Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum in the context of "Titulus pictus"

Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual license" was characteristic of ancient Rome, but sexuality was not excluded as a concern of the mos maiorum, the traditional social norms that affected public, private, and military life. Pudor, "shame, modesty", was a regulating factor in behavior, as were legal strictures on certain sexual transgressions in both the Republican and Imperial periods. The censors—public officials who determined the social rank of individuals—had the power to remove citizens from the senatorial or equestrian order for sexual misconduct, and on occasion did so. The mid-20th-century sexuality theorist Michel Foucault regarded sex throughout the Greco-Roman world as governed by restraint and the art of managing sexual pleasure.

Roman society was patriarchal (see paterfamilias), and masculinity was premised on a capacity for governing oneself and others of lower status, not only in war and politics, but also in sexual relations. Virtus, "virtue", was an active masculine ideal of self-discipline, related to the Latin word for "man", vir. The corresponding ideal for a woman was pudicitia, often translated as chastity or modesty, but it was a more positive and even competitive personal quality that displayed both her attractiveness and self-control. Roman women of the upper classes were expected to be well educated, strong of character, and active in maintaining their family's standing in society. With extremely few exceptions, surviving Latin literature preserves the voices of educated male Romans on sexuality. Visual art was created by those of lower social status and of a greater range of ethnicity, but was tailored to the taste and inclinations of those wealthy enough to afford it, including, in the Imperial era, former slaves.

A collegium (pl.: collegia) or college was any association in ancient Rome that acted as a legal entity. Such associations could be civil or religious.The word collegium literally means "society", from collega ("colleague"). They functioned as social clubs or religious collectives whose members worked towards their shared interests. These shared interests encompassed a wide range of the various aspects of urban life; including political interests, cult practices, professions, trade, and civic services. The social connections fostered by collegia contributed to their influence on politics and the economy; acting as lobbying groups and representative groups for traders and merchants.

Some collegia were linked to participating in political violence and social unrest, which resulted in the suppression of social associations by the Roman government. Following the passage of the lex Julia during the reign of Julius Caesar as consul and dictator of the Roman Republic (49–44 BC), and their reaffirmation during the reign of Caesar Augustus as princeps senatus and imperator of the Roman Army (27 BC – 14 AD), collegia required the approval of the Roman Senate or the Emperor in order to be authorized as legal bodies.

Titulus (Latin "inscription" or "label", the plural tituli is also used in English) is a term used for the labels or captions naming figures or subjects in art, which were commonly added in classical and medieval art, and remain conventional in Eastern Orthodox icons. In particular the term describes the conventional inscriptions on stone that listed the honours of an individual or that identified boundaries in the Roman Empire. A titulus pictus is a merchant's mark or other commercial inscription.

The sense of "title", as in "book title", in modern English derives from this artistic sense, just as the legal sense derives from plainer inscriptions of record.

(Caecina) Decius Marius Venantius Basilius (fl. 484) was a Roman official under Odoacer's rule.

Hermann Dessau (6 April 1856, Frankfurt am Main – 12 April 1931, Berlin) was a German ancient historian and epigrapher. He is noted for a key work of textual criticism published in 1889 on the Historia Augusta, which uncovered reasons to believe that this surviving text of ancient Roman imperial history had been written under circumstances very different from those previously believed.

He studied at the University of Berlin as a pupil of Theodor Mommsen, receiving his doctorate in 1877 from the University of Strasbourg. On behalf of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) he travelled to Italy and North Africa. In 1884 he was habilitated as a historian in Berlin, where he subsequently became an associate honorary professor (1912) and full honorary professor (1917). From 1900 to 1922 he served as a scientific officer for the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

The laudatio Turiae (CIL VI, 41062; ILS 8393) the modern name for an inscription recording a speech given in the late last century BC – modern dates range between 9 and 6 BC – by an upper class husband in eulogy of his wife. The speech details the matronal qualities of the wife, her perseverance in the aftermath of her family's death, how she saved the husband during the triumviral proscriptions, and their marriage. The speech was not necessarily given in public but was inscribed and put up around Rome.

Traditionally, following Theodor Mommsen, the deceased wife has been identified as Turia, the wife of the Quintus Lucretius Vespillo who was consul in 19 BC. This identification, however, is no longer widely accepted for lack of corroborating evidence.

The Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum ("Corpus of Semitic Inscriptions", abbreviated CIS) is a collection of ancient inscriptions in Semitic languages produced since the end of 2nd millennium BC until the rise of Islam. It was published in Latin. In a note recovered after his death, Ernest Renan stated that: "Of all I have done, it is the Corpus I like the most."

The first part was published in 1881, fourteen years after the beginning of the project. Renan justified the fourteen-year delay in the preface to the volume, pointing to the calamity of the Franco-Prussian War and the difficulties that arose in the printing the Phoenician characters, whose first engraving was proven incorrect in light of the inscriptions discovered subsequently. A smaller collection – Répertoire d'Épigraphie Sémitique ("Repertory of Semitic Epigraphy", abbreviated RES) – was subsequently created to present the Semitic inscriptions without delay and in a deliberately concise way as they became known, and was published in French rather than Latin. The Répertoire was for the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum what the Ephemeris epigraphica latina was for the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.