seen from Brazil
seen from France
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Pakistan
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Egypt
seen from Egypt
seen from Taiwan
seen from Russia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Bosnia & Herzegovina
seen from China
Detail of Cesare Borgia from the Disputation of St Catherine of Alexandria by Pinturicchio
Rome’s Ancient Arch of Constantine Struck by Lightening
During a storm on September 3, lightning struck Rome’s Arch of Constantine, chipping the structure’s marble surface. The 1,700-year-old arch and its neighbor, the Colosseum, were two of several sites affected by the thunderstorm, which produced 2.36 inches of rain in less than an hour. Usually, the city sees a similar amount over the entire month of September.
“A lightning strike hit the arch right here and then hit the corner,” a tourist at the site told Reuters’ Alberto Lingria. “We saw this fly off,” the tourist added while pointing to a fallen block of stone.
Finished in 315 C.E., the Arch of Constantine is one of Rome’s three surviving ancient triumphal arches, each erected to honor a person or event. This arch commemorates Constantine I’s 312 victory over the emperor Maxentius. That same year, Constantine devoted himself to Christianity—the first Roman ruler to do so.
The fierce storm also felled two large trees near the Circus Maximus, flooded the Trevi Fountain and flooded the Colosseum’s subterranean tunnels, reports CNN. After lightning struck the arch, staff of the Colosseum Archaeological Park quickly gathered its dislodged pieces and placed them in a secure location, according to a statement from Italy’s Ministry of Culture.
In the days that followed, some tourists stumbled upon additional pieces on the ground.
“My American group found these fragments, and we’re handing them over to the workmen,” tour guide Serena Giuliani told the London Times’ Tom Kington on the morning of September 4.
Specialists are now examining the condition of the fragments. Officials say the damage was limited to the monument’s southern side, where unrelated restoration work had started just days earlier, allowing for quick repairs.
At roughly 70 feet tall and 85 feet wide, the Arch of Constantine contains three separate arches, each framed by columns. The intricately decorated structure is adorned with recycled fragments, or spolia, taken from other ancient buildings, including monuments honoring Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.
The arch is also decorated with carvings of Constantine, including a series of reliefs depicting his victorious fight against Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
In 306, Constantine was leading Roman troops in Britain—then part of the Roman Empire—when his military declared him their emperor. His brother-in-law, Maxentius, also declared himself the emperor around the same time. After years of complex power struggles, the two rulers ultimately faced off in 312 at Rome’s Milvian Bridge, which overlooks the river Tiber. Panels on the Arch of Constantine depict the battle’s conclusion, showing Maxentius’ troops drowning in the river.
The arch’s recent encounter with lightning may have carried spiritual significance for its ancient builders, as “the bolts were believed to be the work of the gods,” per the Times. These spots were sacred for the Romans, who sometimes erected temples at such sites.
By Sonja Anderson.
Two Statues of St. Catherine of Alexandria, c.1500, by unknown artists in Spain and Germany - Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
SAINT OF THE DAY (November 25)
Catholics and other Christians around the world celebrate today, November 25, the memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria, a revered martyr of the fourth century.
St. Catherine was the subject of great interest and devotion among later medieval Christians.
Devotees relished tales of her rejection of marriage, her rebuke to an emperor, and her decision to cleave to Christ even under threat of torture.
Pope John Paul II restored the celebration of her memorial to the Roman Catholic calendar in 2002.
Catherine's popularity as a figure of devotion, during an era of imaginative hagiography, has obscured the facts of her life.
It is likely that she was of noble birth, a convert to Christianity, a virgin by choice (before the emergence of organized monasticism), and eventually a martyr for the faith.
Accounts of Catherine's life also agree on the location where she was born, educated and bore witness to her faith.
The Egyptian city of Alexandria was a center of learning in the ancient world, and tradition represents Catherine as the highly educated daughter of a noble pagan family.
It is said that a vision of the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus spurred her conversion. The story has inspired works of art, which depicts her decision to live as a virginal “spouse of Christ.”
The Emperor Maxentius ruled Egypt during Catherine's brief lifetime, a period when multiple co-emperors jointly governed the Roman Empire.
During this time, just before Emperor Constantine's embrace and legalization of Christianity, the Church was growing but also attracting persecution.
Catherine, eager to defend the faith she had embraced, came before Maxentius to protest a brutal campaign against the Church.
At first, the emperor decided to try and persuade her to renounce Christ.
But in a debate that the Emperor proceeded to arrange between Catherine and a number of pagan philosophers, Catherine prevailed – with her skillful apologetics converting them instead.
Maxentius' next stratagem involved an offer to make her his mistress.
She not only rebuffed the emperor but also reportedly convinced his wife to be baptized.
Enraged by Catherine's boldness and resolve, the Emperor resolved to break her will through torture on a spiked wheel.
Tradition holds that she was miraculously freed from the wheel, either before or during torture.
Finally, she was beheaded.
Maxentius later died in a historic battle against his co-Emperor Constantine in October of 312, after which he was remembered disdainfully, if at all.
St. Catherine, meanwhile, inspired generations of philosophers, consecrated women and martyrs.
Ironically or perhaps appropriately, given both her embrace of virginity and her “mystic marriage” to Christ, young women in many Western European countries were once known to seek her intercession in finding their husbands.
Regrettably, the torture wheel to which she herself may have been subjected was subsequently nicknamed the “Catherine wheel” and used even among Christian kingdoms.
Today, St. Catherine of Alexandria is more appropriately known as the namesake of a monastery at Mount Sinai that claims to be the oldest in the world.
--------------
Saint Catherine of Alexandria’s Story
According to the Legend of St. Catherine, this young woman converted to Christianity after receiving a vision.
At the age of 18, she debated 50 pagan philosophers.
Amazed at her wisdom and debating skills, they became Christians—as did about 200 soldiers and members of the emperor’s family.
All of them were martyred.
Sentenced to be executed on a spiked wheel, Catherine touched the wheel and it shattered.
She was beheaded.
Centuries later, angels are said to have carried the body of Saint Catherine to a monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
Devotion to her spread as a result of the Crusades.
She was invoked as the patroness of students, teachers, librarians and lawyers.
Catherine is one of the 14 Holy Helpers, venerated especially in Germany and Hungary.
Source: Franciscan Media
-------------
The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases.
This group of Nothelfer ("helpers in need") originated in the 14th century in the Rhineland, largely as a result of the epidemic (probably of bubonic plague) that became known as the Black Death.
14 HOLY HELPERS:
Saints Acacius, Barbara, Blaise, Christopher, Cyriacus, Catherine of Alexandria, Denis, Erasmus of Formiae, Eustace, George, Giles, Margaret of Antioch, Pantaleon, and Vitus.
Source: Wikipedia
CIRCUS OF MAXENTIUS, ITALY.
The Circus of Maxentius is an ancient Roman circus built by the Emperor Maxentius between year 306 and 312 AD. It was a part of a complex of buildings on the Via Appia - one of the earliest and strategically most important ancient Roman roads. Games and races were held in honour of Maxentius' son Valerius Romulus who died in AD 309 and who was buried nearby.
http://www.historyofcircus.com/circus-origin/circus-of-maxentius/
In 312, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius was decided when Maxentius was drowned in the Tiber by an alien life-form known as the Entity, which was itself possessed by the Cybermen (Rob Williams, Warren Pleece, "Conversion", Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor 12-13, 2015, Titan Comics).
Very Rare Gold Medallion by Roman Emperor Maxentius
The gold quaternio struck by the emperor Maxentius around 308 A.D. to celebrate himself for rebuilding the Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome sold at auction on November 2nd for $312,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $100,000 – $200,000.
The Templum Veneris et Romae was a double temple dedicated to the goddess Venus Felix, mother of Aeneas and through him of the Roman people, and to Roma Aeterna, the deity who was the personification of the city and larger state. The temple was constructed by Emperor Hadrian in 135 A.D., but he didn’t just order it built. He fancied himself something of a draftsman/architect and he personally designed the plans for this temple. They were not universally acclaimed, to put it mildly, and when Trajan’s revered architect Apollodorus of Damascus voiced his objections to Hadrian’s plan, the emperor had him executed and built it the way he wanted.
The temple was huge, built on a platform 475 feet long and 330 feet wide along the Sacred Way on the slopes of the Velia hill next to the Colosseum. More than 100 feet high, it was the largest temple in the city and for centuries one of the most important shrines in the empire. Construction of the temple is what spurred the removal of the colossal statue of Nero, which gave the Flavian Amphitheater its nickname. (The machinery Apollodorus talks about being stored in the temple were the apparatuses used in the spectacles at the amphitheater.) Hadrian took a non-standard approach to temple design, placing the cellae (the rooms where the images of the goddesses dwelled) back-to-back instead of side-by-side. This was a bit of an anagram pun on Hadrian’s part. AMOR (love) is ROMA spelled backwards.
When the temple was heavily damaged in a fire in 307 A.D., Maxentius rebuilt it. He did not follow in Hadrian’s architectural footprints, but instead had it reconstructed in the apdsidal form with vaulted ceilings that was typical of early 4th century Rome. He replaced the burned wooden ceiling with a stone coffered vault and doubled the thickness of the walls to support it. He also redid the cellae so they conformed to the classical design that Hadrian had eschewed. Most of the temple was destroyed in an earthquake in the 9th century and the church built in the ruins, but the remains of the cella and vaulted apse still stand today.
Maxentius made this project the cornerstone of his imperial identity. For four years, the rest of his reign until his death in battle against Constantine in 312 A.D., Maxentius would be the last emperor to live in Rome, but his dedication to the physical fabric of the city was forgotten, largely by design of his successor. Constantine issued a damnatio memoriae decree against Maxentius, destroying all public references to him, including the inscriptions on the buildings he had restored or constructed. Constantine took all the credit for them instead, propped up by Christian writers villainizing his former rival as a tyrannical brute and lionizing Constantine, who built a new capital a thousand miles away and named it after himself, as Rome’s reviver.
Another Roman gold medallion minted for a less virtue-signaling purpose also sold at the same coin auction. It is an eight aurei medallion, so a single gold coin weighing eight times the amount of a circulation aureus, but it sold for $63,000, a fifth of the price of the quaternio. It was minted in Milan in 268 A.D. by a brand-new emperor, Claudius II. His predecessor Gallienus had been assassinated by one of his officers while besieging Milan to quash yet another attempted usurpation. The troops then acclaimed Claudius emperor.
Claudius II
There were rumors that Claudius was in on the assassination, but if so, he was unusually kind to the allies and family of the man he killed to snatch his throne. He spared Gallenius’ supporters from reprisals and focused instead on fighting the Gothic invasion of Rome’s Balkan provinces. To accomplish his military goals, Claudius had to ensure the loyalty of the army. The best way to accomplish that, established by centuries of tradition at this pont, was to buy it. The price to buy off the officers was 10 gold aurei each, an enormous sum. The highest-ranking and most influential officers received their bribes in the form of these gigantic gold medallions.
The eight-aurei medallion of Claudius II features the laureate cuirassed bust of the emperor on the obverse and the goddess Concordia holding the standards of the legions on the reverse. The inscription on the reverse reads CORCORDIA EXERCITVS, ie, “harmony in the army,” because that was exactly what he was buying. Claudius was famous for his strength as a wrestler and in hand-to-hand combat. He once reputedly punched a horse in the face and knocked out its teeth. He was a direct man, to put it mildly, and called them as he saw them even on his giant bribe coins.
It worked, though. In 270, Claudius led the army to a massive victory over the Goths at the Battle of Naissus in modern-day Serbia. He was granted a triumph and the cognomen Gothicus. He didn’t get to enjoy either, but not because of treachery among the officer staff. Plague took his life before the bloom was off the rose. He was immediately deified and heavily mourned in spite of (or perhaps because of) his all-too-brief reign.
Day 50: Maxentius
Yay, 50!
Maxentius was the son of Maximian. Toward the end of the co-rule of Maximian and Diocletian, it was more or less understood that Maxentius and the other fellow, Constantine, would be appointed as the new Caesars once the first official turnover happened. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, because Galerius maneuvered (I might uncharitably say "manipulated") the situation so that, instead, the two new Caesars were connected to him: one was family, and the other was an old friend.
I know, I know, this is review.
Despite having their power taken out from under them, the two sons seemed to accept their fate. Constantine asked for and was granted leave to switch from the East to the West, in order to be with his father, the new Augustus over there, but otherwise nothing major happened.
Then Constantius died, and the army went "To hell with your appointments and tetrarchy, Constantine is our new emperor!"
Galerius, crafty guy that he was, accepted and confirmed Constantine... as the new Caesar, thereby maintaining the tetrarchy and its system of appointments.
Okay. All that was the prologue.
Maxentius wanted power too. He was not happy that Constantine managed to get power after all, and he had nothing (at least, in a world where either you're ruling Rome or you have nothing). He also happened to know that Italy, and the city of Rome itself, were very unhappy, mostly because they were being taxed. (Yes, at all. Historically, the provinces bore the tax burden... but now Italy was a province. Or multiple, actually.)
So Maxentius made himself emperor the old-fashioned way: He went to the Senate and got them and the surrounding area to declare him Emperor.
Instead of denying the other emperors, or creating a breakaway empire, the general attitude was more "Hey, you already have four guys, what's one more? I'll just look after Italy here."
Although I simplify, of course.
Maxentius was actually remarkably successful. He was emperor for six years (exactly!). He utterly defeated Severus II's attempt to reconquer Italy, leading directly to Severus's death... somewhat ironically granting Constantine more power.
He did not participate in the council of emperors in 308, though, so while they went about telling each other what to rule, he just held his ground.
Ultimately, it was his long-time rival Constantine who ended his time of glory. But let's not discount his accomplishments. The guy successfully carved out a piece of an empire--not just any piece, but the heart, the origin--and held it for years. And hey--if nothing else, Constantine's defeat of Maxentius was a pretty big step forward for Christianity.
