

21164-485: Was the era of Roman civilisation lasting from 27 BC to 476 AD. Rome ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Romans conquered most of this during the Republic , and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian 's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By 100 BC, Rome had expanded its rule to most of

21312-707: Was the first of the major wineries to plant vineyards in the Negev and operates a boutique winery at Ramat Arad . Tishbi has vineyards at Sde Boker and Barkan grows its grapes in Mitzpe Ramon . Yatir Winery is a winery in Tel Arad . Its vineyards are on a hill 900 meters above sea level on the outskirts of Yatir Forest . Carmey Avdat is Israel's first solar-powered winery. The Negev is home to hazardous infrastructures that include Negev Nuclear Research Center nuclear reactor , 22 agrochemical and petrochemical factories, an oil terminal, closed military zones, quarries,

21460-431: Was the prevailing theory, until more recent research showed that the earliest form of Nabataean agriculture in the Negev Highlands was only based on spring-water irrigation, with the much more extensive run-off water harvesting techniques using barrages and terraces apparently developing and being used only later, during the 4th-7th centuries CE, after the 3rd-century collapse of long-distance trade. The Nabateans controlled

21608-516: Was the region's capital and a center for trade in the 8th century BCE. Small settlements of Israelites in the areas around the capital existed between 1020 and 928 BCE. The 4th-century BCE arrival of the Nabateans resulted in the development of irrigation systems that supported new urban centers located along the Negev incense route at Avdat (Oboda), Mamshit (Mampsis), Shivta (Sobata), Haluza (Elusa), and Nitzana (Nessana). This at least

21756-447: Was used to designate the dignitas of certain senators and their immediate family, including women. "Grades" of equestrian status proliferated. As the republican principle of citizens' equality under the law faded, the symbolic and social privileges of the upper classes led to an informal division of Roman society into those who had acquired greater honours ( honestiores ) and humbler folk ( humiliores ). In general, honestiores were

21904-476: Was useful for a career in the military, government, or law. Bilingual inscriptions indicate the everyday interpenetration of the two languages. Latin and Greek's mutual linguistic and cultural influence is a complex topic. Latin words incorporated into Greek were very common by the early imperial era, especially for military, administration, and trade and commerce matters. Greek grammar, literature, poetry and philosophy shaped Latin language and culture. There

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