In this respect, the Romans called him Coelispex ( ; from Latin coelum, " sky ", and specere, " to look at ").

Underneath the royal class were the nobles ( called optimates by the Romans ) and warriors ( called armati by the Romans ).

In Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Last Legion, Aurelianus ( here called " Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius ") is a major character and is shown as one of the last loyal Romans, going to enormous lengths for his boy emperor Romulus Augustus, whose power has been wrested by the barbarian Odoacer.

In 148 BC, in what the Romans called the Fourth Macedonian War, he was defeated by the Roman praetor Q. Caecilius Metellus ( 148 ) at the Second Battle of Pydna, and fled to Thrace, whose prince gave him up to Rome, thus marking the final end to Andriskos ' reign of Macedonia.

Although the Greeks and Romans typically scorned Egypt's animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive ( Anubis was known to be mockingly called " Barker " by the Greeks ), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens, and Cerberus in Hades.

The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe, originally part of the Chatti, that lived around the Rhine delta, in the area that the Romans called Batavia and that is currently the Netherlands, from the second half of the first century BC to the third century AD.

There was also a similar belt worn by the Romans, particularly by soldiers, called a cintus ( pl.

The design and fabrication of the pugio was taken directly from Iberian daggers and short swords ; the Romans even adopted the triangular-bladed Iberian dagger, which they called the parazonium.

After the capture of Constantinople ( also called the Eastern Roman Empire ) in 1453, the Ottoman sultan's also styled themselves Kaysar-i Rum ( Emperor of the Romans ) as they asserted themselves to be the heirs to the Roman empire by right of conquest.

Romans used green holly and evergreen as decorations for their winter solstice celebration called Saturnalia, which eventually evolved into a Christmas celebration.

The giraffe was also known to the Greeks and Romans, who believed that it was an unnatural hybrid of a camel and a leopard and called it camelopardalis.

When Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean sea began to be called Mare Nostrum ( Latin: " Our Sea ") by the Romans.

The symbol was called " bayt ", " bet " or " beth " in various related languages, and became beta, the Greek letter, before it was used by the Romans.

By 64 BC, Julius Caesar's legions had established their occupation, and the Romans had thus unified all three regions of Libya ( Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and northern Fezzan ) in one single new province called Africa proconsularis ( later Cyrenaica was separated administratively ).

His sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans were made of palm and myrtle branches, but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made a sublime art, able to take the roads with the speed of wind.

The Greeks and Romans introduced the origins of health and life insurance c. 600 BCE when they created guilds called " benevolent societies " which cared for the families of deceased members, as well as paying funeral expenses of members.

The Greeks and Romans introduced burial insurance circa 600 AD when they organized guilds called " benevolent societies " which cared for the surviving families and paid funeral expenses of members upon death.

The tradition that the Island was called Caesarea by the Romans appears to have no basis in fact.

It has been documented in historical accounts Celtic tribes wore trousers, which the Romans called bracae, as did many other neighboring peoples to the Romans.

But the Romans could also relax and allow what Horace called the " Italian vinegar " in their systems to pour forth in wit and satire.

The Romans called the lake Lacus Pelso (" Lake Pelso ").

However, while Apollo has a great number of appellations in Greek myth, only a few occur in Latin literature, chief among them Phoebus ( ; Φοίβος, Phoibos, literally " radiant "), which was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans in Apollo's role as the god of light.

As god of the sun, the Romans referred to Apollo as Sol ( ; literally " sun " in Latin ).

For this he was also known as Parnopius ( ; Παρνόπιος, Parnopios, from πάρνοψ, " locust ") and to the Romans as Culicarius ( ; from Latin culicārius, " of midges ").

The Romans referred to Apollo as Medicus ( ; literally " physician " in Latin ) in this respect.

To the Romans, he was known in this capacity as Averruncus ( ; from Latin āverruncare, " to avert ").

One of these became the Latin alphabet, which was spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their empire.

* Livius Andronicus ( c. 284 BC – 204 BC ), introduced drama to the Romans and produced the first formal play in Latin in c. 240 BC

The name Schwarzwald ( German for " Black Forest ") derives from the Romans who referred to the thickly forested mountains there as Silva Nigra ( Latin for " Black Forest ") because the dense growth of conifers in the forest blocked out most of the light inside the forest.

Calcium ( from Latin, genitive calcis, meaning " lime ") was known as early as the first century when the Ancient Romans prepared lime as calcium oxide.

For example, in the 1st century BC the Romans were aware of the similarities between Greek and Latin, which they explained mythologically, as the result of Rome being a Greek colony speaking a debased dialect.

Etruscan had some influence on Latin, as a few dozen Etruscan words and names were borrowed by the Romans, some of which remain in modern languages.

He declared, " It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin.

The series of wars between Rome and Carthage were known to the Romans as the " Punic Wars " because of the Latin name for the Carthaginians: Punici, derived from Phoenici, referring to the Carthaginians ' Phoenician ancestry.

Some consider Justinian the " Last of the Romans ," for he was the last Roman Emperor to speak Latin.

The corresponding noun is amor ( the significance of this term for the Romans is well illustrated in the fact, that the name of the City, Rome — in Latin: Roma — can be viewed as an anagram for amor, which was used as the secret name of the City in wide circles in ancient times ), which is also used in the plural form to indicate love affairs or sexual adventures.

Latin was the language of the ancient Romans, but it was also the lingua franca of Europe throughout the middle ages, so Latin literature includes not only Roman authors like Cicero, Vergil, Ovid and Lucretius, but also includes European writers after the fall of the Empire from religious writers like St. Augustine ( 354 – 430 AD ), to secular writers like Francis Bacon ( 1561-1626 ) and Spinoza ( 1632 – 1677 ).

Much Latin writing reflects the Romans ' interest in rhetoric, the art of speaking and persuading.

The Latin name was first used in the 16th century ( the ancient form is unknown, although it is possible that the Romans referred to the armour as " lorica laminata ").

The Etruscan alphabet was in turn adopted and further modified by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.

The Romans had to face one intervention by the Etruscans ( Horatius Cocles ) and another by the Latin League ( Battle of Lake Regillus ).

By a process of folk etymology, the Romans could have confused the phones of her foreign name with those of the root men-in Latin words such as mens meaning " mind ", perhaps because one of her aspects as goddess pertained to the intellectual.

The name Maastricht is derived from Latin Trajectum ad Mosam ( or Mosae Trajectum ), meaning ' crossing at the Meuse ', and referring to the bridge built by the Romans.