|
Rubicon
Rubicon , Lat. Rubico, small stream that flows into the Adriatic and in Roman times marked the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and ancient Italy. In 49 BC, after some hesitation, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to march against Pompey in defiance of the senate's orders. He thus committed himself...
Read more
|
|
|
vendetta
vendetta [Ital.,=vengeance], feud between members of two kinship groups to avenge a wrong done to a relative. Although the term originated in Corsica, the custom has also been practiced in other parts of Italy, in other European countries, and among the Arabs. It generally reflects a society where ...
Read more
|
|
|
Inns of Court
Inns of Court collective name of the four legal societies in London that have the exclusive right of admission to the bar . These societies—Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple (see also Temple, the )—date from before the 14th cent. They take their name f...
Read more
|
|
|
Milarepa
Milarepa , 1040-1143, saint and poet of Tibetan Buddhism . He was the second patriarch of the Kargyupa sect, the first being Milarepa's guru Marpa (1012-97), who studied under Naropa, the Bengali master of Tantra, at Nalanda. Milarepa's autobiography recounts how in his youth he practiced black mag...
Read more
|
|
|
Constantine
Constantine (c.274–337), first Christian Roman emperor (306–37), known as ‘the Great’. Born at Naissus (now Nis), Constantine was the son of Constantius I by Helena. In 305 Constantius succeeded as Augustus (senior emperor) of the West. Constantine fled from the court of...
Read more
|
|
|
tablature
tablature , in music, a generic system of musical notation indicating actions that the player must take, rather than "representing" the music itself that will result from those actions. Tablatures have been in use in the West since the early 14th cent., mostly for keyboard and plucked string i...
Read more
|
|
larceny
larceny in law, the unlawful taking and carrying away of the property of another, with intent to deprive the owner of its use or to appropriate it to the use of the perpetrator or of someone else. It is usually distinguished from embezzlement and false pretenses in that the actual taking of the p...
Read more
|
|
Attila
Attila , d. 453, king of the Huns (445-53). After 434 he was coruler with his brother, whom he murdered in 445. In 434, Attila obtained tribute and great concessions for the Huns in a treaty with the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II, but, taking advantage of Roman wars with the Vandals and Pers...
Read more
|
|
|
Abigail
Abigail , in the Bible. 1 The wife of Nabal. She persuaded David not to take vengeance on her husband. When Nabal died, she married David. 2 David's stepsister, mother of Amasa.
...
Read more
|
|
|
Land of Cockaigne
Land of Cockaigne , legendary country described in medieval tales, where delicacies of food and drink were to be had for the taking. The Land of Cockaygne is a 13th-century English poem satirizing monastic life.
...
Read more
|
