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Gratian, Italian legal scholar

(Encyclopedia)Gratian, fl. 1140, Italian legal scholar, founder of the science of canon law. Almost nothing is known of his life beyond the fact that he was a monk, almost certainly Camaldolite, and that he taught ...

Gratian, Roman emperor of the West

(Encyclopedia)Gratian grāˈshən [key], 359–83, Roman emperor of the West (375–83). At the death of his father, Valentinian I, he accepted the army's election of his brother, Valentinian II, as his colleague. ...

Italian language

(Encyclopedia)CEE Italian language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). The official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of...

Apollodorus, Greek scholar

(Encyclopedia)Apollodorus (of Athens), fl. 2d cent. b.c., Greek scholar. He wrote many works on grammar, history, and mythology. His best-known books, only fragments of which survive, are On the Gods, a prose treat...

Legal Tender cases

(Encyclopedia)Legal Tender cases, lawsuits brought to the U.S. Supreme Court involving the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, which was passed to meet currency needs during the Civil War. The act ha...

Hillel, Jewish scholar

(Encyclopedia)Hillel, fl. c.30 b.c.–a.d. 10, Jewish scholar, regarded as the forebear of the later patriarchs who led the Jews of Palestine until c.a.d. 400. The Jerusalem Talmud calls him the president of the Sa...

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