meithnav/squad huggingface dataset:
In the Iconoclastic era, figural mosaics were also condemned as idolatry. The Iconoclastic churches were embellished with plain gold mosaics with only one great cross in the apse like the Hagia Irene in Constantinople (after 740). There were similar crosses in the apses of the Hagia Sophia Church in Thessaloniki and in the Church of the Dormition in Nicaea. The crosses were substituted with the image of the Theotokos in both churches after the victory of the Iconodules (787–797 and in 8th–9th centuries respectively, the Dormition church was totally destroyed in 1922).

Question: What was the common mosaic theme of iconoclastic churches?
Answer: gold mosaics with only one great cross

Question: Why were mosaics destroyed in the iconoclastic era?
Answer: condemned as idolatry

Question: When did the Iconodules  change the cross in the Hagia Sophia?
Answer: 787–797

Question: When did the Hagia Irene adapt the iconoclastic era mosaics?
Answer: after 740

Question: When was the Dormition church destroyed? 
Answer: 1922
The 9th- and 10th-century mosaics of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople are truly classical Byzantine artworks. The north and south tympana beneath the dome was decorated with figures of prophets, saints and patriarchs. Above the principal door from the narthex we can see an Emperor kneeling before Christ (late 9th or early 10th century). Above the door from the southwest vestibule to the narthex another mosaic shows the Theotokos with Justinian and Constantine. Justinian I is offering the model of the church to Mary while Constantine is holding a model of the city in his hand. Both emperors are beardless – this is an example for conscious archaization as contemporary Byzantine rulers were bearded. A mosaic panel on the gallery shows Christ with Constantine Monomachos and Empress Zoe (1042–1055). The emperor gives a bulging money sack to Christ as a donation for the church.

Question: When were the Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia created?
Answer: The 9th- and 10th-century

Question: The tympana under the dome had images of whom displayed?
Answer: prophets, saints and patriarchs

Question: What does the Empress give to Christ as depicted by the mosaic?
Answer: a bulging money sack

Question: When did the Empress Zoe die?
Answer: 1055

Question: Who was depicted with the Empress Zoe on a panel in the gallery of the Hagia Sophia?
Answer: Constantine Monomachos
There are very few existing mosaics from the Komnenian period but this paucity must be due to accidents of survival and gives a misleading impression. The only surviving 12th-century mosaic work in Constantinople is a panel in Hagia Sophia depicting Emperor John II and Empress Eirene with the Theotokos (1122–34). The empress with her long braided hair and rosy cheeks is especially capturing. It must be a lifelike portrayal because Eirene was really a redhead as her original Hungarian name, Piroska shows. The adjacent portrait of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos on a pier (from 1122) is similarly personal. The imperial mausoleum of the Komnenos dynasty, the Pantokrator Monastery was certainly decorated with great mosaics but these were later destroyed. The lack of Komnenian mosaics outside the capital is even more apparent. There is only a "Communion of the Apostles" in the apse of the cathedral of Serres.

Question: Why are there so few surviving mosaics from the Komnenian period?
Answer: accidents of survival

Question: Where is the only existing 12th century mosaic in Constantinople?
Answer: Hagia Sophia

Question: The empress Eirene had what color hair?
Answer: red

Question: What deity does the 12th century mosaic in the Hagia Sophia depict?
Answer: the Theotokos

Question: The only surviving mosaic from the Komnenos dynasty outside Constantinople is in what church?
Answer: the cathedral of Serres
The Church of the Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki was built in 1310–14. Although some vandal systematically removed the gold tesserae of the background it can be seen that the Pantokrator and the prophets in the dome follow the traditional Byzantine pattern. Many details are similar to the Pammakaristos mosaics so it is supposed that the same team of mosaicists worked in both buildings. Another building with a related mosaic decoration is the Theotokos Paregoritissa Church in Arta. The church was established by the Despot of Epirus in 1294–96. In the dome is the traditional stern Pantokrator, with prophets and cherubim below.

Question: When was the Church of the Holy Apostles built? 
Answer: 1310–14

Question: Who removed the gold tesserae in the background of the mosaic at the Church of the Holy Apostles?
Answer: some vandal

Question: Where is the Theotokos Paregoritissa Church located?
Answer: Arta

Question: Who established the Theotokos Paregoritissa Church in 1294-96?
Answer: the Despot of Epirus

Question: The same team of mosaicists worked on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki as which other building?
Answer: Pammakaristos
The greatest mosaic work of the Palaeologan renaissance in art is the decoration of the Chora Church in Constantinople. Although the mosaics of the naos have not survived except three panels, the decoration of the exonarthex and the esonarthex constitute the most important full-scale mosaic cycle in Constantinople after the Hagia Sophia. They were executed around 1320 by the command of Theodore Metochites. The esonarthex has two fluted domes, specially created to provide the ideal setting for the mosaic images of the ancestors of Christ. The southern one is called the Dome of the Pantokrator while the northern one is the Dome of the Theotokos. The most important panel of the esonarthex depicts Theodore Metochites wearing a huge turban, offering the model of the church to Christ. The walls of both narthexes are decorated with mosaic cycles from the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. These panels show the influence of the Italian trecento on Byzantine art especially the more natural settings, landscapes, figures.

Question: where is the greatest mosaic work of the renaissance?
Answer: the Chora Church in Constantinople

Question: How many mosaic panels from naos have survived?
Answer: three

Question: The panels of naos are only capped in importance by which other location?
Answer: the Hagia Sophia

Question: Who commissioned the mosaics at naos?
Answer: Theodore Metochites

Question: The panels from naos show what influence on Byzantine art. 
Answer: Italian trecento
The Monreale mosaics constitute the largest decoration of this kind in Italy, covering 0,75 hectares with at least 100 million glass and stone tesserae. This huge work was executed between 1176 and 1186 by the order of King William II of Sicily. The iconography of the mosaics in the presbytery is similar to Cefalu while the pictures in the nave are almost the same as the narrative scenes in the Cappella Palatina. The Martorana mosaic of Roger II blessed by Christ was repeated with the figure of King William II instead of his predecessor. Another panel shows the king offering the model of the cathedral to the Theotokos.

Question: What is the name of the largest mosaics in Italy?
Answer: The Monreale mosaics

Question: At least how many tesserae are used in the the Monreale mosaics?
Answer: 100 million

Question: Who commissioned the Monreale mosaics between 1176 and 1186?
Answer: King William II of Sicily

Question: Who is displayed getting crowned by christ in the Monreale mosaics?
Answer: King William II

Question: What is the king offering Theotokos in the Monreale mosaics? 
Answer: the model of the cathedral
The single most important piece of Byzantine Christian mosaic art in the East is the Madaba Map, made between 542 and 570 as the floor of the church of Saint George at Madaba, Jordan. It was rediscovered in 1894. The Madaba Map is the oldest surviving cartographic depiction of the Holy Land. It depicts an area from Lebanon in the north to the Nile Delta in the south, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Eastern Desert. The largest and most detailed element of the topographic depiction is Jerusalem, at the center of the map. The map is enriched with many naturalistic features, like animals, fishing boats, bridges and palm trees

Question: What is the most important mosaic piece built by Byzantine Christians?
Answer: the Madaba Map

Question: When was the the Madaba Map made?
Answer: between 542 and 570

Question: Where is the church of Saint George?
Answer: Madaba, Jordan

Question: When was the Madaba Map rediscovered? 
Answer: 1894

Question: The Madaba Map depicts as far South as the Nile delta, and as far North as what country?
Answer: Lebanon
Important Justinian era mosaics decorated the Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt. Generally wall mosaics have not survived in the region because of the destruction of buildings but the St. Catherine's Monastery is exceptional. On the upper wall Moses is shown in two panels on a landscape background. In the apse we can see the Transfiguration of Jesus on a golden background. The apse is surrounded with bands containing medallions of apostles and prophets, and two contemporary figure, "Abbot Longinos" and "John the Deacon". The mosaic was probably created in 565/6.

Question: What era were the mosaics that adorned Saint Catherine's Monastery?
Answer: Justinian

Question: Where is Saint Catherine's Monastery located?
Answer: Mount Sinai in Egypt

Question: Why have wall mosaics generally not survived in the region?
Answer: the destruction of buildings

Question: Who is depicted in Saint Catherine's Monastery on a mosaic landscape background? 
Answer: Moses

Question: When was the mosaic at Saint Catherine's Monastery created?
Answer: in 565/6
The epistemological tensions between scientists and universities were also heightened by the economic realities of research during this time, as individual scientists, associations and universities were vying for limited resources. There was also competition from the formation of new colleges funded by private benefactors and designed to provide free education to the public, or established by local governments to provide a knowledge hungry populace with an alternative to traditional universities. Even when universities supported new scientific endeavors, and the university provided foundational training and authority for the research and conclusions, they could not compete with the resources available through private benefactors.

Question: Scientists and universities were competing for what?
Answer: limited resources

Question: What type of education did private benefactors hope to provide to the public?
Answer: free

Question:  Governments created universities to serve as what?
Answer: an alternative to traditional universities

Question: What type of entity created competition with government created universities?
Answer: private benefactors
The priesthoods of public religion were held by members of the elite classes. There was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), the same men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs and pontiffs. Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives. Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he was elected consul. The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, thus sanctioning Roman expansionism as a matter of divine destiny. The Roman triumph was at its core a religious procession in which the victorious general displayed his piety and his willingness to serve the public good by dedicating a portion of his spoils to the gods, especially Jupiter, who embodied just rule. As a result of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), when Rome struggled to establish itself as a dominant power, many new temples were built by magistrates in fulfillment of a vow to a deity for assuring their military success.

Question: The members of what class were priests in ancient Rome?
Answer: elite

Question: Which God exemplified just rule for the Romans?
Answer: Jupiter

Question: What was the time span of the Roman Republic?
Answer: 509–27 BC

Question: What kind of political separation did not exist in Rome? 
Answer: church and state

Question: As a result of what war were many new temples built by victorious generals?
Answer: Punic Wars
As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them, since they believed that preserving tradition promoted social stability. One way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods. By the height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces, among them Cybele, Isis, Epona, and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, found as far north as Roman Britain. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for competing monotheistic systems. The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions, but sometimes to intractable conflict. For example, religious disputes helped cause the First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Question: To the Romans what did them think promoted social stability?
Answer: preserving tradition

Question: What did the Romans tend to do with local religions and deities in conquered areas? 
Answer: absorb

Question: What facet of religion was not an issue for Roman?
Answer: tolerance

Question: To what areas of the Roman empire did the Romans take their deities?
Answer: remote provinces

Question: What facet of a foreign people did Rome add to itself to promote order?
Answer: religious heritage
Rome offers no native creation myth, and little mythography to explain the character of its deities, their mutual relationships or their interactions with the human world, but Roman theology acknowledged that di immortales (immortal gods) ruled all realms of the heavens and earth. There were gods of the upper heavens, gods of the underworld and a myriad of lesser deities between. Some evidently favoured Rome because Rome honoured them, but none were intrinsically, irredeemably foreign or alien. The political, cultural and religious coherence of an emergent Roman super-state required a broad, inclusive and flexible network of lawful cults. At different times and in different places, the sphere of influence, character and functions of a divine being could expand, overlap with those of others, and be redefined as Roman. Change was embedded within existing traditions.

Question: What type of myth did Rome not have?
Answer: creation

Question: To the Romans who ruled all aspects of heaven and earth?
Answer: immortal gods

Question: What did the Romans do for those deities that favored Rome? 
Answer: Rome honoured them

Question: What did Rome make the myriad various cults?
Answer: lawful

Question: What was basic facet of Roman religious experience?
Answer: Change
Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of the Late Republican era. Jupiter, the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple, some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus, who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva. A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by the later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres, Liber and Libera, and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of the Greek Olympians, and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage.

Question: To the Romans who was the most powerful of the gods?
Answer: Jupiter

Question: What did Jupiter personify in regards to Rome's highest offices?
Answer: divine authority

Question: What gods did Juno and Minerva replace in Roman religious practice?
Answer: Mars and Quirinus

Question: From where does the practice of linking various gods into grouping come?
Answer: Greek in origin

Question: Of what did the linking of Greek and Roman deities promote a feeling? 
Answer: heritage
The impressive, costly, and centralised rites to the deities of the Roman state were vastly outnumbered in everyday life by commonplace religious observances pertaining to an individual's domestic and personal deities, the patron divinities of Rome's various neighborhoods and communities, and the often idiosyncratic blends of official, unofficial, local and personal cults that characterised lawful Roman religion. In this spirit, a provincial Roman citizen who made the long journey from Bordeaux to Italy to consult the Sibyl at Tibur did not neglect his devotion to his own goddess from home:

Question: What type of religious practices outnumbered the state observances?
Answer: commonplace

Question: To what did the mixture of official and individual religious practices  pertain? 
Answer: lawful Roman

Question: What were the characteristics of state religious observances?
Answer: impressive, costly, and centralised

Question: Who made the choices of personal religious practices in Rome? 
Answer: individual

Question: What type of deities did Roman communities have?
Answer: patron
Roman calendars show roughly forty annual religious festivals. Some lasted several days, others a single day or less: sacred days (dies fasti) outnumbered "non-sacred" days (dies nefasti). A comparison of surviving Roman religious calendars suggests that official festivals were organized according to broad seasonal groups that allowed for different local traditions. Some of the most ancient and popular festivals incorporated ludi ("games," such as chariot races and theatrical performances), with examples including those held at Palestrina in honour of Fortuna Primigenia during Compitalia, and the Ludi Romani in honour of Liber. Other festivals may have required only the presence and rites of their priests and acolytes, or particular groups, such as women at the Bona Dea rites.

Question: How many religious celebrations did Rome have?
Answer: forty

Question:  What type of day were there more of in Rome?
Answer: sacred days

Question: With what were Roman festivals organized in accordance?
Answer: seasonal

Question: What traditions did the seasonal festivals incorporate?
Answer: local

Question: Instead of the public, what did some religious rites only require?
Answer: particular groups
Sacrifice to deities of the heavens (di superi, "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly a white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox (bos mas) for the annual oath-taking by the consuls. Di superi with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various genii – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of the sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion (exta, the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own.

Question: When did the sacrifices to the deities of the heavens occur? 
Answer: daylight

Question: What color was the sacrifice mandated to be for heaven deities?
Answer: white

Question: What event was held after the sacrifice?
Answer: banquet

Question: What type of sacrifices were offered to gods with earth connections?
Answer: fertile

Question: Who ate the meat of the sacrifice during the after sacrifice  banquet?
Answer: officials and priests
In the early stages of the First Punic War (264 BC) the first known Roman gladiatorial munus was held, described as a funeral blood-rite to the manes of a Roman military aristocrat. The gladiator munus was never explicitly acknowledged as a human sacrifice, probably because death was not its inevitable outcome or purpose. Even so, the gladiators swore their lives to the infernal gods, and the combat was dedicated as an offering to the di manes or other gods. The event was therefore a sacrificium in the strict sense of the term, and Christian writers later condemned it as human sacrifice.

Question: During what war was the first gladiator munus held?
Answer: First Punic War

Question: How was the gladiatorial combat described? 
Answer: funeral blood-rite

Question: What was not the ultimate purpose of gladiatorial rites?
Answer: death

Question: In what way was gladiatorial combat considered?
Answer: as an offering

Question: How did later Christians view Gladiatorial combats?
Answer: human sacrifice
Religious law centered on the ritualised system of honours and sacrifice that brought divine blessings, according to the principle do ut des ("I give, that you might give"). Proper, respectful religio brought social harmony and prosperity. Religious neglect was a form of atheism: impure sacrifice and incorrect ritual were vitia (impious errors). Excessive devotion, fearful grovelling to deities and the improper use or seeking of divine knowledge were superstitio. Any of these moral deviations could cause divine anger (ira deorum) and therefore harm the State. The official deities of the state were identified with its lawful offices and institutions, and Romans of every class were expected to honour the beneficence and protection of mortal and divine superiors. Participation in public rites showed a personal commitment to their community and its values.

Question: On what kind of system was Roman religious law focused?
Answer: ritualised

Question: What form of religion was atheism considered to be? 
Answer: Religious neglect

Question: What results did proper religious practices produce?
Answer: harmony and prosperity.

Question: What could deviations from proper religious practices cause?
Answer: divine anger

Question: What did participation in public religious rites show about the individual?
Answer: commitment
Official cults were state funded as a "matter of public interest" (res publica). Non-official but lawful cults were funded by private individuals for the benefit of their own communities. The difference between public and private cult is often unclear. Individuals or collegial associations could offer funds and cult to state deities. The public Vestals prepared ritual substances for use in public and private cults, and held the state-funded (thus public) opening ceremony for the Parentalia festival, which was otherwise a private rite to household ancestors. Some rites of the domus (household) were held in public places but were legally defined as privata in part or whole. All cults were ultimately subject to the approval and regulation of the censor and pontifices.

Question: What organization payed for the maintenance official cults?
Answer: state

Question: Who funded non-official religious cults?
Answer: private individuals

Question: What group benefited from non- official cults? 
Answer: own communities

Question: What group presented the opening ceremonies of the Parentalia festival?
Answer: Vestals

Question: What individuals had the right to regulate all cults?
Answer: censor and pontifices
Rome had no separate priestly caste or class. The highest authority within a community usually sponsored its cults and sacrifices, officiated as its priest and promoted its assistants and acolytes. Specialists from the religious colleges and professionals such as haruspices and oracles were available for consultation. In household cult, the paterfamilias functioned as priest, and members of his familia as acolytes and assistants. Public cults required greater knowledge and expertise. The earliest public priesthoods were probably the flamines (the singular is flamen), attributed to king Numa: the major flamines, dedicated to Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, were traditionally drawn from patrician families. Twelve lesser flamines were each dedicated to a single deity, whose archaic nature is indicated by the relative obscurity of some. Flamines were constrained by the requirements of ritual purity; Jupiter's flamen in particular had virtually no simultaneous capacity for a political or military career.

Question: What was lacking as to the profession of a priest class in Rome?
Answer: separate priestly caste

Question: What authority in a community sponsored religious rites? 
Answer: highest

Question: What type of religious participants were available for consultation?
Answer: Specialists

Question: What were the earliest priesthoods? 
Answer: flamines

Question: Which member of a family functioned as priest?
Answer: paterfamilias
The Vestals embody the profound connection between domestic cult and the religious life of the community. Any householder could rekindle their own household fire from Vesta's flame. The Vestals cared for the Lares and Penates of the state that were the equivalent of those enshrined in each home. Besides their own festival of Vestalia, they participated directly in the rites of Parilia, Parentalia and Fordicidia. Indirectly, they played a role in every official sacrifice; among their duties was the preparation of the mola salsa, the salted flour that was sprinkled on every sacrificial victim as part of its immolation.

Question: Where could a householder rekindle the home's flame?
Answer: Vesta's flame

Question: For what state artifacts did the Vestals care?
Answer: Lares and Penates

Question: What was the Vestal festival called?
Answer: Vestalia

Question: To what part of official state sacrifices did the Vestals attend?
Answer: mola salsa

Question: What was the nature of the role of the Vestals in state sacrifices?
Answer: Indirect
Funeral and commemorative rites varied according to wealth, status and religious context. In Cicero's time, the better-off sacrificed a sow at the funeral pyre before cremation. The dead consumed their portion in the flames of the pyre, Ceres her portion through the flame of her altar, and the family at the site of the cremation. For the less well-off, inhumation with "a libation of wine, incense, and fruit or crops was sufficient". Ceres functioned as an intermediary between the realms of the living and the dead: the deceased had not yet fully passed to the world of the dead and could share a last meal with the living. The ashes (or body) were entombed or buried. On the eighth day of mourning, the family offered further sacrifice, this time on the ground; the shade of the departed was assumed to have passed entirely into the underworld. They had become one of the di Manes, who were collectively celebrated and appeased at the Parentalia, a multi-day festival of remembrance in February.

Question: What type of rites varied in accordance with status and religion?
Answer: Funeral and commemorative

Question: What was the grave sacrifice in Cicero's time?
Answer: sow

Question: What class gave only wine and food as a grave offering?
Answer: less well-off

Question: What was the multi day of remembrance for the dead? 
Answer: Parentalia

Question: What goddess was an intermediary  between the dead and the living?
Answer: Ceres
Roman women were present at most festivals and cult observances. Some rituals specifically required the presence of women, but their active participation was limited. As a rule women did not perform animal sacrifice, the central rite of most major public ceremonies. In addition to the public priesthood of the Vestals, some cult practices were reserved for women only. The rites of the Bona Dea excluded men entirely. Because women enter the public record less frequently than men, their religious practices are less known, and even family cults were headed by the paterfamilias. A host of deities, however, are associated with motherhood. Juno, Diana, Lucina, and specialized divine attendants presided over the life-threatening act of giving birth and the perils of caring for a baby at a time when the infant mortality rate was as high as 40 percent.

Question: What was the amount of participation by women in religious observances?
Answer: limited

Question: What religious act did women not perform?
Answer: animal sacrifice

Question: What priesthood was reserved solely for women?
Answer: Vestals

Question: What Roman rites excluded men?
Answer: Bona Dea

Question: With what are many deities aligned for women in Rome's religions? 
Answer: motherhood
The Twelve Tables forbade any harmful incantation (malum carmen, or 'noisome metrical charm'); this included the "charming of crops from one field to another" (excantatio frugum) and any rite that sought harm or death to others. Chthonic deities functioned at the margins of Rome's divine and human communities; although sometimes the recipients of public rites, these were conducted outside the sacred boundary of the pomerium. Individuals seeking their aid did so away from the public gaze, during the hours of darkness. Burial grounds and isolated crossroads were among the likely portals. The barrier between private religious practices and "magic" is permeable, and Ovid gives a vivid account of rites at the fringes of the public Feralia festival that are indistinguishable from magic: an old woman squats among a circle of younger women, sews up a fish-head, smears it with pitch, then pierces and roasts it to "bind hostile tongues to silence". By this she invokes Tacita, the "Silent One" of the underworld.

Question: What forbid harmful  incantations?
Answer: Twelve Tables

Question: What deities were on the edge of Roman religious community? 
Answer: Chthonic

Question: What could public rites and magic easily become in some circumstances?
Answer: indistinguishable

Question: What did people seeking the aid of magicians avoid?
Answer: public gaze

Question: Where was magic conducted in Rome?
Answer: outside the sacred boundary
While the new plebeian nobility made social, political and religious inroads on traditionally patrician preserves, their electorate maintained their distinctive political traditions and religious cults. During the Punic crisis, popular cult to Dionysus emerged from southern Italy; Dionysus was equated with Father Liber, the inventor of plebeian augury and personification of plebeian freedoms, and with Roman Bacchus. Official consternation at these enthusiastic, unofficial Bacchanalia cults was expressed as moral outrage at their supposed subversion, and was followed by ferocious suppression. Much later, a statue of Marsyas, the silen of Dionysus flayed by Apollo, became a focus of brief symbolic resistance to Augustus' censorship. Augustus himself claimed the patronage of Venus and Apollo; but his settlement appealed to all classes. Where loyalty was implicit, no divine hierarchy need be politically enforced; Liber's festival continued.

Question: What did the patrician electorate keep in spite of a new plebeian nobility? 
Answer: political traditions and religious cults

Question: What cult arrived from southern Italy?
Answer: Dionysus

Question: During what time did the Dionysus cult become popular?
Answer: Punic crisis

Question: To what Roman god was Dionysus similar?
Answer: Bacchus

Question: With loyalty a necessity, what censorship did not need to be enforced?
Answer: divine hierarchy
Just as Rome itself claimed the favour of the gods, so did some individual Romans. In the mid-to-late Republican era, and probably much earlier, many of Rome's leading clans acknowledged a divine or semi-divine ancestor and laid personal claim to their favour and cult, along with a share of their divinity. Most notably in the very late Republic, the Julii claimed Venus Genetrix as ancestor; this would be one of many foundations for the Imperial cult. The claim was further elaborated and justified in Vergil's poetic, Imperial vision of the past.

Question: What did many Romans claim in the Republican era?
Answer: divine ancestor

Question: What style of claim did Romans favor as a link to the gods?
Answer: personal claim

Question: Of what were such claims of deity relations the start?
Answer: Imperial cult

Question: What deity did the Julii claim as an ancestor?
Answer: Venus Genetrix

Question: What author further elaborated on the imperial claim of godhood? 
Answer: Vergil
The Roman Empire expanded to include different peoples and cultures; in principle, Rome followed the same inclusionist policies that had recognised Latin, Etruscan and other Italian peoples, cults and deities as Roman. Those who acknowledged Rome's hegemony retained their own cult and religious calendars, independent of Roman religious law. Newly municipal Sabratha built a Capitolium near its existing temple to Liber Pater and Serapis. Autonomy and concord were official policy, but new foundations by Roman citizens or their Romanised allies were likely to follow Roman cultic models. Romanisation offered distinct political and practical advantages, especially to local elites. All the known effigies from the 2nd century AD forum at Cuicul are of emperors or Concordia. By the middle of the 1st century AD, Gaulish Vertault seems to have abandoned its native cultic sacrifice of horses and dogs in favour of a newly established, Romanised cult nearby: by the end of that century, Sabratha’s so-called tophet was no longer in use. Colonial and later Imperial provincial dedications to Rome's Capitoline Triad were a logical choice, not a centralised legal requirement. Major cult centres to "non-Roman" deities continued to prosper: notable examples include the magnificent Alexandrian Serapium, the temple of Aesculapeus at Pergamum and Apollo's sacred wood at Antioch.

Question: From what were countries in the empire free?
Answer: Roman religious law

Question: What were Rome's policies in regards to foreign peoples?
Answer: inclusionist policies

Question: What was Rome's policy towards government?
Answer: Autonomy and concord

Question: What did foreign cults gradually begin to display in similarity to Roman cults? 
Answer: Romanised

Question: What was Rome not demanding of in religion of foreign areas of the empire?
Answer: centralised legal requirement
The first and last Roman known as a living divus was Julius Caesar, who seems to have aspired to divine monarchy; he was murdered soon after. Greek allies had their own traditional cults to rulers as divine benefactors, and offered similar cult to Caesar's successor, Augustus, who accepted with the cautious proviso that expatriate Roman citizens refrain from such worship; it might prove fatal. By the end of his reign, Augustus had appropriated Rome's political apparatus – and most of its religious cults – within his "reformed" and thoroughly integrated system of government. Towards the end of his life, he cautiously allowed cult to his numen. By then the Imperial cult apparatus was fully developed, first in the Eastern Provinces, then in the West. Provincial Cult centres offered the amenities and opportunities of a major Roman town within a local context; bathhouses, shrines and temples to Roman and local deities, amphitheatres and festivals. In the early Imperial period, the promotion of local elites to Imperial priesthood gave them Roman citizenship.

Question: What Roman leader aspired to be a living god?
Answer: Julius Caesar

Question: What form of government did Cesar seem to be attempting?
Answer: divine monarchy

Question: To what ruler did foreign allies offer a divine cult? 
Answer: Augustus

Question: By the end of Augustus's reign what was an established fact?
Answer: Imperial cult

Question: For what was Augustus's reformed system of government notiable?
Answer: integrated
In Rome, state cult to a living emperor acknowledged his rule as divinely approved and constitutional. As princeps (first citizen) he must respect traditional Republican mores; given virtually monarchic powers, he must restrain them. He was not a living divus but father of his country (pater patriae), its pontifex maximus (greatest priest) and at least notionally, its leading Republican. When he died, his ascent to heaven, or his descent to join the dii manes was decided by a vote in the Senate. As a divus, he could receive much the same honours as any other state deity – libations of wine, garlands, incense, hymns and sacrificial oxen at games and festivals. What he did in return for these favours is unknown, but literary hints and the later adoption of divus as a title for Christian Saints suggest him as a heavenly intercessor. In Rome, official cult to a living emperor was directed to his genius; a small number refused this honour and there is no evidence of any emperor receiving more than that. In the crises leading up to the Dominate, Imperial titles and honours multiplied, reaching a peak under Diocletian. Emperors before him had attempted to guarantee traditional cults as the core of Roman identity and well-being; refusal of cult undermined the state and was treasonous.

Question: What was the emperor's rule in Rome?
Answer: divinely approved

Question: As a living divus, what was the emperor to Rome?
Answer: father of his country

Question: As first citizen, what must the emperor's mores represent?
Answer: traditional

Question: After his death, how was the emperor's afterlife decided?
Answer: vote in the Senate

Question: What did emperors before Diocletian try to guarantee in religion? 
Answer: traditional cults
After the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, Emperor Nero accused the Christians as convenient scapegoats, who were later persecuted and killed. From that point on, Roman official policy towards Christianity tended towards persecution. During the various Imperial crises of the 3rd century, “contemporaries were predisposed to decode any crisis in religious terms”, regardless of their allegiance to particular practices or belief systems. Christianity drew its traditional base of support from the powerless, who seemed to have no religious stake in the well-being of the Roman State, and therefore threatened its existence. The majority of Rome’s elite continued to observe various forms of inclusive Hellenistic monism; Neoplatonism in particular accommodated the miraculous and the ascetic within a traditional Graeco-Roman cultic framework. Christians saw these ungodly practices as a primary cause of economic and political crisis.

Question: What group was accused of starting the Great Fire of 64 AD?
Answer: Christians

Question: Who made the accusation that the Christians had started the Great Fire?
Answer: Emperor Nero

Question: What outcome did the accusations against the Christians produce? 
Answer: persecution

Question: What was the persecution of the Christians by Rome?
Answer: official policy

Question: How did early Christians view traditional Roman cultism?
Answer: ungodly practices
With the abatement of persecution, St. Jerome acknowledged the Empire as a bulwark against evil but insisted that "imperial honours" were contrary to Christian teaching. His was an authoritative but minority voice: most Christians showed no qualms in the veneration of even "pagan" emperors. The peace of the emperors was the peace of God; as far as the Church was concerned, internal dissent and doctrinal schism were a far greater problem. The solution came from a hitherto unlikely source: as pontifex maximus Constantine I favoured the "Catholic Church of the Christians" against the Donatists because:

Question: Who said the imperial honors were against Christian teachings?
Answer: St. Jerome

Question: To what did the Christian church equate the peace of the emperors?
Answer: peace of God

Question: With what veneration did most Christians have little trouble?
Answer: "pagan" emperors

Question: What Christian group did Constantine I disapprove?
Answer: Donatists

Question: What pontifax maximus favored the Catholic church? 
Answer: Constantine I
YouTube is a global video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States. The service was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. In November 2006, it was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion. YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries. The site allows users to upload, view, rate, share, and comment on videos, and it makes use of WebM, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media video. Available content includes video clips, TV clips, music videos, movie trailers, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.

Question: Where is Youtube headquartered? 
Answer: San Bruno, California, United States

Question: When was Youtube created?
Answer: February 2005

Question: How much did Google pay for Youtube in 2006?
Answer: US$1.65 billion

Question: Other than video blogging and and educational videos, what content is available on youtube?
Answer: short original videos

Question: How does youtube now operate as a business?
Answer: as one of Google's subsidiaries
On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter." In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined". In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day. In January 2012, YouTube stated that the figure had increased to four billion videos streamed per day.

Question: What did youtube do on March 31 2010? 
Answer: launched a new design

Question: Who was the Google product manager in 2010?
Answer: Shiva Rajaraman

Question: How many videos was youtube serving per day as of May 2010?
Answer: more than two billion

Question: How many views per day was youtube receiving as of May 2011?
Answer: more than three billion

Question: How many videos per day were streamed as of January 2012?
Answer: four billion
Observing that face-to-face communication of the type that online videos convey has been "fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution", TED curator Chris Anderson referred to several YouTube contributors and asserted that "what Gutenberg did for writing, online video can now do for face-to-face communication". Anderson asserted that it's not far-fetched to say that online video will dramatically accelerate scientific advance, and that video contributors may be about to launch "the biggest learning cycle in human history." In education, for example, the Khan Academy grew from YouTube video tutoring sessions for founder Salman Khan's cousin into what Forbes'  Michael Noer called "the largest school in the world", with technology poised to disrupt how people learn.

Question: Who is the TED curator?
Answer: Chris Anderson

Question: What surprising feature does youtube possibly have the chance to revolutionize? 
Answer: face-to-face communication

Question: Who is the founder of the Khan Academy?
Answer: Salman Khan

Question: What other surprising aspect of human development will youtube likely have an impact on?
Answer: education
In June 2007, YouTube began trials of a system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright. Google CEO Eric Schmidt regarded this system as necessary for resolving lawsuits such as the one from Viacom, which alleged that YouTube profited from content that it did not have the right to distribute. The system, which became known as Content ID, creates an ID File for copyrighted audio and video material, and stores it in a database. When a video is uploaded, it is checked against the database, and flags the video as a copyright violation if a match is found.

Question: In 2007 youtube launched an automated system to detect what?
Answer: videos that infringe copyright

Question: Who was Google's CEO in 2007?
Answer: Eric Schmidt

Question: What is the name of the system that automatically detects copyright violations?
Answer: Content ID

Question: Why did the CEO of Google think the new software was necessary? 
Answer: resolving lawsuits

Question: What does Content ID do if an upload is too close a match to a known copyright material?
Answer: flags the video
^Note 5: The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants to hold public office. From 1835-1876 it allowed only Christians (including Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8 of the current NC Constitution forbids only atheists from holding public office. Such clauses were held by the United States Supreme Court to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.

Question: When did the North Carolina Constitution disestablish the Anglican church?
Answer: 1776

Question: What religious denomination was the only one allowed to hold public office in NC until 1835?
Answer: Protestants

Question: What category did the NC Constitution broaden the people allowed to hold public office to from 1835 to 1876?
Answer: Christians

Question: What part of the NC Constitution forbids atheists from holding public office?
Answer: Article VI, Section 8

Question: When did the U.S. Supreme Court rule clauses forbidding people from holding public office based on their religion was unenforceable? 
Answer: 1961
Jefferson's opponents said his position was the destruction and the governmental rejection of Christianity, but this was a caricature. In setting up the University of Virginia, Jefferson encouraged all the separate sects to have preachers of their own, though there was a constitutional ban on the State supporting a Professorship of Divinity, arising from his own Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Some have argued that this arrangement was "fully compatible with Jefferson's views on the separation of church and state;" however, others point to Jefferson's support for a scheme in which students at the University would attend religious worship each morning as evidence that his views were not consistent with strict separation. Still other scholars, such as Mark David Hall, attempt to sidestep the whole issue by arguing that American jurisprudence focuses too narrowly on this one Jeffersonian letter while failing to account for other relevant history

Question: What did Jefferson's opponents accuse him of wanting to do to Christianity? 
Answer: destruction

Question: What did Jefferson encourage the separate sects at the University of Virginia to have of their own?
Answer: preachers

Question: How was the state banned from supporting a Professorship of Divinity?
Answer: Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Question: What scheme did Jefferson apparently support when it came to University students?
Answer: attend religious worship each morning

Question: What does Mark David Hall think people focus on way too much?
Answer: one Jeffersonian letter