Free Essays on Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius By Michelle Dillow Gaius Marius was a man who rose from nothing into everything. He was called a â€Å"novus homo† which means New Man, because he was not Roman by birth, and did not have family in politics. Lady Fortune was on his side. He had money, married into a noble family, and obtained the highest political office in the Roman republic seven times. This accomplishment was almost impossible for anyone not born of Roman blood. He was a â€Å"vir militarisâ€Å", a Military man, and a brilliant general that knew how to command armies. He treated his soldiers like people and was very concerned about their welfare and benefits. His concerns were for the common people of Rome and for nationals who could not gain citizenship. He knew the republic was failing and he wanted to change it for the better. Marius had many friends and many enemies. Both his friends and enemies were powerful. Gaius Julius Caesar saw the potential to be great in Marius. He knew Marius wanted to be consul, and knew that Marius deserved the position. Marius had been elected as Quaestor years before. Gaius Julius knew that he was too old to be consul, so he decided to offer Marius marriage to his daughter, Julia. This would bring Marius into a noble family and would be his starting point on obtaining consulship. Julia was a good wife to Marius while he was away on his military campaigns. Marius also cared a lot for his family, which he only had one child, but was very affectionate toward them. Another friend was Publius Rutilius Rufus. Publius Rutilius knew of Marius’ genius in war strategy and kept him up to date with the dealings of Rome during Marius’ consulship. Marius wanted to expand the size of the army by allowing any able bodied person to enlist. Before He also helped Marius gain control in the defense against the Germans. Rome only wanted people who could afford to buy their own equipment. This was not eno... Free Essays on Gaius Marius Free Essays on Gaius Marius Gaius Marius By Michelle Dillow Gaius Marius was a man who rose from nothing into everything. He was called a â€Å"novus homo† which means New Man, because he was not Roman by birth, and did not have family in politics. Lady Fortune was on his side. He had money, married into a noble family, and obtained the highest political office in the Roman republic seven times. This accomplishment was almost impossible for anyone not born of Roman blood. He was a â€Å"vir militarisâ€Å", a Military man, and a brilliant general that knew how to command armies. He treated his soldiers like people and was very concerned about their welfare and benefits. His concerns were for the common people of Rome and for nationals who could not gain citizenship. He knew the republic was failing and he wanted to change it for the better. Marius had many friends and many enemies. Both his friends and enemies were powerful. Gaius Julius Caesar saw the potential to be great in Marius. He knew Marius wanted to be consul, and knew that Marius deserved the position. Marius had been elected as Quaestor years before. Gaius Julius knew that he was too old to be consul, so he decided to offer Marius marriage to his daughter, Julia. This would bring Marius into a noble family and would be his starting point on obtaining consulship. Julia was a good wife to Marius while he was away on his military campaigns. Marius also cared a lot for his family, which he only had one child, but was very affectionate toward them. Another friend was Publius Rutilius Rufus. Publius Rutilius knew of Marius’ genius in war strategy and kept him up to date with the dealings of Rome during Marius’ consulship. Marius wanted to expand the size of the army by allowing any able bodied person to enlist. Before He also helped Marius gain control in the defense against the Germans. Rome only wanted people who could afford to buy their own equipment. This was not eno...

Domestication History of Rye

Domestication History of Rye Rye (Secale cereale subspecies cereale) was likely fully domesticated from its weedy relative (S. cereale ssp segetale) or perhaps S. vavilovii, in Anatolia or the Euphrates River valley of what is today Syria, at least as early as 6600 BC, and perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago. Evidence for domestication is at Natufian sites such as Can Hasan III in Turkey at 6600 cal BC (calendar years BC); domesticated rye reached central Europe (Poland and Romania) about 4,500 cal BC. Today rye is grown on about 6 million hectares in Europe where it is mostly used for making bread, as animal feed and forage, and in the production of rye and vodka. Prehistorically rye was used for food in a variety of ways, as animal fodder and for straw for the thatched rooves. Characteristics Rye is a member of the Triticeae tribe of Pooideae subfamily of the Poaceae grasses, meaning it is closely related to wheat and barley. There are around 14 different species of the Secale genus, but only S. cereale is domesticated. Rye is allogamous: its reproductive strategies promote outcrossing. Compared to wheat and barley, rye is relatively tolerant to frost, drought, and marginal soil fertility. It has an enormous genome size (~8,100 Mb), and its resistance to frost stress appears to be a result of the high genetic diversity among and within rye populations. The domestic forms of rye have larger seeds than wild forms as well as a non-shattering rachis (the part of the stem that holds the seeds onto the plant). Wild rye is free-threshing, with a tough rachis and loose chaff: a farmer can free the grains by a single threshing since straw and chaff are eliminated by a single round of winnowing. Domestic rye maintained the free-threshing characteristic and both forms of rye are vulnerable to ergot and to munching by pesky rodents while still ripening. Experimenting with Rye Cultivation There is some evidence that Pre-Pottery Neolithic (or Epi-Paleolithic) hunters and gatherers living in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria cultivated wild rye during the cool, arid centuries of the Younger Dryas, some 11,000-12,000 years ago. Several sites in northern Syria show that increased levels of rye were present during the Younger Dryas, implying that the plant must have been specifically cultivated to survive. Evidence discovered at Abu Hureyra (~10,000 cal BC), TellAbr (9500-9200 cal BC), Mureybet 3 (also spelled Murehibit, 9500-9200 cal BC), Jerf el Ahmar (9500-9000 cal BC), and Djade (9000-8300 cal BC) includes the presence of multiple querns (grain mortars) placed in food processing stations and charred wild rye, barley, and einkorn wheat grains. In several of these sites, rye was the dominant grain. Ryes advantages over wheat and barley are its ease of threshing in the wild stage; it is less glassy than wheat and can be more easily prepared as food (roasting, grinding, boiling and mashing). Rye starch is hydrolyzed to sugars more slowly and it produces a lower insulin response than wheat, and is, therefore, more sustaining than wheat. Weediness Recently, scholars have discovered that rye, more than other domesticated crops has followed a weedy species type of domestication processfrom wild to weed to crop and then back to weed again. Weedy rye (S. cereale ssp segetale) is distinctive from the crop form in that it includes stem shattering, smaller seeds and a delay in flowering time. It has been found to have spontaneously redeveloped itself out of the domesticated version in California, in as few as 60 generations. Sources This article is part of the About.com guide to Plant Domestication, and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology Hillman G, Hedges R, Moore A, Colledge S, and Pettitt P. 2001. New evidence of Late Glacial cereal cultivation at Abu Hureyra on the Euphrates. The Holocene 11(4):383-393. Li Y, Haseneyer G, Schà ¶n C-C, Ankerst D, Korzun V, Wilde P, and Bauer E. 2011. High levels of nucleotide diversity and fast decline of linkage disequilibrium in rye (Secale cerealeL.) genes involved in frost response. BMC Plant Biology 11(1):1-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-11-6 (Springer link is currently not working) Marques A, Banaei-Moghaddam AM, Klemme S, Blattner FR, Niwa K, Guerra M, and Houben A. 2013. B chromosomes of rye are highly conserved and accompanied the development of early agriculture. Annals of Botany 112(3):527-534. Martis MM, Zhou R, Haseneyer G, Schmutzer T, Vrna J, Kubalkov M, Kà ¶nig S, Kugler KG, Scholz U, Hackauf B et al. 2013. Reticulate Evolution of the Rye Genome. The Plant Cell 25:3685-3698. Salamini F, Ozkan H, Brandolini A, Schafer-Pregl R, and Martin W. 2002. Genetics and geography of wild cereal domestication in the near east. Nature Reviews Genetics 3(6):429-441.   Shang H-Y, Wei Y-M, Wang X-R, and Zheng Y-L. 2006. Genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships in the rye genus Secale L. (rye) based on Secale cereale microsatellite markers. Genetics and Molecular Biology 29:685-691. Tsartsidou G, Lev-Yadun S, Efstratiou N, and Weiner S. 2008. Ethnoarchaeological study of phytolith assemblages from an agro-pastoral village in Northern Greece (Sarakini): development and application of a Phytolith Difference Index. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(3):600-613. Vigueira CC, Olsen KM, and Caicedo AL. 2013. The red queen in the corn: agricultural weeds as models of rapid adaptive evolution. Heredity 110(4):303-311.   Willcox G. 2005. The distribution, natural habitats, and availability of wild cereals in relation to their domestication in the Near East: multiple events, multiple centres. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14(4):534-541. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00334-005-0075-x (Springer link not working) Willcox G, and Stordeur D. 2012. Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the 10th millennium Cal BC in northern Syria. Antiquity 86(331):99-114.