Stegomastodon Facts and Figures

Stegomastodon Facts and Figures Name: Stegomastodon (Greek for roof nippled tooth); pronounced STEG-oh-MAST-oh-don Habitat: Plains of North and South America Historical Epoch: Late Pliocene-Modern (three million-10,000 years ago) Size and Weight: About 12 feet long and 2-3 tons Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Moderate size; long, upward-curving tusks; complex cheek teeth About Stegomastodon Its name sounds impressive- like a cross between a Stegosaurus and a Mastodon- but you might be disappointed to learn that Stegomastodon is actually Greek for roof-nippled tooth, and that this prehistoric elephant wasnt even a true Mastodon, being more closely related to Gomphotherium than to the genus to which all Mastodons belonged, Mammut. (We wont even mention Stegodon, another elephant family to which Stegomastodon was only distantly related.) As you may already have guessed, Stegomastodon was named after its unusually complex cheek teeth, which allowed it to eat such un-pachyderm-like foods as grass. More importantly, Stegomastodon is one of the few ancestral elephants (besides Cuvieronius) to have prospered in South America, where it survived until historical times. These two pachyderm genera made their way south during the Great American Interchange, three million years ago, when the Panamanian isthmus rose up from the seafloor and connected North and South America (and thus allowed the native fauna to migrate in both directions, with sometimes deleterious effects on native populations). To judge by the fossil evidence, Stegomastodon populated the grasslands east of the Andes mountains, while Cuvieronius preferred higher, cooler altitudes. Given that it survived until shortly after the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, its almost certain that Stegomastodon was preyed on by the indigenous human tribes of South America- which, along with inexorable climate change, drove this pachyderm to complete extinction.

The Roman Salute Morituri te salutant

The Roman Salute Morituri te salutant As the toga-wearing combatants face each other across an unforgiving circle of sand, they turn toward their laurel-wreathed eminence, snacking on grapes, and bellow: â€Å"Ave, Imperator: Morituri te salutant!† This staple of swords-and-sandals fiction, the gladiator’s salute to his Emperor, in fact likely never happened. Only a handful of Roman historians, long after the fact, mention the phrase - literally, â€Å"Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you† - and there’s little indication that it was in common usage in gladiatorial combat or any other games in ancient Rome. Nonetheless, â€Å"Morituri te salutant† has gained considerable currency in both popular culture and academia. Russell Crowe mouths it in the film â€Å"Gladiator,† and it’s used over and over by heavy metal bands (most cheekily by AC/DC, who tweaked it â€Å"For those about to about to rock, we salute you.†). Origin of the Phrase Where did the phrase â€Å"Morituri te salutant† and its variations (†¦morituri te salutamus, or â€Å"we salute you†) come from? According to the historian Suetonius’s Life of the Divine Claudius, the account of that emperor’s reign in his compendium The 12 Caesars, written around 112 A.D., it stems from a peculiar event. Claudius had commanded an immense public works project, the draining of Lake Fucino for agricultural land. It took 30,000 men and 11 years to complete. In honor of the feat, the emperor ordered up a naumachia - a mock sea-battle involving thousands of men and ships - to be held on the lake before it was emptied. The men, thousands of criminals otherwise to be hanged, hailed Claudius thusly: â€Å"Ave, Imperator: Morituri te salutant!† upon which the emperor replied â€Å"Aut non† - â€Å"Or not.† After this, the historians disagree. Suetonius says that the men, believing themselves pardoned by Claudius, refused to fight. The emperor ultimately cajoled and threatened them into sailing against one another. Cassius Dio, who wrote about the event in the 3rd century B.C., said the men merely pretended to fight until Claudius lost patience and commanded them to die. Tacitus mentions the event, some 50 years after it happened, but doesn’t mention the plea by the gladiators (or more precisely, naumachiarii). He relates, though, that a large number of prisoners were spared, having fought with the valor of free men. Use in Popular Culture In addition to the above-mentioned films and rock albums, Te morituri†¦ is also invoked in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and James Joyce’s Ulysses.