I Heard it in My History Class Quiz

Answer: Good question, Tommy! It means 'I came, I saw, I conquered'

Julius Caesar did say these famous words, which come from the verbs venio, video and vinco in Latin. Caesar said them, commenting on his brief campaign in Zela (Zile in modern day Turkey) against Pharnaces II, Ruler of Pontus. These words have been quoted and used in literature, films and video games, so have a significance in the 21st century.

Answer: Agrippina

Agrippina (the Younger) was famous because her own son, who became Emperor of Rome, Nero, had her killed. However, she was married to an emperor herself, the emperor being Claudius, who was her second husband. Claudius was Agrippina's paternal uncle, being Germanicus' brother.

Answer: AD 79

Before this the volcano that towers above the Bay of Naples was not recognised as a volcano in antiquity, but as a mountain. It is believed that around 16,000 people perished in Herculaneum and Pompeii in the eruption. We have a contemporary record of the eruption because both Pliny the Elder and Younger were in the area. Pliny the Elder went out on a ship to observe and record the event, but was killed, so his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who could see the eruption but was not in harm's way, wrote an account of the eruption.

Answer: Yes

Antony's love affair with Cleopatra did result in three children. Cleopatra bore Antony a set of twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene and another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus. Through his daughter, Antony was the ancestor to the royal family of Mauretania, as she was married to King Juba II of Numidia.

Whilst Antony was languishing in Egypt, he was still married to his rival, Octavian's sister, Octavia, who had also borne him two daughters.

Answer: Berenice

Berenice (AD 28 - ?) was the daughter of King Herod Agrippa I, and was a Jewish client queen of the dynasty that reigned over the then Roman province of Judaea from 39 BC-92 AD. During the 1st Jewish-Roman War, she began her love affair with Titus, and the poignancy of this relationship is that although the two were both unmarried and very much in love, they could not have been joined in matrimony on account of her being a foreigner and him being the heir to the Roman 1st family. Upon Titus' death in AD 81, Berenice disappeared from historical record.

Answer: Ides

The Ides of a month fall on either the 13th or the 15th, depending on which month it is. In March, the Ides were on the 15th (in Latin, the Idus Martiae). The other denominations of Roman dates were the Kalends, which were the 1st day of each month and the Nones, which were the 9th of every month.

In 44 BC, Julius Caesar entered the Curia (where the Senate met) and was stabbed 23 times until he died. In Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", the eponymous character is warned to "Beware the Ides of March!" by the soothsayer.

Answer: Well, Carlisle, it was Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus and Marcus Crassus

Triumvirates were informal political alliances in ancient Roman politics. The 1st Triumvirate was Julius Caesar, who was very much the military side of the alliance, Pompey Magnus, who was a politician and Marcus Crassus, who is famous for suppressing the Spartacus slave revolt.

In the Triumvirate, however, Crassus was a bit of a hanger-on and relied on the other two to keep him in the picture, but because Pompey and Caesar were such strong personalities Crassus was elementary in mediating between the two.

The 2nd Triumvirate included Julius Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, Octavian, who would adopt the name Augustus, Caesar's former ally and comrade, Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who once again would play the role of the gooseberry.

Answer: Yes

The Emperor Augustus during his reign introduced some radical reforms to Roman society and culture. They curbed hedonism and loose living, as they tried to reinstate some morality and integrity into the Roman way of life. Unfortunately for Julia the Elder (in Latin, Julia Augusti filia) she found it impossible to stop her partying and outlandish behaviour, which her father had forbidden as being un-Roman and not how a Roman woman should conduct herself. So, unwilling to put his only daughter to death, he exiled her, also commanding that upon her passing she was not to be buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Also exiled on account of Caesar's new reforms, was the poet Ovid, who was sent to Tomis on the Black Sea.

Answer: Marvin said 'Seneca'

One of Nero's advisors was Seneca the Younger, who had witnessed the reigns of Nero's two forbears, Caligula and Claudius. Nero was heavily influenced by Seneca until the issue of his mother's assassination, when Seneca regretted his encouragement of the evil deed. Seneca's later life had him embroiled in scandal, as he was entangled in the Pisonian conspiracy of AD 65.

He was ordered to take his own life and did it in the traditional manner by cutting open veins in order to bleed to death.

Answer: Claudius

Emperor Tiberius was the son of Livia Drusilla and was adopted by Augustus Caesar as his heir. Thus, he was the 2nd Emperor of Rome. After he died, he was given the honour of divi, which meant that he was deified, so his name was altered to 'Imperator Caesar Divi filius Augustus'. Many emperors were deified, as had become a custom begun by Gaius Julius Caesar.