134-778: The Van Ophuijsen Spelling System was the Romanized standard orthography for the Indonesian language from 1901 to 1947. Before the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System was in force, the Malay language (and consequently Indonesian) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia ) did not have a standardized spelling, or was written in the Jawi script . In 1947, the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System was replaced by
268-518: A diaeresis was sometimes used to indicate the start of a new syllable within a sequence of letters that could otherwise be misinterpreted as being a single vowel (e.g., "coöperative", "reëlect"), but modern writing styles either omit such marks or use a hyphen to indicate a syllable break (e.g. "co-operative", "re-elect"). Some modified letters, such as the symbols ⟨ å ⟩ , ⟨ ä ⟩ , and ⟨ ö ⟩ , may be regarded as new individual letters in themselves, and assigned
402-628: A u , but signed it as Soekarno . Latin script The Latin script , also known as the Roman script , is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet , derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia . The Greek alphabet was altered by the Etruscans , and subsequently their alphabet was altered by
536-527: A ⟩ , ⟨ e ⟩ , ⟨ i ⟩ , ⟨ o ⟩ , ⟨ u ⟩ . The languages that use the Latin script today generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and proper nouns . The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization. Old English , for example, was rarely written with even proper nouns capitalized; whereas Modern English of
670-500: A European CEN standard. In the course of its use, the Latin alphabet was adapted for use in new languages, sometimes representing phonemes not found in languages that were already written with the Roman characters. To represent these new sounds, extensions were therefore created, be it by adding diacritics to existing letters , by joining multiple letters together to make ligatures , by creating completely new forms, or by assigning
804-686: A Gallic army under the leadership of tribal chieftain Brennus , defeated the Romans at the Battle of the Allia and marched to Rome. The Gauls looted and burned the city, then laid siege to the Capitoline Hill, where some Romans had barricaded themselves, for seven months. The Gauls then agreed to give the Romans peace in exchange for 1000 pounds of gold. According to later legend, the Roman supervising
938-406: A Republic. Augustus ( r. 27 BC – AD 14 ) gathered almost all the republican powers under his official title, princeps , and diminished the political influence of the senatorial class by boosting the equestrian class . The senators lost their right to rule certain provinces, like Egypt, since the governor of that province was directly nominated by the emperor. The creation of
1072-560: A banquet for its notable citizens, after which his soldiers killed all the guests. From the security of the temple of Sarapis, he then directed an indiscriminate slaughter of Alexandria's people. In 212, he issued the Edict of Caracalla , giving full Roman citizenship to all free men living in the Empire, with the exception of the dediticii , people who had become subject to Rome through surrender in war, and freed slaves. Mary Beard points to
1206-483: A free path to reestablish his own power. In 83 BC he made his second march on Rome and began a time of terror: thousands of nobles, knights and senators were executed. Sulla held two dictatorships and one more consulship, which began the crisis and decline of Roman Republic. In the mid-1st century BC, Roman politics were restless. Political divisions in Rome split into one of two groups, populares (who hoped for
1340-672: A half century after these events, Carthage was left humiliated and the Republic's focus was now directed towards the Hellenistic kingdoms of Greece and revolts in Hispania . However, Carthage, having paid the war indemnity, felt that its commitments and submission to Rome had ceased, a vision not shared by the Roman Senate . The Third Punic War began when Rome declared war against Carthage in 149 BC. Carthage resisted well at
1474-516: A hundred days. These games included gladiatorial combats , horse races and a sensational mock naval battle on the flooded grounds of the Colosseum. Titus died of fever in 81 AD, and was succeeded by his brother Domitian . As emperor, Domitian showed the characteristics of a tyrant . He ruled for fifteen years, during which time he acquired a reputation for self-promotion as a living god. He constructed at least two temples in honour of Jupiter,
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#17327661848961608-628: A large proletariat often of impoverished farmers. The latter groups supported the Catilinarian conspiracy —a resounding failure since the consul Marcus Tullius Cicero quickly arrested and executed the main leaders. Gaius Julius Caesar reconciled the two most powerful men in Rome: Marcus Licinius Crassus , who had financed much of his earlier career, and Crassus' rival, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (anglicised as Pompey), to whom he married his daughter . He formed them into
1742-538: A long time to reach the north west coast, and in 60 AD he finally crossed the Menai Strait to the sacred island of Mona ( Anglesey ), the last stronghold of the druids . His soldiers attacked the island and massacred the druids: men, women and children, destroyed the shrine and the sacred groves and threw many of the sacred standing stones into the sea. While Paulinus and his troops were massacring druids in Mona,
1876-710: A military leader to defeat the Cimbri and the Teutones , who were threatening Rome. After Marius's retirement, Rome had a brief peace, during which the Italian socii ("allies" in Latin) requested Roman citizenship and voting rights. The reformist Marcus Livius Drusus supported their legal process but was assassinated, and the socii revolted against the Romans in the Social War . At one point both consuls were killed; Marius
2010-658: A new informal alliance including himself, the First Triumvirate ("three men"). Caesar's daughter died in childbirth in 54 BC, and in 53 BC, Crassus invaded Parthia and was killed in the Battle of Carrhae ; the Triumvirate disintegrated. Caesar conquered Gaul , obtained immense wealth, respect in Rome and the loyalty of battle-hardened legions. He became a threat to Pompey and was loathed by many optimates . Confident that Caesar could be stopped by legal means, Pompey's party tried to strip Caesar of his legions,
2144-519: A pair of tribunes who attempted to pass land reform legislation that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians. Both brothers were killed and the Senate passed reforms reversing the Gracchi brother's actions. This led to the growing divide of the plebeian groups ( populares ) and equestrian classes ( optimates ). Gaius Marius soon become a leader of the Republic, holding
2278-538: A period of turbulence. Archaeological evidence implies some degree of large-scale warfare. According to tradition and later writers such as Livy , the Roman Republic was established c. 509 BC , when the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud , was deposed and a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established. A constitution set
2412-580: A prelude to Caesar's trial, impoverishment, and exile. To avoid this fate, Caesar crossed the Rubicon River and invaded Rome in 49 BC. The Battle of Pharsalus was a brilliant victory for Caesar and in this and other campaigns, he destroyed all of the optimates leaders: Metellus Scipio , Cato the Younger , and Pompey's son, Gnaeus Pompeius . Pompey was murdered in Egypt in 48 BC. Caesar
2546-550: A process termed romanization . Whilst the romanization of such languages is used mostly at unofficial levels, it has been especially prominent in computer messaging where only the limited seven-bit ASCII code is available on older systems. However, with the introduction of Unicode , romanization is now becoming less necessary. Keyboards used to enter such text may still restrict users to romanized text, as only ASCII or Latin-alphabet characters may be available. Ancient Rome In modern historiography , ancient Rome
2680-700: A proposal endorsed by the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People to switch the Crimean Tatar language to Latin by 2025. In July 2020, 2.6 billion people (36% of the world population) use the Latin alphabet. By the 1960s, it became apparent to the computer and telecommunications industries in the First World that a non-proprietary method of encoding characters was needed. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) encapsulated
2814-619: A revolt in Mauretania and the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judea. This was the last large-scale Jewish revolt against the Romans, and was suppressed with massive repercussions in Judea. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. Hadrian renamed the province of Judea " Provincia Syria Palaestina ", after one of Judea's most hated enemies. He constructed fortifications and walls, like the celebrated Hadrian's Wall which separated Roman Britannia and
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#17327661848962948-458: A rich Arabian city. Severus killed his legate, who was gaining respect from the legions; and his soldiers fell victim to famine. After this disastrous campaign, he withdrew. Severus also intended to vanquish the whole of Britannia. To achieve this, he waged war against the Caledonians . After many casualties in the army due to the terrain and the barbarians' ambushes, Severus himself went to
3082-646: A sea voyage to found a new Troy after the Trojan War . They landed on the banks of the Tiber River and a woman travelling with them, Roma, torched their ships to prevent them leaving again. They named the settlement after her. The Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid , where the Trojan prince Aeneas is destined to found a new Troy. Literary and archaeological evidence
3216-675: A series of checks and balances , and a separation of powers . The most important magistrates were the two consuls , who together exercised executive authority such as imperium , or military command. The consuls had to work with the Senate , which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or patricians , but grew in size and power. Other magistrates of the Republic include tribunes , quaestors , aediles , praetors and censors . The magistracies were originally restricted to patricians , but were later opened to common people, or plebeians . Republican voting assemblies included
3350-458: A single language. For example, in Spanish, the character ⟨ ñ ⟩ is considered a letter, and sorted between ⟨ n ⟩ and ⟨ o ⟩ in dictionaries, but the accented vowels ⟨ á ⟩ , ⟨ é ⟩ , ⟨ í ⟩ , ⟨ ó ⟩ , ⟨ ú ⟩ , ⟨ ü ⟩ are not separated from the unaccented vowels ⟨
3484-532: A small symbol that can appear above or below a letter, or in some other position, such as the umlaut sign used in the German characters ⟨ ä ⟩ , ⟨ ö ⟩ , ⟨ ü ⟩ or the Romanian characters ă , â , î , ș , ț . Its main function is to change the phonetic value of the letter to which it is added, but it may also modify the pronunciation of a whole syllable or word, indicate
3618-470: A special function to pairs or triplets of letters. These new forms are given a place in the alphabet by defining an alphabetical order or collation sequence, which can vary with the particular language. Some examples of new letters to the standard Latin alphabet are the Runic letters wynn ⟨Ƿ ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨Þ þ⟩ , and the letter eth ⟨Ð/ð⟩ , which were added to
3752-504: A specific place in the alphabet for collation purposes, separate from that of the letter on which they are based, as is done in Swedish . In other cases, such as with ⟨ ä ⟩ , ⟨ ö ⟩ , ⟨ ü ⟩ in German, this is not done; letter-diacritic combinations being identified with their base letter. The same applies to digraphs and trigraphs. Different diacritics may be treated differently in collation within
3886-697: A statue of Apollo and the temple of Divus Claudius ("the deified Claudius"), both initiated by Nero. Buildings destroyed by the Great Fire of Rome were rebuilt, and he revitalised the Capitol . Vespasian started the construction of the Flavian Amphitheater, commonly known as the Colosseum . The historians Josephus and Pliny the Elder wrote their works during Vespasian's reign. Vespasian
4020-546: A system of government called res publica , the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France . It achieved impressive technological and architectural feats, such as the empire-wide construction of aqueducts and roads , as well as more grandiose monuments and facilities. Archaeological evidence of settlement around Rome starts to emerge c. 1000 BC . Large-scale organisation appears only c. 800 BC , with
4154-497: A territory of some 780 square kilometres (300 square miles) with a population perhaps as high as 35,000. A palace, the Regia , was constructed c. 625 BC ; the Romans attributed the creation of their first popular organisations and the Senate to the regal period as well. Rome also started to extend its control over its Latin neighbours. While later Roman stories like the Aeneid asserted that all Latins descended from
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4288-624: A unified writing system for the Inuit languages in the country. The writing system is based on the Latin alphabet and is modeled after the one used in the Greenlandic language . On 12 February 2021 the government of Uzbekistan announced it will finalize the transition from Cyrillic to Latin for the Uzbek language by 2023. Plans to switch to Latin originally began in 1993 but subsequently stalled and Cyrillic remained in widespread use. At present
4422-640: Is also used by the Faroese alphabet . Some West, Central and Southern African languages use a few additional letters that have sound values similar to those of their equivalents in the IPA. For example, Adangme uses the letters ⟨Ɛ ɛ⟩ and ⟨Ɔ ɔ⟩ , and Ga uses ⟨Ɛ ɛ⟩ , ⟨Ŋ ŋ⟩ and ⟨Ɔ ɔ⟩ . Hausa uses ⟨Ɓ ɓ⟩ and ⟨Ɗ ɗ⟩ for implosives , and ⟨Ƙ ƙ⟩ for an ejective . Africanists have standardized these into
4556-448: Is clear on there having been kings in Rome, attested in fragmentary 6th century BC texts. Long after the abolition of the Roman monarchy, a vestigial rex sacrorum was retained to exercise the monarch's former priestly functions. The Romans believed that their monarchy was elective, with seven legendary kings who were largely unrelated by blood. Evidence of Roman expansion is clear in the sixth century BC; by its end, Rome controlled
4690-476: Is language-dependent, as only the first letter may be capitalized, or all component letters simultaneously (even for words written in title case, where letters after the digraph or trigraph are left in lowercase). A ligature is a fusion of two or more ordinary letters into a new glyph or character. Examples are ⟨ Æ æ⟩ (from ⟨AE⟩ , called ash ), ⟨ Œ œ⟩ (from ⟨OE⟩ , sometimes called oethel or eðel ),
4824-608: Is the Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside
4958-507: Is usually taken by historians as the beginning of Roman Empire. Officially, the government was republican, but Augustus assumed absolute powers. His reform of the government brought about a two-century period colloquially referred to by Romans as the Pax Romana . The Julio-Claudian dynasty was established by Augustus . The emperors of this dynasty were Augustus, Tiberius , Caligula , Claudius and Nero . The Julio-Claudians started
5092-689: The Historia Augusta give many accounts of his notorious extravagance. Elagabalus adopted his cousin Severus Alexander , as Caesar, but subsequently grew jealous and attempted to assassinate him. However, the Praetorian guard preferred Alexander, murdered Elagabalus, dragged his mutilated corpse through the streets of Rome, and threw it into the Tiber. Severus Alexander then succeeded him. Alexander waged war against many foes, including
5226-519: The comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly), which voted on matters of war and peace and elected men to the most important offices, and the comitia tributa (tribal assembly), which elected less important offices. In the 4th century BC, Rome had come under attack by the Gauls , who now extended their power in the Italian peninsula beyond the Po Valley and through Etruria. On 16 July 390 BC,
5360-540: The African reference alphabet . Dotted and dotless I — ⟨İ i⟩ and ⟨I ı⟩ — are two forms of the letter I used by the Turkish , Azerbaijani , and Kazakh alphabets. The Azerbaijani language also has ⟨Ə ə⟩ , which represents the near-open front unrounded vowel . A digraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to
5494-660: The Ancient Romans . Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet. The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet , and the 26 most widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet , which are the same letters as the English alphabet . Latin script is the basis for
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5628-556: The Crimean Tatar language uses both Cyrillic and Latin. The use of Latin was originally approved by Crimean Tatar representatives after the Soviet Union's collapse but was never implemented by the regional government. After Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 the Latin script was dropped entirely. Nevertheless, Crimean Tatars outside of Crimea continue to use Latin and on 22 October 2021 the government of Ukraine approved
5762-509: The English alphabet . Later standards issued by the ISO, for example ISO/IEC 10646 ( Unicode Latin ), have continued to define the 26 × 2 letters of the English alphabet as the basic Latin alphabet with extensions to handle other letters in other languages. The DIN standard DIN 91379 specifies a subset of Unicode letters, special characters, and sequences of letters and diacritic signs to allow
5896-544: The English alphabet . Later standards issued by the ISO, for example ISO/IEC 10646 ( Unicode Latin ), have continued to define the 26 × 2 letters of the English alphabet as the basic Latin alphabet with extensions to handle other letters in other languages. The Latin alphabet spread, along with Latin , from the Italian Peninsula to the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of
6030-588: The Hadiyya and Kambaata languages. On 15 September 1999 the authorities of Tatarstan , Russia, passed a law to make the Latin script a co-official writing system alongside Cyrillic for the Tatar language by 2011. A year later, however, the Russian government overruled the law and banned Latinization on its territory. In 2015, the government of Kazakhstan announced that a Kazakh Latin alphabet would replace
6164-565: The Hindu–Arabic numeral system . The use of the letters I and V for both consonants and vowels proved inconvenient as the Latin alphabet was adapted to Germanic and Romance languages. W originated as a doubled V (VV) used to represent the Voiced labial–velar approximant / w / found in Old English as early as the 7th century. It came into common use in the later 11th century, replacing
6298-452: The Kazakh Cyrillic alphabet as the official writing system for the Kazakh language by 2025. There are also talks about switching from the Cyrillic script to Latin in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan , and Mongolia . Mongolia, however, has since opted to revive the Mongolian script instead of switching to Latin. In October 2019, the organization National Representational Organization for Inuit in Canada (ITK) announced that they will introduce
6432-440: The Malaysian and Indonesian languages , replacing earlier Arabic and indigenous Brahmic alphabets. Latin letters served as the basis for the forms of the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah ; however, the sound values are completely different. Under Portuguese missionary influence, a Latin alphabet was devised for the Vietnamese language , which had previously used Chinese characters . The Latin-based alphabet replaced
6566-434: The North African coast, Egypt , Southern Europe, and most of Western Europe, the Balkans , Crimea , and much of the Middle East, including Anatolia , Levant , and parts of Mesopotamia and Arabia . That empire was among the largest empires in the ancient world, covering around 5 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles) in AD 117, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of
6700-419: The People's Republic of China introduced a script reform to the Zhuang language , changing its orthography from Sawndip , a writing system based on Chinese, to a Latin script alphabet that used a mixture of Latin, Cyrillic, and IPA letters to represent both the phonemes and tones of the Zhuang language, without the use of diacritics. In 1982 this was further standardised to use only Latin script letters. With
6834-530: The Praetorian Guard and his reforms in the military, creating a standing army with a fixed size of 28 legions, ensured his total control over the army. Compared with the Second Triumvirate's epoch, Augustus' reign as princeps was very peaceful, which led the people and the nobles of Rome to support Augustus, increasing his strength in political affairs. His generals were responsible for the field command, gaining such commanders as Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa , Nero Claudius Drusus and Germanicus much respect from
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#17327661848966968-427: The Republican Spelling System . Prof. Charles Adriaan van Ophuijsen [ nl ; id ] , who devised the orthography, was a Dutch linguist. He was a former inspector in a school at Bukittinggi , West Sumatra in the 1890s, before he became a professor of the Malay language at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Together with two native assistants, Engku Nawawi and Mohammed Taib Sultan Ibrahim, he published
7102-449: The River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula . The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greek culture of southern Italy ( Magna Grecia ) and the Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its height it controlled
7236-400: The Roman Empire . The eastern half of the Empire, including Greece, Turkey, the Levant , and Egypt, continued to use Greek as a lingua franca , but Latin was widely spoken in the western half, and as the western Romance languages evolved out of Latin, they continued to use and adapt the Latin alphabet. With the spread of Western Christianity during the Middle Ages , the Latin alphabet
7370-466: The Roman naming conventions ) tried to align himself with the Caesarian faction. In 43 BC, along with Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus , Caesar's best friend, he legally established the Second Triumvirate . Upon its formation, 130–300 senators were executed, and their property was confiscated, due to their supposed support for the Liberatores . In 42 BC, the Senate deified Caesar as Divus Iulius ; Octavian thus became Divi filius ,
7504-568: The Turkic -speaking peoples of the former USSR , including Tatars , Bashkirs , Azeri , Kazakh , Kyrgyz and others, had their writing systems replaced by the Latin-based Uniform Turkic alphabet in the 1930s; but, in the 1940s, all were replaced by Cyrillic. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, three of the newly independent Turkic-speaking republics, Azerbaijan , Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan , as well as Romanian-speaking Moldova , officially adopted Latin alphabets for their languages. Kyrgyzstan , Iranian -speaking Tajikistan , and
7638-399: The abbreviation ⟨ & ⟩ (from Latin : et , lit. 'and', called ampersand ), and ⟨ ẞ ß ⟩ (from ⟨ſʒ⟩ or ⟨ſs⟩ , the archaic medial form of ⟨s⟩ , followed by an ⟨ ʒ ⟩ or ⟨s⟩ , called sharp S or eszett ). A diacritic, in some cases also called an accent, is
7772-592: The "five good emperors" Nerva , Trajan , Hadrian , Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius . Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were part of Italic families settled in Roman colonies outside of Italy: the families of Trajan and Hadrian had settled in Italica ( Hispania Baetica ), that of Antoninus Pius in Colonia Agusta Nemausensis ( Gallia Narbonensis ), and that of Marcus Aurelius in Colonia Claritas Iulia Ucubi (Hispania Baetica). The Nerva-Antonine dynasty came to an end with Commodus , son of Marcus Aurelius. Nerva abdicated and died in 98 AD, and
7906-492: The 18th century had frequently all nouns capitalized, in the same way that Modern German is written today, e.g. German : Alle Schwestern der alten Stadt hatten die Vögel gesehen , lit. 'All of the Sisters of the old City had seen the Birds'. Words from languages natively written with other scripts , such as Arabic or Chinese , are usually transliterated or transcribed when embedded in Latin-script text or in multilingual international communication,
8040-536: The 2nd century BC, the Romans became the dominant people of the Mediterranean Sea . The conquest of the Hellenistic kingdoms brought the Roman and Greek cultures in closer contact and the Roman elite, once rural, became cosmopolitan. At this time Rome was a consolidated empire—in the military view—and had no major enemies. Foreign dominance led to internal strife. Senators became rich at the provinces ' expense; soldiers, who were mostly small-scale farmers, were away from home longer and could not maintain their land; and
8174-430: The Capitoline and expanding to the Forum Boarium located between the Capitoline and Aventine Hills . The Romans themselves had a founding myth , attributing their city to Romulus and Remus , offspring of Mars and a princess of the mythical city of Alba Longa . The sons, sentenced to death, were rescued by a wolf and returned to restore the Alban king and found a city. After a dispute, Romulus killed Remus and became
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#17327661848968308-420: The Carthaginian intercession, Messana asked Rome to expel the Carthaginians. Rome entered this war because Syracuse and Messana were too close to the newly conquered Greek cities of Southern Italy and Carthage was now able to make an offensive through Roman territory; along with this, Rome could extend its domain over Sicily . Carthage was a maritime power, and the Roman lack of ships and naval experience made
8442-434: The Chinese characters in administration in the 19th century with French rule. In the late 19th century, the Romanians switched to using the Latin alphabet, dropping the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet . Romanian is one of the Romance languages . In 1928, as part of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 's reforms, the new Republic of Turkey adopted a Latin alphabet for the Turkish language , replacing a modified Arabic alphabet. Most of
8576-427: The Eastern part of the Roman territories. However, Marius's partisans managed his installation to the military command, defying Sulla and the Senate . To consolidate his own power, Sulla conducted a surprising and illegal action: he marched to Rome with his legions, killing all those who showed support to Marius's cause. In the following year, 87 BC, Marius, who had fled at Sulla's march, returned to Rome while Sulla
8710-413: The Empire in 165–180 AD. From Nerva to Marcus Aurelius, the empire achieved an unprecedented status. The powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. All the citizens enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence. The Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on
8844-463: The Flavian period was the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by Titus . The destruction of the city was the culmination of the Roman campaign in Judea following the Jewish uprising of 66 AD. The Second Temple was completely demolished, after which Titus' soldiers proclaimed him imperator in honour of the victory. Jerusalem was sacked and much of the population killed or dispersed. Josephus claims that 1,100,000 people were killed during
8978-444: The Italian Alps , causing panic among Rome's Italian allies. The best way found to defeat Hannibal's purpose of causing the Italians to abandon Rome was to delay the Carthaginians with a guerrilla war of attrition, a strategy propounded by Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus . Hannibal's invasion lasted over 16 years, ravaging Italy, but ultimately Carthage was defeated in the decisive Battle of Zama in October 202 BC. More than
9112-434: The Latin alphabet in their ( ISO/IEC 646 ) standard. To achieve widespread acceptance, this encapsulation was based on popular usage. As the United States held a preeminent position in both industries during the 1960s, the standard was based on the already published American Standard Code for Information Interchange , better known as ASCII , which included in the character set the 26 × 2 (uppercase and lowercase) letters of
9246-432: The Latin alphabet in their ( ISO/IEC 646 ) standard. To achieve widespread acceptance, this encapsulation was based on popular usage. As the United States held a preeminent position in both industries during the 1960s, the standard was based on the already published American Standard Code for Information Interchange , better known as ASCII , which included in the character set the 26 × 2 (uppercase and lowercase) letters of
9380-411: 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 Flavians were the second dynasty to rule Rome. By 68 AD, the year of Nero's death, there
9514-416: The Senate, they were severely restricted in political power. The Senate squabbled perpetually, repeatedly blocked important land reforms and refused to give the equestrian class a larger say in the government. Violent gangs of the urban unemployed, controlled by rival Senators, intimidated the electorate through violence. The situation came to a head in the late 2nd century BC under the Gracchi brothers,
9648-738: The Van Ophuijsen system led to the development of a partially revised orthography called the Republican Spelling System in 1947, and eventually to the adoption of the Enhanced Indonesian Spelling System in 1972. Van Ophuijsen spellings continue to be frequently used in Indonesian names like Soerjadjaja ( Suryajaya , also written in a mixed spelling as Soeryadjaya ). Since spelling of Indonesian names are fluid, usage can also be inconsistent: for example, Sukarno wrote his own name with
9782-573: The aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in 281 BC, but this effort failed as well. The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman colonies in strategic areas, thereby establishing stable control over the region. In the 3rd century BC Rome faced a new and formidable opponent: Carthage , the other major power in the Western Mediterranean. The First Punic War began in 264 BC, when the city of Messana asked for Carthage's help in their conflicts with Hiero II of Syracuse . After
9916-498: The alphabet of Old English . Another Irish letter, the insular g , developed into yogh ⟨Ȝ ȝ⟩ , used in Middle English . Wynn was later replaced with the new letter ⟨w⟩ , eth and thorn with ⟨ th ⟩ , and yogh with ⟨ gh ⟩ . Although the four are no longer part of the English or Irish alphabets, eth and thorn are still used in the modern Icelandic alphabet , while eth
10050-619: The appearance of a ligature ⟨ij⟩ very similar to the letter ⟨ÿ⟩ in handwriting . A trigraph is made up of three letters, like the German ⟨ sch ⟩ , the Breton ⟨ c'h ⟩ or the Milanese ⟨oeu⟩ . In the orthographies of some languages, digraphs and trigraphs are regarded as independent letters of the alphabet in their own right. The capitalization of digraphs and trigraphs
10184-618: The architect Apollodorus of Damascus . He remodelled the Pantheon and extended the Circus Maximus . When Parthia appointed a king for Armenia without consulting Rome, Trajan declared war on Parthia and deposed the king of Armenia. In 115 he took the Northern Mesopotamian cities of Nisibis and Batnae , organised a province of Mesopotamia (116), and issued coins that claimed Armenia and Mesopotamia were under
10318-477: The arts and sciences, and bestowed honours and financial rewards upon the teachers of rhetoric and philosophy . On becoming emperor, Antoninus made few initial changes, leaving intact as far as possible the arrangements instituted by his predecessor. Antoninus expanded Roman Britannia by invading what is now southern Scotland and building the Antonine Wall . He also continued Hadrian's policy of humanising
10452-549: The authority of the Roman people. In that same year, he captured Seleucia and the Parthian capital Ctesiphon (near modern Baghdad ). After defeating a Parthian revolt and a Jewish revolt , he withdrew due to health issues, and in 117, he died of edema . Trajan's successor Hadrian withdrew all the troops stationed in Parthia, Armenia and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq ), abandoning Trajan's conquests. Hadrian's army crushed
10586-599: The breakaway region of Transnistria kept the Cyrillic alphabet, chiefly due to their close ties with Russia. In the 1930s and 1940s, the majority of Kurds replaced the Arabic script with two Latin alphabets. Although only the official Kurdish government uses an Arabic alphabet for public documents, the Latin Kurdish alphabet remains widely used throughout the region by the majority of Kurdish -speakers. In 1957,
10720-524: The capital letters are Greek in origin). In the context of transliteration , the term " romanization " ( British English : "romanisation") is often found. Unicode uses the term "Latin" as does the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The numeral system is called the Roman numeral system, and the collection of the elements is known as the Roman numerals . The numbers 1, 2, 3 ... are Latin/Roman script numbers for
10854-537: The changes to the calendar promoted by Caesar , and the month of August is named after him. Augustus brought a peaceful and thriving era to Rome, known as Pax Augusta or Pax Romana . Augustus died in 14 AD, but the empire's glory continued after his era. The Julio-Claudians continued to rule Rome after Augustus' death and remained in power until the death of Nero in 68 AD. Influenced by his wife, Livia Drusilla , Augustus appointed her son from another marriage, Tiberius , as his heir. The Senate agreed with
10988-471: The character Aeneas , a common culture is attested to archaeologically. Attested to reciprocal rights of marriage and citizenship between Latin cities—the Jus Latii —along with shared religious festivals, further indicate a shared culture. By the end of the 6th century, most of this area had become dominated by the Romans. By the end of the sixth century, Rome and many of its Italian neighbours entered
11122-472: The city's sole founder. The area of his initial settlement on the Palatine Hill was later known as Roma Quadrata ("Square Rome"). The story dates at least to the third century BC, and the later Roman antiquarian Marcus Terentius Varro placed the city's foundation to 753 BC. Another legend, recorded by Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus , says that Prince Aeneas led a group of Trojans on
11256-661: The collapse of the Derg and subsequent end of decades of Amharic assimilation in 1991, various ethnic groups in Ethiopia dropped the Geʽez script , which was deemed unsuitable for languages outside of the Semitic branch . In the following years the Kafa , Oromo , Sidama , Somali , and Wolaitta languages switched to Latin while there is continued debate on whether to follow suit for
11390-636: The correct representation of names and to simplify data exchange in Europe. This specification supports all official languages of European Union and European Free Trade Association countries (thus also the Greek and Cyrillic scripts), plus the German minority languages . To allow the transliteration of names in other writing systems to the Latin script according to the relevant ISO standards all necessary combinations of base letters and diacritic signs are provided. Efforts are being made to further develop it into
11524-785: The death of Tiberius, and, with belated support from the senators, proclaimed his uncle Claudius as the new emperor. Claudius was not as authoritarian as Tiberius and Caligula. Claudius conquered Lycia and Thrace ; his most important deed was the beginning of the conquest of Britannia . Claudius was poisoned by his wife, Agrippina the Younger in 54 AD. His heir was Nero , son of Agrippina and her former husband, since Claudius' son Britannicus had not reached manhood upon his father's death. Nero sent his general, Suetonius Paulinus , to invade modern-day Wales , where he encountered stiff resistance. The Celts there were independent, tough, resistant to tax collectors, and fought Paulinus as he battled his way across from east to west. It took him
11658-469: The destruction of republican values, but on the other hand, they boosted Rome's status as the central power in the Mediterranean region. While Caligula and Nero are usually remembered in popular culture as dysfunctional emperors, Augustus and Claudius are remembered as successful in politics and the military. This dynasty instituted imperial tradition in Rome and frustrated any attempt to reestablish
11792-592: The edict as a fundamental turning point, after which Rome was "effectively a new state masquerading under an old name". Macrinus conspired to have Caracalla assassinated by one of his soldiers during a pilgrimage to the Temple of the Moon in Carrhae, in 217 AD. Macrinus assumed power, but soon removed himself from Rome to the east and Antioch. His brief reign ended in 218, when the youngster Bassianus, high priest of
11926-470: The emperors all the executive powers of government. Gibbon declared the rule of these "Five Good Emperors" the golden era of the Empire. During this time, Rome reached its greatest territorial extent. Commodus , son of Marcus Aurelius, became emperor after his father's death. He is not counted as one of the Five Good Emperors, due to his direct kinship with the latter emperor; in addition, he
12060-526: The end of the Triumvirate, Antony was living in Ptolemaic Egypt , ruled by his lover, Cleopatra VII . Antony's affair with Cleopatra was seen as an act of treason, since she was queen of another country. Additionally, Antony adopted a lifestyle considered too extravagant and Hellenistic for a Roman statesman. Following Antony's Donations of Alexandria , which gave to Cleopatra the title of " Queen of Kings ", and to Antony's and Cleopatra's children
12194-492: The field. However, he became ill and died in 211 AD, at the age of 65. Upon the death of Severus, his sons Caracalla and Geta were made emperors. Caracalla had his brother, a youth, assassinated in his mother's arms, and may have murdered 20,000 of Geta's followers. Like his father, Caracalla was warlike. He continued Severus' policy and gained respect from the legions. Knowing that the citizens of Alexandria disliked him and were denigrating his character, Caracalla served
12328-730: The first graves in the Esquiline Hill 's necropolis, along with a clay and timber wall on the bottom of the Palatine Hill dating to the middle of the 8th century BC. Starting from c. 650 BC , the Romans started to drain the valley between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills, where today sits the Roman Forum . By the sixth century BC, the Romans were constructing the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on
12462-521: The first of his seven consulships (an unprecedented number) in 107 BC by arguing that his former patron Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus was not able to defeat and capture the Numidian king Jugurtha . Marius then started his military reform: in his recruitment to fight Jugurtha, he levied the very poor (an innovation), and many landless men entered the army. Marius was elected for five consecutive consulships from 104 to 100 BC, as Rome needed
12596-576: The first persecutor of Christians and for the Great Fire of Rome , rumoured to have been started by the emperor himself. A conspiracy against Nero in 65 AD under Calpurnius Piso failed, but in 68 AD the armies under Julius Vindex in Gaul and Servius Sulpicius Galba in modern-day Spain revolted. Deserted by the Praetorian Guards and condemned to death by the senate, Nero killed himself. As Roman provinces were being established throughout
12730-471: The first strike but could not withstand the attack of Scipio Aemilianus , who entirely destroyed the city, enslaved all the citizens and gained control of that region, which became the province of Africa . All these wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests (Sicily, Hispania and Africa) and the rise of Rome as a significant imperial power. After defeating the Macedonian and Seleucid Empires in
12864-474: The frontier legions to save them. The legions of three frontier provinces— Britannia , Pannonia Superior , and Syria —resented being excluded from the " donative " and replied by declaring their individual generals to be emperor. Lucius Septimius Severus Geta, the Pannonian commander, bribed the opposing forces, pardoned the Praetorian Guards and installed himself as emperor. He and his successors governed with
12998-477: The imperial dignity. Pertinax, a member of the senate who had been one of Marcus Aurelius's right-hand men, was the choice of Laetus, and he ruled vigorously and judiciously. Laetus soon became jealous and instigated Pertinax's murder by the Praetorian Guard, who then auctioned the empire to the highest bidder, Didius Julianus, for 25,000 sesterces per man. The people of Rome were appalled and appealed to
13132-433: The increased reliance on foreign slaves and the growth of latifundia reduced the availability of paid work. Income from war booty, mercantilism in the new provinces, and tax farming created new economic opportunities for the wealthy, forming a new class of merchants, called the equestrians . The lex Claudia forbade members of the Senate from engaging in commerce, so while the equestrians could theoretically join
13266-572: The languages spoken in Western , Northern , and Central Europe . The Orthodox Christian Slavs of Eastern and Southeastern Europe mostly used Cyrillic , and the Greek alphabet was in use by Greek speakers around the eastern Mediterranean. The Arabic script was widespread within Islam, both among Arabs and non-Arab nations like the Iranians , Indonesians , Malays , and Turkic peoples . Most of
13400-505: The largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the most widely adopted writing system in the world. Latin script is used as the standard method of writing the languages of Western and Central Europe, most of sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, as well as many languages in other parts of the world. The script is either called Latin script or Roman script, in reference to its origin in ancient Rome (though some of
13534-798: The laws. He died in 161 AD. Marcus Aurelius , known as the Philosopher, was the last of the Five Good Emperors . He was a stoic philosopher and wrote the Meditations . He defeated barbarian tribes in the Marcomannic Wars as well as the Parthian Empire . His co-emperor, Lucius Verus , died in 169 AD, probably from the Antonine Plague , a pandemic that killed nearly five million people through
13668-693: The legions' support. The changes on coinage and military expenditures were the root of the financial crisis that marked the Crisis of the Third Century . Severus was enthroned after invading Rome and having Didius Julianus killed. Severus attempted to revive totalitarianism and, addressing the Roman people and Senate, praised the severity and cruelty of Marius and Sulla, which worried the senators. When Parthia invaded Roman territory, Severus successfully waged war against that country. Notwithstanding this military success, Severus failed in invading Hatra ,
13802-536: The letter wynn ⟨Ƿ ƿ⟩ , which had been used for the same sound. In the Romance languages, the minuscule form of V was a rounded u ; from this was derived a rounded capital U for the vowel in the 16th century, while a new, pointed minuscule v was derived from V for the consonant. In the case of I, a word-final swash form, j , came to be used for the consonant, with the un-swashed form restricted to vowel use. Such conventions were erratic for centuries. J
13936-641: The new orthography on Kitab Logat Malajoe: Woordenlijst voor Spelling der Maleische Taal in 1901, and published a second book, Maleische Spraakkunst , in 1910. The latter was translated by T.W. Kamil into Tata Bahasa Melayu in 1983 and became the primary guide for the spelling and usage of the Malay language in Indonesia. The Van Ophuijsen system was modelled extensively on Dutch orthography , ostensibly to make pronunciation of Malay and Indonesian words more easily understandable to Dutch colonial authorities. Thus,
14070-549: The path to the victory a long and difficult one for the Roman Republic . Despite this, after more than 20 years of war, Rome defeated Carthage and a peace treaty was signed. Among the reasons for the Second Punic War was the subsequent war reparations Carthage acquiesced to at the end of the First Punic War. The war began with the audacious invasion of Hispania by Hannibal , who marched through Hispania to
14204-514: The people who spoke them adopted Roman Catholicism . The speakers of East Slavic languages generally adopted Cyrillic along with Orthodox Christianity . The Serbian language uses both scripts, with Cyrillic predominating in official communication and Latin elsewhere, as determined by the Law on Official Use of the Language and Alphabet. As late as 1500, the Latin script was limited primarily to
14338-770: The populace and the legions. Augustus intended to extend the Roman Empire to the whole known world, and in his reign, Rome conquered Cantabria , Aquitania , Raetia , Dalmatia , Illyricum and Pannonia . Under Augustus' reign, Roman literature grew steadily in what is known as the Golden Age of Latin Literature . Poets like Virgil , Horace , Ovid and Rufus developed a rich literature, and were close friends of Augustus. Along with Maecenas , he sponsored patriotic poems, such as Virgil's epic Aeneid and historiographical works like those of Livy . Augustus continued
14472-400: The regal titles to the newly conquered Eastern territories, war between Octavian and Antony broke out . Octavian annihilated Egyptian forces in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide . Now Egypt was conquered by the Roman Empire. In 27 BC and at the age of 36, Octavian was the sole Roman leader. In that year, he took the name Augustus . That event
14606-686: The rest of Asia used a variety of Brahmic alphabets or the Chinese script . Through European colonization the Latin script has spread to the Americas , Oceania , parts of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, in forms based on the Spanish , Portuguese , English , French , German and Dutch alphabets. It is used for many Austronesian languages , including the languages of the Philippines and
14740-551: The revitalised Persia and also the Germanic peoples , who invaded Gaul. His losses generated dissatisfaction among his soldiers, and some of them murdered him during his Germanic campaign in 235 AD. A disastrous scenario emerged after the death of Alexander Severus : the Roman state was plagued by civil wars, external invasions , political chaos, pandemics and economic depression . The old Roman values had fallen, and Mithraism and Christianity had begun to spread through
14874-753: The siege, of whom a majority were Jewish. 97,000 were captured and enslaved , including Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala . Many fled to areas around the Mediterranean. Vespasian was a general under Claudius and Nero and fought as a commander in the First Jewish-Roman War . Following the turmoil of the Year of the Four Emperors , in 69 AD, four emperors were enthroned in turn: Galba , Otho , Vitellius , and, lastly, Vespasian, who crushed Vitellius' forces and became emperor. He reconstructed many buildings which were uncompleted, like
15008-497: The son of the deified. In the same year, Octavian and Antony defeated both Caesar's assassins and the leaders of the Liberatores , Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus , in the Battle of Philippi . The Second Triumvirate was marked by the proscriptions of many senators and equites : after a revolt led by Antony's brother Lucius Antonius , more than 300 senators and equites involved were executed, although Lucius
15142-496: The start of a new syllable, or distinguish between homographs such as the Dutch words een ( pronounced [ən] ) meaning "a" or "an", and één , ( pronounced [e:n] ) meaning "one". As with the pronunciation of letters, the effect of diacritics is language-dependent. English is the only major modern European language that requires no diacritics for its native vocabulary . Historically, in formal writing,
15276-520: The succession, and granted to Tiberius the same titles and honours once granted to Augustus: the title of princeps and Pater patriae , and the Civic Crown . However, Tiberius was not an enthusiast for political affairs: after agreement with the Senate, he retired to Capri in 26 AD, and left control of the city of Rome in the hands of the praetorian prefect Sejanus (until 31 AD) and Macro (from 31 to 37 AD). Tiberius died (or
15410-429: The support of the people) and optimates (the "best", who wanted to maintain exclusive aristocratic control). Sulla overthrew all populist leaders and his constitutional reforms removed powers (such as those of the tribune of the plebs ) that had supported populist approaches. Meanwhile, social and economic stresses continued to build; Rome had become a metropolis with a super-rich aristocracy, debt-ridden aspirants, and
15544-485: The supreme deity in Roman religion . He was murdered following a plot within his own household. Following Domitian's murder, the Senate rapidly appointed Nerva as Emperor. Nerva had noble ancestry, and he had served as an advisor to Nero and the Flavians. His rule restored many of the traditional liberties of Rome's upper classes, which Domitian had over-ridden. The Nerva–Antonine dynasty from 96 AD to 192 AD included
15678-616: The system used the Dutch variant of the Latin script , reflecting contemporaneous Dutch phonology . Some noticeable characteristics of this spelling system were: While the Van Ophuijsen system greatly aided Dutch speakers in pronouncing the Indonesian language, its complete reliance on Dutch orthography, which is rich in digraphs and trigraphs, often resulted in unwieldy spellings of Indonesian words. For example: The perceived shortcomings of
15812-448: The temple of the Sun at Emesa, and supposedly illegitimate son of Caracalla, was declared Emperor by the disaffected soldiers of Macrinus. He adopted the name of Antoninus but history has named him after his Sun god Elagabalus , represented on Earth in the form of a large black stone. An incompetent and lascivious ruler, Elagabalus offended all but his favourites. Cassius Dio , Herodian and
15946-464: The tribes of modern-day East Anglia staged a revolt led by queen Boadicea of the Iceni . The rebels sacked and burned Camulodunum , Londinium and Verulamium (modern-day Colchester , London and St Albans respectively) before they were crushed by Paulinus . Boadicea, like Cleopatra before her, committed suicide to avoid the disgrace of being paraded in triumph in Rome. Nero is widely known as
16080-438: The tribes of modern-day Scotland. Hadrian promoted culture, especially the Greek. He forbade torture and humanised the laws. His many building projects included aqueducts, baths, libraries and theatres; additionally, he travelled nearly every province in the Empire to review military and infrastructural conditions. Following Hadrian's death in 138 AD, his successor Antoninus Pius built temples, theatres, and mausoleums, promoted
16214-519: The weighing noticed that the Gauls were using false scales. The Romans then took up arms and defeated the Gauls. Their victorious general Camillus remarked "With iron, not with gold, Rome buys her freedom." The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, including the Etruscans . The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum , a major Greek colony, enlisted
16348-663: The world's population at the time. The Roman state evolved from an elective monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic military dictatorship during the Empire. Ancient Rome is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece , and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world . Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern language, religion, society, technology, law, politics, government, warfare, art, literature, architecture, and engineering. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created
16482-475: The written letters in sequence. Examples are ⟨ ch ⟩ , ⟨ ng ⟩ , ⟨ rh ⟩ , ⟨ sh ⟩ , ⟨ ph ⟩ , ⟨ th ⟩ in English, and ⟨ ij ⟩ , ⟨ee⟩ , ⟨ ch ⟩ and ⟨ei⟩ in Dutch. In Dutch the ⟨ij⟩ is capitalized as ⟨IJ⟩ or the ligature ⟨IJ⟩ , but never as ⟨Ij⟩ , and it often takes
16616-657: Was Josephus' sponsor and Pliny dedicated his Naturalis Historia to Titus, son of Vespasian. Vespasian sent legions to defend the eastern frontier in Cappadocia , extended the occupation in Britannia (modern-day England, Wales and southern Scotland ) and reformed the tax system. He died in 79 AD. Titus became emperor in 79. He finished the Flavian Amphitheater, using war spoils from the First Jewish-Roman War, and hosted victory games that lasted for
16750-476: Was appointed to command the army together with Lucius Julius Caesar and Lucius Cornelius Sulla . By the end of the Social War, Marius and Sulla were the premier military men in Rome and their partisans were in conflict, both sides jostling for power. In 88 BC, Sulla was elected for his first consulship and his first assignment was to defeat Mithridates VI of Pontus , whose intentions were to conquer
16884-506: Was campaigning in Greece. He seized power along with the consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna and killed the other consul, Gnaeus Octavius , achieving his seventh consulship. Marius and Cinna revenged their partisans by conducting a massacre. Marius died in 86 BC, due to age and poor health, just a few months after seizing power. Cinna exercised absolute power until his death in 84 BC. After returning from his Eastern campaigns, Sulla had
17018-545: Was gradually adopted by the peoples of Northern Europe who spoke Celtic languages (displacing the Ogham alphabet) or Germanic languages (displacing earlier Runic alphabets ) or Baltic languages , as well as by the speakers of several Uralic languages , most notably Hungarian , Finnish and Estonian . The Latin script also came into use for writing the West Slavic languages and several South Slavic languages , as
17152-445: Was introduced into English for the consonant in the 17th century (it had been rare as a vowel), but it was not universally considered a distinct letter in the alphabetic order until the 19th century. By the 1960s, it became apparent to the computer and telecommunications industries in the First World that a non-proprietary method of encoding characters was needed. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) encapsulated
17286-497: Was killed) in 37 AD. The male line of the Julio-Claudians was limited to Tiberius' nephew Claudius , his grandson Tiberius Gemellus and his grand-nephew Caligula . As Gemellus was still a child, Caligula was chosen to rule the empire. He was a popular leader in the first half of his reign, but became a crude and insane tyrant in his years controlling government. The Praetorian Guard murdered Caligula four years after
17420-532: Was militarily passive. Cassius Dio identifies his reign as the beginning of Roman decadence : "(Rome has transformed) from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust." Commodus was killed by a conspiracy involving Quintus Aemilius Laetus and his wife Marcia in late 192 AD. The following year is known as the Year of the Five Emperors , during which Helvius Pertinax , Didius Julianus , Pescennius Niger , Clodius Albinus and Septimius Severus held
17554-570: Was no chance of a return to the Roman Republic , and so a new emperor had to arise. After the turmoil in the Year of the Four Emperors , Titus Flavius Vespasianus (anglicised as Vespasian) took control of the empire and established a new dynasty. Under the Flavians, Rome continued its expansion, and the state remained secure. Under Trajan, the Roman Empire reached the peak of its territorial expansion. Rome's dominion now spanned 5.0 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles). The most significant military campaign undertaken during
17688-612: Was now pre-eminent over Rome: in five years he held four consulships, two ordinary dictatorships, and two special dictatorships, one for perpetuity. He was murdered in 44 BC, on the Ides of March by the Liberatores . Caesar's assassination caused political and social turmoil in Rome; the city was ruled by his friend and colleague, Marcus Antonius . Soon afterward, Octavius , whom Caesar adopted through his will, arrived in Rome. Octavian (historians regard Octavius as Octavian due to
17822-557: Was spared. The Triumvirate divided the Empire among the triumvirs: Lepidus was given charge of Africa , Antony, the eastern provinces, and Octavian remained in Italia and controlled Hispania and Gaul . The Second Triumvirate expired in 38 BC but was renewed for five more years. However, the relationship between Octavian and Antony had deteriorated, and Lepidus was forced to retire in 36 BC after betraying Octavian in Sicily . By
17956-482: Was succeeded by the general Trajan . Trajan is credited with the restoration of traditional privileges and rights of commoner and senatorial classes, which later Roman historians claim to have been eroded during Domitian's autocracy. Trajan fought three Dacian wars , winning territories roughly equivalent to modern-day Romania and Moldova . He undertook an ambitious public building program in Rome, including Trajan's Forum , Trajan's Market and Trajan's Column , with
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