Interests

[sonic]

Over the last few months there have been a lot of new members signing in to UNRV.  However few of them have posted.  So a few basic questions for these individuals.

What period of Roman history fascinates you the most?

What aspect of that period (e.g. military, emperors, religion) are you most interested in?

Are there any specific questions you have yet to find the answers to?

Ian

[indianasmith]

The last century BC - the age of the titans, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar and the whole crew - how can you not just love that time period?

And then the first century AD, with its colorful range of Emperors - the cool and cerebral Augustus, grumpy old Tiberius, wicked Caligula, poor stuttering Claudius, the utterly corruptible Nero, and then the three Flavians: crusty old Vespasian, sincere and rather sweet Titus, and the psychopathic Domitian - they are a fascinating crew all the way around.

And, of course, that is the era when the Christian faith was born, there under the umbrella of Rome.  The Empire paved the roads the Gospel would travel down, and made it possible for the teachings of Jesus to travel faster and further than they would have been able to at any previous moment in history.

I can't learn enough about this remarkable era!

[Bantymom]

I found this site looking for information first on names for Roman women and then about famous Roman women, and then about how long did any of the most well-known lines continue.

I needed to join to be able to continue to search.

I'm nervous about posting anything because I fear I will look ignorant. Everyone here seems to know so much!

I've been working on a Google Sketchup model of Herculaneum because I think it is so beautiful. I came across Herculaneum while researching Roman Villas.

I do role-playing (as I don't have time to write seriously) with friends and my character needed a villa.

But my newest character is a vampire who had been turned sometime during the existence of Rome. I can't really worry about doing it "right," because, well, vampires. But I don't want to do it wrong. I don't want to give her an incorrect name (she's survived to the present and can give herself any name she wants, but I mean her original name). Then I decided I wanted her to be someone who once actually existed, but not someone so well known that I would be obviously changing history. I want her to at least be possible.

So that's why I finally joined, but now I don't know where to ask my question. I need to find a female descendant of someone important, yes, even someone close to an emperor or such. I need her not to have been executed (rather limits the choices it seems), or at least have her execution have been, perhaps, iffy. Some way that she might have been turned sometime in her 30s-50s. A vague execution could be construed as a cover up for her having gone missing, but a very public execution would make her being made into a vampire the way think of vampires being made (thanks to Stoker) impossible. Someone whose birth was recorded but whose death was not so important as to be a big deal. Someone who just died for an unknown reason would be best. So far, all I've  found is Rubellia Bassa, the daughter of Julia Livia (AD 5–43) (a.k.a.) Julia Drusi Caesaris filia or her daughter, Octavia.

Anyway, I'm just looking for the right place to post my question. If you point me in the right direction, I'll try to post more until my life as a school teacher makes me stop.

I'm an INTP and I have a need for even my made-up characters to be as correct as possible, so I came here to you, the experts.

Other interests:
Roman Military
Chickens (raise 4 breeds to show)
Peacocks (have 9)
History
Education (Math, Science, Language Arts, Languages, Social Studies)
Art
Star Trek
StarCraft
Old-fashioned war games on hex maps
Horses and Training of Horses
Archeology

[Flavius Inismeus]

On 1/18/2018 at 7:18 PM, sonic said:

Over the last few months there have been a lot of new members signing in to UNRV.  However few of them have posted.  So a few basic questions for these individuals.

What period of Roman history fascinates you the most?

What the French grandly call Haut-Empire, even if it didn't look too Haut in the third century. 

On 1/18/2018 at 7:18 PM, sonic said:

What aspect of that period (e.g. military, emperors, religion) are you most interested in?

I'm omnivorous, but if I had to choose - the genealogy and prosopography of the senate and high equestrians from Augustus to Gallienus. 

On 1/18/2018 at 7:18 PM, sonic said:

Are there any specific questions you have yet to find the answers to?

To take the period of 96-138 solely: What happened to the sons of Flavius Clemens? Was Nerva in on Domitian's assassination? How was the adoption of Trajan managed? Why was Laberius Maximus exiled? Who was Publilius Celsus, and was the affair of Four Consulars for real? The course of Jewish wars of Trajan and Hadrian? Who were the early Hadrianic governors of Syria? Antinous - suicide or accidental death? Why Aelius Caesar? Why Aurelius Antoninus and not Catilius Severus or Salvidienus Orfitus? So many questions, so few sources. 

 

7 hours ago, Bantymom said:

I found this site looking for information first on names for Roman women and then about famous Roman women, and then about how long did any of the most well-known lines continue.

Welcome, and it might be the right place, even if it's awfully quiet and Christian Settipani is likely not a UNRV member. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Settipani On the other hand, maybe he is. 

7 hours ago, Bantymom said:

So that's why I finally joined, but now I don't know where to ask my question. I need to find a female descendant of someone important, yes, even someone close to an emperor or such. I need her not to have been executed (rather limits the choices it seems), or at least have her execution have been, perhaps, iffy. Some way that she might have been turned sometime in her 30s-50s. A vague execution could be construed as a cover up for her having gone missing, but a very public execution would make her being made into a vampire the way think of vampires being made (thanks to Stoker) impossible. Someone whose birth was recorded but whose death was not so important as to be a big deal. Someone who just died for an unknown reason would be best. So far, all I've  found is Rubellia Bassa, the daughter of Julia Livia (AD 5–43) (a.k.a.) Julia Drusi Caesaris filia or her daughter, Octavia.

Rubellia Bassa's ascendance is far from established, I'm afraid. She might have been daughter of C. Rubellius Blandus (suff. 18) and Julia, or his daughter by an unknown first wife, or even his sister, the daughter of C. Rubellius Blandus proconsul of Crete-and-Cyrene (Settipani's idea).

This one, perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavia_Domitilla_(saint) Her sainthood and her Christianity are pretty iffy - she could've had fun through the ages, knowing that she was revered as a saint.

There are hundreds of names of senatorial women anyway. Is there a genealogy thread here to talk it through? 

[Flavius Inismeus]

There's a subforum, https://www.unrv.com/forum/forum/59-nomina-et-gentes/

[gabrielbell]

Valentinian III, Latin in full Flavius Placidius Valentinianus, (born July 2, 419, Ravenna [Italy]—died March 16, 455, Rome), Roman emperor from 425 to 455. At no time in his long reign were the affairs of state personally managed by Valentinian. He was the son of the patrician Flavius Constantius (who ruled as Constantius III in 421) and Galla Placidia. When his uncle, the emperor Honorius, died in 423, the usurper John ruled for two years before he was deposed. Then Placidia controlled the West in her young son’s name until 437, although the powerful patrician Flavius Aetius became the effective ruler toward the end of this regency. The most important political event of these years was the landing of the Vandals in Africa in 429; 10 years later they threw off the overlordship of Valentinian’s government. Valentinian was utterly unable to stop their attacks on Italy.