50 BC

Biology

Lucretius [b. Rome, c. 99 bce, d. Rome, c. 55 bce] suggests that some organisms have adaptations that help them survive while others are less fitted to survival and become extinct. His famous poem De rerum natura ("on the nature of the universe") is published after his early death. See also 550 bce Biology.

Lucretius describes how the illusion of motion can be created by sequential display of frames.

Lucretius endorses a modified view of the atoms proposed by Democritus. For example, Lucretius thinks that there must be a finite number of types of atom, none large enough to be visible, and that their natural motion is down, not in straight lines in random directions. See also 450 bce Physics.

Millennium:	1st millennium BC
Centuries:	2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century
Decades:	80s BC  70s BC  60s BC  - 50s BC -  40s BC  30s BC  20s BC
Years:	53 BC 52 BC 51 BC - 50 BC - 49 BC 48 BC 47 BC

50 BC by topic

Politics

State leaders - Sovereign states

Birth and death categories

Births - Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments - Disestablishments v • d • e

50 BC in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	50 BC
Ab urbe condita	704
Armenian calendar	N/A
Bahá'í calendar	-1893 – -1892
Berber calendar	901
Buddhist calendar	495
Burmese calendar	-687
Byzantine calendar	5459 – 5460
Chinese calendar	庚午年 (2587/2647) — to — 辛未年 (2588/2648)
Coptic calendar	-333 – -332
Ethiopian calendar	-57 – -56
Hebrew calendar	3711 – 3712
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	6 – 7
- Shaka Samvat	N/A
- Kali Yuga	3052 – 3053
Holocene calendar	9951
Iranian calendar	671 BP – 670 BP
Islamic calendar	692 BH – 691 BH
Japanese calendar
Korean calendar	2284
Thai solar calendar	494
v • d • e

The world in 50 BCE.

Year 50 BC was a year of the pre-Julian calendar.

Events

By place

Rome

• Consuls: Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor.
• The Senate refuses Julius Caesar permission to stand for consul in absentia, and demands that he lay down his command.
• The Roman artillery piece called Scorpio is invented.
• Initiation Rites of the Cult of Bacchus (?), detail of a wall painting in the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, is made. (approximate date)

Births

Deaths

• Aristobulus II, king of Judea
• Quintus Hortensius, Roman orator and advocate (b. 114 BC)

Fictional references

• The Asterix comic books are all set in this year.

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