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Marston, John Westland

(Encyclopedia)Marston, John Westland, 1819–90, English playwright and critic. Although his poetic dramas, including The Patrician's Daughter (1842) and The Favourite of Fortune (1866), were popular, he is more no...

Cornelia

(Encyclopedia)Cornelia kôrnēlˈyə [key], fl. 2d cent. b.c., Roman matron, daughter of Scipio Africanus Major. She was the wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and mother of the Gracchi. She refused to remarry af...

Twelve Tables

(Encyclopedia)Twelve Tables, early code of Roman law. Most modern authorities accept the traditional date of 450 b.c., but several place the work later. The tables were supposedly written in response to the plebeia...

Adrian I, pope

(Encyclopedia)Adrian I, d. 795, pope (772–95), a Roman; successor of Stephen IV. At Adrian's urging, Charlemagne crossed the Alps and defeated the Lombard king, Desiderius, who had annexed papal territory. That d...

Grace, princess consort of Monaco

(Encyclopedia)Grace, 1929–82, princess consort of Monaco, b. Philadelphia as Grace Patricia Kelly. She acted on stage and television in New York, and made her film debut in 1951. Cool, blonde, and patrician, she ...

Lentulus

(Encyclopedia)Lentulus lĕnˈtyo͞oləs [key], ancient Roman patrician family of the Cornelian gens. Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, d. 63 b.c., was notorious for his private life and was ejected from the senate b...

Stephen II

(Encyclopedia)Stephen II, d. 757, pope (752–57), successor of Pope St. Zacharias. When Rome was threatened by the Lombard king Aistulf, Stephen went to Gaul and appealed to Pepin the Short for help. He became the...

Zeno

(Encyclopedia)Zeno zēˈnō [key], d. 491, Roman emperor of the East (474–491). An Isaurian, he succeeded his son Leo II and was the son-in-law of Leo I. During his reign he suppressed several revolts. He was dri...

Hepburn, Audrey

(Encyclopedia)Hepburn, Audrey, 1929–93, British film actress, b. Brussels as Audrey Kathleen Ruston. The daughter of an English banker and a Dutch baroness, she and her mother lived in the Netherlands during the ...

Lepidus

(Encyclopedia)Lepidus lĕpˈĭdəs [key], family of the ancient Roman patrician gens Aemilia. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, d. 152 b.c., was a consul in 187 and 175 b.c., a censor in 179 b.c., and pontifex maximus [high...

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