title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Brutus' first appearance in public life was as an assistant to Cato, when the latter was appointed by the senate acting at the bequest of Publius Clodius Pulcher, as governor of Cyprus in 58. According to Plutarch, Brutus was instrumental in assisting the administration of the province (specifically by converting treasure of the former king of the island into usable money); his role in administering the province, however, has "almost certainly been exaggerated".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In 54 BC, Brutus served as "triumvir monetalis", one of the three men appointed annually for producing coins, even though only another colleague is known: Quintus Pompeius Rufus. Moneyers in Brutus' day frequently issued coins commemorating their ancestors; Pompeius Rufus thus put the portraits of his two grandfathers (the dictator Sulla and Pompeius Rufus) on his denarii. Brutus, like his colleague, designed a denarius with the portraits of his paternal ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus and maternal ancestor Gaius Servilius Ahala, both of whom were widely recognised in the late Republic as defenders of liberty (for, respectively, expelling the kings and killing Spurius Maelius). He also made a second type featuring Libertas, the goddess of liberty, and Lucius Brutus. These coins show Brutus' admiration for the tyrannicides of the early republic, already mentioned by Cicero as early as 59 BC. In addition, Brutus' denarii and their message against tyranny participated in the propaganda against Pompey and his ambitions to rule alone or become dictator.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Brutus married Appius Claudius Pulcher's daughter Claudia, likely in 54 during Pulcher's consulship. He was elected as quaestor (and automatically enrolled in the senate) in 53. Brutus then travelled with his father-in-law to Cilicia during the latter's proconsulship in the next year. While in Cilicia, he spent some time as a money-lender, which was discovered two years later when Cicero was appointed proconsul between 51 and 50 BC. Brutus asked Cicero to help collect two debts which Brutus had made: one to Ariobarzanes, the king of Cappadocia, and one to the town of Salamis. Brutus' loan to Ariobarzanes was bundled with a loan also made by Pompey and both received some repayment on the debt.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The loan to Salamis was more complex: officially, the loan was made by two of Brutus' friends, who requested repayment at 48 per cent per annum, which was far in excess of Cicero's previously imposed interest cap of 12 per cent. The loan dated back to 56, shortly after Brutus returned to Rome from Cyprus. Salamis had sent a delegation asking to borrow money, but under the "lex Gabinia" it was illegal for Romans to lend to provincials in the capital, but Brutus was able to find "friends" to loan this money on his behalf, which was approved under his influence in the senate. Because the "lex Gabinia" also invalidated such contracts, Brutus also had his contract – officially his friends' contract – confirmed by the senate. One of Brutus' friends in whose name the debt was officially issued, Marcus Scaptius, was in Cilicia during Cicero's proconsulship using force to coerce repayment, which Cicero stopped; Cicero, not seeking to endanger his friendship with Brutus, but also disappointed and angry at Brutus' mischaracterisation of the loan and the exorbitant interest rate attached, was persuaded by Scaptius to defer a decision on the loan to the next governor.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In 52, in the aftermath of the death of his uncle-in-law, Publius Clodius Pulcher (brother of his wife's father), he wrote a pamphlet, "De Dictatura Pompei" (On the Dictatorship of Pompey), opposing demands for Pompey to be made dictator, writing "it is better to rule no one than to be another man's slave, for one can live honourably without power but to live as a slave is impossible". He was in this episode more radical than Cato the Younger, who supported Pompey's elevation as sole consul for 52, saying "any government at all is better than no government". Soon after Pompey was made sole consul, Pompey passed the "lex Pompeia de vi", which targeted Titus Annius Milo, for which Cicero would write a speech "pro Milone". Brutus also wrote for Milo, writing (a now lost) "pro T Annio Milone", in which he connected Milo's killing of Clodius explicitly to the welfare of the state and possibly also criticising what he saw as Pompey's abuses of power. This speech or pamphlet was very well received and positively viewed by later teachers of rhetoric.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In the late 50s, Brutus was elected as a "pontifex", one of the public priests in charge of supervising the calendar and maintaining Rome's peaceful relationship with the gods. It is likely that Caesar supported his election. Caesar had previously invited Brutus, after his quaestorship, to join him as a legate in Gaul, but Brutus declined, instead going with Appius Pulcher to Cilicia, possibly out of loyalty thereto. During the 50s, Brutus also was involved in some major trials, working alongside famous advocates like Cicero and Quintus Hortensius. In 50, he – with Pompey and Hortensius – played a significant role in defending Brutus' father-in-law Appius Claudius from charges of treason and electoral malpractice.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In the political crisis running up to Caesar's Civil War in 49, Brutus' views are mostly unknown. While he did oppose Pompey until 52, Brutus may have simply taken a tactical silence.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: When Caesar's Civil War broke out in January 49 BC between Pompey and Caesar, Brutus had a choice whether to support Pompey, whom the senate supported, or to join his mother's lover Caesar, who also promised vengeance for Brutus' father's death. Pompey and his allies fled the city before Caesar's army arrived in March. Brutus decided to support his father's killer, Pompey; this choice may have had mostly to do with Brutus' closest allies – Appius Claudius, Cato, Cicero, etc. – also all joining Pompey. He did not, however, immediately join Pompey, instead travelling to Cilicia as legate for Publius Sestius before joining Pompey in winter 49 or spring 48.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: It is not known whether Brutus fought in the ensuing battles at Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus. Plutarch says that Caesar ordered his officers to take Brutus prisoner if he gave himself up voluntarily, but to leave him alone and do him no harm if he persisted in fighting against capture. After the massive Pompeian defeat at Pharsalus on 9 August 48, Brutus fled through marshland to Larissa, where he wrote to Caesar, who welcomed him graciously into his camp. Plutarch also implies that Brutus told Caesar of Pompey's withdrawal plans to Egypt, but this is unlikely, as Brutus was not present when Pompey's decision to go to Egypt was made.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: While Caesar followed Pompey to Alexandria in 48–7, Brutus worked to effect a reconciliation between various Pompeians and Caesar. He arrived back in Rome in December 47. Caesar appointed Brutus as governor (likely as "legatus pro praetore") for Cisalpine Gaul while he left for Africa in pursuit of Cato and Metellus Scipio. After Cato's suicide following defeat at the battle of Thapsus on 6 April 46, Brutus was one of Cato's eulogisers writing a pamphlet entitled "Cato" in which he reflected positively both on Cato's life while highlighting Caesar's "clementia".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: After Caesar's last battle against the republican remnant in March 45, Brutus divorced his wife Claudia in June and promptly remarried his cousin Porcia, Cato's daughter, late in the same month. According to Cicero the marriage caused a semi-scandal as Brutus failed to state a valid reason for his divorce from Claudia other than he wished to marry Porcia. Brutus' reasons for marrying Porcia are unclear, he may have been in love or it could have been a politically motivated marriage to position Brutus as heir to Cato's supporters. The marriage also caused a rift between Brutus and his mother, who was resentful of the affection Brutus had for Porcia.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Brutus also was promised the prestigious urban praetorship for 44 BC and possibly earmarked for the consulship in 41.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: There are various different traditions describing the way in which Brutus arrived to the decision to assassinate Caesar. Plutarch, Appian, and Cassius Dio, all writing in the imperial period, focused on "pressure from [Brutus'] peers and his own philosophical conviction that awakened... a sense of duty both to this country and to his family name".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: By autumn 45, public opinion of Caesar was starting to sour: Plutarch, Appian, and Dio all reported graffiti glorifying Brutus' ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus, panning Caesar's kingly ambitions, and derogatory comments made to Marcus Junius Brutus in Rome's open-air courts that he was failing to live up to his ancestors. Dio reports this public support came from the people of Rome; Plutarch however has the graffiti created by elites to shame Brutus into action. Regardless of the specific impetus, modern historians believe that at least some portion of popular opinion had turned against Caesar by early 44.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Caesar deposed two plebeian tribunes in late January 44 for removing a crown from one of his statues; this attack on the tribunes undermined one of his main arguments – defending the rights of the tribunes – for going to civil war in 49. In February 44, Caesar thrice rejected a crown from Marcus Antonius to cheering crowds, but later accepted the title "dictator perpetuo", which in Latin translated either to dictator for life or as dictator for an undetermined term.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Cicero also wrote letters asking Brutus to reconsider his association with Caesar. Cassius Dio claims that Brutus' wife Porcia spurred Brutus' conspiracy, but evidence is unclear as to the extent of her influence. Gaius Cassius Longinus, also one of the praetors for that year and a former legate of Caesar's, also was involved in the formation of the conspiracy. Plutarch has Brutus approach Cassius at his wife's urging, while Appian and Dio have Cassius approaching Brutus (and in Dio, Cassius does so after opposing further honours for Caesar publicly).


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The extent of Caesar's control over the political system also stymied the ambitions of many aristocrats of Brutus' generation: Caesar's dictatorship precluded many of the avenues for success which Romans recognised. The reduction of the senate to a rubber stamp ended political discussion in Caesar's senate; there was no longer any room for anyone to shape policy except by convincing Caesar; political success became a grant of Caesar's rather than something won competitively from the people. The Platonian philosophical tradition, of which Brutus was an active writer and thinker, also emphasised a duty to restore justice and to overthrow tyrants.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Regardless of how the conspiracy was initially formed, Brutus and Cassius, along with Brutus' cousin and close ally of Caesar's, Decimus Junius Brutus, started to recruit to the conspiracy in late February 44. They recruited men including Gaius Trebonius, Publius Servilius Casca, Servius Sulpicius Galba, and others. There was a discussion late in the conspiracy as to whether Antony should be killed, which Brutus forcefully rejected: Plutarch says Brutus thought Antony could be turned to the tyrannicides; Appian says Brutus thought of the optics of purging the Caesarian elite rather than only removing a tyrant.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Various plans were proposed – an ambush on the "via sacra", an attack at the elections, or killing at a gladiator match – eventually, however, the conspiracy settled on a senate meeting on the Ides of March. The specific date carried symbolic importance, as consuls until the mid-2nd century BC had assumed their offices on that day (instead of early January). The reasons for choosing the Ides are unclear: Nicolaus of Damascus (writing in the Augustan period) assumed that a senate meeting would isolate Caesar from support; Appian reports on the possibility of other senators coming to the assassins' aid. Both possibilities "are unlikely" due to Caesar's expansion of the senate and the low number of conspirators relative to the whole senate body. More likely is Dio's suggestion that a senate meeting would give the conspirators a tactical advantage as, by smuggling weapons, only the conspirators would be armed.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The ancient sources embellish the Ides with omens ignored, soothsayers spurned, and notes to Caesar spilling the conspiracy unread, all contributing "to the tragedy of Caesar as recorded in the literature and propaganda following his death". The specific implementation of the conspiracy had Trebonius detain Antony – then serving as co-consul with Caesar – outside the senate house; Caesar was then stabbed to death almost immediately. The specific details of the assassination vary between authors: Nicolaus of Damascus reports some eighty conspirators, Appian only listed fifteen, the number of wounds on Caesar ranges from twenty-three to thirty-five.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Plutarch reports that Caesar yielded to the attack after seeing Brutus' participation; Dio reported that Caesar shouted in Greek "kai su teknon" ("You too, child?"). Suetonius' account, however, also cites Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a friend of Caesar's, as saying that the dictator fell in silence, with the possibility that Caesar spoke "kai su teknon" as a postscript. As dramatic death quotes were a staple of Roman literature, the historicity of the quote is unclear. The use of "kai su", however, "always has a strongly negative tone in[] other contemporary[] evidence", indicating the possibility of a curse, per classicists James Russell and Jeffrey Tatum.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Immediately after Caesar's death, senators fled the chaos. None attempted to aid Caesar or to move his body. Cicero reported that Caesar fell at the foot of the statue of Pompey. His body was only moved after night fell, carried home to Caesar's wife Calpurnia. The conspirators travelled to the Capitoline hill; Caesar's deputy in the dictatorship, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, moved a legion of troops from the Tiber Island into the city and surrounded the forum. Suetonius reports that Brutus and Cassius initially planned to seize Caesar's property and revoke his decrees, but stalled out of fear of Lepidus and Antony.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Before Lepidus' troops arrived to the forum, Brutus spoke before the people in a "contio". The text of that speech is lost. Dio says the "liberatores" promoted their support of democracy and liberty and told the people not to expect harm; Appian says the "liberatores" merely congratulated each other and recommended the recall of Sextus Pompey and the tribunes Caesar had recently deposed. The support of the people was tepid, even though other speeches followed supporting the tyrannicide. Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who was to become consul in a few days on the 18th, decided immediately to assume the consulship illegally, expressed his support of Brutus and Cassius before the people, and joined the "liberatores" on hill.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Cicero urged the tyrannicides to call a meeting of the senate to gather its support; Brutus however, "perhaps trusting too much in the character of Antony [or] hoping that he could win round Lepidus" who was married to one of Brutus' half-sisters, sent a delegation to the Caesarians asking for a negotiated settlement. The Caesarians delayed for a day, moving troops and gathering weapons and supplies for a possible conflict.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: After Caesar's death, Dio reports a series of prodigies and miraculous occurrences which are "self-evidently fantastic" and likely fictitious. Some of the supposed prodigies did in fact occur, but were actually unrelated to Caesar's death: Cicero's statue was knocked over but only in the next year, Mt Etna in Sicily did erupt but not contemporaneously, a comet was seen in the sky but only months later.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The initial plan from Brutus and Cassius seems to have been to establish a period of calm and then to work towards a general reconciliation. While the Caesarians had troops near the capital at hand, the "liberatores" were soon to assume control of vast provincial holdings in the east which would provide them within the year of large armies and resources. Seeing that the military situation was initially problematic, the "liberatores" decided then to ratify Caesar's decrees so that they could hold on to their magistracies and provincial assignments to protect themselves and rebuild the republican front.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Cicero acted as an honest broker and hammered out a compromise solution: general amnesty for the assassins, ratification of Caesar's acts and appointments for the next two years, and guarantees to Caesar's veterans that they would receive their promised land grants. Caesar also was to receive a public funeral. If the settlement had held, there would have been a general resumption of the republic: Decimus would go to Gaul that year and be confirmed as consul in 42, where he would then hold elections for 41. The people celebrated the reconciliation but some of the hard-core Caesarians were convinced that civil war would follow.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Caesar's funeral occurred on 20 March, with a rousing speech by Antony mourning the dictator and energising opposition against the tyrannicides. Various ancient sources report that the crowd set the senate house on fire and started a witch-hunt for the tyrannicides, but these may have been spurious embellishments added by Livy, according to T.P. Wiseman. Contrary to what is reported by Plutarch, the assassins stayed in Rome for a few weeks after the funeral until April 44, indicating some support among the population for the tyrannicides. A person calling himself Marius, claiming he was a descendant of Gaius Marius), started a plan to ambush Brutus and Cassius. Brutus, as urban praetor in charge of the city's courts, was able to get a special dispensation to leave the capital for more than 10 days, and he withdrew to one of his estates in Lanuvium, 20 miles south-east of Rome. This fake Marius, for his threats to the tyrannicides (and to Antony's political base), was executed by being thrown from the Tarpeian Rock in mid- or late April. Dolabella, the other consul, acting on this own initiative, took down an altar and column dedicated to Caesar.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: By early May, Brutus was considering exile. Octavian's arrival, along with the fake Marius, caused Antony to lose some of the support of his veterans, he responded by touring Campania – officially to settle Caesar's veterans – but actually to buttress military support. Dolabella at this time was on the side of the "liberatores" and also was the only consul at Rome; Antony's brother Lucius Antonius helped Octavian to announce publicly that he was to fulfil the conditions of Caesar's will, handing an enormous amount of wealth to the citizenry. Brutus also wrote a number of speeches disseminated to the public defending his actions, emphasising how Caesar had invaded Rome, killed prominent citizens, and suppressed the popular sovereignty of the people.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: By mid-May, Antony started on designs against Decimus Brutus' governorship in Cisalpine Gaul. He bypassed the senate and took the matter to the popular assemblies in June an enacted the reassignment of the Gallic province by law. At the same time, he proposed reassigning Brutus and Cassius from their provinces to instead purchase grain in Asia and Sicily. There was a meeting at Brutus' house attended by Cicero, Brutus and Cassius (and wives), and Brutus' mother, in which Cassius announced his intention to go to Syria while Brutus wanted to return to Rome, but ended up going to Greece. His initial plan to go to Rome, however, was to put on games in early July commemorating his ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus and promoting his cause; he instead delegated the games to a friend. Octavian also held games commemorating Caesar late in the month; around this time also, the "liberatores" started to prepare in earnest for civil war.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The senate assigned Brutus to Crete (and Cassius to Cyrene) in early August, both small and insignificant provinces with few troops. Later in the month, Brutus left Italy for the east. He was acclaimed in Greece by the younger Romans there and recruited many supporters from the young Roman aristocrats being educated in Athens. He discussed with the governor of Macedonia handing the province over to him; while Antony in Rome allocated the province to his brother Gaius, Brutus travelled north with an army to Macedonia, buoyed by funds collected by two outgoing "quaestores" at the end of the year.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In January 43, Brutus entered Macedonia and with his army, took Antony's brother Gaius captive. At the same time, the political situation in Rome turned against Antony, as Cicero was delivering his Phillipics. Over the next few months, Brutus spent his time in Greece building strength. In Italy, the senate at Cicero's urging fought against Antony at the battle of Mutina, where both consuls (Hirtius and Pansa) were killed. During this time, the republicans enjoyed the support of the senate, which confirmed Brutus and Cassius' commands in Macedonia and Syria, respectively.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Dolabella switched sides in 43, killing Trebonius in Syria and raising an army against Cassius. Brutus decamped for Syria in early May, writing letters to Cicero criticising Cicero's policy to support Octavian against Antony; at the same time, the senate had declared Antony an enemy of the state. In late May, Lepidus (married to Brutus' half-sister) – possibly forced by his own troops – joined Antony against Cicero, Octavian, and the senate, leading Brutus to write to Cicero asking him to protect both his own and Lepidus' family. The next month, Brutus' wife Porcia died.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Cicero's policy of attempting to unify Octavian with the senate against Antony and Lepidus started to fail in May; he requested Brutus to take his forces and march to his aid in Italy in mid-June. It seems that Brutus and Cassius in the east had substantial communications delays and failed to recognise that Antony had not been defeated, contra earlier assurances after Mutina. Over the next few months from June to 19 August, Octavian marched on Rome and forced his election as consul. Shortly afterwards, Octavian and his colleague, Quintus Pedius, passed the "lex Pedia" making the murder of a dictator retroactively illegal, and convicting Brutus and the assassins "in absentia". The new consuls also lifted the senate's decrees against Lepidus and Antony, clearing the way for a general Caesarian rapprochement. Under that law, Decimus was killed in the west some time in autumn, defeating the republican cause in the west; by 27 November 43, the Caesarians had fully settled their differences and passed the "lex Titia", forming the Second Triumvirate and instituting a series of brutal proscriptions. The proscriptions claimed many lives, including that of Cicero.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: When news of the triumvirate and their proscriptions reached Brutus in the east, he marched across the Hellespont into Macedonia to quell rebellion and conquered a number of cities in Thrace. After meeting Cassius in Smyrna in January 42, both generals also went on a campaign through southern Asia minor sacking cities which had aided their enemies.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Brutus' depiction among certain authors, like Appian, suffered considerably from this eastern campaign: where Brutus marched into cities like Xanthus enslaving their populations and plundering their wealth. Other ancient historians, including Plutarch, take a more apologetic tone, having Brutus "cry in anguish at the sufferings of his victims" a common theme used by ancient historians "to turn an otherwise condemnable action [sacking cities] into something that could be praised or even used as a positive moral example". The campaign continued with less sacking but more coerced payments; the ancient tradition on this turn also is divided, with Appian seeing eastern willingness to surrender emerging from stories of Xanthus' destruction contra Cassius Dio and Plutarch viewing the later portions of the campaign as emblematic of Brutus' virtues of moderation, justice, and honour.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: By the end of the campaign in Asia minor, both Brutus and Cassius were tremendously rich. They reconvened at Sardis and marched into Thrace in August 42.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The Caesarians also marched into Greece, evading the naval patrols of Sextus Pompey, , and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. The "liberatores" had positioned themselves west of Neapolis with clear lines of communication back to their supplies in the east. Octavian and Antony, leading the Caesarian forces, were not so lucky, as their supply lines were harassed by the superior republican fleets, leading the "liberatores" to adopt a strategy of attrition.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Octavian and Antony had some 95,000 legionaries with 13,000 horsemen, while Brutus and Cassius had some 85,000 legionnaires and 20,000 cavalry. Flush with cash, the "liberatores" also had a substantial financial advantage, paying their soldiers in advance of the battle with 1,500 denarii a man and more for officers. Antony moved quickly to force an engagement immediately, building a causeway under cover of darkness into the swamps that anchored the republican left flank; Cassius, commanding the republican left, countered with a wall to cut off Antony from his men and to defend his own flank.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In the ensuing first Battle of Philippi, the start of the battle is unclear. Appian says Antony attacked Cassius whereas Plutarch reports battle was joined more-or-less simultaneously. Brutus' forces defeated Octavian's troops on the republican right flank, sacking Octavian's camp and forcing the young Caesar to withdraw. Cassius' troops fared poorly against Antony's men, forcing Cassius to withdraw to a hill. Two stories then follow: Appian reports that Cassius heard of Brutus' victory and killed himself from shame while "otherwise our sources preserve a largely unanimous account" of how one of Cassius' legates failed to convey news of Brutus' victory, leading Cassius to believe that Brutus was defeated and consequently commit suicide.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Following the first battle, Brutus assumed command of Cassius' army with the promise of a substantial cash reward. He also possibly promised his soldiers that he would allow them to plunder Thessalonica and Sparta after victory, as the cities had supported the triumvirs in the conflict. Fearful of defections among his troops and the possibility of Antony cutting his supply lines, Brutus joined battle after attempting for some time to continue the original strategy of starving the enemy out. The resulting second Battle of Philippi was a head-on-head struggle in which the sources report little tactical manoeuvres while reporting heavy casualties, especially among eminent republican families.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: After the defeat, Brutus fled into the nearby hills with about four legions. Knowing his army had been defeated and that he would be captured, he committed suicide by falling on his sword. Among his last words were, according to Plutarch, "By all means must we fly, but with our hands, not our feet". Brutus reportedly also uttered the well-known verse calling down a curse quoted from Euripides' "Medea": "O Zeus, do not forget who has caused all these woes". It is, however, unclear whether Brutus was referring to Antony, as claimed by Appian, or otherwise Octavian, as Kathryn Tempest believes. Also according to Plutarch, he praised his friends for not deserting him before encouraging them to save themselves.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Some sources report that Antony, upon discovering Brutus' body, as a show of great respect, ordered Brutus' body to be wrapped in Antony's most expensive purple mantle and cremated with the ashes to be sent to Brutus' mother Servilia. Suetonius, however, reports that Octavian had Brutus' head cut off and planned to have it displayed before a statue of Caesar until it was thrown overboard during a storm in the Adriatic.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Brutus' historical character has undergone numerous revisions and remains divisive. Dominant views of Brutus vary by time and geography.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: In the ancient world, Brutus' legacy was a topic of substantial debate. Starting from his own times and shortly after his death, he was already viewed as having killed Caesar for virtuous reasons rather than envy or hatred. For example, Plutarch, in his "Life of Brutus", mentions that Brutus' enemies respected him, recounting that Antony once said that "Brutus was the only man to have slain Caesar because he was driven by the splendour and nobility of the deed, while the rest conspired against the man because they hated and envied him".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Even when he was still alive, Brutus' literary output, especially the pamphlets of 52 BC against Pompey's dictatorship ("De dictatura Pompei") and in support of Milo ("Pro T Annio Milone") coloured him as philosophically consistent: "Brutus had singled himself out as a man who acted upon an ideal code of conduct". The main charge against him in the ancient world was that of ingratitude, viewing Brutus as ungrateful in taking Caesar's goodwill and support and then killing him. An even more negative historiographical tradition viewed Brutus and his compatriots as criminal murderers.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The divisive views of Brutus in the early Principate had little changed by the reign of Tiberius; the historian Cremutius Cordus was charged with treason for having written a history too friendly to Brutus and Cassius. Around the same time, Valerius Maximus, writing with the support of the imperial regime, believed Brutus' memory suffered from "irreversible curses". Of course, that the Julio-Claudio regime would have had a negative view of Brutus is expected: "admiration of Brutus and Cassius was more sinisterly interpreted as a cry of protest against the imperial system". Similarly, the Forum of Augustus, which included statues of various republican heroes, omitted men such as Cato Uticensis, Cicero, Brutus, and Cassius. The stoic, Seneca the Younger agreed, arguing that Brutus unjustly feared Caesar, who was a good king, and did not think through the consequences of Caesar's death.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: But by the time that Plutarch was actually writing his "Life of Brutus", "the oral and written tradition had been worked over to create a streamlined, and largely positive, narrative of Brutus' motives". Some high imperial writers also admired his rhetorical skills, especially Pliny the Younger and Tacitus, with the latter writing, "in my opinion, Brutus alone among them laid bare the convictions of his heart frankly and ingeniously, with neither ill-will nor spite".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" notably placed Brutus in the lowest circle of Hell for his betrayal of Caesar, where he (along with Cassius and Judas Iscariot) is personally tortured by Satan. Dante's views gave a further theological bent as well: "Brutus, Dante believed, was resisting God's 'historical design'" by killing Caesar, a "quasi-prototype for all contemporary monarchs".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The moral acceptance of tyrannicide also changed. Thomas Aquinas, in "On the government of princes", while accepting that tyrants should be overthrown under certain circumstances, also argued mild tyrants ought to be tolerated out of fear of unintended consequences.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Renaissance writers, however, tended to view him more positively, as "it was Brutus who came to symbolise the tradition of ancient republicanism through the ages". Various men in the renaissance and early modern periods were called or adopted the name Brutus: the pseudonym Stephanus Junius Brutus in 16th century France published a pamphlet "Defences against tyrants"; the "British Brutus" Algernon Sidney was executed for allegedly plotting against Charles II; the "Florentine Brutus", Lorenzino de' Medici, killed his cousin Duke Alessandro allegedly to free Florence.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Of course, also in the early modern period is Shakespeare's depiction of Brutus in "Julius Caesar", which depicts him "more of a troubled soul than a public symbol... [and] often sympathetic".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Views of Brutus as a symbol of republicanism have remained through the modern period. For example, the Anti-Federalist Papers in 1787 were written under the pseudonym "Brutus". Similar anti-federalist letters and pamphlets were written by other Roman republican names such as Cato and Poplicola.


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: Conyers Middleton and Edward Gibbon, writing in the late 18th century, had negative views. Middleton believed Brutus' vacillations in correspondence with Cicero betrayed his claims to philosophical consistency. Gibbon conceived of Brutus' actions in terms of their results: the destruction of the republic, civil war, death, and future tyranny. More teleological views of Brutus' actions are viewed sceptically by historians today: Ronald Syme, for example, pointed out "to judge Brutus because he failed is simply to judge from the results".


title: Marcus Junius Brutus

text: The influential "History of Rome" by Theodor Mommsen in the late 19th century "cast a damning verdict on Brutus" by ending with Caesar's reforms in 46 BC, along with advancing a view that Caesar "had some sort of solution to the problem of how to deal with Rome's growing empire" (of which there is no surviving description). Similarly, views of Brutus are also bound up with assessment of the republic: those who believe the republic was not worth saving or in an inevitable decline, views perhaps coloured by hindsight, view him more negatively.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium "Neisseria gonorrhoeae". Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with urination, discharge from the penis, or testicular pain. Infected women may experience burning with urination, vaginal discharge, vaginal bleeding between periods, or pelvic pain. Complications in women include pelvic inflammatory disease and in men include inflammation of the epididymis. Many of those infected, however, have no symptoms. If untreated, gonorrhea can spread to joints or heart valves.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea is spread through sexual contact with an infected person. This includes oral, anal, and vaginal sex. It can also spread from a mother to a child during birth. Diagnosis is by testing the urine, urethra in males, or cervix in females. Testing all women who are sexually active and less than 25 years of age each year as well as those with new sexual partners is recommended; the same recommendation applies in men who have sex with men (MSM).


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea can be prevented with the use of condoms, having sex with only one person who is uninfected, and by not having sex. Treatment is usually with ceftriaxone by injection and azithromycin by mouth. Resistance has developed to many previously used antibiotics and higher doses of ceftriaxone are occasionally required. Retesting is recommended three months after treatment. Sexual partners from the last two months should also be treated.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea affects about 0.8% of women and 0.6% of men. An estimated 33 to 106 million new cases occur each year, out of the 498 million new cases of curable STI – which also includes syphilis, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis. Infections in women most commonly occur when they are young adults. In 2015, it caused about 700 deaths. Descriptions of the disease date back to before the Common Era within the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (). The current name was first used by the Greek physician Galen before AD 200 who referred to it as "an unwanted discharge of semen".


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea infections of mucosal membranes can cause swelling, itching, pain, and the formation of pus. The time from exposure to symptoms is usually between two and 14 days, with most symptoms appearing between four and six days after infection, if they appear at all. Both men and women with infections of the throat may experience a sore throat, though such infection does not produce symptoms in 90% of cases. Other symptoms may include swollen lymph nodes around the neck. Either sex can become infected in the eyes or rectum if these tissues are exposed to the bacterium.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Half of women with gonorrhea are asymptomatic but the other half experience vaginal discharge, lower abdominal pain, or pain with sexual intercourse associated with inflammation of the uterine cervix. Common medical complications of untreated gonorrhea in women include pelvic inflammatory disease which can cause scars to the fallopian tubes and result in later ectopic pregnancy among those women who become pregnant.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Most infected men with symptoms have inflammation of the penile urethra associated with a burning sensation during urination and discharge from the penis. In men, discharge with or without burning occurs in half of all cases and is the most common symptom of the infection. This pain is caused by a narrowing and stiffening of the urethral lumen. The most common medical complication of gonorrhea in men is inflammation of the epididymis. Gonorrhea is also associated with increased risk of prostate cancer.


title: Gonorrhea

text: If not treated, gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum will develop in 28% of infants born to women with gonorrhea.


title: Gonorrhea

text: If left untreated, gonorrhea can spread from the original site of infection and infect and damage the joints, skin, and other organs. Indications of this can include fever, skin rashes, sores, and joint pain and swelling. In advanced cases, gonorrhea may cause a general feeling of tiredness similar to other infections. It is also possible for an individual to have an allergic reaction to the bacteria, in which case any appearing symptoms will be greatly intensified. Very rarely it may settle in the heart, causing endocarditis, or in the spinal column, causing meningitis. Both are more likely among individuals with suppressed immune systems, however.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea is caused by the bacterium "Neisseria gonorrhoeae". Previous infection does not confer immunity – a person who has been infected can become infected again by exposure to someone who is infected. Infected persons may be able to infect others repeatedly without having any signs or symptoms of their own.


title: Gonorrhea

text: The infection is usually spread from one person to another through vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Men have a 20% risk of getting the infection from a single act of vaginal intercourse with an infected woman. The risk for men who have sex with men (MSM) is higher. Insertive MSM may get a penile infection from anal intercourse, while receptive MSM may get anorectal gonorrhea. Women have a 60–80% risk of getting the infection from a single act of vaginal intercourse with an infected man.


title: Gonorrhea

text: A mother may transmit gonorrhea to her newborn during childbirth; when affecting the infant's eyes, it is referred to as ophthalmia neonatorum. It may be able to spread through the objects contaminated with body fluid from an infected person. The bacteria typically does not survive long outside the body, typically dying within minutes to hours.


title: Gonorrhea

text: It is discovered that sexually active women younger than 25 and men who have sex with men are at increased risk of getting gonorrhea.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Traditionally, gonorrhea was diagnosed with Gram stain and culture; however, newer polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based testing methods are becoming more common. In those failing initial treatment, culture should be done to determine sensitivity to antibiotics.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Tests that use PCR (aka nucleic acid amplification) to identify genes unique to "N. gonorrhoeae" are recommended for screening and diagnosis of gonorrhea infection. These PCR-based tests require a sample of urine, urethral swabs, or cervical/vaginal swabs. Culture (growing colonies of bacteria in order to isolate and identify them) and Gram-stain (staining of bacterial cell walls to reveal morphology) can also be used to detect the presence of "N. gonorrhoeae" in all specimen types except urine.


title: Gonorrhea

text: If Gram-negative, oxidase-positive diplococci are visualized on direct Gram stain of urethral pus (male genital infection), no further testing is needed to establish the diagnosis of gonorrhea infection. However, in the case of female infection direct Gram stain of cervical swabs is not useful because the "N. gonorrhoeae" organisms are less concentrated in these samples. The chances of false positives are increased as Gram-negative diplococci native to the normal vaginal flora cannot be distinguished from "N. gonorrhoeae." Thus, cervical swabs must be cultured under the conditions described above. If oxidase positive, Gram-negative diplococci are isolated from a culture of a cervical/vaginal swab specimen, then the diagnosis is made. Culture is especially useful for diagnosis of infections of the throat, rectum, eyes, blood, or joints—areas where PCR-based tests are not well established in all labs. Culture is also useful for antimicrobial sensitivity testing, treatment failure, and epidemiological purposes (outbreaks, surveillance).


title: Gonorrhea

text: In patients who may have disseminated gonococcal infection (DGI), all possible mucosal sites should be cultured (e.g., pharynx, cervix, urethra, rectum). Three sets of blood cultures should also be obtained. Synovial fluid should be collected in cases of septic arthritis.


title: Gonorrhea

text: All people testing positive for gonorrhea should be tested for other sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, syphilis, and human immunodeficiency virus. Studies have found co-infection with chlamydia ranging from 46 to 54% in young people with gonorrhea. Among persons in the United States between 14 and 39 years of age, 46% of people with gonorrheal infection also have chlamydial infection. For this reason, gonorrhea and chlamydia testing are often combined. People diagnosed with gonorrhea infection have a fivefold increase risk of HIV transmission. Additionally, infected persons who are HIV positive are more likely to shed and transmit HIV to uninfected partners during an episode of gonorrhea.


title: Gonorrhea

text: The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends screening for gonorrhea in women at increased risk of infection, which includes all sexually active women younger than 25 years. Extragenital gonorrhea and chlamydia are highest in men who have sex with men (MSM). Additionally, the USPSTF also recommends routine screening in people who have previously tested positive for gonorrhea or have multiple sexual partners and individuals who use condoms inconsistently, provide sexual favors for money, or have sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Screening for gonorrhea in women who are (or intend to become) pregnant, and who are found to be at high risk for sexually transmitted diseases, is recommended as part of prenatal care in the United States.


title: Gonorrhea

text: As with most sexually transmitted diseases, the risk of infection can be reduced significantly by the correct use of condoms, not having sex, or can be removed almost entirely by limiting sexual activities to a mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected person.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Those previously infected are encouraged to return for follow up care to make sure that the infection has been eliminated. In addition to the use of phone contact, the use of email and text messaging have been found to improve the re-testing for infection.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Newborn babies coming through the birth canal are given erythromycin ointment in the eyes to prevent blindness from infection. The underlying gonorrhea should be treated; if this is done then usually a good prognosis will follow.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Antibiotics are used to treat gonorrhea infections. As of 2016, both ceftriaxone by injection and azithromycin by mouth are most effective. However, due to increasing rates of antibiotic resistance, local susceptibility patterns must be taken into account when deciding on treatment. Ertapenem is a potential effective alternative treatment for ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhea.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Adults may have eyes infected with gonorrhoea and require proper personal hygiene and medications. Addition of topical antibiotics have not been shown to improve cure rates compared to oral antibiotics alone in treatment of eye infected gonorrhea. For newborns, erythromycin ointment is recommended as a preventative measure for gonococcal infant conjunctivitis.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Infections of the throat can be especially problematic, as antibiotics have difficulty becoming sufficiently concentrated there to destroy the bacteria. This is amplified by the fact that pharyngeal gonorrhoea is mostly asymptomatic, and gonococci and commensal "Neisseria" species can coexist for long time periods in the pharynx and share anti-microbial resistance genes. Accordingly, an enhanced focus on early detection (i.e., screening of high-risk populations, such as men who have sex with men, PCR testing should be considered) and appropriate treatment of pharyngeal gonorrhoea is important.


title: Gonorrhea

text: It is recommended that sexual partners be tested and potentially treated. One option for treating sexual partners of people infected is patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT), which involves providing prescriptions or medications to the person to take to his/her partner without the health care provider's first examining him/her.


title: Gonorrhea

text: The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommend that individuals who have been diagnosed and treated for gonorrhea avoid sexual contact with others until at least one week past the final day of treatment in order to prevent the spread of the bacterium.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Many antibiotics that were once effective including penicillin, tetracycline, and fluoroquinolones are no longer recommended because of high rates of resistance. Resistance to cefixime has reached a level such that it is no longer recommended as a first-line agent in the United States, and if it is used a person should be tested again after a week to determine whether the infection still persists. Public health officials are concerned that an emerging pattern of resistance may predict a global epidemic. In 2016, the WHO published new guidelines for treatment, stating "There is an urgent need to update treatment recommendations for gonococcal infections to respond to changing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) patterns of "N. gonorrhoeae". High-level resistance to previously recommended quinolones is widespread and decreased susceptibility to the extended-spectrum (third-generation) cephalosporins, another recommended first-line treatment in the 2003 guidelines, is increasing and several countries have reported treatment failures."


title: Gonorrhea

text: Gonorrhea if left untreated may last for weeks or months with higher risks of complications. One of the complications of gonorrhea is systemic dissemination resulting in skin pustules or petechia, septic arthritis, meningitis, or endocarditis. This occurs in between 0.6 and 3% of infected women and 0.4 and 0.7% of infected men.


title: Gonorrhea

text: In men, inflammation of the epididymis, prostate gland, and urethra can result from untreated gonorrhea. In women, the most common result of untreated gonorrhea is pelvic inflammatory disease. Other complications include inflammation of the tissue surrounding the liver, a rare complication associated with Fitz-Hugh–Curtis syndrome; septic arthritis in the fingers, wrists, toes, and ankles; septic abortion; chorioamnionitis during pregnancy; neonatal or adult blindness from conjunctivitis; and infertility. Men who have had a gonorrhea infection have an increased risk of getting prostate cancer.


title: Gonorrhea

text: About 88 million cases of gonorrhea occur each year, out of the 448 million new cases of curable STI each year – that also includes syphilis, chlamydia and trichomoniasis. The prevalence was highest in the African region, the Americas, and Western Pacific, and lowest in Europe. In 2013, it caused about 3,200 deaths, up from 2,300 in 1990.


title: Gonorrhea

text: In the United Kingdom, 196 per 100,000 males 20 to 24 years old and 133 per 100,000 females 16 to 19 years old were diagnosed in 2005. In 2013, the CDC estimated that more than 820,000 people in the United States get a new gonorrheal infection each year. Fewer than half of these infections are reported to CDC. In 2011, 321,849 cases of gonorrhea were reported to the CDC. After the implementation of a national gonorrhea control program in the mid-1970s, the national gonorrhea rate declined from 1975 to 1997. After a small increase in 1998, the gonorrhea rate has decreased slightly since 1999. In 2004, the rate of reported gonorrheal infections was 113. 5 per 100,000 persons.


title: Gonorrhea

text: In the US, it is the second-most-common bacterial sexually transmitted infections; chlamydia remains first. According to the CDC African Americans are most affected by gonorrhea, accounting for 69% of all gonorrhea cases in 2010.


title: Gonorrhea

text: The World Health Organization warned in 2017 of the spread of untreatable strains of gonorrhea, following analysis of at least three cases in Japan, France and Spain, which survived all antibiotic treatment.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Some scholars translate the biblical terms "zav" (for a male) and "zavah" (for a female) as gonorrhea.


title: Gonorrhea

text: It has been suggested that mercury was used as a treatment for gonorrhea. Surgeons' tools on board the recovered English warship the "Mary Rose" included a syringe that, according to some, was used to inject the mercury via the urinary meatus into crewmen with gonorrhea. The name "the clap", in reference to the disease, is recorded as early as the sixteenth century, referring to a medieval red-light district in Paris, Les Clapiers. Translating to "The rabbit holes", it was so named for the small huts in which prostitutes worked.


title: Gonorrhea

text: In 1854, Dr. Wilhelm Gollmann addressed gonorrhea in his book, "Homeopathic Guide to all Diseases Urinary and Sexual Organs". He noted that the disease was common in prostitutes and homosexuals in large cities. Gollmann recommended the following as cures: aconite to cure "shooting pains with soreness and inflammation;" mercury "for stitching pain with purulent discharge;" "nux vomica" and sulphur "when the symptoms are complicated with hemorrhoids and stricture of the rectum. Other remedies include argentum, "aurum" (gold), belladonna, calcarea, ignatia, phosphorus, and sepia.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Silver nitrate was one of the widely used drugs in the 19th century. However, it became replaced by Protargol. Arthur Eichengrün invented this type of colloidal silver, which was marketed by Bayer from 1897 onward. The silver-based treatment was used until the first antibiotics came into use in the 1940s.


title: Gonorrhea

text: The exact time of onset of gonorrhea as prevalent disease or epidemic cannot be accurately determined from the historical record. One of the first reliable notations occurs in the Acts of the (English) Parliament. In 1161, this body passed a law to reduce the spread of "... the perilous infirmity of burning". The symptoms described are consistent with, but not diagnostic of, gonorrhea. A similar decree was passed by Louis IX in France in 1256, replacing regulation with banishment. Similar symptoms were noted at the siege of Acre by Crusaders.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Coincidental to, or dependent on, the appearance of a gonorrhea epidemic, several changes occurred in European medieval society. Cities hired public health doctors to treat affected patients without right of refusal. Pope Boniface rescinded the requirement that physicians complete studies for the lower orders of the Catholic priesthood.


title: Gonorrhea

text: Medieval public health physicians in the employ of their cities were required to treat prostitutes infected with the "burning", as well as lepers and other epidemic patients. After Pope Boniface completely secularized the practice of medicine, physicians were more willing to treat a sexually transmitted disease.


title: Gonorrhea

text: A vaccine for gonorrhea has been developed that is effective in mice. It will not be available for human use until further studies have demonstrated that it is both safe and effective in the human population. Development of a vaccine has been complicated by the ongoing evolution of resistant strains and antigenic variation (the ability of "N. gonorrhoeae" to disguise itself with different surface markers to evade the immune system).


title: Gonorrhea

text: As "N. gonorrhoeae" is closely related to "N. meningitidis" and they have 80–90% homology in their genetic sequences some cross-protection by meningococcal vaccines is plausible. A study published in 2017 showed that MeNZB group B meningococcal vaccine provided a partial protection against gonorrhea. The vaccine efficiency was calculated to be 31%.


title: Labia minora

text: The labia minora (Latin for 'smaller lips', singular: "labium minus", 'smaller lip'), also known as the inner labia, inner lips, vaginal lips or nymphae are two flaps of skin on either side of the human vaginal opening in the vulva, situated between the labia majora (Latin for 'larger lips'; also called outer labia, or outer lips). The labia minora vary widely in size, color and shape from individual to individual.


title: Labia minora

text: The labia minora extend from the clitoris obliquely downward, laterally, and backward on either side of the vulval vestibule, ending between the bottom of the vulval vestibule and the labia majora. The posterior ends (bottom) of the labia minora are usually joined across the middle line by a flap of skin, named the frenulum of labia minora or fourchette.


title: Labia minora

text: On the front, each lip forks dividing into two portions surrounding the clitoris. The upper part of each lip passes above the clitoris to meet the upper part of the other lip—which will often be a little larger or smaller—forming a fold which overhangs the glans clitoridis (clitoral tip or head); this fold is named the clitoral hood. The lower part passes beneath the glans clitoridis and becomes united to its under surface, forming, with the inner lip of the opposite side, the "frenulum clitoridis".


title: Labia minora

text: The clitoral hood, analogously to the foreskin of the penis in men and also termed, like the latter, by the Latin word "prepuce", serves to cover most of the time the shaft and sometimes the glans (which is very sensitive to the touch) to protect the clitoris from mechanical irritation and from dryness. Yet the hood is movable and can slide during clitoral erection or be pulled upwards a little for greater exposure of the clitoris to sexual stimulation.


title: Labia minora

text: The frenulum (Latin for "little bridle") is an elastic band of tissue attached by its one end to the clitoral shaft and glans and by its other end to the prepuce. It allows two-way shifting of the clitoral hood: firstly, it can extend to let the hood be moved upwards to expose the glans for stimulation or hygienic cleansing, and secondly, it contracts to pull the hood back to protect it.


title: Labia minora

text: On the opposed surfaces of the labia minora are numerous sebaceous glands not associated with hair follicles. They are lined by stratified squamous epithelium on those surfaces.


title: Labia minora

text: Like the whole area of the vulval vestibule, the mucus secreted by those glands protects the labia from dryness and mechanical irritation.


title: Labia minora

text: Being thinner than the outer labia, the inner labia can be also more narrow than the former, or wider than labia majora, thus protruding in the pudendal cleft and making the term "minora" (Latin for smaller) essentially inapplicable in these cases. They can also be smooth or frilled, the latter being more typical of longer or wider inner labia.


title: Labia minora

text: From 2003 to 2004, researchers from the Department of Gynaecology, Elizabeth Garret Anderson Hospital in London, measured the labia and other genital structures of 50 women from the age of 18 to 50, with a mean age of 35.6. The study has since been criticized for its "small and homogenous sample group" consisting primarily of white women. The results were:


title: Labia minora

text: Due to the frequent portrayal of the pudendal cleft without protrusion in art and pornography, there has been a rise in the popularity of labiaplasty, surgery to alter the labia—usually, to make them smaller. On the other hand, there is an opposite movement of labia stretching. Its proponents stress the beauty of long labia and their positive role in sexual stimulation of both partners.


title: Labia minora

text: Labiaplasty is also sometimes sought by women who have asymmetrical labia minora to adjust the shape of the structures towards identical size.


title: Labia minora

text: Labia stretching has traditionally been practised in some African nations in the East and South and the South Pacific.


title: Labia minora

text: The inner lips serve to protect from mechanical irritation, dryness and infections of the highly sensitive area of the vulval vestibule with vaginal and urethral openings in it between them. During vaginal sexual intercourse they may contribute to stimulation of the whole vestibule area, the clitoris and the vagina of the woman and the penis of her partner. Stimulation of the clitoris may occur through tension of the clitoral hood and its frenulum by inner labia pulling at them. During sexual arousal they are lubricated by the mucus secreted in the vagina and around it to make penetration painless and protect them from irritation.


title: Labia minora

text: As the female external urethral opening (meatus) is also situated between labia minora, they may play a role in guiding the stream of the urine during female urination.


title: Labia minora

text: Being very sensitive by their structure to any irritation, and situated in the excretion area where traces of urine, vaginal discharge, smegma and even feces may be present, the inner lips may be susceptible to inflammatory infections of the vulva such as vulvitis.


title: Labia minora

text: The likelihood of inflammation may be reduced through appropriate regular hygienic cleansing of the whole vulval vestibule, using water and medically tested cleansing agents designed for vulvas. To avoid contamination of the vulva with fecal bacteria, it is recommended that the vulva is washed only from front to back, from mons pubis to the perineum and anus. Apart from water and special liquid cleansing agents (lotions), there are commercially available wet wipes for female intimate hygiene. Some women wipe the vulval vestibule dry with toilet tissue after urination to avoid irritation and infections from residual drops of the urine in the area.


title: Labia minora

text: However, incorrect choice of cleansing agents, or their incorrect application, may itself cause labial irritation and require medical attention. Over-vigorous rubbing of the labia of little girls while washing, combined with the lack of estrogen in their bodies, may lead to the mostly pediatric condition known as labial fusion. If fused labia prevent urination, urine may accumulate and cause pain and inflammation.


title: Labia minora

text: In adult females, irritation of the area may be caused by wearing too-tight underwear (especially where wider inner labia protrude in the pudendal cleft); while G-strings, which rub against the labia during body movements, may cause irritation or lead to infection from bacteria transferred from either the external environment or the anus.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park Geun-hye (; ; often in English ; born 2 February 1952) is a South Korean politician who served as the 11th president of South Korea from 2013 to 2017, until she was impeached and convicted on related corruption charges.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park was the first woman to be elected president of South Korea, and also the first female president popularly elected as head of state in East Asia. She was also the first South Korean president to be born after the founding of South Korea. Her father, Park Chung-hee, was president from 1963 to 1979, serving five consecutive terms after he seized power in 1961.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Before her presidency, Park was leader of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) from 2004 to 2006 and leader of the Liberty Korea Party from 2011 to 2012. She was also a member of the National Assembly, serving four consecutive parliamentary terms between 1998 and 2012. Park started her fifth term as a representative elected via national list in June 2012. In 2013 and 2014, Park ranked 11th on the "Forbes" list of the world's 100 most powerful women and the most powerful woman in East Asia. In 2014, she ranked 46th on the "Forbes" list of the world's most powerful people, the third-highest South Korean on the list, after Lee Kun-hee and Lee Jae-yong.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 9 December 2016, Park was impeached by the National Assembly on charges related to influence peddling by her top aide, Choi Soon-sil. Then-Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn assumed her powers and duties as acting president as a result. The Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment by a unanimous 8–0 ruling on 10 March 2017, thereby removing Park from office, making her the first Korean president to be so removed. On 6 April 2018, South Korean courts sentenced her to 24 years in prison (later increased to 25 years) for corruption and abuse of power.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In 2018, two separate criminal cases resulted in an increase of seven years in Park's prison sentence. She was found guilty of illegally taking off-the-book funds from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and given a five-year prison sentence, and also found guilty of illegally interfering in the Saenuri Party primaries in the 2016 South Korean legislative election, for which she was sentenced to two more years in prison. On 24 December 2021, it was announced that she would receive a pardon on compassionate grounds from South Korean President Moon Jae-in. She was released from prison on 31 December and returned home three months later on 24 March 2022.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park Geun-hye was born on 2 February 1952, in Samdeok-dong of Jung District, Daegu, as the first child of Park Chung-hee, the third president of South Korea, who having come to power with the May 16 military coup d'état of 1961, served from 1963 to 1979; and his wife, First Lady Yuk Young-soo. Both of her parents were assassinated. She has a younger brother, Park Ji-man, and a younger sister, Park Geun-ryeong. She is unmarried with no children. Pew Research Center described her as an atheist with a Buddhist and Roman Catholic upbringing.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In 1953, Park's family moved to Seoul, where she graduated from Jangchung Elementary School and Sungshim (literal: Sacred Heart) Girls' Middle and High School in 1970, going on to receive a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from Sogang University in 1974. She briefly studied at Joseph Fourier University in France, but left following the murder of her mother.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park's mother was killed on 15 August 1974 in the National Theater of Korea; Mun Se-gwang, a Japanese-born ethnic Korean sympathizer of North Korea and member of the Chongryon, was attempting to assassinate her husband, President Park Chung-hee. Park Geun-hye was regarded as First Lady until the assassination of her father by his intelligence chief, Kim Jae-gyu, on 26 October 1979. During this time, activists who were political opponents of Park's father claimed to be subject to arbitrary detention. Further, human rights were considered subordinate to economic development. In 2007, Park expressed regret at the treatment of activists during this period.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park received honorary doctoral degrees from the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan in 1987, Pukyong National University and KAIST in 2008, Sogang University in 2010, and TU Dresden in 2014.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park was elected a Grand National Party (GNP; later the Liberty Korea Party, or Saenuri Party) assemblywoman for Dalseong County (Daegu) in the 1998 by-election, and three more times in the same electoral district between 1998 and 2008, being the incumbent assemblywoman till April 2012. In 2012, Park announced that she would not run for a constituency representative seat for the 19th election in Dalseong or anywhere else, but for a proportional representative position for the Saenuri Party instead, in order to lead the party's election campaign. She was elected as a proportional representative in the April 2012 election.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Due to the failed attempt to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun and the bribery scandal of its 2002 presidential candidate, Lee Hoi-chang (revealed in 2004), the GNP was facing a severe defeat in the 2004 general election. Park was appointed as the chairwoman of the party and led the election efforts. In the election, the GNP lost its majority position but managed to gain 121 seats, which was largely considered a great achievement under such inhospitable circumstances for the party. As the chairwoman of the GNP, Park helped her party make significant gains in local elections and actually obtain a majority in 2006.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: During the campaign, on 20 May 2006, Ji Chung-ho, a 50-year-old man with eight criminal convictions, slashed Park's face with a utility knife, causing an 11-centimeter wound that required 60 stitches and several hours of surgery. A famous anecdote from this incident occurred when Park was hospitalized after the attack: the first word that she said to her secretary after her recovery from her wound was, "How is Daejeon?" After this, the GNP candidate in the Daejeon mayoral race won the election despite having trailed by more than 20 percentage points in opinion polls up to the point of the attack. In addition, during Park's term as the GNP chairwoman between 2004 and 2006, the party won all 40 reelections and by-elections held, which was largely credited to her influence and efforts. This feat gave Park a nickname "Queen of Elections".


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 12 February 2007, Park made a much-publicized visit to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Her visit culminated in an address to a packed audience at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she said she wanted to save Korea and advocated a stronger relationship between South Korea and the United States.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park hoped to emulate her father's success by becoming the presidential nominee of the GNP. She eventually lost to Lee Myung-bak by a narrow margin. Lee had a commanding lead at the beginning of the primary season, but Park was able to narrow the gap through allegations of Lee's corruption. Park won the "party members' bid", but she lost the "national bid", which is a larger percentage of the total presidential bid.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: After the 2007 presidential election, President Lee Myung-bak formed a government of mostly close supporters. Park's supporters argued that this was a kind of political reprisal and that they should secede from the GNP. Eventually, they formed parties named Pro-Park Coalition and Solidarity for Pro-Park Independents (친박 무소속 연대; "Chin Park Musosok Yeondae"). Park herself did not join them, but indirectly supported them by announcing, "I hope these people will come back alive." After the mass secession, the rebels announced that they would rejoin the GNP after the general election, but the party prohibited it. In the following 2008 general election, the rebels won 26 seats: fourteen from the Pro-Park Coalition and twelve as independents. Together, they played a pivotal role in the GNP's narrow majority. Park continually insisted that the GNP should allow the return of her supporters. As of 2011, most of these rebels had returned to the GNP, resulting in approximately 50 to 60 assembly members who supported Park out of 171 in the GNP.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In 2011, as a response to the dwindling approval rating of the GNP, the party formed an emergency committee and changed its name to the "Saenuri" Party, or "New Frontier" Party. On 19 December, Park was appointed as the chairwoman of the emergency committee, the "de facto" leader of the party.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: The Saenuri Party achieved a surprise win against the opposing Democratic United Party in the 2012 general election, winning 152 seats and retaining its majority position. Because of the corruption scandals of the Lee administration revealed before the election, the party was widely expected to win no more than 100 seats. During the 13-day campaign period, Park traveled about around South Korea, visiting more than 100 constituencies. It is the consensus of Korean news media and political experts that the most important factor leading to Saenuri Party's victory was Park's leadership. For this reason, the 2012 election was often dubbed the "return of the Queen of Election". The party's defeat in the populous Seoul metropolitan area in this election, however, revealed the limitation of Park's political influence.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park had been the leading candidate for the 2012 presidential election in every national poll in South Korea between 2008, when the Lee administration began, and September 2011, with an approval rating of 25% to 45%, more than twice that of the second candidate. Park's approval rating was highest during the 2008 general election showed her strong influence, and lowest in early 2010 as a result of her political stance against the Lee administration in Sejong City issue. Park also benefited from a public image of standing aloofly above the fray of politics.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In September 2011, Ahn Cheol-soo, a former venture IT businessman and the Dean of Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University, emerged as a strong independent candidate for the presidency. In national presidential polls in September 2011, Ahn and Park closely competed for the status of frontrunner, with Park losing the top seat in some polls for the first time since 2008.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 10 July 2012, Park formally announced her presidential bid at the Time Square, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul. In this event, she emphasized the right to pursue happiness, a democratic economy, and customized welfare services for the Korean people. In a national survey by Mono Research on 30 August Park was the top presidential candidate with an approval rating of 45.5% when competing with all potential candidates, and according to another recent national survey result had a higher approval rating (50.6%) than Ahn (43.9%) in a two-way competition as of 11 September. The opposing Democratic Party of Korea elected Moon Jae-in as its presidential candidate on 17 September, while Ahn announced his presidential bid on 19 September. Although still a leading candidate, Park had a lower approval rating than both Ahn and Moon when engaged in two-way competition, according to a 22 September national survey. Park was elected as president of the Republic of Korea on 19 December 2012, with the approval of 51.6% of Korean voters.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In 2017, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) admitted that it had conducted an illicit campaign to influence the 2012 presidential election, mobilizing teams of experts in psychological warfare to ensure that Park defeated Moon.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In a 2012 survey by Korean Research assessing the political stance of twelve potential presidential candidates of South Korea, Park was considered the most conservative candidate. Her conservative, market-oriented political stance was well reflected in her campaign pledge for 2008 presidential bid to cut taxes, reduce regulation, and establish strong law and order. Since 2009, however, Park started to focus more on welfare issues, advocating customized welfare services to the Korean people.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park was well known for her strict adherence to political promises. In 2010, for example, she successfully stopped the Lee administration's attempt to cancel the plan to establish Sejong City, a new national center of administration, arguing that the plan was a promise made to the people. This conflict between Park and the Lee administration cost her a considerable decrease in her approval rating at the time. In 2012, Park also vowed to construct a new airport in the southeastern region, a 2008 presidential campaign promise made by GNP but cancelled in 2011, despite claims of economic infeasibility of the plan.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: The administrative vision of Park's new government was "a new era of hope and happiness". The five Administrative Goals of the government were "a jobs-centered creative economy", "tailored employment and welfare", "creativity-oriented education and cultural enrichment", "a safe and united society" and "strong security measures for sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula". The Park Geun-hye administration planned to create a trustworthy, clean, and capable government by carrying out these goals, related strategies, and tasks.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park became the 11th president of South Korea on 25 February 2013. At midnight, she took over all presidential authorities including the prerogative of supreme command of South Korea's armed forces from her predecessor Lee Myung-bak. In her inauguration speech at the National Assembly building, Park spoke of her plan to open a new era of hope through "economic prosperity, people's happiness, and cultural enrichment". She particularly expressed her hope that North Korea would give up its nuclear arms and walk on the path of peace and mutual development, and declared that the foundation for a happy era of unification in which all Korean people will be able to enjoy prosperity and freedom and realize their dreams would be built through the Korean Peninsula Trust-building Process. In her inauguration speech, Park presented four guiding principles to realize her administrative vision: economic prosperity, people's happiness, cultural enrichment, and establishment of a foundation for peaceful unification. Park's inauguration ceremony was the largest one in South Korean history with 70,000 participants. Diplomatic representatives in Korea, as well as high-level delegates specially sent from 24 countries around the world including Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, Taiwanese Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, and former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, also participated in the event to congratulate Park.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: The goal of the newly launched Park Geun-hye Administration for governing state affairs was to open "a new era of hope and happiness for all the people". Park avowed that South Korea would break away from its long-pursued development model that centered around the nation, and shift the focus of government administration from the state to individual citizens. Through this process the structure of co-prosperity would be created, in which citizens became happy and national development occurred as a result. Park's administrative vision and basic principles for governing the nation were concretely outlined in her policy plans for the economy, society, welfare, diplomacy, and unification. The administration's keywords in managing state affairs were "people", "happiness", "trust", "co-prosperity" and "principle".


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Right after taking office, Park restructured the Blue House and government organization to carry out her administrative vision. The Office of National Security at the Blue House, Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries were newly launched, and the seat of Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs was revived. The Chief of the National Security Office would act as a "control tower" for diplomatic, security, and national defense issues, and the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs for economic, social, and welfare issues.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: After taking office, Park met with John Kerry and U.S. President Barack Obama. Park's trip to the United States in May 2013 was her first foreign trip after taking office.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Like many of her predecessors, Park maintained a close relationship with the U.S., which has over 20,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea. During her visit to the U.S., she addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress, where she called for a united front against any North Korean provocations. Park also called for a strong global relationship between South Korea and the United States.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park assessed the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and emphasized that deterrence capabilities were the most important factor for security. Thus, Park considered the American–South Korean alliance as the most successful one in the world. She hoped the American–South Korean relationship can be upgraded from a comprehensive strategic alliance to a global partnership.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park visited the United States on her first overseas trip as president. She traveled to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles on 5–9 May 2013.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: During summit talks in May at the White House, Presidents Park and Obama adopted a joint declaration for the American-South Korean alliance and discussed ways to further develop the bilateral relations in a future-forward manner. Also, two leaders discussed ways to promote cooperation in building peace in the Northeast Asian region and strength the partnership between Seoul and Washington.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: The two leaders of South Korea and the United States agreed to adopt a joint statement on comprehensive energy cooperation to build a foundation for a future growth engine and establish a policy cooperation committee on information and communication technology. In addition, Park urged her U.S. counterpart to expand the annual U.S. visa quota for South Korean professionals in order to promote co-development of both economies.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In particular, the "Joint declaration in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America" adopted by South Korea and the United States will become a meaningful document looking back at the past six decades of the alliance and spelling out a new direction for the development of bilateral relations over the coming decade.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: North Korea had engaged in provocations such as violating a UN Security Council resolution and firing a long-range missile on 12 December 2012, just before 19 December presidential election. After Park was elected, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test 12 February 2013, nullified the non-aggression agreements between the two countries on 8 March and withdrew North Korean workers from the Kaesong Industrial Complex on 8 April. Park maintained her stance that South Korea will not succumb to the North's provocations and threats, and will endeavor to elicit policy coordination towards North Korea with major powers such as the United States, China and the UN. Her response to North Korean issues gained the support of many South Koreans and also the United States, China, and Russia, and played a significant role in the unanimous adoption by the UN Security Council of Resolution 2094 regarding North Korea on 7 March 2013. Due to Park's response and the international community's actions, on 6 June North Korea ceased provocations and threats towards the South and suggested holding discussions on reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park said that peace and unification on the Korean peninsula is the wish of all 70 million Koreans and that as president she will do her utmost to meet such a goal. As well, "the ultimate objective of reunification efforts is to improve the quality of life of people in both Koreas, to further expand freedom and human rights, and [from there] build a prosperous Korean Peninsula." She later stated, "to open a new era of peace and hope on the peninsula, North Korea needs to accept her administration's trust-building policy initiative".


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park's policy vision and initiative on issues concerning North Korea and unification are reflected in her Korean Peninsula Trust-building Process. The Ministry of Unification has announced a new vision statement "realizing a new unified Korea that ensures everyone's happiness". The administrative tasks for this cause include normalizing inter-Korean relations through a trust-building process, embarking on small-scale unification projects that will lead to a complete integration of the two Koreas, and taking practical measures to prepare for unification by strengthening unification capabilities. According to Park, peaceful unification will be achieved in a three-stage unification initiative: starting from securing peace, going through economic integration, and finally reaching political integration. To achieve sustainable peace by the initiative, the new administration will offer humanitarian assistance for the people in North Korea, inter-Korean exchange and cooperation in economic, social, and cultural areas, and will apply 'Vision Korea project' for establishing a single economic community in the Korean Peninsula, conditioned on sufficient mutual trust and progress in denuclearizing North Korea.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 27–30 June 2013, Park visited China with a South Korean delegation, where she met with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president. During the meetings, Park explained the government's stance on North Korea and gained his support.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 13 November 2013, Park held an extended meeting with President Vladimir Putin, whose visit to South Korea was the first among leaders of four major powers including the United States, China, and Japan. During the meeting, Park and Putin had a comprehensive and productive dialogue with a focus on improving economic relations such as logistics cooperation projects (through Russia and North Korea), expanding people-to-people exchanges, and strengthening political ties between South Korea and Russia. Park, especially, emphasized on making preparations to produce an outcome that corresponds to common interests by combining Korea's Eurasian Initiative and Russia's Asia-Pacific Policy. After the summit, both presidents issued a joint communique and held a joint press conference. Earlier, Park attended the G-20 Summit in September 2013 at St. Petersburg, where she met Putin for a separate dialogue discussing economic cooperation and seeking support on North Korean issues. It marked the first Korea–Russia summit talk since Park's inauguration. When Park met with Russian Minister for the Development of Russian Far East Viktor Ishaev, who headed the Russian delegation to Park's inaugural ceremony, she stated that Russia is one of Korea's key strategic partners, and the successful launch of the Naro rocket is the outcome of mutually beneficial relations and demonstrates that relations will grow stronger in the future. She also noted that Russia's active participation in the six-party talks will contribute to alleviating tension on the Korean Peninsula.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park announced her plan to build a "Creative Economy" on 5 June 2013, representing her vision for economic revival and job creation. In April, Park said "Timing is very important for our economic policy, jobs and livelihood mainly ordinary people should organize a supplementary budget in a timely manner." She encouraged the gig economy. On 8 April 2014, Park signed the Australia–Korea Free Trade Agreement with Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: "sa dae hwe ak") – sexual violence, domestic violence, school violence, and unsafe food. Statistics show that sexual violence and domestic violence are increasing in these years. Without referring to statistical data, aggravating school violence or food safety is a public concern in South Korea. She also launched the National Unity Committee on 17 June with the purpose to advise the president in the process of resolving various conflicts in South Korean society and establishing a culture of co-existence and co-prosperity. Former Democratic United Party Advisor Han Kwang -ok was named as the head.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 18 May 2013, Park attended the 33rd anniversary of the Gwangju massacre, and expressed sorrow for the victims' family members.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park proposed three steps to North Korea to help move toward the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, on 28 March in Dresden during her state visit to Germany. She stated that "Starting with jointly managing rivers and forests running through the two Koreas, we need to expand joint projects that benefit both sides. In that respect, I hope North Korea will attend the UN Convention on Biological Diversity conference to be held in South Korean city of Pyeongchang in October."


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In May 2014, Park warned that a new nuclear test by North Korea could lead to "a nuclear domino effect", that might provide its neighbors with a pretext to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 18 May 2014, Park announced South Korea's "plans to break up its coastguard" after failing to respond well during the MV "Sewol" ferry disaster. According to Park, "investigation and information roles would be transferred to the South Korea National Police while the rescue and salvage operation and ocean security roles would be transferred to the Department for National Safety, not to be confused with the Korean Ministry of Security and Public Administration, which will be newly established".


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 19 November 2014, the Korea Coast Guard and National Emergency Management Agency ceased control as the Ministry of Public Safety and Security was founded at the same day.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 26 May 2015, Park urged the head of the Asian Development Bank to cooperate with South Korea and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank after South Korea had officially applied to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in late March 2015.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 1 May 2016, Park became the first South Korean president to visit Iran. She was at the head of a 236-member delegation of businessmen and entrepreneurs during a three-day visit to Tehran to discuss bilateral trade and other matters of mutual interest. She met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and held talks with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The two countries also signed 19 basic agreements to expand mutual cooperation over a variety of areas. Earlier, Iran's President Rouhani emphasized that Iran and South Korea are set to boost their trade volume from the current $6 billion to $18 billion.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park suffered a serious setback in the 2016 general elections on 13 April 2016, as the Saenuri Party lost both its majority and its status as first party in the National Assembly. Park had been criticized for her involvement in the elections and the party's nomination process, and other Saenuri members blamed the pro-Park faction in the party for the defeat. Park loyalists fared badly in constituency elections. The result was seen to hinder the chances of Park's passing her proposed economic reforms, and in the aftermath of the results the conservative "The Chosun Ilbo" stated that Park's "lame duck period has started earlier than any other administration in the past".


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In July 2013, public support for Park's method of governing state affairs reached up to 63 percent, higher than the percentage of the votes she had won in the presidential election, which was 52 percent. The Korean media suggested that such a high level of support came from Park's principled North Korea policy, constructive outcomes from visits to the United States and China, and distancing from internal political disputes.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: By January 2015, Park's approval rating had fallen to 30 percent, partly due to the sinking of MV "Sewol" and disputes with North Korea. By September 2015, Park's approval had increased to 54 percent due to her diplomacy that defused a military standoff with North Korea, but in the aftermath of her party's 2016 election loss, her ratings fell to 31.5 percent, plunging 8.1 percentage points compared to the week before the election.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 4 November 2016, Park's ratings fell to 4–5% as details of her relationship with Choi Soon-sil were investigated and exposed in what became the 2016 South Korean political scandal.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park was arrested on 31 March 2017, and held in pre-trial detention at the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province. On 17 April 2017, Park was formally charged with abuse of power, bribery, coercion and leaking government secrets. Park denied the charges during five rounds of interrogation while in prison.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Prosecutors sought a 30-year prison term for Park, along with a fine of ₩188.5 billion (). On 6 April 2018, a three-judge panel of the Central District Court in Seoul sentenced Park to 24 years in prison and a fine of ₩18 billion (), finding her guilty of 16 out of 18 charges brought before her.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In June 2018, three former NIS directors (Lee Byung-kee, Lee Byung-ho, and Nam Jae-joon) who served in the Park administration were found guilty of bribing, related to the 2016 Park Geun-hye scandals. They illegally transferred money from the NIS budget to Park's presidential office. This illegally obtained money was used by Park and her associates for private use and to pay bribes. On 24 August 2018, Park's sentence was increased to 25 years in prison.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: In July 2020, an appellate court reduced Park's prison sentence to 20 years after a retrial, taking into account that she "received little personal benefit" from her offences, and Park was also cleared of charges of alleged extortion from conglomerates paying donations to foundations of Choi Soon-sil. In January 2021, South Korea's top court upheld the 20-year prison sentence, bringing an end to the legal process.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: On 24 December 2021, it was announced that Park would receive a pardon from South Korean President Moon Jae-in. In his pardon, President Moon cited Park's deteriorating health and the needs to “overcome unfortunate past history and promote national unity” as reasons for the pardon. On 31 December, she was released from prison, returning home three months later on 24 March 2022.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park had been often criticized for being the "daughter of a dictator" (Park Chung-hee) and by supporters of Lee Myung-bak for not actively supporting the Lee administration. A national-level poll conducted in July 2012 by a conservative newspaper reported that 59% of participants responded they did not believe Park was a "daughter of a dictator" while 36% agreed with the characterization. Park Chung-Hee's status as a dictator became a contested topic after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. GNP party elites saw this as their chance to revitalize Park Chung-Hee's image, focusing on South Korea's economic growth during his administration, thus steadily changing his public perception.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: During a 2012 interview with the Cheongju broadcast station "CJB", Park commented regarding her stance that her father's May 16 coup was a "revolution to save the country" by stating, "I don't think it's the place of politicians to be fighting over whether [the events of 1961] were a 'coup d'etat' or a 'revolution'." In a July 2012 survey, 50% of respondents answered that they disagreed with Park's assessment that her father's 1961 coup was "unavoidable, the best possible choice, and an advisable decision", as opposed to 37% that agreed. From another survey conducted in July 2012, 42% of respondents agreed with her opinion that her father's 1961 coup was "unavoidable", while 46% disagreed.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Because Park inherited strong regional and generational support from her father, as well as the legacy of his economic success, Park's opponents used her father as criticism against her.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park has faced much scrutiny over an educational foundation, Jeongsoo Scholarship Foundation, formerly known as Buil (in reference to the stock it controls in the newspaper "Busan Ilbo"), which her father, and later she, headed. Its original owners claimed in court they were forced to turn it over to her father.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Liberty Korea Party assemblyman Nam Kyung-pil criticized the Park-centered nature of the party, regarding its preparation for the 2012 presidential election, and stated, "If we keep seeing the same situation where Park Geun-hye gives a press conference before a general meeting of lawmakers is held, and what she says then gets decided on as the party's position, then the public is going to think democracy has disappeared from the party."


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Furthermore, some have said Park's behavior in the lead-up to 2012 presidential election was a mixture of trend-following and corner-cutting—a stark contrast with the vehement insistence on the principle that she showed when she opposed a revision of the plan for a multifunctional administrative city in Sejong City. For instance, Yim Tae-hee, another presidential candidate of the party, pointed to Park's voting down of a motion to arrest Chung Doo-un, a lawmaker implicated with bribery related to saving banks. Another candidate, Ahn Sang-soo, accused Park of "saying one thing yesterday and another today".


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Park fired Yoon Chang-jung, a Blue House spokesman who was alleged by Washington police to have committed sexual assault against a young woman hired as an intern at the South Korean Embassy in Washington during Park's first visit to the United States. Park has been criticized for picking the wrong people for senior government posts.


title: Park Geun-hye

text: Just a week before the presidential election date, the opposing party alleged that the public servants from National Intelligence Service (NIS) have organized to promote Park's election campaign by way of posting online articles favorable to Park and slanderous to the opposing candidates. This political behavior by public servants is strictly prohibited by Korean Constitution. To prove their allegation, the opposing Democratic Party, along with the police and Central Election Assistance Commission, swooped in the house where the alleged agent of NIS has resided. From there, the 29-year-old female agent, later known as Ha-Young Kim, who was running an illegal online election campaign operation such as spreading slanderous postings about the opposing candidate had locked herself in. The police could not force to enter the house and the standoff lasted for three days, provoking a tense political standoff. The opposition accused the intelligence service of blocking an investigation. Park and her party accused the opposition of harassing the woman. Park even said the standoff of the self-lock-in was a violation of a female right in the presidential candidate debate that took place three days before the election.