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The Bash Street Kids

The Bash Street Kids is a comic strip in the British comic magazine The Beano. It also appeared briefly in The Wizard as series of prose stories in 1955. The strip, created by Leo Baxendale as When the Bell Rings!, first appeared in issue 604. It became The Bash Street Kids in 1956 and has become a regular feature, appearing in every issue. From 1962, until his death in 2023, David Sutherland drew over 3000 strips in his time as illustrator.

History
Like many long-running UK comic strips, The Bash Street Kids is mostly frozen in the era when it began. It portrays Class 2B of the Bash Street School in Beanotown, where the teacher and headmaster wear gowns and the pupils sit at wood desks with inkwells. They are taught by a stereotypical "Teacher", whose wife is "Mrs Teacher". The characters were inspired by the view from the D. C. Thomson & Co. office windows, overlooking the High School of Dundee playground. According to Leo Baxendale, "In fact, the catalyst for my creation of Bash Street was a Giles cartoon of January 1953: kids pouring out of school, heads flying off and sundry mayhems. Straight away, I pencilled a drawing of 'The Kids of Bash Street School' and posted it from my home in Preston to R. D. Low, the managing editor of D.C. Thomson's children's publications in Dundee. I received an offhand response, a dampener. It was only after I'd created Little Plum (April 1953) and Minnie the Minx (September 1953) that the Beano editor George Moonie travelled to Preston on 20 October 1953 and asked me to go ahead with Bash Street (he gave it the provisional title of 'When The Bell Goes'; when it appeared in The Beano in February 1954, it was titled 'When The Bell Rings')." Over time, the Bash Street School's large number of pupils slowly shrank to its trademark ten. When they first appeared, the strips consisted of the kids outside school; the settings were increasingly inside the school, and the strip was retitled The Bash Street Kids on 11 November 1956 with "the kids" preparing for a pantomime.

In 1994 (the Kids' 40th anniversary), it was announced that The Bash Street Kids would be overhauled to appeal to a more politically correct, modern audience. Changes included the replacement of Danny's trademark school hat by a top hat, Fatty becoming fit and muscular and Tom-boy Toots acting more feminine. The school would be replaced by a technologically advanced "academy", and Teacher by a robot. A protest began, accompanied by petitions and publicity stunts throughout Britain, demanding that the characters remain the same. The proposal turned out to be a hoax when the story introducing the new Bash Street Kids saw them in their old ways. Editor Euan Kerr was pleased with the fan response, saying that the publication "even got death threats!" Shortly afterwards, an animated adaptation was produced as a segment of The Beano Video Stars. By 2000 The Bash Street Kids was a feature-length strip, filling an entire Beano book. Often drawn by Mike Pearce and Kev F. Sutherland, during the late 2000s the strips moved to Beano sister publication BeanoMAX (where they were drawn by Nigel Parkinson). These feature-length strips were more detailed, delving into an obscure character's personality and introducing new traits. Spotty was revealed as sarcastic and aggressive, while Plug was a more sympathetic, emotional character. The strips detailed a rivalry between the kids and the comic's cover star, Dennis the Menace. Mike Pearce soon began penciling a spin-off from the original strip, The Bash Street Kids – Singled Out, a single-page comic concentrating on one "kid" a week. Pearce retired, the strips were taken over by Tom Paterson before being mothballed and they were later collected into two annuals.

As Dennis the Menace was revamped, he appeared less with other Beano characters and more by himself due to the popularity of his new TV series. The Bash Street Kids now has three spin-offs: Simply Smiffy, Winston and The Bash Street Burp. In the July 2013 75th-birthday edition of The Beano, a lane near Dundee's West Marketgait was named Bash Street; whereas an anniversary strip showed Bash Street School being destroyed; the characters relocated to Beano High.

In May 2021, the character "Fatty" was renamed "Freddy", in an attempt to stop children using the name as an insult for overweight peers. The character "Spotty" was renamed "Scotty" in December 2021.

In June 2021, two new characters, Harsha and Mandi, were introduced to the strip. Harsha already appeared in another strip, Har Har's Joke Shop, which is about her family and the joke shop her father Hari "Har Har" Chandra owns. Mandi previously had her own occasional strip that dealt with mental health issues to promote the charity YoungMinds, and as such her main trait is that she worries about things.

In June 2022, three more characters, Stevie, Khadija, and Mahira, were introduced to the strip. All three had their own strips prior to their addition. In addition, Cuthbert was given more of a spotlight from this point onwards, as he only showed up in the strip on different occasions throughout the year.

Class 2B
The strip features Class 2B, which contains fifteen pupils.

Danny
Daniel Deathshead "Danny" Morgan, was the first identified member of the roguish members of Class 2B, first appearing in the comic strip's debut and becoming the leader after he gave each kid a wine gum. Danny often devises the kids' pranks and escape routes from school. Although he is clever he does poorly in school, primarily due to his laziness and short attention span. Danny is often described as having the "soul of a pirate", the reason he gets caught up in rebellious schemes and boisterous activities. Like most of the other characters he is usually rude to adults, once asking Smiffy to speak up because he couldn't hear him over Teacher. In later strips Danny has some respect for Teacher, often helping him out of trouble. Although he hates school, like the other children he found it hard to cope when the Bash Street School was closed. As the leader Danny is prone to conceit, and in the 2006 Beano annual he announces that his conker is indestructible in a competition. His swelled head is often deflated by a fellow student. In the present, Danny usually wears a skull and crossbones jumper and a floppy red school cap.

Danny seems especially close to Toots, calling her his second-in-command, and is most annoyed by Smiffy's stupidity and Spotty's sarcasm. He occasionally enjoys making fun of Plug's looks and Fatty's weight. Danny has an intense rivalry with Dennis the Menace, highlighted in a strip where the two compete to find a treasure under The O2 Arena and ending with Danny outwitting Dennis; they often argue in crossover strips. Although Danny also dislikes Roger the Dodger (although he is willing to use him) and Minnie the Minx, their rivalries are not as intense and he once had a crush on Minnie. He is a central character in The Beano Interactive DVD with Dennis, Gnasher, Minnie the Minx and Roger the Dodger.

'Erbert
Herbert Henry "'Erbert" Hoover is a short-sighted boy who struggles to see even with his spectacles, first appearing in issue 696. 'Erbert is considered the least-mischievous student, Beano Top Trumps – Erbert is least menacing of all Bash Street Kids and is said to resemble a human mole. Except for Cuthbert, the rest of the class have fun swapping his thick-rimmed glasses with others and seeing the resultant mayhem. In older strips, the character is sometimes called Herbert instead of 'Erbert. His short-sightedness is shared by his parents, who have ended up in different parts of town on many parents' evenings.

Feature-length strips and crossovers brand most of 'Erbert's mischief as accidental or the result of misdirection. During an escape, 'Erbert is usually bumping into a wall or running in the opposite direction. His short-sightedness is renowned; in The Beano Annual 2000 the characters take a cruise to Perth, only to reach shore at Perth, Scotland. When they go to the captain's quarters, they discover that 'Erbert has put himself in charge of the ship.

Although he is quiet and friendly, 'Erbert can wreak as much havoc as his classmates. He is a source of entertainment for the others; Sidney and Spotty once send him into a field full of cow pats, with misleading directions for getting out. Despite this, they consider him "one of the kids". When he moves to the Bash Street Academy 'Erbert receives contact lenses to improve his sight, discarding them when he returns to his old school.

Fatty
Frederick Joseph Brown (formerly nicknamed Fatty, now nicknamed Freddy) first appeared in issue 607. He is a large, round boy who is always eating, only in later strips is he ridiculed for his weight; he usually reacts by trying to prove the others wrong, but earlier he is indifferent. When Danny tricks Freddy into completing a long assault course to prove his fitness, he breaks the equipment. Although he is usually the only student able to eat school cook Olive's meals without incident, in the 2009 annual her curry makes him ill. Freddy has several stories about him in the Beano Library series. In the academy makeover, he has slimmed down, but regains his former girth after being freed from brainwashing.

Until mid-May 2021, he was formerly nicknamed "Fatty", but was renamed "Freddy" in an attempt to stop children using the name as an insult for overweight peers.

Plug
Percival Proudfoot "Plug" Plugsley first appeared in issue 606. He is a lanky, gangling character with a large overbite, protruding ears, two buck teeth and a wide nose. On the cover of Plug his name is given as Percival Proudfoot Plugsey, although in some earlier strips he is named Claude. Plug's real name is only occasionally used in The Beano, such as in Singled Out when Teacher addresses him by his full name. He is originally known as Pug; according to The Beano, the "l" was added when Smiffy had one to spare after misspelling "silly".

Despite, or perhaps because of his appearance Plug is one of the more sympathetic Bash Street Kids, often ready to defend those he feels have been unjustly treated; he once calms Danny down after he loses patience with Smiffy's stupidity. He has on one occasion fainted from seeing his own reflection (after polishing the handles of Teacher's bicycle), and considers himself the most handsome boy in Beanotown.

Plug had his own comic from 1977 to 1979 featuring him and his two pets (Pug from Pup Parade and Chunkee the Monkey), and was the first Beano character with a spin-off. Plug was later incorporated into The Beezer.

He has two sisters, Plugella and Plugena, who closely resemble him. However, in earlier strips his father was shown to be quite handsome (to the confusion of the other kids) and Plug is described as taking after his mother in appearance. In the September 2014 issue of The Beano he is described as Jonah's nephew, implying that he is the son of Jonah's sister Jinx.

With Kev F. Sutherland, Plug had a more dominant role and was frequently a story's main character. In one he has a girlfriend, making him the first Beano character (except for Walter) to do so.

Although Plug received plastic surgery for the Bash Street Academy makeover, he soon returned to his familiar appearance. When he sees his friends brainwashed into behaving, he saves them by installing a virus on the robot teacher's disc drive.

Toots
Toots Pye, whose real name is Sydney Kate Pye, was until May 2021 the only girl in Class 2B. Although she is a tomboy, she does have some feminine interests. One of her biggest interests is football, and has been shown to be better than all of the boys in her class at it, even when she is against all of them. She is also a fan of boy bands and has admitted a crush on Dennis the Menace, sending him a valentine. Although most of the kids dislike Dennis, her friendship with Minnie the Minx is also surprising and she is the only kid to show any warmth to either character.

Surprisingly tough and as bossy as Danny, Toots is the gang's second-in-command and takes charge in Danny's absence. Her bossiness is exemplified in the feature-length Queen Toots, where she discovers she is connected to royalty. When Toots takes advantage of her power, Dennis announces that she cannot boss him around and she puts him in a makeshift prison tower (quickly populated by other Beano characters and the rest of the kids). She loves music, often pulling a "boogie box" (a CD player) behind her or listening to her headphones instead of Teacher.

Although Toots enjoys the boys' company, she sometimes exhibits disdain, naivete or exasperation at their more boyish behaviour. In the academy makeover, she wears a frilly dress and her hair and face are made up.

Sidney
Sidney Mason Pye is Toots' younger twin brother by three minutes, first appearing in issue 622. His spiked haircut resembles a chimney-sweeping brush. He is a trickster, with Smiffy a frequent target. When the kids rehearse a nativity play, Smiffy asks what sound a sheep makes. Sidney replies "Woof", and he and Wilfred go into hysterics when Smiffy ruins the rehearsal. He makes pithy remarks about the other kids, to the amusement of those around him; he and Spotty fight several times when the latter is a target.

Sidney loves animals and has a wide variety of pets, from elephants to mice. His mouse is often part of the kids' plans. During the academy makeover, his chimney-brush hair is shaved off and he is apparently hypnotised.

Smiffy
Aristotle John Smiffy first appeared in issue 613, and is portrayed as a jovial scatterbrain. When Teacher calls the roll, instead of saying "Present, sir" he says "Gift, miss". Although he is sometimes very kind and intuitive (similar to an idiot savant), most of the time he cannot remember what colour the sky is. In his brief involvement in The Wizard, he is given the name John Smith. Smiffy has appeared in two spin-off strips: the 1971–72 Says Smiffy and the 1985–87 Simply Smiffy (where he appears with his brother, Normal Norman). In 2008 he acquires a pet pebble, Kevin, who has his own feature (Where's Kevin?) in The Beano number 3604. First appearing in a 2008 Singled Out story, Kevin appears in Bash Street Kids stories in 2010 and 2011. In the academy makeover Smiffy has a new brain installed, making him the brightest of the kids.

Scotty ("Spotty")
James Scott Cameron (formerly nicknamed Spotty, now nicknamed Scotty) is a short boy who wears a blue collared jersey and an extremely long, striped tie. He is proud and protective of the 976 black spots covering his face, fending off any attempts to remove them. Teacher sees him as the mouthiest of the kids; in Singled Out and feature-length strips, he interrupts the lessons with comments. Scotty is sarcastic, conceited and protective about his masculinity and height. Like Danny he dislikes Dennis the Menace, especially after Dennis menaces him during the latter's 50th-birthday party. In the academy makeover, Scotty's spots and aggressive, sarcastic nature are gone. In late 2021 Scotty declared that he was tired of being defined solely by his spots, leading the other kids to help him choose the new nickname Scotty, taken from his middle name Scott.

Wilfrid
Wilfrid John Wimble is the smallest and quietest of the Bash Street Kids, and has social anxiety, his thoughts hidden behind a green jumper going up to his nose. He loves turtles, and resembles a tortoise; his neck is never seen, because when he removes his jumper his vest is just as high.

He is often simply present in the stories, speaking only occasionally. Unlike 'Erbert, most of Wilfrid's mischief is intentional. He hangs around most often with Spotty and 'Erbert and, occasionally, Sidney. In the academy storyline Wilfrid apparently has a large chin under his jersey, but it is prosthetic and he pulls it off.

Cuthbert
Cuthbert Jason Cringeworthy, the brightest student in the class, is a teacher's pet and has a name for every letter of the alphabet. First appearing in 1972, he resembles a miniature Teacher (a play on the D. C. Thomson comic tradition that pets resemble their owners, like Dennis the Menace and Gnasher) and Walter the Softy from Dennis the Menace. The first thing Danny said about Cuthbert was, "He reminds me of someone I don't particularly like". His character has evolved slightly; although he still swots and is as bright as ever, particularly in longer strips by Mike Pearse and Kev F. Sutherland he is one of the gang (unlike earlier strips, where he seemed to dislike the other kids) and sometimes comes up with intelligent ideas to help their cause or save the school. Cuthbert wants to be like the other kids, but although he is liked he does not quite fit in. The school janitor observes that he will never make any friends. Cuthbert is the only kid who wears the school uniform and turns in homework. A school-dance strip hints at a crush on Toots, but she quickly rejects him. Cuthbert appears in the fewest strips of all the characters.

Harsha
Harsha Chandra, a British girl of Indian descent, joined Class 2B in June 2021. She already appeared in another strip, Har Har's Joke Shop, which is about her family and the joke shop her father Hari "Har Har" Chandra owns. She's a prankster similar to Tricky Dicky.

Mandi
Mandi, full name Mandira Sharma, another British girl of Indian descent, also joined Class 2B in June 2021. She previously had her own occasional strip that dealt with mental health issues to promote a charity, and as such her main trait is that she worries about things.

Stevie
Steven "Super Star" joined Class 2B in Wednesday 8 June 2022. He has his own strip of the same name. He wants to be famous. He is a black British boy, who is part American, as his Dad's side of the family is from there.

Khadija
Khadija Raad, or Sketch Khad, joined Class 2B in Wednesday 8 June 2022. She is a Muslim and likes to draw on her Sketch pad, with any thing drawn on it coming to life.

Mahira
Mahira Salim, a British girl of Pakistani descent, joined Class 2B in Wednesday 8 June 2022. She has her own strip called Mahira of the Match. She likes football and is often regarded somewhat as a female version of Ball Boy.

Other characters
Teacher (Algernon Cringeworthy, Walter Winterbottom): Class 2B's long-suffering teacher, merely called "Teacher". In a 1970s Beano Summer Special, his name was given as Algernon John Cringeworthy. The name Algernon was again referenced in the 1988 book Dandy Beano: 50 Golden Years. However, in The Wizard no 1527 (21 May 1955) he is referred to as Sleepy Sam Snorer. Teacher wears a mortarboard and has a domineering wife, known as Mrs Teacher. He drives an old crank-starter car, often used by the kids in their exploits. Headmaster (Headward Headington-Hail, Chocolious Biccius, Mr. Headington): The pompous, portly school headmaster. Fond of tea and biscuits, he always wears an academic gown and mortarboard. Teacher spends much of his time toadying to Head, and usually addresses him as "Your Headship". In the 2015 Beano Annual, Head has retired to play golf. Janitor (Fittock Con, Ralf Chustace): The school's fat, lazy caretaker, who hates litter and students who break the rules and enjoys bossing Winston the cat around. In the 2017 TV series, Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed!, his first name is revealed to be Ralph. Winston: The school's cat. Anthropomorphic, he often mops the floor with Janitor and wears a similar hat. Although Winston is sometimes shown as the real force behind the school's upkeep, he is often overshadowed by Janitor. Crafty, he often concocts his own schemes when Janitor frustrates him. Winston has his own strip drawn by Paul Palmer, which began in Funsize Funnies issue #3660. Olive Sprat: The school cook (and Beano office tea lady), who first appeared in the strip in 1981. Although she is kind, her food is terrible; it often looks like it is still alive, and her tea can burn holes through walls. Olive thinks she is a good cook and sees no reason to change her methods, a constant source of worry to the school's pupils and staff. Large boxes of indigestion remedy are occasionally seen on the canteen tables, and Freddy is often the only pupil who will consider eating her lunches. Mrs Teacher (Arabella Cringeworthy): Teacher's overbearing wife, who looks like him (complete with moustache). She is assertive, bossing Teacher around while at home and yelling at the kids as a supply teacher. In another story, she injures the students in a break-dancing competition because they injured her husband. Techno: A science teacher who appears during the mid-1990s and is an Inspector Gadget-type robot. Techno had his own limited-run strip, appeared in The Beano Book of Amazing Facts and returns in the 2008 Bash Street Kids Annual. Wayne: An eleventh pupil named Wayne was introduced after a competition on the BBC's Blue Peter to create a new Bash Street Kid. The winning entry was announced on 14 March 2007 as "Wayne's in pain". Wayne has fat, puffy cheeks, dandelion-like hair, a problem with standing and is talkative. He wears a plaster cast and sling, and suffers comic misfortunes like Calamity James. After a year, Wayne disappeared from the strip without any explanation. The Blob Street Kids: A group of children from a nearby school who became rivals of the Bash Street Kids. Each member of the Bash Street Kids has a counterpart in the Blob Street Kids, and a similar rivalry appears in The Bash Street Pups. The Posh Street Kids: A group of rival children from a posh school.

Some characters (Teacher and Head, for example) are named after their occupations. The children's parents (who look almost exactly like their children) are called Plug's Dad and so on, even in flashbacks to their childhoods.

In the early years, there were an indeterminate number of students; one page had 28, including:
 * Teddy – A stereotypical Teddy Boy, appearing primarily during the 1950s
 * Ella – Another girl
 * Jimmy – A boy resembling Smiffy, who wears a cap
 * Gasbag Jones – A curly-haired boy

The characters appeared in one-page stories (not comic strips) entitled "Bash St. School" in The Wizard in 1955, and were the full-page cover cartoon on 23 July 1955.

Artists
Leo Baxendale drew the strip until 1962, when David Sutherland replaced him. Sutherland originally used a similar drawing style to Baxendale's, simplifying it later in the decade. He has drawn most of the strips since then, except from 1998 to 2000 (when Nigel Parkinson took over the strip in a style similar to that of David Parkins in Dennis the Menace.) The strips have had a closely connected visual style since the early 1970s, when Sutherland began drawing them both. Although he was apparently easing into semi-retirement, Parkinson moved to Dennis the Menace in 2000 and Sutherland returned. Sutherland continued drawing the strip until he passed away in 2023, at the age of 89.

The strip has had a number of ghost artists, including Gordon Bell during the early 1970s, John Sherwood later in the decade, Keith Reynolds during the 1980s and Tom Paterson in the early 1990s. Mike Pearse and Kev F. Sutherland (no relation to David Sutherland) have occasionally drawn the strip, long stories in particular. Following Sutherland's death, Shannon Gallant and Mychailo Kazybrid both acted as temporary artists in the following months, before Gallant was appointed as Sutherland's permanent replacement.

Spin-offs and other appearances
The Bash Street Kids has had a number of spin-offs, including Pup Parade, Simply Smiffy, Plug and Singled Out. The Bash Street Kids Annual, previously known as The Bash Street Kids Book and published biannually, is published in August. Summer specials, with solo stories of each character, were also published during the 1990s and were a forerunner to Singled Out. Most were drawn by Tom Paterson, who later drew the Singled Out strip. From 1968 to 1972 The Beano ran a similar series, The Belles of St. Lemons.

The Dandy has had two similar series: the 1970s Whacko (about a teacher who taught in a suit of armour because of his unruly pupils) and P5 from 1998 to 2000, also about a class and their long-suffering teacher. P5 was republished in 2006 as Class Act.

Singled Out
Singled Out was a spin-off comic strip in the UK comic The Beano. Based on The Bash Street Kids, Singled Out focuses on one character each week and builds a one-page story around them. It first appeared in issue 3226, dated 15 May 2004, drawn by Mike Pearse. Mike Pearse has also included other Beano faces in his strips such as Dennis the Menace, Bea and The Three Bears.

Pearse drew the strip until mid-2007, when the job was given to Nigel Parkinson, and then Tom Paterson. David Sutherland also drew a single strip. Paterson's trademark background images, such as the randomly positioned socks, are often included. The bottom left-hand corner of the page no longer shows which character the strip is focused on. Some strips mentioned which character was being featured in the header, but others didn't provide any information on this. After the 2009 Bash Street Kids annual (Space Cadets) was published, Paterson's work on Singled Out was changed to be more like Pearse's style, where before it was akin to David Sutherland's style, while Nigel Parkinson drew it in the Beano's sister comic, BeanoMAX. Several of the early Mike Pearse stories were reprinted in the 2010 Bash Street Kids annual. The strip appeared on an increasingly less regular basis in 2009, and has since ended. There was a Singled Out reprint strip shown a few years later (under the title Bash Street Capers), but this was (quite oddly as it was labelled No.1) a one-off.

Video
The Bash Street Kids appear in 1993's The Beano Video and 1994's The Beano Videostars; they also appear singing two songs: "The Beano Rap" and "We're the Kids From Bash Street School".

Theme parks
Before Beanoland became Wild Asia at the Chessington World of Adventures, it included the Bash Street Bus. The kids were also featured in the water-balloon portion of the park, and their standees were posted at a number of locations.

Video games
Plug is a playable character in Beanotown Racing for the PC, and the school is a race track.

Toys and games
Robert Harrop has designed figures, statues and ornaments based on The Bash Street Kids. A target-practice game featured the characters, and a McDonald's Happy Meal toy set included a number of the kids.

title: The Bash Street Kids


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Talk:Nephiline

The original, completely erroneous contents of the page were:
 * Nephiline in the old bible was translated in Giant in the new version! But the word Nephiline meant:- "to look down from above"

The original author was probably thinking of the Nephilim, but he (or she) is still wrong. --the Epopt

Mis-spelling
This mineral should actually be published under nepheline, this being the correct spelling - Source: Deer, Howie & Zussman, An Introduction To Rock-Forming Minerals. user:thegnome

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Nephiline


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Early infanticidal childrearing

Early infanticidal childrearing is a term used in the study of psychohistory that refers to infanticide in paleolithic, pre-historical, and historical hunter-gatherer tribes or societies. "Early" means early in history or in the cultural development of a society, not to the age of the child. "Infanticidal" refers to the high incidence of infants killed when compared to modern nations. The model was developed by Lloyd deMause within the framework of psychohistory as part of a seven-stage sequence of childrearing modes that describe the development attitudes towards children in human cultures The word "early" distinguishes the term from late infanticidal childrearing, identified by deMause in the more established, agricultural cultures up to the ancient world.

The model
This model is a psychological concept that aims to understand anthropological data, especially from such societies as the Yolngu of Australia, the Gimi, Wogeo, Bena Bena, and Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea, the Raum, the Ok, and the Kwanga, based on observations by Géza Róheim, Lia Leibowitz, Robert C. Suggs, Milton Diamond, Herman Heinrich Ploss, Gilbert Herdt, Robert J. Stoller, L. L. Langness, and Fitz John Porter Poole, among others. While anthropologists and psychohistorians do not dispute the data, they dispute its significance in terms of its importance, its meaning, and its interpretation.

Supporters attempt to explain cultural history from a psycho-developmental point of view, and argue that cultural change can be assessed as "advancement" or "regression" based on the psychological consequences of various cultural practices. While most anthropologists reject this approach and most theories of cultural evolution as ethnocentric, psychohistorians proclaim the independence of psychohistory and reject the mainstream Boasian view.

This "infanticidal" model makes several claims: that childrearing in tribal societies included child sacrifice or high infanticide rates, incest, body mutilation, child rape, and tortures, and that such activities were culturally acceptable. Psychohistorians do not claim that each child was killed, only that in some societies there was (or is) a selection process that would vary from culture to culture. For example, there is a large jump in the mortality rate of Papua New Guinean children after they reach the weaning stage. In the Solomon Islands some people reportedly kill their first-born child. In rural India, rural China, and other societies, some female babies have been exposed to death. DeMause's argument is that the surviving siblings of the sacrificed child may become disturbed.

Some states, both in the Old World and New World, practiced infanticide, including sacrifice in Mesoamerica and in Assyrian and Canaanite religions. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and other members of early states sacrificed infants to their gods, as described in the table of the psychopathological effects of some forms of childrearing.

According to deMause, in the most primitive mode of childrearing of the above-mentioned table, mothers use their children to project parts of their dissociated self onto their children. The infanticidal clinging of the symbiotic mother prevents individuation so that innovation and more complex political organization are inhibited. On a second plane, deMause maintains that the attention paid by mothers of some contemporary societies to their children, such as sucking, fondling, and masturbating, is sexual according to an objective standard; and that this sexual attention is inordinate.

The model is based on a reported lack of empathy by infanticidal parents, such as a lack of mutual gazes between parent and child, observed by Robert B. Edgerton, Maria Lepowsky, Bruce Knauft, John W. M. Whiting, and Margaret Mead, among others. Such mutual gazing is widely recognized in developmental psychology as crucial for proper bonding between mother and child.

Criticism
Nineteenth-century British anthropology advanced a lineal, evolutionary sequence in a given culture from savagery to civilization. Cultures were seen on a hierarchical ladder. James George Frazer posited a universal progress from magical thinking to science. Most anthropologists of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century studied primitive cultures outside Europe and North America. John Ferguson McLennan, Lewis Henry Morgan, and others argued that there was a parallel development in social institutions. In the 1950s, led by Leslie White, these evolutionist ideas gained influence in American anthropology.

The German-born Franz Boas managed to shift the paradigm. His approach, later named cultural relativism, resists universal values of any kind. According to Boas's principle, which represents the mainstream school in contemporary anthropology, a culture's beliefs and activities should be interpreted in the context of its own culture. This principle has been established as axiomatic in contemporary anthropology. The Vietnam War consolidated the Boasian shift in American anthropology.

Since the psychohistorians' model is analogous to the now discarded unilineal evolution theory, anthropologists have been critical of the negative value judgments, and the lineal progression, in the model currently advanced by psychohistorians as to what constitutes child abuse in primitive or non-Western cultures. Melvin Konner wrote:

"Lloyd deMause, then editor of the History of Childhood Quarterly, claimed that all past societies treated children brutally, and that all historical change in their treatment has been a fairly steady improvement toward the kind and gentle standards we now set and more or less meet. [...] Now anthropologists — and many historians as well — were slack-jawed and nearly speechless. [...] Serious students of the anthropology of childhood beginning with Margaret Mead have called attention to the pervasive love and care lavished on children in many traditional cultures."

Psychohistorians accuse anthropologists and ethnologists of having avoided looking more closely at the evidence and having promulgated the myth of the noble savage. They maintain that what constitutes child abuse is a matter of a general psychological law, it leaves its permanent marks on the human brain structure, post-traumatic stress disorder is not a culture dependent phenomenon or a matter of opinion, and that some of the practices that mainstream anthropologists do not focus on, such as beatings of newborn infants, result in brain lesions and other visible neurological and psychological damage.

title: Early infanticidal childrearing


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Basilica

In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name to the basilica architectural form.

Originally, a basilica was an ancient Roman public building, where courts were held, as well as serving other official and public functions. Basilicas are typically rectangular buildings with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles, with the roof at two levels, being higher in the centre over the nave to admit a clerestory and lower over the side-aisles. An apse at one end, or less frequently at both ends or on the side, usually contained the raised tribunal occupied by the Roman magistrates. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the forum and often opposite a temple in imperial-era forums. Basilicas were also built in private residences and imperial palaces and were known as "palace basilicas".

In late antiquity, church buildings were typically constructed either as martyria, or with a basilica's architectural plan. A number of monumental Christian basilicas were constructed during the latter reign of Constantine the Great. In the post Nicene period, basilicas became a standard model for Christian spaces for congregational worship throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. From the early 4th century, Christian basilicas, along with their associated catacombs, were used for burial of the dead.

By extension, the name was later applied to Christian churches that adopted the same basic plan. It continues to be used in an architectural sense to describe rectangular buildings with a central nave and aisles, and usually a raised platform at the end opposite the door. In Europe and the Americas, the basilica remained the most common architectural style for churches of all Christian denominations, though this building plan has become less dominant in buildings constructed since the late 20th century.

The Catholic Church has come to use the term to refer to its especially historic churches, without reference to the architectural form.

Origins
The Latin word basilica derives from βασιλικὴ στοά. The first known basilica—the Basilica Porcia in the Roman Forum—was constructed in 184 BC by Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder). After the construction of Cato the Elder's basilica, the term came to be applied to any large covered hall, whether it was used for domestic purposes, was a commercial space, a military structure, or religious building.

The plays of Plautus suggest that basilica buildings may have existed prior to Cato's building. The plays were composed between 210 and 184 BC and refer to a building that might be identified with the Atrium Regium. Another early example is the basilica at Pompeii (late 2nd century BC). Inspiration may have come from prototypes like Athens's Stoa Basileios or the hypostyle hall on Delos, but the architectural form is most derived from the audience halls in the royal palaces of the Diadochi kingdoms of the Hellenistic period. These rooms were typically a high nave flanked by colonnades.

These basilicas were rectangular, typically with central nave and aisles, usually with a slightly raised platform and an apse at each of the two ends, adorned with a statue perhaps of the emperor, while the entrances were from the long sides. The Roman basilica was a large public building where business or legal matters could be transacted. Although their form was variable, basilicas often contained interior colonnades that divided the space, giving aisles or arcaded spaces on one or both sides, with an apse at one end (or less often at each end), where the magistrates sat, often on a slightly raised dais. The central aisle – the nave – tended to be wider and taller than the flanking aisles, so that light could penetrate through the clerestory windows.

In the late Republican era, basilicas were increasingly monumental; Julius Caesar replaced the Basilica Sempronia with his own Basilica Julia, dedicated in 46 BC, while the Basilica Aemilia was rebuilt around 54 BC in so spectacular a fashion that Pliny the Elder wrote that it was among the most beautiful buildings in the world (it was simultaneously renamed the Basilica Paulli). Thereafter until the 4th century AD, monumental basilicas were routinely constructed at Rome by both private citizens and the emperors. These basilicas were reception halls and grand spaces in which élite persons could impress guests and visitors, and could be attached to a large country villa or an urban domus. They were simpler and smaller than were civic basilicas, and can be identified by inscriptions or their position in the archaeological context. Domitian constructed a basilica on the Palatine Hill for his imperial residential complex around 92 AD, and a palatine basilica was typical in imperial palaces throughout the imperial period.

Roman Republic
Long, rectangular basilicas with internal peristyle became a quintessential element of Roman urbanism, often forming the architectural background to the city forum and used for diverse purposes. Beginning with Cato in the early second century BC, politicians of the Roman Republic competed with one another by building basilicas bearing their names in the Forum Romanum, the centre of ancient Rome. Outside the city, basilicas symbolised the influence of Rome and became a ubiquitous fixture of Roman coloniae of the late Republic from c. 100 BC. The earliest surviving basilica is the basilica of Pompeii, built 120 BC. Basilicas were the administrative and commercial centres of major Roman settlements: the "quintessential architectural expression of Roman administration". Adjoining it there were normally various offices and rooms housing the curia and a shrine for the tutela. Like Roman public baths, basilicas were commonly used as venues for the display of honorific statues and other sculptures, complementing the outdoor public spaces and thoroughfares.

Beside the Basilica Porcia on the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Aemilia was built in 179 BC, and the Basilica Sempronia in 169 BC. In the Republic two types of basilica were built across Italy in the mid-2nd to early 1st centuries BC: either they were nearly square as at Fanum Fortunae, designed by Vitruvius, and Cosa, with a 3:4 width-length ratio; or else they were more rectangular, as Pompeii's basilica, whose ratio is 3:7.

The basilica at Ephesus is typical of the basilicas in the Roman East, which usually have a very elongated footprint and a ratio between 1:5 and 1:9, with open porticoes facing the agora (the Hellenic forum); this design was influenced by the existing tradition of long stoae in Hellenistic Asia. Provinces in the west lacked this tradition, and the basilicas the Romans commissioned there were more typically Italian, with the central nave divided from the side-aisles by an internal colonnade in regular proportions.

Early Empire
Beginning with the Forum of Caesar (forum Iulium) at the end of the Roman Republic, the centre of Rome was embellished with a series of imperial fora typified by a large open space surrounded by a peristyle, honorific statues of the imperial family (gens), and a basilica, often accompanied by other facilities like a temple, market halls and public libraries. In the imperial period, statues of the emperors with inscribed dedications were often installed near the basilicas' tribunals, as Vitruvius recommended. Examples of such dedicatory inscriptions are known from basilicas at Lucus Feroniae and Veleia in Italy and at Cuicul in Africa Proconsolaris, and inscriptions of all kinds were visible in and around basilicas.

At Ephesus the basilica-stoa had two storeys and three aisles and extended the length of the civic agora 's north side, complete with colossal statues of the emperor Augustus and his imperial family.

The remains of a large subterranean Neopythagorean basilica dating from the 1st century AD were found near the Porta Maggiore in Rome in 1917, and is known as the Porta Maggiore Basilica.

After its destruction in 60 AD, Londinium (London) was endowed with its first forum and basilica under the Flavian dynasty. The basilica delimited the northern edge of the forum with typical nave, aisles, and a tribunal, but with an atypical semi-basement at the western side. Unlike in Gaul, basilica-forum complexes in Roman Britain did not usually include a temple; instead a shrine was usually inside the basilica itself. At Londinium however, there was probably no temple at all attached to the original basilica, but instead a contemporary temple was constructed nearby. Later, in 79 AD, an inscription commemorated the completion of the 385 x 120 foot basilica at Verulamium (St Albans) under the governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola; by contrast the first basilica at Londinium was only 148 x 75 feet. The smallest known basilica in Britain was built by the Silures at Caerwent and measured 180 x 100 feet.

When Londinium became a colonia, the whole city was re-planned and a new great forum-basilica complex erected, larger than any in Britain. Londinium's basilica, more than 500 feet long, was the largest north of the Alps and a similar length to the modern St Paul's Cathedral. Only the later basilica-forum complex at Treverorum was larger, while at Rome only the 525 foot Basilica Ulpia exceeded London's in size. It probably had arcaded, rather than trabeate, aisles, and a double row of square offices on the northern side, serving as the administrative centre of the colonia, and its size and splendour probably indicate an imperial decision to change the administrative capital of Britannia to Londinium from Camulodunum (Colchester), as all provincial capitals were designated coloniae. In 300 Londinium's basilica was destroyed as a result of the rebellion led by the Augustus of the break-away Britannic Empire, Carausius. Remains of the great basilica and its arches were discovered during the construction of Leadenhall Market in the 1880s.

At Corinth in the 1st century AD, a new basilica was constructed in on the east side of the forum. It was possibly inside the basilica that Paul the Apostle, according to the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 18:12–17) was investigated and found innocent by the Suffect Consul Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, the brother of Seneca the Younger, after charges were brought against him by members of the local Jewish diaspora. Modern tradition instead associates the incident with an open-air inscribed bema in the forum itself.

The emperor Trajan constructed his own imperial forum in Rome accompanied by his Basilica Ulpia dedicated in 112. Trajan's Forum (forum Traiani) was separated from the Temple of Trajan, the Ulpian Library, and his famous Column depicting the Dacian Wars by the Basilica. It was an especially grand example whose particular symmetrical arrangement with an apse at both ends was repeated in the provinces as a characteristic form. To improve the quality of the Roman concrete used in the Basilica Ulpia, volcanic scoria from the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius were imported which, though heavier, was stronger than the pumice available closer to Rome. The Bailica Ulpia is probably an early example of tie bars to restrain the lateral thrust of the barrel vault resting on a colonnade; both tie-bars and scoria were used in contemporary work at the Baths of Trajan and later the Hadrianic domed vault of the Pantheon.

In early 123, the augusta and widow of the emperor Trajan, Pompeia Plotina died. Hadrian, successor to Trajan, deified her and had a basilica constructed in her honour in southern Gaul.

The Basilica Hilariana (built c. 145–155) was designed for the use of the cult of Cybele.

The largest basilica built outside Rome was that built under the Antonine dynasty on the Byrsa hill in Carthage. The basilica was built together with a forum of enormous size and was contemporary with a great complex of public baths and a new aqueduct system running for 82 mile, then the longest in the Roman Empire.

The basilica at Leptis Magna, built by the Septimius Severus a century later in about 216 is a notable 3rd century AD example of the traditional type, most notable among the works influenced by the Basilica Ulpia. The basilica at Leptis was built mainly of limestone ashlar, but the apses at either end were only limestone in the outer sections and built largely of rubble masonry faced with brick, with a number of decorative panels in opus reticulatum. The basilica stood in a new forum and was accompanied by a programme of Severan works at Leptis including thermae, a new harbour, and a public fountain. At Volubilis, principal city of Mauretania Tingitana, a basilica modelled on Leptis Magna's was completed during the short reign of Macrinus.

Basilicas in the Roman Forum

 * Basilica Porcia: first basilica built in Rome (184 BC), erected on the personal initiative and financing of the censor Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder) as an official building for the tribunes of the plebs
 * Basilica Aemilia, built by the censor Aemilius Lepidus in 179 BC
 * Basilica Sempronia, built by the censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 169 BC
 * Basilica Opimia, erected probably by the consul Lucius Opimius in 121 BC, at the same time that he restored the temple of Concord (Platner, Ashby 1929)
 * Basilica Julia, initially dedicated in 46 BC by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus 27 BC to AD 14
 * Basilica Argentaria, erected under Trajan, emperor from AD 98 to 117
 * Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine (built between AD 308 and 312)

Late antiquity
The aisled-hall plan of the basilica was adopted by a number of religious cults in late antiquity. At Sardis, a monumental basilica housed the city's synagogue, serving the local Jewish diaspora. New religions like Christianity required space for congregational worship, and the basilica was adapted by the early Church for worship. Because they were able to hold large number of people, basilicas were adopted for Christian liturgical use after Constantine the Great. The early churches of Rome were basilicas with an apsidal tribunal and used the same construction techniques of columns and timber roofing.

At the start of the 4th century at Rome there was a change in burial and funerary practice, moving away from earlier preferences for inhumation in cemeteries – popular from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD – to the newer practice of burial in catacombs and inhumation inside Christian basilicas themselves. Conversely, new basilicas often were erected on the site of existing early Christian cemeteries and martyria, related to the belief in Bodily Resurrection, and the cult of the sacred dead became monumentalised in basilica form. Traditional civic basilicas and bouleuteria declined in use with the weakening of the curial class (curiales) in the 4th and 5th centuries, while their structures were well suited to the requirements of congregational liturgies. The conversion of these types of buildings into Christian basilicas was also of symbolic significance, asserting the dominance of Christianity and supplanting the old political function of public space and the city-centre with an emphatic Christian social statement. Traditional monumental civic amenities like gymnasia, palaestrae, and thermae were also falling into disuse, and became favoured sites for the construction of new churches, including basilicas.

Under Constantine, the basilica became the most prestigious style of church building, was "normative" for church buildings by the end of the 4th century, and were ubiquitous in western Asia, North Africa, and most of Europe by the close of the 7th century. Christians also continued to hold services in synagogues, houses, and gardens, and continued practising baptism in rivers, ponds, and Roman bathhouses.

The development of Christian basilicas began even before Constantine's reign: a 3rd-century mud-brick house at Aqaba had become a Christian church and was rebuilt as a basilica. Within was a rectangular assembly hall with frescoes and at the east end an ambo, a cathedra, and an altar. Also within the church were a catecumenon (for catechumens), a baptistery, a diaconicon, and a prothesis: all features typical of later 4th century basilica churches. A Christian structure which included the prototype of the triumphal arch at the east end of later Constantinian basilicas. Known as the Megiddo church, it was built at Kefar 'Othnay in Palestine, possibly c. 230, for or by the Roman army stationed at Legio (later Lajjun). Its dedicatory inscriptions include the names of women who contributed to the building and were its major patrons, as well as men's names. A number of buildings previously believed to have been Constantinian or 4th century have been reassessed as dating to later periods, and certain examples of 4th century basilicas are not distributed throughout the Mediterranean world at all evenly. Christian basilicas and martyria attributable to the 4th century are rare on the Greek mainland and on the Cyclades, while the Christian basilicas of Egypt, Cyprus, Syria, Transjordan, Hispania, and Gaul are nearly all of later date. The basilica at Ephesus's Magnesian Gate, the episcopal church at Laodicea on the Lycus, and two extramural churches at Sardis have all been considered 4th century constructions, but on weak evidence. Development of pottery chronologies for Late Antiquity had helped resolve questions of dating basilicas of the period.

Three examples of a basilica discoperta or "hypaethral basilica" with no roof above the nave are inferred to have existed. The 6th century Anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza described a "basilica built with a quadriporticus, with the middle atrium uncovered" at Hebron, while at Pécs and near Salona two ruined 5th buildings of debated interpretation might have been either roofless basilica churches or simply courtyards with an exedra at the end. An old theory by Ejnar Dyggve that these were the architectural intermediary between the Christian martyrium and the classical heröon is no longer credited.

The magnificence of early Christian basilicas reflected the patronage of the emperor and recalled his imperial palaces and reflected the royal associations of the basilica with the Hellenistic Kingdoms and even earlier monarchies like that of Pharaonic Egypt. Similarly, the name and association resounded with the Christian claims of the royalty of Christ – according to the Acts of the Apostles the earliest Christians had gathered at the royal Stoa of Solomon in Jerusalem to assert Jesus's royal heritage. For early Christians, the Bible supplied evidence that the First Temple and Solomon's palace were both hypostyle halls and somewhat resembled basilicas. Hypostyle synagogues, often built with apses in Palestine by the 6th century, share a common origin with the Christian basilicas in the civic basilicas and in the pre-Roman style of hypostyle halls in the Mediterranean Basin, particularly in Egypt, where pre-classical hypostyles continued to be built in the imperial period and were themselves converted into churches in the 6th century. Other influences on the evolution of Christian basilicas may have come from elements of domestic and palatial architecture during the pre-Constantinian period of Christianity, including the reception hall or aula (αὐλή) and the atria and triclinia of élite Roman dwellings. The versatility of the basilica form and its variability in size and ornament recommended itself to the early Christian Church: basilicas could be grandiose as the Basilica of Maxentius in the Forum Romanum or more practical like the so-called Basilica of Bahira in Bosra, while the Basilica Constantiniana on the Lateran Hill was of intermediate scale. This basilica, begun in 313, was the first imperial Christian basilica. Imperial basilicas were first constructed for the Christian Eucharist liturgy in the reign of Constantine.

Basilica churches were not economically inactive. Like non-Christian or civic basilicas, basilica churches had a commercial function integral to their local trade routes and economies. Amphorae discovered at basilicas attest their economic uses and can reveal their position in wider networks of exchange. At Dion near Mount Olympus in Macedonia, now an Archaeological Park, the latter 5th century Cemetery Basilica, a small church, was replete with potsherds from all over the Mediterranean, evidencing extensive economic activity took place there. Likewise at Maroni Petrera on Cyprus, the amphorae unearthed by archaeologists in the 5th century basilica church had been imported from North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, and the Aegean basin, as well as from neighbouring Asia Minor.

According to Vegetius, writing c. 390, basilicas were convenient for drilling soldiers of the Late Roman army during inclement weather.

Basilica of Maxentius
The 4th century Basilica of Maxentius, begun by Maxentius between 306 and 312 and according to Aurelius Victor's De Caesaribus completed by Constantine I, was an innovation. Earlier basilicas had mostly had wooden roofs, but this basilica dispensed with timber trusses and used instead cross-vaults made from Roman bricks and concrete to create one of the ancient world's largest covered spaces: 80 m long, 25 m wide, and 35 m high. The vertices of the cross-vaults, the largest Roman examples, were 35 m. The vault was supported on marble monolithic columns 14.5 m tall. The foundations are as much as 8 m deep. The vault was supported by brick latticework ribs (bipedalis) forming lattice ribbing, an early form of rib vault, and distributing the load evenly across the vault's span. Similar brick ribs were employed at the Baths of Maxentius on the Palatine Hill, where they supported walls on top of the vault. Also known as the Basilica Constantiniana or Basilica Nova, it chanced to be the last civic basilica built in Rome.

Inside the basilica the central nave was accessed by five doors opening from an entrance hall on the eastern side and terminated in an apse at the western end. Another, shallower apse with niches for statues was added to the centre of the north wall in a second campaign of building, while the western apse housed a colossal acrolithic statue of the emperor Constantine enthroned. Fragments of this statue are now in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, part of the Capitoline Museums. Opposite the northern apse on the southern wall, another monumental entrance was added and elaborated with a portico of porphyry columns. One of the remaining marble interior columns was removed in 1613 by Pope Paul V and set up as an honorific column outside Santa Maria Maggiore.

Constantinian period
In the early 4th century Eusebius used the word basilica (βασιλική) to refer to Christian churches; in subsequent centuries as before, the word basilica referred in Greek to the civic, non-ecclesiastical buildings, and only in rare exceptions to churches. Churches were nonetheless basilican in form, with an apse or tribunal at the end of a nave with two or more aisles typical. A narthex (sometimes with an exonarthex) or vestibule could be added to the entrance, together with an atrium, and the interior might have transepts, a pastophorion, and galleries, but the basic scheme with clerestory windows and a wooden truss roof remained the most typical church type until the 6th century. The nave would be kept clear for liturgical processions by the clergy, with the laity in the galleries and aisles to either side. The function of Christian churches was similar to that of the civic basilicas but very different from temples in contemporary Graeco-Roman polytheism: while pagan temples were entered mainly by priests and thus had their splendour visible from without, within Christian basilicas the main ornamentation was visible to the congregants admitted inside. Christian priests did not interact with attendees during the rituals which took place at determined intervals, whereas pagan priests were required to perform individuals' sacrifices in the more chaotic environment of the temple precinct, with the temple's facade as backdrop. In basilicas constructed for Christian uses, the interior was often decorated with frescoes, but these buildings' wooden roof often decayed and failed to preserve the fragile frescoes within. Thus was lost an important part of the early history of Christian art, which would have sought to communicate early Christian ideas to the mainly illiterate Late Antique society. On the exterior, basilica church complexes included cemeteries, baptisteries, and fonts which "defined ritual and liturgical access to the sacred", elevated the social status of the Church hierarchy, and which complemented the development of a Christian historical landscape; Constantine and his mother Helena were patrons of basilicas in important Christian sites in the Holy Land and Rome, and at Milan and Constantinople.

Around 310, while still a self-proclaimed augustus unrecognised at Rome, Constantine began the construction of the Basilica Constantiniana or Aula Palatina, as a reception hall for his imperial seat at Trier (Augusta Treverorum), capital of Belgica Prima. On the exterior, Constantine's palatine basilica was plain and utilitarian, but inside was very grandly decorated.

In the reign of Constantine I, a basilica was constructed for the Pope in the former barracks of the Equites singulares Augusti, the cavalry arm of the Praetorian Guard. (Constantine had disbanded the Praetorian guard after his defeat of their emperor Maxentius and replaced them with another bodyguard, the Scholae Palatinae.) In 313 Constantine began construction of the Basilica Constantiniana on the Lateran Hill. This basilica became Rome's cathedral church, known as St John Lateran, and was more richly decorated and larger than any previous Christian structure. However, because of its remote position from the Forum Romanum on the city's edge, it did not connect with the older imperial basilicas in the fora of Rome. Outside the basilica was the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, a rare example of an Antique statue that has never been underground.

According to the Liber Pontificalis, Constantine was also responsible for the rich interior decoration of the Lateran Baptistery constructed under Pope Sylvester I (r. 314–335), sited about 50 m. The Lateran Baptistery was the first monumental free-standing baptistery, and in subsequent centuries Christian basilica churches were often endowed with such baptisteries.

At Cirta, a Christian basilica erected by Constantine was taken over by his opponents, the Donatists. After Constantine's failure to resolve the Donatist controversy by coercion between 317 and 321, he allowed the Donatists, who dominated Africa, to retain the basilica and constructed a new one for the Catholic Church.

The original titular churches of Rome were those which had been private residences and which were donated to be converted to places of Christian worship. Above an originally 1st century AD villa and its later adjoining warehouse and Mithraeum, a large basilica church had been erected by 350, subsuming the earlier structures beneath it as a crypt. The basilica was the first church of San Clemente al Laterano. Similarly, at Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio, an entire ancient city block – a 2nd-century insula on the Caelian Hill – was buried beneath a 4th-century basilica. The site was already venerated as the martyrium of three early Christian burials beforehand, and part of the insula had been decorated in the style favoured by Christian communities frequenting the early Catacombs of Rome.

By 350 in Serdica (Sofia, Bulgaria), a monumental basilica – the Church of Saint Sophia – was erected, covering earlier structures including a Christian chapel, an oratory, and a cemetery dated to c. 310. Other major basilica from this period, in this part of Europe, is the Great Basilica in Philippopolis (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) from the 4th century AD.

Valentinianic–Theodosian period
In the late 4th century the dispute between Nicene and Arian Christianity came to head at Mediolanum (Milan), where Ambrose was bishop. At Easter in 386 the Arian party, preferred by the Theodosian dynasty, sought to wrest the use of the basilica from the Nicene partisan Ambrose. According to Augustine of Hippo, the dispute resulted in Ambrose organising an 'orthodox' sit-in at the basilica and arranged the miraculous invention and translation of martyrs, whose hidden remains had been revealed in a vision. During the sit-in, Augustine credits Ambrose with the introduction from the "eastern regions" of antiphonal chanting, to give heart to the orthodox congregation, though in fact music was likely part of Christian ritual since the time of the Pauline epistles. The arrival and reburial of the martyrs' uncorrupted remains in the basilica in time for the Easter celebrations was seen as powerful step towards divine approval.

At Philippi, the market adjoining the 1st-century forum was demolished and replaced with a Christian basilica. Civic basilicas throughout Asia Minor became Christian places of worship; examples are known at Ephesus, Aspendos, and at Magnesia on the Maeander. The Great Basilica in Antioch of Pisidia is a rare securely dated 4th century Christian basilica and was the city's cathedral church. The mosaics of the floor credit Optimus, the bishop, with its dedication. Optimus was a contemporary of Basil of Caesarea and corresponded with him c. 377. Optimus was the city's delegate at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, so the 70 m-long single-apsed basilica near the city walls must have been constructed around that time. Pisidia had a number of Christian basilicas constructed in Late Antiquity, particularly in former bouleuteria, as at Sagalassos, Selge, Pednelissus, while a civic basilica was converted for Christians' use in Cremna.

At Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople on the Bosporus, the relics of Euphemia – a supposed Christian martyr of the Diocletianic Persecution – were housed in a martyrium accompanied by a basilica. The basilica already existed when Egeria passed through Chalcedon in 384, and in 436 Melania the Younger visited the church on her own journey to the Holy Land. From the description of Evagrius Scholasticus the church is identifiable as an aisled basilica attached to the martyrium and preceded by an atrium. The Council of Chalcedon (8–31 October 451) was held in the basilica, which must have been large enough to accommodate the more than two hundred bishops that attended its third session, together with their translators and servants; around 350 bishops attended the Council in all. In an ekphrasis in his eleventh sermon, Asterius of Amasea described an icon in the church depicting Euphemia's martyrdom. The church was restored under the patronage of the patricia and daughter of Olybrius, Anicia Juliana. Pope Vigilius fled there from Constantinople during the Three-Chapter Controversy. The basilica, which lay outside the walls of Chalcedon, was destroyed by the Persians in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 during one of the Sasanian occupations of the city in 615 and 626. The relics of Euphemia were reportedly translated to a new Church of St Euphemia in Constantinople in 680, though Cyril Mango argued the translation never took place. Subsequently, Asterius's sermon On the Martyrdom of St Euphemia was advanced as an argument for iconodulism at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

In the late 4th century, a large basilica church dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus was constructed in Ephesus in the former south stoa (a commercial basilica) of the Temple of Hadrian Olympios. Ephesus was the centre of the Roman province of Asia, and was the site of the city's famed Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It had also been a centre of the Roman imperial cult in Asia; Ephesus was three times declared  and had constructed a Temple of the Sebastoi to the Flavian dynasty. The Basilica of the Virgin Mary was probably the venue for the 431 Council of Ephesus and the 449 Second Council of Ephesus, both convened by Theodosius II. At some point during the Christianisation of the Roman world, Christian crosses were cut into the faces of the colossal statues of Augustus and Livia that stood in the basilica-stoa of Ephesus; the crosses were perhaps intended to exorcise demons in a process akin to baptism. In the eastern cemetery of Hierapolis the 5th century domed octagonal martyrium of Philip the Apostle was built alongside a basilica church, while at Myra the Basilica of St Nicholas was constructed at the tomb of Saint Nicholas.

At Constantinople the earliest basilica churches, like the 5th century basilica at the Monastery of Stoudios, were mostly equipped with a small cruciform crypt (κρυπτή), a space under the church floor beneath the altar. Typically, these crypts were accessed from the apse's interior, though not always, as at the 6th century Church of St John at the Hebdomon, where access was from outside the apse. At Thessaloniki, the Roman bath where tradition held Demetrius of Thessaloniki had been martyred was subsumed beneath the 5th century basilica of Hagios Demetrios, forming a crypt.

The largest and oldest basilica churches in Egypt were at Pbow, a coenobitic monastery established by Pachomius the Great in 330. The 4th century basilica was replaced by a large 5th century building (36 × 72 m) with five aisles and internal colonnades of pink granite columns and paved with limestone. This monastery was the administrative centre of the Pachomian order where the monks would gather twice annually and whose library may have produced many surviving manuscripts of biblical, Gnostic, and other texts in Greek and Coptic. In North Africa, late antique basilicas were often built on a doubled plan. In the 5th century, basilicas with two apses, multiple aisles, and doubled churches were common, including examples respectively at Sufetula, Tipasa, and Djémila. Generally, North African basilica churches' altars were in the nave and the main building medium was opus africanum of local stone, and spolia was infrequently used.

The Church of the East's Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was convened by the Sasanian Emperor Yazdegerd I at his capital at Ctesiphon; according to Synodicon Orientale, the emperor ordered that the former churches in the Sasanian Empire to be restored and rebuilt, that such clerics and ascetics as had been imprisoned were to be released, and their Nestorian Christian communities allowed to circulate freely and practice openly.

In eastern Syria, the Church of the East developed at typical pattern of basilica churches. Separate entrances for men and women were installed in the southern or northern wall; within, the east end of the nave was reserved for men, while women and children were stood behind. In the nave was a bema, from which Scripture could be read, and which were inspired by the equivalent in synagogues and regularised by the Church of Antioch. The Council of 410 stipulated that on Sunday the archdeacon would read the Gospels from the bema. Standing near the bema, the lay folk could chant responses to the reading and if positioned near the šqāqonā ("a walled floor-level pathway connecting the bema to the altar area") could try to kiss or touch the Gospel Book as it was processed from the deacons' room to the bema and thence to the altar. Some ten Eastern churches in eastern Syria have been investigated by thorough archaeology.

A Christian basilica was constructed in the first half of the 5th century at Olympia, where the statue of Zeus by Phidias had been noted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ever since the 2nd century BC list compiled by Antipater of Sidon. Cultural tourism thrived at Olympia and Ancient Greek religion continued to be practised there well into the 4th century. At Nicopolis in Epirus, founded by Augustus to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Actium at the end of the Last war of the Roman Republic, four early Christian basilicas were built during Late Antiquity whose remains survive to the present. In the 4th or 5th century, Nicopolis was surrounded by a new city wall.

In Bulgaria there are major basilicas from that time like Elenska Basilica and the Red Church.

Leonid period
On Crete, the Roman cities suffered from repeated earthquakes in the 4th century, but between c. 450 and c. 550, a large number of Christian basilicas were constructed. Crete was throughout Late Antiquity a province of the Diocese of Macedonia, governed from Thessaloniki.

Nine basilica churches were built at Nea Anchialos, ancient Phthiotic Thebes (Θη̑βαι Φθιώτιδες), which was in its heyday the primary port of Thessaly. The episcopal see was the three-aisled Basilica A, the Church of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and similar to the Church of the Acheiropoietos in Thessaloniki. Its atrium perhaps had a pair of towers to either side and its construction dates to the late 5th/early 6th century. The Elpidios Basilica – Basilica B – was of similar age, and the city was home to a large complex of ecclesiastical buildings including Basilica G, with its luxurious mosaic floors and a mid-6th century inscription proclaiming the patronage of the bishop Peter. Outside the defensive wall was Basilica D, a 7th-century cemetery church.

Stobi, (Στόβοι) the capital from the late 4th century of the province of Macedonia II Salutaris, had numerous basilicas and six palaces in late antiquity. The Old Basilica had two phases of geometric pavements, the second phase of which credited the bishop Eustathios as patron of the renovations. A newer episcopal basilica was built by the bishop Philip atop the remains of the earlier structure, and two further basilicas were within the walls. The Central Basilica replaced a synagogue on a site razed in the late 5th century, and there was also a North Basilica and further basilicas without the walls. Various mosaics and sculptural decorations have been found there, and while the city suffered from the Ostrogoths in 479 and an earthquake in 518, ceasing to be a major city thereafter, it remained a bishopric until the end of the 7th century and the Basilica of Philip had its templon restored in the 8th century.

The Small Basilica of Philippopolis (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) in Thrace was built in the second half of the 5th century AD.

Justinianic period
Justinian I constructed at Ephesus a large basilica church, the Basilica of St John, above the supposed tomb of John the Apostle. The church was a domed cruciform basilica begun in 535/6; enormous and lavishly decorated, it was built in the same style as Justinian's Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. The Justinianic basilica replaced an earlier, smaller structure which Egeria had planned to visit in the 4th century, and remains of a 2130 foot aqueduct branch built to supply the complex with water probably dates from Justinian's reign. The Ephesians' basilicas to St Mary and St John were both equipped with baptisteries with filling and draining pipes: both fonts were flush with the floor and unsuitable for infant baptism. As with most Justinianic baptisteries in the Balkans and Asia Minor, the baptistery at the Basilica of St John was on the northern side of the basilica's nave; the 734 m2 baptistery was separated from the basilica by a 3 m-wide corridor. According to the 6th century Syriac writer John of Ephesus, a Syriac Orthodox Christian, the heterodox Miaphysites held ordination services in the courtyard of the Basilica of St John under cover of night. Somewhat outside the ancient city on the hill of Selçuk, the Justinianic basilica became the centre of the city after the 7th century Arab–Byzantine wars.

At Constantinople, Justinian constructed the largest domed basilica: on the site of the 4th century basilica Church of Holy Wisdom, the emperor ordered construction of the huge domed basilica that survives to the present: the Hagia Sophia. This basilica, which "continues to stand as one of the most visually imposing and architecturally daring churches in the Mediterranean", was the cathedral of Constantinople and the patriarchal church of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Hagia Sophia, originally founded by Constantine, was at the social and political heart of Constantinople, near to the Great Palace, the Baths of Zeuxippus, and the Hippodrome of Constantinople, while the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was within the basilica's immediate vicinity.

The mid-6th century Bishop of Poreč (Parens or Parentium; Πάρενθος) replaced an earlier 4th century basilica with the magnificent Euphrasian Basilica in the style of contemporary basilicas at Ravenna. Some column capitals were of marble from Greece identical to those in Basilica of San Vitale and must have been imported from the Byzantine centre along with the columns and some of the opus sectile. There are conch mosaics in the basilica's three apses and the fine opus sectile on the central apse wall is "exceptionally well preserved".

The 4th century basilica of Saint Sophia Church at Serdica (Sofia, Bulgaria) was rebuilt in the 5th century and ultimately replaced by a new monumental basilica in the late 6th century, and some construction phases continued into the 8th century. This basilica was the cathedral of Serdica and was one of three basilicas known to lie outside the walls; three more churches were within the walled city, of which the Church of Saint George was a former Roman bath built in the 4th century, and another was a former Mithraeum. The basilicas were associated with cemeteries with Christian inscriptions and burials.

Another basilica from this period in Bulgaria was the Belovo Basilica (6th century AD).

The Miaphysite convert from the Church of the East, Ahudemmeh constructed a new basilica c. 565 dedicated to Saint Sergius at ʿAin Qenoye (or ʿAin Qena according to Bar Hebraeus) after being ordained bishop of Beth Arbaye by Jacob Baradaeus and while proselytizing among the Bedouin of Arbayistan in the Sasanian Empire. According to Ahudemmeh's biographer this basilica and its martyrium, in the upper Tigris valley, was supposed to be a copy of the Basilica of St Sergius at Sergiopolis (Resafa), in the middle Euphrates, so that the Arabs would not have to travel so far on pilgrimage. More likely, with the support of Khosrow I for its construction and defence against the Nestorians who were Miaphysites' rivals, the basilica was part of an attempt to control the frontier tribes and limit their contact with the Roman territory of Justinian, who had agreed in the 562 Fifty-Year Peace Treaty to pay 30,000 nomismata annually to Khosrow in return for a demilitarization of the frontier after the latest phase of the Roman–Persian Wars. After being mentioned in 828 and 936, the basilica at ʿAin Qenoye disappeared from recorded history, though it may have remained occupied for centuries, and was rediscovered as a ruin by Carsten Niebuhr in 1766. The name of the modern site Qasr Serīj is derived from the basilica's dedication to St Sergius. Qasr Serīj's construction may have been part of the policy of toleration that Khosrow and his successors had for Miaphysitism – a contrast with Justinian's persecution of heterodoxy within the Roman empire. This policy itself encouraged many tribes to favour the Persian cause, especially after the death in 569 of the Ghassanid Kingdom's Miaphysite king al-Harith ibn Jabalah (Flavius Arethas, Ἀρέθας) and the 584 suppression by the Romans of his successors' dynasty.

Palace basilicas

In the Roman Imperial period (after about 27 BC), a basilica for large audiences also became a feature in palaces. In the 3rd century of the Christian era, the governing elite appeared less frequently in the forums.

They now tended to dominate their cities from opulent palaces and country villas, set a little apart from traditional centers of public life. Rather than retreats from public life, however, these residences were the forum made private.
 * — Peter Brown, in Paul Veyne, 1987

Seated in the tribune of his basilica, the great man would meet his dependent clientes early every morning.

Constantine's basilica at Trier, the Aula Palatina (AD 306), is still standing. A private basilica excavated at Bulla Regia (Tunisia), in the "House of the Hunt", dates from the first half of the 5th century. Its reception or audience hall is a long rectangular nave-like space, flanked by dependent rooms that mostly also open into one another, ending in a semi-circular apse, with matching transept spaces. Clustered columns emphasised the "crossing" of the two axes.

Christian adoption of the basilica form
In the 4th century, once the Imperial authorities had decriminalised Christianity with the 313 Edict of Milan, and with the activities of Constantine the Great and his mother Helena, Christians were prepared to build larger and more handsome edifices for worship than the furtive meeting-places (such as the Cenacle, cave-churches, house churches such as that of the martyrs John and Paul) they had been using. Architectural formulas for temples were unsuitable due to their pagan associations, and because pagan cult ceremonies and sacrifices occurred outdoors under the open sky in the sight of the gods, with the temple, housing the cult figures and the treasury, as a backdrop. The usable model at hand, when Constantine wanted to memorialise his imperial piety, was the familiar conventional architecture of the basilicas.

There were several variations of the basic plan of the secular basilica, always some kind of rectangular hall, but the one usually followed for churches had a central nave with one aisle at each side and an apse at one end opposite to the main door at the other end. In (and often also in front of) the apse was a raised platform, where the altar was placed, and from where the clergy officiated. In secular building this plan was more typically used for the smaller audience halls of the emperors, governors, and the very rich than for the great public basilicas functioning as law courts and other public purposes. Constantine built a basilica of this type in his palace complex at Trier, later very easily adopted for use as a church. It is a long rectangle two storeys high, with ranks of arch-headed windows one above the other, without aisles (there was no mercantile exchange in this imperial basilica) and, at the far end beyond a huge arch, the apse in which Constantine held state.

Development
Putting an altar instead of the throne, as was done at Trier, made a church. Basilicas of this type were built in western Europe, Greece, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, that is, at any early centre of Christianity. Good early examples of the architectural basilica include the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem (6th century), the church of St Elias at Thessalonica (5th century), and the two great basilicas at Ravenna.

The first basilicas with transepts were built under the orders of Emperor Constantine, both in Rome and in his "New Rome", Constantinople:

Around 380, Gregory Nazianzen, describing the Constantinian Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, was the first to point out its resemblance to a cross. Because the cult of the cross was spreading at about the same time, this comparison met with stunning success.
 * — Yvon Thébert, in Veyne, 1987

Thus, a Christian symbolic theme was applied quite naturally to a form borrowed from civil semi-public precedents. The first great Imperially sponsored Christian basilica is that of St John Lateran, which was given to the Bishop of Rome by Constantine right before or around the Edict of Milan in 313 and was consecrated in the year 324. In the later 4th century, other Christian basilicas were built in Rome: Santa Sabina, and St Paul's Outside the Walls (4th century), and later St Clement (6th century).

A Christian basilica of the 4th or 5th century stood behind its entirely enclosed forecourt ringed with a colonnade or arcade, like the stoa or peristyle that was its ancestor or like the cloister that was its descendant. This forecourt was entered from outside through a range of buildings along the public street. This was the architectural ground-plan of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, until in the 15th century it was demolished to make way for a modern church built to a new plan.

In most basilicas, the central nave is taller than the aisles, forming a row of windows called a clerestory. Some basilicas in the Caucasus, particularly those of Armenia and Georgia, have a central nave only slightly higher than the two aisles and a single pitched roof covering all three. The result is a much darker interior. This plan is known as the "oriental basilica", or "pseudobasilica" in central Europe. A peculiar type of basilica, known as three-church basilica, was developed in early medieval Georgia, characterised by the central nave which is completely separated from the aisles with solid walls.

Gradually, in the Early Middle Ages there emerged the massive Romanesque churches, which still kept the fundamental plan of the basilica.

In Medieval Bulgaria the Great Basilica was finished around 875. The architectural complex in Pliska, the first capital of the First Bulgarian Empire, included a cathedral, an archbishop's palace and a monastery. The basilica was one of the greatest Christian cathedrals in Europe of the time, with an area of 2920 m2. The still in use Church of Saint Sophia in Ohrid is another example from Medieval Bulgaria.

In Romania, the word for church both as a building and as an institution is biserică, derived from the term basilica.

In the United States the style was copied with variances. An American church built imitating the architecture of an Early Christian basilica, St. Mary's (German) Church in Pennsylvania, was demolished in 1997.

Catholic basilicas
In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a church with special privileges. It is typically housed in a large and important building. This designation may be made by the Pope or may date from time immemorial. Basilica churches are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building does not need to be a basilica in the architectural sense. Basilicas are either major basilicas – of which there are four, all in the diocese of Rome—or minor basilicas, of which there were 1,810 worldwide. The Umbraculum is displayed in a basilica to the right side (i.e. the Epistle side) of the altar to indicate that the church has been awarded the rank of a basilica.

Architecture

 * Architecture of cathedrals and great churches
 * Byzantine architecture
 * Church architecture

General sources

 * Architecture of the basilica
 * Syndicus, Eduard, Early Christian Art, Burns & Oates, London, 1962
 * Basilica Porcia
 * W. Thayer, "Basilicas of Ancient Rome": from Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby), 1929. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London: Oxford University Press)
 * Paul Veyne, ed. A History of Private Life I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, 1987
 * Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador
 * Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador

title: Basilica


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Talk:Lysander

Untitled
I have updated the article (enlarging it and removing the stub status) but it could still do with a picture if anyone is up for providing one- Isthatyou

Untitled
Early Life Section :- "Lysander joined the same barracks as (the soon to be King) Leonidas. Cleomenes died in 489B.C. and was succeeded by his half brother, who would probably have then left his original barracks for the Royal mess. To join a mess Lysander would have to be at least 18yrs.old, at best he could have been born in say 507BC.If we then take his date of death as 395BC. we find a Spartan General aged 108 yrs. leading a military expedition. This may be improbable--203.161.136.218 (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Dux: Leader versus Duke
Would it not be better that the engraving was captioned as "leader of the Spartans" - that is what the Latin says afaics. Duke comes from the Latin Dux, but Dux means 'leader' 217.41.30.134 (talk)

Death
This page says, "In the Battle of Haliartus, Lysander was killed after bringing his forces too near to the walls of the city." Battle of Haliartus says "Lysander marched his army up to the walls of Haliartus. When an attempt to take the city by subversion failed, he launched an assault on the walls. A sizable Theban force, however, was located nearby, perhaps unbeknownst to Lysander. This force hurried to the assistance of the city's defenders. In heated fighting under the walls of Haliartus, Lysander's force was routed and he himself was killed." One of these accounts must be wrong. Philgoetz (talk) 03:35, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

LGBT?
The article is tagged as LGBT, but the article text itself contains to reference to this, leaving the LGBT issue stated but without reference. 104.187.53.82 (talk) 06:10, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

 * Lysander was the lover of the future king Agesilaus II. It's mentioned in the article. T8612  (talk) 09:01, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

A General?
Lysander died in battle ashore, but most of the text is about his naval victories. Shouldn’t he be characterized as more a significant admiral / minor general than the reverse? The first action in the lede is destroying the Athenian Fleet. R/ the JMOprof ©¿©¬ 15:03, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lysander


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Cypherpunk anonymous remailer

A Cypherpunk anonymous remailer, also known as a Type I remailer, is a type of anonymous remailer that receives messages encrypted with PGP or GPG, follows predetermined instructions to strip any identifying information, and forwards the messages to the desired recipient.

Cypherpunk anonymous remailers are vulnerable to traffic analysis attacks, which take advantage of the predictable order in which messages are sent to recipients. This predictability can potentially reveal the identity of the sender. To address this weakness, Type II and Type III remailers were developed. Prior to the introduction of Mixmaster (Type II) remailers, users attempted to mitigate this issue by sending messages in batches or by using multiple remailers in sequence to further obscure the sender's identity.

Mixmaster remailers were built upon the technology of Cypherpunk remailers, rendering the latter obsolescent. However, there are still websites and systems which rely on the general ideas of layered encryption and identity obfuscation behind Type I remailers.

Uses
While they are mostly considered obsolete due to the Mixmaster being the most common remailer type, Cypherpunk remailers are still applicable in niche applications for those who have no other accessible options. For example, sites that are censored or blocked by governments can use such remailers to circumvent this censorship. Cypherpunk remailers also require less setup and fewer resources to run and can therefore be a suitable solution for those under time constraints or with few available assets.

title: Cypherpunk anonymous remailer


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Co-NP-complete

In complexity theory, computational problems that are co-NP-complete are those that are the hardest problems in co-NP, in the sense that any problem in co-NP can be reformulated as a special case of any co-NP-complete problem with only polynomial overhead. If P is different from co-NP, then all of the co-NP-complete problems are not solvable in polynomial time. If there exists a way to solve a co-NP-complete problem quickly, then that algorithm can be used to solve all co-NP problems quickly.

Each co-NP-complete problem is the complement of an NP-complete problem. There are some problems in both NP and co-NP, for example all problems in P or integer factorization. However, it is not known if the sets are equal, although inequality is thought more likely. See co-NP and NP-complete for more details.

Fortune showed in 1979 that if any sparse language is co-NP-complete (or even just co-NP-hard), then P = NP, a critical foundation for Mahaney's theorem.

Formal definition
A decision problem C is co-NP-complete if it is in co-NP and if every problem in co-NP is polynomial-time many-one reducible to it. This means that for every co-NP problem L, there exists a polynomial time algorithm which can transform any instance of L into an instance of C with the same truth value. As a consequence, if we had a polynomial time algorithm for C, we could solve all co-NP problems in polynomial time.

Example
One example of a co-NP-complete problem is tautology, the problem of determining whether a given Boolean formula is a tautology; that is, whether every possible assignment of true/false values to variables yields a true statement. This is closely related to the Boolean satisfiability problem, which asks whether there exists at least one such assignment, and is NP-complete.

title: Co-NP-complete


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NP-hardness

In computational complexity theory, a computational problem H is called NP-hard if, for every problem L which can be solved in non-deterministic polynomial-time, there is a polynomial-time reduction from L to H. That is, assuming a solution for H takes 1 unit time, H's solution can be used to solve L in polynomial time. As a consequence, finding a polynomial time algorithm to solve a single NP-hard problem would give polynomial time algorithms for all the problems in the complexity class NP. As it is suspected, but unproven, that P≠NP, it is unlikely that any polynomial-time algorithms for NP-hard problems exist.

A simple example of an NP-hard problem is the subset sum problem.

Informally, if H is NP-hard, then it is at least as difficult to solve as the problems in NP. However, the opposite direction is not true: some problems are undecidable, and therefore even more difficult to solve than all problems in NP, but they are provably not NP-hard (unless P=NP).

Definition
A decision problem H is NP-hard when for every problem L in NP, there is a polynomial-time many-one reduction from L to H.

Another definition is to require that there be a polynomial-time reduction from an NP-complete problem G to H. As any problem L in NP reduces in polynomial time to G, L reduces in turn to H in polynomial time so this new definition implies the previous one. It does not restrict the class NP-hard to decision problems, and it also includes search problems or optimization problems.

Consequences
If P ≠ NP, then NP-hard problems could not be solved in polynomial time.

Some NP-hard optimization problems can be polynomial-time approximated up to some constant approximation ratio (in particular, those in APX) or even up to any approximation ratio (those in PTAS or FPTAS). There are many classes of approximability, each one enabling approximation up to a different level.

Examples
All NP-complete problems are also NP-hard (see List of NP-complete problems). For example, the optimization problem of finding the least-cost cyclic route through all nodes of a weighted graph—commonly known as the travelling salesman problem—is NP-hard. The subset sum problem is another example: given a set of integers, does any non-empty subset of them add up to zero? That is a decision problem and happens to be NP-complete.

There are decision problems that are NP-hard but not NP-complete such as the halting problem. That is the problem which asks "given a program and its input, will it run forever?" That is a yes/no question and so is a decision problem. It is easy to prove that the halting problem is NP-hard but not NP-complete. For example, the Boolean satisfiability problem can be reduced to the halting problem by transforming it to the description of a Turing machine that tries all truth value assignments and when it finds one that satisfies the formula it halts and otherwise it goes into an infinite loop. It is also easy to see that the halting problem is not in NP since all problems in NP are decidable in a finite number of operations, but the halting problem, in general, is undecidable. There are also NP-hard problems that are neither NP-complete nor Undecidable. For instance, the language of true quantified Boolean formulas is decidable in polynomial space, but not in non-deterministic polynomial time (unless NP = PSPACE).

NP-naming convention
NP-hard problems do not have to be elements of the complexity class NP. As NP plays a central role in computational complexity, it is used as the basis of several classes:
 * NP: Class of computational decision problems for which any given yes-solution can be verified as a solution in polynomial time by a deterministic Turing machine (or solvable by a non-deterministic Turing machine in polynomial time).
 * NP-hard: Class of problems which are at least as hard as the hardest problems in NP. Problems that are NP-hard do not have to be elements of NP; indeed, they may not even be decidable.
 * NP-complete: Class of decision problems which contains the hardest problems in NP. Each NP-complete problem has to be in NP.
 * NP-easy: At most as hard as NP, but not necessarily in NP.
 * NP-equivalent: Decision problems that are both NP-hard and NP-easy, but not necessarily in NP.
 * NP-intermediate: If P and NP are different, then there exist decision problems in the region of NP that fall between P and the NP-complete problems. (If P and NP are the same class, then NP-intermediate problems do not exist because in this case every NP-complete problem would fall in P, and by definition, every problem in NP can be reduced to an NP-complete problem.)

Application areas
NP-hard problems are often tackled with rules-based languages in areas including:
 * Approximate computing
 * Configuration
 * Cryptography
 * Data mining
 * Decision support
 * Phylogenetics
 * Planning
 * Process monitoring and control
 * Rosters or schedules
 * Routing/vehicle routing
 * Scheduling

title: NP-hardness


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98 BC

Year 98 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Nepos and Didius (or, less frequently, year 656 Ab urbe condita) and the Third Year of Tianhan. The denomination 98 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Republic

 * Consuls: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos and Titus Didius
 * The Senate passes the Lex Caecilia Didia which bans omnibus bills.

Asia

 * Emperor Wu of Han sends the Han general Gongsun Ao on a mission to rescue general Li Ling from Xiongnu captivity. Gongsun achieves little but receives incorrect information that Li has been training Xiongnu soldiers. Enraged, Emperor Wu exterminates Li's clan.

Births

 * Nigidius Figulus, Roman philosopher (probable date) (d. 45 BC)
 * Terentia, first wife of Cicero (d. AD 4).

Deaths

 * Emperor Kaika of Japan, according to legend.

title: 98 BC