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March 18

March 18

March 18 is the 77th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (78th in leap years). There are 288 days remaining.

Events

- 37 - The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
- 731 - Saint Gregory III begins his reign as a Catholic pope.
- 1229 - Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor declares himself King of Jerusalem during the Sixth Crusade.
- 1438 - Albert II of Habsburg becomes King of Germany.
- 1608 - Sissinios formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia
- 1673 - John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to some Friends (Quakers).
- 1766 - American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, which was very unpopular in the British colonies.
- 1850 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.
- 1865 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
- 1871 - President of the French government Thiers orders evacuation of Paris, a socialist government rules the city.
- 1874 - Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.
- 1909 - Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter becoming the first to broadcast as a ham radio operator.
- 1913 - George I of Greece is assassinated.
- 1915 - World War I: Three battleships are sunk during a failed British & French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
- 1921 - The second Peace of Riga between Poland and Soviet Union. Despite the recent Polish successes, Soviets annex Ukraine and Belarus. Government of Ukraine emigrates to France. Famine kills millions of Russians.
- 1922 - In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience. He would serve only 2 years.
- 1925 - The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.
- 1937 - The New London School explosion kills three hundred, mostly children.
- 1937 - Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces hand the Italian forces a grave defeat at the Battle of Guadalajara.
- 1938 - Mexico nationalizes all foreign-owned oil properties within its borders.
- 1940 - World War II: Axis Powers - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
- 1945 - World War II: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
- 1953 - An earthquake hits western Turkey killing 250.
- 1959 - American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21.
- 1961 - In Cannes, France, Jean-Claude Pascal wins the sixth Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg singing "Nous les amoureux" (We the lovers).
- 1962 - France and Algeria sign an agreement ending the Algerian War.
- 1963 - Mark Tinley, Singer/ Songwriter is born.
- 1962 - In Luxembourg, Isabelle Aubret wins the seventh Eurovision Song Contest for France singing "Un premier amour" (A first love).
- 1965 - Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.
- 1968 - Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.
- 1970 - Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
- 1971 - A landslide at Chungar, Peru crashes into Lake Yanahuani killing 200.
- 1974 - Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
- 1980 - On Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia 50 persons were killed at an explosion of a Vostok-2M rocket on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
- 1985 - The first episode of popular soap Neighbours airs on Australian TV.
- 1989 - In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found in the Pyramid of Cheops.
- 1990 - 12 paintings, collectively worth $100 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. This is the largest art theft in US history.
- 1992 - Microsoft ships Windows 3.1.
- 1997 - The tail of a Russian An-24 charter plane breaks off while en-route to Turkey causing the plane to crash and killing all 50 on board. This leads to the grounding of all An-24s.
- 2000 - 2000 Taiwanese presidential election: Chen Shui-bian is elected President of the Republic of China.
- 2005 - "The Screen Savers" TV show name was changed to Attack of the Show, ending an era of technological television.
- 2005 - The first ever Muslim Friday prayer, woman led mixed-gender congregation in New York City. This day marks a 1426 year Islamic tradition being broken.
- 2005 - Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed at the request of her husband, fueling a nationwide debate about her.

Births

- 1395 - John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, English military leader (d. 1447)
- 1555 - François, Duke of Anjou (d. 1584)
- 1590 - Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Portuguese historian and poet (d. 1649)
- 1603 - Simon Bradstreet, Massachusetts Bay colonist (d. 1693)
- 1634 - Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de la Fayette, French writer (d. 1693)
- 1640 - Philippe de la Hire, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1719)
- 1657 - Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni, Italian composer (d. 1743)
- 1679 - Matthew Decker, English merchant and writer (d. 1759)
- 1685 - Ralph Ersine, Scottish minister (d. 1752)
- 1690 - Christian Goldbach, Prussian mathematician (d. 1764)
- 1701 - Niclas Sahlgren, Swedish merchant and philanthropist (d. 1776)
- 1782 - John Calhoun, Vice President of the United States (d. 1850)
- 1813 - Christian Friedrich Hebbel, German writer (d. 1864)
- 1828 - William Randal Cremer, English politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1908)
- 1837 - Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (d. 1908)
- 1840 - William Cosmo Monkhouse, English poet and critic (d. 1901)
- 1842 - Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet (d. 1898)
- 1844 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (d. 1908)
- 1858 - Rudolf Diesel, German inventor (d. 1913)
- 1869 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1940)
- 1872 - Anna Held, Polish actress amd singer (d. 1918)
- 1877 - Edgar Cayce, American psychic (d. 1945)
- 1882 - Gian Francesco Malipiero, Italian composer (d. 1973)
- 1886 - Edward Everett Horton, American actor (d. 1970)
- 1898 - Jake Swirbul, American aircraft manufacturer (d. 1960)
- 1899 - Jean Goldkette, Greek-born jazz musician (d. 1962)
- 1904 - Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian poet (d. 1926)
- 1905 - Robert Donat, English actor (d. 1958)
- 1905 - Thomas Townsend Brown, American scientist (d. 1985)
- 1910 - Chiang Ching-kuo, President of the Republic of China (d. 1988)
- 1915 - Richard Condon, American novelist (d. 1996)
- 1918 - Al Benton, baseball player (d. 1968)
- 1918 - Bob Broeg, American sports writer (d. 2005)
- 1922 - Egon Bahr, German politician
- 1926 - Peter Graves, American actor
- 1927 - John Kander, American songwriter
- 1927 - George Plimpton, American writer and actor (d. 2003)
- 1928 - Julia Mullock, Princess of Korea
- 1928 - Fidel V. Ramos, President of the Philippines
- 1932 - John Updike, American author
- 1936 - Frederik Willem de Klerk, President of South Africa, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1937 - Mark Donohue, American race car driver (d. 1975)
- 1938 - Charley Pride, American musician
- 1941 - Wilson Pickett, American singer
- 1943 - Kevin Dobson, American actor
- 1949 - Alex Higgins, Irish snooker player
- 1950 - Brad Dourif, American actor
- 1951 - Bill Frisell, American jazz musician
- 1952 - Mike Webster, American football player (d. 2002)
- 1956 - Ingemar Stenmark, Swedish skier
- 1959 - Luc Besson, French producer, writer, and director
- 1959 - Irene Cara, American actress and singer
- 1960 - Richard Biggs, American actor (d. 2004)
- 1962 - Thomas Ian Griffith, American actor
- 1963 - Vanessa Lynn Williams, American beauty queen, actress, and singer
- 1964 - Bonnie Blair, American speed skater
- 1964 - Courtney Pine, British jazz saxophonist
- 1964 - Rozalla, Zambian singer
- 1966 - Jerry Cantrell, American musician (Alice in Chains)
- 1969 - Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukrainian chess player
- 1970 - Queen Latifah, American singer and actress
- 1972 - Dane Cook, American comedian
- 1973 - Max Barry, Australian author
- 1973 - Jason Beam, American artist
- 1977 - Danny Murphy, English footballer
- 1979 - Adam Levine, American singer (Maroon 5)
- 1980 - Alexei Yagudin, Russian figure skater

Deaths

- 978 - King Edward the Martyr of England
- 1227 - Pope Honorius III (b. 1148)
- 1583 - King Magnus of Livonia (b. 1540)
- 1584 - Tsar Ivan IV of Russia (b. 1530)
- 1675 - Arthur Chichester, 1st Earl of Donegall, Irish soldier (b. 1606)
- 1689 - John Dixwell, English judge (b. 1607)
- 1696 - Robert Charnock, English conspirator
- 1745 - Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1676)
- 1746 - Anna Leopoldovna, regent of Russia (b. 1718)
- 1768 - Laurence Sterne, Irish writer (b. 1713)
- 1835 - Christian Gunther von Bernstorff, Danish and Prussian statesman and diplomat (b. 1769)
- 1871 - Augustus De Morgan, Indian-born British mathematician and logician (b. 1806)
- 1898 - Matilda Joslyn Gage, American suffragist (b. 1826)
- 1907 - Marcellin Berthelot, French chemist and politician (b. 1827)
- 1913 - King George I of Greece (b. 1845)
- 1947 - William C. Durant, American automobile pioneer (b. 1861)
- 1962 - Walter W. Bacon, Governor of Delaware (b. 1880)
- 1964 - Sigfrid Edström, Swedish sports official (b. 1870)
- 1965 - King Farouk I of Egypt (b. 1920)
- 1977 - Marien Ngouabi, President of the Republic of the Congo (b. 1938)
- 1978 - Leigh Brackett, American author (b. 1915)
- 1986 - Bernard Malamud, American writer (b. 1914)
- 1990 - Robin Harris, American actor and comedian (b. 1953)
- 1996 - Odysseus Elytis, Greek writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- 1999 - Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentinian writer (b. 1914)
- 2001 - John Phillips, American musician (The Mamas and the Papas) (b. 1935)
- 2002 - R.A. Lafferty, American science fiction writer (b. 1914)
- 2003 - Karl Kling, German race car driver (b. 1910)
- 2003 - Adam Osborne, British computer pioneer (b. 1939)
- 2004 - Harrison McCain, Canadian businessman (b. 1927)

Holidays and observances

- Aruba - Flag Day (1976)
- Ancient Latvia - Bindus Diena
- United States - National Biodiesel Day
- Feast day of St Cyril of Jerusalem

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/18 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.tnl.net/when/3/18 Today in History: March 18] ---- March 17 - March 19 - February 18 - April 18 -- listing of all days ko:3월 18일 ms:18 Mac ja:3月18日 simple:March 18 th:18 มีนาคม

March 18

March 18 is the 77th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (78th in leap years). There are 288 days remaining.

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

- Aruba - Flag Day (1976)
- Ancient Latvia - Bindus Diena
- United States - National Biodiesel Day
- Feast day of St Cyril of Jerusalem

External links

Leap year

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:
- The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox.
- The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.
- The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. Image:Gregoriancalendarleap.png

Which day is the leap day?

The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days.

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Revised Julian Calendar

The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath.

Hindu Calendar

In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

Iranian calendar

The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years.

Long term leap year rules

The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gregorian+calendar%22+error+%22leap+year%22+4000]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mleapyr.html].) However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably: #Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. #Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years.

Marriage proposal

There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may only make marriage proposals in leap years.

Saint Patrick and the leap year

:Saint Patrick, having driven the frogs out of the bogs was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by Saint Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of popping the question. :Saint Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when Saint Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." Saint Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." Saint Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988) According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February.

Birthdays

A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Category:Calendars Category:Units of time als:Schaltjahr ko:윤년 ja:閏年 simple:Leap year th:ปีอธิกสุรทิน

37

Events

- March 18 - The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula Roman Emperor.
- Abilene is granted to Agrippa I.
- Saint Peter founds the Syrian Orthodox Church. (traditional date)

Births

- December 15 - Nero, Roman Emperor.
- Josephus, Jewish historian.

Deaths

- March 16 - Tiberius, Roman Emperor.
- May 1 - Antonia Minor, daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia; grandmother of Caligula.
- Marbod king of the Marcomanni Category:37 als:37 ko:37년

Tiberius

For the city in Israel, see Tiberias. Tiberius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero (November 16, 42 BC–March 16 AD 37), was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Caesar Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian—son of Tiberius Nero and Livia, but through his adoption by Augustus—who was both his stepfather and father-in-law—he became a Julian. The subsequent emperors after Tiberius would continue this blended dynasty of both families for the next forty years; historians have named it the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Tiberius is remembered as a dark, reclusive, and depressed ruler who never truly desired the right to rule. His reign is marked by terror and mayhem in which the Emperor exiled himself from Rome and left administration in the hands of Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who used his influence over Tiberius and his position in the Praetorian Guard to push his own political agenda and personal revenges. Eventually, Tiberius died, and his grandson by adoption Caligula followed him as the next Roman Emperor.

Early Life

Tiberius Claudius Nero was born on 16 November 42 BC to Tiberius Nero and Livia Drusilla. From his birth in a noble family¹, Tiberius was destined for public life. But during his boyhood the old Roman Republican system of rule by Senate and magistrates, which had been tottering for decades, was finally toppled and replaced by an autocracy under the able and ambitious Octavian (later known as Caesar Augustus). It proved fateful for Tiberius when, in 39 BC at age three, his mother divorced his father Tiberius Nero and married Octavian, thereby making the infant Tiberius the stepson of the future ruler of the Roman Empire. Tiberius's early life was relatively uneventful, even if the times were not. In 32 BC, as civil war loomed between Mark Antony and Octavian, Tiberius made his first public appearance at the age of nine and delivered the eulogy at his natural father's funeral. In the years following the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, as Octavian secured his position as Roman Emperor and became Augustus, Tiberius grew to maturity and took his first real steps in public life. In 29 BC, he took part in Augustus’s triumph for the Actium campaign, riding on the left of Augustus in the triumphal chariot. Five years later, at the age of seventeen, he became a quaestor and was given the privilege of standing for the praetorship and consulship five years in advance of the age required by law. He then began appearing in court as an advocate and was sent by Augustus to the East where, in 20 BC, he oversaw one of his stepfather's proudest successes. The Parthians, who had captured the standards of the legions lost in the failed Eastern campaigns of Marcus Crassus (53 BC), Decidius Saxa (40 BC), and Mark Antony (36 BC), formally returned them to the Romans. After returning from the East, Tiberius was granted praetorian rank and, in 13 BC, he became consul. Between his praetorship and consulship, he was on active duty with his brother, Nero Claudius Drusus, combating the tribes in the Alps. His personal life was also blessed at this time by a happy marriage to Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of Augustus’s life-long friend and right-hand man, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. The marriage probably took place in 20 BC or 19 BC and during his consulship of 13 BC, his wife produced a son, Julius Caesar Drusus. When Agrippa died in 12 BC, Tiberius, on Augustus’s insistence, divorced Vipsania and married Agrippa's widow, Julia Caesaris. The union was not a happy one and produced no children. Tiberius had been happily married to Vipsania and, following an embarrassing display in public, he was ultimately forbidden by Augustus even to see her. Nevertheless, Tiberius's elevation in his stepfather's succession scheme continued. He received important military commissions in Pannonia and Germania between 12 BC and 6 BC and proved very successful in the field. He was consul for a second time in 7 BC, and, in 6 BC, he was granted tribunician power (tribunicia potestas) and an extensive commission in the East. In essence, Tiberius had replaced Agrippa as Augustus’s successor. He was Julia's husband, the leading general in the state, and he enjoyed a share of the emperor's power. Everything seemed settled, until the darker side of Tiberius's personality intervened. Without warning, in 6 BC Tiberius announced his withdrawal from public life and went to live on Rhodes with some personal friends and an astrologer. Whatever his motivation, the move was not only a snub to Augustus, but it was also highly inconvenient to his succession plans. Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar were still too young to assume the heavy responsibilities of the Principate, and Augustus now had no immediate successor to assume power and see the boys to maturity, since Tiberius's brother Drusus had died of an illness in 9 BC. If anything had befallen Augustus during that time, the Principate could have been washed away. Whatever had been Augustus’s opinion of Tiberius, he seems to have had little patience with, or affection, for him after his exile. Something of Augustus’s irritation is revealed by his repeated refusal to allow Tiberius to return to Rome after Tiberius realized the delicacy of his position on Rhodes; and this in spite of pressure brought to bear on Augustus by his influential and persuasive wife, Livia. When Tiberius's tribunican powers ran out in 1 BC, they were not renewed, and his situation became even more precarious. According to Tacticus, he was expecting a ship bearing the order for his death. When the ship arrived in 2 AD, however, it brought quite different tidings.

Heir to Augustus

Tragedy worked for the benefit of Tiberius. In 2 AD, Lucius Caesar died of an illness at Massilia. Augustus, resistant to the idea of allowing Tiberius to return, finally yielded to the requests of Livia and Gaius Caesar. Tiberius returned to Rome and lived as a private citizen when, unexpectedly, Gaius Caesar died of a wound received during a siege in Armenia. Augustus, devastated, was left without his adoptive sons and, more importantly, without an heir and successor. His careful planning for the succession had come to nothing. In the crisis, he turned once more to Tiberius. Tiberius was summoned from private life and adopted as Augustus’s son. Also adopted by Augustus was Postumus Agrippa, the third son of Julia Caesaris and Marcus Agrippa. Tiberius, despite having a natural son, was required to adopt his nephew, Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus. Augustus seemed to be re-establishing a slate of candidates, with Tiberius at its head and the others as potential substitutes in the event of disaster. Tiberius's forced adoption of Germanicus appears to have been Augustus’s attempt to mark out the succession in the third generation of the Principate. From 4 AD to 14 AD Tiberius was clearly Augustus’s successor. When he was adopted, he also received grants of proconsular power and tribunician power; and in 13 AD his proconsular power was made co-extensive with that of Augustus’s. In effect, Tiberius was now co-emperor with Augustus so that when the latter finally died on 19 August, 14 AD, Tiberius's position was unassailable and the continuation of the Principate a foregone conclusion. After fifty-five years living in the shadow of his stepfather, Tiberius finally assumed the mantle of sole ruler.

Early Reign

14 AD at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 19th century.]] The accession of Tiberius proved intensely awkward. After Augustus had been buried and deified, and his will read and honored, the Senate convened on 18 September to inaugurate the new reign and officially "confirm" Tiberius as emperor. Such a transfer of power had never happened before, and nobody, including Tiberius, appears to have known what to do. Tacitus's account is the fullest of what happened. Tiberius came to the Senate to have various powers and titles voted to him. However, this too caused confusion, as Augustus had bestowed almost all of the imperial titles and powers on Tiberius, save for auctoritas, Augustus, Pater Patriae, and the Civic Crown (a crown made from laurel and oak, in honor of Augustus having saved the Roman state). Perhaps in an attempt to imitate the tact of Augustus, Tiberius donned the mask of the reluctant public servant -- and botched the performance. Rather than tactful, he came across to the Senators as obdurate and obstructive. He declared that he was too old for the responsibilities of the Principate, said he did not want the job, and asked if he could just take one part of the government for himself. The Senate was confused, not knowing how to read his behavior. Finally, one senator asked pointedly, "Sire, for how long will you allow the State to be without a head?" Tiberius relented and accepted the powers voted to him, and according to Tacticus and Suetonius, he refused to bear the titles Pater Patriae, Imperator, and Augustus, and declined the most solid emblem on the Princeps, the Civic Crown. The first meeting between the Senate and the new Emperor established a blueprint for their later interaction. Throughout his reign, Tiberius was to baffle, befuddle, and frighten the Senators. He seems to have hoped that they would act on his implicit desires rather than on his explicit requests. There was trouble not only at Rome, however. The legions posted in Pannonia and in Germania, the most powerful concentration of troops in the Empire, took the opportunity afforded by Augustus’s death to voice their complaints about the terms and conditions of their service, and that they had not received bonuses promised to them by Augustus. At that time, troops were paid from the Imperial treasury, as well as being allowed to supplement this income with a share of the captured booty from campaigns; however, Augustus had suspended military campaigns outside of Roman territory, and in his will had left instructions behind that the Empire was to expand no more. The generals Germanicus (a Claudian adopted by Augustus into the Julian line, and thought by many to have been his preferred heir over Tiberius) and Tiberius's son, Drusus, were dispatched with a small force to quell the uprising. Rather than simply quell the mutiny however, Germanicus rallied the mutiniers and lead them on a short campaign across the Rhine into Germanic territory, stating that whatever booty they could grab would count as their bonus. Germanicus's forces smashed across the Rhine and quickly occupied all of the territory between the Rhine and the Elba. Additionally, Tacitus records the capture of the Teutoburg forest and the reclaiming of standards lost years before when four Roman legions had been ambushed by a band of Germans. Despite his difficult relationship with the Senate and the Rhine mutinies, Tiberius's first years were generally good. He stayed true to Augustus’s plans for the succession and clearly favored his adopted son Germanicus over his natural son, Drusus, as did the Roman populace. On Tiberius's request, Germanicus was granted proconsular power and assumed command in the prime military zone of Germania, where he suppressed the mutiny there and led the formerly restless legions on campaigns against Germanic tribes from 14 to 16 AD. After being recalled from Germania, Germanicus celebrated a triumph in Rome in 17 AD. While legally speaking, Germanicus had disobeyed orders from both Tiberius and Augustus, and the Roman Emperor was the only one technically allowed to receive a Triumph, the popularity that Germanicus received from his exploits across the Rhine and from retreiving the lost standards was more than Tiberius, as a new and comparatively less popular Emperor, could possibly hope to compete with. In the same year, Germanicus was granted imperium maius over the East and, in 18 AD, after being consul with Tiberius as his colleague, he was sent East, just as Tiberius himself had been almost four decades earlier, clearly indicating that Germanicus was to be considered the heir to Tiberius. The elevation of Germanicus was perhaps nothing more than a show to placate the Roman populace and remove Germanicus from Rome; Germanicus died in 19 AD and, on his deathbed, accused the governor of Syria, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, of murdering him at Tiberius’s orders. Piso was a long-time friend of Tiberius and his appointee to the Syrian governorship, so suspicion for Germanicus’s death ultimately came to rest at the palace door. When Germanicus’s widow, Agrippina the Elder returned to Italy carrying her popular husband's ashes, she publicly declared Piso guilty of murder and hinted at the involvement of more hidden agents. Piso was put on trial in the Senate, where he expected some help from his friend, Tiberius. Instead, Tiberius sat statue-like and let the proceedings take their course. In Tacitus's account, Piso realized his peril and threatened to make public certain documents that would embarrass the Emperor. The ploy failed and Piso committed suicide; the documents were never made public. With Germanicus dead, Tiberius began elevating his own son Drusus, a Claudian, to replace him as the Imperial successor. Relations with Germanicus’s family (mostly Julians) were strained, but they were to reach a breaking point when Tiberius allowed a trusted advisor to get too close and gain a tremendous influence over him. That advisor was the Praetorian Prefect, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who would derail Tiberius's plans for the succession and drive the emperor farther into isolation, depression, and paranoia.

Tiberius and Sejanus

Sejanus hailed from Volsinii in Etruria, from the equites family of Lucius Seius Strabo, who also shared the Praetorian Prefecture until 15 AD when his father was promoted to be Prefect of Egypt, the pinnacle of an equestrian career under the Principate. Sejanus enjoyed powerful connections to Senatorial houses and had been a companion to Gaius Caesar on his mission to the East, from 1 BC-4 AD. Through a combination of energetic efficiency, fawning sycophancy, and outward displays of loyalty, he gained the position of Tiberius's closest friend and advisor. Tiberius, whom historians depict by this stage as an old, bitter, and tired man, left more and more of the day-to-day running of the Empire to Sejanus. Sejanus created an atmosphere of fear in Rome, controlling a network of informers and spies whose incentive to accuse others of treason was a share in the accused's property after their conviction and death. Treason trials became commonplace; few members of the Roman aristocracy were completely safe. The trials played up to Tiberius' growing paronoia, which made him more reliant on Sejanus, as well as satisfying his greed (since the emperor could confiscate the majority of the accused's property after their execution or suicide); they also allowed Sejanus to eliminate potential rivals. One development that favored Sejanus was the concentration of all nine cohorts of the Praetorian Guard into a single camp at Rome. Augustus had billeted these troops discreetly in small towns around Rome, but now Tiberius -- undoubtedly with Sejanus's encouragement -- brought them into the city, probably in 17 AD or 18 AD. Sejanus, therefore, commanded some 9,000 troops within the city limits. As Sejanus's public profile became more and more pronounced, his statues were erected in public places, and, according to Tacticus, Tiberius openly praised him as "the partner of my labors." But Sejanus had his own ideas. He had used his influence over Tiberius to destroy the Emperor's relationship with his son Drusus; in 23 Drusus died. It is generally accepted that he was poisoned by Livilla, his wife, at the instigation of Sejanus, who was her lover. Tiberius did not suspect this, however. The death of his son meant he had now a stark choice to make in designating his heir: between the sons of his enemies (in his mind at least) Germanicus and Agrippina, or Sejanus. Sejanus’s attacks against Agrippina and his proposal to marry Drusus's widow, Livilla, (who was also Tiberius' niece) suggest that he was attempting to follow the precedent of Agrippa, that is, an outsider who became the emperor's successor through a combination of overt loyalty, necessity, and a family alliance forged by marriage. Tiberius, perhaps sensitive to this ambition, rejected Sejanus's initial proposal to marry Livilla in 25 AD, but later put it about that he had withdrawn his objections so that, in 30 AD, Sejanus was betrothed to Livilla's daughter (Tiberius' granddaughter). The Prefect's family connection to the Imperial house was now imminent. In 31 AD Sejanus held the consulship with the emperor as his colleague, an honor Tiberius reserved only for heirs to the throne. Furthermore, when Sejanus surrendered the consulship early in the year, he was granted a share of the emperor's proconsular power. When he was summoned to a meeting of the Senate on 18 October in that year he probably expected to receive a share of the tribunician power; with that he would have become fully associated with the Emperor and his "heir", such as he could be under the Principate. Instead, however, Tiberius' letter to the Senate completely unexpectedly requested the destruction of Sejanus and his faction. A bloody purge followed, in which Sejanus and his most prominent supporters were killed. Tiberius himself later claimed that he turned on Sejanus because he had been alerted to Sejanus's plot against Germanicus’s family. This explanation has been rejected by most ancient and modern authorities, since Sejanus's demise did nothing to end Tiberius' persecution of that family: Agrippina and her eldest son Nero were both exiled to tiny islands, her second son Drusus was still imprisoned in the Palatine's basement, and all three died violently within years of Sejanus’s fall. Tiberius is also said to have discovered Sejanus's part in his own son's death in 23 AD; the source of this information, however, is unclear. Possibly, in the highly charged atmosphere surrounding Sejanus's fall, the news acted as a catalyst, but its truth cannot be verified. Upon closer inspection of the purges of both Tiberius and of Sejanus, another possible explanation surfaces. The Senators and individuals persecuted by Tiberius, including Sejanus himself, were all either supporters or prominent members of the Julian line. Whether substantiated or not, Tiberius seems to have been reacting to a movement to have him, as a Claudian, overthrown and replaced by a member of the more popular and more powerful Julian line, specifically a relative of Germanicus. Whether the conspiracy theory is true or not, the purges had a profound affect on the politics of Rome. Senators who had been supporters of a Julian emperor were also the Senators who were most in support of the Princeps and the system of the Principate in general. Tiberius's inactivity seems to have been part of a plan to force the Senate to take up some of its former powers and responsibilities lost to the Princeps under Augustus. Thus, at the end of the reign of Tiberius, the Senate was comprised of individuals who were unsupportive of the Julii in particular and the Principate in general. See Caligula for further analysis.

Final Years

The Sejanus affair appears to have greatly depressed Tiberius. A close friend and confidant had betrayed him. His withdrawal from public life seemed more complete in the last years. Letters kept him in touch with Rome, but it was the machinery of the Augustus’s administration that kept the Empire running smoothly. According to writers such as Suetonius, Tiberius spent much of his time indulging his perversities on Capri. He also became all but paranoid in his dealings with others and spent long hours brooding over the death of his son, Drusus, which had now been revealed to him as the work of his friend Sejanus; all who were implicated, he had executed in barbaric fashion. As a result, no measures were taken for the succession, beyond vague indications of favor to his great-nephew Caligula, Germanicus' and Agrippina's only surviving son, and his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, the son of Drusus and Livilla, who was still only a child. Rome’s second Emperor died at the port town of Misenum on March 16, 37 AD, at the age of seventy-eight. In a reign of 23 years, Tiberius, despite all his faults, proved a successful continuation of Augustus’s Principate. Later writers suggested that he was smothered at the behest of Caligula (who was never really sure if he was the official heir), but such accusations are to be expected in the political climate of the time. Regardless, Tiberius was old and in poor health at his death. His complete unpopularity is proven by the failure of the Senate to vote him divine honours. Caligula never pushed for it, and his successor Claudius, who did force the deification of Tiberius’s mother Livia, certainly wasted no effort on Tiberius’s behalf. Tacitus, Dio Cassius and Suetonius certainly painted a bleak picture of Tiberius and his reign. According to Suetonius: "the people were so glad of his death, that at the first news of it some ran about shouting, "To the Tiber with Tiberius!," (a form of punishment reserved for criminals) while others prayed to Mother Earth and the Manes to "allow the dead man no abode except among the damned." In his will, Tiberius left the empire to both Caligula and Tiberius Gemellus, but soon after becoming Emperor, Caligula had Tiberius's will declared void and later had Gemellus killed, thus he become Tiberius’s sole heir and successor as the Roman Emperor.

Continuing legacy

In the Bible, Tiberius is mentioned by name only once, in Luke 3:1 (stating that John the Baptist entered on his public ministry in the fifteenth year of his reign). However, since it was during his reign that Jesus preached, many references to Caesar (or the emperor in some other translations), without further specification, actually refer to Tiberius. It was during the reign of Tiberius that Jesus was put to death by crucifixion under the authority of the Roman governor of Judea at the time, Pontius Pilate. The town Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee was named in Tiberius's honour by Herod Antipas. Tiberius has appeared in the movies Ben-Hur, Caligula (played by Peter O'Toole), The Robe (played by Ernest Thesiger), and I, Claudius (played by George Baker).

Footnotes

#For the etymology of the name, see under List of Roman praenomina.

External links

Primary sources

- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Tiberius
- .html Suetonius' biography of Tiberius, Latin text with English translation]
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html#57 Cassius Dio's Roman History: Books 57-58, English translation]
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Velleius_Paterculus/home.html Velleius Paterculus, Latin text with English translation]

Secondary material

Biographical sketches

- [http://www.roman-emperors.org/tiberius.htm De Imperatoribus Romanis]
- [http://www.romansonline.com/Persns.asp?IntID=2&Ename=Tiberius RomansOnline]
- [http://www.unrv.com/early-empire/tiberius.php UNRV]

Other material

- [http://janusquirinus.org/essays/Tiberius.html Tacitus and Tiberius]
- [http://www.jerryfielden.com/essays/suetonius.htm Suetonius and the reign of Tiberius: a comparison with other sources ]
- [http://www.capriweb.com/Capri/VillaJovis/ Pictures of Tiberius' villa on Capri ] Category:42 BC births Category:37 deaths Category:Ancient Jewish Roman history Category:Julio-Claudian Dynasty Category:Roman emperors Category:Adoptive parents ko:티베리우스 ja:ティベリウス

731

Events

- Bede completes his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
- February 11 - Pope Gregory III succeeds Gregory II

Deaths

- February 11 - Pope Gregory II

1229

Events

- March 18 - Sixth Crusade of Emperor Frederick II ends in truce with Sultan al-Kamil and coronation of Frederick as King of Jerusalem.
- Catalans capture island of Majorca from Muslims.
- University of Paris strike of 1229.
- Foundation of the University of Toulouse in Toulouse, France.
- Founding of the city of Turku, Finland.

Births

Deaths

- January 17 - Albert of Buxhoeveden, German soldier
- Yaqut al-Hamawi, Arab biographer and geographer (born 1179) Category:1229 ko:1229년

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick II (December 26, 1194 – December 13, 1250), Holy Roman Emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was pretender to the title of King of the Romans from 1212, unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 until his death in 1250. He was also King of Sicily, from 1198 to 1250, where he was raised and lived most of his life (his mother, Constance of Sicily, was the daughter of Roger II of Sicily). He is also referred to as Frederick I of Sicily. His empire was frequently at war with the Papal States, so it is not surprising that he was excommunicated twice. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him the anti-Christ. After his death the idea of his second coming where he would rule a 1000-year reich took hold, possibly in part because of this. Said to speak nine languages and be literate in seven [Armstrong 2001, p. 415] (at a time when many monarchs and nobles were not literate at all), Frederick was a very modern ruler for his times, being a patron of science and learning, and having fairly advanced views on economics. He abolished state monopolies, internal tolls, and import regulations within his empire. He was patron of the Sicilian School of poetry, where in his royal court in Palermo, from around 1220 to his death, we witness the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school predates the use of the Tuscan idiom as the preferred lingua franca of the Italian peninsula by at least a century. The school and its poetry was well known to Dante and his peers and had a significant influence on the literary form of what was eventually to become the modern Italian. He was known in his own time as the Stupor mundi ("wonder of the world"). Frederick wrote, or rewrote, a manual on the art of falconry, De arte venandi cum avibus ("On the art of hunting with birds"), of which many illustrated copies survive from the 13th and 14th centuries.

Life

Early years

Born in Jesi, near Ancona, Frederick was the son of the emperor Henry VI. Some old chronicles account he was born in a public square of the city of Jesi, in northern Italy, while is father was entering triumphantly into Palermo. Frederick was baptised in Assisi. In 1196 at Frankfurt am Main the child Frederick had already been elected to become King of the Germans. At the death of his father in 1197, the three-year-old Frederick was in Italy in voyage towards Germany, and when the bad news reached his guardian Conrad of Spoleto, he was hastily brought back to Palermo to Constance. It was a good move, as Henry's empire dissolved, and its monarchy was disputed by Henry's brother Philip of Swabia and Otto IV. His mother, Constance, had been in her own right queen of Sicily; she had Frederick crowned King of Sicily and established herself as regent. In Frederick's name she dissolved Sicily's ties to the Empire sending home his German counsellors (notably Markward of Anweiler and Gualtiero da Pagliara), renouncing to his claims to the German kingship and empire. Upon Constance's death in 1198, Pope Innocent III succeeded as Frederick's guardian until he was of age: he was crowned King of Sicily on May 17, 1198, being only four years of age, and received some of his early formal education in Rome. He was to remember forever, however, the time spent in his early years in the court of Palermo, where Arab, German, Latin, Byzantine, Norman, Provencal and even Jewish influences mixed. Jewish See also