place_of_death ennius
Ancient ___MASK31___ was an Italic civilization that began on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC . Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of ___MASK31___ , it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants ( roughly 20 % of the world ' s population ) and covering 5 . 0 million square kilometers at its height in AD 117 . Literature , in its broadest sense , is any single body of written works . More restrictively , it is writing considered as an art form , or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value , often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage . Its Latin root " literatura "/" litteratura " ( derived itself from " littera ": " letter " or " handwriting ") was used to refer to all written accounts , though contemporary definitions extend the term to include texts that are spoken or sung ( ___MASK21___ literature ). Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non - fiction and whether it is poetry or prose ; it can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel , short story or drama ; and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations ( genre ). Hegemony ( or , or " leadership , rule ") is the political , economic , or military predominance or control of one state over others . In ancient ___MASK78___ ( 8th century BCE  6th century CE ), " hegemony " denoted the politico  military dominance of a city - state over other city - states . The dominant state is known as the " hegemon ". The ___MASK37___ Empire ( Koine and Medieval Greek :    , tr . ) was the post - ___MASK37___ Republic period of the ancient ___MASK37___ civilization , characterized by government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe , Africa and ___MASK47___ . The city of ___MASK31___ was the largest city in the world BC AD , with Constantinople ( New ___MASK31___ ) becoming the largest around 500 AD , and the Empire ' s populace grew to an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants ( roughly 20 % of the world ' s population at the time ). The 500 - year - old republic which preceded it was severely destabilized in a series of civil wars and political conflict , during which Julius Caesar was appointed as perpetual dictator and then assassinated in 44 BC . Civil wars and executions continued , culminating in the victory of Octavian , Caesar ' s adopted son , over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt . Octavian ' s power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the ___MASK37___ Senate formally granted him overarching power and the new title " Augustus ", effectively marking the end of the ___MASK37___ Republic . Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient ___MASK78___ and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD . It is often roughly divided into the Archaic period ( 9th to 6th centuries BC ), Classical period ( 5th and 4th centuries BC ), and Hellenistic period ( 3rd century BC to the 6th century AD ). It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek . Poetry ( the term derives from a variant of the Greek term , " poiesis ", " making ") is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language  such as phonaesthetics , sound symbolism , and metre  to evoke meanings in addition to , or in place of , the prosaic ostensible meaning . Marcus Aurelius ( 26 April 121  17 ___MASK97___ 180 AD ) was ___MASK37___ Emperor from 161 to 180 AD . He ruled with Lucius Verus as co - emperor from 161 until Verus ' death in 169 . Marcus Aurelius was the last of the so - called Five Good Emperors . He was a practitioner of Stoicism , and his untitled writing , commonly known as the " Meditations ", is the ___MASK68___ significant source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy . Quintus Ennius ( / kwnts nis / ; c . 239 -- c . 169 BC ) was a writer during the period of the ___MASK37___ Republic , and is often considered the father of ___MASK37___ poetry . He was of Calabrian descent . Although only fragments of his works survive , his influence in Latin literature was significant , particularly in his use of Greek literary models . The ___MASK37___ Republic was the era of ancient ___MASK37___ civilization beginning with the overthrow of the ___MASK37___ Kingdom , traditionally dated to 509 BC , and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the ___MASK37___ Empire . It was during this period that ___MASK31___ ' s control expanded from the city ' s immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world . Latin literature includes the essays , histories , poems , plays , and other writings written in the Latin language . Beginning around the 3rd century BC , it took two centuries to become a dominant literature of ancient ___MASK31___ , with many educated Romans still reading and writing in Ancient Greek , as late as Marcus Aurelius ( 121  180 AD ). Latin literature was in many ways a continuation of Greek literature , using many of the same forms . Rhythm ( from Greek , " rhythmos ", " any regular recurring motion , symmetry " ) generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements , or of opposite or different conditions " . This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds ( as with the riff in a rock music song ); to several minutes or hours , or , at the ___MASK68___ extreme , even over many years . Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication , particularly the human ability to do so , and a language is any specific example of such a system . The scientific study of language is called linguistics . Questions concerning the philosophy of language , such as whether words can represent experience , have been debated since Gorgias and Plato in Ancient ___MASK78___ . Thinkers such as Rousseau have argued that language originated from emotions while others like Kant have held that it originated from rational and logical thought . 20th - century philosophers such as Wittgenstein argued that philosophy is really the study of language . Major figures in linguistics include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky . The ___MASK37___ Kingdom was the period of the ancient ___MASK37___ civilization characterized by a monarchical form of government of the city of ___MASK31___ and its territories .