1.
Autotheism (album)
–
Autotheism is the third studio album by American technical death metal band The Faceless. It was released on August 14,2012 through Sumerian Records, the record was recorded at Keenes home studio in Los Angeles in 2012. Preproduction versions of almost every song had previously recorded by Keene throughout 2011. Keene noted that track was better suited for his solo project. Some of the tracking for the preproduction captured a natural, raw quality. Keene approached the recording of Autotheism differently than previous records, all guitar and bass was recorded direct and drums were tracked live right in Keenes living room. Evan Brewer debuted the use of bass in The Faceless on two tracks on a whim of experimentation in the studio. Keene also explored a more industrial influence, creating post-apocalyptic percussion sequences on many of the tracks and this played a big part in giving the record its distinctly dark quality. Another key quality of Autotheism came from Keenes time spent on experimenting with string arrangements, the lyrics were written largely in the studio. A process that Keene and Ficco described as grueling, but rewarding, an outline for the story of the lyrics was written, followed by the individual topics for each song. Then, Keene and Ficco worked out the lyrics and phrasing as they went along with the recording process, the bulk of the time was spent on the writing of the lyrics and phrasing. Once that part was complete, the actual recording flew by, geoff is an exceptionally easy vocalist to record and produce said Keene. A guest appearance by Keenes long time friend and infamous YouTube sensation Sergio The Sexy Sax Man Flores appears on the track Deconsecrate, Keenes mother also contributes harmonizing background vocals on the track Emancipate. Keene has stated in interviews that the name Autotheism derives from auto meaning self and theism meaning belief in God or gods, hence autotheism means believing in ones self, the album questions antiquated belief systems that are in play in current society. Keene said in interviews that the inspiration for the album came partly from reading a book by Ray Kurzweil called The Singularity Is Near. The album also has a theme of Age of Reason or Renaissance-esque discovery and ethics traits, alternatively. The album artwork, as well as the music and lyrics, music written by Michael Keene, except where noted
Autotheism (album)
–
Autotheism
2.
Deified (album)
–
Deified is the fourth studio solo album by Keak da Sneak. It features Too Short, E-40, Daz Dillinger, Lil Keke, Keak also linked up with infamous New York rapper Prodigy from Mobb Deep and The Alchemist for the CDs first single, That Go. The song Super Hyphy peaked at #10 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, as of April 2009, the CD has sold 30, 000+ copies
Deified (album)
–
Deified
3.
Paolo Veronese
–
Known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerism, Paolo Veronese developed a naturalist style of painting, influenced by Titian. His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful style, full of architectural settings. Nonetheless, many of the greatest artists, may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix and Renoir. Veronese took his name from his birthplace of Verona, then the largest possession of Venice on the mainland. The census in Verona attests that Veronese was born sometime in 1528 to a stonecutter, or spezapreda, named Gabriele and it was common for surnames to be taken from a fathers profession, and thus Veronese was known as Paolo Spezapreda. He later changed his name to Paolo Caliari, because his mother was the daughter of a nobleman called Antonio Caliari. He was often called Paolo Veronese before the last century to him from another painter from Verona, Alessandro Veronese. By 1541, Veronese was apprenticed with Antonio Badile, who was later to become his father-in-law, although trained in the culture of Mannerism then popular in Parma, he soon developed his own preference for a more radiant palette. In 1552 Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, great-uncle of the ruling Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, commissioned an altarpiece for Mantua Cathedral and his panel of Jupiter Expelling the Vices for the former is now in the Louvre. He then painted a History of Esther in the ceiling for the church of San Sebastiano and it was these ceiling paintings and those of 1557 in the Marciana Library that established him as a master among his Venetian contemporaries. Already these works indicate Veroneses mastery in reflecting both the subtle foreshortening of the figures of Correggio and the heroism of those by Michelangelo. By 1556 Veronese was commissioned to paint the first of his monumental banquet scenes, the Feast in the House of Simon, owing to its scattered composition and lack of focus, however, it was not his most successful refectory mural. In the late 1550s, during a break in his work for San Sebastiano, Veronese decorated the Villa Barbaro in Maser, Veroneses decorations employed complex perspective and trompe loeil, and resulted in a luminescent and inspired visual poetry. The encounter between architect and artist was a triumph, the Wedding at Cana, painted in 1562–1563, was also collaboration with Palladio. It was commissioned by the Benedictine monks for the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery, on an island across from Saint Marks. The contract insisted on the size, and that the quality of pigment. For example, the contract specified that the blues should contain the precious mineral lapis-lazuli, the contract also specified that the painting should include as many figures as possible. There are a number of portraits staged upon a canvas surface nearly ten meters wide
Paolo Veronese
–
Self portrait
Paolo Veronese
–
Deposition of Christ, c. 1547
Paolo Veronese
–
The Conversion of Mary Magdalene, c. 1548
Paolo Veronese
–
St Mark,
San Sebastiano (1556-57)
4.
Greek language
–
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
Greek language
–
Idealized portrayal of
Homer
Greek language
–
regions where Greek is the official language
Greek language
–
Greek language road sign, A27 Motorway, Greece
5.
Divinity
–
Such things are regarded as divine due to their transcendental origins or because their attributes or qualities are superior or supreme relative to things of the Earth. Divine things are regarded as eternal and based in truth, while things are regarded as ephemeral. Such things that may qualify as divine are apparitions, visions, prophecies, miracles, and in some also the soul, or more general things like resurrection, immortality, grace. Otherwise what is or is not divine may be loosely defined, the root of the word divine is literally godly, but the use varies significantly depending on which deity is being discussed. This article outlines the major distinctions in the use of the terms. For specific related academic terms, see Divinity, or Divine, for instance, Jehovah is closely associated with storms and thunder throughout much of the Old Testament. He is said to speak in thunder, and thunder is seen as a token of his anger and this power was then extended to prophets like Moses and Samuel, who caused thunderous storms to rain down on their enemies. Divinity always carries connotations of goodness, beauty, beneficence, justice, pantheistic and polytheistic faiths make no such distinction, gods and other beings of transcendent power often have complex, ignoble, or even irrational motivations for their acts. Note that while the demon and demonic are used in monotheistic faiths as antonyms to divine, they are in fact derived from the Greek word daimón. There are three distinct usages of divinity and divine in religious discourse, In monotheistic faiths, the divinity is often used to refer to the singular God central to that faith. Often the word takes the article and is capitalized — the Divinity — as though it were a proper name or definitive honorific. Divine — capitalized — may be used as an adjective to refer to the manifestations of such a Divinity or its powers and this leads to the second usage of the word divine, to refer to the operation of transcendent power in the world. In its most direct form, the operation of transcendent power implies some form of divine intervention, for pan- and polytheistic faiths this usually implies the direct action of one god or another on the course of human events. In monotheistic religions, divine intervention may take very direct forms, miracles, visions, transcendent force or power may also operate through more subtle and indirect paths. Monotheistic faiths generally support some version of divine providence, which acknowledges that the divinity of the faith has a profound but unknowable plan always unfolding in the world. Unforeseeable, overwhelming, or seemingly unjust events are often thrown on the will of the Divine, in deferences like the Muslim inshallah, in the third usage, extensions of divinity and divine power are credited to living, mortal individuals. More commonly, and more pertinent to recent history, leaders merely claim some form of divine mandate, in Greek mythology, Achilles mother bathed him in the river Styx to give him immortality, and Hercules — as the son of Zeus — inherited near-godly powers. In religious Taoism, Lao Tsu is venerated as a saint with his own powers, various individuals in the Buddhist faith, beginning with Siddhartha, are considered to be enlightened, and in religious forms of Buddhism they are credited with divine powers
Divinity
–
Elizabeth I and the
three Goddesses Juno,
Minerva &
Venus.
6.
Theology
–
Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as a discipline, typically in universities, seminaries. Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity, the term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or fields of study. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument to help understand, explain, test, critique, the English equivalent theology had evolved by 1362. Greek theologia was used with the discourse on god in the fourth century BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii. Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of discourse, mythical, rational and civil. Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation, apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy. The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of study, dealing with the motionless. Boethius definition influenced medieval Latin usage, Theology can also now be used in a derived sense to mean a system of theoretical principles, an ideology. They suggest the term is appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently. Kalam. does not hold the place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for theology in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of theology is appropriate, can only do so, he says, I take theology not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God, within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God and of the Atman. The Sanskrit word for the schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been active and highly significant for Christian. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law, the history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. Modern Western universities evolved from the institutions and cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages
Theology
–
Augustine of Hippo (354–430),
Latin theologian. His writing on
free will and
original sin remains influential in Western Christendom.
Theology
–
Albert the Great (1193/1206–1280),
patron saint of
Roman Catholic theologians
Theology
–
Tommaso D'aquino was the greatest Western theologist of the Middle Ages.
Theology
–
Allamah Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi was the most influential Islamic theologist of the 20th century.
7.
Belief
–
Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. Another way of defining belief sees it as a representation of an attitude positively oriented towards the likelihood of something being true. In the context of Ancient Greek thought, two related concepts were identified with regards to the concept of belief, pistis and doxa, simplified, we may say that pistis refers to trust and confidence, while doxa refers to opinion and acceptance. The English word orthodoxy derives from doxa, Jonathan Leicester suggests that belief has the purpose of guiding action rather than indicating truth. In epistemology, philosophers use the belief to refer to personal attitudes associated with true or false ideas. However, belief does not require active introspection and circumspection, for example, we never ponder whether or not the sun will rise. We simply assume the sun will rise, since belief is an important aspect of mundane life, according to Eric Schwitzgebel in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a related question asks, how a physical organism can have beliefs. Epistemology is concerned with delineating the boundary between justified belief and opinion, and involved generally with a philosophical study of knowledge. The primary problem in epistemology is to exactly what is needed in order for us to have knowledge. Plato dismisses this possibility of a relation between belief and knowledge even when the one who opines grounds his belief on the rule. Among American epistemologists, Gettier and Goldman, have questioned the true belief definition. Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation, philosophers have tended to be more abstract in their analysis, and much of the work examining the viability of the belief concept stems from philosophical analysis. The concept of belief presumes a subject and an object of belief, Beliefs are sometimes divided into core beliefs and dispositional beliefs. For example, if asked do you believe tigers wear pink pajamas, a person might answer that they do not, despite the fact they may never have thought about this situation before. This has important implications for understanding the neuropsychology and neuroscience of belief, if the concept of belief is incoherent, then any attempt to find the underlying neural processes that support it will fail. Jerry Fodor is one of the defenders of this point of view. Most notably, philosopher Stephen Stich has argued for this understanding of belief. In these cases science hasnt provided us with a detailed account of these theories
Belief
–
We are influenced by many factors that ripple through our minds as our beliefs form, evolve, and may eventually change
Belief
–
A
Venn /
Euler diagram which grants that
truth and belief may be distinguished and that their
intersection is
knowledge. Unsurprisingly, this is
a controversial analysis.
Belief
–
This article is about the general concept. For other uses, see
Belief (disambiguation).
Belief
–
Philosopher Jonathan Glover warns that belief systems are like whole boats in the water; it is extremely difficult to alter them all at once (e.g., it may be too stressful, or people may maintain their biases without realizing it).
8.
Art
–
In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art. The oldest documented forms of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, during the Romantic period, art came to be seen as a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science. Though the definition of what art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency. The nature of art, and related such as creativity. One early sense of the definition of art is related to the older Latin meaning. English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, however, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art, Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness in the Phaedrus, and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homers great poetic art, in Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, the forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is an imitation of men worse than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation—through narrative or character, through change or no change, Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankinds advantages over animals. The second, and more recent, sense of the art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. The creative arts are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks that are compelled by a drive and convey a message, mood. Art is something that stimulates an individuals thoughts, emotions, beliefs, works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are considered applied art
Art
–
Clockwise from upper left: a
self-portrait by
Vincent van Gogh; a female ancestor figure by a
Chokwe artist; detail from the
Birth of Venus by
Sandro Botticelli; and an Okinawan
Shisa lion.
Art
–
Works of art can tell stories or simply express an aesthetic truth or feeling. Panorama of a section of A Thousand Li of Mountains and Rivers, a 12th-century painting by Song dynasty artist
Wang Ximeng.
Art
–
20th-century Rwandan bottle. Artistic works may serve practical functions, in addition to their decorative value.
Art
–
Venus of Willendorf, circa 24,000–22,000
BP
9.
Genre
–
Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genres form by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented, often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, some genres may be rigid with strictly adhered to guidelines while others may be very flexible. Genre began as a classification system for ancient Greek literature. Poetry, prose, and performance each had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, in later periods genres proliferated and developed in response to changes in audiences and creators. Genre became a tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictable art. Because art is often a response to a state, in that people write/paint/sing/dance about what they know about. Genre suffers from the ills of any classification system. Genre is to be reassessed and scrutinized, and to works on their unique merit. While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily borrowed nature of the conventions, proponents argue that the genius of an effective genre piece is in the variation, recombination, and evolution of the codes. The term genre is used in the history and criticism of visual art. These are distinguished from staffage, incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting, Genre painting may also be used as a wider term covering genre painting proper, and other specialized types of paintings such as still-life, landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings. The concept of the hierarchy of genres was a one in artistic theory. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the Académie française which held a role in academic art. Genres may be determined by technique, tone, content. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as adult, young adult. They also must not be confused with format, such as novel or picture book
Genre
–
A genre painting (Peasant Dance, c. 1568, by
Pieter Brueghel the Elder)
10.
Imperial cult
–
An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor, or a dynasty of emperors, are worshipped as demigods or deities. Cult here is used to worship, not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may be one of personality in the case of a newly arisen Euhemerus figure or one of identity or supranational identity in the case of a multi-ethnic state. A divine king is a monarch who is held in a religious significance by his subjects. This system of government combines theocracy with an absolute monarchy, the Ptolemaic dynasty based their own legitimacy in the eyes of their Greek subjects on their association with, and incorporation into, the cult of Alexander the Great. In Imperial China, an emperor was considered the Son of Heaven, the scion and representative of heaven on earth, he was the ruler of all under heaven, the bearer of the Mandate of Heaven, his commands considered sacred edicts. A number of legendary figures preceding the proper imperial era of China also hold the title of emperor, such as the Yellow Emperor. Even before the rise of the Caesars, there are traces of a regal spirituality in Roman society, King Numitor corresponds to the regal-sacred principle in early Roman history. Romulus, the founder of Rome, was heroized into Quirinus. Varro spoke of the mystery and power of Roman regality. In Plutarchs Phyrro,19.5, the Greek ambassador declared amid the Roman Senate he felt instead like being in the midst of an assembly of Kings. As the Roman Empire developed the Imperial cult gradually developed more formally and this practice began at the start of the Empire under Augustus, and became a prominent element of Roman religion. The cult spread over the whole Empire within a few decades, Emperor Diocletian further reinforced it when he demanded the proskynesis and adopted the adjective sacrum for all things pertaining to the imperial person. The deification of emperors was gradually abandoned after the emperor Constantine I started supporting Christianity, however, the concept of the imperial person as sacred carried over, in a Christianized form, into the Byzantine Empire. In ancient Japan, it was customary for every clan to claim descendancy from gods, later in history, this was considered common practice by noble families, and the head members of the family, including that of the imperial family, were not seen to be divine. It was not until the Meiji period, that the Japanese Emperor began to be venerated along with a sense of nationalism. Arahitogami – the concept of a god who is a human being applied to the Shōwa Emperor, ningen-sengen – the declaration with which the Shōwa Emperor, on New Years Day 1946, declined claims of divinity, keeping with traditional family values as expressed in the Shinto religion. Devaraja is the Hindu-Buddhist cult of deified royalty in Southeast Asia and it is simply described as Southeast Asian concept of divine king
Imperial cult
–
Caligula referred to himself as a god.
Imperial cult
–
Ancient Egyptian pharaohs were worshipped as god-kings
Imperial cult
–
Emperor
Hirohito was the last divine Emperor of Japan.
Imperial cult
–
Hong Xiuquan
11.
Divine king
–
In many historical societies, the position of kingship carries a sacral meaning, that is, it is identical with that of a high priest and of judge. The concept of theocracy is related, although a sacred king need not necessarily rule through his religious authority, rather, the concept was identified, or invented, by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough whose title refers to the myth of the Rex Nemorensis. Frazer gives numerous examples, cited below, and is regarded as an exponent of the myth and ritual school. However, the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory is disputed, many now believe that myth and ritual share common paradigms. According to Frazer, the notion has prehistoric roots and is worldwide, on Java as in sub-Saharan Africa, with shaman-kings credited with rainmaking and assuring fertility. Among the Ashanti, a new king was flogged before being enthroned, from the Bronze Age Near East, the enthronement and anointment of a monarch is a central religious ritual, reflected in the titles Messiah or Christ which became separated from worldly kingship. Thus, Sargon of Akkad described himself as deputy of Ishtar, the king is styled as a shepherd from earliest times, e. g. the term was applied to Sumerian princes such as Lugalbanda in the 3rd millennium BCE. The image of the shepherd combines the themes of leadership and the responsibility to supply food, as the mediator between the people and the divine, the sacral king was credited with special wisdom or vision. Devaraja, cult of divine kings in Southeast Asia, germanic kingship Holy Roman Emperor Imperial cult The Omukama of Kitara ruled as a heavenly sovereign. The High King of Ireland, according to tradition, married the sovereignty goddess. The Eze Nri, title of the ruler of the defunct Igbo Nri Kingdom in present-day Nigeria and he was addressed as Igwe, meaning heavenly one in the Igbo language, and has the pretender of a contemporary traditional state of the same name as his successor. The Emperor of Japan is known in Japanese as Tennō, heavenly sovereign, the Kende was the sacred king of the Magyars in the 9th century. The Khagan The Kings of Luba became deities after death, the temporal power of the Papacy Pharaoh, title of Ancient Egyptian rulers. The pharaoh adopted names symbolizing holy might, the school of Pan-Babylonianism derived much of the religion described in the Hebrew Bible from cults of sacral kingship in ancient Babylonia. The so-called British and Scandinavian cult-historical schools maintained that the king personified a god and stood at the center of the national or tribal religion, the English myth and ritual school concentrated on anthropology and folklore, while the Scandinavian Uppsala school emphasized Semitological study. A sacred king, according to the interpretation of mythology developed by Frazer in The Golden Bough, was a king who represented a solar deity in a periodically re-enacted fertility rite. According to Frazer, the king represented the spirit of vegetation. He came into being in the spring, reigned during the summer, the spirit of vegetation was therefore a dying and reviving god
Divine king
–
Figure of Christ from the
Ghent Altarpiece (1432).
12.
Ancient Egypt
–
Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
Ancient Egypt
–
The
Great Sphinx and the
pyramids of Giza are among the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt.
Ancient Egypt
–
A typical Naqada II jar decorated with gazelles. (Predynastic Period)
Ancient Egypt
–
The
Narmer Palette depicts the unification of the Two Lands.
13.
Pharaoh
–
The word pharaoh ultimately derive from the Egyptian compound pr-ˤ3 great house, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr house and ˤ3 column, here meaning great or high. It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-ˤ3 Courtier of the High House, with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace. From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health, but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person. During the reign of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom, after the rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period. During the eighteenth dynasty the title pharaoh was employed as a designation of the ruler. From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ˤ3 on its own was used as regularly as hm. f, the term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. For instance, the first dated appearance of the pharaoh being attached to a rulers name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun and this new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. Shoshenq I was the successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-ˤ3 continued in traditional Egyptian narratives, by this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence Herodotus derived the name of one of the Egyptian kings, Φερων. In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה, from that, Septuagint φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō, both -n stem nouns. The Quran likewise spells it فرعون firawn with n, interestingly, the Arabic combines the original pharyngeal ayin sound from Egyptian, along with the -n ending from Greek. English at first spelt it Pharao, but the King James Bible revived Pharaoh with h from the Hebrew, meanwhile in Egypt itself, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ prro and then rro. Scepters and staves were a sign of authority in ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos, kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, the earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period, another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head, the earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty
Pharaoh
–
Den
Pharaoh
–
Narmer Palette
Pharaoh
–
Nomen and prenomen of
Ramesses III
Pharaoh
–
Royal titulary
14.
Mesopotamia
–
In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The Sumerians and Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of history to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians, division of Mesopotamia between Roman and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος middle and ποταμός river and it is used throughout the Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria, the Aramaic term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation and it is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazirah, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments, Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Armenian Highlands. Both rivers are fed by tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times, periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and these trends have continued to the present day in Iraq
Mesopotamia
–
Known world of the Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures from documentary sources
Mesopotamia
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Map showing the extent of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
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One of 18
Statues of Gudea, a ruler around 2090 BC
Mesopotamia
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One of the
Nimrud ivories shows a lion eating a man. Neo-Assyrian period, 9th to 7th centuries BC.
15.
Naram-Sin of Akkad
–
Naram-Sin was a ruler of the Akkadian Empire, the third successor and grandson of King Sargon of Akkad. Under Naram-Sin the empire reached its maximum strength and he was the first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself, taking the title God of Akkad, and one of the first claim the title King of the Four Quarters, King of the Universe. Naram-Sin was born as a son of Manishtushu and he was thus a nephew of King Rimush and grandson of Sargon and Tashlultum. Naram-Sins aunt was the High Priestess En-hedu-ana, Naram-Sin traded with Meluhha, and controlled a large portion of land along the Persian Gulf. He defeated Manium of Magan, and various hill tribes in the Zagros, Taurus. His Victory Stele depicts his triumph over Satuni, chief of Lullubi in the Zagros Mountains. The king list gives the length of his reign as 56 years, one unknown year was recorded as the Year when Naram-Sin was victorious against Simurrum in Kirasheniwe, and took prisoner Baba the governor of Simurrum, and Dubul the ensi of Arame. Other year names refer to his work on temples in Akkad, Nippur. He also built administrative centers at Nagar and Nineveh, one Mesopotamian myth, a historiographic poem entitled The curse of Akkad, the Ekur avenged, explains how the empire created by Sargon of Akkad fell and the city of Akkad was destroyed. The myth was written hundreds of years after Naram-Sins life, and is the attempt to explain how the Gutians succeeded in conquering Sumer. Food prices became vastly inflated, with the poem stating that 1 lamb would buy half a sila of grain, half a sila of oil. To prevent this destruction, eight of the gods decreed that the city of Akkad should be destroyed in order to spare the rest of Sumer and these Gutian raids were indeed devastating, but it is unknown how badly they affected Sumer. Naram-Sin may have passed on his empire to his son Shar-Kali-Sharri more or less intact upon his death in c.2219 BC, the Gutians remained there for over 100 years before being replaced by the Ur III state as the dominant political power. Naram-Sins Victory Stele depicts him as a god-king climbing a mountain above his soldiers, and his enemies, the defeated Lullubi. Although the stele was broken off at the top when it was stolen and carried off by the Elamite forces of Shutruk-Nakhunte, it still strikingly reveals the pride, glory, and divinity of Naram-Sin. The stele seems to break tradition by using successive diagonal tiers to communicate the story to viewers. It is six feet and seven inches tall, and made from pink limestone, the stele was found at Susa, and is now in the Louvre Museum. A similar bas-relief depicting Naram-Sin was found a few miles north-east of Diarbekr, the only known son of Naram-Sin was his successor Shar-Kali-Sharri
Naram-Sin of Akkad
–
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, c. 2230 BC. It shows him defeating the Lullibi, a tribe in the
Zagros Mountains, trampling them and spearing them. He is also twice the size of his soldiers. In the 12th century BC it was taken to
Susa, where it was found in 1898.
Naram-Sin of Akkad
–
External video
16.
New Kingdom
–
Radiocarbon dating places the exact beginning of the New Kingdom between 1570–1544 BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period and it was Egypt’s most prosperous time and marked the peak of its power. The later part of period, under the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties is also known as the Ramesside period. It is named after the pharaohs that took the name of Ramesses I. Egyptian armies fought Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria, the Eighteenth Dynasty contained some of Egypts most famous Pharaohs, including Ahmose I, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. Queen Hatshepsut concentrated on expanding Egypts external trade by sending an expedition to the land of Punt. Thutmose III expanded Egypts army and wielded it with success to consolidate the empire created by his predecessors. This resulted in a peak in Egypts power and wealth during the reign of Amenhotep III, during the reign of Thutmose III, Pharaoh, originally referring to the kings palace, became a form of address for the person who was king. Akhenatens religious fervor is cited as the reason why he was written out of Egyptian history. Under his reign, in the 14th century BC, Egyptian art flourished and attained a level of realism. Towards the end of the 18th Dynasty, the situation had changed radically, Ramesses II sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been held by the 18th Dynasty. His campaigns of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. Ramesses was caught in historys first recorded military ambush, although he was able to rally his troops, the outcome of the battle was undecided with both sides claiming victory at their home front, ultimately resulting in a peace treaty between the two nations. The last great pharaoh from the New Kingdom is widely considered to be Ramesses III, in the eighth year of his reign the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles and he incorporated them as subject peoples and settled them in Southern Canaan although there is evidence that they forced their way into Canaan. Their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states, such as Philistia and he was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two major campaigns in Egypts Western Delta in his sixth year and eleventh year respectively. The heavy cost of this warfare slowly drained Egypts treasury and contributed to the decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Something in the air prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground, one proposed cause is the Hekla 3 eruption of the Hekla volcano in Iceland but the dating of this remains disputed
New Kingdom
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New Kingdom at its maximum territorial extent in the 15th century BC.
New Kingdom
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Relief of a Nobleman, ca. 1295-1070 B.C.E.
Brooklyn Museum
New Kingdom
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Queen Ahmose-Nefertari
17.
Osiris
–
Osiris was an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead, but more appropriately as the god of transition, resurrection, and regeneration. He was also associated with the epithet Khenti-Amentiu, meaning Foremost of the Westerners, as ruler of the dead, Osiris was also sometimes called king of the living, ancient Egyptians considered the blessed dead the living ones. Osiris was considered the brother of Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder and he was described as the Lord of love, He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful and the Lord of Silence. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death, Osiris was widely worshipped as Lord of the Dead until the suppression of the Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Osiris is a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek Ὄσιρις IPA, in Egyptian hieroglyphs the name is appears as wsjr or jsjrt. Since hieroglyphic writing lacks vowels, Egyptologists have vocalized the name in various ways as Asar, Yasar, Aser, Asaru, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, several proposals have been made for the etymology and meaning of the original name wsjr. John Gwyn Griffiths proposed a derivation from wsr signifying the powerful, moreover, one of the oldest attestations of the god Osiris appears in the mastaba of the deceased Netjer-wser. David Lorton proposed that Wsjr is composed by the morphemes set-jret signifying ritual activity, wolfhart Westendorf proposed an etymology from Waset-jret she who bears the eye. He also carries the crook and flail, the crook is thought to represent Osiris as a shepherd god. The symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherds whip, fly-whisk and he was commonly depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green or black in mummiform. The Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of travelling with the sun god amongst the stars. Amongst these mortuary texts, at the beginning of the 4th dynasty, is found, An offering the king gives, by the end of the 5th dynasty, the formula in all tombs becomes An offering the king gives and Osiris. Osiris is the father of the god Horus, whose conception is described in the Osiris myth. The myth described Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set, Isis joined the fragmented pieces of Osiris, but the only body part missing was the phallus. Isis fashioned a golden phallus, and briefly brought Osiris back to life by use of a spell that she learned from her father and this spell gave her time to become pregnant by Osiris before he again died. Isis later gave birth to Horus, as such, since Horus was born after Osiris resurrection, Horus became thought of as a representation of new beginnings and the vanquisher of the evil Set. Ptah-Seker thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris, Osiris soul, or rather his Ba, was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially in the Delta city of Mendes
Osiris
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Head of the God Osiris, ca. 595-525 B.C.E.
Brooklyn Museum
Osiris
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Osiris with an Atef-crown made of bronze in the
Naturhistorisches Museum (Vienna)
Osiris
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The gods Osiris,
Anubis, and
Horus, from a tomb painting.
Osiris
–
The family of Osiris. Osiris on a
lapis lazuli pillar in the middle, flanked by
Horus on the left and
Isis on the right (22nd dynasty,
Louvre,
Paris)
18.
Greek hero cult
–
Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, hero refers to a man who was fighting on either side during the Trojan War, copious renewed offerings begin to be represented, after a hiatus, at sites like Lefkandi, even though the names of the grandly buried dead were hardly remembered. Stories began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old, large Mycenaean tholos tombs that betokened a grander past, were often the site of hero-cults. Not all heroes were even known by names, the custom, then, was already established, and there were multiple local heroes. In the heros restricted and local scope he retained the limited, the two exceptions to the above were Heracles and Asclepius, who might be honored as either heroes or gods, with chthonic libation or with burnt sacrifice. Heroes in cult behaved very differently from heroes in myth and they might appear indifferently as men or as snakes, and they seldom appeared unless angered. A Pythagorean saying advises not to eat food that has fallen on the floor, Heroes if ignored or left unappeased could turn malicious, in a fragmentary play by Aristophanes, a chorus of anonymous heroes describe themselves as senders of lice, fever and boils. These all seem to date to the 8th century BC, the cult of Pelops at Olympia dates from the Archaic period. Where local cult venerated figures such as the sacrificial virgin Iphigeneia, other isolated female figures represented priestess-initiators of a local cult. Iconographic and epigraphal evidence marshalled by Larson combine to depict heroines as similar in kind to heroes, Whitley distinguishes four or five essential types of hero cult, Oikist cults of founders. Such cults arose in colonies in the Hellenic world in Magna Graecia and Sicily at the grave of the founder, in the case of cults at the tombs of the recently heroised, it must be assumed that the identity of the occupant of the tomb was unequivocally known. Thucydides gives the example of Brasidas at Amphipolis, battus of Cyrene might also be mentioned. Such historical examples, Whitley warns, have colored the interpretation of certain tomb cults in the Archaic period. Such Archaic sites as the heroon at Lefkandi and that close to the West Gate at Eretria cannot be distinguished by archaeological methods from family observances at tombs and the cult of ancestors. A number of sites known in Classical times were dedicated to known heroes in the Greek and modern senses, especially of the Iliad. The cults of Oedipus at Athens and Pelops at Olympia are examples, such local figures do not figure among the Panhellenic figures of epic. Examples would be Akademos and Erechtheus at Athens and these are represented archaeologically by Iron Age deposits in Mycenaean tombs, not easily interpreted. Because of the gap in time between the Bronze Age collapse and the earliest votive objects, continuity appears to be broken
Greek hero cult
–
Ruins of a hero-shrine or
heroon at
Sagalassos,
Turkey
Greek hero cult
–
Cult of
Oedipus on a
Lucanian amphora, ca. 380-70 BC (
Louvre, CA 308)
Greek hero cult
–
Offerings to a deified hero and another deity, depicted on a Greek marble relief ca. 300 BC
19.
Geometric art
–
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BC –700 BC. Its centre was in Athens, and from there the style spread amongst the cities of the Aegean. In the Early Geometric period, the height of the vessels had been increased, the remaining surface is covered by a thin layer of clay, which during the cooking takes a dark, shiny, metallic color. That was the period when the theme of the meander was added to the pottery design. One of the examples of the Late Geometric style is an oldest surviving signed work of a Greek potter Aristonothos. The vase was found at Cerveteri in Italy and illustrates the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus, – that led to the Orientalizing Period style, in which the pottery style of Corinth distinguished. Vases in the Geometric style are characterized by horizontal bands about the circumference covering the entire vase. Between these lines the geometric artist used a number of decorative motifs such as the zigzag, the triangle, the meander. Besides abstract elements, painters of this era introduced stylized depictions of humans, linear designs were the principal motif used in this period. The meander pattern was often placed in bands and used to frame the now larger panels of decoration, the first human figures appeared around 770 BC on the handles of vases. The male was depicted with a torso, an ovoid head with a blob for a nose and long cylindrical thighs. Their long hair was depicted as a series of lines, as were their breasts, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Geometric Art in Ancient Greece Greek Geometric period
Geometric art
–
Detail of a
chariot from a late Geometric krater attributed to the
Trachones workshop on display at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Geometric art
–
The Dipylon Amphora, mid-8th century BC, with human figures for scale.
National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
Geometric art
–
The Hirschfeld Krater, mid-8th century BC, from the late Geometric period, depicting
ekphora, the act of carrying a body to its grave. National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
20.
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
Chthonic
–
Greek Mythology
21.
Philip II of Macedon
–
Philip II of Macedon was the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty of Macedonian kings, the son of King Amyntas III. However, his assassination led to the succession of his son Alexander. Philip was the youngest son of the king Amyntas III and Eurydice I, in his youth, Philip was held as a hostage in Thebes, which was then the leading city of Greece. In 364 BC, Philip returned to Macedon, the deaths of Philips elder brothers, King Alexander II and Perdiccas III, allowed him to take the throne in 359 BC. Originally appointed regent for his infant nephew Amyntas IV, who was the son of Perdiccas III, Philips military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian greatness brought him early success. He first had to remedy a predicament which had greatly worsened by the defeat against the Illyrians in which King Perdiccas himself had died. Using diplomacy, Philip pushed back the Paionians and Thracians promising tributes, momentarily free from his opponents, he concentrated on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army. Philip had married Audata, great-granddaughter of the Illyrian king of Dardania, however, this did not prevent him from marching against the Illyrians in 358 and crushing them in a ferocious battle in which some 7,000 Illyrians died. By this move, Philip established his authority inland as far as Lake Ohrid, the Athenians had been unable to conquer Amphipolis, which commanded the gold mines of Mount Pangaion. So Philip reached an agreement with Athens to lease the city to them after its conquest, however, after conquering Amphipolis, Philip kept both cities. As Athens had declared war against him, he allied Macedon with the Chalkidian League of Olynthus and he subsequently conquered Potidaea, this time keeping his word and ceding it to the League in 356. In 357 BC, Philip married the Epirote princess Olympias, who was the daughter of the king of the Molossians, Alexander was born in 356, the same year as Philips racehorse won at the Olympic Games. During 356 BC, Philip conquered the town of Crenides and changed its name to Philippi and he then established a powerful garrison there to control its mines, which yielded much of the gold he later used for his campaigns. In the meantime, his general Parmenion defeated the Illyrians again, in 355–354 he besieged Methone, the last city on the Thermaic Gulf controlled by Athens. During the siege, Philip was injured in his eye, despite the arrival of two Athenian fleets, the city fell in 354. Philip also attacked Abdera and Maronea, on the Thracian coast, Philip was involved in the Third Sacred War which had begun in Greece in 356. In summer 353 he invaded Thessaly, defeating 7,000 Phocians under the brother of Onomarchus, the latter however defeated Philip in the two succeeding battles
Philip II of Macedon
–
Bust of Philip II of Macedon.
Philip II of Macedon
–
Philip II gold
stater, with head of
Apollo.
Philip II of Macedon
–
Silver
tetradrachms dated back to the reign of Philip II
Philip II of Macedon
–
Great Tumulus of Aigai
22.
Olympian gods
–
Hades and Persephone were sometimes included as part of the twelve Olympians, although in general Hades was excluded, because he resided permanently in the underworld and never visited Olympus. The Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon, were the deities of the Greek pantheon. The Olympians gained their supremacy in a war of gods in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over their predecessor gods. The concept of the Twelve Gods is older than any extant Greek or Roman source, the gods meet in council in the Homeric epics, but the first ancient reference to religious ceremonies for the Olympians collectively is found in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. The Greek cult of the Twelve Olympians can be traced to 6th-century BC Athens, the Altar of the Twelve Gods at Athens is usually dated to the archonship of the younger Pesistratos, in 522/521 BC. In ancient Greek religion, the Olympian Gods and the Cults of Twelve Gods were often relatively distinct concepts, while the number was fixed at twelve, there was considerable variation as to which deities were included. However, the twelve as most commonly portrayed in art and poetry were Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes and either Hestia, or Dionysus. Hades, known in the Eleusinian tradition as Pluto, was not usually included among the Olympians because his realm was the underworld. Plato connected the Twelve Olympians with the months, and implies that he considered Pluto one of the twelve in proposing that the final month be devoted to him. In Phaedrus, Plato seems to exclude Hestia from the rank of the great gods. At Olympia there were six altars dedicated to six pairs of gods, Zeus and Poseidon, Hera and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Charites and Dionysus, Artemis and Alpheus, the historian Herodotus states that Heracles was included as one of the Twelve by some. At Kos, Heracles and Dionysus are added to the Twelve, for Pindar, the Bibliotheca, and Herodorus of Heraclea, Heracles is not one of the Twelve Gods, but the one who established their cult. Lucian includes Heracles and Asclepius as members of the Twelve, without explaining which two had to give way for them, hebe, Helios, Selene, Eos, Eros and Persephone are other important gods and goddesses who are sometimes included in a group of twelve. Eros is often depicted alongside the twelve, especially his mother Aphrodite. Notes ^ Romans also associated Phoebus with Helios and the sun itself, however, ^ According to an alternate version of her birth, Aphrodite was born of Uranus, Zeus grandfather, after Cronus threw his castrated genitals into the sea. This supports the etymology of her name, foam-born, as such, Aphrodite would belong to the same generation as Cronus, Zeus father, and would be Zeus aunt. See the birth of Aphrodite The following gods and goddess are sometimes included as one of the twelve Olympians, the following gods and goddesses were not usually counted as Olympians, although they had close ties to them. Aeolus – King of the winds, keeper of the Anemoi, Alpheus – God of the River Alpheus
Olympian gods
Olympian gods
–
Zeus
Olympian gods
–
Hera
Olympian gods
–
Poseidon
23.
Vergina
–
Vergina is a small town in northern Greece, part of Veroia municipality in Imathia, Central Macedonia. It is now a unit within Veroia, with an area 69.047 km2. Vergina is best known as the site of ancient Aigai, the first capital of Macedon and it was here in 336 BC that Philip II was assassinated in the theatre and Alexander the Great was proclaimed king. It is also the site of a royal palace and of many rich ancient tombs. The objects and paintings found in the tombs at Vergina are of high quality. A museum now contains Philips tomb and a new museum is being constructed for the palace, the existence of an early Macedonian fortress named Aegae is reported by Justin, and was long identified as Edessa. Only with the discovery of substantial remains near Vergina, just east of the Haliacmon, in 1976, ancient sources give conflicting accounts of the origins of the Argead dynasty. Alexander I is the first truly historic figure and, based on the line of succession, herodotus says that the Argead dynasty was an ancient Greek royal house led by Perdiccas I who fled from Argos, in approximately 650 BC. Indeed, Aigai never became a city and most of its inhabitants lived in surrounding villages. From Aigai the Macedonians spread to the part of Macedonia. From 513 to 480 BC Aigai was part of the Persian Empire, the city wall was built in the 5th century probably by Perdiccas II. At the beginning of the 4th century BC, Archelaus transferred the Macedonian capital north-east to Pella on the central Macedonian plain. Nevertheless, Aegae retained its role as the city of the Macedonian kingdom, the site of the traditional cult centres, a royal palace. For this reason it was here that Philip II was attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to King Alexander of Epirus when he was murdered by his bodyguard in the theatre and his was the most lavish funeral ceremony of historic times held in Greece. Laid on a gold and ivory deathbed wearing his precious golden oak wreath. The bitter struggles between the heirs of Alexander, the Diadochi, in the 3rd century adversely affected the city, in 276 BC the Gauls of Pyrrhus plundered many of the tombs. After the overthrow of the Macedonian kingdom by the Romans in 168 BC both old and new capitals were destroyed, the walls pulled down and the palace, theatre, in the 1st century AD a landslide completely destroyed the city. However excavations prove that parts were inhabited in the 1st century AD
Vergina
–
Great Tumulus of Aigai
Vergina
–
Vergina Βεργίνα
Vergina
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Vergina
–
Model of Philip II's tomb
24.
Hellenistic civilization
–
It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
Hellenistic civilization
–
The
Nike of Samothrace is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of
Hellenistic art.
Hellenistic civilization
–
Alexander fighting the Persian king
Darius III. From the
Alexander Mosaic,
Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Hellenistic civilization
–
Alexander's empire at the time of its maximum expansion.
25.
Julius Caesar
–
Gaius Julius Caesar, known as Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician, general, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed an alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate. Caesars victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Romes territory to the English Channel, Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both the Channel and the Rhine, when he built a bridge across the Rhine and crossed the Channel to invade Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, with the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province, Civil war resulted, and Caesars victory in the war put him in an unrivalled position of power and influence. After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms and he centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed dictator in perpetuity, giving him additional authority. But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March 44 BC, a new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesars adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power after defeating his opponents in the civil war. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began, much of Caesars life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources, Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. Caesar was born into a family, the gens Julia. The cognomen Caesar originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by Caesarean section. The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations, that the first Caesar had a head of hair, that he had bright grey eyes. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name, despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, although they had enjoyed some revival of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesars father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia and his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesars childhood, in 85 BC, Caesars father died suddenly, so Caesar was the head of the family at 16
Julius Caesar
–
The
Tusculum portrait, perhaps the only surviving statue created during Caesar's lifetime.
Julius Caesar
–
Gaius Marius, Caesar's uncle
Julius Caesar
–
Dictator
Lucius Cornelius Sulla stripped Caesar of the priesthood.
Julius Caesar
–
The extent of the Roman Republic in 40 BC after Caesar's conquests.
26.
Alexander the Great
–
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
Alexander the Great
–
"Alexander fighting king
Darius III of Persia ",
Alexander Mosaic,
Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Alexander the Great
–
Bust of a young Alexander the Great from the Hellenistic era,
British Museum
Alexander the Great
–
Aristotle tutoring Alexander, by
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
Alexander the Great
–
Philip II of Macedon, Alexander's father.
27.
Ptolemaic dynasty
–
Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 to 30 BC. They were the last dynasty of ancient Egypt, Ptolemy, one of the seven somatophylakes who served as Alexander the Greats generals and deputies, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexanders death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself Ptolemy I, later known as Sōter Saviour, the Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemys family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC, all the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy. Ptolemaic queens regnant, some of whom were the sisters of their husbands, were usually called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII and her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt. Dates in brackets represent the dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They frequently ruled jointly with their wives, who were also their sisters. Of these, one of the last and most famous was Cleopatra, several systems exist for numbering the later rulers, the one used here is the one most widely used by modern scholars. Arsinoe IV, in opposition to Cleopatra Ptolemy Keraunos - eldest son of Ptolemy I Soter, Ptolemy Apion - son of Ptolemy VIII Physcon. Ptolemy Philadelphus - son of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, Ptolemy of Mauretania - son of King Juba II of Numidia and Mauretania and Cleopatra Selene II, daughter of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony. Contemporaries describe a number of the Ptolemaic dynasty members as extremely obese, whilst sculptures and coins reveal prominent eyes, familial Graves disease could explain the swollen necks and eye prominence, although this is unlikely to occur in the presence of morbid obesity. A. Lampela, Rome and the Ptolemies of Egypt, the development of their political relations 273-80 B. C. J. G. Manning, The Last Pharaohs, Egypt Under the Ptolemies, 305-30 BC. Livius. org, Ptolemies — by Jona Lendering
Ptolemaic dynasty
–
Ptolemy I Soter.
Ptolemaic dynasty
–
Ptolemy II
Ptolemaic dynasty
–
Ptolemy V
Ptolemaic dynasty
–
Ptolemy VI
28.
Homer
–
Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
Homer
–
Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the
Hellenistic period.
British Museum.
Homer
–
Part of an 11th-century manuscript, "the Townley Homer". The writing on the top and right side are
scholia.
Homer
–
Homer and His Guide, by
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), portraying Homer on
Mount Ida, beset by dogs and guided by the goatherder Glaucus (as told in
Pseudo-Herodotus)
Homer
–
Raphael 's inspired Homer on
Mount Parnassus.
29.
Eleusinian mysteries
–
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. They are the most famous of the religious rites of ancient Greece. It is thought that their basis was an old agrarian cult which probably goes back to the Mycenean period and it was a major festival during the Hellenic era, and later spread to Rome. The name of the town, Eleusís, seems to be Pre-Greek and it is probably a counterpart with Elysium, the rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret and consistently preserved from antiquity. The initiated believed that they would have a reward in the afterlife, there are many paintings and pieces of pottery that depict various aspects of the Mysteries. Since the Mysteries involved visions and conjuring of an afterlife, some believe that the power. Eleusinian Mysteries was the name of the mysteries of the city Eleusis, the name of the city Eleusis is Pre-Greek, and may be related with the name of the goddess Eileithyia, but this is debated. The ancient Greek word mystery means mystery or secret rite and is related with the verb mueō, which means initiation into the mysteries, and the noun mustēs, the word mustikós means connected with the mysteries, or private, secret. The Mysteries are related to a myth concerning Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, according to the hymn, Demeters daughter Persephone was gathering flowers with friends, when she was seized by Hades, the god of death and the underworld. He took her to his underworld kingdom, distraught, Demeter searched high and low for her daughter. Because of her distress, and in an effort to coerce Zeus to allow the return of her daughter and this would have deprived the gods of sacrifice and worship. As a result, Zeus relented and allowed Persephone to return to her mother, according to the myth, during her search Demeter traveled long distances and had many minor adventures along the way. In one she taught the secrets of agriculture to Triptolemus, finally, by consulting Zeus, Demeter reunites with her daughter and the earth returns to its former verdure and prosperity, the first spring. Zeus, pressed by the cries of the people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish. However, it was a rule of the Fates that whoever consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Before Persephone was released to Hermes, who had sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds. She was obliged to remain with Hades for six or four months and this left a long period of time when Demeter was unhappy due to Persephones absence, neglecting to cultivate the earth. When Persephone returned to the surface, Demeter became joyful and cared for the earth again, the four months during which Persephone is with Hades correspond to the dry Greek summer, a period during which plants are threatened with drought
Eleusinian mysteries
–
A votive plaque known as the
Ninnion Tablet depicting elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries, discovered in the sanctuary at Eleusis (mid-4th century BC)
Eleusinian mysteries
–
Triptolemus receiving wheat sheaves from
Demeter and blessings from
Persephone, 5th-century BC relief,
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Eleusinian mysteries
–
Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling
Metaneira, who offers the triune wheat that is a recurring symbol of the mysteries (
Varrese Painter,
red-figure hydria, c. 340 BC, from
Apulia)
Eleusinian mysteries
–
Henryk Siemiradzki.
Phryne in Eleusus (1889).
30.
Oracle
–
In classical antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination, the word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre to speak and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense they were different from seers who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, the most important oracles of Greek antiquity were Pythia, priestess to Apollo at Delphi, and the oracle of Dione and Zeus at Dodona in Epirus. Other temples of Apollo were located at Didyma on the coast of Asia Minor, at Corinth and Bassae in the Peloponnese, the Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in frenzied states. Walter Burkert observes that Frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks are recorded in the Near East as in Mari in the second millennium BC, in Egypt the goddess Wadjet was depicted as a snake-headed woman or a woman with two snake-heads. Her oracle was in the temple in Per-Wadjet. The oracle of Wadjet may have been the source for the tradition which spread from Egypt to Greece. Evans linked Wadjet with the Minoan snake goddess, a chthonic deity, in Greece the old oracles were devoted to the Mother Goddess. At the oracle of Dodona she will be called Diōnē, who represents the earth-fertile soil, python, daughter of Gaia was the earth dragon of Delphi represented as a serpent and became the chthonic deity, enemy of Apollo, who slew her and possessed the oracle. The Pythia was the mouthpiece of the oracles of the god Apollo, the Pythia was not conceived to be infallible and in fact, according to Sourvinou-Inwood in What is Polis Religion. The ancient Greeks were aware of this and concluded the unknowability of the divine, in this way, the ‘revelations’ of the Oracles were not seen as ‘objective’ truth. Many wealthy individuals bypassed the hordes of people attempting a consultation by making additional animal sacrifices to please the oracle lest their request go unanswered, as a result, seers were the main source of everyday divination. It is from this institution that the English word, oracle, is derived, the Delphic Oracle exerted considerable influence throughout Hellenic culture. Distinctively, this female was essentially the highest authority both civilly and religiously in male-dominated ancient Greece and she responded to the questions of citizens, foreigners, kings, and philosophers on issues of political impact, war, duty, crime, laws—even personal issues. The semi-Hellenic countries around the Greek world, such as Lydia, Caria, Croesus, king of Lydia beginning in 560 B. C. tested the oracles of the world to discover which gave the most accurate prophecies. He sent out emissaries to seven sites who were all to ask the oracles on the day what the king was doing at that very moment. Croesus proclaimed the oracle at Delphi to be the most accurate, who reported that the king was making a lamb-and-tortoise stew
Oracle
–
Oracle bone of the
Shang Dynasty, ancient China
Oracle
–
Consulting the Oracle by
John William Waterhouse, showing eight priestesses in a temple of prophecy.
31.
Roman Empire
–
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
Roman Empire
–
The
Augustus of Prima Porta (early 1st century AD)
Roman Empire
–
Aureus of
Augustus, the first
Roman Emperor.
Roman Empire
–
A segment of the ruins of Hadrian's Wall in northern England
Roman Empire
–
A 5th-century
papyrus showing a parallel Latin-Greek text of a speech by
Cicero
32.
Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)
–
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State. Augustuss reforms transformed Romes Republican system of government to a de facto monarchy, couched in traditional Roman practices, the princeps was expected to balance the interests of the Roman military, Senate and people, and to maintain peace, security and prosperity throughout an ethnically diverse empire. A deceased emperor held worthy of the honor could be voted a state divinity by the Senate, in the development of Imperial rule from Principate to Dominate, the role of the Senate was increasingly marginalised and military loyalty became the key to Imperial authority. The Imperial cult was inseparable from that of Romes official deities, whose cult was essential to Romes survival, Traditional cult was a focus of Imperial revivalist legislation under Decius and Diocletian. Christian apologists and martyrologists saw the cult of the Emperor as a particularly offensive instrument of pagan impiety and it therefore became a focus of theological and political debate during the ascendancy of Christianity under Constantine I. The emperor Julian failed to reverse the declining support for Romes official religious practices, Romes traditional gods and Imperial cult were officially abandoned. However, many of the rites, practices and status distinctions that characterized the cult to emperors were perpetuated in the theology, for five centuries, the Roman Republic did not give worship to any historic figure, or any living man, although surrounded by divine and semi-divine monarchies. Romes legendary kings had been its masters, with their removal, Republican Romans could identify Romulus, similarly, Aeneas was worshipped as Jupiter Indiges. The aristocrats who held almost all Roman magistracies, and thereby occupied almost all of the Senate, among the highest of honors was the triumph. The triumphator rode in a chariot, bearing divine emblems, in a supposed to be inherited from the ancient kings of Rome. Whatever his personal ambitions, his victory and his triumph alike served the Roman Senate, people, in private life, however, tradition required that some human beings be treated as more or less divine, cult was due from familial inferiors to their superiors. A client could call his patron Jupiter on earth, the dead, collectively and individually, were gods of the underworld or afterlife. A prominent clan might claim divine influence and quasi-divine honors for its leader, death masks were made for all notable Romans and were displayed in the atria of their houses, they were used to represent their ghostly presence at family funerals. The mask of Scipio Africanus, Cornelias father and victor over Hannibal, was stored in the temple of Jupiter, a tradition arose in the centuries after his death that Africanus had been inspired by prophetic dreams, and was himself the son of Jupiter. There are several cases of unofficial cult directed at men viewed as saviors and this celebration, in Spain, featured a lavish banquet with local and imported delicacies, and a mechanical statue of Victory to crown Metellus, who wore a triumphators toga picta for the occasion. These festivities were organized by the quaestor Gaius Urbinus, but were not acts of the state, Metellus liked all this, but his older and pious contemporaries thought it arrogant and intolerable. After Gaius Marius defeated the Teutones, private citizens would offer food and drink to him alongside their household gods, when the Romans began to dominate large parts of the Greek world, Romes senior representatives there were given the same divine honours as were Hellenistic rulers. There were similar instances of divine cult to humans in the century, although some rulers, like Agesilaus
Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)
–
Marcus Aurelius (
head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)
–
Venus and Mars sculpture group reworked to portray an Imperial couple (created 120–140 AD, reworked 170–175)
Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)
–
Repoussé pendant of Alexander the Great, horned and diademed like
Zeus Ammon: images of Alexander were worn as magic charms (4th-century Roman).
Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)
–
Augustus as Jove, holding scepter and orb (first half of 1st century AD)
33.
Hecate
–
Hecate or Hekate is a goddess in Ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding two torches or a key and in later periods depicted in triple form. She was variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, light, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts, necromancy and she appears in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in Hesiods Theogony, where she is promoted strongly as a great goddess. The place of origin of her following is uncertain, but it is thought that she had popular followings in Thrace and she was one of the main deities worshiped in Athenian households as a protective goddess and one who bestowed prosperity and daily blessings on the family. Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition. The etymology of the name Hecate is not known, suggested derivations include, From the Greek word for will. From Ἑκατός Hekatos, an epithet of Apollo. This has been translated as she that operates from afar, she that removes or drives off, the name of the Egyptian goddess of childbirth, Heqet, has been compared. In Early Modern English, the name was also pronounced disyllabically and it remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final e, well into the 19th century. The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Goldings 1567 translation of Ovids Metamorphoses, noah Webster in 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name. Hecate may have originated among the Carians of Anatolia, where variants of her name are found as names given to children, Hecate was also worshipped in the ancient city of Colchis. In particular, there is evidence that she might be derived from the local sun goddesses. She also closely parallels the Roman goddess Trivia, with whom she was identified in Rome and her most important sanctuary was Lagina, a theocratic city-state in which the goddess was served by eunuchs. Lagina, where the temple of Hecate drew great festal assemblies every year, lay close to the originally Macedonian colony of Stratonikeia. In Thrace she played a similar to that of lesser-Hermes, namely a governess of liminal regions. Farnell states, The evidence of the monuments as to the character and significance of Hecate is almost as full as that of to express her manifold and mystic nature. The earliest known monument is a small terracotta found in Athens, with a dedication to Hecate, some classical portrayals show her as a triplicate goddess holding a torch, a key, serpents, daggers and numerous other items. Depictions of both a single form Hekate and triple formed, as well as occasional four headed descriptions continued throughout her history. In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in magical papyri of Late Antiquity she is described as having three heads, one dog, one serpent, and one horse, in other representations her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar
Hecate
–
The Hecate Chiaramonti, a Roman sculpture of triple Hecate, after a Hellenistic original (
Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican Museums)
Hecate
–
Statuette of Triple-bodied Hekate. Pen, ink and light brown and grey wash.
Hecate
–
Triple Hecate and the
Charites, Attic, 3rd century BCE (
Glyptothek, Munich)
34.
Persephone
–
In Greek mythology, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter, and is the queen of the underworld. Homer describes her as the formidable, venerable majestic princess of the underworld, Persephone was married to Hades, the god-king of the underworld. Similar myths appear in the Orient, in the cults of gods like Attis, Adonis and Osiris. Persephone is further said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus, Iacchus, or Zagreus, the origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on very old agrarian cults of agricultural communities. Persephone was commonly worshipped along with Demeter and with the same mysteries, to her alone were dedicated the mysteries celebrated at Athens in the month of Anthesterion. In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a sheaf of grain and she may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades. In Roman mythology, she is called Proserpina, and her mother, persephonē is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature. The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia, in other dialects she was known under variant names, Persephassa, Persephatta, or simply Korē. Plato calls her Pherepapha in his Cratylus, because she is wise, There are also the forms Periphona and Phersephassa. The existence of so many different forms shows how difficult it was for the Greeks to pronounce the word in their own language, an alternative etymology is from φέρειν φόνον, pherein phonon, to bring death. John Chadwick speculatively relates the name of Persephone with the name of Perse, the Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who used the dialectal variant Proserpinē. Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, a name derived by the Romans from proserpere, to shoot forth. In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles, c, and Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears. The epithets of Persephone reveal her double function as chthonic and vegetation goddess, the surnames given to her by the poets refer to her character as Queen of the lower world and the dead, or her symbolic meaning of the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Her common name as a goddess is Kore and in Arcadia she was worshipped under the title Despoina the mistress. Plutarch identifies her with spring and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields, in the Eleusinian mysteries her return is the symbol of immortality and hence she was frequently represented on sarcophagi. The Orphic Persephone is further said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus, Iacchus, Zagreus, as a goddess of the underworld, Persephone was given euphemistically friendly names. However it is possible some of them were the names of original goddesses
Persephone
–
Persephone opening a
cista containing the infant
Adonis, on a
pinax from
Locri
Persephone
–
Persephone or "the deceased woman" holding a
pomegranate. Etruscan terracotta cinerary statue. National archaeological museum in
Palermo, Italy
Persephone
–
Cinerary altar with tabula representing the rape of
Proserpina. White marble, Antonine Era, 2nd century CE.
Rome, Baths of Diocletian
Persephone
–
Statue of Isis-Persephone with a
sistrum.
Heraklion Archaeological Museum,
Crete
35.
Zeus
–
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
Zeus
–
The Jupiter de Smyrne, discovered in
Smyrna in 1680
Zeus
–
The Chariot of Zeus, from an 1879 Stories from the Greek Tragedians by Alfred Church.
Zeus
–
Zeus, at the Getty Villa, A.D. 1 - 100 by unknown.
Zeus
–
"
Cave of Zeus ",
Mount Ida (Crete).
36.
Apollo
–
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
Apollo
–
Apollo Belvedere, ca. 120–140 CE
Apollo
–
Partial view of the temple of Apollo Epikurios (healer) at
Bassae in southern Greece
Apollo
–
Temple of the Delians at
Delos, dedicated to Apollo (478 BC). 19th-century pen-and-wash restoration.
Apollo
–
Temple of Apollo Smintheus at
Çanakkale, Turkey
37.
Heracles
–
Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of clans who claimed to be Heracleidae. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well. Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among the characteristics commonly attributed to him, together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a figure who used games to relax from his labors. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have made the safe for mankind. Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles and his figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known. Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, the core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. Heracles role as a hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling, was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds scattering left, in Christian circles a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death. The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia, which commemorated the death of Heracles, what is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemys descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles, several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A major factor in the tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera. A full account of Heracles must render it clear why Heracles was so tormented by Hera, Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, thus, Heracles very existence proved at least one of Zeus many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus mortal offspring as revenge for her husbands infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles, Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus
Heracles
–
One of the most famous depictions of Heracles, originally by
Lysippos (Marble, Roman copy called Hercules Farnese, 216 CE)
Heracles
–
Greek Mythology
Heracles
–
Heracles capturing the
Cretan bull.
Heracles
–
The Origin of the Milky Way by
Jacopo Tintoretto
38.
Asclepius
–
Asclepius was a hero and god of medicine in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Asclepius represents the aspect of the medical arts, his daughters are Hygieia, Iaso, Aceso, Aglæa/Ægle. He was associated with the Roman/Etruscan god Vediovis and the Egyptian Imhotep and he was one of Apollos sons, sharing with Apollo the epithet Paean. The rod of Asclepius, a staff, remains a symbol of medicine today. Those physicians and attendants who served this god were known as the Therapeutae of Asclepius, the etymology of the name is unknown. In his revised version of Frisks Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, R. S. P. Beekes gives this summary of the different attempts, but the variants of Asklepios and those of the word for mole do not agree. The name is typical for Pre-Greek words, apart from minor variations we find α/αι followed by -γλαπ- or -σκλαπ-/-σχλαπ/β-, I think that the -σ- renders an original affricate, which was lost before the -γ-. Szemerényis etymology from Hitt. assula- well-being and piya- give cannot be correct, Beekes suggested a Pre-Greek proto-form *Atyklap-. He was the son of Apollo and, according to the earliest accounts and his mother was killed for being unfaithful to Apollo and was laid out on a funeral pyre to be consumed, but the unborn child was rescued from her womb. Or, alternatively, his mother died in labor and was out on the pyre to be consumed. Apollo carried the baby to the centaur Chiron who raised Asclepius and it is said that in return for some kindness rendered by Asclepius, a snake licked Asclepius’ ears clean and taught him secret knowledge. Asclepius bore a rod wreathed with a snake, which associated with healing. A species of non-venomous pan-Mediterranean serpent, the Aesculapian snake is named for the god, Asclepius became so proficient as a healer that he surpassed both Chiron and his father, Apollo. Asclepius was therefore able to evade death and to bring back to life from the brink of death. This caused an influx of human beings and Zeus resorted to killing him to balance in the numbers of the human population. Asclepius was married to Epione, with whom he had five daughters, Hygieia, Panacea, Aceso, Iaso, and Aglaea and he also sired a son, Aratus, with Aristodama. At some point, Asclepius was among those who took part in the Calydonian Boar hunt, Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt because he brought Hippolytus back alive from the dead and accepted gold for it. This angered Apollo who in turn killed the Cyclopes who made the thunderbolts for Zeus, for this act, Zeus suspended Apollo from the night sky and commanded Apollo to serve Admetus, King of Thessaly for a year
Asclepius
–
Asclepius with his
serpent-entwined staff,
Archaeological Museum of Epidaurus
Asclepius
–
Asclepios with his daughter Hygieia
Asclepius
–
Asclepius - a fragment of mosaic bathroom in
Kyustendil (
Bulgaria), author Nikolai Zikov
39.
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
–
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State. Augustuss reforms transformed Romes Republican system of government to a de facto monarchy, couched in traditional Roman practices, the princeps was expected to balance the interests of the Roman military, Senate and people, and to maintain peace, security and prosperity throughout an ethnically diverse empire. A deceased emperor held worthy of the honor could be voted a state divinity by the Senate, in the development of Imperial rule from Principate to Dominate, the role of the Senate was increasingly marginalised and military loyalty became the key to Imperial authority. The Imperial cult was inseparable from that of Romes official deities, whose cult was essential to Romes survival, Traditional cult was a focus of Imperial revivalist legislation under Decius and Diocletian. Christian apologists and martyrologists saw the cult of the Emperor as a particularly offensive instrument of pagan impiety and it therefore became a focus of theological and political debate during the ascendancy of Christianity under Constantine I. The emperor Julian failed to reverse the declining support for Romes official religious practices, Romes traditional gods and Imperial cult were officially abandoned. However, many of the rites, practices and status distinctions that characterized the cult to emperors were perpetuated in the theology, for five centuries, the Roman Republic did not give worship to any historic figure, or any living man, although surrounded by divine and semi-divine monarchies. Romes legendary kings had been its masters, with their removal, Republican Romans could identify Romulus, similarly, Aeneas was worshipped as Jupiter Indiges. The aristocrats who held almost all Roman magistracies, and thereby occupied almost all of the Senate, among the highest of honors was the triumph. The triumphator rode in a chariot, bearing divine emblems, in a supposed to be inherited from the ancient kings of Rome. Whatever his personal ambitions, his victory and his triumph alike served the Roman Senate, people, in private life, however, tradition required that some human beings be treated as more or less divine, cult was due from familial inferiors to their superiors. A client could call his patron Jupiter on earth, the dead, collectively and individually, were gods of the underworld or afterlife. A prominent clan might claim divine influence and quasi-divine honors for its leader, death masks were made for all notable Romans and were displayed in the atria of their houses, they were used to represent their ghostly presence at family funerals. The mask of Scipio Africanus, Cornelias father and victor over Hannibal, was stored in the temple of Jupiter, a tradition arose in the centuries after his death that Africanus had been inspired by prophetic dreams, and was himself the son of Jupiter. There are several cases of unofficial cult directed at men viewed as saviors and this celebration, in Spain, featured a lavish banquet with local and imported delicacies, and a mechanical statue of Victory to crown Metellus, who wore a triumphators toga picta for the occasion. These festivities were organized by the quaestor Gaius Urbinus, but were not acts of the state, Metellus liked all this, but his older and pious contemporaries thought it arrogant and intolerable. After Gaius Marius defeated the Teutones, private citizens would offer food and drink to him alongside their household gods, when the Romans began to dominate large parts of the Greek world, Romes senior representatives there were given the same divine honours as were Hellenistic rulers. There were similar instances of divine cult to humans in the century, although some rulers, like Agesilaus
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
–
Marcus Aurelius (
head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
–
Venus and Mars sculpture group reworked to portray an Imperial couple (created 120–140 AD, reworked 170–175)
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
–
Repoussé pendant of Alexander the Great, horned and diademed like
Zeus Ammon: images of Alexander were worn as magic charms (4th-century Roman).
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
–
Augustus as Jove, holding scepter and orb (first half of 1st century AD)
40.
Ancient Rome
–
In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
Ancient Rome
–
Senātus Populus que Rōmānus
Ancient Rome
–
Roman Republic
Ancient Rome
–
According to legend,
Rome was founded in 753 BC by
Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a she-wolf.
Ancient Rome
–
This bust from the
Capitoline Museums is traditionally identified as a portrait of
Lucius Junius Brutus.
41.
S.P.Q.R.
–
SPQR is an initialism of a Latin phrase Senātus Populusque Rōmānus, referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic, and used as an official emblem of the modern-day comune of Rome. The phrase commonly appears in Roman political, legal and historical literature, including the speeches of Cicero, in Latin, Senātus is a nominative singular noun meaning Senate. Populusque is compounded from the nominative noun Populus, the People, and -que, an enclitic particle meaning, the last word, Rōmānus is an adjective modifying the whole of Senātus Populusque, the Roman Senate and People, taken as a whole. Thus, the sentence is translated literally as The Roman Senate and People, or more freely as The Senate, the titles date of establishment is unknown, but it first appears in inscriptions of the Late Republic, from c.80 BC onwards. Previously, the name of the Roman state, as evidenced on coins, was simply ROMA. The abbreviation last appears on coins of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, the two legal entities mentioned, Senātus and the Populus Rōmānus, are sovereign when combined. However, where populus is sovereign alone, Senātus is not, under the Roman Kingdom neither entity was sovereign. The phrase, therefore, can be dated to no earlier than the foundation of the Republic and this signature continued in use under the Roman Empire. The emperors were considered the representatives of the even though the senātūs consulta. Populus Rōmānus in Roman literature is a phrase meaning the government of the People, when the Romans named governments of other countries they used populus in the singular or plural, such as populī Prīscōrum Latīnōrum, the governments of the Old Latins. Rōmānus is the adjective used to distinguish the Romans, as in cīvis Rōmānus. The locative, Rōmae, at Rome, was never used for that purpose, the Roman people appear very often in law and history in such phrases as dignitās, maiestās, auctoritās, lībertās populī Rōmānī, the dignity, majesty, authority, freedom of the Roman people. They were a populus līber, a free people, there was an exercitus, imperium, iudicia, honorēs, consulēs, voluntās of this same populus, the army, rule, judgments, offices, consuls and will of the Roman people. They appear in early Latin as Popolus and Poplus, so the habit of thinking of themselves as free, the Romans believed that all authority came from the people. It could be said that similar language seen in modern political and social revolutions directly comes from this usage. People in this meant the whole government. One of the ways the emperor Commodus paid for his donatives and mass entertainments was to tax the senatorial order, and on many inscriptions, beginning in 1184, the Commune of Rome struck coins in the name of the SENATVS P Q R. From 1414 and 1517, the Roman Senate struck coins with a shield inscribed SPQR, during the regime of Benito Mussolini, SPQR was emblazoned on a number of public buildings and manhole covers in an attempt to promote his dictatorship as a New Roman Empire
S.P.Q.R.
–
Modern manhole cover in Rome with SPQR inscription.
S.P.Q.R.
–
Ancient Rome
S.P.Q.R.
–
A modern recreation of a
Roman standard.
S.P.Q.R.
–
SPQH -
Hamburg Rathaus
42.
Seneca the Younger
–
Seneca the Younger, fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca and also known simply as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—humorist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. As a tragedian, he is best-known for his Medea and Thyestes and he was a tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. He was forced to take his own life for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, however, some sources state that he may have been innocent. His father was Seneca the Elder, his brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus. Seneca was born in Cordoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, griffin also infers from the ancient sources that Seneca was born in either 8,4, or 1 BC. She thinks he was born between 4 and 1 BC and was a resident in Rome by AD5, Seneca says that he was carried to Rome in the arms of his mothers stepsister. Griffin says that, allowing for rhetorical exaggeration, means it is fair to conclude that Seneca was in Rome as a small boy. Be that as it may, it is clear that he was in Rome at an early stage in his life. Caligula and Fabius were critics of his works, and Columella, Pliny, Tacitus, from AD54 to 62, Seneca acted as Neros advisor, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus. One byproduct of his influence was that Seneca was appointed consul in 56. Senecas influence was said to have especially strong in the first year. Tacitus and Dio suggest that Neros early rule, during which time he listened to Seneca, however, the ancient sources suggest, over time, Seneca and Burrus lost their influence over the emperor. In 59 they had agreed to Agrippinas murder, and afterward. This may have contributed as well to his own downfall, following Burrus death in 62, Seneca became the subject of criticism by what Tacitus describes as Neros more disreputable advisers. Charges included allegations of excessive wealth, the grandeur of his property, Seneca requested an audience with Nero in which he sought permission to retire from public duties, pleading age and infirmity. The two then parted on apparently warm terms, Seneca subsequently adopted a quiet lifestyle on his country estates, concentrating on his studies and seldom visiting Rome. In AD65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy, although it is unlikely that Seneca conspired, Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by severing several veins in order to bleed to death, a generation after the Julio-Claudian emperors, Tacitus wrote an account of the suicide, which in view of his Republican sympathies is perhaps somewhat romanticized
Seneca the Younger
–
Ancient bust of Seneca, part of the
Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca (
Antikensammlung Berlin)
Seneca the Younger
–
This Baroque marble imaginary portrait bust of Seneca, by an anonymous sculptor of the 17th century (
Museo del Prado).
Seneca the Younger
–
Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, The suicide of Seneca (1871),
Museo del Prado
Seneca the Younger
–
Plato, Seneca, and
Aristotle in a medieval manuscript illustration (c. 1325–35)
43.
Roman emperor
–
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period. The emperors used a variety of different titles throughout history, often when a given Roman is described as becoming emperor in English, it reflects his taking of the title Augustus or Caesar. Another title often used was imperator, originally a military honorific, early Emperors also used the title princeps. Emperors frequently amassed republican titles, notably Princeps Senatus, Consul, the first emperors reigned alone, later emperors would sometimes rule with co-Emperors and divide administration of the Empire between them. The Romans considered the office of emperor to be distinct from that of a king, the first emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically republican, his successor, Tiberius, nonetheless, for the first three hundred years of Roman Emperors, from Augustus until Diocletian, a great effort was made to emphasize that the Emperors were the leaders of a Republic. Elements of the Republican institutional framework were preserved until the end of the Western Empire. The Eastern emperors ultimately adopted the title of Basileus, which had meant king in Greek, but became a title reserved solely for the Roman emperor, other kings were then referred to as rēgas. In addition to their office, some emperors were given divine status after death. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century, Romulus Augustulus is often considered to be the last emperor of the west after his forced abdication in 476, although Julius Nepos maintained a claim to the title until his death in 480. Constantine XI was the last Byzantine Roman emperor in Constantinople, dying in the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, a Byzantine group of claimant Roman Emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461. In western Europe the title of Roman Emperor was revived by Germanic rulers, the Holy Roman Emperors, in 800, at the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as emperor could be seen as the English translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, however, Julius Caesar, unlike those after him, did so without the Senates vote and approval. Julius Caesar held the Republican offices of four times and dictator five times, was appointed dictator in perpetuity in 45 BC and had been pontifex maximus for a long period. He gained these positions by senatorial consent, by the time of his assassination, he was the most powerful man in the Roman world. In his will, Caesar appointed his adopted son Octavian as his heir, a decade after Caesars death, Octavians victory over his erstwhile ally Mark Antony at Actium put an end to any effective opposition and confirmed Octavians supremacy. His restoration of powers to the Senate and the people of Rome was a demonstration of his auctoritas, some later historians such as Tacitus would say that even at Augustus death, the true restoration of the Republic might have been possible. Instead, Augustus actively prepared his adopted son Tiberius to be his successor, the Senate disputed the issue but eventually confirmed Tiberius as princeps
Roman emperor
–
Augustus
Roman emperor
–
Vexillum
Roman emperor
–
Statue of
Augustus, c. 30 BC–20 BC; this statue is located in the
Louvre
Roman emperor
–
Imaginary portrait of
Constantine XI, the last Roman emperor
44.
Antinous
–
Antinous was a Bithynian Greek youth and a favourite, or lover, of the Roman emperor Hadrian. He was deified after his death, being worshiped in both the Greek East and Latin West, sometimes as a god and sometimes merely as a hero. Little is known of Antinous life, although it is known that he was born in Claudiopolis and he likely was introduced to Hadrian in 123, before being taken to Italy for a higher education. He had become the favourite of Hadrian by 128, when he was taken on a tour of the Empire as part of Hadrians personal retinue. Antinous accompanied Hadrian during his attendance of the annual Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens, in October 130, as they were part of a flotilla going along the Nile, Antinous died amid mysterious circumstances. Various suggestions have been put forward for how he died, ranging from an accidental drowning to a human sacrifice. Following his death, Hadrian deified Antinous and founded a cult devoted to his worship that spread throughout the Empire. Hadrian founded the city of Antinopolis close to Antinouss place of death, Hadrian also founded games in commemoration of Antinous to take place in both Antinopolis and Athens, with Antinous becoming a symbol of Hadrians dreams of pan-Hellenism. Antinous became associated with homosexuality in Western culture, appearing in the work of Oscar Wilde, the historian Thorsten Opper noted that Hardly anything is known of Antinous life, and the fact that our sources get more detailed the later they are does not inspire confidence. It is known that Antinous was born to a Greek family in the city of Claudiopolis, the year of Antinouss birth is not recorded, although it is estimated that it was probably between 110 and 112 AD. Early sources record that his birthday was in November, and although the date is not known. Given the location of his birth and his appearance, it is likely that part of his ancestry was not Greek. There are various origins for the name Antinous, it is possible that he was named after the character of Antinous, who is one of Penelopes suitors in Homers epic poem. Another possibility is that he was given the equivalent of Antinoë, a woman who was one of the founding figures of Mantineia. Lambert also considered it likely that Antinous would have had an education as a child, having been taught how to read. The Emperor Hadrian spent much time during his regime touring his Empire, and arrived in Claudiopolis in June 123, Hadrian meanwhile had continued to tour the Empire, only returning to Italy in September 125, when he settled into his villa at Tibur. Lambert described Antinous as the one person who seems to have connected most profoundly with Hadrian throughout the latters life, such a societal institution of pederasty was not indigenous to Roman culture, although bisexuality was the norm in the upper echelons of Roman society by the early 2nd century. It is known that Hadrian believed Antinous to be intelligent and wise, another factor was potentially a shared love of hunting, which was seen as a particularly manly pursuit in Roman culture
Antinous
–
Bust of Antinous from
Patras, (
National Archaeological Museum of Athens)
Antinous
–
Antinous bust of the
Prado museum, Royal collection,
Madrid
Antinous
–
The
tondo depicting Hadrian's lion hunt, accompanied by Antinous
Antinous
–
The constellation
Antinous remained in starcharts for centuries, only disappearing for good when the constellations were formalized by the
International Astronomical Union in 1930.
45.
Religion in ancient Rome
–
The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety in maintaining good relations with the gods. According to legends, most of Romes religious institutions could be traced to its founders, particularly Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome, who negotiated directly with the gods. This archaic religion was the foundation of the mos maiorum, the way of the ancestors or simply tradition, as Rome came into contact with foreign cultures, and conquered them, foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. The emperors promoted the Imperial cult around the empire, and this, ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The priesthoods of public religion were held by members of the elite classes, there was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic, the men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs. Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives, Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he was elected consul. The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, Roman religion was thus practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, I give that you might give. Even the most skeptical among Romes intellectual elite such as Cicero, for ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a shrine at which prayers and libations to the familys domestic deities were offered. Neighborhood shrines and sacred such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances, women, slaves, and children all participated in a range of religious activities. The Romans are known for the number of deities they honored. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks, adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature, etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on the practice of augury. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of magic, conspiratorial, or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, one way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the worship of local and Roman deities. Because Romans had never been obligated to one god or one cult only
Religion in ancient Rome
–
Marcus Aurelius (
head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Religion in ancient Rome
–
Relief panel from an altar to
Venus and
Mars depicting Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf, and gods representing Roman topography such as the
Tiber river and
Palatine Hill
Religion in ancient Rome
–
Aeneas urged by the Penates to continue his journey to found Rome (4th century AD illustration)
Religion in ancient Rome
–
Twelve principal deities (
Di Consentes) corresponding to those honored at the
lectisternium of 217 BC, represented on a 1st-century altar from
Gabii that is rimmed by the
zodiac
46.
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
–
The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans and this legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on later juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Western Church. For theonyms, or the names and epithets of gods, see List of Roman deities, for public religious holidays, see Roman festivals. For temples see the List of Ancient Roman temples, individual landmarks of religious topography in ancient Rome are not included in this list, see Roman temple. The verb abominari was a term of augury for an action that rejects or averts an unfavourable omen indicated by a signum, the noun is abominatio, from which English abomination derives. At the taking of formally solicited auspices, the observer was required to acknowledge any potentially bad sign occurring within the templum he was observing, regardless of the interpretation. He might, however, take actions in order to ignore the signa, including avoiding the sight of them. The latter tactic required promptness, wit and skill based on discipline, thus the omen had no validity apart from the observation of it. The aedes was the place of a god. It was thus a structure that housed the image, distinguished from the templum or sacred district. Aedes is one of several Latin words that can be translated as shrine or temple, for instance, the Temple of Vesta, as it is called in English, was in Latin an aedes. See also the diminutive aedicula, a small shrine, in his work On Architecture, Vitruvius always uses the word templum in the technical sense of a space defined through augury, with aedes the usual word for the building itself. The design of an aedes, he writes, should be appropriate to the characteristics of the deity. Thus in theory, though not always in practice, architectural aesthetics had a theological dimension, the word aedilis, a public official, is related by etymology, among the duties of the aediles was the overseeing of public works, including the building and maintenance of temples. The temple of Flora, for instance, was built in 241 BC by two aediles acting on Sibylline oracles, the plebeian aediles had their headquarters at the aedes of Ceres. In religious usage, ager was terrestrial space defined for the purposes of augury in relation to auspicia, there were five kinds of ager, Romanus, Gabinus, peregrinus, hosticus and incertus. The ager Romanus originally included the space outside the pomerium. According to Varro, the ager Gabinus pertained to the circumstances of the oppidum of Gabii
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
–
Marcus Aurelius (
head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
–
Ruins of the
aedes of Vesta
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
–
Altar (ara) from
Roman Spain
Glossary of ancient Roman religion
–
Augustus, capite velato
47.
Divus
–
The vocabulary of ancient Roman religion was highly specialized. Its study affords important information about the religion, traditions and beliefs of the ancient Romans and this legacy is conspicuous in European cultural history in its influence on later juridical and religious vocabulary in Europe, particularly of the Western Church. For theonyms, or the names and epithets of gods, see List of Roman deities, for public religious holidays, see Roman festivals. For temples see the List of Ancient Roman temples, individual landmarks of religious topography in ancient Rome are not included in this list, see Roman temple. The verb abominari was a term of augury for an action that rejects or averts an unfavourable omen indicated by a signum, the noun is abominatio, from which English abomination derives. At the taking of formally solicited auspices, the observer was required to acknowledge any potentially bad sign occurring within the templum he was observing, regardless of the interpretation. He might, however, take actions in order to ignore the signa, including avoiding the sight of them. The latter tactic required promptness, wit and skill based on discipline, thus the omen had no validity apart from the observation of it. The aedes was the place of a god. It was thus a structure that housed the image, distinguished from the templum or sacred district. Aedes is one of several Latin words that can be translated as shrine or temple, for instance, the Temple of Vesta, as it is called in English, was in Latin an aedes. See also the diminutive aedicula, a small shrine, in his work On Architecture, Vitruvius always uses the word templum in the technical sense of a space defined through augury, with aedes the usual word for the building itself. The design of an aedes, he writes, should be appropriate to the characteristics of the deity. Thus in theory, though not always in practice, architectural aesthetics had a theological dimension, the word aedilis, a public official, is related by etymology, among the duties of the aediles was the overseeing of public works, including the building and maintenance of temples. The temple of Flora, for instance, was built in 241 BC by two aediles acting on Sibylline oracles, the plebeian aediles had their headquarters at the aedes of Ceres. In religious usage, ager was terrestrial space defined for the purposes of augury in relation to auspicia, there were five kinds of ager, Romanus, Gabinus, peregrinus, hosticus and incertus. The ager Romanus originally included the space outside the pomerium. According to Varro, the ager Gabinus pertained to the circumstances of the oppidum of Gabii
Divus
–
Marcus Aurelius (
head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Divus
–
Ruins of the
aedes of Vesta
Divus
–
Altar (ara) from
Roman Spain
Divus
–
Augustus, capite velato
48.
Ming dynasty
–
The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
Ming dynasty
–
History of China
Ming dynasty
–
Ming China around 1580
Ming dynasty
–
A
cannon from the
Huolongjing, compiled by
Jiao Yu and
Liu Bowen before the latter's death in 1375.
Ming dynasty
–
Portrait of the
Hongwu Emperor (ruled in 1368–98)
49.
Fengshen Yanyi
–
Consisting of 100 chapters, it was first published in book form around the 1550s. The work combines elements of history, folklore, mythology, legends, the story is set in the era of the decline of the Shang dynasty and the rise of the Zhou dynasty. It intertwines numerous elements of Chinese mythology, including deities, immortals, the authorship is attributed to Xu Zhonglin. The novel is a retelling of the overthrow of King Zhòu, the last ruler of the Shang dynasty, by Ji Fa. The story integrates oral and written tales of many Chinese mythological figures who are involved in the struggle as well and these figures include human heroes, immortals and various spirits. Ji Fa, assisted by his strategist Jiang Ziya, rallies an army to overthrow the tyrant and restore peace, Yuanshi Tianzun bestows upon Jiang Ziya the Fengshen Bang, a list that empowers him to invest the gods of Heaven. The heroes of Zhou and some of their enemies from Shang are eventually endowed with heavenly ranking and essentially elevated to their roles as gods. In the novel, there are stories in which many supernatural beings came to the human realm. The following are some of the better known anecdotes from the novel, King Zhou visits the temple of the ancient Chinese goddess Nüwa to worship her. He notices that the statue of the goddess is very attractive, the lewd king spouts blasphemy before the statue, Itd be good if I could marry Her. He writes poems on the walls to express his lust for the goddess and he has offended Nüwa unknowingly and Nüwa foresees that King Zhou is destined to be the last ruler of the Shang dynasty. She sends the year old vixen spirit, nine-headed pheasant spirit and jade pipa spirit to bewitch the king. The king becomes obsessed with the spirits, who disguise themselves as beautiful women, the people suffer under his tyranny and eventually join Ji Fa to rise up and overthrow him. King Zhou places Ji Chang, the Western Duke, under house arrest in Youli for almost seven years, Ji Changs eldest son Boyi Kao comes to Zhaoge to plead with King Zhou to release his father. Daji falls in love with Boyi Kao and requests the king to permit Boyi Kao to teach her how to play the guqin, Daji attempts to seduce Boyi Kao but he rejects and ridicules her. The irate Daji complains to King Zhou that Boyi Kao molested her, the king is furious and he has Boyi Kao executed, minced into pieces and made into meat pies, and served to his father. Ji Chang knows divination and has already foreseen his sons fate and he suppresses his sorrow and consumes the meat cakes. After that incident, King Zhou lowers his guard against Ji Chang, Ji Chang builds up his forces and plans to avenge his son
Fengshen Yanyi
–
Illustrations of Fengshen Yanyi. Left:
Bi Gan and
Wen Zhong; Right:
King Zhou of Shang and
Daji
50.
Daoism
–
Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is an idea in most Chinese philosophical schools, in Taoism, however. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order, the Tao Te Ching, a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi, is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi. By the Han dynasty, the sources of Taoism had coalesced into a coherent tradition of religious organizations. In earlier ancient China, Taoists were thought of as hermits or recluses who did not participate in political life, Zhuangzi was the best known of these, and it is significant that he lived in the south, where he was part of local Chinese shamanic traditions. Women shamans played an important role in this tradition, which was strong in the southern state of Chu. Early Taoist movements developed their own institution in contrast to shamanism, shamans revealed basic texts of Taoism from early times down to at least the 20th century. Institutional orders of Taoism evolved in various strains that in recent times are conventionally grouped into two main branches, Quanzhen Taoism and Zhengyi Taoism. After Laozi and Zhuangzi, the literature of Taoism grew steadily and was compiled in form of a canon—the Daozang—which was published at the behest of the emperor, throughout Chinese history, Taoism was nominated several times as a state religion. After the 17th century, however, it fell from favor, Chinese alchemy, Chinese astrology, Chan Buddhism, several martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, and many styles of qigong have been intertwined with Taoism throughout history. Beyond China, Taoism also had influence on surrounding societies in Asia, Taoism also has a presence in Hong Kong, Macau, and in Southeast Asia. English speakers continue to debate the preferred romanization of the words Daoism and Taoism, the root Chinese word 道 way, path is romanized tao in the older Wade–Giles system and dào in the modern Pinyin system. In linguistic terminology, English Taoism/Daoism is formed from the Chinese loanword tao/dao 道 way, route, principle and the native suffix -ism. The debate over Taoism vs. Daoism involves sinology, phonemes, loanwords, Daoism is pronounced /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/, but English speakers disagree whether Taoism should be /ˈdaʊ. ɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/. In theory, both Wade–Giles tao and Pinyin dao are articulated identically, as are Taoism and Daoism, an investment book titled The Tao Jones Averages illustrates this /daʊ/ pronunciations widespread familiarity. In speech, Tao and Taoism are often pronounced /ˈtaʊ/ and ˈtaʊ. ɪzəm/, lexicography shows American and British English differences in pronouncing Taoism. Taoist philosophy or Taology, or the mystical aspect — The philosophical doctrines based on the texts of the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching and these texts were linked together as Taoist philosophy during the early Han Dynasty, but notably not before. It is unlikely that Zhuangzi was familiar with the text of the Daodejing, however, the discussed distinction is rejected by the majority of Western and Japanese scholars
Daoism
–
Taoist rite at the Qingyanggong (Green Goat Temple) in
Chengdu
Daoism
–
Gates of the Chunyang
gong in
Datong,
Shanxi. It's a temple dedicated to
Lü Dongbin.
Daoism
–
A
daoshi (Taoist priest) in
Macau.
Daoism
–
Jintai
guan (金台观) in
Baoji,
Shaanxi.
51.
Ming Dynasty
–
The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
Ming Dynasty
–
History of China
Ming Dynasty
–
Ming China around 1580
Ming Dynasty
–
A
cannon from the
Huolongjing, compiled by
Jiao Yu and
Liu Bowen before the latter's death in 1375.
Ming Dynasty
–
Portrait of the
Hongwu Emperor (ruled in 1368–98)
