1.
Europa (mythology)
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In Greek mythology Europa was the mother of King Minos of Crete, a woman with Phoenician origin of high lineage, and for whom the continent Europe was named. This can especially be said of the story of Europa, Europas earliest literary reference is in the Iliad, which is commonly dated to the 8th century BC. Another early reference to her is in a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, the earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from mid-7th century BC. Greek Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ/ὠπ-/ὀπτ- eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion. It is common in ancient Greek mythology and geography to identify lands or rivers with female figures, thus, Europa is first used in a geographic context in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a part of the world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by Anaximander. Barry adduces the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of night, sunset, in opposition to Asu sunrise and this proposal is mostly considered unlikely or untenable. They call it the temple of Astarte, I hold this Astarte to be no other than the moon-goddess. But according to the story of one of the priests this temple is sacred to Europa and this legend I heard from other Phœnicians as well, and the coinage current among the Sidonians bears upon it the effigy of Europa sitting upon a bull, none other than Zeus. Thus they do not agree that the temple in question is sacred to Europa, the paradox, as it seemed to Lucian, would be solved if Europa is Astarte in her guise as the full, broad-faced moon. Sources differ in details regarding Europas family, but agree that she is Phoenician, and from a lineage that descended from Io, the mythical nymph beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor, the Phoenician King of Tyre, other sources, such as the Iliad, claim that she is the daughter of Agenors son, the sun-red Phoenix. So some interpret this as her brother Phoenix gave his siblings name to his three children and this Europa is also loved by Zeus, but because of the same name, gave some confusions to others. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons fathered by Zeus, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, the three of whom became the three judges of the Underworld when they died, in Crete she married Asterion also rendered Asterius and became mother of his daughter Crete. There were two competing myths relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to Crete, the mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the sacred bull, which had been worshipped in the Levant. There is also a sanctuary of Demeter Europa, the mythographers tell that Zeus was enamored of Europa and decided to seduce or ravish her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a white bull and mixed in with her fathers herds. While Europa and her helpers were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of Crete
2.
Dallas Museum of Art
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The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, the new building was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, the 2007 winner of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. The museum collection is made up of more than 24,000 objects and it is also defined by its dynamic exhibition policy and award-winning educational programs. The Mildred R. and Frederick M. Mayer Library contains over 50,000 volumes available to curators, with 159,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, it is one of the largest art museums in the United States. The museums history began with the establishment in 1903 of the Dallas Art Association, frank Reaugh, a Texas artist, saw in the new library the opportunity to display works of art. This idea was championed by May Dickson Exall, who was the first president of the Dallas Public Library. ”The museum’s collections started growing from this moment on and it soon became necessary to find a new permanent home. The museum, renamed the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1932, relocated to a new art deco facility within Fair Park in 1936 and this new facility was designed by a consortium of Dallas architects in consultation with Paul Cret of Philadelphia. It is still possible to visit this building, in 1943, Jerry Bywaters became the director of the museum, a position he held for the next twenty-one years. Artist, art critic, and teacher, Bywaters gave a sense of identity and community to the museum, under Bywaters tenure, impressionist, abstract, and contemporary masterpieces were acquired and the Texas identity of the museum was emphasized. This identity is represented by works by Alexandre Hogue, Olin Herman Travis, Bywaters himself. In 1963, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts merged with the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art, rueppel became the director of the newly merged Museum. In 1965, the museum held an exhibition called The Art of Piet Mondrian and one entitled Sculpture, by the late 1970s, the greatly enlarged permanent collection and the ambitious exhibition program fostered a need for a new museum facility. Under Harry Parker’s direction, the museum was able to once again, to its current venue. The $54 million facility, designed by New York architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, was financed by a 1979 City bond election, the project was galvanized by the slogan “A Great City Deserves a Great Museum, ” and the new building opened in January 1984. The museums collections include more than 24,000 works of art from around the world ranging from ancient to modern times and they are conceived as a celebration of the human power of creation. Objects in the museum’s African collection come from West Africa and Central Africa, the objects date primarily from the 16th to the 20th centuries, although the earliest object is a Nok terracotta bust from Nigeria that dates from somewhere between 200 BC to 200 AD. Some works in the collection were created as symbols of leadership and status, the American art collection includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the United States from the colonial period to World War II, and art from Mexico, and Canada. One of the most important pieces in the collection is The Icebergs by Frederic Edwin Church and this painting had long been referred to as a lost masterpiece
3.
Myth
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A myth is any traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon. The word myth is derived from the Greek word mythos, which means story. Mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths, myth can mean sacred story, traditional narrative or tale of the gods. A myth can also be a story to explain why something exists, human cultures usually include a cosmogonical or creation myth, concerning the origins of the world, or how the world came to exist. The active beings in myths are generally gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, or animals, most myths are set in a timeless past before recorded time or beginning of the critical history. A myth can be a story involving symbols that are capable of multiple meanings, a myth is a sacred narrative because it holds religious or spiritual significance for those who tell it. Myths also contribute to and express a cultures systems of thought and values, myths are often therefore stories that are currently understood as being exaggerated or fictitious. According to Albert A. Anderson, a professor of philosophy, in these works, the term had several meanings, conversation, narrative, speech, story, tale, and word. Like the related term logos, mythos expresses whatever can be delivered in the form of words, Anderson contrasts the two terms with ergon, a Greek term for action, deed, and work. The term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false narratives, in the context of the Theatre of ancient Greece, the term mythos referred to the myth, the narrative, the plot, and the story of a theatrical play. According to David Wiles, the Greek term mythos in this era covered an entire spectrum of different meanings, from undeniable falsehoods to stories with religious, according to philosopher Aristotle, the spirit of a theatrical play was its mythos. The term mythos was also used for the material of Greek tragedy. The tragedians of the era could draw inspiration from Greek mythology, David Wiles observes that modern conceptions about Greek tragedy can be misleading. It is commonly thought that the ancient audience members were familiar with the mythos behind a play. However, the Greek dramatists were not expected to faithfully reproduce traditional myths when adapting them for the stage and they were instead recreating the myths and producing new versions. Storytellers like Euripides relied on suspense to excite their audiences, in one of his works, Merope attempts to kill her sons murderer with an axe, unaware that the man in question is actually her son. According to an ancient description of reactions to this work. They rose to their feet in terror and caused an uproar, David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition
4.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
5.
Ancient Rome
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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
6.
Ancient Greek philosophy
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Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was used to sense out of the world in a non-religious way. It dealt with a variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric. Many philosophers around the world agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception, alfred North Whitehead once noted, The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Clear, unbroken lines of lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy, the European Renaissance. Some claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced by the wisdom literature. But they taught themselves to reason, Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation. Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates as presented by Plato that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this, up to and after the wars of Alexander the Great, are those of classical Greek, the pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were distinguished from non-philosophers insofar as they rejected mythological explanations in favor of reasoned discourse, Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, held that all things arise from water. It is not because he gave a cosmogony that John Burnet calls him the first man of science, according to tradition, Thales was able to predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids. He began from the observation that the world seems to consist of opposites, therefore, they cannot truly be opposites but rather must both be manifestations of some underlying unity that is neither. This underlying unity could not be any of the classical elements, for example, water is wet, the opposite of dry, while fire is dry, the opposite of wet. Anaximenes in turn held that the arche was air, although John Burnet argues that by this he meant that it was a transparent mist, the aether. Xenophanes was born in Ionia, where the Milesian school was at its most powerful, Burnet says that Xenophanes was not, however, a scientific man, with many of his naturalistic explanations having no further support than that they render the Homeric gods superfluous or foolish. He has been claimed as an influence on Eleatic philosophy, although that is disputed, and a precursor to Epicurus, a representative of a total break between science and religion. Pythagoras lived at roughly the time that Xenophanes did and, in contrast to the latter. Parmenides of Elea cast his philosophy against those who held it is and is not the same, and all travel in opposite directions, —presumably referring to Heraclitus
7.
History of political thought
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The history of political thought dates back to antiquity. The political history of the world, and thus the history of thinking by man, stretches up through the Medieval period. In parallel, political systems have expanded from vaguely defined frontier-type boundaries, one of the first, extremely important classical works of political philosophy is Platos Republic, which was followed by Aristotles Politics, both created in the context of Athenian democracy. In India, Chanakya, in his Arthashastra, developed a viewpoint which foreshadowed both the Legalists and Niccolò Machiavelli, ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations resembled Greek civilization in that there was a unified culture divided into rival states. In the case of China, philosophers found themselves obliged to confront social and political breakdown, the early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was by and large a rewrite of Plato in a Christian context. The main change that Christian thought brought was to moderate the Stoicism and theory of justice of the Roman world, Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, but was either a citizen of the City of God or the City of Man. The rise of Islam, based on both the Quran and Muhammad strongly altered the power balances and perceptions of origin of power in the Mediterranean region. This view was challenged by the Mutazilite philosophers, who held a more Greek view and were supported by secular aristocracy who sought freedom of independent of the Caliphate. By the late period, however, the Asharite view of Islam had in general triumphed. Islamic political philosophy, was, indeed, rooted in the sources of Islam, i. e. the Quran and the Sunnah. The political conceptions of Islam such as kudrah, sultan, ummah, simaa -and even the core terms of the Quran, i. e. ibada, din, rab and ilah- is taken as the basis of an analysis. Hence, not only the ideas of the Muslim political philosophers but also many other jurists and ulama posed political ideas and theories. For example, the ideas of the Khawarij in the early years of Islamic history on Khilafa and Ummah. The clashes between the Ehl-i Sunna and Shia in the 7th and 8th centuries had a political character. The 14th century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest political theorists, Medieval political philosophy in Europe was heavily influenced by Christian thinking. It had much in common with the Islamic thinking in that the Roman Catholics also subordinated philosophy to theology, aquinass use of them set the agenda for scholastic political philosophy, dominated European thought for centuries. During the Renaissance secular political philosophy began to emerge after about a century of political thought in Europe. One of the most influential works during this period was Niccolò Machiavellis The Prince
8.
Classical antiquity
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It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
