1.
Phidias
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Phidias or Pheidias was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Phidias was the son of Charmides of Athens. The ancients believed that his masters were Hegias and Ageladas, Phidias is often credited as the main instigator of the Classical Greek sculptural design. Today, most critics and historians consider him one of the greatest of all ancient Greek sculptors, although no original works exist that can be attributed to Phidias with certainty, numerous Roman copies of varying degrees of fidelity are known to exist. Almost all classical Greek paintings and sculptures have been destroyed, and only Roman copies or notes of them exist, the ancient Romans frequently copied and further developed Greek art. In antiquity Phidias was celebrated for his statues in bronze and his chryselephantine works, in the Hippias Major, Plato claims that Phidias seldom, if ever, executed works in marble, though many of the sculptures of his times were executed in marble. Plutarch tells us that he superintended the works ordered by Pericles on the Acropolis. Ancient critics take a high view of the merits of Phidias. What they especially praise is the ethos or permanent moral level of his works as compared with those of the later so called pathetic school, demetrius calls his statues sublime, and at the same time precise. Of his life we know little apart from his works and his first commission created a group of national heroes with Miltiades as a central figure. Pericles used some of the money from the maritime League of Delos, to rebuild, inscriptions prove that the marble blocks intended for the pedimental statues of the Parthenon were not brought to Athens until 434 BC, which was probably after the death of Phidias. It is therefore possible that most of sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was the work of Phidias workshop including pupils of Phidias, such as Alcamenes, the Golden Ratio has been represented by the Greek letter φ, after Phidias, who is said to have employed it. The Golden Ratio is an irrational number approximating 1.6180 which has special mathematical properties, the golden spiral is also said to hold aesthetic values. The earliest of the works of Phidias were dedications in memory of Marathon, at Delphi he created a great group in bronze including the figures of Greek gods Apollo and Athena, several Attic heroes, and General Miltiades the Younger. On the Acropolis of Athens Phidias constructed a bronze statue of Athena, the Athena Promachos. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and warriors and the protector of Athens, at Pellene in Achaea, and at Plataea Phidias made two other statues of Athena, as well as a statue of the goddess Aphrodite in ivory and gold for the people of Elis. Both sculptures belong to about the middle of the 5th century BC, a number of replicas and works inspired by it, both ancient and modern, have been made. Phidias left Athens in about 438 BC, on completion of the Athena Parthenos, accused by a fellow worker of embezzlement, and unable to account for the amount of gold used in separate parts of the statue, he voluntarily underwent exile rather than face public humiliation
2.
Pushkin Museum
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The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Svyatoslav Richters December nights has been held in the Pushkin museum since 1981. The museums current name is misleading, in that it has no direct associations with the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The facility was founded by professor Ivan Tsvetaev, Tsvetaev persuaded the millionaire and philanthropist Yuriy Nechaev-Maltsov and the fashionable architect Roman Klein of the urgent need to give Moscow a fine arts museum. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts building was designed by Roman Klein and Vladimir Shukhov, construction work began in 1898 and continued till 1912. Ivan Rerberg headed structural engineering effort on the site for 12 years. In 2008, President Dmitri A. Medvedev announced plans for a $177 million restoration, in 2014, Russian architect Yuri Grigoryan, and his firm Project Meganom, were chosen to take over the project. Tsvetaevs dream was realised in May 1912, when the museum opened its doors to the public, the museum was originally named after Alexander III, although the government provided only 200,000 rubles toward its construction, in comparison with over 2 million from Nechaev-Maltsev. Its first exhibits were copies of ancient statuary, thought indispensable for the education of art students, the only genuinely ancient items - Moscow Mathematical Papyrus and Story of Wenamun - had been contributed by Vladimir Golenishchev three years earlier. After the Russian capital was moved to Moscow in 1918, the Soviet government decided to transfer thousands of works from St Petersburgs Hermitage Museum to the new capital, the entire collection of Western art from the Museum Roumjantsev was added too. These paintings formed a nucleus of the Pushkin museums collections of Western art, but the most important paintings were added later from the State Museum of New Western Art. These comprised Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artwork, including top works by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Dufrénoy, Derain, among them, Van Goghs La Vigne Rouge, apparently the only painting sold during the artists lifetime. In 1937, Pushkins name was appended to the museum, because the Soviet Union marked the centenary of the death that year. After World War II the evacuated Dresden Gallery had been stored in Moscow for 10 years, the Pushkin Museum has a numismatic collection which is unpublished. It includes archaeological material from Central Asia, such as a hoard of Kushano-Sasanian coins acquired in 2002 William Craft Brumfield
3.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
4.
Iliad
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The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly. The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC. Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution gives a date of 760–710 BC, in the modern vulgate, the Iliad contains 15,693 lines, it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects. Note, Book numbers are in parentheses and come before the synopsis of the book, after an invocation to the Muses, the story launches in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besieging Greeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive of Agamemnon, although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollos help, and Apollo causes a plague to afflict the Greek army, after nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon but will go home. Odysseus takes a ship and returns Chryseis to her father, whereupon Apollo ends the plague, in the meantime, Agamemnons messengers take Briseis away. Achilles becomes very upset, sits by the seashore, and prays to his mother, Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to bring the Greeks to the breaking point by the Trojans, so Agamemnon will realize how much the Greeks need Achilles. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees, Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Agamemnon heeds the dream but decides to first test the Greek armys morale, the plan backfires, and only the intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout. Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnons war. After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain, the poet takes the opportunity to describe the provenance of each Greek contingent. When news of the Greek deployment reaches King Priam, the Trojans too sortie upon the plain, in a list similar to that for the Greeks, the poet describes the Trojans and their allies. The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by his brother and head of the Trojan army, Hector. While Helen tells Priam about the Greek commanders from the walls of Troy, Paris is beaten, but Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with Helen before Menelaus can kill him
5.
Athena
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Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is the goddess of wisdom, craft, and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena, Athena is known for her calm temperament, as she moves slowly to anger. She is noted to have fought for just reasons. Athena is portrayed as a companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her city, Athens. Veneration of Athena was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes, in her role as a protector of the city, many people throughout the Greek world worshipped Athena as Athena Polias. While the city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear the same name, Athena is associated with Athens, a plural name, because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood, the Athenai, in earliest times. Mycenae was the city where the Goddess was called Mykene, at Thebes she was called Thebe, and the city again a plural, Thebae. Similarly, at Athens she was called Athena, and the city Athenae, Athena had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. According to mythical lore, she competed with Poseidon and she won by creating the olive tree, the Athenians would accept her gift and name the city after her. In history, the citizens of Athens built a statue of Athena as a temple to the goddess, which had piercing eyes, a helmet on her head, attired with an aegis or cuirass, and an extremely long spear. It also had a shield with the head of the Gorgon on it. A large snake accompanied her and she held Nike, the goddess of victory, therefore, Mylonas believes that Athena was a Mycenaean creation. On the other hand, Nilsson claims that she was the goddess of the palace who protected the king, a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja is also found in Linear A Minoan, the final part being regarded as the Linear A Minoan equivalent of the Linear B Mycenaean di-u-ja or di-wi-ja. Divine Athena also was a weaver and the deity of crafts, whether her name is attested in Eteocretan or not will have to wait for decipherment of Linear A. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean she who knows divine things better than others. Thus for Plato her name was to be derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Plato also noted that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neith, and which was identified with Athena. Neith was the war goddess and huntress deity of the Egyptians since the ancient Pre-Dynastic period, in addition, ancient Greek myths reported that Athena had visited many mythological places such as Libyas Triton River in North Africa and the Phlegraean plain
6.
Zeus
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Zeus /ˈzjuːs/ is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter and his mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of the Indo-European deities such as Indra, Jupiter, Perun, Thor, and Odin. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, in most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses. He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe That Zeus is king in heaven is a common to all men. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak, in addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical cloud-gatherer also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses, standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his right hand. The gods name in the nominative is Ζεύς Zeús and it is inflected as follows, vocative, Ζεῦ Zeû, accusative, Δία Día, genitive, Διός Diós, dative, Διί Dií. Diogenes Laertius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, Ζάς, Zeus is the Greek continuation of *Di̯ēus, the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph2tēr. The god is known under this name in the Rigveda, Latin, Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology. The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek
7.
Shield
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A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand or mounted on the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry or projectiles such as arrows, by means of active blocks. Shields vary greatly in size, ranging from large panels that protect the whole body to small models that were intended for hand-to-hand-combat use. In prehistory and during the era of the earliest civilisations, shields were made of wood, animal hide and they were carried by foot soldiers, knights and cavalry. Depending on time and place, shields could be round, oval, square, rectangular, triangular, sometimes they took on the form of kites or flatirons, or had rounded tops on a rectangular base with perhaps an eye-hole, to look through when used with combat. The shield was held by a grip or by straps that went over or around the users arm. Often shields were decorated with a pattern or an animal representation to show their army or clan. These designs developed into systematized heraldic devices during the High Middle Ages for purposes of battlefield identification, even after the introduction of gunpowder and firearms to the battlefield, shields continued to be used by certain groups. In the 20th and 21st century, shields have been used by military and police units that specialize in anti-terrorist actions, hostage rescue, riot control and siege-breaking. The modern term usually refers to a device that is held in the hand or attached to the arm, Shields are also sometimes mounted on vehicle-mounted weapons to protect the operator. The oldest form of shield was a device designed to block attacks by hand weapons, such as swords, axes and maces, or ranged weapons like sling-stones. Shields have varied greatly in construction time and place. Sometimes shields were made of metal, but wood or animal hide construction was more common, wicker. Many surviving examples of metal shields are generally felt to be rather than practical, for example the Yetholm-type shields of the Bronze Age. Lightly armored warriors relying on speed and surprise would generally carry light shields that were small or thin. Heavy troops might be equipped with robust shields that could cover most of the body, many had a strap called a guige that allowed them to be slung over the users back when not in use or on horseback. During the 14th–13th century BC, the Sards or Shardana, working as mercenaries for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, the Mycenaean Greeks used two types of shields, the figure-of-eight shield and a rectangular tower shield. These shields were made primarily from a frame and then reinforced with leather
8.
Gorgon
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In Greek mythology, a Gorgon is a female creature. Traditionally, while two of the Gorgons were immortal, Stheno and Euryale, their sister Medusa was not, and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus. Gorgons were an image in Greek mythology, appearing in the earliest of written records of Ancient Greek religious beliefs such as those of Homer. Because of their legendary and powerful gaze that could turn one to stone, images of the Gorgons were put upon objects and buildings for protection. An image of a Gorgon holds the location at the pediment of the temple at Corfu, which is the oldest stone pediment in Greece. The concept of the Gorgon is at least as old in classical Greek mythology as Perseus and Zeus, the name is Greek, being derived from gorgos and translating as terrible or dreadful. Gorgoneia first appear in Greek art at the turn of the eighth century BC, one of the earliest representations is on an electrum stater discovered during excavations at Parium. Other early eighth-century examples were found at Tiryns, going even further back into history, there is a similar image from the Knossos palace, datable to the fifteenth century BC. Marija Gimbutas even argues that the Gorgon extends back to at least 6000 BC, in her book, Language of the Goddess, she also identifies the prototype of the Gorgoneion in Neolithic art motifs, especially in anthropomorphic vases and terracotta masks inlaid with gold. The large Gorgon eyes, as well as Athenas flashing eyes, are termed the divine eyes by Gimbutas, they appear also in Athenas sacred bird. They may be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, swastikas, firewheels, the awkward stance of the gorgon, with arms and legs at angles is closely associated with these symbols as well. Possibly related, a figure, probably a sea-goddess is depicted on a Minoan gold ring from the island Mochlos in Crete. The goddess has a head and she is sitting in a boat. A holy tree is depicted, probably related to the Minoan cult of the tree, some Gorgons are shown with fangs, consisting of wild boar tusks, while other representations lack fangs and show a forced smile displaying large teeth and sometimes a protruding tongue. In some cruder representations, stylized hair or blood flowing under the head of the Gorgon has been mistaken for a beard or wings. The skin of the dragon was said to be made of impenetrable scales, while seeking origins others have suggested examination of some similarities to the Babylonian creature, Humbaba, in the Gilgamesh epic. A number of early scholars interpreted the myth of the Medusa as a quasi-historical, or sublimated. Transitions in religious traditions over such periods of time may make some strange turns
9.
Helios
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Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia, also known as Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. In the Homeric hymn to Helios, Helios is said to drive a chariot drawn by steeds. Still later, the horses were given related names, Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon. As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, however, in spite of their syncretism, they were also often viewed as two distinct gods/titan. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, specifically Sol Invictus, the Greek ἥλιος is the inherited word for the Sun, from Proto-Indo-European *sóh₂wl̥, cognate with Latin sol, Sanskrit surya, Old English swegl, Old Norse sól, Welsh haul, etc. The female offspring of Helios were called Heliades, the Greek sun god had various bynames or epithets, which over time in some cases came to be considered separate deities associated with the Sun. Most notably, Helios is closely associated with, and sometimes identified with. Diodorus Siculus of Sicily reported that the Chaldeans called Cronus by the name Helios, or the sun, among these is Hyperion, Elektor, Phaëton the radiant, Hekatos. The best known story involving Helios is that of his son Phaethon, Helios was sometimes characterized with the epithet Panoptes. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew land on Thrinacia, an island sacred to the sun god. There, the red cattle of the Sun were kept, You will now come to the Thrinacian island. There will be seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep and they do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetia, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island. Though Odysseus warns his men, when supplies run short they impiously kill, the guardians of the island, Helios daughters, tell their father about this. Helios appeals to Zeus telling them to dispose of Odysseus men or he will take the Sun, Zeus destroys the ship with his lightning bolt, killing all the men except for Odysseus. In one Greek vase painting, Helios appears riding across the sea in the cup of the Delphic tripod which appears to be a solar reference. While Heracles traveled to Erytheia to retrieve the cattle of Geryon, he crossed the Libyan desert and was so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, Heracles used this golden cup to reach Erytheia
10.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
11.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
12.
Egyptian mythology
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Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptian religion, Myths appear frequently in Egyptian writings and art, particularly in short stories and in religious material such as hymns, ritual texts, funerary texts, and temple decoration. These sources rarely contain an account of a myth and often describe only brief fragments. Inspired by the cycles of nature, the Egyptians saw time in the present as a series of recurring patterns, Myths are set in these earliest times, and myth sets the pattern for the cycles of the present. Present events repeat the events of myth, and in doing so renew maat, events from the present that might be regarded as myths include Ras daily journey through the world and its otherworldly counterpart, the Duat. The details of these sacred events differ greatly from one text to another, Egyptian myths are primarily metaphorical, translating the essence and behavior of deities into terms that humans can understand. Each variant of a myth represents a different symbolic perspective, enriching the Egyptians understanding of the gods and it inspired or influenced many religious rituals and provided the ideological basis for kingship. Scenes and symbols from myth appeared in art in tombs, temples, in literature, myths or elements of them were used in stories that range from humor to allegory, demonstrating that the Egyptians adapted mythology to serve a wide variety of purposes. The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace, Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians natural surroundings, thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption, unusually low floods resulted in famine, the hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an place of stability, or maat. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought, another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a cultures myths developed before rituals or vice versa, questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths, rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, but because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain. In private rituals, which are often called magical, the myth, many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals texts are not found in other sources
13.
Cyclops
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A cyclops, in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The word cyclops literally means round-eyed or circle-eyed, other accounts were written by the playwright Euripides, poet Theocritus and Roman epic poet Virgil. In Hesiods Theogony, Zeus releases three cyclopes from the pit of Tartarus. They provide Zeus thunderbolt, Hades helmet of invisibility, and Poseidons trident, in a famous episode of Homers Odyssey, the hero Odysseus encounters the cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and Thoosa, who lives with his fellow cyclopes in a distant country. The connection between the two groups has been debated in antiquity and by modern scholars and it is upon Homers account that Euripides and Virgil based their accounts of the mythical creatures. Strabo describes another group of seven Lycian cyclopes, also known as Bellyhands because they earned from their handicraft and they had built the walls of Tiryns and perhaps the caverns and the labyrinths near Nauplia, which are called cyclopean. All the other sources of literature about the cyclopes describe the cyclops Polyphemus, various ancient Greek and Roman authors wrote about cyclopes. Hesiod described them as three brothers who were primordial giants. ”However others suggest that Homer’s Polyphemus may have had two eyes and it is pointed out that in the Odyssey when the actual blinding occurs there is a reference to plural brows and lids. It is also noted that the first artistic or graphic depiction of the episode appears on an amphora that was created by the Polyphemos Painter c. 680-650 B. C. and the artist shows the blinding stake has two prongs, as two eyes are being targeted. In the Theogony by Hesiod, the cyclopes – Brontes, Steropes and the bright Arges – were the sons of Uranus and Gaia and brothers of the Hekatonkheires. As such, they were blood-related to the Titan and Olympian gods and they were giants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead and a foul disposition. According to Hesiod, they were strong and stubborn, collectively they eventually became synonyms for brute strength and power, and their name was invoked in connection with massive masonry. They were often pictured at their forge, Uranus, fearing their strength, locked them in Tartarus. Cronus, another son of Uranus and Gaia, later freed the cyclopes, along with the Hekatonkhires, Cronus then placed them back in Tartarus, where they remained, guarded by the female monster Campe, until freed by Zeus. They fashioned thunderbolts for Zeus to use as weapons, and helped him overthrow Cronus, the lightning bolts, which became Zeus main weapons, were forged by all three cyclopes, in that Arges added brightness, Brontes added thunder, and Steropes added lightning. According to a hymn of Callimachus, they were Hephaestus helpers at the forge, the cyclopes were said to have built the cyclopean fortifications at Tiryns and Mycenae in the Peloponnese. The noises proceeding from the heart of volcanoes were attributed to their operations, Euripides only extant comedy is his play Cyclops, which takes place on the island of Sicily near the volcano Mount Etna
14.
Gorgoneion
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She defined the gorgoneion as a quintessentially European image. Homer refers to the Gorgon on four occasions, each time alluding to the head alone, jane Ellen Harrison notes that Medusa is a head and nothing more. A mask with a body later appended, the direct frontal stare, seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer, was highly unusual in ancient Greek art. In some instances what sometimes appears as a beard was appended to her chin, gorgoneia that decorate the shields of warriors on mid-fifth century Greek vases are considerably less grotesque and menacing. By that time, the Gorgon had lost her tusks and the snakes were rather stylized, the Hellenistic marble known as the Medusa Rondanini illustrates the Gorgons eventual transformation into a beautiful woman. Gorgoneia appear frequently in Greek art at the turn of the eighth century BC, one of the earliest representations is on an electrum stater discovered during excavations at Parium. Other early eighth-century examples were found at Tiryns, going further back into history, there is a similar image from the Knossos palace, datable to the fifteenth century BC. In the sixth century, gorgoneia of a lion mask type were ubiquitous on Greek temples, especially in. Pedimental gorgoneia were common in Sicily, probably the earliest occurrence being in the Temple of Apollo in Syracuse, around 500 BC, they ceased to be used for the decoration of monumental buildings, but were still shown on antefixes of smaller structures throughout the next century. Apart from temples, the Gorgon imagery is present on dress, dishes, weapons, the Gorgon coins were struck in 37 cities, making her image on coins second in numismatic ubiquity only to several principal Olympian gods. On mosaic floors, the gorgoneion usually was depicted next to the threshold, on Attic kilns, the gorgoneion over the kiln door protected from mishaps. The Gorgon imagery remained popular even in Christian times, especially in the Byzantine Empire, including Kievan Rus, more recently, the gorgoneion was adopted by Gianni Versace as a logo for his fashion company. Cultural depictions of Medusa and gorgons
15.
Medusa
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In Greek mythology Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazers upon her hideous face would turn to stone, most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, though the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto. According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on an island named Sarpedon, the 2nd-century BCE novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth, as part of their religion. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the device known as the Gorgoneion. The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were all children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys and his sister Ceto, in an ode written in 490 BC Pindar already speaks of fair-cheeked Medusa. In Ovids telling, Perseus describes Medusas punishment by Minerva as just, in most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry his mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help and he received a mirrored shield from Athena, gold, winged sandals from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hadess helm of invisibility. Since Medusa was the one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon, when Perseus beheaded her, Pegasus, a winged horse, and Chrysaor, a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body. Jane Ellen Harrison argues that her potency only begins when her head is severed, the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood. In the Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa, Lest for my daring Persephone the dread, harrisons translation states the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon. According to Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed him into stone when he tried to attack him. Furthermore, the poisonous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovids Metamorphoses 4.770, the blood of Medusa also spawned the Amphisbaena. Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was about to be forced into marriage with the king, King Polydectes was turned into stone by the gaze of Medusas head. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three but one + two, the two unslain sisters are mere appendages due to custom, the real Gorgon is Medusa. A number of early scholars interpreted the myth of the Medusa as a quasi-historical. According to Joseph Campbell, In 1940, Sigmund Freuds Das Medusenhaupt was published posthumously and this article laid the framework for his significant contribution to a body of criticism surrounding the monster. Medusa is presented by Freud as the supreme talisman who provides the image of castration — associated in the mind with the discovery of maternal sexuality —
16.
Attica
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Attica is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea, the modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes the Saronic Islands, Cythera, and the municipality of Troizinia on the Peloponnesian mainland. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, Attica is a triangular peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea. It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the 10 mi long Cithaeron mountain range, to the west, it is bordered by the sea and the canal of Corinth. The Saronic Gulf lies to the south, and the island of Euboea lies off the north, mountains separate the peninsula into the plains of Pedias, Mesogaia, and Thriasion. The mountains of Attica are the Hymettus, the portion of the Geraneia, the Parnitha, the Aigaleo. Four mountains—Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus —delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens-Piraeus metroplex now spreads, Athens water reservoir, Lake Marathon, is an artificial lake created by damming in 1920. Pine and fir forests cover the area around Parnitha, Hymettus, Penteli, Myrrhinous and Laurium are forested with pine trees, whereas the rest are covered by shrubbery. The Kifisos is the longest river of Attica, according to Plato, Atticas ancient boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, and, toward the continent, they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes. The boundary line came down toward the sea, bounded by the district of Oropus on the right, during antiquity, the Athenians boasted about being autochthonic, which is to say that they were the original inhabitants of the area and had not moved to Attica from another place. The traditions current in the classical period recounted that, during the Greek Dark Ages, Attica had become the refuge of the Ionians, who belonged to a tribe from the northern Peloponnese. Supposedly, the Ionians had been forced out of their homeland by the Achaeans, supposedly, the Ionians integrated with the ancient Atticans, who, afterward, considered themselves part of the Ionian tribe and spoke the Ionian dialect. Many Ionians later left Attica to colonize the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, during the Mycenaean period, the Atticans lived in autonomous agricultural societies. The main places where prehistoric remains were found are Marathon, Rafina, Nea Makri, Brauron, Thorikos, Agios Kosmas, Eleusis, Menidi, Markopoulo, Spata, Aphidnae, all of these settlements flourished during the Mycenaean period. According to tradition, Attica comprised twelve small communities during the reign of Cecrops, strabo assigns these the names of Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia, and possibly Phaleron. These were said to have been incorporated in an Athenian state during the reign of Theseus. Modern historians consider it likely that the communities were progressively incorporated into an Athenian state during the 8th. Until the 6th century BC, aristocratic families lived independent lives in the suburbs, only after Peisistratoss tyranny and the reforms implemented by Cleisthenes did the local communities lose their independence and succumb to the central government in Athens
17.
Serpent (symbolism)
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The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin serpens, an animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good, in some cultures, snakes were fertility symbols. For example, the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth and Snake Girl, during the dance, live snakes were handled and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, in other cultures, snakes symbolized the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars—sometimes twining around her staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshiped as guardians of her mysteries of birth. Historically, serpents and snakes represent fertility or a life force. As snakes shed their skin through sloughing, they are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, the ouroboros is a symbol of eternity and continual renewal of life. In some Abrahamic traditions, the serpent represents sexual desire, according to some interpretations of the Midrash, the serpent represents sexual passion. In Hinduism, Kundalini is a serpent, the residual power of pure desire. Serpents are represented as potent guardians of temples and other sacred spaces, thus, they are natural guardians of treasures or sacred sites which cannot easily be moved out of harms way. At Angkor in Cambodia, numerous stone sculptures present hooded multi-headed nāgas as guardians of temples or other premises, the Gadsden flag of the American Revolution depicts a rattlesnake coiled up and poised to strike. Below the image of the snake is the legend, Dont tread on me, the snake symbolized the dangerousness of colonists willing to fight for their rights and homeland. The motif is repeated in the First Navy Jack of the US Navy, Serpents are connected with poison and medicine. The snakes venom is associated with the chemicals of plants and fungi that have the power to either heal, because of its herbal knowledge and entheogenic association the snake was often considered one of the wisest animals, being divine. Its divine aspect combined with its habitat in the earth between the roots of plants made it an animal with chthonic properties connected to the afterlife and immortality. Asclepius, the god of medicine and healing, carried a staff with one serpent wrapped around it, Moses also had a replica of a serpent on a pole, the Nehushtan, mentioned in Numbers 21,8. Serpents are connected with vengefulness and vindictiveness and this connection depends in part on the experience that venomous snakes often deliver deadly defensive bites without giving prior notice or warning to their unwitting victims
18.
Mount Ida
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Thereafter, his birthplace was sacred to Zeus, the king and father of Greek gods and goddesses. The name Ida is of unknown origin, instances of i-da in Linear A are often conjectured to refer to either this mountain or the homonymous one in Crete. Proclus considered it as the mount of the Ideas, whence its etymology, cretes Mount Ida is the islands highest summit, sacred to the Goddess Rhea, and wherein lies the legendary cave in which baby Zeus was concealed from his father Cronus. It is one of a number of believed to have been the birthplace or hiding place of Zeus. On the flank of this mountain is the Amari Valley, the site of expansion by the ancient settlement at Phaistos, the surrounding area and mountain used to be very wooded. From the Anatolian Mount Ida, Zeus was said to have abducted Ganymede to Olympus, the topmost peak is Gargarus, mentioned in the Iliad. Zeus was located in the Altar of Zeus during the Trojan War, the modern Turkish name for Mount Ida, Turkey, is Kaz Dağı, pronounced. In the Aeneid, a star falls onto the mountain in answer to the prayer of Anchises to Jupiter
19.
Apollo
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Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros, Apollo has been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. As the patron of Delphi, Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the gods custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, as the leader of the Muses and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became an attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans, Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 3rd century CE. The name Apollo—unlike the related older name Paean—is generally not found in the Linear B texts, the etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling Ἀπόλλων had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era and it probably is a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios, and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of the young men during the family-festival apellai. According to some scholars the words are derived from the Doric word apella, apella is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the ecclesia. R. S. P. Beekes rejected the connection of the theonym with the noun apellai, several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollos name with the Greek verb ἀπόλλυμι, in the ancient Macedonian language πέλλα means stone, and some toponyms may be derived from this word, Πέλλα and Πελλήνη. The role of Apollo as god of plague is evident in the invocation of Apollo Smintheus by Chryses, the Hittite testimony reflects an early form *Apeljōn, which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot Ἀπείλων with Doric Ἀπέλλων. A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo The One of Entrapment, Apollos chief epithet was Phoebus, literally bright. It was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans for Apollos role as the god of light, like other Greek deities, he had a number of others applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a number of appellations in Greek myth. Aegletes, from αἴγλη, light of the sun Helius, literally sun Lyceus light, the meaning of the epithet Lyceus later became associated with Apollos mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia and who was identified with the wolf
20.
Hector
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In Greek mythology and Roman Mythology, Hector was a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who was a descendant of Dardanus and Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and he was married to Andromache, with whom he had an infant son, Scamandrius. He acted as leader of the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, during the European Middle Ages, Hector figures as one of the Nine Worthies noted by Jacques de Longuyon, known not only for his courage but also for his noble and courtly nature. Indeed, Homer places Hector as peace-loving, thoughtful as well as bold, a son, husband and father. James Redfield writes of Hector as a martyr to loyalties, a witness to the things of this world, in Greek, Héktōr is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ékhein, archaic form *ἕχειν hékhein, to have or to hold from Proto-Indo-European *seǵh- to hold. Héktōr, or Éktōr as found in Aeolic poetry, is also an epithet of Zeus in his capacity as he who holds, Hectors name could thus be taken to mean holding fast. According to the Iliad, Hector does not approve of war between the Greeks and the Trojans, for ten years, the Achaeans besieged Troy and their allies in the east. Hector commanded the Trojan army, with a number of subordinates including Polydamas, and his brothers Deiphobus, Helenus, and Paris. By all accounts, Hector was the best warrior the Trojans and all their allies could field, diomedes and Odysseus, when faced with his attack, described him as what Robert Fagles translated as an incredible dynamite, and a maniac. In the Iliad, Hectors exploits in the war prior to the events of the book are recapitulated and he had fought the Greek champion Protesilaus in single combat at the start of the war and killed him. A prophecy had stated that the first Greek to land on Trojan soil would die, thus, Protesilaus, Ajax, and Odysseus would not land. Finally, Odysseus threw his shield out and landed on that, in the ensuing fight, Hector killed him, fulfilling the prophecy. The Argives were initially reluctant to accept the challenge, however, after Nestors chiding, nine Greek heroes stepped up to the challenge and drew by lot to see who was to face Hector. Ajax wins and fights Hector to a stalemate for the entire day, with neither able to achieve victory, they express admiration for each others courage, skill, and strength. Hector gave Ajax his sword, which Ajax later uses to kill himself, Ajax gives Hector his girdle, which later was used to attach Hectors corpse to Achilles chariot by which he is dragged around the walls of Troy. The Greek and the Trojans make a truce to bury the dead, in the early dawn the next day the Greeks take advantage of it to build a wall and ditch around the ships. Zeus is watching in a distance, another mention of Hectors exploits in the early years of war was given in the Iliad book 9. During the embassy to Achilles, Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax all try to persuade Achilles to rejoin the fight and he then claims, There he stood up to me alone one day, and he barely escaped my onslaught
21.
Edith Hamilton
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Edith Hamilton was an American educator and author who was recognized as the greatest woman Classicist. She was 62 years old when The Greek Way, her first book, was published in 1930, the New York Times has described her as the Classical Scholar who brought into clear and brilliant focus the Golden Age of Greek life and thought. With Homeric power and simplicity in her style of writing, Edith Hamilton was born in Dresden, Germany, to Gertrude Pond Hamilton and Montgomery Hamilton, a scholarly man of leisure, she also had three sisters, Alice, Margaret, and Norah. In the early 1880s, she attended Miss Porters Finishing School for Young Ladies in Farmington, Connecticut, afterwards attending Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania. Upon earning her B. A. and M. A. degrees she won the Mary E. Garrett European Fellowship, in 1895 Edith and her sister Alice studied humanities and classics at the University of Munich, recognized as a center in classical studies. At the time, most North American women chose to register as auditors and Edith and their adventures in Germany have been well preserved and publicized in Alices autobiography. Leipzig According to education historian Sandra Singer, The sisters first destination was the University of Leipzig, Edith had just graduated in classics from Bryn Mawr and was recipient of a European fellowship, while her sister Alice had recently completed her medical degree at the University of Michigan. When they arrived in Leipzig, they found a number of foreign women studying at the university. They were told that they could attend lectures but would not be able to participate in discussions, Alice had come to Germany to continue her studies in pathology. Edith, however, had come to Germany to study classics, According to Alice, Edith was extremely disappointed with the lectures she attended. The lectures were thorough, but lost sight of the beauty of literature by focusing on obscure grammatical points, instead of the grandeur and beauty of Aeschylus and Sophocles, it seemed that the important thing was their use of the second aorist, she said. Munich When the sisters discovered that women were not allowed to earn a doctoral degree at Leipzig. As it turned out, notes Sandra Singer, Munich was hardly much of an improvement over Leipzig for Edith, at first it was unclear whether Edith would be able to audit lectures at all. She was finally able to attend lectures, because there was tension within the department between the Protestants and the Catholics. The Protestants supported Edith and she was allowed to attend classes, According to Singer, She had been told that a little alcove would be built in the lecture hall where she could sit behind a green curtain. She remembered Edith saying, The head of the University used to stare at me, then shake his head and say sadly to a colleague, There now, were right in the midst of the woman question. Edith intended nonetheless to remain in Munich and earn a doctoral degree and she was persuaded to return to the United States to take over as head of the recently opened Bryn Mawr Preparatory School for Girls in Baltimore. While she never completed her degree, she did become an inspiring
22.
Breastplate
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A breastplate is a device worn over the torso to protect it from injury, as an item of religious significance, or as an item of status. A breastplate is worn by mythological beings as a distinctive item of clothing. In medieval weaponry, the breastplate is the front portion of plate armour covering the torso and it has been a military mainstay since ancient times and was usually made of leather, bronze or iron in antiquity. By around 1000 AD, solid plates had fallen out of use in Europe, plates protecting the torso reappeared during the 13th century in the form of the cuirass or alternatively as plates directly attached to a knightly garment known as the surcoat. Around 1300 this developed into the coat of plates which continued to be in use for about a century, true breastplates reappear in Europe in 1340 first composed of wrought iron and later of steel. They were between 1 mm and 2.5 mm thick, in order to prevent the wearer from being cut by their own armour, the design featured outward turned edges that also increased stiffness. In some cases, further strength was added by a running down through the centre of the plate. These early breastplates only covered the torso with the lower torso not being protected by plate until the development of the fauld around 1400. Around 1450, the breastplate had expanded to cover the entire torso, the French term pancier, which became English pauncher and German panzer, was also used. Bullet-proof vests are the descendant of the breastplate. A breastplate or breastpiece was among the clothes of the Jewish High Priest, in the Bible, the word breastplate is used figuratively to describe protecting oneself from unrighteousness. Both Zeus and Athena are sometimes depicted as wearing a goatskin shield or breastplate called an Aegis, at the center of Athena’s shield was the head of Medusa. The hair-pipe breastplates of 19th-century Plains Indians were made from the West Indian conch, brought to New York docks as ballast and their popularity spread rapidly after their invention by the Comanche in 1854. They were too fragile and expensive to be considered armour, and were instead a symbol of wealth during the economic depression among Plains Indians after the buffalo were almost exterminated, armour Cuirass Muscled cuirass Lance rest Linothorax Pteruges Media related to Breastplates at Wikimedia Commons
23.
Vatican Museums
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The Vatican Museums are the museums of the Vatican City and are located within the citys boundaries. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display, and currently employ 640 people who work in 40 different administrative, scholarly, Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling decorated by Michelangelo and the Stanze di Raffaello decorated by Raphael, are on the route through the Vatican Museums. In 2013, they were visited by 6 million people, which combined makes it the 6th most visited art museum in the world, there are 54 galleries, or sale, in total, with the Sistine Chapel, notably, being the very last sala within the Museum. It is one of the largest museums in the world, in 2017, the Museums official website and social media presence was completely redone, in accord with current standards and appearances for modern websites. Pope Julius II sent Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarroti, who were working at the Vatican, on their recommendation, the pope immediately purchased the sculpture from the vineyard owner. The pope put the sculpture of Laocoön and his sons on public display at the Vatican exactly one month after its discovery, the Museum Christianum was founded by Benedict XIV, and some of the Vatican collections formed the Lateran Museum, which Pius IX founded by decree in 1854. The Museums celebrated their 500th anniversary in October 2006 by permanently opening the excavations of a Vatican Hill necropolis to the public, on 1 January 2017 Barbara Jatta became the Director of the Vatican Museums, replacing Antonio Paolucci who had been director since 2007. The art gallery was housed in the Borgia Apartment until Pope Pius XI ordered construction of a proper building, the new building, designed by Luca Beltrami, was inaugurated on 27 October 1932. The museum has paintings including, Giottos Stefaneschi Triptych Olivuccio di Ciccarello, Opere di Misericordia Raphaels Madonna of Foligno, Oddi Altarpiece, the group of museums includes several sculpture museums surrounding the Cortile del Belvedere. The museum takes its name from two popes, Clement XIV and Pius VI, the pope who brought the museum to completion, Clement XIV came up with the idea of creating a new museum in Innocent VIIIs Belvedere palace and started the refurbishment work. Pope Clement XIV founded the Pio-Clementino museum in 1771, and originally it contained the Renaissance, the museum and collection were enlarged by Clements successor Pius VI. Today, the museum works of Greek and Roman sculpture. Some notable galleries are, Greek Cross Gallery, with the porphyri sarcophagi of Constance and Saint Helen, daughter and mother of Constantine the Great. Sala Rotonda, shaped like a miniature Pantheon, the room has impressive ancient mosaics on the floors, Gallery of the Statues, as its name implies, holds various important statues, including Sleeping Ariadne and the bust of Menander. It also contains the Barberini Candelabra, Gallery of the Busts, Many ancient busts are displayed. Cabinet of the Masks, The name comes from the mosaic on the floor of the gallery, found in Villa Adriana, along the walls, several famous statues are shown including the Three Graces. One wove the thread of life, second nurtured it, third cut it. The center piece is Belvedere Torso, revered by Michelangelo and other Renaissance men, sala degli Animali, So named because of the many ancient statues of animals
24.
Classical Greece
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Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years in Greek culture. This Classical period saw the annexation of much of modern-day Greece by the Persian Empire, Classical Greece had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and on the foundations of western civilization. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, scientific thought, theatre, literature, in the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the Classical period, sometimes called the Hellenic period, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The Classical period in this sense follows the Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period and this century is essentially studied from the Athenian outlook because Athens has left us more narratives, plays, and other written works than the other ancient Greek states. From the perspective of Athenian culture in Classical Greece, the period referred to as the 5th century BC extends slightly into the 4th century BC. In this context, one might consider that the first significant event of this occurs in 508 BC, with the fall of the last Athenian tyrant. However, a view of the whole Greek world might place its beginning at the Ionian Revolt of 500 BC. The Persians were defeated in 490 BC, the Delian League then formed, under Athenian hegemony and as Athens instrument. Athens excesses caused several revolts among the cities, all of which were put down by force. After both forces were spent, a brief peace came about, then the war resumed to Spartas advantage, Athens was definitively defeated in 404 BC, and internal Athenian agitations mark the end of the 5th century BC in Greece. Since its beginning, Sparta had been ruled by a diarchy and this meant that Sparta had two kings ruling concurrently throughout its entire history. The two kingships were both hereditary, vested in the Agiad dynasty and the Eurypontid dynasty, according to legend, the respective hereditary lines of these two dynasties sprang from Eurysthenes and Procles, twin descendants of Hercules. They were said to have conquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War, in 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow their king, the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratos. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras, but his rival Cleisthenes, with the support of the middle class and aided by democrats, took over. Cleomenes intervened in 508 and 506 BC, but could not stop Cleisthenes, through his reforms, the people endowed their city with isonomic institutions — i. e. with equal rights for all —and established ostracism. The isonomic and isegoric democracy was first organized into about 130 demes, the 10,000 citizens exercised their power as members of the assembly, headed by a council of 500 citizens chosen at random. The territory of the city was divided into thirty trittyes as follows, ten trittyes in the coastal region ten trittyes in the ἄστυ. A tribe consisted of three trittyes, selected at random, one each of the three groups
25.
Euripides
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Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few plays have survived, with the others being Aeschylus, Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most, of these,18 or 19 have survived more or less complete and there are also fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, yet he also became the most tragic of poets, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was also unique among the writers of ancient Athens for the sympathy he demonstrated towards all victims of society and his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as an influence, Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age. Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides, for example, it is possible that he never visited Macedonia at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists. Upon the receipt of a saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory. In fact the boy was destined for a career on the stage and he served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, he studied painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus. He had two marriages and both his wives—Melite and Choerine —were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis, there he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky. Eventually he retired to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. However, as mentioned in the introduction, biographical details such as these should be regarded with scepticism and this biography is divided into three sections corresponding to the three kinds of sources. The apocryphal account that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island was a late tradition, much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didnt live to see the final defeat of his city. In an account by Plutarch, the failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides lyrics to their enemies in return for food. Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. Yet Aristophanes borrowed rather than just satirized some of the methods, he was once ridiculed by a colleague, Cratinus, as a hair-splitting master of niceties
26.
Votive offering
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A votive deposit or votive offering is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for broadly religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are made in order to gain favor with supernatural forces. In buddhism Votive offerings as construction of stupas was a prevalent and holy practice in ancient india which can be observed in ruins of vikramshila university, the modern construction practice called topping out can be considered as an example of a votive practice that has very ancient roots. In Europe, votive deposits are known from as early as the Neolithic, with polished axe hoards, high status artifacts such as armor and weaponry, fertility and cult symbols, coins, various treasures and animals were common offerings in antiquity. The votive offerings were sacrificed and buried or more commonly cast into bodies of water or peat bogs, in certain cases entire ships have been sacrificed, as in the Danish bog Nydam Mose. Often all the objects in a ritual hoard are broken, possibly killing the objects to put even further beyond utilitarian use before deposition. The purposeful discarding of valuable items such as swords and spearheads is thought to have had ritual overtones, the items have since been discovered in rivers, lakes and present or former wetlands by construction workers, peat diggers, metal-detectorists, members of the public and archaeologists. In Mesoamerica, votive deposits have been recovered from the Olmec site of El Manati, in archaeology, votive deposits differ from hoards in that although they may contain similar items, votive deposits were not intended for later recovery. Some archaeologists have recovered some votive offerings in ancient Sparta from the 5th century BC and these votive offerings give evidence to the presence of literacy in Spartan culture. One piece of pottery was found that may have had measurement signs on it and this would indicate an everyday literacy among the Spartans if this is true. Unfortunately, scholars have not recovered any other piece of pottery with an inscription to support that single find. The 13 Ancient Votive Stones of Pesaro were unearthed in 1737 on a local Pesaro farm in the Province of Pesaro e Urbino, Italy and they are inscribed with the names of various Roman gods such as APOLLO, MAT-MATVTA, SALVS, FIDE, and IVNONII. A curse tablet or defixio is a sheet of tin or lead on which a message wishing misfortune upon someone else was inscribed. The two largest concentrations are from the springs at Aquae Sulis, where 130 examples are recorded, and at Uley. The usual form of divine invocation was through prayer, sacrifice, many unrecovered ancient votive offerings are threatened in todays world, especially those submerged in wetlands or other bodies of water. Wetlands and other aquatic sites often protect and preserve materials for thousands of years, therefore many remaining objects are in danger of oxidation and eventual rapid deterioration. The Torah makes provision for free-will offerings which may be made by any individual. These are different from votive offerings which are linked to a vow. cf Leviticus 22.23 where the Hebrew root letters for an offering are נדב
27.
Perseus
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Perseus beheaded the Gorgon Medusa and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. Perseus was the son of the mortal Danaë and the god Zeus and he was also the half-brother and great grandfather of Heracles. There is some prospect that it descended into Greek from the Proto-Indo-European language, in that regard Robert Graves has espoused the only Greek derivation available. Perseus might be from the Greek verb, πέρθειν, “to waste, ravage, sack, destroy”, according to Carl Darling Buck, the –eus suffix is typically used to form an agent noun, in this case from the aorist stem, pers-. Pers-eus therefore is a sacker of cities, that is, a soldier by occupation, the origin of perth- is more obscure. J. B. Hofmann lists the possible root as *bher-, from which Latin ferio and this corresponds to Julius Pokorny’s *bher-, “scrape, cut. ”Ordinarily *bh- descends to Greek as ph-. This difficulty can be overcome by presuming a dissimilation from the –th– in perthein, that is, Graves carries the meaning still further, to the perse- in Persephone, goddess of death. the classical Perse. daughter of Oceanus. Whether it may be identified with the first element of Persephone is only speculative. ”A Greek folk etymology connected the name of the Persian people. The native name, however, has always had an -a- in Persian, herodotus recounts this story, devising a foreign son, Perses, from whom the Persians took the name. Apparently the Persians themselves knew the story, as Xerxes tried to use it to suborn the Argives during his invasion of Greece, Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos. Disappointed by his lack of luck in having a son, Acrisius consulted the oracle at Delphi, who warned him that he would one day be killed by his daughters son. In order to keep Danaë childless, Acrisius imprisoned her in a chamber, open to the sky, in the courtyard of his palace, This mytheme is also connected to Ares, Oenopion, Eurystheus. Zeus came to her in the form of a shower of gold, soon after, their child was born, Perseus—Perseus Eurymedon, for his mother gave him this name as well. Fearful for his future, but unwilling to provoke the wrath of the gods by killing the offspring of Zeus and his daughter, danaës fearful prayer, made while afloat in the darkness, has been expressed by the poet Simonides of Ceos. Mother and child washed ashore on the island of Serifos, where they were taken in by the fisherman Dictys, the brother of Dictys was Polydectes, the king of the island. When Perseus was grown, Polydectes came to fall in love with the beautiful Danaë, Perseus believed Polydectes was less than honourable, and protected his mother from him, then Polydectes plotted to send Perseus away in disgrace. He held a banquet where each guest was expected to bring a gift. Polydectes requested that the guests bring horses, under the pretense that he was collecting contributions for the hand of Hippodamia, Perseus had no horse to give, so he asked Polydectes to name the gift, he would not refuse it
28.
Chthonic
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The translation of meaning discusses deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for earth, it refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land. These include, but are not strictly limited to, Demeter. Nocturnal ritual sacrifice was a practice in many chthonic cults. When the sacrifice was a creature, the animal was placed in a bothros or megaron. In some Greek chthonic cults, the animal was sacrificed on a raised bomos, offerings were usually burned whole or buried rather than being cooked and shared among the worshippers. C. He does, however, note that this may be somewhat of an overgeneralization, the myths associating the underworld chthonic deities and fertility were not exclusive. Myths about the later Olympian deities also described an association with the fertility, thus Demeter and Persephone both watched over aspects of the fertility of land, yet Demeter had a typically Olympian cult while Persephone had a chthonic one. Also, Demeter was worshiped alongside Persephone with identical rites, and yet occasionally was classified as an Olympian in late poetry, the absorption of some earlier cults into the newer pantheon versus those that resisted being absorbed is suggested as providing the later myths. The categories Olympian and chthonic were not, however, completely separate, some Olympian deities, such as Hermes and Zeus, also received chthonic sacrifices and tithes in certain locations. The deified heroes Heracles and Asclepius might be worshipped as gods or chthonic heroes, depending on the site, moreover, a few deities are not easily classifiable under these terms. Hecate, for instance, was typically offered puppies at crossroads—a practice neither typical of an Olympian sacrifice nor of a sacrifice to Persephone or the heroes. Because of her roles, Hecate is generally classed as chthonic. As well, the chthonic has connotations with regard to gender, in cultural anthropology, men associated with the above, the sky, and women associated with the below, with the earth, water of the underground, and the chthonic deities. This was by no means universal, in Ancient Egypt the main deity of the earth was the male god Geb, his consort was Nut. The term allochthon in structural geology is used to describe a large block of rock which has moved from its original site of formation. From the Greek allo meaning other and chthon designating the process of the mass being moved under the earth. Chthonic law Earth mother Geomancy Life-death-rebirth deities Sky father The dictionary definition of chthonic at Wiktionary
29.
Chimera (mythology)
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The Chimera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. The seeing of a Chimera was an omen for disaster, elsewhere in the Iliad, Homer attributes the rearing of Chimera to Amisodorus. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay, the author of the Bibliotheca concurs, descriptions agree that she breathed fire. The Chimera is generally considered to have been female despite the mane adorning her head, the inclusion of a close mane often was depicted on lionesses, sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters. While there are different genealogies, in one version the Chimera mated with her brother Orthrus and was the mother of the Sphinx, the Chimera finally was defeated by Bellerophon with the help of Pegasus, at the command of King Iobates of Lycia. Since Pegasus could fly, Bellerophon shot the Chimera from the air, safe from her heads, robert Graves suggests, The Chimera was, apparently, a calendar-symbol of the tripartite year, of which the seasonal emblems were lion, goat, and serpent. The Chimera was situated in foreign Lycia, but her representation in the arts was wholly Greek, an autonomous tradition, one that did not rely on the written word, was represented in the visual repertory of the Greek vase-painters. The Corinthian type is fixed, after some hesitation, in the 670s BC. The fascination with the monstrous devolved by the end of the century into a decorative Chimera-motif in Corinth. Two vase-painters employed the motif so consistently they are given the pseudonyms the Bellerophon Painter, a fire-breathing lioness was one of the earliest of solar and war deities in Ancient Egypt and influences are feasible. The lioness represented the war goddess and protector of both cultures that would unite as Ancient Egypt, sekhmet was one of the dominant deities in upper Egypt and Bast in lower Egypt. As divine mother, and more especially as protector, for Lower Egypt, Bast became strongly associated with Wadjet, in Etruscan civilization, the Chimera appears in the Orientalizing period that precedes Etruscan Archaic art, that is to say, very early indeed. The Chimera appears in Etruscan wall-paintings of the fourth century BC, in Medieval art, although the Chimera of antiquity was forgotten, chimerical figures appear as embodiments of the deceptive, even satanic forces of raw nature. Provided with a face and a scaly tail, as in Dantes vision of Geryon in Inferno xvii. The myths of the Chimera may be found in the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, the Iliad by Homer, the Fabulae 57 and 151 by Hyginus, the Metamorphoses, and the Theogony 319ff by Hesiod. Virgil, in the Aeneid employs Chimaera for the name of ship of Gyas in the ship-race. Pliny the Elder cited Ctesias and quoted Photius identifying the Chimera with an area of permanent gas vents that still may be found by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey, the vents emit burning methane thought to be of metamorphic origin. The fires of these were landmarks in ancient times and used for navigation by sailors, the Neo-Hittite Chimera from Carchemish, dated to 850–750 BC, which is now housed in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, is believed to be a basis for the Greek legend
30.
Cuirass
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A cuirass is a piece of armour, formed of a single or multiple pieces of metal or other rigid material which covers the front of the torso. In a suit of armour, the cuirass was generally connected to a back piece, cuirass could also refer to the complete torso-protecting armour. As parts of the military equipment of classic antiquity, cuirasses and corsets of bronze, iron. Secondary protection for the breast was worn in earlier times by men-at-arms in addition to mail hauberks and it was not until the 14th century that the plate armour became an established part of medieval armour. The Roman emperor Galba donned a cuirass just before he went to his death. Suetonius records in 12 Caesars that, As was offering sacrifice on the morning before he was killed and he did however put on a linen cuirass, though he openly declared that it would afford little protection against so many swords. The cuirass was almost universally worn throughout its lifespan as a form of armour, the cuirass was always made long enough to rest on the hips. If it had been suspended by the shoulders, its weight would have exhausted its wearer. In the second half of the 15th century, the cuirass was occasionally superseded by the brigandine jacket, in essence, the brigandine jacket was constructed of metal plates sewn into a fabric jacket. About 1550, the breast-piece of the cuirass was characterized by a central ridge, called the tapul. Somewhat later, the tapul was moved lower on the breast, eventually, the profile of the plate began to resemble a pea pod and, as such, was referred to as the peascod cuirass. Corslets provided with both breast and back pieces were worn by foot-soldiers in the 17th century, while their comrades were equipped in heavier and stronger cuirasses. These defenses continued in use longer than any single piece of armour. Both the French and German heavy cavalry wore cuirasses in parade leading up to World War I, in the early part of that conflict, they painted their cuirasses black and wore canvas protection covers over the neo-Roman style helmets. Some years after Waterloo, certain historical cuirasses were taken from their repose in the Tower of London and adapted for service by the Life Guards, for parade purposes, the Prussian Gardes du Corps and other corps wore cuirasses of richly decorated leather. During the Heian period, Japanese armourers started to use leather as a material, by the end of the Heian period, the Japanese cuirass had arrived at the shape recognized as part of iconic samurai armor. Scales of iron and leather, bound together by silk lace, were used to construct samurai armours, the introduction of firearms to Japan in 1543 resulted in the development of a cuirass constructed of solid iron plates. The use of the samurai cuirass lasted until the 1860s when an army using conventional uniforms was established
31.
Diodorus Siculus
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Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily was a Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica, much of which survives and it is arranged in three parts. The first covers mythic history up to the destruction of Troy, arranged geographically, describing regions around the world from Egypt, India and Arabia to Greece, the second covers the Trojan War to the death of Alexander the Great. The third covers the period to about 60 BC, Bibliotheca, meaning library, acknowledges that he was drawing on the work of many other authors. According to his own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily, with one exception, antiquity affords no further information about his life and doings beyond in his work. Only Jerome, in his Chronicon under the year of Abraham 1968, writes, Diodorus of Sicily and it was divided into three sections. In the next section, he recounts the history of the world from the Trojan War down to the death of Alexander the Great, the last section concerns the historical events from the successors of Alexander down to either 60 BC or the beginning of Julius Caesars Gallic Wars. He selected the name Bibliotheca in acknowledgment that he was assembling a composite work from many sources. His account of gold mining in Nubia in eastern Egypt is one of the earliest extant texts on the topic, pappus of Alexandria wrote a Commentary on Diodoruss Analemma. The now lost Analemma applied geometrical constructions in a plane to solve some astronomy related problems of spherical geometry and it contained, for example, a discussion of sundial theory. They are also boasters and threateners and are fond of pompous language, pliny the Elder Strabo Acadine Ambaglio, Dino, Franca Landucci Gattinoni and Luigi Bravi. Diodoro Siculo, Biblioteca storica, commento storico, introduzione generale, aspects of Greek History 750-323 BC, A Source-based Approach. Library of History, Loeb Classical Library, Siculus, Diodorus, G. Booth, H. Valesius, I. The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian in Fifteen Books to which are added the Fragments of Diodorus, siculi, Diodori, Peter Wesseling, L. Rhodoman, G. Heyn, N. Eyring. Bibliothecae Historicae Libri Qui Supersunt, Nova Editio, Diodorus Siculus, the manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Historica
32.
Chlamys
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For the scallop genus, see Chlamys. The beetle genus described as Chlamys is now Neochlamisus, χλαμύδος was an ancient Greek type of rather short cloak. By the time of the Byzantine Empire it was, in a longer form, part of the state costume of the emperor and high officials. The ephaptis was a garment, typically worn by infantrymen. The chlamys was made from a rectangle of woolen material about the size of a blanket. It was normally pinned with a fibula at the right shoulder, originally it was wrapped around the waist like a loincloth, but by the end of the 5th century BC it was worn over the elbows. It could be worn over another item of clothing but was often the sole item of clothing for soldiers and messengers. As such, the chlamys is the garment of Hermes. The chlamys was typical Greek military attire from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, as worn by soldiers, it could be wrapped around the arm and used as a light shield in combat. The chlamys continued into the Byzantine period, when it was much larger and usually worn sideways, at least by emperors. It was held on with a brooch at the wearers right shoulder and nearly reached the ground at front. With the even grander loros costume, the costume was the ceremonial wear of Byzantine emperors. The emperor alone could wear a purple chlamys with gold tablia, officials wore white with purple tablia. In the miniature shown below the 11th-century emperor wears his open to the side, presumably to access to his sword. By the Middle Byzantine period all parts of the chlamys were highly decorative, with bright patterned Byzantine silk and tablia and borders heavily embroidered and encrusted with gems. In the 12th century it seems to have begun to fall from favour, although it continued to be shown on coins until the 14th century, some high officials seem to have continued to wear a version of it long after the emperors had abandoned it. Among women only the empress is recorded as wearing a chlamys, in art it is much rarer to see an empress in it than in a loros, but in the well-known ivory Romanos ivory Eudokia Makrembolitissa wears one while her husband Constantine X Doukas wears the loros. Clothing in ancient Greece Byzantine dress References Sources Parani, Maria G. Reconstructing the Reality of Images, Byzantine Material Culture, hellenistic Sculpture, The Styles of ca
33.
Douris (vase painter)
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Douris or Duris was an ancient Athenian red-figure vase-painter and potter active c. 500 to 460 BCE. He began his painting for the potters Kleophrades and Euphronios. He signed 39 vases as a painter, also one as a potter and painter, between 250 and 300 vases are ascribed to him. The majority of these vases are kylixes, i. e. cups and his name seems to have been popular, since one finds it on other vases, it is reproduced on a cup by Onesimos. The preferred subjects are the symposium, the komoi, and warriors, the period is marked out by the use of the kalos-inscription Chairestratos. Beazley suggests that at this time Douris could have worked side by side with Onesimos in the same workshop, Douris collaboration with Euphronios ends, from then on, he paints for the potter Python. Subsidiary decoration begins to recede, and the majority of the medallions do not have an edge, the favoured subjects are the scenes of youths and athletes. The hand of Douris is made clear from now on by the use of a kind of hook for the inner end of the collarbone. A characteristic piece of the period of the period is a psykter decorated with drunken satyrs, Douris style is here at its most idiosyncratic. The edges of the medallion are characterized by the alternation of an element of a meander, the kalos-inscriptions Hippodamas become prevalent, Douris signatures become scarcer. Douris returns to the scenes of the symposium, and to depictions of warriors, a characteristic period of this period is the cup known as of the pieta of Memnon, Eos carries the body of her son Memnon, killed by Achilles during the Trojan War. Douris returns to a full ornamentation, Douris signatures disappear altogether and the kalos-inscriptions decrease in frequency, one finds Polyphrasmon and HIketes. The drawing quality degenerates in grace and force, second edition, Oxford, The Clarendon Press,1963. Athenian Red Figure Vases, The Archaic Period, A Handbook, a Master-Painter of Athenian Red-Figure Vases. Edmond Pottier and Jane Ellen Harrison, Douris and the Painters of Greek Vases. The Getty Museum - Biography of Douris, One of the most prolific vase-painters known, Douris worked as a vase-painter and he is known from almost forty signed vases, two of which he also potted. Altogether, almost three hundred vases have been attributed to him, given that scholars estimate a less than 0. 5% survival rate for Greek vases, Douris may have decorated approximately 78,000 vases in his career. Douris primarily decorated red-figure cups, but he painted a few vessels of other forms and in other techniques
34.
John Tzetzes
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John Tzetzes was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century. His most important work is the Chiliades, Tzetzes was Greek on his fathers side and Iberian on his mothers side. Tzetzes was described as vain, seems to have resented any attempt at rivalry, owing to a lack of written material, he was obliged to trust to his memory, therefore caution has to be exercised in reading his work. However, he was learned, and made a contribution to the furtherance of the study of ancient Greek literature. The most important of his works is considered to be the Book of Histories. The whole production suffers from a display of learning, the total number of authors quoted being more than 400. The author subsequently brought out an edition with marginal notes in prose and verse. His collection of 107 Letters addressed partly to fictitious personages, and partly to the men and women of the writers time. Tzetzes supplemented Homers Iliad by a work that begins with the birth of Paris, in the Antehomerica, Tzetzes recalled the events taking place before Homers Iliad. This work was followed by the Homerica, covering the events of the Iliad, all three are currently available in English translations. For the other works of Tzetzes see J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca, xi.228, litt. monograph by G. Hart, De Tzetzarum nomine, vitis, scriptis, in Jahns Jahrbucher für classische Philologie. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Tzetzes. Gautier, Paul, La curieuse ascendance de Jean Tzetzes, revue des Études Byzantines,28, 207-20
35.
Goat
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The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the family Bovidae and is related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over 300 distinct breeds of goat, Goats are one of the oldest domesticated species, and have been used for their milk, meat, hair, and skins over much of the world. In 2011, there were more than 924 million live goats around the globe, according to the UN Food, female goats are referred to as does or nannies, intact males are called bucks or billies, and juveniles of both sexes are called kids. Goat meat from animals is called kid or cabrito, while meat from older animals is known simply as goat or sometimes called chevon. To refer to the male, Old English used bucca until ousted by hegote, hegoote in the late 12th century, nanny goat originated in the 18th century and billy goat in the 19th. Goats are among the earliest animals domesticated by humans, the most recent genetic analysis confirms the archaeological evidence that the wild Bezoar ibex of the Zagros Mountains is the likely original ancestor of probably all domestic goats today. The earliest remnants of domesticated goats dating 10,000 years before present are found in Ganj Dareh in Iran. Goat remains have been found at sites in Jericho, Choga Mami Djeitun and Çayönü. Studies of DNA evidence suggests 10,000 years BP as the domestication date, historically, goat hide has been used for water and wine bottles in both traveling and transporting wine for sale. It has also used to produce parchment. Goats are considered small livestock animals, compared to animals such as cattle, camels and horses, but larger than microlivestock such as poultry, rabbits, cavies. Each recognized breed of goats has specific weight ranges, which vary from over 140 kg for bucks of larger breeds such as the Boer, within each breed, different strains or bloodlines may have different recognized sizes. At the bottom of the range are miniature breeds such as the African Pygmy. Most goats naturally have two horns, of various shapes and sizes depending on the breed, Goats have horns unless they are polled or the horns have been removed, typically soon after birth. There have been incidents of polycerate goats, although this is a genetic rarity thought to be inherited, the horns are most typically removed in commercial dairy goat herds, to reduce the injuries to humans and other goats. Unlike cattle, goats have not been bred to be reliably polled, as the genes determining sex. Breeding together two genetically polled goats results in a number of intersex individuals among the offspring, which are typically sterile
36.
Amalthea (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus. There were different traditions regarding Amalthea, the possession of multiple and uncertain mythological parents indicates wide worship of a deity in many cultures having varying local traditions. Other names, like Adrasteia, Ide, the nymph of Mount Ida, or Adamanthea, in the tradition represented by Hesiods Theogony, Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth. The mother goddess Rhea, Zeus mother, deceived her brother consort Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped to look like a baby instead of Zeus. Since she instead gave the infant Zeus to Adamanthea to nurse in a cave on a mountain in Crete, amaltheas skin, or that of her goat, taken by Zeus in honor of her when she died, became the protective aegis in some traditions. Amaltheia was placed amongst the stars as the constellation Capra—the group of stars surrounding Capella on the arm of Auriga the Charioteer. B. A, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, London, William Heinemann Ltd.1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, gee, Emma, Ovid, Aratus and Augustus, Astronomy in Ovids Fasti, Cambridge University Press,2000. Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, London, William Heinemann Ltd.1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London
37.
Crete
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Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, 88th-largest island in the world and the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete and a number of surrounding islands and islets constitute the region of Crete, the capital and the largest city is Heraklion. As of 2011, the region had a population of 623,065, Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits. It was once the centre of the Minoan civilization, which is regarded as the earliest recorded civilization in Europe. The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and it was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island. The current name of Crete is thought to be first attested in Mycenaean Greek texts written in Linear B, through the words
38.
Titan (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, the Titans and Titanesses were members of the second generation of divine beings, descending from the primordial deities and preceding the Olympian deities. Based on Mount Othrys, the Titans most famously included the first twelve children of the primordial Gaia and they were giant deities of incredible strength, who ruled during the legendary Golden Age, and also comprised the first pantheon of Greek deities. The first twelve Titans comprised the females Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Rhea, and Themis and the males Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Cronus, Crius, like Cronus overthrowing his father Uranus, the Titans were overthrown by Cronus children, in the Titanomachy. The Greeks may have borrowed this mytheme from the Ancient Near East, Greeks of the classical age knew of several poems about the war between the Olympians and Titans. The dominant one, and the one that has survived, was in the Theogony attributed to Hesiod. A lost epic, Titanomachia was mentioned in passing in an essay On Music that was attributed to Plutarch. The Titans also played a prominent role in the poems attributed to Orpheus, although only scraps of the Orphic narratives survive, they show interesting differences with the Hesiodic tradition. Sometimes the elders are supplanted, and sometimes the rebels lose and are either cast out of power entirely or incorporated into the pantheon, the Titanomachy lasted for ten years. The Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus after the war had ended, Tartarus is the deepest spot known in the Underworld, where the most evil beings would be cast into to be tortured for all eternity. Hesiod does not have the last word on the Titans, surviving fragments of poetry ascribed to Orpheus preserve some variations on the myth. In such text, Zeus does not simply set upon his father violently, instead, Rhea spreads out a banquet for Cronus so that he becomes drunk upon fermented honey. Rather than being consigned to Tartarus, Cronus is dragged—still drunk—to the cave of Nyx, another myth concerning the Titans that is not in Hesiod revolves around Dionysus. At some point in his reign, Zeus decides to give up the throne in favor of the infant Dionysus, who like the infant Zeus, is guarded by the Kouretes. The Titans decide to slay the child and claim the throne for themselves, they paint their faces white with gypsum, distract Dionysus with toys, then him and boil. Zeus, enraged, slays the Titans with his thunderbolt, Athena preserves the heart in a gypsum doll and this story is told by the poets Callimachus and Nonnus, who call this Dionysus Zagreus, and in a number of Orphic texts, which do not. Pindar, Plato, and Oppian refer offhandedly to the Titanic nature of humans, according to them, the body is the titanic part, while soul is the divine part of humans. Other early writers imply that humanity was born out of the malevolent blood shed by the Titans in their war against Zeus, Martin Litchfield West also asserts this in relation to shamanistic initiatory rites of early Greek religious practices. Beekes connects the word with τιτώ, burket, Walter, The Orientalizing Revolution, Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, Harvard University Press,1995
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Mosaic
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A mosaic is a piece of art or image made from the assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It is often used in art or as interior decoration. Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of different colors, some, especially floor mosaics, are made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called pebble mosaics. Others are made of other materials, mosaics have a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. Pebble mosaics were made in Tiryns in Mycenean Greece, mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onwards were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics. Mosaic fell out of fashion in the Renaissance, though artists like Raphael continued to practise the old technique, Roman and Byzantine influence led Jews to decorate 5th and 6th century synagogues in the Middle East with floor mosaics. Mosaic was widely used on buildings and palaces in early Islamic art, including Islams first great religious building, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Mosaic went out of fashion in the Islamic world after the 8th century, modern mosaics are made by professional artists, street artists, and as a popular craft. Many materials other than stone and ceramic tesserae may be employed, including shells, glass. The earliest known examples of made of different materials were found at a temple building in Abra, Mesopotamia. They consist of pieces of colored stones, shells and ivory, excavations at Susa and Chogha Zanbil show evidence of the first glazed tiles, dating from around 1500 BC. However, mosaic patterns were not used until the times of Sassanid Empire, mythological subjects, or scenes of hunting or other pursuits of the wealthy, were popular as the centrepieces of a larger geometric design, with strongly emphasized borders. Pliny the Elder mentions the artist Sosus of Pergamon by name, describing his mosaics of the left on a floor after a feast. Both of these themes were widely copied, most recorded names of Roman mosaic workers are Greek, suggesting they dominated high quality work across the empire, no doubt most ordinary craftsmen were slaves. Splendid mosaic floors are found in Roman villas across North Africa, in such as Carthage. The tiny tesserae allowed very fine detail, and an approach to the illusionism of painting, often small panels called emblemata were inserted into walls or as the highlights of larger floor-mosaics in coarser work. The normal technique was opus tessellatum, using larger tesserae, which was laid on site, there was a distinct native Italian style using black on a white background, which was no doubt cheaper than fully coloured work. In Rome, Nero and his architects used mosaics to cover surfaces of walls and ceilings in the Domus Aurea, built 64 AD
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Alexander Mosaic
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The Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC, is a Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia and measures 2.72 by 5.13 metres, the original is preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. The mosaic is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd-century BC Hellenistic painting, the mosaic illustrates a battle in which Alexander faced and attempted to capture or kill Darius. Alexander defeated him at the Battle of Issus and two years later at the Battle of Gaugamela, the work is traditionally believed to show the Battle of Issus. Since the mosaic emulates the appearance of a painting so accurately, the mosaic is held to be a copy either of a painting by Aristides of Thebes, or of a lost late 4th-century BC fresco by the painter Philoxenus of Eretria. The latter is mentioned by Pliny the Elder as a commission for the Macedonian king Cassander, despite being damaged, the two main figures are easy to recognize. The portrait of Alexander is one of his most famous, Alexanders breastplate depicts Medusa, the famous Gorgon, and his wavy hair is typical of royal portraiture as established in Greek art of the fourth century BC. He is portrayed sweeping into battle at the left, on his famous horse, Bucephalus, Darius is shown in a chariot. He seems to be commanding his frightened charioteer to flee the battle, while stretching out his hand either as a mute gesture to Alexander. He has an expression on his face. The charioteer is whipping the horses as he tries to escape, the Persian soldiers behind him have expressions of determination and consternation. Dariuss brother Oxyathres is also portrayed, sacrificing himself to save the King, radical foreshortening – as in the central horse, seen from behind – and the use of shading to convey a sense of mass and volume enhance the naturalistic effect of the scene. Repeated diagonal spears, clashing metal, and the crowding of men, at the same time, action is arrested by dramatic details such as the fallen horse and the Persian soldier in the foreground who watches his own death throes reflected in a shield. The mosaic is made of one and a half million tiny colored tiles called tesserae. The color scale of Roman mosaics are extremely rich in gradation, the process of gathering materials for mosaics was a complex undertaking since the color scale was based solely off of the pieces of marble that could be found in nature. The mosaic is a detailed work for a private residence and was likely commissioned by a wealthy person or family. The fact that this scene was made to be viewed in the house of a Roman civilian reveals that Alexander the Great was more than just an image to the Romans. Because Roman leaders followed after Alexanders image, Roman civilians also aspired to emulate the power he represented, since the mosaic was arranged on the floor where the patron would receive his guests, it was the first decorative object a visitor would see upon entering the home
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Pompeii
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Pompeii was an ancient Roman town-city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash. Researchers believe that the town was founded in the seventh or sixth century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, by the time of its destruction,160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, gymnasium, and a port. The eruption destroyed the city, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash, the site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748. The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and these artefacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies and this allowed archaeologists to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died. Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years, today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year. Pompeii in Latin is a second declension plural, the ruins of Pompeii are located near the modern suburban town of Pompei. It stands on a formed by a lava flow to the north of the mouth of the Sarno River. Today it is some distance inland, but in ancient times was nearer to the coast, Pompeii is about 8 km away from Mount Vesuvius. It covered a total of 64 to 67 hectares and was home to approximately 11,000 to 11,500 people on the basis of household counts and it was a major city in the region of Campania. Three sheets of sediment have been found on top of the lava that lies below the city and, mixed in with the sediment, archaeologists have found bits of bone, pottery shards. Carbon dating has placed the oldest of these layers from the 8th–6th centuries BC, the other two strata are separated either by well-developed soil layers or Roman pavement, and were laid in the 4th century BC and 2nd century BC. It is theorized that the layers of the sediment were created by large landslides. The town was founded around the 7th-6th century BC by the Osci or Oscans and it had already been used as a safe port by Greek and Phoenician sailors. According to Strabo, Pompeii was also captured by the Etruscans, and in recent excavations have shown the presence of Etruscan inscriptions. Pompeii was captured for the first time by the Greek colony of Cumae, allied with Syracuse, in the 5th century BC, the Samnites conquered it, the new rulers imposed their architecture and enlarged the town
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National Archaeological Museum, Naples
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The Naples National Archaeological Museum is a museum in Naples, southern Italy, at the northwest corner of the original Greek wall of the city of Neapolis. The museum contains a collection of Roman artifacts from Pompeii, Stabiae. The collection includes works of the highest quality produced in Greek, Roman and it is the most important Italian archaeological museum and is considered one of the most important in the world. Charles of Bourbon founded the museum in the 1750s, the building he used for it had been erected as a cavalry barracks and during its time as the seat of the University of Naples was extended, in the late 18th century. The museum hosts extensive collections of Greek and Roman antiquities and their core is from the Farnese Collection, which includes a collection of engraved gems and the Farnese Marbles. Among the notable works found in the museum are the Herculaneum papyri, carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, many of these works, especially the larger ones, have been moved to the Museo di Capodimonte for display in recent years. The Farnese Hercules, which fixed the image of Hercules in the European imagination, a major collection of ancient Roman bronzes from the Villa of the Papyri is housed at the museum. These include the Seated Hermes, a sprawling Drunken Satyr, a bust of Thespis, another variously identified as Seneca or Hesiod, the museums Mosaic Collection includes a number of important mosaics recovered from the ruins of Pompeii and the other Vesuvian cities. This includes the Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC and it depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. Another mosaic found is that of the gladiatorial fighter depicted in a found from the Villa of the Figured Capitals in Pompeii. With 2,500 objects, the museum has one of the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in Italy after the Turin, Florence and Bologna ones. It is made up primarily of works from two collections, assembled by Cardinal Stefano Borgia in the second half of the 18th century. In its new layout the collection provides both an important record of Egyptian civilization from the Old Kingdom up to the Ptolemaic-Roman era, access was limited to only persons of mature age and known morals. The rooms were also called Cabinets of matters reserved or obscene or pornographic, the highlight of the censorship occurred in 1851 when even nude Venus statues were locked up, and the entrance walled up in the hope that the collection would vanish from memory. In September 1860, when the forces of Garibaldi occupied Naples, since the Royal Butler was no longer available, they broke into the collection. Limiting viewership and censorship have always been part of the history of the collection, censorship was restored during the era of the Kingdom of Italy, and peaked during the Fascist period, when visitors to the rooms needed the permission of the Minister of National Education in Rome. Censorship persisted in the period up to 1967, abating only after 1971 when the Ministry was given the new rules to regulate requests for visits. Completely rebuilt a few years ago with all of the new criteria, visitors under the age of 14 can tour the exhibit only with an adult
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Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
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Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
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Herodotus
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Herodotus was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire and lived in the fifth century BC, a contemporary of Socrates. The Histories is the work which he is known to have produced. Despite Herodotus historical significance, little is known of his personal life and his place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact, of these only fragments of Hecataeuss work survive yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus’s work, Genealogies, This points forward to the ‘folksy’ yet ‘international’ outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as “a curious false start to history” since despite his critical spirit. It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a recorded by Eusebius. But Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, He argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe. Yet, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his notions of the Danube. His debt to previous authors of prose ‘histories’ might be questionable, however, this point is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship. It is on account of the strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics in early modern times branded him “The Father of Lies”. Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement, similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a “logos-writer”. Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view, the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus’s own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, modern accounts of his life typically go something like this, Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, the epic poet Panyassis – a relative of Herodotus – is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. Herodotus expresses affection for the island of Samos, and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos, Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, yet he was born in Halicarnassus, which was a Dorian settlement
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