Republic of Venice: Did you mean...?

The Roman Senate functioned as an advisory body to Rome's magistrates and was composed of the city's most experienced public servants and society's elite. Its decisions carried great weight, even if these were not always converted into laws...

Gaius Marius (c. 157-86 BCE) was an accomplished military commander and politician who was acclaimed for saving Rome from the brink of collapse. Yet, unfortunately, his name has only survived in relative obscurity because his achievements...

The Siege of Toulon (29 August to 19 December 1793) was a decisive military operation during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), conducted by a French Republican army to retake the port city of Toulon from rebels, who were supported...

Galeazze, book illustration by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, included in Atlante Veneto (1690-1701), Vol. 1, 1693. Two Venetian galleasses are seen here in close proximity with their oars out. Looking closely at the front of the ship reveals...

The Marble Lion of Piraeus, book illustration by an unknown artist, included in Antiquités de l'Orient by Carl Christian Rafn, p. 54, Copenhagen, 1856. This lion is one of several that were brought to Venice from Greece and set outside the...

View of the Arsenal gate populated by Venetian men and women, etching and engraving on paper by Giacomo Franco, 1610. Workers, both men and women, leaving the gates of the Arsenale with their work tools in 1610. The southern land entrance...

Veni, vidi, vici! This was the simple message the Roman commander Julius Caesar sent to the Senate in Rome after a resounding victory in the east against King Pharnaces of Pontus - a message that demonstrated both arrogance as well as great...

The Reign of Terror, or simply the Terror (la Terreur), was a climactic period of state-sanctioned violence during the French Revolution (1789-99), which saw the public executions and mass killings of thousands of counter-revolutionary 'suspects'...

The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident that occurred in 1797-98, involving diplomats from the United States and Revolutionary France. Amidst rising tensions between the two nations, President John Adams sent envoys to Paris to negotiate...

The Quasi-War (1798-1800) or 'Half War' was a limited, undeclared naval conflict fought between the United States and the First French Republic. Hostilities arose when French privateers began attacking neutral American shipping, resulting...