Antoninianus Roman Empire. Tacitus AE Antoninianus. Rome mint.
Marcus Claudius Tacitus Augustus
c. 200 – June 276 was Roman Emperor from 275 to 276. During his short reign he campaigned against the Goths and the Heruli, for which he received the title Gothicus Maximus.
Tacitus was born in Interamna in Italia. He circulated copies of the historian Gaius Cornelius Tacitus’ work, which was barely read at the time, perhaps contributing to the partial survival of the historian’s work. Modern historiography rejects his claimed descent from the historian as a fabrication.
In the course of his long life he discharged the duties of various civil offices, holding the consulship twice, once under Valerian and again in 273, earning universal respect.
After the assassination of Aurelian, the army, apparently in remorse at the effects of the previous centuries’ military license, which had brought about the death of the well-liked emperor, relinquished the right of choosing his successor to the senate.[6] Initially, the Senate hesitated to accept the responsibility, but when the delay had gone on eight months from Aurelian’s death it at last determined to settle the matter and offered the throne to the aged Princeps Senatus, Tacitus.
Tacitus, after ascertaining the sincerity of the Senate’s regard for him, accepted their nomination on 25 September 275, and the choice was cordially ratified by the army. This was the last time the Senate elected a Roman Emperor. The interregnum between Aurelian and Tacitus had been quite long, and there is substantial evidence that Aurelian’s wife, Ulpia Severina, ruled in her own right before the election of Tacitus. Tacitus had been living in Campania before his election, and returned only reluctantly to the assembly of the senate in Rome, where he was elected. He immediately asked the Senate to deify Aurelian, before arresting and executing Aurelian’s murderers.
Amongst the highest concerns of the new reign was the restoration of the ancient powers of the senate. He granted substantial prerogatives to the senate, securing to them by law the appointment of the emperor, of the consuls, and the provincial governors, as well as supreme right of appeal from every court in the empire in its judicial function, and the direction of certain branches of the revenue in its long-abeyant administrative capacity. Probus respected these changes, but after the reforms of Diocletian in the succeeding decades not a vestige would be left of them.
Next he moved against the barbarian mercenaries that had been gathered by Aurelian to supplement Roman forces for his Eastern campaign. These mercenaries had plundered several towns in the Eastern Roman provinces after Aurelian had been murdered and the campaign cancelled. His half-brother, the Praetorian Prefect Florianus, and Tacitus himself won a victory against these tribes, among which were the Heruli, gaining the emperor the title Gothicus Maximus.
On his way back to the west to deal with a Frankish and Alamannic invasion of Gaul, according to Aurelius Victor, Eutropius and the Historia Augusta, Tacitus died of fever at Tyana in Cappadocia in June 276. It was reported that he began acting strangely, declaring that he would alter the names of the months to honor himself, before succumbing to a fever.[citation needed] In a contrary account, Zosimus claims he was assassinated, after appointing one of his relatives to an important command in Syria.
Providentia standing left holding baton over globe at foot left and cornucopiae.
Providentia appeared on Roman coins issued under Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Septimius Severus, Commodus and Diocletian. A coin issued by Titus depicted his deified father Vespasian handing a globe to his son as his successor, with the legend Providentia Augusta. Coins issued by Nerva depicted the Genius of the Senate handing the globe to the new emperor, with the legend Providentia Senatus, “the Providence of the Senate.”
In ancient Roman religion, Providentia is a divine personification of the ability to foresee and make provision. She was among the embodiments of virtues that were part of the Imperial cult of ancient Rome. Providentia thus figures in art, cult, and literature, but has little or no mythology as such.
Providentia was an important moral and philosophical abstraction in Roman discourse. Cicero says it is one of the three main components of prudentia, “the knowledge of things that are good or bad or neither,” along with memoria, “memory,” and intellegentia, “understanding.” The Latin word is the origin of the Christian concept of divine providence.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are fictional characters in an English nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom.
John Byrom was an English poet, the inventor of a revolutionary system of shorthand and later a significant landowner. He is most remembered as the writer of the lyrics of Anglican hymn Christians awake! Salute the happy morn, which was supposedly a Christmas gift for his daughter.
The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19800. The names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people who look and act in identical ways, generally in a derogatory context.
The characters are perhaps best known from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There (1871). Carroll, having introduced two fat little men named Tweedledum and Tweedledee, quotes the nursery rhyme, which the two brothers then go on to enact. They agree to have a battle, but never have one. When they see a monstrous black crow swooping down, they take to their heels. The Tweedle brothers never contradict each other, even when one of them, according to the rhyme, “agrees to have a battle”. Rather, they complement each other’s words. This fact has led Tenniel to assume that they are twins, and Gardner goes so far as to claim that Carroll intended them to be enantiomorphs — three-dimensional mirror images. Evidence for these assumptions cannot be found in any of Lewis Carroll’s writings.
Enantiomorph, (from Greek enantios, “opposite”; morphe, “form”), also called ANTIMER, or OPTICAL ANTIPODE, either of a pair of objects related to each other as the right hand is to the left, that is, as mirror images that cannot be reoriented so as to appear identical. An object that has a plane of symmetry cannot be an enantiomorph because the object and its mirror image are identical.
‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’ from the proverbial names of Handel and the musician Buononcini, who were supported by rival factions though it was thought by some that there was nothing to choose between them.
Some say, compar’d to Bononcini
That Mynheer Handel’s but a Ninny
Others aver, that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle
Strange all this Difference should be
‘Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.
