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Tunicate

A tunicate is an exclusively marine invertebrate animal, a member of the subphylum Tunicata. This grouping is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one time called Urochordata, and the term urochordates is still sometimes used for these animals. They are the only chordates that have lost their myomeric segmentation, with the possible exception of the seriation of the gill slits. However, doliolids still display segmentation of the muscle bands.

Some tunicates live as solitary individuals, but others replicate by budding and become colonies, each unit being known as a zooid. They are marine filter feeders with a water-filled, sac-like body structure and two tubular openings, known as siphons, through which they draw in and expel water. During their respiration and feeding, they take in water through the incurrent (or inhalant) siphon and expel the filtered water through the excurrent (or exhalant) siphon. Adult ascidian tunicates are sessile, immobile and permanently attached to rocks or other hard surfaces on the ocean floor. Thaliaceans (pyrosomes, doliolids, and salps) and larvaceans on the other hand, swim in the pelagic zone of the sea as adults.

Various species of ascidians, the most well-known class of tunicates, are commonly known as sea squirts, sea pork, sea livers, or sea tulips.

The earliest probable species of tunicate appears in the fossil record in the early Cambrian period. Despite their simple appearance and very different adult form, their close relationship to the vertebrates is evidenced by the fact that during their mobile larval stage, they possess a notochord or stiffening rod and resemble a tadpole. Their name derives from their unique outer covering or "tunic", which is formed from proteins and carbohydrates, and acts as an exoskeleton. In some species, it is thin, translucent, and gelatinous, while in others it is thick, tough, and stiff.

Taxonomy

About 3,000 species of tunicate exist in the world's oceans, living mostly in shallow water. The most numerous group is the ascidians; fewer than 100 species of these are found at depths greater than 200 m. Some are solitary animals leading a sessile existence attached to the seabed, but others are colonial and a few are pelagic. Some are supported by a stalk, but most are attached directly to a substrate, which may be a rock, shell, coral, seaweed, mangrove root, dock, piling, or ship's hull. They are found in a range of solid or translucent colours and may resemble seeds, grapes, peaches, barrels, or bottles. One of the largest is a stalked sea tulip, Pyura pachydermatina, which can grow to be over 1 m tall.

The Tunicata were established by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1816. In 1881, Francis Maitland Balfour introduced another name for the same group, "Urochorda", to emphasize the affinity of the group to other chordates. No doubt largely because of his influence, various authors supported the term, either as such, or as the slightly older "Urochordata", but this usage is invalid because "Tunicata" has precedence, and grounds for superseding the name never existed. Accordingly, the current (formally correct) trend is to abandon the name Urochorda or Urochordata in favour of the original Tunicata, and the name Tunicata is almost invariably used in modern scientific works. It is accepted as valid by the World Register of Marine Species but not by the Integrated Taxonomic Information System.

Various common names are used for different species. Sea tulips are tunicates with colourful bodies supported on slender stalks. Sea squirts are so named because of their habit of contracting their bodies sharply and squirting out water when disturbed. Sea liver and sea pork get their names from the resemblance of their dead colonies to pieces of meat.

Classification
Tunicates are more closely related to craniates (including hagfish, lampreys, and jawed vertebrates) than to lancelets, echinoderms, hemichordates, Xenoturbella or other invertebrates.

The clade consisting of tunicates and vertebrates is called Olfactores.

The Tunicata contain roughly 3,051 described species, traditionally divided into these classes:
 * Ascidiacea (Aplousobranchia, Phlebobranchia, and Stolidobranchia)
 * Thaliacea (Pyrosomida, Doliolida, and Salpida)
 * Appendicularia (Copelata)

Members of the Sorberacea were included in Ascidiacea in 2011 as a result of rDNA sequencing studies. Although the traditional classification is provisionally accepted, newer evidence suggests the Ascidiacea are an artificial group of paraphyletic status. A close reationship between Thaliacea and Ascidiacea, with the former possibly emerging from the latter, had already been proposed since the early 20th century under the name of Acopa.

The following cladogram is based on the 2018 phylogenomic study of Delsuc and colleagues.

Fossil record
Undisputed fossils of tunicates are rare. The best known and earliest unequivocally identified species is Shankouclava shankouense from the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan Shale at Shankou village, Anning, near Kunming (South China). There is also a common bioimmuration, (Catellocaula vallata), of a possible tunicate found in Upper Ordovician bryozoan skeletons of the upper midwestern United States. A well-preserved Cambrian fossil, Megasiphon thylakos, shows that the tunicate basic body design had already been established 500 million years ago.

Three enigmatic species were also found from the Ediacaran period – Ausia fenestrata from the Nama Group of Namibia, the sac-like Yarnemia ascidiformis, and one from a second new Ausia-like genus from the Onega Peninsula of northern Russia, Burykhia hunti. Results of a new study have shown possible affinity of these Ediacaran organisms to the ascidians. Ausia and Burykhia lived in shallow coastal waters slightly more than 555 to 548 million years ago, and are believed to be the oldest evidence of the chordate lineage of metazoans. The Russian Precambrian fossil Yarnemia is identified as a tunicate only tentatively, because its fossils are nowhere near as well-preserved as those of Ausia and Burykhia, so this identification has been questioned.

Fossils of tunicates are rare because their bodies decay soon after death, but in some tunicate families, microscopic spicules are present, which may be preserved as microfossils. These spicules have occasionally been found in Jurassic and later rocks, but, as few palaeontologists are familiar with them, they may have been mistaken for sponge spicules.

In Permian and Triassic there were also forms with a calcareous exoskeleton. At first they were mistaken for corals.

Hybridization studies
A multi-taxon molecular study in 2010 proposed that sea squirts are descended from a hybrid between a chordate and a protostome ancestor (before the divergence of panarthropods and nematodes). This study was based on a quartet partitioning approach designed to reveal horizontal gene transfer events among metazoan phyla.

Body form
Colonies of tunicates occur in a range of forms, and vary in the degree to which individual organisms, known as zooids, integrate with one another. In the simplest systems, the individual animals are widely separated, but linked together by horizontal connections called stolons, which grow along the seabed. Other species have the zooids growing closer together in a tuft or clustered together and sharing a common base. The most advanced colonies involve the integration of the zooids into a common structure surrounded by the tunic. These may have separate buccal siphons and a single central atrial siphon and may be organized into larger systems, with hundreds of star-shaped units. Often, the zooids in a colony are tiny but very numerous, and the colonies can form large encrusting or mat-like patches.

Body structure
By far the largest class of tunicates is the Ascidiacea. The body of an ascidiacean is surrounded by a test or tunic, from which the subphylum derives its name. This varies in thickness between species but may be tough, resembling cartilage, thin and delicate, or transparent and gelatinous. The tunic is composed of proteins, crosslinked by phenoloxidase reaction, and complex carbohydrates, and includes tunicin, a variety of cellulose. The tunic is unique among invertebrate exoskeletons in that it can grow as the animal enlarges and does not need to be periodically shed. Inside the tunic is the body wall or mantle composed of connective tissue, muscle fibres, blood vessels, and nerves. Two openings are found in the body wall: the buccal siphon at the top through which water flows into the interior, and the atrial siphon on the ventral side through which it is expelled. A large pharynx occupies most of the interior of the body. It is a muscular tube linking the buccal opening with the rest of the gut. It has a ciliated groove known as an endostyle on its ventral surface, and this secretes a mucous net which collects food particles and is wound up on the dorsal side of the pharynx. The gullet, at the lower end of the pharynx, links it to a loop of gut which terminates near the atrial siphon. The walls of the pharynx are perforated by several bands of slits, known as stigmata, through which water escapes into the surrounding water-filled cavity, the atrium. This is criss-crossed by various rope-like mesenteries which extend from the mantle and provide support for the pharynx, preventing it from collapsing, and also hold up the other organs.

The Thaliacea, the other main class of tunicates, is characterised by free-swimming, pelagic individuals. They are all filter feeders using a pharyngeal mucous net to catch their prey. The pyrosomes are bioluminous colonial tunicates with a hollow cylindrical structure. The buccal siphons are on the outside and the atrial siphons inside. About 10 species are known, and all are found in the tropics. The 23 species of doliolids are small, mostly under 2 cm long. They are solitary, have the two siphons at opposite ends of their barrel-shaped bodies, and swim by jet propulsion. The 40 species of salps are also small, under 4 cm long, and found in the surface waters of both warm and cold seas. They also move by jet propulsion, and often form long chains by budding off new individuals.

A third class, the Larvacea (or Appendicularia), is the only group of tunicates to retain their chordate characteristics in the adult state, a product of extensive neoteny. The 70 species of larvaceans superficially resemble the tadpole larvae of amphibians, although the tail is at right angles to the body. The notochord is retained, and the animals, mostly under 1 cm long, are propelled by undulations of the tail. They secrete an external mucous net known as a house, which may completely surround them and is very efficient at trapping planktonic particles.

Physiology and internal anatomy

Like all other chordates, tunicates have a notochord during their early development, but it is lost by the time they have completed their metamorphosis. As members of the Chordata, they are true Coelomata with endoderm, ectoderm, and mesoderm, but they do not develop very clear coelomic body cavities, if any at all. Whether they do or not, by the end of their larval development, all that remain are the pericardial, renal, and gonadal cavities of the adults. Except for the heart, gonads, and pharynx (or branchial sac), the organs are enclosed in a membrane called an epicardium, which is surrounded by the jelly-like mesenchyme.

Ascidian tunicates begin life as a lecithotrophic (non-feeding) mobile larva that resembles a tadpole, with the exception of some members of the families Styelidae and Molgulidae which has direct development. The latter also have several species with tail-less larval forms. The ascidian larvae very rapidly settle down and attach themselves to a suitable surface, later developing into a barrel-like and usually sedentary adult form. The species in the class Appendicularia are pelagic, and the general larval form is kept throughout life. Also the class Thaliacea is pelagic throughout their lives and may have complex lifecycles. In this class a free living larval stage is absent: Doliolids and pyrosomatids are viviparous–lecithotrophic, and salpids are viviparous–matrotrophic. Only some species of doliolids still have a rudimentary tailed tadpole stage, which is never free-living and lacks a brain.

Tunicates have a well-developed heart and circulatory system. The heart is a double U-shaped tube situated just below the gut. The blood vessels are simple connective tissue tubes, and their blood has several types of corpuscle. The blood may appear pale green, but this is not due to any respiratory pigments, and oxygen is transported dissolved in the plasma. Exact details of the circulatory system are unclear, but the gut, pharynx, gills, gonads, and nervous system seem to be arranged in series rather than in parallel, as happens in most other animals. Every few minutes, the heart stops beating and then restarts, pumping fluid in the reverse direction.

Tunicate blood has some unusual features. In some species of Ascidiidae and Perophoridae, it contains high concentrations of the transitional metal vanadium and vanadium-associated proteins in vacuoles in blood cells known as vanadocytes. Some tunicates can concentrate vanadium up to a level ten million times that of the surrounding seawater. It is stored in a +3 oxidation form that requires a pH of less than 2 for stability, and this is achieved by the vacuoles also containing sulfuric acid. The vanadocytes are later deposited just below the outer surface of the tunic, where their presence is thought to deter predation, although it is unclear whether this is due to the presence of the metal or low pH. Other species of tunicates concentrate lithium, iron, niobium, and tantalum, which may serve a similar function. Other tunicate species produce distasteful organic compounds as chemical defenses against predators.

Tunicates lack the kidney-like metanephridial organs typical of deuterostomes. Most have no excretory structures, but rely on the diffusion of ammonia across their tissues to rid themselves of nitrogenous waste, though some have a simple excretory system. The typical renal organ is a mass of large clear-walled vesicles that occupy the rectal loop, and the structure has no duct. Each vesicle is a remnant of a part of the primitive coelom, and its cells extract nitrogenous waste matter from circulating blood. They accumulate the wastes inside the vesicles as urate crystals, and do not have any obvious means of disposing of the material during their lifetimes.

Adult tunicates have a hollow cerebral ganglion, equivalent to a brain, and a hollow structure known as a neural gland. Both originate from the embryonic neural tube and are located between the two siphons. Nerves arise from the two ends of the ganglion; those from the anterior end innervate the buccal siphon and those from the posterior end supply the rest of the body, the atrial siphon, organs, gut and the musculature of the body wall. There are no sense organs but there are sensory cells on the siphons, the buccal tentacles and in the atrium.

Tunicates are unusual among animals in that they produce a large fraction of their tunic and some other structures in the form of cellulose. The production in animals of cellulose is so unusual that at first some researchers denied its presence outside of plants, but the tunicates were later found to possess a functional cellulose synthesizing enzyme, encoded by a gene horizontally transferred from a bacterium. When, in 1845, Carl Schmidt first announced the presence in the test of some ascidians of a substance very similar to cellulose, he called it "tunicine", but it is now recognized as cellulose rather than any alternative substance.

Feeding

Nearly all adult tunicates are suspension feeders (the larval form usually does not feed), capturing planktonic particles by filtering sea water through their bodies. Ascidians are typical in their digestive processes, but other tunicates have similar systems. Water is drawn into the body through the buccal siphon by the action of cilia lining the gill slits. To obtain enough food, an average ascidian needs to process one body-volume of water per second. This is drawn through a net lining the pharynx which is being continuously secreted by the endostyle. The net is made of sticky mucus threads with holes about 0.5 μm in diameter which can trap planktonic particles including bacteria. The net is rolled up on the dorsal side of the pharynx, and it and the trapped particles are drawn into the esophagus. The gut is U-shaped and also ciliated to move the contents along. The stomach is an enlarged region at the lowest part of the U-bend. Here, digestive enzymes are secreted and a pyloric gland (absent in appendicularians) adds further secretions. After digestion, the food is moved on through the intestine, where absorption takes place, and the rectum, where undigested remains are formed into faecal pellets or strings. The anus opens into the dorsal or cloacal part of the peribranchial cavity near the atrial siphon. Here, the faeces are caught up by the constant stream of water which carries the waste to the exterior. The animal orientates itself to the current in such a way that the buccal siphon is always upstream and does not draw in contaminated water.

Some ascidians that live on soft sediments are detritivores. A few deepwater species, such as Megalodicopia hians, are sit-and-wait predators, trapping tiny crustacea, nematodes, and other small invertebrates with the muscular lobes which surround their buccal siphons. Certain tropical species in the family Didemnidae have symbiotic green algae or cyanobacteria in their tunics, and one of these symbionts, Prochloron, is unique to tunicates. Excess photosynthetic products are assumed to be available to the host.

Life cycle

Ascidians are almost all hermaphrodites and each has a single ovary and testis, either near the gut or on the body wall. In some solitary species, sperm and eggs are shed into the sea and the larvae are planktonic. In others, especially colonial species, sperm is released into the water and drawn into the atria of other individuals with the incoming water current. Fertilization takes place here and the eggs are brooded through their early developmental stages. Some larval forms appear very much like primitive chordates with a notochord (stiffening rod) and superficially resemble small tadpoles. These swim by undulations of the tail and may have a simple eye, an ocellus, and a balancing organ, a statocyst.

When sufficiently developed, the larva of the sessile species finds a suitable rock and cements itself in place. The larval form is not capable of feeding, though it may have a rudimentary digestive system, and is only a dispersal mechanism. Many physical changes occur to the tunicate's body during metamorphosis, one of the most significant being the reduction of the cerebral ganglion, which controls movement and is the equivalent of the vertebrate brain. From this comes the common saying that the sea squirt "eats its own brain". However, the adult does possess a cerebral ganglion adapted to lack of self-locomotion. In the Thaliacea, the larval stage is rudimentary or suppressed, and the adults are pelagic (swimming or drifting in the open sea). Colonial forms also increase the size of the colony by budding off new individuals to share the same tunic.

Pyrosome colonies grow by budding off new zooids near the posterior end of the colony. Sexual reproduction starts within a zooid with an internally fertilized egg. This develops directly into an oozooid without any intervening larval form. This buds precociously to form four blastozooids which become detached in a single unit when the oozoid disintegrates. The atrial siphon of the oozoid becomes the exhalent siphon for the new, four-zooid colony.

Doliolids have a very complex life cycle that includes various zooids with different functions. The sexually reproducing members of the colony are known as gonozooids. Each one is a hermaphrodite with the eggs being fertilised by sperm from another individual. The gonozooid is viviparous, and at first, the developing embryo feeds on its yolk sac before being released into the sea as a free-swimming, tadpole-like larva. This undergoes metamorphosis in the water column into an oozooid. This is known as a "nurse" as it develops a tail of zooids produced by budding asexually. Some of these are known as trophozooids, have a nutritional function, and are arranged in lateral rows. Others are phorozooids, have a transport function, and are arranged in a single central row. Other zooids link to the phorozooids, which then detach themselves from the nurse. These zooids develop into gonozooids, and when these are mature, they separate from the phorozooids to live independently and start the cycle over again. Meanwhile, the phorozooids have served their purpose and disintegrate. The asexual phase in the lifecycle allows the doliolid to multiply very rapidly when conditions are favourable.

Salps also have a complex lifecycle with an alternation of generations. In the solitary life history phase, an oozoid reproduces asexually, producing a chain of tens or hundreds of individual zooids by budding along the length of a stolon. The chain of salps is the 'aggregate' portion of the lifecycle. The aggregate individuals, known as blastozooids, remain attached together while swimming and feeding and growing larger. The blastozooids are sequential hermaphrodites. An egg in each is fertilized internally by a sperm from another colony. The egg develops in a brood sac inside the blastozooid and has a placental connection to the circulating blood of its "nurse". When it fills the blastozooid's body, it is released to start the independent life of an oozooid.

Larvaceans only reproduce sexually. They are protandrous hermaphrodites, except for Oikopleura dioica which is gonochoric, and a larva resembles the tadpole larva of ascidians. Once the trunk is fully developed, the larva undergoes "tail shift", in which the tail moves from a rearward position to a ventral orientation and twists through 90° relative to the trunk. The larva consists of a small, fixed number of cells, and grows by enlargement of these rather than cell division. Development is very rapid and only takes seven hours for a zygote to develop into a house-building juvenile starting to feed.

During embryonic development, tunicates exhibit determinate cleavage, where the fate of the cells is set early on with reduced cell numbers and genomes that are rapidly evolving. In contrast, the amphioxus and vertebrates show cell determination relatively late in development and cell cleavage is indeterminate. The genome evolution of amphioxus and vertebrates is also relatively slow.

Promotion of out-crossing
Ciona intestinalis (class Ascidiacea) is a hermaphrodite that releases sperm and eggs into the surrounding seawater almost simultaneously. It is self-sterile, and thus has been used for studies on the mechanism of self-incompatibility. Self/non-self-recognition molecules play a key role in the process of interaction between sperm and the vitelline coat of the egg. It appears that self/non-self recognition in ascidians such as C. intestinalis is mechanistically similar to self-incompatibility systems in flowering plants. Self-incompatibility promotes out-crossing, and thus provides the adaptive advantage at each generation of the masking of deleterious recessive mutations (i.e. genetic complementation) and the avoidance of inbreeding depression.

Botryllus schlosseri (class Ascidiacea) is a colonial tunicate, a member of the only group of chordates that are able to reproduce both sexually and asexually. B. schlosseri is a sequential (protogynous) hermaphrodite, and in a colony, eggs are ovulated about two days before the peak of sperm emission. Thus self-fertilization is avoided, and cross-fertilization is favored. Although avoided, self-fertilization is still possible in B. schlosseri. Self-fertilized eggs develop with a substantially higher frequency of anomalies during cleavage than cross-fertilized eggs (23% vs. 1.6%). Also a significantly lower percentage of larvae derived from self-fertilized eggs metamorphose, and the growth of the colonies derived from their metamorphosis is significantly lower. These findings suggest that self-fertilization gives rise to inbreeding depression associated with developmental deficits that are likely caused by expression of deleterious recessive mutations.

A model tunicate
Oikopleura dioica (class Appendicularia) is a semelparous organism, reproducing only once in its lifetime. It employs an original reproductive strategy in which the entire female germ-line is contained within an ovary that is a single giant multinucleate cell termed the "coenocyst". O. dioica can be maintained in laboratory culture, and is of growing interest as a model organism because of its phylogenetic position within the closest sister group to vertebrates.

Invasive species
Over the past few decades, tunicates (notably of the genera Didemnum and Styela) have been invading coastal waters in many countries. The carpet tunicate (Didemnum vexillum) has taken over a 6.5 mi2 area of the seabed on the Georges Bank off the northeast coast of North America, covering stones, molluscs, and other stationary objects in a dense mat. D. vexillum, Styela clava and Ciona savignyi have appeared and are thriving in Puget Sound and Hood Canal in the Pacific Northwest.

Invasive tunicates usually arrive as fouling organisms on the hulls of ships, but may also be introduced as larvae in ballast water. Another possible means of introduction is on the shells of molluscs brought in for marine cultivation. Current research indicates many tunicates previously thought to be indigenous to Europe and the Americas are, in fact, invaders. Some of these invasions may have occurred centuries or even millennia ago. In some areas, tunicates are proving to be a major threat to aquaculture operations.

Medical uses
Tunicates contain a host of potentially useful chemical compounds, including: Tunicates are able to correct their own cellular abnormalities over a series of generations, and a similar regenerative process may be possible for humans. The mechanisms underlying the phenomenon may lead to insights about the potential of cells and tissues to be reprogrammed and to regenerate compromised human organs.
 * Plitidepsin, a didemnin effective against various types of cancer; as of late January 2021 undergoing Phase III trials as a treatment for COVID-19
 * Trabectedin, an FDA approved anticancer drug.

As food

Various Ascidiacea species are consumed as food around the world. The piure (Pyura chilensis) is used in the cuisine of Chile, both raw and in seafood stews. In Japan and Korea, the sea pineapple (Halocynthia roretzi) is the main species eaten. It is cultivated on dangling cords made of palm fronds. In 1994, over 42,000 tons were produced, but since then, mass mortality events have occurred among the farmed sea squirts (the tunics becoming soft), and only 4,500 tons were produced in 2004.

Other uses
The use of tunicates as a source of biofuel is being researched. The cellulose body wall can be broken down and converted into ethanol, and other parts of the animal are protein-rich and can be converted into fish feed. Culturing tunicates on a large scale may be possible and the economics of doing so are attractive. As tunicates have few predators, their removal from the sea may not have profound ecological impacts. Being sea-based, their production does not compete with food production as does the cultivation of land-based crops for biofuel projects.

Some tunicates are used as model organisms. Ciona intestinalis and Ciona savignyi have been used for developmental studies. Both species' mitochondrial and nuclear  genomes have been sequenced. The nuclear genome of the appendicularian Oikopleura dioica appears to be one of the smallest among metazoans and this species has been used to study gene regulation and the evolution and development of chordates.

title: Tunicate


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President of Botswana

The president of the Republic of Botswana is the head of state and the head of government of Botswana, as well as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, according to the Constitution of Botswana. Sir Seretse Khama was the prime minister from 1965 to 1966, however he later became president of Botswana, and as of 2024 there have been no prime ministers since.

Presidential term
The president is elected to a five-year term that runs concurrently with the term of the National Assembly. In 1997, Quett Masire created the Botswana presidential term limit. The tenure of presidency has been limited to a total of 10 years (equivalent to two full terms), whether successive or separated. The first president for whom the term limits applied was Festus Mogae in 2008. Each president gets a guaranteed pension.

Election
The president is elected by the Members of the National Assembly following a general election. All candidates for the National Assembly declare whom they endorse for president when they lodge their nomination papers, and the candidate who receives a majority of endorsements from the elected members of the National Assembly is automatically elected. If no candidate receives a majority of endorsements, the National Assembly elects the president by simple majority, before it co-opts the specially elected members. If no president is elected after three ballots, or if the Speaker determines that no candidate has enough support to be elected, the legislature is automatically dissolved. In practice, the president is the leader of the majority party in the Assembly.

Presidents of Botswana (1966–present)
{{legend||Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}}
 * Political parties

Died in office
 * Symbols

Lifespan timeline of presidents of Botswana
This is a graphical lifespan timeline of presidents of Botswana. The presidents are listed in order of office.

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

title: President of Botswana


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Two-tone

Two-tone, two tone, or 2 tone, etc., may refer to:

Audio and sound

 * Two-tone analysis, in nonlinear system measurement
 * Two-tone attention signal
 * Two-tone chime, such as the "ding dong" sound of a doorbell
 * Two-tone sequential paging, selective calling method in analog 2-way radio transmission
 * Two-tone siren, a European type of siren

Language

 * Two-tone language
 * Diphthong (Greek for two tones), in linguistics, a gliding vowel

Music

 * Two-tone (music genre), music genre
 * 2 Tone Records, record label
 * Two Tone Club, French ska band
 * "Two-Tone" Tommy, bass musician

Other

 * Two-tone color, such as RG color space
 * Two-tone paint
 * Two-tone pattern
 * Two-toned lobsterette
 * Two-Tone, dalmatian dog in the 2003 animated film 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure and 1996 remake
 * Two-tone testing, a test in radio systems for intermodulation distortion

title: Two-tone


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List of heads of state of Burkina Faso

This is a list of heads of state of Burkina Faso since the Republic of Upper Volta gained independence from France in 1960 to the present day.

A total of seven people have served as head of state of Upper Volta/Burkina Faso (not counting four Transitional Heads of State/Presidents and one Acting President in rebellion).

The current head of state of Burkina Faso is Interim President Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, who took power during a coup d'état on 30 September 2022.

Term limits
As of 2021, there is a two-term limit for the president in the Constitution of Burkina Faso. The term limit has not been met by any president yet.

Titles

 * 1960–1980: President of the Republic
 * 1980–1982: President of Military Committee of Recovery for National Progress
 * 1982   : Chairman of Provisional Committee of Popular Salvation
 * 1982–1983: Head of State
 * 1983–1987: Chairman of National Revolutionary Council and Head of State
 * 1987–1991: President of Popular Front and Head of State
 * 1991–2014: President of the Republic
 * 2015   : Chairman of National Council for Democracy
 * 2015–2022: President of the Republic
 * 2022   : President of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration
 * 2022–present: President of the Republic

List of officeholders
{{legend||Voltaic Democratic Union – African Democratic Rally (UDV–RDA)|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}} {{legend|Red|Popular Front (FP)|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}} {{legend||Organization for Popular Democracy – Labour Movement (ODP–MT)|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}} {{legend||Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP)|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}} {{legend||People's Movement for Progress (MPP)|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}}
 * Political parties

{{legend||Military|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}} {{legend||Independent|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}}
 * Other factions

{{legend|#E6E6AA|Transitional Head of State/President|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}} {{legend|#C0C0C0|Acting President in dispute|border=1px solid #AAAAAA}}
 * Status

title: List of heads of state of Burkina Faso


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Equites

The equites (lit. 'horse' or 'cavalrymen', though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques.

Description
During the Roman Kingdom and the first century of the Roman Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, who were expected to provide six centuriae of cavalry (300 horses for each consular legion). Around 400BC, 12 more centuriae of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians (plebeians). Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the normal annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 centuriae. These new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the Centuriate Assembly organisation, and were not granted the same privileges.

By the time of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC), all the members of the first class of commoners were required to serve as cavalrymen. The presence of equites in the Roman cavalry diminished steadily in the period 200–88 BC as only equites could serve as the army's senior officers; as the number of legions proliferated fewer were available for ordinary cavalry service. After c. 88 BC, equites were no longer drafted into the legionary cavalry, although they remained technically liable to such service throughout the Principate era (to 284 AD). They continued to supply the senior officers of the army throughout the Principate.

With the exception of the purely hereditary patricians, the equites were originally defined by a property threshold. The rank was passed from father to son, although members of the order who at the regular quinquennial (every five years) census no longer met the property requirement were usually removed from the order's rolls by the Roman censors. In the late republic, the property threshold stood at 50,000 denarii and was doubled to 100,000 by the emperor Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – 14 AD) – roughly the equivalent to the annual salaries of 450 contemporary legionaries. In the later republican period, Roman senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order.

Under Augustus, the senatorial elite was given formal status (as the ordo senatorius) with a higher wealth threshold (250,000 denarii, or the pay of 1,100 legionaries) and superior rank and privileges to ordinary equites. During the Principate, equites filled the senior administrative and military posts of the imperial government. There was a clear division between jobs reserved for senators (the most senior) and those reserved for non-senatorial equites. But the career structure of both groups was broadly similar: a period of junior administrative posts in Rome or Roman Italy, followed by a period (normally a decade) of military service as a senior army officer, followed by senior administrative or military posts in the provinces. Senators and equites formed a tiny elite of under 10,000 members who monopolised political, military and economic power in an empire of about 60 million inhabitants.

During the 3rd century AD, power shifted from the Italian aristocracy to a class of equites who had earned their membership by distinguished military service, often rising from the ranks: career military officers from the provinces (especially the Balkan provinces) who displaced the Italian aristocrats in the top military posts, and under Diocletian (ruled 284–305) from the top civilian positions also. This effectively reduced the Italian aristocracy to an idle, but immensely wealthy, group of landowners. During the 4th century, the status of equites was debased to insignificance by excessive grants of the rank. At the same time the ranks of senators were swollen to over 4,000 by the establishment of the Byzantine Senate (a second senate in Constantinople) and the tripling of the membership of both senates. The senatorial order of the 4th century was thus the equivalent of the equestrian order of the Principate.

Regal era (753–509 BC)
According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, in 753 BC. However, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state (as opposed to a number of separate hilltop settlements) until c. 625BC.

Roman tradition relates that the Order of Knights was founded by Romulus, who supposedly established a cavalry regiment of 300 men called the Celeres ("Swift Squadron") to act as his personal escort, with each of the three Roman "tribes" (actually voting constituencies) supplying 100 horses. This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (traditional dates 616–578 BC). That the cavalry was increased to 600 during the regal era is plausible, as in the early republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong (two legions with 300 horses each). However, according to Livy, King Servius Tullius (traditional reign-dates 578–535 BC) established a further 12 centuriae of equites, a further tripling of the cavalry. Yet this was probably anachronistic, as it would have resulted in a contingent of 1,800 horse, incongruously large, compared to the heavy infantry, which was probably only 6,000 strong in the late regal period. Instead, the additional 12 centuriae were probably created at a later stage, perhaps around 400 BC, but these new units were political not military, most likely designed to admit plebeians to the Order of Knights.

Apparently, equites were originally provided with a sum of money by the state to purchase a horse for military service and for its fodder. This was known as an equus publicus.

Theodor Mommsen argues that the royal cavalry was drawn exclusively from the ranks of the patricians (patricii), the aristocracy of early Rome, which was purely hereditary. Apart from the traditional association of the aristocracy with horsemanship, the evidence for this view is the fact that, during the republic, six centuriae (voting constituencies) of equites in the comitia centuriata (electoral assembly) retained the names of the original six royal cavalry centuriae. These are very likely the "centuriae of patrician nobles" in the comitia mentioned by the lexicologist Sextus Pompeius Festus. If this view is correct, it implies that the cavalry was exclusively patrician (and therefore hereditary) in the regal period. (However, Cornell considers the evidence tenuous).

Early Republic (509–338 BC)
It is widely accepted that the Roman monarchy was overthrown by a patrician coup, probably provoked by the Tarquin dynasty's populist policies in favour of the plebeian class. Alfoldi suggests that the coup was carried out by the celeres themselves. According to the Fraccaro interpretation, when the Roman monarchy was replaced with two annually elected praetores (later called "consuls"), the royal army was divided equally between them for campaigning purposes, which, if true, explains why Polybius later said that a legion's cavalry contingent was 300 strong.

The 12 additional centuriae ascribed by Livy to Servius Tullius were, in reality, probably formed around 400 BC. In 403 BC, according to Livy, in a crisis during the siege of Veii, the army urgently needed to deploy more cavalry, and "those who possessed equestrian rating but had not yet been assigned public horses" volunteered to pay for their horses out of their own pockets. By way of compensation, pay was introduced for cavalry service, as it had already been for the infantry (in 406 BC).

The persons referred to in this passage were probably members of the 12 new centuriae who were entitled to public horses, but temporarily waived that privilege. Mommsen, however, argues that the passage refers to members of the first class of commoners being admitted to cavalry service in 403 BC for the first time as an emergency measure. If so, this group may be the original so-called equites equo privato, a rank that is attested throughout the history of the republic (in contrast to equites equo publico). However, due to a lack of evidence, the origins and definition of equo privato equites remain obscure.

It is widely agreed that the 12 new centuriae were open to non-patricians. Thus, from this date if not earlier, not all equites were patricians. The patricians, as a closed hereditary caste, steadily diminished in numbers over the centuries, as families died out. Around 450 BC, there are some 50 patrician gentes (clans) recorded, whereas just 14 remained at the time of Julius Caesar (dictator of Rome 48–44 BC), whose own Iulii clan was patrician.

In contrast, the ranks of equites, although also hereditary (in the male line), were open to new entrants who met the property requirement and who satisfied the Roman censors that they were suitable for membership. As a consequence, patricians rapidly became only a small minority of the equestrian order. However, patricians retained political influence greatly out of proportion with their numbers. Until 172 BC, one of the two consuls elected each year had to be a patrician.

In addition, patricians may have retained their original six centuriae, which gave them a third of the total voting-power of the equites, even though they constituted only a tiny minority of the order by 200 BC. Patricians also enjoyed official precedence, such as the right to speak first in senatorial debates, which were initiated by the princeps senatus (Leader of the Senate), a position reserved for patricians. In addition, patricians monopolized certain priesthoods and continued to enjoy enormous prestige.

Transformation of state and army (338–290)
The period following the end of the Latin War (340–338 BC) and of the Samnite Wars (343–290) saw the transformation of the Roman Republic from a powerful but beleaguered city-state into the hegemonic power of the Italian peninsula. This was accompanied by profound changes in its constitution and army. Internally, the critical development was the emergence of the Senate as the all-powerful organ of state.

By 280 BC, the Senate had assumed total control of state taxation, expenditure, declarations of war, treaties, raising of legions, establishing colonies and religious affairs, in other words, of virtually all political power. From an ad hoc group of advisors appointed by the consuls, the Senate had become a permanent body of around 300 life peers who, as largely former Roman magistrates, boasted enormous experience and influence. At the same time, the political unification of the Latin nation, under Roman rule after 338 BC, gave Rome a populous regional base from which to launch its wars of aggression against its neighbours.

The gruelling contest for Italian hegemony that Rome fought against the Samnite League led to the transformation of the Roman army from the Greek-style hoplite phalanx that it was in the early period, to the Italian-style manipular army described by Polybius. It is believed that the Romans copied the manipular structure from their enemies the Samnites, learning through hard experience its greater flexibility and effectiveness in the mountainous terrain of central Italy.

It is also from this period that every Roman army that took the field was regularly accompanied by at least as many troops supplied by the socii (Rome's Italian military confederates, often referred to as "Latin allies"). Each legion would be matched by a confederate ala (literally: "wing"), a formation that contained roughly the same number of infantry as a legion, but three times the number of horses (900).

Legionary cavalry also probably underwent a transformation during this period, from the light, unarmoured horsemen of the early period to the Greek-style armoured cuirassiers described by Polybius. As a result of the demands of the Samnite hostilities, a normal consular army was doubled in size to two legions, making four legions raised annually overall. Roman cavalry in the field thus increased to approximately 1,200 horses.

This now represented only 25% of the army's total cavalry contingent, the rest being supplied by the Italian confederates. A legion's modest cavalry share of 7% of its 4,500 total strength was thus increased to 12% in a confederate army, comparable with (or higher than) any other forces in Italy except the Gauls and also similar to those in Greek armies such as Pyrrhus's.

Political role
Despite an ostensibly democratic constitution based on the sovereignty of the people, the Roman Republic was in reality a classic oligarchy, in which political power was monopolised by the richest social echelon. Probably by 300 BC, the centuriate organisation of the Roman citizen body for political purposes achieved the evolved form described by Polybius and Livy. The comitia centuriata was the most powerful people's assembly, as it promulgated Roman laws and annually elected the Roman magistrates, the executive officers of the state: consuls, praetors, aediles and quaestors.

In the assembly, the citizen body was divided into 193 centuriae, or voting constituencies. Of these, 18 were allocated to equites (including patricians) and a further 80 to the first class of commoners, securing an absolute majority of the votes (98 out of 193) for the wealthiest echelon of society, although it constituted only a small minority of the citizenry. (The lowest class, the proletarii, rated at under 400 drachmae, had just one vote, despite being the most numerous).

As a result, the wealthiest echelon could ensure that the elected magistrates were always their own members. In turn, this ensured that the senate was dominated by the wealthy classes, as its membership was composed almost entirely of current and former magistrates.

Military officer role

In the "polybian" army of the mid-republic (338 – 88 BC), equites held the exclusive right to serve as senior officers of the army. These were the six tribuni militum in each legion who were elected by the comitia at the start of each campaigning season and took turns to command the legion in pairs; the praefecti sociorum, commanders of the Italian confederate alae, who were appointed by the consuls; and the three decurions that led each squadron (turma) of legionary cavalry (a total of 30 decurions per legion).

Cavalry role
As their name implies, equites were liable to cavalry service in the legion of the mid-republic. They originally provided a legion's entire cavalry contingent, although from an early stage (probably from c. 400 and not later than c. 300 BC), when equestrian numbers had become insufficient, large numbers of young men from the first class of commoners were regularly volunteering for the service, which was considered more glamorous than the infantry.

The cavalry role of equites dwindled after the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), as the number of equestrians became insufficient to provide the senior officers of the army and general cavalrymen as well. Equites became exclusively an officer-class, with the first class of commoners providing the legionary cavalry.

Ethos
From the earliest times and throughout the Republican period, Roman equites subscribed, in their role as Roman cavalrymen, to an ethos of personal heroism and glory. This was motivated by the desire to justify their privileged status to the lower classes that provided the infantry ranks, to enhance the renown of their family name, and to augment their chances of subsequent political advancement in a martial society. For equites, a focus of the heroic ethos was the quest for spolia opima, the stripped armour and weapons of a foe whom they had killed in single combat. There are many recorded instances. For example, Servilius Geminus Pulex, who went on to become Consul in 202 BC, was reputed to have gained spolia 23 times.

The higher the rank of the opponent killed in combat, the more prestigious the spolia, and none more so than spolia duci hostium detracta, spoils taken from an enemy leader himself. Many equites attempted to gain such an honour, but very few succeeded for the reason that enemy leaders were always surrounded by large numbers of elite bodyguards.

One successful attempt, but with a tragic twist, was that of the decurion Titus Manlius Torquatus in 340 BC during the Latin War. Despite strict orders from the consuls (one of whom was his own father) not to engage the enemy, Manlius could not resist accepting a personal challenge from the commander of the Tusculan cavalry, which his squadron encountered while on reconnaissance. There ensued a fiercely contested joust with the opposing squadrons as spectators. Manlius won, spearing his adversary after the latter was thrown by his horse. But when the triumphant young man presented the spoils to his father, the latter ordered his son's immediate execution for disobeying orders. "Orders of Manlius" (Manliana imperia) became a proverbial army term for orders that must on no account be disregarded.

Business activities
In 218 BC, the lex Claudia restricted the commercial activity of senators and their sons, on the grounds that it was incompatible with their status. Senators were prohibited from owning ships of greater capacity than 300 amphorae (about seven tonnes) – this being judged sufficient to carry the produce of their own landed estates but too small to conduct large-scale sea transportation.

From this time onwards, senatorial families mostly invested their capital in land. All other equestrians remained free to invest their wealth, greatly increased by the growth of Rome's overseas empire after the Second Punic War, in large-scale commercial enterprises including mining and industry, as well as land. Equestrians became especially prominent in tax farming and, by 100 BC, owned virtually all tax-farming companies (publicani).

During the late Republican era, the collection of most taxes was contracted out to private individuals or companies by competitive tender, with the contract for each province awarded to the publicanus who bid the highest advance to the state treasury on the estimated tax-take of the province. The publicanus would then attempt to recoup his advance, with the right to retain any surplus collected as his profit. This system frequently resulted in extortion from the common people of the provinces, as unscrupulous publicani often sought to maximise their profit by demanding a much higher rates of tax than originally set by the government. The provincial governors whose duty it was to curb illegal demands were often bribed into acquiescence by the publicani.

The system also led to political conflict between equites publicani and the majority of their fellow-equites, especially senators, who as large landowners wanted to minimise the tax on land outside Italy (tributum solis), which was the main source of state revenue. This system was terminated by the first Roman emperor, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – 14 AD), who transferred responsibility for tax collection from the publicani to provincial local authorities (civitates peregrinae). Although the latter also frequently employed private companies to collect their tax quotas, it was in their own interests to curb extortion. During the imperial era, tax collectors were generally paid an agreed percentage of the amount collected. equites publicani became prominent in banking activities such as money-lending and money-changing.

Privileges
The official dress of equestrians was the tunica angusticlavia (narrow-striped tunic), worn underneath the toga, in such a manner that the stripe over the right shoulder was visible (as opposed to the broad stripe worn by senators. ) equites bore the title eques Romanus, were entitled to wear an anulus aureus (gold ring) on their left hand, and, from 67 BC, enjoyed privileged seats at games and public functions (just behind those reserved for senators).

Differentiation of the senatorial order
The Senate as a body was formed of sitting senators, whose number was held at around 600 by the founder of the Principate, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – 14 AD) and his successors until 312. Senators' sons and further descendants technically retained equestrian rank unless and until they won a seat in the Senate. But Talbert argues that Augustus established the existing senatorial elite as a separate and superior order (ordo senatorius) to the equites for the first time. The evidence for this includes:
 * Augustus, for the first time, set a minimum property requirement for admission to the Senate, of 250,000 denarii, two and a half times the 100,000 denarii that he set for admission to the equestrian order.
 * Augustus, for the first time, allowed the sons of senators to wear the tunica laticlavia (tunic with broad purple stripes that was the official dress of senators) on reaching their majority even though they were not yet members of the Senate.
 * Senators' sons followed a separate cursus honorum (career-path) to other equites before entering the Senate: first an appointment as one of the vigintiviri ("Committee of Twenty", a body that included officials with a variety of minor administrative functions), or as an augur (priest), followed by at least a year in the military as tribunus militum laticlavius (deputy commander) of a legion. This post was normally held before the tribune had become a member of the Senate.
 * A marriage law of 18 BC (the lex Julia) seems to define not only senators but also their descendants unto the third generation (in the male line) as a distinct group. There was thus established a group of men with senatorial rank (senatorii) wider than just sitting senators (senatores).

A family's senatorial status depended not only on continuing to match the higher wealth qualification, but on their leading member holding a seat in the Senate. Failing either condition, the family would revert to ordinary knightly status. Although sons of sitting senators frequently won seats in the Senate, this was by no means guaranteed, as candidates often outnumbered the 20 seats available each year, leading to intense competition.

Ordo equester under Augustus
As regards the equestrian order, Augustus apparently abolished the rank of equo privato, according all its members equo publico status. In addition, Augustus organised the order in a quasi-military fashion, with members enrolled into six turmae (notional cavalry squadrons). The order's governing body were the seviri ("Committee of Six"), composed of the "commanders" of the turmae. In an attempt to foster an esprit de corps amongst the equites, Augustus revived a defunct republican ceremony, the recognitio equitum (inspection of the equites), in which equites paraded every five years with their horses before the consuls. At some stage during the early Principate, equites acquired the right to the title "egregius" ("distinguished gentleman"), while senators were styled "clarissimus", "most distinguished").

Beyond equites with equus publicus, Augustus' legislation permitted any Roman citizen who was assessed in an official census as meeting the property requirement of 100,000 denarii to use the title of eques and wear the narrow-striped tunic and gold ring. But such "property-qualified equites" were not apparently admitted to the ordo equester itself, but simply enjoyed equestrian status.

Only those granted an equus publicus by the emperor (or who inherited the status from their fathers) were enrolled in the order. Imperial equites were thus divided into two tiers: a few thousand mainly Italian equites equo publico, members of the order eligible to hold the public offices reserved for the equites; and a much larger group of wealthy Italians and provincials (estimated at 25,000 in the 2nd century) of equestrian status but outside the order.

Equestrians could in turn be elevated to senatorial rank (e.g., Pliny the Younger), but in practice this was much more difficult than elevation from commoner to equestrian rank. To join the upper order, not only was the candidate required to meet the minimum property requirement of 250,000 denarii, but also had to be elected a member of the Senate. There were two routes for this, both controlled by the emperor:
 * The normal route was election to the post of quaestor, the most junior magistracy (for which the minimum eligible age was 27 years), which carried automatic membership of the Senate. Twenty quaestors were appointed each year, a number that evidently broadly matched the average annual vacancies (caused by death or expulsion for misdemeanours or insufficient wealth) so that the 600-member limit was preserved. Under Augustus, senators' sons had the right to stand for election, while equestrians could only do so with the emperor's permission. Later in the Julio-Claudian period, the rule became established that all candidates required imperial leave. Previously conducted by the people's assembly (comitia centuriata), the election was in the hands, from the time of Tiberius onwards, of the Senate itself, whose sitting members inevitably favoured the sons of their colleagues. Since the latter alone often outnumbered the number of available places, equestrian candidates stood little chance unless they enjoyed the special support of the emperor.
 * The exceptional route was direct appointment to a Senate seat by the emperor (adlectio), technically using the powers of Roman censor (which also entitled him to expel members). Adlectio was, however, generally used sparingly in order not to breach the 600-member ceiling. It was chiefly resorted to in periods when Senate numbers became severely depleted, e.g. during the Civil War of 68–69, following which the emperor Vespasian made large-scale adlectiones.

Equestrian public careers
In public service, equites equo publico had their own version of the senatorial cursus honorum, or conventional career-path, which typically combined military and administrative posts. After an initial period of a few years in local government in their home regions as administrators (local aediles or duumviri) or as priests (augures), equites were required to serve as military officers for about 10 years before they would be appointed to senior administrative or military posts.

Equestrians exclusively provided the praefecti (commanders) of the imperial army's auxiliary regiments and five of the six tribuni militum (senior staff officers) in each legion. The standard equestrian officer progression was known as the "tres militiae" ("three services"): praefectus of a cohors (auxiliary infantry regiment), followed by tribunus militum in a legion, and finally praefectus of an ala (auxiliary cavalry regiment). From the time of Hadrian, a fourth militia was added for exceptionally gifted officers, commander of an ala milliaria (double-strength ala). Each post was held for three to four years.

Most of the top posts in the imperial administration were reserved for senators, who provided the governors of the larger provinces (except Egypt), the legati legionis (legion commanders) of all legions outside Egypt, and the praefectus urbi (prefect of the city of Rome), who controlled the cohortes urbanae (public order battalions), the only fully armed force in the city apart from the Praetorian Guard. Nevertheless, a wide range of senior administrative and military posts were created and reserved for equestrians by Augustus, though most ranked below the senatorial posts.

In the imperial administration, equestrian posts included that of the governorship (praefectus Augusti) of the province of Egypt, which was considered the most prestigious of all the posts open to equites, often the culmination of a long and distinguished career serving the state. In addition, equites were appointed to the governorship (procurator Augusti) of some smaller provinces and sub-provinces e.g. Judaea, whose governor was subordinate to the governor of Syria.

Equestrians were also the chief financial officers (also called procuratores Augusti) of the imperial provinces, and the deputy financial officers of senatorial provinces. At Rome, equestrians filled numerous senior administrative posts such as the emperor's secretaries of state (from the time of Claudius, e.g. correspondence and treasury) and the praefecti annonae (director of grain supplies).

In the military, equestrians provided the praefecti praetorio (commanders of the Praetorian Guard) who also acted as the emperor's chiefs of military staff. There were normally two of these, but at times irregular appointments resulted in just a single incumbent or even three at the same time. Equestrians also provided the praefecti classis (admirals commanding) of the two main imperial fleets at Misenum in the bay of Naples and at Ravenna on the Italian Adriatic coast. The command of Rome's fire brigade and minor constabulary, the vigiles, was likewise reserved for equites.

Not all equites followed the conventional career-path. Those equestrians who specialised in a legal or administrative career, providing judges (iudices) in Rome's law courts and state secretaries in the imperial government, were granted dispensation from military service by Emperor Hadrian (r. AD 117–138). At the same time, many equites became career military officers, remaining in the army for much longer than 10 years. After completing their tres militiae, some would continue to command auxiliary regiments, moving across units and provinces.

Already wealthy to start with, equites equo publico accumulated even greater riches through holding their reserved senior posts in the administration, which carried enormous salaries (although they were generally smaller than senatorial salaries). For example, the salaries of equestrian procuratores (fiscal and gubernatorial) ranged from 15,000 to a maximum of 75,000 denarii (for the governor of Egypt) per annum, whilst an equestrian praefectus of an auxiliary cohort was paid about 50 times as much as a common foot soldier (about 10,000 denarii). A praefectus could thus earn in one year the same as two of his auxiliary rankers combined earned during their entire 25-year service terms.

Relations with the emperor
It was suggested by ancient writers, and accepted by many modern historians, that Roman emperors trusted equestrians more than men of senatorial rank, and used the former as a political counterweight to the senators. According to this view, senators were often regarded as potentially less loyal and honest by the emperor, as they could become powerful enough, through the command of provincial legions, to launch coups.

They also had greater opportunities for peculation as provincial governors. Hence the appointment of equestrians to the most sensitive military commands. In Egypt, which supplied much of Italy's grain needs, the governor and the commanders of both provincial legions were drawn from the equestrian order, since placing a senator in a position to starve Italy was considered too risky.

The commanders of the Praetorian Guard, the principal military force close to the emperor at Rome, were also usually drawn from the equestrian order. Also cited in support of this view is the appointment of equestrian fiscal procuratores, reporting direct to the emperor, alongside senatorial provincial governors. These would supervise the collection of taxes and act as watchdogs to limit opportunities for corruption by the governors (as well as managing the imperial estates in the province).

According to Talbert, however, the evidence suggests that equites were no more loyal or less corrupt than senators. For example, c. 26 BC, the equestrian governor of Egypt, Cornelius Gallus, was recalled for politically suspect behaviour and sundry other misdemeanours. His conduct was deemed sufficiently serious by the Senate to warrant the maximum penalty of exile and confiscation of assets. Under Tiberius, both the senatorial governor and the equestrian fiscal procurator of Asia province were convicted of corruption.

There is evidence that emperors were as wary of powerful equites as they were of senators. Augustus enforced a tacit rule that senators and prominent equestrians must obtain his express permission to enter the province of Egypt, a policy that was continued by his successors. Also, the command of the Praetorian Guard was normally split between two equites, to reduce the potential for a successful coup d'état. At the same time, command of the second military force in Rome, the cohortes urbanae, was entrusted to a senator.

Oligarchical rule in the early Principate (to 197 AD)
Because the Senate was limited to 600 members, equites equo publico, numbering several thousands, greatly outnumbered men of senatorial rank. Even so, senators and equites combined constituted a tiny elite in a citizen-body of about 6 million (in 47 AD) and an empire with a total population of 60–70 million. This immensely wealthy elite monopolised political, military and economic power in the empire. It controlled the major offices of state, command of all military units, ownership of a significant proportion of the empire's arable land (e.g., under Nero ((r. 54 – 68)), half of all land in Africa Proconsularis province was owned by just six senators) and of most major commercial enterprises.

Overall, senators and equites cooperated smoothly in the running of the empire. In contrast to the chaotic civil wars of the late Republic, the rule of this tiny oligarchy achieved a remarkable degree of political stability. In the first 250 years of the Principate (30 BC – 218 AD), there was only a single episode of major internal strife: the civil war of 68–69.

Equestrian hierarchy
It seems that from the start the equestrians in the imperial service were organised on a hierarchical basis reflecting their pay-grades. According to Suetonius, writing in the early part of the second century AD, the equestrian procurators who "performed various administrative duties throughout the empire" were from the time of Emperor Claudius I organised into four pay-grades, the trecenarii the ducenarii, the centenarii, and the sexagenarii, receiving 300,000, 200,000, 100,000, and 60,000 sesterces per annum respectively. Cassius Dio, writing a century later, attributed the beginnings of this process to the first emperor, Augustus, himself.

There is almost no literary or epigraphic evidence for the use of these ranks until towards the end of the 2nd century. However, it would seem that the increasing employment of equestrians by the emperors in civil and military roles had had social ramifications for it is then that there begin to appear the first references to a more far-reaching hierarchy with three distinct classes covering the whole of the order: the Viri Egregii (Select Men); the Viri Perfectissimi ("Best of Men"); and the Viri Eminentissimi ("Most Eminent of Men"). The mechanisms by which the equestrians were organised into these classes and the distinctions enforced is not known. However, it is generally assumed that the highest class, the Viri Eminentissimi, was confined to the Praetorian prefects, while the Viri Perfectissimi were the heads of the main departments of state, and the great prefectures, including Egypt, the city watch (vigiles), the corn supply (annona) etc. and men  commissioned to carry out specific tasks by the emperor himself such as the military duces. The defining characteristic of the perfectissimate seems to have been that its members were of or associated socially (i.e. as clientes - see Patronage in ancient Rome of Great Men) with the imperial court circle and were office-holders known to the emperor and appointed by his favour. It is also possible that system was intended to indicate the hierarchy of office-holders in situations where this might be disputed. The Viri Egregii comprehended the rest of the Equestrian Order, in the service of the emperors.

The Viri Egregii included officials of all four pay-grades. Ducenariate procurators governing provinces not reserved for senators were of this category as were the praefecti legionum, after Gallienus opened all legionary commands to equestrians. However, it seems that after 270 AD the procuratores ducenarii were elevated into the ranks of the Viri Perfectissimi.

Rise of the military equestrians (3rd century)
The 3rd century saw two major trends in the development of the Roman aristocracy: the progressive takeover of the top positions in the empire's administration and army by military equestrians and the concomitant exclusion of the Italian aristocracy, both senators and equites and the growth in hierarchy within the aristocratic orders.

Augustus instituted a policy, followed by his successors, of elevating to the ordo equester the primus pilus (chief centurion) of each legion, at the end of his single year in the post. This resulted in about 30 career-soldiers, often risen from the ranks, joining the order every year. These equites primipilares and their descendants formed a section of the order that was quite distinct from the Italian aristocrats who had become nearly indistinguishable from their senatorial counterparts.

They were almost entirely provincials, especially from the Danube provinces where about half the Roman army was deployed. These Danubians mostly came from Pannonia, Moesia, Thrace, Illyria and Dalmatia. They were generally far less wealthy than the landowning Italians (not benefiting from centuries of inherited wealth) and they rarely held non-military posts.

Their professionalism led emperors to rely on them ever more heavily, especially in difficult conflicts such as the Marcomannic Wars (166–180). But because they were only equestrians, they could not be appointed to the top military commands, those of legatus Augusti pro praetore (governor of an imperial province, where virtually all military units were deployed) and legatus legionis (commander of a legion). In the later 2nd century, emperors tried to circumvent the problem by elevating large numbers of primipilares to senatorial rank by adlectio.

This met resistance in the Senate, so that in the 3rd century, emperors simply appointed equestrians directly to the top commands, under the fiction that they were only temporary substitutes (praeses pro legato). Septimius Severus ((r. 193 – 211)) appointed primipilares to command the three new legions that he raised in 197 for his Parthian War, Legio I, II & III Parthica Gallienus ((r. 253 – 268)) completed the process by appointing equites to command all the legions. These appointees were mostly provincial soldier-equestrians, not Italian aristocrats.

Under the reforming emperor Diocletian ((r. 284 – 305)), himself an Illyrian equestrian officer, the military equestrian "takeover" was brought a stage further, with the removal of hereditary senators from most administrative, as well as military posts. Hereditary senators were limited to administrative jobs in Italy and a few neighbouring provinces (Sicily, Africa, Achaea and Asia), despite the fact that senior administrative posts had been greatly multiplied by the tripling of the number of provinces and the establishment of dioceses (super-provinces). The exclusion of the old Italian aristocracy, both senatorial and equestrian, from the political and military power that they had monopolised for many centuries was thus complete. The senate became politically insignificant, although it retained great prestige.

The 3rd and 4th centuries saw the proliferation of hierarchical ranks within the aristocratic orders, in line with the greater stratification of society as a whole, which became divided into two broad classes, with discriminatory rights and privileges: the honestiores (more noble) and humiliores (more base). Among the honestiores, equestrians were divided into five grades, depending on the salary-levels of the offices they held.

These ranged from egregii or sexagenarii (salary of 60,000 sesterces = 15,000 denarii) to the eminentissimi (most exalted), limited to the two commanders of the Praetorian Guard and, with the establishment of Diocletian's Tetrarchy, the four praefecti praetorio (not to be confused with the commanders of the Praetorian Guard in Rome) that assisted the tetrarchs, each ruling over a quarter of the empire.

Idle aristocracy (4th century)
From the reign of Constantine the Great ((r. 306 – 337)) onwards, there was an explosive increase in the membership of both aristocratic orders. Under Diocletian, the number of sitting members of the Senate remained at around 600, the level it had retained for the whole duration of the Principate. Constantine established Constantinople as a twin capital of the empire, with its own senate, initially of 300 members. By 387, their number had swollen to 2,000, while the Senate in Rome probably reached a comparable size, so that the upper order reached total numbers similar to the equo publico equites of the early Principate. By this time, even some commanders of military regiments were accorded senatorial status.

At the same time the order of equites was also expanded vastly by the proliferation of public posts in the late empire, most of which were now filled by equestrians. The Principate had been a remarkably slim-line administration, with about 250 senior officials running the vast empire, relying on local government and private contractors to deliver the necessary taxes and services. During the 3rd century the imperial bureaucracy, all officials and ranks expanded. By the time of the Notitia Dignitatum, dated to 395 AD, comparable senior positions had grown to approximately 6,000, a 24-fold increase. The total number enrolled in the imperial civilian service, the militia inermata ('unarmed service') is estimated to have been 30–40,000: the service was professionalized with a staff made up almost entirely of free men on salary, and enrolled in a fictional legion, I Audiutrix.

In addition, large numbers of decuriones (local councillors) were granted equestrian rank, often obtaining it by bribery. Officials of ever lower rank were granted equestrian rank as reward for good service, e.g. in 365, the actuarii (accountants) of military regiments. This inflation in the number of equites inevitably led to the debasement of the order's prestige. By 400 AD, equites were no longer an echelon of nobility, but just a title associated with mid-level administrative posts.

Constantine established a third order of nobility, the comites (companions (of the emperor), singular form comes, the origin of the medieval noble rank of count). This overlapped with senators and equites, drawing members from both. Originally, the comites were a highly exclusive group, comprising the most senior administrative and military officers, such as the commanders of the comitatus, or mobile field armies. But comites rapidly followed the same path as equites, being devalued by excessive grants until the title became meaningless by 450.

In the late 4th and in the 5th century, therefore, the senatorial class at Rome and Constantinople became the closest equivalent to the equo publico equestrian class of the early Principate. It contained many ancient and illustrious families, some of whom claimed descent from the aristocracy of the Republic, but had, as described, lost almost all political and military power. Nevertheless, senators retained great influence due to their enormous inherited wealth and their role as the guardians of Roman tradition and culture.

Centuries of capital accumulation, in the form of vast landed estates (latifundia) across many provinces resulted in enormous wealth for most senators. Many received annual rents in cash and in kind of over 5,000 lbs of gold, equivalent to 360,000 solidi (or 5 million Augustan-era denarii), at a time when a miles (common soldier) would earn no more than four solidi a year in cash. Even senators of middling wealth could expect an income 1,000–1,500 lbs of gold.

The 4th-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a former high-ranking military staff officer who spent his retirement years in Rome, bitterly attacked the Italian aristocracy, denouncing their extravagant palaces, clothes, games and banquets and above all their lives of total idleness and frivolity. In his words can be heard the contempt for the senatorial class of a career soldier who had spent his lifetime defending the empire, a view clearly shared by Diocletian and his Illyrian successors. But it was the latter who reduced the aristocracy to that state, by displacing them from their traditional role of governing the empire and leading the army.

Ancient

 * Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae (c. 390 AD)
 * Dio Cassius, Roman History (c. 250 AD)
 * Livy, Ab urbe condita (c. 15 AD)
 * Plutarch, Lives (c. 100 AD)
 * Polybius, Histories (c. 150 BC)
 * Suetonius, Caesares XII (c. 100 AD)
 * Tacitus, Annales (c. 100 AD)
 * Tacitus, Historiae (c. 100 AD)

Modern

 * Burton, G. (1987): "Government and the Provinces". In J. Wacher, ed., The Roman World Vol I
 * (Bury (1898)):
 * Cornell, T.J. (1995): The Beginnings of Rome
 * Eck, Werner (2000): "Emperor, Senate & Magistrates". In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd ed., Vol XI
 * Goldsworthy, Adrian (2000): Roman Warfare
 * Goldsworthy, Adrian (2003): The Complete Roman Army
 * Heather, Peter (2005): Fall of the Roman Empire
 * Jones, A.H.M. (1964): Later Roman Empire
 * Ritner, R.K. (1998): "Egypt Under Roman Rule: the Legacy of Ancient Egypt". In Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol I. Ed. C.F. Petry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * Scheidel, Walter (2006): Population & Demography (Princeton-Stanford Working Papers in Classics)
 * Sidnell, Philip (2006): Warhorse
 * Smith W. (1890): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
 * Talbert, Richard (1996): "The Senate and Senatorial and Equestrian Posts". In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd ed., Vol X. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * Smith W. (1890): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
 * Talbert, Richard (1996): "The Senate and Senatorial and Equestrian Posts". In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd ed., Vol X. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

title: Equites


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Eques

Eques, horseman or rider in Latin, may refer to:

 * Equites, a member of the Roman Equestrian order
 * the Latin word for a knight in chess
 * Eques, a small genus of fishes in the drum family Sciaenidae

title: Eques


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Cassie Bernall

Cassie René Bernall (November 6, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was an American student who was killed in the Columbine High School massacre, where 11 more students and a teacher were killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then committed suicide. It was reported that Bernall had been asked whether or not she believed in God, and she said "Yes", before being shot during the massacre. However, investigators concluded the person who was asked about her belief in God was Valeen Schnurr, who survived the shooting.

In September 1999, Bernall's mother, Misty, released She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. In it, Misty describes her daughter's turbulent teenage life, conversion and Christian faith.

Life
Cassie was born to Misty and Brad Bernall on November 6, 1981, in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Along with her brother Chris, she was brought up in a Christian home. According to her parents, she rebelled as a young teenager and began using drugs, such as alcohol, and at one point she became suicidal. Her mother found letters in her bedroom discussing her thoughts of killing her parents, and they decided to send her to a new school, Columbine High School, for a new start. A year and a half before her death, Bernall decided to go on a weekend church retreat and restored her faith. Her father said "When she came back from that retreat, she was an entirely different person. We had gotten our daughter back."

Murder
Bernall was killed by Eric Harris during the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999. According to witness Emily Wyant, who was hiding under the same table as Bernall, Harris slammed his hand twice down on the table above them and said "peek-a-boo" before fatally shooting Bernall in the head. The shotgun blast that killed Bernall ricocheted, resulting in a nose injury to Harris. Her family had no knowledge of her death until April 22, when they were notified.

Martyrdom
The deaths of Bernall and fellow student and Christian Rachel Scott during the Columbine massacre led both to be subsequently depicted and remembered by groups of evangelical Christians as Christian martyrs. In the following years numerous books—termed "hagiographies" by sociologist Ralph Larkin—were published about Scott and Bernall with the assistance of or authorship by their parents.

Controversy surrounding martyrdom claims
Craig Scott, the brother of Rachel Scott, was a student also in the library during the massacre who told investigators that he had heard one of the shooters ask a victim whether or not they believed in God during the shooting, and that the victim answered, "Yes." Scott said that he recognized the voice as Bernall's, however, he did not see the exchange happen as he was hiding under the table at the time. Investigators later took Scott back into the library and asked him to point to where he had heard the exchange come from. He did not point to where Bernall had been in the library, but rather pointed to where Schnurr, another student that had been shot in the massacre, had been hiding.

Schnurr had been shot and was on the floor of the library when one of the shooters, Dylan Klebold approached her. She said, "Oh, my God, oh, my God, don't let me die." Klebold asked her if she believed in God. She said yes, and he asked why. She responded, "Because I believe and my parents brought me up that way." Klebold reloaded but did not shoot her again, and Schnurr ultimately survived the massacre. Some media publicized the story of Bernall being asked about her belief in God before her death. The story persisted even decades later. In 2015, Rick Santorum used the scenario during a Republican presidential debate, saying "16 years ago this country was tremendously inspired by a young woman who faced a gunman in Columbine and was challenged about her faith, and refused to deny God." However, Santorum did not attach a name to the story, and may have been referencing Schnurr.

She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall
In September 1999, Bernall's mother, Misty Bernall, authored the book She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. The book reached No. 8 on The New York Times best-sellers list.

In the book, Misty Bernall repeated the story that her daughter was asked if she believed in God before she died, despite being told by investigators that the question had not been asked. Cassie's friend Emily Wyant, who was next to her in the library when she was shot, also told the family that the question had not been asked. Despite this, the Bernalls issued a statement standing behind the accuracy of their book, saying they had spoken to four witnesses who had told them that she had defended her faith before being killed. However, the book ultimately leaves it up to the audience to make up their own mind about what happened.

In popular culture
Bernall's presentation as a Christian martyr has led to her serving as the inspiration for several songs, including Flyleaf's song, "Cassie" and Michael W. Smith's song, "This Is Your Time". The video for "This Is Your Time" includes a short clip at its beginning of Bernall talking about her beliefs.

title: Cassie Bernall


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List of kings of Burundi

This article contains two versions of the list of kings of Burundi, the traditional version before 1680 and the modern genealogy. The Kingdom of Burundi was ruled by sovereigns, titled mwami (plural abami), whose regnal names followed a cycle: Ntare (meaning 'lion'), Mwezi (meaning 'moon'), Mutaga, and Mwambutsa. Traditionally, it was thought that there had been four complete cycles but the modern genealogy indicates that there were only two complete cycles, starting with Ntare III Rushatsi.

In the 16th century, Burundi was a kingdom characterized by a hierarchical political authority and tributary economic exchange. A mwami headed a princely aristocracy (ganwa) which owned most of the land governing its subjects with superiority and required a tribute, or tax, from local farmers and herders who lived in forests. The Tutsi monarchy ruled the nation for centuries, but became largely ceremonial with the colonization of the nation by the German Empire in 1899. The kings continued to nominally rule through German and Belgian colonial periods, and the monarchy continued after the nation gained independence from Belgium in 1962. Burundi ceased to be a monarchy when King Ntare V Ndizeye was deposed by Prime Minister and Chief of Staff, Colonel Michel Micombero, who abolished the monarchy and declared a republic following the November 1966 coup d'état.

Traditional list
The dates before 1900 are estimates.
 * Ntare I Rushatsi Cambarantama: c. 1530–c.  1550
 * Mwezi I Baridamunka: c. 1550–c.  1580
 * Mutaga I Mutabazi: c. 1580–c.  1600
 * Mwambutsa I Nkomati: c. 1600–c.  1620
 * Ntare II Kibogora: c. 1620–c.  1650
 * Mwezi II Nyaburunga: c. 1650–c.  1680
 * Mutaga II Senyamwiza Mutamo: c. 1680–c.  1700
 * Mwambutsa II Nyarushamba: c. 1700–c.  1720
 * Ntare III Kivimira Semuganzashamba: c. 1720–c.  1750
 * Mwezi III Kavuyimbo (Ndagushimiye): c. 1750–c.  1780
 * Mutaga III Sebitungwa: c. 1780–c.  1800
 * Mwambutsa III Mbonyuburundi (Mbariza): c. 1800–c.  1830
 * Ntare IV Runzi (Rutaganzwa Rugamba): c. 1830–c.  1850
 * Mwezi IV Gisabo Bikata-Bijoga: c. 1850–1908
 * Mutaga IV Mbikije: c. 1908–1915
 * Mwambutsa IV Bangiricenge Rubangishamiheto: 1915–1966
 * Ntare V Ndizeye: 1966

Modern list

 * Ntare III Rushatsi: c. 1680–c.  1709
 * Mwezi III Ndagushimiye: c. 1709–c.  1739
 * Mutaga III Senyamwiza Mutamo: c. 1739–c.  1767
 * Mwambutsa III Serushambo Butama: c. 1767–c.  1796 (also known as Mwambutsa III Mbariza)
 * Ntare IV Rutaganzwa Rugamba: c. 1796–c.  1850

Timeline
(Based on the modern list)

title: List of kings of Burundi


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Opus the Penguin

Opus the Penguin (Opus T. Penguin) is a fictional character created by artist Berkeley Breathed. Breathed has described him as an "existentialist penguin" and the favorite of his many characters.

Opus has appeared in several of Breathed's creations, most notably his 1980s comic strip Bloom County. Breathed also included Opus in the sequel strip to Bloom County, Outland, and later made him the star of his own self-titled strip.

Introduction and appearance
Opus was originally introduced in June 1981, as a one-time gag about hapless Mike Binkley bringing home what he thought was a German Shepherd, which turned out to be a penguin, much to the disappointment of his father. After being featured in a few strips, the character was dropped for several months, before being gradually re-introduced in January 1982, and eventually becoming a central character in Bloom County. Opus' popularity quickly grew until he became the signature character of Bloom County and of Breathed's subsequent comic strips.

Opus' appearance changed since his inception - he originally looked like a common penguin, but between 1982 and 1986 his nose grew dramatically (developing its signature bump in the middle, of which Opus is very self-conscious). Mike Binkley, during one Sunday strip, points out the fact that Opus more closely resembles a puffin, a revelation shocking to the sensitive Opus. (In the final panel of the same strip, Opus responds by telling Binkley that he looks like a carrot.) Opus says he is attracted to "svelte buoyant waterfowl".

He is usually seen wearing a bow tie and collar, though he sometimes switches to a diagonally striped necktie when running for public office. Beginning in Outland during the 1990s, he is also occasionally seen inexplicably wearing white briefs.

Opus once mentioned his height during an interview for "The bureau of nosy statistics." In this comic strip he said that his height is two feet eleven inches.

Notable storylines
According to Opus' back story, he is from the Falkland Islands, How he got from there to Bloom County is explained in "The Night Of The Mary Kay Commandos". He was separated from his mother at a young age, and much of his personality is therefore enmeshed in his sense of abandonment and yearning for a mother figure. There is never any mention of Opus' father if he ever knew him.

Over the years Opus has served as Steve Dallas' legal secretary, journeyed to Antarctica in search of his mother, played the tuba in heavy metal group Deathtöngue (later renamed Billy and the Boingers), wooed (and was nearly married to) an abstract sculptor named Lola Granola, worked as a newspaper personals editor, lifestyle columnist and comic strip writer, had brief, experimental stints employed as a farmer, garbageman and even a cartoonist (or, as he called it, a stripper, which he would also be at one point), and run for vice president on the National Radical Meadow Party ticket, along with his running mate Bill the Cat.

In the tradition of many other popular characters, Opus apparently died (while unwillingly brought along on a balloon expedition to Washington, DC, to zap the ambassador from apartheid-era South Africa with a ray that would temporarily turn him black) only to return with amnesia. He later regained his memory after being in a state of intense and total shock; he heard an erroneous report that Diane Sawyer (on whom he had an enormous crush) had married Eddie Murphy. Another story line led Opus, in search of his mother, to a Mary Kay Cosmetics testing building, which he was shocked to find out was cruelly using animals as test subjects for various cosmetics. Another memorable story line featured Opus being the subject of moral scorn as a perpetrator of "penguin lust". He fled Bloom County, and was absent for a long time, eventually reappearing lost in the desert, before his mother came to him in a hallucination and told him to return to his home. In another story, Opus wrote an autobiography, A Penguin's Story, which nobody bought. Milo Bloom later rewrote the memoir, exaggerating and fabricating most of it, in his typical fashion. The new, scandalous memoir, entitled Naked Came I, became a bestseller in the Bloom County universe, leading Opus to even more notoriety than he had as Bill the Cat's running mate.

A major failing of Opus is his inability to resist the temptations of television infotainment commercials, a la Ronco, with the result being that he is frequently seen receiving crateloads of useless and arcane kitchen utensils such as "turnip twaddlers".

Opus also has a very amusing (but somewhat unfortunate) history of "losing parts"; on several occasions, his "fanny" has fallen off (often with a clanking sound on the floor), and he has also had instances where his nose droops or is taken completely off as a result of sneezing while using dental floss and so on. Sometimes these are combined; he has had either his nose and rear end fall off, or his nose droop while his rear end has fallen off, and so on. He eventually learned that his navel was in fact the screw that attached his rear end to his body.

Opus appeared in the Berkeley Breathed Christmas children's book, A Wish for Wings That Work. It was later turned into a cartoon.

Post–Bloom County
Opus was the second Bloom County regular to appear in the Sunday-only Outland strip, after Outland's original protagonist, Ronald-Ann Smith. He also appeared in some of Breathed's children's books, including A Wish for Wings That Work and Goodnight Opus.

Eight years after Outland ended, Opus returned in a second Sunday-only strip simply titled Opus, in 2003. The first few strips showed Opus's discontent living in Antarctica with his overbearing mother. A misdirected Mars probe happened to give him the means to return to Bloom County, where he set about looking for his old friends. To date, he has been reunited with four — Bill the Cat, Steve Dallas, and (on June 3, 2007), Michael Binkley and Oliver Wendell Jones.

According to the July 10, 2005 edition of the Opus comic strip, Opus lived at 996 Melba Lane, presumably in Bloom County.

Opus appears on the label of Honest Tea's Peach Oo-la-long tea.

Ending
On October 6, 2008, Berkeley Breathed announced that he would retire the character on November 2. He added that "I'll be leaving Opus in a way that it should be very clear that this time there's no going back home" and that he felt "unrealistically emotional" about drawing the final Opus strip and writing a final ending.

The final strip showed Opus fast asleep in bed on the final page of Goodnight Moon, Steve Dallas having opened the book in the previous strip.

Revival
Opus returned in the 2015 revival of Bloom County, awakening from a 25-year nap.

title: Opus the Penguin


text:
Talk:Die Stadt Elbing

Should be merged to Elblag

title: Talk:Die Stadt Elbing


text:
Talk:The City of Elbing

Should be merged to Elblag

 * More precisely, comments about the city should be moved into Elblag, which comments about the ship should stay here.--Henrygb 12:07, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:The City of Elbing