Slippers are a type of shoes falling under the broader category of light footwear , that are easy to put on and off and are intended to be worn indoors, particularly at home. They provide comfort and protection for the feet when walking indoors. They are not really for use outside, as of their lack of grip, and waterproofing.
202-896: The recorded history of slippers can be traced back to the 12th century. In the West , the record can be traced only to 1478. The English word slippers ( sclyppers ) occurs from about 1478. English speakers formerly also used the related term pantofles (from the French word pantoufle ). Slippers in China date from 4700 BC; they were made of cotton or woven rush, had leather linings, and featured symbols of power, such as dragons. Native American moccasins were also highly decorative. Such moccasins depicted nature scenes and were embellished with beadwork and fringing; their soft sure-footedness made them suitable for indoors appropriation. Inuit and Aleut people made shoes from smoked hare-hide to protect their feet against
404-502: A Western and an Eastern one, each with their own emperors, capitals, and governments, although ostensibly they still belonged to one formal Empire. The Western Roman Empire provinces eventually were replaced by Northern European Germanic ruled kingdoms in the 5th century due to civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic invasions from such tribes as the Huns , Goths , the Franks and
606-617: A pivotal role in elevating the status of Christianity in Rome, decriminalizing Christian practice and ceasing Christian persecution in a period referred to as the Constantinian shift . This initiated the Christianization of the Roman Empire . Constantine is associated with the religiopolitical ideology known as Caesaropapism , which epitomizes the unity of church and state. He founded
808-554: A saint , she is traditionally credited for the conversion of her son. Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius . He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces (against the Persians ) before being recalled in the west (in AD ;305) to fight alongside his father in the province of Britannia . After his father's death in 306, Constantine
1010-507: A Christian, he waited to be baptised on his deathbed, believing that the baptism would release him of any sins he committed in the course of carrying out his policies while emperor. He supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to clergy (such as exemption from certain taxes), promoted Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated during the long period of persecution. His most famous building projects include
1212-497: A collection of panegyrics from the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, provides valuable information on the politics and ideology of the tetrarchic period and the early life of Constantine. Contemporary architecture—such as the Arch of Constantine in Rome and palaces in Gamzigrad and Córdoba — epigraphic remains, and the coinage of the era complement the literary sources. Constantine
1414-525: A grand adventus in the city which was met with jubilation. Maxentius' body was fished out of the Tiber and decapitated, and his head was paraded through the streets for all to see. After the ceremonies, the disembodied head was sent to Carthage, and Carthage offered no further resistance. Unlike his predecessors, Constantine neglected to make the trip to the Capitoline Hill and perform customary sacrifices at
1616-695: A half. Significant theological and ecclesiastical differences led Western Europeans to consider the Christians in the Byzantine Empire as heretics. In 1054 CE, when the church in Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Byzantium , the politico-religious division between the Western church and Eastern church culminated in the Great Schism or the East–West Schism . Even though friendly relations continued between
1818-541: A helmet emblazoned with the Chi Rho , and coins issued at Siscia in 317/318 repeat the image. The figure was otherwise rare and is uncommon in imperial iconography and propaganda before the 320s. It was not completely unknown, however, being an abbreviation of the Greek word chrēston (good), having previously appeared on the coins of Ptolemy III Euergetes in the 3rd century BC. Following Constantine, centuries of Christians invoked
2020-553: A large donative pledge to any who would support him as emperor, most of Constantine's army remained loyal to their emperor, and Maximian was soon compelled to leave. When Constantine heard of the rebellion, he abandoned his campaign against the Franks and marched his army up the Rhine. At Cabillunum ( Chalon-sur-Saône ), he moved his troops onto waiting boats to row down the slow waters of the Saône to
2222-483: A long evening of drinking, Galerius granted the request. Constantine's later propaganda describes how he fled the court in the night, before Galerius could change his mind. He rode from post-house to post-house at high speed, hamstringing every horse in his wake. By the time Galerius awoke the following morning, Constantine had fled too far to be caught. Constantine joined his father in Gaul , at Bononia ( Boulogne ) before
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#17328516975422424-491: A major influence on the world today. Latin language has been the base from which Romance languages evolved and it has been the official language of the Catholic Church and all Catholic religious ceremonies all over Europe until 1967, as well as an or the official language of countries such as Italy and Poland (9th–18th centuries). In AD 395, a few decades before its Western collapse, the Roman Empire formally split into
2626-460: A military support, which Maxentius accepted. According to Eusebius, inter-regional travel became impossible, and there was military buildup everywhere. There was "not a place where people were not expecting the onset of hostilities every day". Constantine's advisers and generals cautioned against preemptive attack on Maxentius; even his soothsayers recommended against it, stating that the sacrifices had produced unfavourable omens. Constantine, with
2828-531: A palace complex in the northeastern part of the city. To the south of his palace, he ordered the construction of a large formal audience hall and a massive imperial bathhouse. He sponsored many building projects throughout Gaul during his tenure as emperor of the West, especially in Augustodunum ( Autun ) and Arelate ( Arles ). According to Lactantius, Constantine followed a tolerant policy towards Christianity, although he
3030-601: A plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid to restore the lost territories to Christian rule. The result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the crusaders (belonging to the members of nobility from France, German territories, the Low countries, England, Italy and Hungary) had no allegiance to
3232-669: A population of 100 million. From the time of Caesar (100–44 BC) to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Rome dominated Southern Europe , the Mediterranean coast of Northern Africa and the Levant , including the ancient trade routes with population living outside. Ancient Rome has contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world , and its history continues to have
3434-569: A projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine , the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Empire between the Greek East and Latin West . The East Roman Empire , later called the Byzantine Empire , continued for a millennium, while the West Roman Empire lasted for only about a century and
3636-449: A result of a debilitating sickness taken in the winter of 304–305, announced his resignation. In a parallel ceremony in Milan , Maximian did the same. Lactantius states that Galerius manipulated the weakened Diocletian into resigning and forced him to accept Galerius' allies in the imperial succession. According to Lactantius, the crowd listening to Diocletian's resignation speech believed, until
3838-511: A result, its political, legal , linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread throughout the Western world . In the aftermath of the Second World War , decolonizing efforts were employed by all Western powers under United Nations (ex- League of Nations ) international directives. Most of colonized nations received independence by 1960. Great Britain showed ongoing responsibility for the welfare of its former colonies as member states of
4040-508: A revolting and horrifying sight." Galerius died soon after the edict's proclamation, destroying what little remained of the Tetrarchy. Maximinus mobilised against Licinius and seized Asia Minor . A hasty peace was signed on a boat in the middle of the Bosphorus . While Constantine toured Britain and Gaul, Maxentius prepared for war. He fortified northern Italy and strengthened his support in
4242-667: A scramble for new markets for European industrial products and financial services in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia (Western powers exploited their advantages in China for example by the Opium Wars ). This resulted in the " New Imperialism ", which saw a shift in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of their mother countries. The later years of
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#17328516975424444-478: A series of political developments in Asia in the last decades of the 14th century, which put an end to further European exploration of Asia: namely the new Ming rulers were found to be unreceptive of religious proselytism by European missionaries and merchants. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks consolidated control over the eastern Mediterranean , closing off key overland trade routes. The Portuguese spearheaded
4646-417: A slipper and are sold as a novelty item . They are usually made of soft and colorful materials and may come in the shapes of animals, animal paws, vehicles, cartoon characters, and so on. Not all shoes with a soft, fluffy interior are slippers. Any shoe with a rubber sole and laces is a normal outdoor shoe. In India, rubber chappals (flip-flops) are worn as indoor shoes. The fictional character Cinderella
4848-544: A spirit that left a deep impression on his followers, inspiring some to believe that he had some form of supernatural guidance, ignored all these cautions. Early in the spring of 312, Constantine crossed the Cottian Alps with a quarter of his army, a force numbering about 40,000. The first town his army encountered was Segusium ( Susa , Italy), a heavily fortified town that shut its gates to him. Constantine ordered his men to set fire to its gates and scale its walls. He took
5050-601: A system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture, and seldom resorting to executions. This very profitable Central European Fourth Crusade had prompted the 14th century Renaissance (translated as 'Rebirth') of Italian city-states including the Papal States , on eve of the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation (which established the Roman Inquisition to succeed
5252-460: A temple to Aphrodite . Generations later there was the story that a divine vision led Constantine to this spot, and an angel no one else could see led him on a circuit of the new walls. The capital would often be compared to the 'old' Rome as Nova Roma Constantinopolitana , the "New Rome of Constantinople". Constantine was the first emperor to stop the persecution of Christians and to legalize Christianity, along with all other religions/cults in
5454-435: A tolerant and politically skilled man, Constantius advanced through the ranks, earning the governorship of Dalmatia from Emperor Diocletian, another of Aurelian's companions from Illyricum , in 284 or 285. Constantine's mother was Helena , a Greek woman of low social standing from Helenopolis of Bithynia . It is uncertain whether she was legally married to Constantius or merely his concubine . His main language
5656-457: A unique civilization, differentiating from others like Islam , giving rise to the concept of Western civilization. By the 15th century, Renaissance intellectuals solidified this concept, associating Western civilization not only with Christianity but also with the intellectual and political achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Historians, such as Carroll Quigley in "The Evolution of Civilizations" , contend that Western civilization
5858-501: A vast Middle Eastern area, when it ended. Conquest was enforced using the Roman legions and then through cultural assimilation by eventual recognition of some form of Roman citizenship's privileges. Nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline and ultimately fall of the Roman Empire . The Roman Empire succeeded the approximately 500-year-old Roman Republic ( c. 510–30 BC). In 350 years, from
6060-415: A year, rejected it. Constantine sent Galerius an official notice of Constantius' death and his own acclamation. Along with the notice, he included a portrait of himself in the robes of an augustus. The portrait was wreathed in bay . He requested recognition as heir to his father's throne and passed off responsibility for his unlawful ascension on his army, claiming they had "forced it upon him". Galerius
6262-716: Is a term to describe the ancient Roman society that conquered Central Italy assimilating the Italian Etruscan culture , growing from the Latium region since about the 8th century BC, to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea . In its 10-centuries territorial expansion, Roman civilization shifted from a small monarchy (753–509 BC), to a republic (509–27 BC), into an autocratic empire (27 BC – AD 476). Its Empire came to dominate Western, Central and Southeastern Europe, Northern Africa and, becoming an autocratic Empire
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6464-790: Is also closely associated with Christianity , the dominant religion in the West, with roots in Greco - Roman and Jewish thought . Christian ethics , drawing from the ethical and moral principles of its historical roots in Judaism , has played a pivotal role in shaping the foundational framework of Western societies. Earlier civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians , had also significantly influenced Western civilization through their advancements in writing, law codes, and societal structures. The convergence of Greek-Roman and Judeo-Christian influences in shaping Western civilization has led certain scholars to characterize it as emerging from
6666-632: Is credited with creating the modern university, the modern hospital system, scientific economics, and natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law ). European culture developed a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism , mysticism and Christian and secular humanism , setting the stage for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which fundamentally altered religious and political life. Led by figures like Martin Luther , Protestantism challenged
6868-521: Is estimated to have first reached one billion in 1804. Also, the new philosophical movement later known as Romanticism originated, in the wake of the previous Age of Reason of the 1600s and the Enlightenment of 1700s. These are seen as fostering the 19th century Western world' s sustained economic development. Before the urbanization and industrialization of the 1800s, demand for oriental goods such as porcelain , silk , spices and tea remained
7070-627: Is my Rome ". Sirmium and Thessalonica were also considered. Eventually, however, Constantine decided to work on the Greek city of Byzantium , which offered the advantage of having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns of urbanism during the preceding century by Septimius Severus and Caracalla , who had already acknowledged its strategic importance. The city was thus founded in 324, dedicated on 11 May 330 and renamed Constantinopolis ("Constantine's City" or Constantinople in English). Special commemorative coins were issued in 330 to honor
7272-472: Is not known. His praenomen is variously given as Lucius , Marcus and Gaius . Whatever the case, praenomina had already disappeared from most public records by this time. He also adopted the name "Valerius", the nomen of emperor Diocletian , following his father's ascension as caesar . Constantine probably spent little time with his father who was an officer in the Roman army, part of Emperor Aurelian 's imperial bodyguard. Being described as
7474-847: Is said to have worn glass slippers; in modern parlance, they would probably be called glass high heels . This motif was introduced in Charles Perrault 's 1697 version of the fairy tale , "Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre" ("Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper"). For some years it was debated that this detail was a mistranslation and that the slippers in the story were instead made of fur (French: vair ), but this interpretation has since been discredited by folklorists. A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz sold at Christie's in June 1988 for $ 165,000. The same pair
7676-461: Is somewhat doubtful, the fact is that he seems to have been far less open in his support of Christianity than Constantine. Therefore, Licinius was prone to see the Church as a force more loyal to Constantine than to the Imperial system in general, as the explanation offered by the Church historian Sozomen . This dubious arrangement eventually became a challenge to Constantine in the West, climaxing in
7878-513: Is the anonymous Origo Constantini , a work of uncertain date which focuses on military and political events to the neglect of cultural and religious matters. Lactantius ' De mortibus persecutorum , a political Christian pamphlet on the reigns of Diocletian and the Tetrarchy , provides valuable but tendentious detail on Constantine's predecessors and early life. The ecclesiastical histories of Socrates , Sozomen , and Theodoret describe
8080-670: Is the time when the Huns (part of the ancient Eastern European tribes named barbarians by the Romans) from modern-day Hungary penetrated into the Dalmatian (modern-day Croatia ) region then originating in the following 150 years in the Roman Empire officially splitting in two halves. Also the time of the formal acceptance of Christianity as Empire's religious policy, when the Emperors began actively banning and fighting previous pagan religions . The Eastern Roman Empire included lands south-west of
8282-468: Is to be sought... only among those who are called Catholic or orthodox Christians, that is, guardians of truth and followers of right." Over time, the Western Christianity gradually identified with the "Catholic" label, and people of Western Europe gradually associated the "Orthodox" label with Eastern Christianity (although in some languages the "Catholic" label is not necessarily identified with
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8484-518: Is venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity , and he did much to push Christianity towards the mainstream of Roman culture. The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire and a pivotal moment in the transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages . He built a new imperial residence in the city of Byzantium and renamed it New Rome , later adopting
8686-584: Is where the idea of "the West" began to emerge. The Eastern Roman Empire , governed from Constantinople , is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the fall of the Roman Empire and beginning of the Early Middle Ages . The survival of the Eastern Roman Empire protected Roman legal and cultural traditions, combining them with Greek and Christian elements, for another thousand years. The name Byzantine Empire
8888-500: The Via Flaminia , allowing the weakness of Maxentius to draw his regime further into turmoil. Maxentius' support continued to weaken: at chariot races on 27 October, the crowd openly taunted Maxentius, shouting that Constantine was invincible. Maxentius, no longer certain that he would emerge from a siege victorious, built a temporary boat bridge across the Tiber in preparation for a field battle against Constantine. On 28 October 312,
9090-699: The ancient Western world was partly preserved during this period due to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire and the introduction of the Catholic Church ; it was also greatly expanded by the Arab importation of both the Ancient Greco-Roman and new technology through the Arabs from India and China to Europe. Since the Renaissance, the West evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and
9292-466: The 15th to 20th centuries . This influence persists through the exportation of mass culture, a phenomenon often referred to as Westernization . There was debate among some in the 1960s as to whether Latin America as a whole is in a category of its own. Western culture , also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, or Western society, refers to the diverse culture of
9494-509: The Atlantic slave trade between the 1490s and the 1800s, which also contributed to the development of African intertribal warfare and racist ideology. Before the abolition of its slave trade in 1807, the British Empire alone (which had started colonial efforts in 1578 , almost a century after Portuguese and Spanish empires) was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to
9696-711: The Black Sea and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Adriatic Sea . This division into Eastern and Western Roman Empires was later reflected in the administration of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Greek Orthodox churches, with Rome and Constantinople debating over whether either city was the capital of Western religion . As the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches spread their influence,
9898-522: The British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earth's total land area. At its apex, the phrase " the empire on which the sun never sets " described the British Empire, because its expanse around the globe meant that the sun always shone on at least one of its territories. As
10100-531: The British —derived from colonization , and immigration of Europeans —factors that grounded such countries to the West. Depending on the context and the historical period in question, Russia was sometimes seen as a part of the West, and at other times juxtaposed with it. Running parallel to the rise of the United States as a great power and the development of communication–transportation technologies "shrinking"
10302-692: The Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church maintain that he was baptised by Pope Sylvester I . He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire. He convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed . The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
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#173285169754210504-400: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Old St. Peter's Basilica . In constructing the Old St. Peter's Basilica, Constantine went to great lengths to erect the basilica on top of St. Peter 's resting place, so much so that it even affected the design of the basilica, including the challenge of erecting it on the hill where St. Peter rested, making its complete construction time over 30 years from
10706-424: The Dalmatia , a region of interest to the maritime medieval Venetian Republic moneylenders and its rivals, such as the Republic of Genoa) rebelling against the Venetian economic domination. What followed dealt an irrevocable blow to the already weakened Byzantine Empire with the Crusader army's sack of Constantinople in April 1204, capital of the Greek Christian -controlled Byzantine Empire , described as one of
10908-403: The German Empire . At the close of the Spanish–American War in 1898 the Philippines , Puerto Rico , Guam and Cuba were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris . The US quickly emerged as the new imperial power in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area . The Philippines continued to fight against colonial rule in the Philippine–American War . By 1913,
11110-407: The Hellenistic Jewish culture from which the earliest Christians and the Greek New Testament emerged. The eventual Christianization of Europe in late-antiquity would ensure that Christianity , particularly the Catholic Church , remained a dominant force in Western culture for many centuries to follow. Western culture continued to develop during the Middle Ages as reforms triggered by
11312-439: The Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia . Japan was involved primarily during the Meiji period (1868–1912), though earlier contacts with the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch were also present in the Japanese Empire 's recognition of the strategic importance of European nations. Traditional Japanese society became an industrial and militarist power like the Western British Empire and the French Third Republic , and similar to
11514-562: The Industrial Revolution , would produce powerful social transformations, political and economic institutions that have come to influence (or been imposed upon) most nations of the world today. Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution has been one of the most important events in history. The course of three centuries since Christopher Columbus' late 15th century's voyages, of deportation of slaves from Africa and British dominant northern- Atlantic location, later developed into modern-day United States of America , evolving from
11716-425: The Medieval Inquisition ). There followed the discovery of the American continent, and consequent dissolution of West Christendom as even a theoretical unitary political body, later resulting in the religious Eighty Years War (1568–1648) and Thirty Years War (1618–1648) between various Protestant and Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire (and emergence of religiously diverse confessions ). In this context,
11918-626: The Mediterranean basin and Europe , and later circulated around the world predominantly through colonization and globalization . Historically, scholars have closely associated the idea of Western culture with the classical era of Greco-Roman antiquity . However, scholars also acknowledge that other ancient cultures, like Ancient Egypt , the Phoenician city-states , and several Near-Eastern cultures stimulated and fostered Western civilization. The Hellenistic period also promoted syncretism , blending Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures. Major advances in literature, engineering, and science shaped
12120-423: The Middle Ages Western culture in fact entered other global-spanning cultures during the colonial 15th–20th centuries. Historically colonialism had been justified with the values of individualism and enlightenment . The concepts of a world of nation-states born by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, coupled with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the coming of modernity , the Scientific Revolution and
12322-507: The New World , which today constitutes much of the "geographical" Western world. Starting from the late 1960s, certain parts of the Western world have become notable for their diversity due to immigration . The idea of "the West" over the course of time has evolved from a directional concept to a socio-political concept that had been temporalized and rendered as a concept of the future bestowed with notions of progress and modernity. The origins of Western civilization can be traced back to
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#173285169754212524-475: The Orient (from Latin oriens 'origin, sunrise, east'). The West is considered an evolving concept; made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Definitions of "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives. Some historians contend that a linear development of the West can be traced from Ancient Greece and Rome , while others argue that such
12726-523: The People's Republic of China , though this is disputed, since the People's Republic of China, as communist, had friendly relations—at certain times—with the Soviet bloc, and had a significant degree of importance in global geopolitics. Some Third World countries aligned themselves with either the US-led West or the Soviet-led Eastern bloc. A number of countries did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland , which chose to be neutral. Finland
12928-499: The Pope in Rome as the Holy Roman Empire (Latin Christian revival of the ancient Roman Empire, under perpetual Germanic rule from AD 962) inheriting ancient Roman Empire's prestige but offending the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople, and leading to the Crusades and the East–West Schism. The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy , quintessential Roman Empire's spiritual heritage authority, establishing then, until
13130-480: The Roman Empire , the destination of a massive influx of pagans (meaning "non-Christians" ) Bulgars and Slavs , an area where Catholic and Orthodox Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. The Papal Inquisition was established in AD 1229 on a permanent basis, run largely by clergymen in Rome, and abolished six centuries later. Before AD 1100, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through
13332-477: The Temple of Jupiter . However, he did visit the Senatorial Curia Julia , and he promised to restore its ancestral privileges and give it a secure role in his reformed government; there would be no revenge against Maxentius' supporters. In response, the Senate decreed him "title of the first name", which meant that his name would be listed first in all official documents, and they acclaimed him as "the greatest augustus". He issued decrees returning property that
13534-409: The Vandals by their late expansion throughout Europe. The three-day Visigoths's AD 410 sack of Rome who had been raiding Greece not long before, a shocking time for Greco-Romans , was the first time after almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and St. Jerome , living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that "The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken." There followed
13736-471: The ancient Mediterranean world . Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy , democracy , science , aesthetics , as well as building designs and proportions and architecture ; the latter due to its influence on art , law , warfare , governance , republicanism , engineering and religion . Western Civilization
13938-414: The de facto principle of dynastic succession by leaving the empire to his sons and other members of the Constantinian dynasty . His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign. The medieval church held him up as a paragon of virtue, while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. At
14140-539: The fall of the Byzantine Empire ), granting Portugal navigation, war and trade monopoly for any newly discovered lands, and competing Spanish navigators. It continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company by the destabilizing Spanish discovery of the New World , and the creation and expansion of the English and French colonial empires, and others. Even after demands for self-determination from subject peoples within Western empires were met with decolonization , these institutions persisted. One specific example
14342-463: The medieval renaissances , the influence of the Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily (including the transfer of technology from the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and philosophy by Greek and Hellenic-influenced Islamic philosophers), and the Italian Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient Greek and Roman texts back to central and western Europe. Medieval Christianity
14544-698: The sack of AD 455 lasting 14 days, this time conducted by the Vandals , retaining Rome's eternal spirit through the Holy See of Rome (the Latin Church ) for centuries to come. The ancient Barbarian tribes, often composed of well-trained Roman soldiers paid by Rome to guard the extensive borders, had become militarily sophisticated "Romanized barbarians", and mercilessly slaughtered the Romans conquering their Western territories while looting their possessions. The Roman Empire
14746-587: The solidus , a new gold coin that became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile units ( comitatenses ), often around the Emperor, to serve on campaigns against external enemies or Roman rebels, and frontier-garrison troops ( limitanei ) which were capable of countering barbarian raids, but less and less capable, over time, of countering full-scale barbarian invasions . Constantine pursued successful campaigns against
14948-528: The telescope and acceptance of heliocentrism . 18th century scholars continued to refine Newton's theory of gravitation , notably Leonhard Euler , Pierre Louis Maupertuis , Alexis-Claude Clairaut , Jean Le Rond d'Alembert , Joseph-Louis Lagrange , Pierre-Simon de Laplace . Laplace's five-volume Treatise on Celestial Mechanics is one of the great works of 18th-century Newtonianism. Astronomy gained in prestige as new observatories were funded by governments and more powerful telescopes developed, leading to
15150-563: The 13th and 14th centuries, a number of European travelers, many of them Christian missionaries , had sought to cultivate trading with Asia and Africa . With the Crusades came the relative contraction of the Orthodox Byzantine 's large silk industry in favor of Catholic Western Europe and the rise of Western Papacy . The most famous of these merchant travelers pursuing East–west trade was Venetian Marco Polo . But these journeys had little permanent effect on east–west trade because of
15352-646: The 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" ( hegemony ) by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule (a revival of colonial imperialism ) in the African continent and Middle East . During the socioeconomically optimistic and innovative decades of the Second Industrial Revolution between the 1870s and 1914, also known as the " Beautiful Era ", the established colonial powers in Asia (United Kingdom, France, Netherlands) added to their empires also vast expanses of territory in
15554-669: The Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 by the French Revolutionary Wars ; abolition of the Roman Catholic Inquisition followed. Due to the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded throughout the world. This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery , colonization, conquest, and exploitation of Portugal enforced as well by papal bulls in 1450s (by
15756-590: The Arian Philostorgius also survive, though their biases are no less firm. The epitomes of Aurelius Victor ( De Caesaribus ), Eutropius ( Breviarium ), Festus ( Breviarium ), and the anonymous author of the Epitome de Caesaribus offer compressed secular political and military histories of the period. Although not Christian, the epitomes paint a favourable image of Constantine but omit reference to Constantine's religious policies. The Panegyrici Latini ,
15958-781: The Bosphorus and appointed Martinian , his magister officiorum , as nominal augustus in the West, but Constantine next won the Battle of the Hellespont and finally the Battle of Chrysopolis on 18 September 324. Licinius and Martinian surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia on the promise their lives would be spared: they were sent to live as private citizens in Thessalonica and Cappadocia respectively, but in 325 Constantine accused Licinius of plotting against him and had them both arrested and hanged; Licinius' son (the son of Constantine's half-sister)
16160-546: The Bosporus and invaded European territory. Licinius departed and eventually defeated Maximinus, gaining control over the entire eastern half of the Roman Empire. Relations between the two remaining emperors deteriorated, as Constantine suffered an assassination attempt at the hands of a character that Licinius wanted elevated to the rank of Caesar; Licinius, for his part, had Constantine's statues in Emona destroyed. In either 314 or 316,
16362-726: The Byzantine Emperor and established their own states in the conquered regions, including the heart of the Byzantine Empire . The Holy Roman Empire would dissolve on 6 August 1806, after the French Revolution and the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon . The decline of the Byzantine Empire (13th–15th centuries) began with the Latin Christian Fourth Crusade in AD 1202–04, considered to be one of
16564-482: The Christian community by allowing it to elect Eusebius as bishop of Rome . Maxentius' rule was nevertheless insecure. His early support dissolved in the wake of heightened tax rates and depressed trade; riots broke out in Rome and Carthage ; and Domitius Alexander was able to briefly usurp his authority in Africa. By 312, he was a man barely tolerated, not one actively supported, even among Christian Italians. In
16766-477: The Commonwealth of Nations . But the end of Western colonial imperialism saw the rise of Western neocolonialism or economic imperialism. Multinational corporations came to offer "a dramatic refinement of the traditional business enterprise", through "issues as far ranging as national sovereignty, ownership of the means of production, environmental protection, consumerism, and policies toward organized labor." Though
16968-557: The Danube with a Sarmatian captive to drop at Galerius' feet. It is uncertain how much these tales can be trusted. Constantine recognised the implicit danger in remaining at Galerius' court, where he was held as a virtual hostage. His career depended on being rescued by his father in the West. Constantius was quick to intervene. In the late spring or early summer of 305, Constantius requested leave for his son to help him campaign in Britain. After
17170-537: The East, and the military strategic importance of protecting the Danube from barbarian excursions and Asia from a hostile Persia in choosing his new capital as well as being able to monitor shipping traffic between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Licinius' defeat came to represent the defeat of a rival centre of pagan and Greek-speaking political activity in the East, as opposed to the Christian and Latin-speaking Rome, and it
17372-643: The East, from Nicomedia ( İzmit , Turkey). The division was merely pragmatic: the empire was called "indivisible" in official panegyric, and both emperors could move freely throughout the empire. In 288, Maximian appointed Constantius to serve as his praetorian prefect in Gaul . Constantius left Helena to marry Maximian's stepdaughter Theodora in 288 or 289. Diocletian divided the empire again in 293, appointing two caesars to rule over further subdivisions of East and West. Each would be subordinate to his respective augustus but would act with supreme authority in his assigned lands. This system would later be called
17574-528: The Eastern European world such as the East and South Slavic peoples. Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation , Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the perceived civilized world . Use of
17776-664: The European spice trade with Asia, who had journeyed overland to the Far East contributing to geographical knowledge of parts of the Asian continent. They are of enormous significance in Western history as they marked the beginning of the European exploration, colonization and exploitation of the American continents and their native inhabitants . The European colonization of the Americas led to
17978-496: The Goths and Sarmatians in 322, and on the Goths in 323, defeating and killing their leader Rausimod . In 320, Licinius allegedly reneged on the religious freedom promised by the Edict of Milan and began to oppress Christians anew, generally without bloodshed, but resorting to confiscations and sacking of Christian office-holders. Although this characterization of Licinius as anti-Christian
18180-628: The Human Mind (1794), from primitive society to agrarianism , the invention of writing, the later invention of the printing press and the advancement to "the Period when the Sciences and Philosophy threw off the Yoke of Authority". French writer Pierre Bayle denounced Spinoza as a pantheist (thereby accusing him of atheism ). Bayle's criticisms garnered much attention for Spinoza. The pantheism controversy in
18382-540: The Islamic world, due to the successful Second Agricultural , Commercial , Scientific , and Industrial revolutions (propellers of modern banking concepts). The West rose further with the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment and through the Age of Exploration 's expansion of peoples of Western and Central European empires, particularly the globe-spanning colonial empires of 18th and 19th centuries. Numerous times, this expansion
18584-501: The Italian turmoil; now, instead of giving Maxentius military aid, he sent his troops against Germanic tribes along the Rhine. In 308, he raided the territory of the Bructeri and made a bridge across the Rhine at Colonia Agrippinensium ( Cologne ). In 310, he marched to the northern Rhine and fought the Franks. When not campaigning, he toured his lands advertising his benevolence and supporting
18786-556: The Picts and securing his control in the northwestern dioceses. He completed the reconstruction of military bases begun under his father's rule, and he ordered the repair of the region's roadways. He then left for Augusta Treverorum ( Trier ) in Gaul, the Tetrarchic capital of the northwestern Roman Empire. The Franks learned of Constantine's acclamation and invaded Gaul across the lower Rhine over
18988-659: The Praetorian Guard and Imperial Horse Guard . The tombstones of the Imperial Horse Guard were ground up and used in a basilica on the Via Labicana , and their former base was redeveloped into the Lateran Basilica on 9 November 312—barely two weeks after Constantine captured the city. The Legio II Parthica was removed from Albano Laziale , and the remainder of Maxentius' armies were sent to do frontier duty on
19190-588: The Protestant Reformation (1517) may be viewed as a schism within the Catholic Church . German monk Martin Luther , in the wake of precursors, broke with the pope and with the emperor by the Catholic Church's abusive commercialization of indulgences in the Late Medieval Period , backed by many of the German princes and helped by the development of the printing press , in an attempt to reform corruption within
19392-484: The Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom . The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simple geographic term) is believed to have been formed by Alcuin of York during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, but was limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. The Latin Church of western and central Europe split with
19594-466: The Rhine. In the following years, Constantine gradually consolidated his military superiority over his rivals in the crumbling Tetrarchy. In 313, he met Licinius in Milan to secure their alliance by the marriage of Licinius and Constantine's half-sister Constantia. During this meeting, the emperors agreed on the so-called Edict of Milan , officially granting full tolerance to Christianity and all religions in
19796-533: The Roman Empire. In February 313, he met with Licinius in Milan and developed the Edict of Milan, which stated that Christians should be allowed to follow their faith without oppression. This removed penalties for professing Christianity, under which many had been martyred previously , and it returned confiscated Church property. The edict protected all religions from persecution, not only Christianity, allowing anyone to worship any deity that they chose. A similar edict had been issued in 311 by Galerius, senior emperor of
19998-560: The Tetrarchy, which granted Christians the right to practise their religion but did not restore any property to them. The Edict of Milan included several clauses which stated that all confiscated churches would be returned, as well as other provisions for previously persecuted Christians. Some scholars think that Helena adopted Christianity as an adult, and according to Eusebius she was converted by Constantine, but other historians debate whether Constantine adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth or whether he adopted it gradually over
20200-417: The Tetrarchy. Diocletian's first appointee for the office of Caesar was Constantius ; his second was Galerius , a native of Felix Romuliana . According to Lactantius , Galerius was a brutal, animalistic man. Although he shared the paganism of Rome's aristocracy, he seemed to them an alien figure, a semi-barbarian. On 1 March, Constantius was promoted to the office of Caesar, and dispatched to Gaul to fight
20402-535: The Veronese forces and Maxentius' praetorian prefect, was in a strong defensive position since the town was surrounded on three sides by the Adige . Constantine sent a small force north of the town in an attempt to cross the river unnoticed. Ruricius sent a large detachment to counter Constantine's expeditionary force but was defeated. Constantine's forces successfully surrounded the town and laid siege. Ruricius gave Constantine
20604-517: The West , primarily refers to various nations and states in the regions of Western Europe , Northern America , and Australasia ; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident (from Latin occidens 'setting down, sunset, west') in contrast to the Eastern world known as
20806-459: The Western Church). This was in note of the fact that both Catholic and Orthodox were in use as ecclesiastical adjectives as early as the 2nd and 4th centuries respectively. Meanwhile, the extent of both Christendoms expanded, as Germanic peoples, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Finnic peoples, Baltic peoples, British Isles and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by
21008-738: The Western Church, while Eastern Slavic peoples, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Russian territories, Vlachs and Georgia were converted by the Eastern Orthodox Church . In 1071, the Byzantine army was defeated by the Muslim Turco-Persians of medieval Asia , resulting in the loss of most of Asia Minor . The situation was a serious threat to the future of the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire . The Emperor sent
21210-516: The Western World. The term "Western" encompasses the social norms , ethical values , traditional customs , belief systems , political systems , artifacts and technologies primarily rooted in European and Mediterranean histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that expanded across
21412-520: The authority of the Catholic Church and promoted ideas of individual freedom and religious reform , paving the way for modern notions of personal responsibility and governance. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the ancient tyrannical and imperialistic Graeco-Roman times. The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (owing to
21614-552: The beginning of the Renaissance , there were more critical appraisals of his reign with the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Trends in modern and recent scholarship have attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship. Constantine was a ruler of major importance and has always been a controversial figure. The fluctuations in his reputation reflect the nature of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed, but they have been strongly influenced by
21816-462: The church. Both these religious wars ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which enshrined the concept of the nation-state , and the principle of absolute national sovereignty in international law . As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles , especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order. In
22018-429: The cipher of Christ. Having this sign (☧), his troops stood to arms." Eusebius describes a vision that Constantine had while marching at midday in which "he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, In Hoc Signo Vinces " ("In this sign thou shalt conquer"). In Eusebius's account, Constantine had a dream the following night in which Christ appeared with
22220-551: The city of Constantinople (today's Istanbul ) in modern-day Turkey as the "New Rome" when he picked it as capital of his Empire (later called " Byzantine Empire " by modern historians) in AD 330. This internal conflict of legacies had possibly emerged since the assassination of Julius Caesar three centuries earlier, when Roman imperialism had just been born with the Roman Republic becoming "Roman Empire", but reached its zenith during 3rd century's many internal civil wars . This
22422-666: The city of Constantinople and made it the capital of the Empire, which remained so for over a millennium. Born in Naissus , in Dardania within Moesia Superior (now Niš , Serbia), Constantine was the son of Flavius Constantius , a Roman army officer of Illyrian origin who had been one of the four rulers of the Tetrarchy . His mother, Helena , was a Greek woman of low birth, probably from Asia Minor in modern Turkey . Later canonised as
22624-413: The coinage of Constantine advertised Mars as his patron. From 310 on, Mars was replaced by Sol Invictus , a god conventionally identified with Apollo. There is little reason to believe that either the dynastic connection or the divine vision are anything other than fiction, but their proclamation strengthened Constantine's claims to legitimacy and increased his popularity among the citizens of Gaul. By
22826-482: The course of his life. Constantine possibly retained the title of pontifex maximus which emperors bore as heads of the ancient Roman religion until Gratian renounced the title. According to Christian writers, Constantine was over 40 when he finally declared himself a Christian, making it clear that he owed his successes to the protection of the Christian High God alone. Despite these declarations of being
23028-430: The demotion and continued to style himself as augustus on his coinage, even as other members of the Tetrarchy referred to him as a caesar on theirs. Maximinus was frustrated that he had been passed over for promotion while the newcomer Licinius had been raised to the office of augustus and demanded that Galerius promote him. Galerius offered to call both Maximinus and Constantine "sons of the augusti", but neither accepted
23230-463: The discovery of new planets, asteroids , nebulae and comets , and paving the way for improvements in navigation and cartography . Astronomy became the second most popular scientific profession, after medicine . A common metanarrative of the Enlightenment is the "secularization theory". Modernity, as understood within the framework, means a total break with the past. Innovation and science are
23432-601: The distance between both the Atlantic Ocean shores, the US became more prominently featured in the conceptualizations of the West. Between the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, prominent countries in the West such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand have been once envisioned as ethnocracies for Whites . Racism is cited as a contributing factor to European colonization of
23634-567: The drive to find oceanic routes that would provide cheaper and easier access to South and East Asian goods, by advancements in maritime technology such as the caravel ship introduced in the mid-1400s. The charting of oceanic routes between East and West began with the unprecedented voyages of Portuguese and Spanish sea captains. In 1492, European colonialism expanded across the globe with the exploring voyage of merchant, navigator, and Hispano-Italian colonizer Christopher Columbus . Such voyages were influenced by medieval European adventurers after
23836-453: The driving force behind European imperialism in Asia, and (with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India) the European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade. Industrialization , however, dramatically increased European demand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long Depression of the 1870s provoked
24038-487: The earlier rupture in their relations, Maxentius was eager to present himself as his father's devoted son after his death. He began minting coins with his father's deified image, proclaiming his desire to avenge Maximian's death. Constantine initially presented the suicide as an unfortunate family tragedy. By 311, however, he was spreading another version. According to this, after Constantine had pardoned him, Maximian planned to murder Constantine in his sleep. Fausta learned of
24240-556: The earliest reference to the term "Western world" was from 1586, found in the writings of William Warner . Countries that are considered to constitute the West vary according to perspective rather than their geographical location. Countries like Australia and New Zealand, located in the Eastern Hemisphere are included in modern definitions of the Western world, as these regions and others like them have been significantly influenced by
24442-633: The early 4th century, the central focus of power was on two separate imperial legacies within the Roman Empire: the older Aegean Sea Greek heritage (of Classical Greece ) in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the newer most successful Tyrrhenian Sea Latin heritage (of Ancient Latium and Tuscany ) in the Western Mediterranean. A turning point was Constantine the Great 's decision to establish
24644-835: The eastern Greek patriarchates in the Christian East–West Schism , also known as the "Great Schism", during the Gregorian Reforms (calling for a more central status of the Roman Catholic Church Institution), three months after Pope Leo IX 's death in April 1054. Following the 1054 Great Schism , both the Western Church and Eastern Church continued to consider themselves uniquely orthodox and catholic. Augustine wrote in On True Religion: "Religion
24846-408: The eastern front by the spring of 303, in time to witness the beginnings of Diocletian's " Great Persecution ", the most severe persecution of Christians in Roman history. In late 302, Diocletian and Galerius sent a messenger to the oracle of Apollo at Didyma with an inquiry about Christians. Constantine could recall his presence at the palace when the messenger returned and Diocletian accepted
25048-468: The ecclesiastic disputes of Constantine's later reign. Written during the reign of Theodosius II (r. 402–450), a century after Constantine's reign, these ecclesiastical historians obscure the events and theologies of the Constantinian period through misdirection, misrepresentation, and deliberate obscurity. The contemporary writings of the orthodox Christian Athanasius and the ecclesiastical history of
25250-400: The economy and the arts. His refusal to participate in the war increased his popularity among his people and strengthened his power base in the West. Maximian returned to Rome in the winter of 307–308 but soon fell out with his son. In early 308, after a failed attempt to usurp Maxentius' title, Maximian returned to Constantine's court. On 11 November 308, Galerius called a general council at
25452-518: The elder Emperor Maximian and needed a new source of legitimacy. In a speech delivered in Gaul on 25 July 310, the anonymous orator reveals a previously unknown dynastic connection to Claudius II , a 3rd-century emperor famed for defeating the Goths and restoring order to the empire. Breaking away from tetrarchic models, the speech emphasizes Constantine's ancestral prerogative to rule, rather than principles of imperial equality. The new ideology expressed in
25654-402: The emperor's traditional purple robes . Constantine accepted the decision, knowing that it would remove doubts as to his legitimacy. Constantine's share of the empire consisted of Britain, Gaul, and Spain, and he commanded one of the largest Roman armies which was stationed along the important Rhine frontier. He remained in Britain after his promotion to emperor, driving back the tribes of
25856-442: The empire. The document had special benefits for Christians, legalizing their religion and granting them restoration for all property seized during Diocletian's persecution. It repudiates past methods of religious coercion and used only general terms to refer to the divine sphere—"Divinity" and "Supreme Divinity", summa divinitas . The conference was cut short, however, when news reached Licinius that his rival Maximinus had crossed
26058-616: The event. The new city was protected by the relics of the True Cross , the Rod of Moses and other holy relics, though a cameo now at the Hermitage Museum also represented Constantine crowned by the tyche of the new city. The figures of old gods were either replaced or assimilated into a framework of Christian symbolism . Constantine built the new Church of the Holy Apostles on the site of
26260-402: The field bearing unfamiliar symbols on their standards and their shields. According to Lactantius "Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. He did as he had been commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter Χ, with a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at the top, being
26462-420: The first charge. His horse guards and praetorians initially held their position, but they broke under the force of a Constantinian cavalry charge; they also broke ranks and fled to the river. Maxentius rode with them and attempted to cross the bridge of boats ( Ponte Milvio ), but he was pushed into the Tiber and drowned by the mass of his fleeing soldiers. Constantine entered Rome on 29 October 312 and staged
26664-430: The frozen ground inside their homes. Fashionable Orientalism saw the introduction into the West of designs like the baboosh . Victorian people needed such shoes to keep dust and gravel outside their homes. For Victorian ladies, slippers gave an opportunity to show off their needlepoint skills and to use embroidery as decoration. Types of slippers include: Some slippers are made to resemble something other than
26866-399: The good, representing the modern values of rationalism , while faith is ruled by superstition and traditionalism. Inspired by the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment embodied the ideals of improvement and progress. Descartes and Isaac Newton were regarded as exemplars of human intellectual achievement. Condorcet wrote about the progress of humanity in the Sketch of the Progress of
27068-414: The great civil war of 324. Constantine's Christian eulogists present the war as a battle between Christianity and paganism; Licinius, aided by Gothic mercenaries, represented the past and ancient paganism, while Constantine and his Franks marched under the standard of the labarum . Outnumbered but fired by their zeal, Constantine's army emerged victorious in the Battle of Adrianople . Licinius fled across
27270-438: The honours that he had granted to leaders of the Senate were also invalidated. Constantine also attempted to remove Maxentius' influence on Rome's urban landscape. All structures built by him were rededicated to Constantine, including the Temple of Romulus and the Basilica of Maxentius . At the focal point of the basilica, a stone statue was erected of Constantine holding the Christian labarum in its hand. Its inscription bore
27472-404: The imperial court's demands for universal persecution. On 23 February 303, Diocletian ordered the destruction of Nicomedia' s new church, condemned its scriptures to the flames, and had its treasures seized. In the months that followed, churches and scriptures were destroyed, Christians were deprived of official ranks, and priests were imprisoned. It is unlikely that Constantine played any role in
27674-403: The last moment, that Diocletian would choose Constantine and Maxentius (Maximian's son) as his successors. It was not to be: Constantius and Galerius were promoted to augusti , while Severus and Maximinus , Galerius' nephew, were appointed their caesars respectively. Constantine and Maxentius were ignored. Some of the ancient sources detail plots that Galerius made on Constantine's life in
27876-485: The late 18th century saw Gotthold Lessing attacked by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi over support for Spinoza's pantheism. Lessing was defended by Moses Mendelssohn , although Mendelssohn diverged from pantheism to follow Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in arguing that God and the world were not of the same substance (equivalency). Spinoza was excommunicated from the Dutch Sephardic community, but for Jews who sought out Jewish sources to guide their own path to secularism, Spinoza
28078-448: The legacies of Athens and Jerusalem , or Athens, Jerusalem and Rome . In ancient Greece and Rome, individuals identified primarily as subjects of states, city-states, or empires, rather than as members of Western civilization. The distinct identification of Western civilization began to crystallize with the rise of Christianity during the Late Roman Empire . In this period, peoples in Europe started to perceive themselves as part of
28280-401: The line between Eastern and Western Christianity was moving. Its movement was affected by the influence of the Byzantine empire and the fluctuating power and influence of the Catholic church in Rome. The geographic line of religious division approximately followed a line of cultural divide . In AD 800 under Charlemagne , the Early Medieval Franks established an empire that was recognized by
28482-411: The message which the statue illustrated: "By this sign, Constantine had freed Rome from the yoke of the tyrant." Constantine also sought to upstage Maxentius' achievements. For example, the Circus Maximus was redeveloped so that its seating capacity was 25 times larger than that of Maxentius' racing complex on the Via Appia . Maxentius' strongest military supporters were neutralised when he disbanded
28684-468: The middle of 310, Galerius had become too ill to involve himself in imperial politics. His final act survives: a letter to provincials posted in Nicomedia on 30 April 311, proclaiming an end to the persecutions, and the resumption of religious toleration. Eusebius maintains "divine providence [...] took action against the perpetrator of these crimes" and gives a graphic account of Galerius' demise: "Without warning suppurative inflammation broke out round
28886-408: The middle of his genitals, then a deep-seated fistula ulcer; these ate their way incurably into his innermost bowels. From them came a teeming indescribable mass of worms, and a sickening smell was given off, for the whole of his hulking body, thanks to over eating, had been transformed even before his illness into a huge lump of flabby fat, which then decomposed and presented those who came near it with
29088-455: The military city of Carnuntum ( Petronell-Carnuntum , Austria) to resolve the instability in the western provinces. In attendance were Diocletian, briefly returned from retirement, Galerius, and Maximian. Maximian was forced to abdicate again and Constantine was again demoted to caesar. Licinius , one of Galerius' old military companions, was appointed augustus in the western regions. The new system did not last long: Constantine refused to accept
29290-419: The miraculous or the supernatural when justifying or describing their warfare. Constantine deployed his own forces along the whole length of Maxentius' line. He ordered his cavalry to charge, and they broke Maxentius' cavalry. He then sent his infantry against Maxentius' infantry, pushing many into the Tiber where they were slaughtered and drowned. The battle was brief, and Maxentius' troops were broken before
29492-420: The months following Diocletian's abdication. They assert that Galerius assigned Constantine to lead an advance unit in a cavalry charge through a swamp on the middle Danube, made him enter into single combat with a lion, and attempted to kill him in hunts and wars. Constantine always emerged victorious: the lion emerged from the contest in a poorer condition than Constantine; Constantine returned to Nicomedia from
29694-404: The most important events, solidifying the schism between the Christian churches of Greek Byzantine Rite and Latin Roman Rite . An anti-Western riot in 1182 broke out in Constantinople targeting Latins. The extremely wealthy (after previous Crusades ) Venetians in particular made a successful attempt to maintain control over the coast of Catholic present-day Croatia (specifically
29896-413: The most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history. This paved the way for Muslim conquests in present-day Turkey and the Balkans in the coming centuries (only a handful of the Crusaders followed to the stated destination thereafter, the Holy Land ). The geographical identity of the Balkans is historically known as a crossroads of cultures, a juncture between the Latin and Greek bodies of
30098-425: The name Constantinople after himself, where it was located in modern Istanbul . It subsequently became the capital of the empire for more than a thousand years, the later Eastern Roman Empire often being referred to in English as the Byzantine Empire , a term never used by the Empire, invented by German historian Hieronymus Wolf . His more immediate political legacy was that he replaced Diocletian's Tetrarchy with
30300-431: The new title. By the spring of 310, Galerius was referring to both men as augusti. In 310, a dispossessed Maximian rebelled against Constantine while Constantine was away campaigning against the Franks. Maximian had been sent south to Arles with a contingent of Constantine's army, in preparation for any attacks by Maxentius in southern Gaul. He announced that Constantine was dead and took up the imperial purple. In spite of
30502-426: The north Italian plain sent Constantine embassies of congratulation for his victory. He moved on to Milan, where he was met with open gates and jubilant rejoicing. Constantine rested his army in Milan until mid-summer 312, when he moved on to Brixia ( Brescia ). Brescia's army was easily dispersed, and Constantine quickly advanced to Verona where a large Maxentian force was camped. Ruricius Pompeianus , general of
30704-541: The north without achieving great success. Constantius had become severely sick over the course of his reign and died on 25 July 306 in Eboracum . Before dying, he declared his support for raising Constantine to the rank of full Augustus. The Alamannic king Chrocus , a barbarian taken into service under Constantius, then proclaimed Constantine as augustus. The troops loyal to Constantius' memory followed him in acclamation. Gaul and Britain quickly accepted his rule; Hispania , which had been in his father's domain for less than
30906-423: The official language of the empire. The inhabitants called themselves Romans because the term "Roman" was meant to signify all Christians . The Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans of the newly established Holy Roman Empire , and the West began thinking in terms of Western Latins living in the old Western Empire, and Eastern Greeks (those inside the Roman remnant of the old Eastern Empire). In
31108-522: The official propaganda of the period and are often one-sided; no contemporaneous histories or biographies dealing with his life and rule have survived. The nearest replacement is Eusebius 's Vita Constantini —a mixture of eulogy and hagiography written between 335 and circa 339 —that extols Constantine's moral and religious virtues. The Vita creates a contentiously positive image of Constantine, and modern historians have frequently challenged its reliability. The fullest secular life of Constantine
31310-416: The old family alliance between Maximian and Constantius and offer support to Maxentius' cause in Italy. Constantine accepted and married Fausta in Trier in summer 307. Constantine gave Maxentius his meagre support, offering Maxentius political recognition. Constantine remained aloof from the Italian conflict, however. Over the spring and summer of 307, he had left Gaul for Britain to avoid any involvement in
31512-452: The older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors ), whereas the West was much more rural in its character and more readily adopted Latin as its common language. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the medieval times (or Middle Ages ), Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in
31714-403: The only valid method of arriving at truth". Its precursors were John Milton and Baruch Spinoza . Meeting Galileo in 1638 left an enduring impact on John Milton and influenced Milton's great work Areopagitica , where he warns that, without free speech , inquisitorial forces will impose "an undeserved thraldom upon learning". The achievements of the 17th century included the invention of
31916-431: The orator proclaims that Constantine experienced a divine vision of Apollo and Victory granting him laurel wreaths of health and a long reign. In the likeness of Apollo, Constantine recognised himself as the saving figure to whom would be granted "rule of the whole world", as the poet Virgil had once foretold. The oration's religious shift is paralleled by a similar shift in Constantine's coinage. In his early reign,
32118-431: The overt colonial era had passed, Western nations, as comparatively rich, well-armed, and culturally powerful states, wielded a large degree of influence throughout the world, and with little or no sense of responsibility toward the peoples impacted by its multinational corporations in their exploitation of minerals and markets. The dictum of Alfred Thayer Mahan is shown to have lasting relevance, that whoever controls
32320-489: The panegyrist the opportunity to comment favourably on the similarities between father and son, and Eusebius remarked that Constantine was a "renewal, as it were, in his own person, of his father's life and reign". Constantinian coinage, sculpture, and oratory also show a tendency for disdain towards the "barbarians" beyond the frontiers. He minted a coin issue after his victory over the Alemanni which depicts weeping and begging Alemannic tribesmen, "the Alemanni conquered" beneath
32522-412: The persecution. In his later writings, he attempted to present himself as an opponent of Diocletian's "sanguinary edicts" against the "Worshippers of God", but nothing indicates that he opposed it effectively at the time. Although no contemporary Christian challenged Constantine for his inaction during the persecutions, it remained a political liability throughout his life. On 1 May 305, Diocletian, as
32724-440: The phrase "Romans' rejoicing". There was little sympathy for these enemies; as his panegyrist declared, "It is a stupid clemency that spares the conquered foe." Following Galerius' recognition of Constantine as caesar, Constantine's portrait was brought to Rome, as was customary. Maxentius mocked the portrait's subject as the son of a harlot and lamented his own powerlessness. Maxentius, envious of Constantine's authority, seized
32926-475: The plot and warned Constantine, who put a eunuch in his own place in bed. Maximian was apprehended when he killed the eunuch and was offered suicide, which he accepted. Along with using propaganda, Constantine instituted a damnatio memoriae on Maximian, destroying all inscriptions referring to him and eliminating any public work bearing his image. The death of Maximian required a shift in Constantine's public image. He could no longer rely on his connection to
33128-441: The quicker waters of the Rhone . He disembarked at Lugdunum ( Lyon ). Maximian fled to Massilia ( Marseille ), a town better able to withstand a long siege than Arles. It made little difference, however, as loyal citizens opened the rear gates to Constantine. Maximian was captured and reproved for his crimes. Constantine granted some clemency but strongly encouraged his suicide. In July 310, Maximian hanged himself . In spite of
33330-433: The ratification of the Constitution of the United States by thirteen States on the North American East Coast before end of the 18th century. In the early-19th century, the systematic urbanization process (migration from villages in search of jobs in manufacturing centers) had begun, and the concentration of labor into factories led to the rise in the population of the towns. World population had been rising as well. It
33532-512: The rebels Carausius and Allectus . In spite of meritocratic overtones, the Tetrarchy retained vestiges of hereditary privilege, and Constantine became the prime candidate for future appointment as Caesar as soon as his father took the position. Constantine went to the court of Diocletian, where he lived as his father's heir presumptive . Constantine received a formal education at Diocletian's court, where he learned Latin literature, Greek, and philosophy. The cultural environment in Nicomedia
33734-451: The same heavenly sign and told him to make an army standard in the form of the labarum . Eusebius is vague about when and where these events took place, but it enters his narrative before the war begins against Maxentius. He describes the sign as Chi (Χ) traversed by Rho (Ρ) to form ☧, representing the first two letters of the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ (Christos). A medallion was issued at Ticinum in 315 which shows Constantine wearing
33936-503: The same type of war he had waged against Severus and Galerius: he occupied Rome and prepared for a siege. He still controlled Rome's Praetorian Guard , was well-stocked with African grain, and was surrounded on all sides by the seemingly impregnable Aurelian Walls . He ordered all bridges across the Tiber cut, reportedly on the counsel of the gods, and left the rest of central Italy undefended; Constantine secured that region's support without challenge. Constantine progressed slowly along
34138-406: The seas controls the world. Eric Voegelin described the 18th-century as one where "the sentiment grows that one age has come to its close and that a new age of Western civilization is about to be born". According to Voeglin the Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason ) represents the "atrophy of Christian transcendental experiences and [seeks] to enthrone the Newtonian method of science as
34340-427: The sixth anniversary of his reign, he approached the keepers of the Sibylline Books for guidance. The keepers prophesied that, on that very day, "the enemy of the Romans" would die. Maxentius advanced north to meet Constantine in battle. Maxentius' forces were still twice the size of Constantine's, and he organised them in long lines facing the battle plain with their backs to the river. Constantine's army arrived on
34542-422: The slip and returned with a larger force to oppose Constantine. Constantine refused to let up on the siege and sent only a small force to oppose him. In the desperately fought encounter that followed, Ruricius was killed and his army destroyed. Verona surrendered soon afterwards, followed by Aquileia , Mutina ( Modena ), and Ravenna . The road to Rome was now wide open to Constantine. Maxentius prepared for
34744-434: The speech made Galerius and Maximian irrelevant to Constantine's right to rule. Indeed, the orator emphasizes ancestry to the exclusion of all other factors: "No chance agreement of men, nor some unexpected consequence of favour, made you emperor," the orator declares to Constantine. The oration also moves away from the religious ideology of the Tetrarchy, with its focus on twin dynasties of Jupiter and Hercules . Instead,
34946-508: The successful and deadliest war with the Phoenicians began in 218 BC to the rule of Emperor Hadrian by AD 117, ancient Rome expanded up to twenty-five times its area. The same time passed before its fall in AD 476. Rome had expanded long before the empire reached its zenith with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106 (modern-day Romania ) under Emperor Trajan. During its territorial peak, the Roman Empire controlled about 5,000,000 square kilometres (1,900,000 sq mi) of land surface and had
35148-464: The summer of 305. From Bononia, they crossed the English Channel to Britain and made their way to Eboracum ( York ), capital of the province of Britannia Secunda and home to a large military base. Constantine was able to spend a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius' campaign, like that of Septimius Severus before it, probably advanced far into
35350-581: The summer of 311, Maxentius mobilised against Constantine while Licinius was occupied with affairs in the East. He declared war on Constantine, vowing to avenge his father's "murder". To prevent Maxentius from forming an alliance against him with Licinius, Constantine forged his own alliance with Licinius over the winter of 311–312 and offered him his sister Constantia in marriage. Maximinus considered Constantine's arrangement with Licinius an affront to his authority. In response, he sent ambassadors to Rome, offering political recognition to Maxentius in exchange for
35552-771: The term West as a specific cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World , as settlers in the colonies of Spain and Portugal (and later, France ) belonged to that faith. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans , Dutch Calvinists , English Puritans and other nonconformists , English Catholics , Scottish Presbyterians , French Huguenots , German and Swedish Lutherans , as well as Quakers , Mennonites , Amish , and Moravians . Ancient Rome (6th century BC – AD 476)
35754-467: The then-occupied and presently independent Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Warsaw Pact countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, East Germany (now united with Germany), and Czechoslovakia (now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The Third World consisted of countries, many of which were unaligned with either , and important members included India, Yugoslavia , Finland ( Finlandization ) and Switzerland ( Swiss Neutrality ); some include
35956-528: The title of emperor on 28 October 306. Galerius refused to recognize him but failed to unseat him. Severus was sent against Maxentius in April 307, but during the campaign, Severus' armies, previously under command of Maxentius' father Maximian, defected, and Severus was seized and imprisoned. Maximian, brought out of retirement by his son's rebellion, left for Gaul to confer with Constantine. He offered to marry his daughter Fausta to Constantine and elevate him to augustan rank. In return, Constantine would reaffirm
36158-614: The town quickly. Constantine ordered his troops not to loot the town and advanced into northern Italy. At the approach to the west of the important city of Augusta Taurinorum ( Turin , Italy), Constantine met a large force of heavily armed Maxentian cavalry. In the ensuing Battle of Turin Constantine's army encircled Maxentius' cavalry, flanked them with his own cavalry, and dismounted them with blows from his soldiers' iron-tipped clubs. Constantine's armies emerged victorious. Turin refused to give refuge to Maxentius' retreating forces, opening its gates to Constantine instead. Other cities of
36360-478: The tribes on the Roman frontiers —such as the Franks , the Alemanni , the Goths , and the Sarmatians —and resettled territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century with citizens of Roman culture. Although Constantine lived much of his life as a pagan and later as a catechumen , he began to favour Christianity beginning in 312, finally becoming a Christian and being baptised by Eusebius of Nicomedia , an Arian bishop, although
36562-445: The two augusti fought against one another at the Battle of Cibalae , with Constantine being victorious. They clashed again at the Battle of Mardia in 317 and agreed to a settlement in which Constantine's sons Crispus and Constantine II , and Licinius' son Licinius Junior were made caesars . After this arrangement, Constantine ruled the dioceses of Pannonia and Macedonia and took residence at Sirmium , whence he could wage war on
36764-420: The two parts of the Christendom for some time, the crusades made the schism definitive with hostility. The West during these crusades tried to capture trade routes to the East and failed, it instead discovered the Americas . In the aftermath of European colonization of the Americas , an idea of the "Western" world, as an inheritor of Latin Christendom emerged. According to the Oxford English dictionary ,
36966-401: The winter of 306–307. He drove them back beyond the Rhine and captured kings Ascaric and Merogais ; the kings and their soldiers were fed to the beasts of Trier Amphitheater in the adventus (arrival) celebrations which followed. Constantine began a major expansion of Trier. He strengthened the circuit wall around the city with military towers and fortified gates, and he began building
37168-487: Was Latin , and during his public speeches he needed Greek translators. In April 286, Diocletian declared Maximian , another colleague from Illyricum, his co-emperor. Each emperor would have his own court, his own military and administrative faculties, and each would rule with a separate praetorian prefect as chief lieutenant. Maximian ruled in the West, from his capitals at Mediolanum ( Milan , Italy) or Augusta Treverorum ( Trier , Germany), while Diocletian ruled in
37370-427: Was accompanied by Catholic missionaries , who attempted to proselytize Christianity. In the modern era, Western culture has undergone further transformation through the Renaissance , Ages of Discovery and Enlightenment , and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions . The widespread influence of Western culture extended globally through imperialism , colonialism , and Christianization by Western powers from
37572-418: Was as important as Voltaire and Kant. During the Cold War , a new definition emerged. Earth was divided into three "worlds". The First World , analogous in this context to what was called the West , was composed of NATO members and other countries aligned with the United States. The Second World was the Eastern bloc in the Soviet sphere of influence , including the Soviet Union (15 republics including
37774-510: Was born around AD 500, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire , leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. In either view, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the West (or those regions that would later become the heartland of the culturally "western sphere") experienced a period of decline, and then readaptation, reorientation and considerable renewed material, technological and political development. Classical culture of
37976-458: Was born on 27 February, c. AD 272 in the city of Naissus , a time where the unity of the Empire was threatened by the breakaway wars of the Palmyrene Empire . The city—which is modern day Niš in Serbia —was located in Dardania within Moesia Superior . His father was Flavius Constantius an Illyrian who was born in the same region, and a native of the province of Moesia. His original full name, as well as that of his father,
38178-469: Was built on his orders at the claimed site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem and was deemed the holiest place in all of Christendom . The papal claim to temporal power in the High Middle Ages was based on the fabricated Donation of Constantine . He has historically been referred to as the "First Christian Emperor", but while he did favour the Christian Church, some modern scholars debate his beliefs and even his comprehension of Christianity. Nevertheless, he
38380-415: Was first used centuries later, after the Byzantine Empire ended. The dissolution of the Western half, nominally ended in AD 476, but in truth a long process that ended by the rise of Catholic Gaul (modern-day France ) ruling from around the year AD 800, left only the Eastern Roman Empire alive. The Eastern half continued to think of itself as the Eastern Roman Empire until AD 610–800, when Latin ceased to be
38582-458: Was in the United States' sphere of influence. Spain did not join the NATO until 1982, seven years after the death of the authoritarian Franco . Constantine the Great Constantine I ( Latin : Flavius Valerius Constantinus ; 27 February c. 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great , was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity . He played
38784-404: Was killed in 326. Thus Constantine became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Diocletian had chosen Nicomedia in the East as his capital during the Tetrarchy —not far from Byzantium, well situated to defend Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, all of which had required his military attention. Constantine had recognised the shift of the empire from the remote and depopulated West to the richer cities of
38986-439: Was lost under Maxentius, recalling political exiles, and releasing Maxentius' imprisoned opponents. An extensive propaganda campaign followed, during which Maxentius' image was purged from all public places. He was written up as a "tyrant" and set against an idealised image of Constantine the "liberator". Eusebius is the best representative of this strand of Constantinian propaganda. Maxentius' rescripts were declared invalid, and
39188-438: Was nonetheless a prominent member of the court: he fought for Diocletian and Galerius in Asia and served in a variety of tribunates ; he campaigned against barbarians on the Danube in 296 and fought the Persians under Diocletian in Syria in 297, as well as under Galerius in Mesopotamia in 298–299. By late 305, he had become a tribune of the first order, a tribunus ordinis primi . Constantine had returned to Nicomedia from
39390-528: Was not yet a Christian. He probably judged it a more sensible policy than open persecution and a way to distinguish himself from the "great persecutor" Galerius. He decreed a formal end to persecution and returned to Christians all that they had lost during them. Constantine was largely untried and had a hint of illegitimacy about him; he relied on his father's reputation in his early propaganda, which gave as much coverage to his father's deeds as to his. His military skill and building projects, however, soon gave
39592-417: Was open, fluid, and socially mobile; in it, Constantine could mix with intellectuals both pagan and Christian. He may have attended the lectures of Lactantius, a Christian scholar of Latin in the city. Because Diocletian did not completely trust Constantius—none of the Tetrarchs fully trusted their colleagues—Constantine was held as something of a hostage, a tool to ensure Constantius' best behavior. Constantine
39794-440: Was proclaimed as augustus (emperor) by his army at Eboracum ( York , England). He eventually emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire by 324. Upon his ascension, Constantine enacted numerous reforms to strengthen the empire. He restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities. To combat inflation, he introduced
39996-413: Was proposed that a new Eastern capital should represent the integration of the East into the Roman Empire as a whole, as a centre of learning, prosperity, and cultural preservation for the whole of the Eastern Roman Empire. Among the various locations proposed for this alternative capital, Constantine appears to have toyed earlier with Serdica (present-day Sofia ), as he was reported saying that " Serdica
40198-445: Was put into a fury by the message; he almost set the portrait and messenger on fire. His advisers calmed him and argued that outright denial of Constantine's claims would mean certain war. Galerius was compelled to compromise: he granted Constantine the title "caesar" rather than "augustus" (the latter office went to Severus instead). Wishing to make it clear that he alone gave Constantine legitimacy, Galerius personally sent Constantine
40400-399: Was resold on May 24, 2000, for $ 666,000. On both occasions, they were the most expensive shoes from a film to be sold at auction. In Hawaii and many islands of the Caribbean , the term slippers , or slippahs , is used to describe flip-flops . The term "house shoes" (elided into how-shuze ) is common in the American South . Western world The Western world , also known as
40602-407: Was the requirement that post-colonial societies were made to form nation-states (in the Western tradition), which often created arbitrary boundaries and borders that did not necessarily represent a whole nation, people, or culture (as in much of Africa), and are often the cause of international conflicts and friction even to this day. Although not part of Western colonization process proper, following
40804-418: Was under the Soviet Union's military sphere of influence (see FCMA treaty ) but remained neutral and was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact or Comecon but a member of the EFTA since 1986, and was west of the Iron Curtain . In 1955, when Austria again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral; but as a country to the west of the Iron Curtain, it
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