title: Bellona (goddess)

text: As well as having a decorative function, representations of the goddess had a public function too. Batholomaeus Spranger's "Bellona Leading the Imperial Armies against the Turks" (see above) played its part in Austria's anti-Turkish propaganda during the Long Turkish War. A later phase of the continuing conflict, culminating in victory at the battle of Zenta in 1697, is marked by Jean Cosyn's celebratory doorway in Brussels in what now is known as the Maison de Bellone, at the centre of which presides the helmeted bust of the goddess surrounded by military standards and cannons.


title: Bellona (goddess)

text: A dynastic political statement is made in "Marie de Medici as Bellona" (1622/5), designed by Peter Paul Rubens for her public rooms in the Luxembourg Palace. He represents her there as a wielder of political power at a time when it, in fact, had waned. She is standing with armour, cannons, and muskets at her feet, and her triumphs are underlined by emblems of victory. She carries a small statue of the winged goddess in her right hand, a smaller winged figure is mounted below the plumes of her helmet, while cupids hover above her, holding a laurel crown. Her portrayal contrasts with Rembrandt's depiction of Bellona with the homely features of an ordinary Dutchwoman. This makes an anti-imperial statement, with the assurance that the new Dutch Republic is ready to defend itself, particularly against Spain, during the Thirty Years' War.


title: Bellona (goddess)

text: Auguste Rodin's sculpture of a head of Bellona (1879) originally was created for a monument to the French Third Republic and shows even more belligerence. Modelled on his mistress Rose Beuret while in a bad mood, the head is drawn back in proud anger, turning in dynamic movement to look along the line of her right shoulder. Defence in war is the message of Georg Kolbe's Bellona fountain in Wuppertal. Originally commissioned in 1915, it depicted the helmeted goddess carrying a sword in her left hand and inspiring a kneeling young man. The statue was not erected until 1922, by which time it functioned as a war memorial.


title: Bellona (goddess)

text: The use of Bellona in such structures was well established before this, dating back to her prominent use in Jean Cosyn's doorway. The Temple of Bellona, designed by William Chambers for Kew Gardens in 1760, was projected as a celebration of the Anglo-Hanoverian war effort during the Seven Years' War and eventually housed plaques honouring the regiments that served in it. These, however, related primarily to remembrance of victory rather than of the fallen. It was not until a century afterward that the French-Canadian victims of the Seven Years War were commemorated by a monument at Quebec. Atop a tall column on the site of the battlefield, Bellona looks down, carrying a shield and laurel crown in her right hand. The statue was presented by Jérôme-Napoléon in 1862 as a gesture of reconciliation.


title: Bellona (goddess)

text: The Australian dead from the Gallipoli Campaign were commemorated by a bronze bust of Bellona by Bertram Mackennal, a former student of Rodin. This he presented to the Australian government in Canberra as a memorial in 1916. As in Rodin's bust, the helmeted head is turned to the right, but the breasts are more in evidence. The fallen generally make their appearance later in such structures where Bellona is present. They accompany the sword-wielding goddess in Douglas Tilden's monument to the California Volunteers during the Spanish–American War of 1898; in the Bialystok memorial to the dead in the Polish–Soviet War in 1920, she stands behind a soldier and holds aloft a laurel crown.


title: Bellona (goddess)

text: The Bellona on the First World War victory archway at Waterloo station is particularly memorable, however. Beneath the demonic sword-brandishing wraith with her gorgon necklace, cower and mourn, not the dead, but the overlooked living victims of war.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton () is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 137,148. It is the 7th most populous city in Virginia and 204th most populous city in the nation. Hampton is included in the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Statistical Area (officially known as the Virginia Beach–Norfolk–Newport News, VA–NC MSA) which is the 37th largest in the United States, with a total population of 1,799,674 (2020). This area, known as "America's First Region", also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton traces its history to the city's Old Point Comfort, the home of Fort Monroe for almost 400 years, which was named by the 1607 voyagers, led by Captain Christopher Newport, who first established Jamestown as an English colonial settlement. Since consolidation in 1952, Hampton has included the former Elizabeth City County and the incorporated town of Phoebus, consolidated by a mutual agreement.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: After the end of the American Civil War, historic Hampton University was established opposite from the town on the Hampton River, providing an education for many newly-freed former slaves and for area Native Americans. In the 20th century, the area became the location of Langley Air Force Base, NASA Langley Research Center, and the Virginia Air and Space Center. Hampton features many miles of waterfront and beaches.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The city features a wide array of business and industrial enterprises, retail and residential areas, historical sites, and other points of interest, such a NASCAR short track, the oldest Anglican parish in the Americas (1610), and a moated, six-sided, historical bastion fort.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Indigenous Americans settled in present-day Hampton before 10,000 BCE. In the early 1600s, the Tidewater region was populated by the Powhatan peoples who called the lands Tsenacommacah. The Powhatan Chiefdom was made up of over 30 tribes numbering an estimated 25,000 people before the arrival of English colonists.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: In December 1606, three ships carrying men and boys left England on a mission sponsored by a proprietary company. Led by Captain Christopher Newport, they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to North America. After a long voyage, they first landed at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay on the south shore at a place they named Cape Henry (for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the elder son of their king).


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: During the first few days of exploration, they identified the site of Old Point Comfort (which they originally named "Point Comfort") as a strategic defensive location at the entrance to the body of water that became known as Hampton Roads. This is formed by the confluence of the Elizabeth, Nansemond, and James rivers. The latter is the longest river in Virginia.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Weeks later, on May 14, 1607, they established the first permanent English settlement in the present-day United States about further inland from the Bay which became the site of fortifications during the following 200 years.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Slightly south, near the entrance to Hampton River, the colonists seized the Native American community of Kecoughtan under Virginia's Governor, Sir Thomas Gates. The colonists established their own small town, with a small Anglican church (known now as St. John's Episcopal Church), on July 9, 1610. This came to be known as part of Hampton. (With Jamestown having been abandoned in 1699, Hampton claims to be the oldest continuously occupied English settlement in the United States). Hampton was named for Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, an important leader of the Virginia Company of London, for whom the Hampton River, Hampton Roads and Southampton County were also named. The area became part of Elizabeth Cittie in 1619, Elizabeth River Shire in 1634, and was included in Elizabeth City County when it was formed in 1643. By 1680, the settlement was known as Hampton, and it was incorporated as a town in 1705 and became the seat of Elizabeth City County.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: In the latter part of August 1619, the "White Lion", a privateer captained by John Colyn Jope and sailing under a Dutch letter of marque, delivered approximately 20 enslaved Africans, from the present-day region of Angola to Point Comfort. They had been removed by its crew from a Portuguese slave ship, the "São João Bautista". These were the first recorded slaves from Africa in the Thirteen Colonies. John Rolfe, the widower of Pocahontas, wrote in a letter that he was at Point Comfort and witnessed the arrival of the first Africans. The Bantu from Angola were considered indentured servants, but in effect, were to be slaves. Two of the first Africans to arrive were Anthony and Isabella. Their child, the first of African descent born in North America, was born baptized January 1624.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: In 1813, the fort was captured again by the British as part of the War of 1812. Shortly after the war ended, the US Army built a more substantial stone facility at Old Point Comfort. It was called Fort Monroe in honor of President James Monroe. The new installation and adjacent Fort Calhoun (on a man-made island across the channel) were completed in 1834. Fort Monroe is the largest stone fort ever built in the United States.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Fort Monroe, Hampton and the surrounding area played several important roles during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Although most of Virginia became part of the Confederate States of America, Fort Monroe remained in Union hands. It became notable as a historic and symbolic site of early freedom for former slaves under the provisions of contraband policies and later the Emancipation Proclamation. After the War, former Confederate President, Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in the area now known as the Casemate Museum on the base.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: To the northwest of Fort Monroe, the Town of Hampton had the misfortune to be attacked during the American Revolutionary War and burned down during the War of 1812 and the American Civil War. From the ruins of Hampton left by evacuating Confederates in 1861, "Contraband" slaves (formerly owned by Confederates and under a degree of Union protection) built the Grand Contraband Camp, the first self-contained African American community in the United States. A number of modern-day Hampton streets retain their names from that community. The large number of contraband slaves who sought the refuge of Fort Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp led to educational efforts which eventually included establishment of Hampton University, site of the famous Emancipation Oak.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The original site of the Native American's Kecoughtan Settlement was near the present site of a Hampton Roads Transit facility. To the south of present-day Hampton, a small unrelated incorporated town also named Kecoughtan many years later and also located in Elizabeth City County was annexed by the city of Newport News in 1927. It is now part of that city's East End.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton was incorporated as a city in 1849. On March 30, 1908, Hampton was separated from Elizabeth City County and became an independent city. However, it remained the county seat and continued to share many services with the county. On July 1, 1952, following approval of voters of each locality by referendum, the city of Hampton, the incorporated town of Phoebus and Elizabeth City County merged into the independent city of Hampton. It was the first of a series of political consolidations in the Hampton Roads region during the third quarter of the 20th century.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton has a rich and extensive 20th-century military history – home of Langley Air Force Base, the nation's first military installation dedicated solely to air power and the home of the U.S. Air Force's 633rd Air Base Wing and 1st and 192nd Fighter Wings. Hampton has been a center of military aviation training, research and development for nearly a hundred years, from early prop planes and Zeppelins to rocket parts and advanced fighters. Its proximity to Norfolk means that Hampton has long been home to many Navy families. Together, many Air Force and Navy families in the Hampton area experienced significant losses in war and peacetime due to family members in combat and peacetime military accidents.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Fort Monroe was an active army base until its decommissioning on September 15, 2011. Shortly after, the fort was named a National Monument by President Barack Obama, on November 1.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: In particular, during the Vietnam War, Langley Air Force Base was a designated 'waiting base' and thousands of Air Force families were transferred to Hampton from all over the world to wait while their husbands and fathers served in Vietnam. Thousands of Navy families associated with Naval bases in Norfolk next door also waited in Hampton during this era. Vietnam was a very high casualty war for Air Force and Navy pilots (some types of planes experienced a 50% casualty rate), and Naval "river rats" who fought on the rivers of the Mekong Delta experienced high casualties as well. There accumulated over time, in the Hampton area, a high concentration of families of unaccounted for wartime casualties. In many cases Hampton-stationed military families of "Missing in Action" or "Prisoner of War" pilots and sailors spent many years in the area waiting to find out what had happened to their missing or captured airmen and sailors.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (62.3%) is water.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: "Cfa") characteristic of the Southeast United States. The weather in Hampton is temperate and seasonal with hot and humid summers and mild winters. The mean annual temperature is , with an average annual snowfall of and an average annual rainfall of . The wettest month by average rainfall is August with an average of 2.4 inches of rain falling on 11–12 days, although in March it typically rains on more days with 2.3 inches of rain falling in 12 to 13 days. The hottest day on record was August 1, 1980 when the temperature hit . The lowest recorded temperature of was recorded on January 21, 1985.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 137,436 people, 53,887 households, and 35,888 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,828.0 people per square mile (1,091.9/km). There were 57,311 housing units at an average density of 1,106.8 per square mile (427.3/km). The racial makeup of the city was 49.6% Black or African American, 42.7% White, 2.2% Asian, 0.4% Native American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 1.3% from other races, and 3.7% from two or more races. 4.5% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: There were 53,887 households, out of which 32.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.2% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.4% were non-families. 26.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the average family size was 3.02.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The age distribution is 24.2% under the age of 18, 12.6% from 18 to 24, 32.5% from 25 to 44, 20.4% from 45 to 64, and 10.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.6 males.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The median income for a household in the city was $39,532, and the median income for a family was $46,110. Males had a median income of $31,666 versus $24,578 for females. The per capita income for the city was $19,774. About 8.8% of families and 11.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.9% of those under age 18 and 8.6% of those age 65 or over.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton is home to several arts venues and museums dedicated to Hampton's rich history. Notable venues in the city include The American Theatre, the Casemate Museum, the Charles Taylor Visual Arts Center, Hampton History Museum, Hampton University Museum, the Performing & Creative Arts Center, and the Virginia Air & Space Center.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The Hampton Coliseum, a multi-purpose arena built in 1968, serves as a major venue for entertainment acts such as WCW & WWE wrestling, musical concerts from artists such as The Grateful Dead and Phish and various regional sports games from the area. The arena has a seating capacity of 9,800 to 13,800 depending on configuration.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The city is served by the Hampton Public Library. The system began in 1926 as the first free county library in Virginia. Today, the main library includes the main library and three branches.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The Peninsula Pilots of the Coastal Plain League are a collegiate summer baseball league based in Hampton. The Pilots have been playing at War Memorial Stadium since 1980. The Hampton University Pirates & Lady Pirates compete in the Big South Conference in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: High school sports (especially football & basketball) play a large role in the city's sports culture. Sporting stars such as Allen Iverson, Francena McCoroy, and T'erea Brown are from Hampton. The city's stadium, Darling Stadium, serves as the high school football stadium with games usually spread over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The stadium also hosts various track-and-field events.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Additional sports options can be found just outside Hampton. On the collegiate level, the College of William and Mary, Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University offer NCAA Division I athletics. Virginia Wesleyan College and Christopher Newport University also provide sports at the NCAA Division III level.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Professional sports can be found in the area as well. In Norfolk, the Norfolk Tides of the International League and the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League field baseball and hockey teams respectively. In Virginia Beach, the Hampton Roads Piranhas field men's and women's professional soccer teams.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The city uses a council-manager government, with Donnie Tuck serving as mayor, Mary Bunting serving as the city manager, and six council members serving as representatives to the districts in the city.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton is located in Virginia's 2nd congressional district, served by U.S. Representative Elaine Luria (Democrat) and in Virginia's 3rd congressional district, served by U.S. Representative Robert C. Scott (Democrat).


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The main provider of public primary and secondary education is Hampton City Public Schools. There are four high schools – Kecoughtan, Bethel, Phoebus, and Hampton – eighteen K-5 elementary schools, two PK-8 schools, five middle schools, one early childhood center, and one gifted center in the city.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Several private schools are located in the area, including Denbigh Baptist Christian School, Hampton Roads Academy, and Peninsula Catholic High School.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Virginia School for the Deaf, Blind and Multi-Disabled at Hampton, operated by the State of Virginia, was formerly in Hampton.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The city contains Hampton University and Virginia Peninsula Community College. Other nearby universities in the Hampton Roads region include Christopher Newport University, Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University, and The College of William and Mary.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton's daily newspaper is the Newport News-based "Daily Press". Other papers include Norfolk's "The Virginian-Pilot", "Port Folio Weekly", the "New Journal and Guide", and the "Hampton Roads Business Journal". "Coastal Virginia Magazine" serves as a bi-monthly regional magazine for Hampton and the Hampton Roads area. "Hampton Roads Times" serves as an online magazine for all the Hampton Roads cities and counties. Hampton is served by a variety of radio stations on the AM and FM dials, with towers located around the Hampton Roads area.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton is also served by several television stations. The Hampton Roads designated market area (DMA) is the 42nd largest in the U.S. with 712,790 homes (0.64% of the total U.S.). The major network television affiliates are WTKR-TV 3 (CBS), WAVY-TV 10 (NBC), WVEC-TV 13 (ABC), WGNT 27 (CW), WTVZ 33 (MyNetworkTV), WVBT 43 (Fox), and WPXV 49 (ION Television). The Public Broadcasting Service station is WHRO-TV 15. Hampton residents also can receive independent stations, such as WSKY broadcasting on channel 4 from the Outer Banks of North Carolina and WGBS-LD broadcasting on channel 11. Hampton is served by Verizon FiOS and Cox Cable.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: In the Hampton Roads region, water crossings are a major issue for land-based transportation. The city is fortunate to have a good network of local streets and bridges to cross the various rivers and creeks. Many smaller bridges, especially those along Mercury Boulevard, were named to honor the original NASA astronauts, who had trained extensively at NASA's Langley facilities.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The city is located contiguously to the neighboring independent cities of both Newport News and Poquoson. Many roads and streets are available to travel between them. Likewise, Williamsburg, Yorktown and the counties of James City and York are also located nearby in the Peninsula sub-region, and many roads lead to them.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: To reach most of its other neighbors in the South Hampton Roads sub-region, it is necessary to cross the harbor and/or the mouth of the James River. There are 3 major motor vehicle crossings. Among these are the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel (HRBT) and the Monitor–Merrimac Memorial Bridge–Tunnel (MMMBT), each forming part of the Hampton Roads Beltway. The HRBT is located on Interstate 64 near downtown Hampton and the MMMBT is a few miles away on Interstate 664 near downtown Newport News. (These two major interstates converge in Hampton near the Hampton Coliseum). The third crossing option is the James River Bridge, also in Newport News, which connects to Isle of Wight County and the town of Smithfield.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton is also served by several major primary and secondary highways. These notably include U.S. Routes 17, 60 and 258, and Virginia State Routes 134 and 143.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The Hampton Transit Center, located close to the downtown area at the intersection of West Pembroke Avenue and King Street, offers a hub for local and intercity public transportation. It hosts HRT buses, Greyhound/Trailways services and taxicabs.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) is the local provider of transit service within the city, as well offering a regional bus system with routes to and from seven other cities in Hampton Roads.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Intercity bus service is provided by Greyhound Lines and its Carolina Trailways affiliate. The buses serve the Hampton Transit Center. Low cost curbside intercity bus service is also provided by Megabus, with service to Richmond, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton is served by several Amtrak trains a day, with direct service from Newport News station in nearby Newport News (on Warwick Boulevard just west of Mercury Boulevard) through Williamsburg and Richmond to points along the Northeast Corridor from Washington DC through Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City all the way to Boston. At Richmond, connections can be made for other Amtrak destinations nationwide.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: Hampton is served by two commercial airports. Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport is in Newport News, and Norfolk International Airport is across the harbor in Norfolk. Both are along portions of Interstate 64.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The primary airport for the Virginia Peninsula is the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport in Newport News. Originally known as Patrick Henry Field (hence its airline code letters "PHF"), it was built on the site of Camp Patrick Henry, formerly a World War II facility. It is one of the fastest growing airports in the country, and it reported having served 1,058,839 passengers in 2005. The airport recently added a fourth airline carrier, Frontier Airlines, becoming the first new airline to come to the region in over eight years, despite the economic recession conditions. 2010 was to be the busiest year by passenger count in the airport's history.<ref name="Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport"></ref>


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The larger Norfolk International Airport (often known locally by its code letters "ORF") also serves the region. The airport is near the Chesapeake Bay, along the city limits between Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Seven airlines provide nonstop services to 25 destinations. During 2006, ORF had 3,703,664 passengers take off or land at its facility and 68,778,934 pounds of cargo were processed through its facilities.


title: Hampton, Virginia

text: The Chesapeake Regional Airport provides general aviation services. It is in South Hampton Roads in the independent city of Chesapeake.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig or Pádraic Pearse; ; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Following his execution along with fifteen others, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse, his brother Willie, and his sisters Margaret and Mary Brigid were born at 27 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin, the street that is named after them today. It was here that their father, James Pearse, established a stonemasonry business in the 1850s, a business which flourished and provided the Pearses with a comfortable middle-class upbringing. Pearse's father was a mason and monumental sculptor, and originally a Unitarian from Birmingham in England. His mother, Margaret Brady, was from Dublin, and her father's family from County Meath were native Irish speakers. She was James' second wife; James had two children, Emily and James, from his first marriage (two other children died in infancy). Pearse's maternal grandfather Patrick was a supporter of the 1848 Young Ireland movement, and later a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Pearse recalled a visiting ballad singer performing republican songs during his childhood; afterwards he went around looking for armed men ready to fight, but finding none, declared sadly to his grandfather that "the Fenians are all dead". His maternal grand-uncle, James Savage, fought in the American Civil War. The Irish-speaking influence of Pearse's grand-aunt Margaret, together with his schooling at the CBS Westland Row, instilled in him an early love for the Irish language and culture.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse grew up surrounded by books. His father had had very little formal education, but was self-educated; Pearse was radicalised from an early age. He recalls that at the age of ten he prayed to God, promising Him he would dedicate his life to Irish independence. Pearse's early heroes were ancient Gaelic folk heroes such as Cúchulainn, though in his 30s he began to take a strong interest in the leaders of past republican movements, such as the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse soon became involved in the Gaelic revival. In 1896, at the age of 16, he joined the Gaelic League ("Conradh na Gaeilge"), and in 1903, at the age of 23, he became editor of its newspaper "An Claidheamh Soluis" (""The Sword of Light"").


title: Patrick Pearse

text: In 1900, Pearse was awarded a B.A. in Modern Languages (Irish, English and French) by the Royal University of Ireland, for which he had studied for two years privately and for one at University College Dublin. In the same year, he was enrolled as a Barrister-at-Law at the King's Inns. Pearse was called to the bar in 1901. In 1905, Pearse represented Neil McBride, a poet and songwriter from Feymore, Creeslough, Donegal, who had been fined for having his name displayed in "illegible" writing (i.e. Irish) on his donkey cart. The appeal was heard before the Court of King's Bench in Dublin. It was Pearse's first and only court appearance as a barrister. The case was lost but it became a symbol of the struggle for Irish independence. In his 27 June 1905 "An Claidheamh Soluis" column, Pearse wrote of the decision, "...it was in effect decided that Irish is a foreign language on the same level with Yiddish."


title: Patrick Pearse

text: As a cultural nationalist educated by the Irish Christian Brothers, like his younger brother Willie, Pearse believed that language was intrinsic to the identity of a nation. The Irish school system, he believed, raised Ireland's youth to be good Englishmen or obedient Irishmen, and an alternative was needed. Thus for him and other language revivalists saving the Irish language from extinction was a cultural priority of the utmost importance. The key to saving the language, he felt, would be a sympathetic education system. To show the way he started his own bilingual school for boys, St. Enda's School (Scoil Éanna) in Cullenswood House in Ranelagh, a suburb of County Dublin, in 1908. The pupils were taught in both Irish and English. Cullenswood House is now the home of a Gaelscoil, Lios na nÓg. With the aid of Thomas MacDonagh, Pearse's younger brother Willie Pearse, their mother and both Margaret and Mary Brigid Pearse, along with other (often transient) academics, it soon proved a successful experiment. Pearse did all he planned, and even took students on field trips to the Gaeltacht in the West of Ireland.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse's restless idealism led him in search of an even more idyllic home for his school. He found it in The Hermitage in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, now home to the Pearse Museum. In 1910 Pearse wrote that the Hermitage was an "ideal" location due to the aesthetics of the grounds and that if he could secure it, "the school would be on a level with" the more established schools of the day such as "Clongowes Wood College and Castleknock College". Pearse was also involved in the foundation of St Ita's school for girls, a school with aims similar to those of St Enda's. However, the new home, while splendidly located in an 18th-century house surrounded by a park and woodlands, caused financial difficulties that almost brought Pearse to disaster. He strove continually to keep ahead of his debts while doing his best to maintain the school. In February 1914, he went on a fund-raising trip to the United States, where he met John Devoy and Joseph McGarrity, both of whom were impressed by his fervour and supported him in raising sufficient money to secure the continued existence of the school.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: In April 1912 John Redmond leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which held the balance of power in the House of Commons committed the government of the United Kingdom to introducing an Irish Home Rule Bill. Pearse gave the Bill a qualified welcome. He was one of four speakers, including Redmond, Joseph Devlin MP, leader of the Northern Nationalists, and Eoin MacNeill a prominent Gaelic Leaguer, who addressed a large Home Rule Rally in Dublin at the end of March 1912. Speaking in Irish, Pearse said he thought that "a good measure can be gained if we have enough courage", but he warned, "Let the English understand that if we are again betrayed, there shall be red war throughout Ireland."


title: Patrick Pearse

text: In November 1913 Pearse was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers—formed in reaction to the creation of the Ulster Volunteers—whose aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland". In an article entitled "The Coming Revolution" (November 1913) Pearse wrote:


title: Patrick Pearse

text: The Home Rule Bill just failed to pass the House of Lords, but the Lords' diminished power under the Parliament Act 1911 meant that the Bill could only be delayed, not stopped. It was placed on the statute books with Royal Assent in September 1914, but its implementation was suspended for the duration of the First World War.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: John Redmond feared that his "national authority" might be circumvented by the Volunteers and decided to try to take control of the new movement. Despite opposition from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Volunteer Executive agreed to share leadership with Redmond and a joint committee was set up. Pearse was opposed to this and was to write:


title: Patrick Pearse

text: The Volunteers split, one of the issues being support for the Allied and British war effort. A majority followed Redmond into the National Volunteers in the belief that this would ensure Home Rule on their return. Pearse, exhilarated by the dramatic events of the European war, wrote in an article in December 1915:


title: Patrick Pearse

text: In December 1913 Bulmer Hobson swore Pearse into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), an organisation dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland and its replacement with an Irish Republic. He was soon co-opted onto the IRB's Supreme Council by Tom Clarke. Pearse was then one of many people who were members of both the IRB and the Volunteers. When he became the Volunteers' Director of Military Organisation in 1914 he was the highest ranking Volunteer in the IRB membership, and instrumental in the latter's commandeering of the remaining minority of the Volunteers for the purpose of rebellion. By 1915 he was on the IRB's Supreme Council, and its secret Military Council, the core group that began planning for a rising while war raged on the European Western Front.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: On 1 August 1915 Pearse gave a graveside oration at the funeral of the Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. He was the first republican to be filmed giving an oration. It closed with the words:


title: Patrick Pearse

text: It was Pearse who, on behalf of the IRB shortly before Easter in 1916, issued the orders to all Volunteer units throughout the country for three days of manoeuvres beginning on Easter Sunday, which was the signal for a general uprising. When Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers, learned what was being planned without the promised arms from Germany, he countermanded the orders via newspaper, causing the IRB to issue a last-minute order to go through with the plan the following day, greatly limiting the numbers who turned out for the rising.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: When the Easter Rising eventually began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, it was Pearse who read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from outside the General Post Office, the headquarters of the Rising. Pearse was the person most responsible for drafting the Proclamation, and he was chosen as President of the Republic. After six days of fighting, heavy civilian casualties and great destruction of property, Pearse issued the order to surrender.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialled and executed by firing squad. Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh and Pearse himself were the first of the rebels to be executed, on the morning of 3 May 1916. Pearse was 36 years old at the time of his death. Roger Casement, who had tried unsuccessfully to recruit an insurgent force among Irish-born prisoners of war from the Irish Brigade in Germany, was hanged in London the following August.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Sir John Maxwell, the General Officer commanding the British forces in Ireland, sent a telegram to H. H. Asquith, then Prime Minister, advising him not to return the bodies of the Pearse brothers to their family, saying, "Irish sentimentality will turn these graves into martyrs' shrines to which annual processions will be made, which would cause constant irritation in this country. Maxwell also suppressed a letter from Pearse to his mother, and two poems dated 1 May 1916. He submitted copies of them also to Prime Minister Asquith, saying that some of the content was "objectionable".


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse wrote stories and poems in both Irish and English. His best-known English poems include "The Mother", "The Fool", "The Rebel" and "The Wayfarer". He also wrote several allegorical plays in the Irish language, including "The King", "The Master", and "The Singer". His short stories in Irish include "Eoghainín na nÉan" ("Eoineen of the Birds"), "Íosagán" ("Little Jesus"), "An Gadaí" ("The Thief"), "Na Bóithre" ("The Roads"), and "An Bhean Chaointe" ("The Keening Woman"). These were translated into English by Joseph Campbell (in the "Collected Works" of 1917). Most of his ideas on education are contained in his essay "The Murder Machine". He also wrote many essays on politics and language, notably "The Coming Revolution" and "Ghosts".


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse is closely associated with his rendering of the Jacobite sean-nós song, "Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile", for which he composed republican lyrics.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: According to "Innti" poet and literary critic Louis de Paor, despite Pearse's enthusiasm for the "Conamara Theas" dialect of Connacht Irish spoken around his summer cottage at Rosmuc in Connemara, he chose to follow the usual practice of the Gaelic revival by writing in Munster Irish, which was considered less Anglicized than other Irish dialects.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Also according to Louis de Paor, Pearse's reading of the radically experimental poetry of Walt Whitman and of the French Symbolists led him to introduce Modernist poetry into the Irish language. As a literary critic, Pearse also left behind a very detailed blueprint for the decolonization of Irish literature, particularly in the Irish language.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Louis De Paor writes that Patrick Pearse was "the most perceptive critic and most accomplished poet," of the early Gaelic revival providing "a sophisticated model for a new literature in Irish that would reestablish a living connection with the pre-colonial Gaelic past while resuming its relationship with contemporary Europe, bypassing the monolithic influence of English."


title: Patrick Pearse

text: For these reasons, Louis de Paor has called Pearse's execution by a British Army firing squad after the defeat of the 1916 Easter Rising a catastrophic loss for Modern literature in Irish. This loss only began to be healed during the 1940s by the modernist poetry of Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máirtín Ó Direáin, and Máire Mhac an tSaoi; and by the modernist novels "An Béal Bocht" by Flann O'Brien and "Cré na Cille" by Máirtín Ó Cadhain.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Largely as a result of a series of political pamphlets that Pearse wrote in the months leading up to the Rising, he soon became recognised as the main voice of the Rising. In the middle decades of the 20th century, Pearse was idolised by Irish nationalists as the supreme idealist of their cause. With the outbreak of conflict in Northern Ireland in 1969, Pearse's legacy was used by the Provisional IRA.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse's ideas have been seen by Sean Farrell Moran as belonging to the context of European cultural history as a part of a rejection of reason by European social thinkers. Additionally, his place within Catholicism, where his orthodoxy was challenged in the early 1970s, has been addressed to suggest that Pearse's theological foundations for his political ideas share in a long-existing tradition in western Christianity.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Former Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Bertie Ahern described Pearse as one of his heroes and displayed a picture of Pearse over his desk in the Department of the Taoiseach.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Pearse's mother Margaret Pearse served as a TD in Dáil Éireann in the 1920s. His sister Margaret Mary Pearse also served as a TD and Senator.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: In a 2006 book, psychiatrists Michael Fitzgerald and Antoinette Walker speculated that Pearse had Asperger syndrome. Pearse's apparent "sexual immaturity", and some of his behaviour, has been the subject of comment since the 1970s by historians such as Ruth Dudley Edwards, T. Ryle Dwyer and Sean Farrell Moran, who speculated that he was attracted to young boys. His most recent biographer, Joost Augusteijn, concluded that "it seems most probable that he was sexually inclined this way". Fitzgerald and Walker maintain that there is absolutely no evidence of homosexuality or pedophilia; they allege that Pearse's apparent lack of sexual interest in women, and his "ascetic" and celibate lifestyle are consistent with a diagnosis of high-functioning autism. Cultural historian Elaine Sisson has further said that Pearse's interest in and idealization of young boys needs to be seen in the context of the Victorian era "cult of the boy".


title: Patrick Pearse

text: In almost all of Pearse's portraits he struck a sideways pose, concealing his left side. This was to hide a strabismus or squint in his left eye, which he felt was an embarrassing condition.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: Cullenswood House, the Pearse family home in Ranelagh where Pádraic first founded St Enda's, today houses a primary "Gaelscoil" (school for education through the Irish language) called Lios na nÓg, part of a community-based effort to revive the Irish language. Crumlin (Dublin) has the Pearse College of Further Education, and there was formerly an Irish language summer school in Gaoth Dobhair called Colaiste an Phiarsaigh. In Rosmuc there is an Irish-medium vocational school, Gairmscoil na bPiarsach. The main lecture hall at the Cadet School in Ireland is named after P.H. Pearse. In September 2014, Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh, a new Irish language medium secondary school, opened its doors for the first time in the former Loreto Abbey buildings, just 1 km from the Pearse Museum in St Endas Park, Rathfarnham. Today Glanmire County Cork boasts the best secondary level Irish speaking college in Ireland called Coláiste an Phiarsaigh, which was named in honour and structured around Patrick Pearse's beliefs.


title: Patrick Pearse

text: A number of Gaelic Athletic Association clubs and playing fields in Ireland are named after Pádraic or both Pearses:


title: Patrick Pearse

text: There are also soccer clubs named Pearse Celtic FC in Cork and in Ringsend, Dublin; and Liffeys Pearse FC, a south Dublin soccer club formed by the amalgamation of Liffey Wanderers and Pearse Rangers. A Pearse Rangers schoolboy football club remains in existence in Dublin.


title: Attica Correctional Facility

text: Attica Correctional Facility is a maximum security campus New York State prison in the Town of Attica, New York, operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. It was constructed in the 1930s and held many of the most dangerous convicts of the time.


title: Attica Correctional Facility

text: A CS gas system (chlorobenzylidine malononitrile) installed in the mess hall and industry areas has been used to quell conflicts in these areas. The prison now holds numerous inmates who are serving various types of sentences (short-term to life). They are often sent to this facility because of disciplinary problems in other facilities. The prison is a maximum security facility.


title: Attica Correctional Facility

text: In 1984 immediately adjacent to the Attica prison the construction of the Wyoming Correctional Facility was completed. The Wyoming prison is a medium security facility.


title: Attica Correctional Facility

text: Attica was the site of a prison uprising in September 1971 in which inmates took control of the prison for several days. They were seeking to negotiate to improve conditions and treatment at the overcrowded prison. The state's suppression of the uprising resulted in 43 deaths, of which law enforcement gunfire killed 9 hostage correctional officers and civilian employees, and 30 prisoners. One guard died of injuries sustained from inmates in the first day of the uprising. Three inmates were killed by other prisoners the day law enforcement retook the prison.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The Arch of Constantine () is a triumphal arch in Rome dedicated to the emperor Constantine the Great. The arch was commissioned by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312. Situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill, the arch spans the "Via Triumphalis", the route taken by victorious military leaders when they entered the city in a triumphal procession. Dedicated in 315, it is the largest Roman triumphal arch, with overall dimensions of high, wide and deep. It has three bays, the central one being high and wide and the laterals by each. The arch is constructed of brick-faced concrete covered in marble.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The three bay design with detached columns was first used for the Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum (which stands at the end of the triumph route) and repeated in several other arches now lost.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: Though dedicated to Constantine, much of the sculptural decoration consists of reliefs and statues removed from earlier triumphal monuments dedicated to Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138) and Marcus Aurelius (161–180).


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The arch, which was constructed between 312 and 315, was dedicated by the Senate to commemorate ten years ("a decennia") of Constantine's reign (306–337) and his victory over the then reigning emperor Maxentius (306–312) at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on 28 October 312, as described on its attic inscription, and officially opened on 25 July 315. Not only did the Roman senate give the arch for Constantine's victory, they also were celebrating decennalia: a series of games that happened every decade during the Roman Empire. On these occasions they also said many prayers and renewed both spiritual and mundane vows. However, Constantine had actually entered Rome on 29 October 312, amidst great rejoicing, and the Senate then commissioned the monument. Constantine then left Rome within two months and did not return until 326.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The location, between the Palatine Hill and the Caelian Hill, spanned the ancient route of Roman triumphs ("Via triumphalis") at its origin, where it diverged from the "Via sacra". This route was that taken by the emperors when they entered the city in triumph. This route started at the Campus Martius, led through the Circus Maximus, and around the Palatine Hill; immediately after the Arch of Constantine, the procession would turn left at the Meta Sudans and march along the "Via sacra" to the Forum Romanum and on to the Capitoline Hill, passing through both the Arches of Titus and Septimius Severus.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: During the Middle Ages, the Arch of Constantine was incorporated into one of the family strongholds of ancient Rome, as shown in the painting by Herman van Swanevelt, here. Works of restoration were first carried out in the 18th century, the last excavations have taken place in the late 1990s, just before the Great Jubilee of 2000. The arch served as the finish line for the marathon athletic event for the 1960 Summer Olympics.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: There has been much controversy over the origins of the arch, with some scholars claiming that it should no longer be referred to as Constantine's arch, but is in fact an earlier work from the time of Hadrian, reworked during Constantine's reign, or at least the lower part. Another theory holds that it was erected, or at least started, by Maxentius, and one scholar believed it was as early as the time of Domitian (81–96).


title: Arch of Constantine

text: Whatever the faults of Maxentius, his reputation in Rome was influenced by his contributions to public building. By the time of his accession in 306 Rome was becoming increasingly irrelevant to the governance of the empire, most emperors choosing to live elsewhere and focusing on defending the fragile boundaries, where they frequently founded new cities.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: These factors contributed to Maxentius' ability to seize power. In contrast to his predecessors, Maxentius concentrated on restoring the capital; his epithet was "conservator urbis suae" (preserver of his city). Thus, Constantine was perceived as the deposer of one of the city's greatest benefactors, and needed to acquire legitimacy. Much controversy has surrounded the patronage of the public works of this period. Issuing a damnatio memoriae, Constantine set out to systematically erase the memory of Maxentius. Consequently, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the patronage of early fourth century public buildings, including the Arch of Constantine, which may originally have been an Arch of Maxentius.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: Constantine's Arch is an important example, frequently cited in surveys of art history, of the stylistic changes of the 4th century, and the "collapse of the classical Greek canon of forms during the late Roman period", a sign the city was in decline, and would soon be eclipsed by Constantine's founding of a new capital at Constantinople in 324. The contrast between the styles of the re-used Imperial reliefs of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius and those newly made for the arch is dramatic and, according to Ernst Kitzinger, "violent", that where the head of an earlier emperor was replaced by that of Constantine the artist was still able to achieve a "soft, delicate rendering of the face of Constantine" that was "a far cry from the dominant style of the workshop". It remains the most impressive surviving civic monument from Rome in Late Antiquity, but is also one of the most controversial with regards to its origins and meanings.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: Kitzinger compares a roundel of Hadrian lion-hunting, which is "still rooted firmly in the tradition of late Hellenistic art", and there is "an illusion of open, airy space in which figures move freely and with relaxed self-assurance" with the later frieze where the figures are "pressed, trapped, as it were, between two imaginary planes and so tightly packed within the frame as to lack all freedom of movement in any direction", with "gestures that are "jerky, overemphatic and uncoordinated with the rest of the body". In the 4th century reliefs, the figures are disposed geometrically in a pattern that "makes sense only in relation to the spectator", in the "largesse" scene (below) centred on the emperor who looks directly out to the viewer. Kitzinger continues: "Gone too is the classical canon of proportions. Heads are disproportionately large, trunks square, legs stubby ... "Differences in the physical size of figures drastically underline differences of rank and importance which the second-century artist had indicated by subtle compositional means within a seemingly casual grouping. Gone, finally are elaboration of detail and differentiation of surface texture. Faces are cut rather than modeled, hair takes the form of a cap with some superficial stippling, drapery folds are summarily indicated by deeply drilled lines."


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The commission was clearly highly important, if hurried, and the work must be considered as reflecting the best available craftsmanship in Rome at the time; the same workshop was probably responsible for a number of surviving sarcophagi. The question of how to account for what may seem a decline in both style and execution has generated a vast amount of discussion. Factors introduced into the discussion include: a breakdown of the transmission in artistic skills due to the political and economic disruption of the Crisis of the Third Century,influence from Eastern and other pre-classical regional styles from around the Empire (a view promoted by Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941), and now mostly discounted), the emergence into high-status public art of a simpler "popular" or "Italic" style that had been used by the less wealthy throughout the reign of Greek models, an active ideological turning against what classical styles had come to represent, and a deliberate preference for seeing the world simply and exploiting the expressive possibilities that a simpler style gave. The sculptors of Constantine's time were more interested in symbolism: both symbolism for religion as well as symbolism for history. One factor that cannot be responsible, as the date and origin of the Venice Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs show, is the rise of Christianity to official support, as the changes predated that.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The stylistic references to the earlier arches of Titus and Septimius Severus, together with the incorporation of "spolia" from the times of other earlier emperors may be considered a deliberate tribute to Roman history.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The arch is heavily decorated with parts of older monuments, which assume a new meaning in the context of the Constantinian building. As it celebrates the victory of Constantine, the new "historic" friezes illustrating his campaign in Italy convey the central meaning: the praise of the emperor, both in battle and in his civilian duties. The other imagery supports this purpose: decoration taken from the "golden times" of the Empire under the 2nd century emperors whose reliefs were re-used places Constantine next to these "good emperors", and the content of the pieces evokes images of the victorious and pious ruler.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: Another explanation given for the re-use is the short time between the start of construction (late 312 at the earliest) and the dedication (summer 315), so the architects used existing artwork to make up for the lack of time to create new art. It could be that so many old parts were used because the builders themselves did not "feel" the artists of their time could do better than what had already been done by different people. As yet another possible reason, it has often been suggested that the Romans of the 4th century truly did lack the artistic skill to produce acceptable artwork, and were aware of it, and therefore plundered the ancient buildings to adorn their contemporary monuments. This interpretation has become less prominent in more recent times, as the art of Late Antiquity has been appreciated in its own right. It is possible that a combination of those explanations is correct.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: On the top of each column, large sculptures representing Dacians can be seen, which date from Trajan. Above the central archway is the inscription, forming the most prominent portion of the attic and is identical on both sides of the arch. Flanking the inscription on both sides are four pairs of relief panels above the minor archways, eight in total. These were taken from an unknown monument erected in honour of Marcus Aurelius. On the north side, from left to right, the panels depict the emperor's return to Rome after the campaign ("adventus"), the emperor leaving the city and saluted by a personification of the Via Flaminia, the emperor distributing money among the people ("largitio"), and the emperor interrogating a German prisoner. On the south side, from left to right, are depicted a captured enemy chieftain led before the emperor, a similar scene with other prisoners (illustrated below), the emperor speaking to the troops ("adlocutio"), and the emperor sacrificing a pig, sheep and bull ("suovetaurilia"). Together with three panels now in the Capitoline Museum, the reliefs were probably taken from a triumphal monument commemorating Marcus Aurelius' war against the Marcomanni and the Sarmatians from 169–175, which ended with Marcus Aurelius' triumphant return in 176. On the "largitio" panel, the figure of Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus has been eradicated following the latter's "damnatio memoriae".


title: Arch of Constantine

text: From the same time period the two large (3 m high) panels decorating the attic on the east and west sides of the arch show scenes from Trajan's Dacian Wars. Together with the two reliefs on the inside of the central archway, these came from a large frieze celebrating the Dacian victory. The original place of this frieze was either the Forum of Trajan, or the barracks of the emperor's horse guard on the Caelius.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The general layout of the main facade is identical on both sides of the arch, consisting of four columns on bases, dividing the structure into a central arch and two lateral arches, the latter being surmounted by two round reliefs over a horizontal frieze. The four columns are of Corinthian order made of Numidian yellow marble ("giallo antico"), one of which has been transferred into the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano and was replaced by a white marble column. The columns stand on bases (plinths or socles), decorated on three sides. The reliefs on the front show "Victoria", either inscribing a shield or holding palm branches, while those to the side show captured barbarians alone or with Roman soldiers. Though Constantinian, they are modelled on those of the Arch of Septimius Severus (and the destroyed "Arcus novus"), and may be considered as a "standard" item.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The pairs of round reliefs above each lateral archway date to the times of Emperor Hadrian. They display scenes of hunting and sacrificing: (north side, left to right) hunt of a boar, sacrifice to Apollo, hunt of a lion, sacrifice to Hercules. On the south side, the left pair show the departure for the hunt (see below) and sacrifice to Silvanus, while those on the right (illustrated on the right) show the hunt of a bear and sacrifice to Diana. The head of the emperor (originally Hadrian) has been reworked in all medallions: on the north side, into Constantine in the hunting scenes and into Licinius or Constantius I in the sacrifice scenes; on the south side, vice versa. The reliefs, "c." 2 m in diameter, were framed in porphyry; this framing is only extant on the right side of the northern facade. Similar medallions, of Constantinian origin, are located on the small sides of the arch; the eastern side shows the Sun rising, on the western side, the Moon. Both are on chariots.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The spandrels of the main archway are decorated with reliefs depicting victory figures with trophies (illustrated below), those of the smaller archways show river gods. Column bases and spandrel reliefs are from the time of Constantine.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The horizontal frieze below the round reliefs are the main parts from the time of Constantine, running around the monument, one strip above each lateral archway and including the west and east sides of the arch. These "historical" reliefs depict scenes from the Italian campaign of Constantine against Maxentius which was the reason for the construction of the monument. The frieze starts at the western side with the Departure from Milan (Profectio). It continues on the southern, face, with the Siege of Verona (Obsidio) on the left (South west), an event which was of great importance to the war in Northern Italy. On the right (South east) is depicted the Battle of Milvian Bridge (Proelium) with Constantine's army victorious and the enemy drowning in the river Tiber. On the eastern side, Constantine and his army enter Rome (Ingressus); the artist seems to have avoided using imagery of the triumph, as Constantine probably did not want to be shown triumphant over the Eternal City. On the northern face, looking towards the city, are two strips with the emperor's actions after taking possession of Rome. On the left (North east) is Constantine speaking to the citizens on the Forum Romanum (Oratio), while to the right (North west) is the final panel with Constantine distributing money to the people (Liberalitas).


title: Arch of Constantine

text: In the central archway, there is one large panel of Trajan's Dacian War on each wall. Inside the lateral archways are eight portraits busts (two on each wall), destroyed to such an extent that it is no longer possible to identify them.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The main inscription on the attic would originally have been of bronze letters. It can still be read easily; only the recesses in which the letters sat, and their attachment holes, remain. It reads thus, identically on both sides (with abbreviations completed in parentheses):


title: Arch of Constantine

text: The words "instinctu divinitatis" ("inspired by the divine") have been greatly commented on. They are usually read as sign of Constantine's shifting religious affiliation: The Christian tradition, most notably Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea, relate the story of a vision of God to Constantine during the campaign, and that he was victorious in the sign of the cross at the Milvian Bridge. The official documents (esp. coins) still prominently display the Sun god until 324, while Constantine started to support the Christian church from 312 on. In this situation, the vague wording of the inscription can be seen as the attempt to please all possible readers, being deliberately ambiguous, and acceptable to both pagans and Christians.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: As was customary, the vanquished enemy is not mentioned by name, but only referred to as "the tyrant", drawing on the notion of the rightful killing of a tyrannical ruler; together with the image of the "just war", it serves as justification of Constantine's civil war against Maxentius.


title: Arch of Constantine

text: Two short inscriptions on the inside of the central archway transport a similar message: Constantine came not as conqueror, but freed Rome from occupation:


title: Arch of Constantine

text: They give a hint on the date of the arch: "Solemn vows for the 10th anniversary – for the 20th anniversary" and "as for the 10th, so for the 20th anniversary". Both refer to Constantine's "decennalia", i.e. the 10th anniversary of his reign (counted from 306), which he celebrated in Rome in the summer of 315. It can be assumed that the arch honouring his victory was inaugurated during his stay in the city.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL).


title: Sydney Swans

text: The club's origins trace back to 21 March 1873, when a meeting was held at the Clarendon Hotel in South Melbourne to establishing a junior football club, to be called the South Melbourne Football Club. The club commenced playing in 1874 at its home ground; Lakeside Oval in Albert Park. Playing as South Melbourne, it participated in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) competition from 1878 before joining the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL) as a founding member in 1897. Originally known as the "Bloods" in reference to the red colour used on players' guernseys, the Swan emblem was adopted in 1933 after a journalist at the time referred to them using the moniker following a large influx of Western Australian players. In 1982, it became the first professional Australian football club to permanently relocate interstate (from Victoria to New South Wales). In the following year, the club was renamed the Sydney Swans.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The club has a rivalry with the Greater Western Sydney Giants, with whom they contest the Sydney Derby. Their headquarters and training facilities are located in the Moore Park sporting precinct, with offices and indoor training at the Royal Hall of Industries and outdoor sessions conducted on the adjacent Tramway Oval and Sydney Cricket Ground, the latter being the site of the club's senior men's team home matches since 1982. The Swans have won five VFL/AFL premierships including 1909, 1918, and 1933, before experiencing a 72-year premiership drought—the longest of any team in the competition's history. This premiership drought ended with the 2005 premiership, which was later followed by another title in 2012. They won five times and lost twelve grand finals.


title: Sydney Swans

text: According to Roy Morgan, the Swans are one of the most supported clubs in the AFL with more than a million fans in 2021.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The club's origins trace back to 21 March 1873, when a meeting was held at the Clarendon Hotel in South Melbourne for the purpose of establishing a junior football club, to be called the South Melbourne Football Club.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The inauguration date of the club is officially 19 June 1874. It was first known as "Cecil Football Club" (after Cecil Street, South Melbourne, one of the early thoroughfares), but adopted the name "South Melbourne Football Club" four weeks later on 15 July. The club was based at Lake Oval alongside the lake in Albert Park, also home of the South Melbourne Cricket Club.


title: Sydney Swans

text: While one of the early favourites to win, South Melbourne were a notable exclusion from the Challenge Cup competitions of the 1870s with entry to this competition strictly limited to clubs playing under the Melbourne Football Club's rules. The club's lack of adherence to the Victorian Rules (and insistence on playing by its own rules) resulted in some controversial early wins. This, along with ability to regularly field a full senior team, may have contributed to its absence during the football season competition begun in the 1870s. Throughout this period South Melbourne, along with neighbouring Cup member club Albert Park, had experimented with rugby football rules which in May 1874 had advocated strongly for their widespread adoption in Victoria, however this did not meet favour with the more powerful clubs in the colony.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Despite not being part of the big league of clubs, South Melbourne by the mid-1870s is recorded to have enough senior players to field two teams of twenty and played matches against non-Cup clubs during this time against nearby clubs including Fawkner Park, Elwood, West Melbourne, Southern Rifles in 1875 and Sandridge Alma, St Kilda Alma, Victoria Parade, and Williamstown in 1876 among others. Many of this group of clubs most of which had primarily juniors had also begun to discuss starting their own cup competition.


title: Sydney Swans

text: South was one of Victoria's most prolific touring clubs. Seeking more regular senior competition in 1876 South Melbourne also went on one of its first regional tours playing against newly formed clubs at Beechworth, Blackwood, Taradale and Ballarat.


title: Sydney Swans

text: South Melbourne was a junior foundation club of the Victorian Football Association in 1877, and attained senior status in 1879.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 1880, South Melbourne amalgamated with the nearby Albert-park Football Club, which had a senior football history dating back to May 1867 (Albert-park had, in fact, been known as South Melbourne during its first year of existence). Following the amalgamation, the club retained the name South Melbourne, and adopted the club's now familiar red and white colours from Albert-park. Nicknamed the "Southerners", the team was more colourfully known as the "Bloods", in reference to the bright red diagonal sash on their white jumpers (the sash was replaced with a red "V" in 1932). The colourful epithet the "Bloodstained Angels" was also in use. Following the 1880 amalgamation it became the strongest in metropolitan Melbourne.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Over its first decade as an amalgamated club, South Melbourne won five VFA premierships – in 1881, 1885 (undefeated) and three-in-a-row in 1888, 1889 and 1890 – and was runner-up to the provincial Geelong Football Club in 1880, 1883 and 1886. The 1886 season was notable for its 4 September match against Geelong, which generated unprecedented public interest as both clubs had entered the match undefeated.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The club was the second Victorian club to visit New South Wales in 1883 travelling to Newcastle where it also defeated the Northern Districts League by a goal before travelling to Sydney where it defeated Sydney by just a single goal in front of a large crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground and East Sydney Football Club by a goal in front of 600 spectators.


title: Sydney Swans

text: At the end of the 1896 season, Collingwood and South Melbourne finished equal at the top of the VFA's premiership ladder with records of 14–3–1, requiring a playoff match to determine the season's premiership; this was the first time this had occurred in VFA history. The match took place on 3 October 1896 at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. Collingwood won the match, six goals to five, in front of an estimated crowd of 12,000.


title: Sydney Swans

text: This grand final would be the last match South Melbourne would play in the VFA, as the following season they would be one of eight founding clubs forming the breakaway Victorian Football League joining St Kilda, Essendon, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Geelong, Carlton and Collingwood.


title: Sydney Swans

text: South Melbourne was one of the original founding clubs of the Victorian Football League that was formed in 1897.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The club had early success and won three VFL premierships in 1909, 1918 and 1933. The club was at its most successful in the 1930s, when key recruits from both Victoria and interstate led to a string of appearances in the finals, including four successive grand final appearances from 1933 to 1936, albeit with only one premiership in 1933. The collection of players recruited from interstate in 1932/1933 became known as South Melbourne's "Foreign Legion".


title: Sydney Swans

text: On grand final eve, 1935, as the Swans prepared to take on Collingwood, star full-forward Bob Pratt was clipped by a truck moments after stepping off a tram and subsequently missed the match for South. Ironically, the truck driver was a South Melbourne supporter.


title: Sydney Swans

text: It was during this period that the team became known as the Swans. The nickname, which was suggested by a Herald and Weekly Times artist in 1933, was inspired by the number of Western Australians in the team (the black swan being the state emblem of Western Australia), and was formally adopted by the club before the following season 1934. The name stuck, in part due to the club's association with nearby Albert Park and Lake, also known for its swans (although there are no longer any non-native white swans and only black, indigenous swans in the lake).


title: Sydney Swans

text: After several years with only limited success, South Melbourne next reached the grand final in 1945. The match, played against Carlton, was to become known colloquially as "the Bloodbath", due to the player brawl that overshadowed the match, with a total of 9 players being reported by the umpires. Carlton won the match by 28 points, and from then on, South Melbourne struggled for many years.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Following the end of the second world war, South Melbourne consistently struggled, as their traditional inner-city recruiting district largely emptied as a result of demographic shifts. The club missed the finals in 1946 and continued to fall such that by 1950 they were second-last on the ladder. They narrowly missed the finals in 1952, but from 1953 to 1969, they never finished any higher than eighth on the ladder. By the 1960s it was clear that South Melbourne's financial resources would not be capable of allowing them to compete in the growing market for country and interstate players, and their own local zone was never strong enough to compensate for this. The introduction of country zoning failed to help, as the Riverina Football League proved to be one of the least profitable zones.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Between 1945 and 1981, South Melbourne made the finals only twice: under legendary coach Norm Smith, South Melbourne finished fourth in 1970, but lost the first semi-final; and, in 1977, the club finished fifth under coach Ian Stewart, but lost the elimination final. In that time, they "won" three wooden spoons. Between Round 7, 1972 and Round 13, 1973, the team lost 29 consecutive games. By the end of the 1970s South Melbourne were saddled with massive debts after struggling for such a long period of time.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The VFL had been actively seeking an audience in Sydney since its first exhibition match in 1903 drew 20,000 people. For more than three quarters of a century, it had strategically scheduled matches in Sydney and through the Australian National Football Council - had allocated a significant share of its marketing budget to developing the code in Sydney, showcasing interstate tournaments and encouraging its clubs to play against the state representative side. At one point, it even attempted to negotiate a hybrid code with rugby league. However interest in the code in Sydney remained the poorest in the country (where it was behind three other football codes). In the late 1970s, however, with increasing professionalism of the sport there was an overall increase in national interest in the VFL competition. In 1979 the financially struggling Fitzroy Lions conducted a feasibility into the possibility of moving to North Sydney and a proposal was put forward, but was voted down by its board in 1980. The VFL scheduled 2 premiership matches for the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1979. One of them, between the previous year's grand finalists North Melbourne and Hawthorn drew a record 31,395 to the gates. To test the market further, the VFL scheduled 4 matches for the SCG in 1980 with an average attendance of 19,000. In April 1980, the VFL stated that its market study showed there was sufficient support for a Sydney team, finding that there was an increase in television ratings in Sydney and sustained attendance at matches and that it intended to have a team in Sydney, possibly as soon as 1982. A 1981 report by Graham Huggins concluded that there was an "untapped market in Sydney which represented an excellent opportunity for the league." The report claimed that 60,000 people in Sydney had stated that they would regularly support the new club and 90% of these supporters would watch VFL on television from Sydney and 80% of these supporters had not attended rugby and 92% believed that Australian rules could become popular in Sydney.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 1981 the VFL had decided that it would establish an entirely new 13th VFL club in Sydney along with a possible 14th team. The VFL was under strong pressure from interests in Adelaide to admit a South Australian club and from the ACT for a new Canberra license, however VFL president Allan Aylett was convinced that Sydney was the most viable option.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 1981, Canberra's ACTAFL had edged out rugby league in popularity with an increase in participation it had become the number one sport. Under significant pressure from a rugby league junior development push and fearing the impact on its strong local competition of entry of a Sydney team made a formal bid for license to enter a Canberra team into the VFL. With corporate backing and strong public support including local legend Alex Jesaulenko, the Canberra bid was confident it would be a successful expansion club. Aylett however, determined to pursue the entry of a Sydney team, dismissed the Canberra bid publishing a scathing report on the development of football in the ACT, stating that the VFL might consider Canberra for a license in another 10 years. Aylett's view was that Sydney offered a much bigger television audience and the most potential to add to the league's lucrative television rights. The report however was criticised by the ACTAFL as a template for the NSW Rugby League to raid the prime Canberra market, which it did successfully, the following year. Not only did the VFL's Sydney plan and the Canberra Raiders decimate the ACTAFL's popularity and increase the popularity of rugby league throughout New South Wales, but to later bail out the struggling Swans and without consulting the ACTAFL, designated it an exclusive recruitment zone, taking with it many of the league's best players.


title: Sydney Swans

text: With the possibility of another club making Sydney a viable move, in 1981, the South Melbourne board, recognising the structural difficulties it faced with long-term viability and financial stability in Melbourne, decided not to miss what it saw as a strategic opportunity to capture an untapped market and save its club. The board made the decision to play all 1982 home games in Sydney. The club had been operating at a loss of at least $150,000 for the previous five years. News of the proposal broke on 2 July 1981, after which a letter was sent to members justifying the board's reasons for making the proposal and noting that the coach and current players were in favour of the move. On 29 July 1981, the VFL formally accepted the proposal, and paved the way for the Swans to shift to Sydney in 1982.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Inevitably, the move caused very great internal difficulties as a large supporters' group known as Keep South at South campaigned against the move throughout the rest of 1981; and, at an extraordinary general meeting on 22 September, the group democratically won control of the club's board. However, the new board did not have the power to unilaterally stop the move to Sydney: under the VFL constitution, to rescind the decision that had been made on 29 July required a three-quarters majority in a vote of all twelve clubs, and at a meeting on 14 October it failed to obtain this majority. The new board, whilst representative of most fans, lacked the support of the players, many of whom were in favour of a long-term move to Sydney; in early November, after the board promised that it would try to bring the club back to Melbourne in 1983, the players went on strike, seeking to force the new board to commit to Sydney in the long term as well as seeking payments that the cash-strapped club owed them from the previous season. The board ended up undermining its own position when it accepted a $400,000 loan from the VFL in late November in order to stay solvent, under the condition that it commit to Sydney for at least two years. Finally, in early December, the Keep South at South board resigned and a board in favour of the move to Sydney was installed.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 1982, the club was still technically a Melbourne-based club which played all of its home games at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Its physical "home club" was the "Southern Cross Social Club" at 120a Clovelly Road, Randwick In response to the move, the club's sponsors, Bond Corporation pulled out and the club was left without a major backer. At a major launch in Sydney, Aylett vindicated the league's decision, announcing it had signed a new sponsor, Ward Transport, and that on-field success for the Swans would soon follow. The Swans experienced success in the 1982 Escort Championships with 1,000 supporters packing out the Chevron Hotel ballroom in King Cross in response to the win, however Channel Seven did not broadcast the match in Sydney. The lack of televised games and any media interest in Sydney was to continue to plague support for the Swans.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In June 1982, it dropped the name "South Melbourne", officially becoming "the Swans" for the rest of the season. The name change, however, did not endear either the Sydney media or the Sydney public, and after successive games at home, began to draw as few as 10,000. Despite just missing the finals, and some good wins at home and respectable home crowds against league leaders Carlton and Richmond, the lack of success and cold reception in Sydney lead to the lustre quickly leaving the league's glamour team.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 1983 average crowds in Sydney continued to plummet to 12,000 and Swans supporter packages dropped to as low as 100 members. Television ratings and sponsorship revenue in Sydney were also far below the league's expectations.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The financial impact continued to drown the Swans in 1984, with the club flagging pay cuts to its players in order to survive. Coach Ricky Quade resigned and caretaker coach Bob Hammond, despite showing some promise, was unable to turn the club's poor performance around. In order to keep the club solvent during this time, the VFL began to write loans to the Swans that the club would have been unable to pay off on its own. The Swans were the league's most reliant on sponsorship and subsidies from the VFL to stay solvent and meet player payments due to its continued poor crowds, public apathy and poor TV ratings.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Public support for the Swans in Sydney was so bad that by the start of the 1985 season, the VFL began to backflip and the league's administrators, having sunk large amounts of money into the club began looking to offload it.


title: Sydney Swans

text: On 31 July 1985, for what was thought to be $6.3 million, Geoffrey Edelsten "bought" the Swans; in reality it was $2.9 million in cash with funding and other payments spread over five years. Edelsten resigned as chairman in less than twelve months, but had already made his mark. He immediately recruited former Geelong coach Tom Hafey. Hafey, in turn, used his knowledge of Geelong's contracts to recruit David Bolton, Bernard Toohey and Greg Williams, who would all form a key part of the Sydney side, at a league-determined total fee of $240,000 (less than the $500,000 Geelong demanded and even the $300,000 Sydney offered). The likes of Gerard Healy, Merv Neagle and Paul Morwood were also poached from other clubs, and failed approaches were made to Simon Madden, Terry Daniher, Andrew Bews and Maurice Rioli.


title: Sydney Swans

text: During the Edelsten years, the Swans were seen by the Sydney public as a flamboyant, flashy club, typified by the style of its spearhead, Warwick Capper, his long bright blond mullet and bright pink boots made him unmissable on the field and his pink Lamborghini, penchant for girlfriends who were fashion models and his general showy eccentricity made him notorious off the field – all somewhat fashionable in the 1980s. During Capper's peak years, the Swans had made successive finals appearances for the first time since relocating. His consistently spectacular aerial exploits earned him the Mark of the Year award in 1987 while his goalkicking efforts (amassing 103 goals in 1987) made him runner up in the Coleman Medal two years running. The Swans’ successive finals appearances saw crowds during this time peak at an average of around 25,000 per game. Edelsten also introduced the "Swanettes", becoming the sole such American-style cheerleading group among VFL teams following the disbandment of Carlton's Blue Birds in 1986. The Swanettes did not get much performance time, owing to the short intervals between quarters of play in the VFL and the lack of space in which they might perform while other activities take place on the field. The Swanettes were rapidly discontinued. During the Edelsten era, the club's owner and the private company Westec are reported to have sunk more than $10 million in additional private capital to keep the club afloat.


title: Sydney Swans

text: When the Southern Cross club went bankrupt in 1987, the club relocated to the newly built Sydney Football Stadium


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 1987, the Swans scored 201 points against the West Coast Eagles and the following week scored 236 points against the Essendon Football Club. Both games were at the SCG. The Swans remain one of only two clubs to have scored consecutive team tallies above 200 points, the only other being Geelong in 1992. However, this was followed by several heavy losses, including defeat by Hawthorn by 99 points in the Qualifying Final and by 76 points against Melbourne in the First Semi-final.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The club's form was to slump in the following year. Losses were in the millions. It was obvious to most that the Swans were struggling financially, though the owners Powerplay International Ltd were not selling. In early 1988 the company advised the Australian Stock Exchange to cease trading its shares as it could not continue to trade until it had offloaded the Swans. A Canberra consortium including the ACTAFL initially proposed to buy the failed club and shift it to Canberra, however the VFL claimed this was too extreme a move. The league compromised and along with Aylett, who had denied Canberra a license in 1981, proposed that the Swans play away games in the ACT with a dual aim of giving the club a sustainable supporter base and helping resurrect the code in the ACT which had lost enormous ground to rugby league since the introduction of the Canberra Raiders. However the VFL blocked the move feeling that the club would lose its identity if it were to play matches in Canberra.


title: Sydney Swans

text: By mid year the VFL had revoked the Swans license and took over ownership of the club, after an investigation under VFL CEO Ross Oakley determined that it was unable to continue operating. However, there were no buyers. On 6 May 1988 the VFL paid Powerplay just $10 to transfer ownership of the club in an attempt to keep it afloat until a buyer could be found. The VFL would wait months for the club to regain financial security. The VFL had reported that it needed to find a buyer willing to pay at least $4 million in order to make the club financially viable in the medium to long term. In the meantime, the league had secured a sponsor which helped underwrite the club until the sale.


title: Sydney Swans

text: At the end of 1988 the VFL re-tendered the Swans license and a group of financial backers including Mike Willesee, Basil Sellers, Peter Weinert and Craig Kimberley purchased the licence and bankrolled the club.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Morale at the side plummeted as players were asked to take pay cuts. Legendary coach Tom Hafey was sacked by the club in 1988 after a player-led rebellion at his tough training methods (unusual in the semi-professional days of that era).


title: Sydney Swans

text: Capper was sold to the Brisbane Bears for AUD$400,000 in a desperate attempt to improve the club's finances. Instead, it only led to disastrous on-field performances. Instead of a 100-goal-a-season forward, Sydney's goalkicking was led by Bernard Toohey (usually a defender) with 29 in 1989, then Jim West with 34 in 1990. Players left the club in droves, including Brownlow Medalist Greg Williams, Bernard Toohey and Barry Mitchell. The careers of stars such as Dennis Carroll, David Bolton, Ian Roberts, Tony Morwood and David Murphy wound down, while promising young players like Jamie Lawson, Robert Teal and Paul Bryce had their careers cut short by injury.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Attendances consistently dropped below 10,000 when the team performed poorly between 1990 and 1994. The nadir came with three consecutive wooden spoons in 1992, 1993 and 1994.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In October 1992, members from the 15 AFL clubs voted on axing the struggling Swans. To fill the void left by the Swans, the league floated a radical proposal for Carlton or Collingwood to play all of their away games in Sydney, however it was felt that even the leagues most popular clubs wouldn't be able to draw a sufficient audience in Sydney to cover for the loss of the Swans. The AFL extended an offer for a Tasmanian license which was declined, and received an offer from the ACTAFL to relocate the club to Canberra, however the AFL rejected this. There were also strong rumours that the AFL intended to merge the club with the Brisbane Bears to form a combined New South Wales/Queensland team, fold altogether, or even move back to South Melbourne. Without adequate alternatives the AFL Commission intead decided to step in and save the club, offering substantial monetary and management support, with the 15 clubs asked to cover the club's AUD$1.2 million annual expenses including license fee and hire of the SCG. With draft and salary cap concessions in the early 1990s and a series of notable recruits, the team became competitive after the early part of the decade.


title: Sydney Swans

text: During this time, the side was largely held together by two inspirational skippers, both from the Wagga Wagga region of country New South Wales, Dennis Carroll and later the courageous captain Paul Kelly.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Desperate to hang on, the club was keen to enlist the biggest names and identities in the AFL, and recruited legendary coach Ron Barassi who helped save the club from extinction while serving them as coach from Round 7, 1993 to 1995. At roughly the same time, Hawthorn legend Dermott Brereton was also recruited, albeit with little on-field impact.


title: Sydney Swans

text: A big coup for the club was recruitment of St Kilda Football Club champion Tony "Plugger" Lockett in 1995. Lockett became a cult figure in Sydney, with an instant impact and along with the Super League war in the dominant rival rugby league football code in Australia, helped the Swans to become a powerhouse Sydney icon.


title: Sydney Swans

text: 1995 would be Barassi's last year in charge. The Swans won eight games – as many as they did in the previous three seasons combined – and finished with a percentage of over 100. They were also one of only two teams to defeat the all-conquering Carlton side of that year. Captain Paul Kelly won the League's highest individual honour, the Brownlow Medal. Barassi left an improving team, a club in a much better state than he found them.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Former Hawthorn player Rodney Eade took over the reins in 1996 and after a slow start (they lost their first two games of the season), turned the club around into powerful force. The Swans ended the minor round on top of the premiership table with 16 wins, 5 losses and 1 draw. In the finals, the Swans won one of the most thrilling AFL preliminary finals in history after Plugger Lockett kicked a behind after the siren to win the game. The Swans lost the grand final to , which had been their first appearance in a grand final since 1945. The game was played in front of 93,102 at the MCG.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The Swans then made the finals for four of the next five full years that Rodney Eade was in charge. In 1998 they finished 3rd on the AFL ladder; despite beating in their first final the Swans were then beaten by eventual premiers in the semi-final at the SCG.


title: Sydney Swans

text: The 1999 season was a largely uneventful year for the club, the only real highlight being Tony Lockett kicking his record-breaking 1300th goal against in Round 10. The 1999 season ended with a 69-point mauling at the hands of minor premiers .


title: Sydney Swans

text: After missing the finals in 2000, the Swans rebounded to finish 7th in 2001, but were beaten by by 55 points in their elimination final at Colonial Stadium.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Former Swans favourite son Paul Roos was appointed caretaker coach midway through the 2002 season, replacing Rodney Eade who was removed after Round 12. Roos won six of the remaining 10 games that year (including the last four of the season) and was installed as the permanent coach from the 2003 season onwards, despite rumors that Sydney had nearly concluded a deal with Terry Wallace.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Roos continued a record as a successful coach with the Swans for the eight full seasons that would follow.


title: Sydney Swans

text: A new home ground in ANZ Stadium (then known as Telstra Stadium) provided increased capacity over the SCG. The Swans' first game played at the Stadium in Round 9, 2002 against attracted 54,169 spectators. The Sydney Swans v Collingwood match on 23 August 2003 set an attendance record for the largest crowd to watch an AFL game outside of Victoria with an official attendance of 72,393 and was the largest home and away AFL crowd at any stadium for 2003. A preliminary final against the Brisbane Lions in 2003 attracted 71,019 people. The Swans lost all three of those significant matches.


title: Sydney Swans

text: 2004 saw an average year for Sydney, however one highlight was when they ended 's undefeated start to the season in Round 11. The match was notable for Leo Barry's effort in nullifying the impact of St Kilda full-forward and eventual Coleman Medallist Fraser Gehrig, whom Barry restricted to only two possessions for the entire match.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Sydney was able to recruit another St Kilda export in the Lockett mould, Barry Hall. There were obvious parallels to the signing of Lockett (a powerful, tough forward from St Kilda with questions over his discipline and attitude), which left Hall with much to live up to. He flourished in his new surroundings and eventually became a cult figure and club leader in his own right.


title: Sydney Swans

text: As the new century dawned, Sydney implemented a policy of giving up high order draft picks in exchange for players who struggled at other clubs. It was during this era that the Swans picked up the likes of Paul Williams, Barry Hall, Craig Bolton, Darren Jolly, Ted Richards, Peter Everitt, Martin Mattner, Rhyce Shaw, Shane Mumford, Ben McGlynn and Mitch Morton, amongst others, and giving up higher order draft picks meant the Swans missed out on the likes of Daniel Motlop, Nick Dal Santo, James Kelly, Courtenay Dempsey and Sam Lonergan who went to , , and the latter two to respectively. This policy is said to have paid off in the Roos era, as they implemented a strict culture of discipline at the club.


title: Sydney Swans

text: In 2005, the Swans came under enormous public scrutiny, even from AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou, for their unorthodox, "boring" defense-oriented tactics that included tightly controlling the tempo of the game and starving the opposition of possession (in fact, seven teams that season had their lowest possession total while playing against the Swans). Swans coach Paul Roos maintained that playing contested football was the style used by all recent Premiership-winning teams, and felt that it was ironic that the much criticised strategy proved ultimately successful.


title: Sydney Swans

text: After finishing third during the regular season, the Swans lost the second qualifying final against the West Coast Eagles at Subiaco Oval on 2 September by 10.5 (65) to 10.9 (69). This dropped them into a semi-final against the Geelong Cats at the SCG on 9 September, and the Swans trailed the Cats 31–53 before Nick Davis kicked four consecutive goals, with the last one a matter of seconds before the siren, to win the game for Sydney by 7.14 (56) to 7.11 (53). In the first preliminary final at the MCG on 16 September against St Kilda, the Swans used a seven-goal blitz in 11 minutes of the fourth quarter to overturn an 8-point deficit and overrun the Saints by 15.6 (96) to 9.11 (65).


title: Sydney Swans

text: The Swans faced the Eagles in a rematch in the AFL Grand Final on 24 September 2005, and this time, they prevailed by four points, final score 8.10 (58) to West Coast's 7.12 (54). In the last few minutes, the Sydney defence held strong, with Leo Barry marking the ball just before the siren to stop the Eagles' final desperate shot at goal. The Premiership was the Swans' first in 72 years and their first since being based in Sydney.


title: Sydney Swans

text: On 30 September 2005, a ticker tape parade down Sydney's George Street was held in honour of the Swans' achievements, which ended with a rally at Sydney Town Hall, where Lord Mayor Clover Moore presented the team with the key to the city. The flag of the Swans also flew on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the week; the same flag was later given to Premier of Western Australia Geoff Gallop to fly on top of the state legislature in Perth as part of the friendly wager between Gallop and Premier of New South Wales Morris Iemma.


title: Sydney Swans

text: Off the field the Grand Final success instigated moves to make the club sustainable in the long term and capitalise on the success to grow the code in the state. The Greater Sydney Australian Football Foundation Limited was formed, which would later become the Sydney Swans Foundation aimed initially at raising $5 million in funds to develop the Swans and the code in New South Wales. The Foundation has raised millions since its inception and helped keep the Swans sustainable in Sydney.


title: Sydney Swans

text: As reigning premiers, the Sydney Swans started the 2006 season slowly, losing three of their first four games, including in round one to an side that would finish near the bottom of the ladder with only three wins and a draw, and finish with the worst defensive record of any side for the season (Sydney, conversely, had the best defensive record of any side).


title: Sydney Swans

text: The 2006 AFL Grand Final was contested between the Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 30 September 2006. The West Coast Eagles avenged their 2005 Grand Final defeat by beating the Sydney Swans by one point, only the fourth one-point grand final margin in the competition's history.