Singular of optimates, a member of the traditionalist, conservative wing of the Senate in the Late Republic.
Optimas
Fact of the Day
It is said that Henry VI banned low-cut blouses and dresses from court, in case he caught sight of a cleavage.
Quote of the Day
"He so beautified the city [Rome] that he justly boasted that he found it brick and left it marble.
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~ Suetonius on Augustus
On This Day
69 Otho, the second Roman emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors, stabbed himself in the heart after losing to Vitellian troops. He had been emperor for just three months.
1705 Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton.
1746 The Jacobite forces under Charles Edward Stuart were decisively crushed at Battle of Culloden, ending the Jacobite Rising with disastrous consequences for the Scottish clans.