1.
Classical Athens
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Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, the peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved in the 440s to 430s BC, known as the Age of Pericles. The radical politician of aristocratic background, Cleisthenes, then took charge, the reforms of Cleisthenes replaced the traditional four Ionic tribes with ten new ones, named after legendary heroes of Greece and having no class basis, which acted as electorates. Each tribe was in divided into three trittyes, while each trittys had one or more demes —depending on their population—which became the basis of local government. The tribes each selected fifty members by lot for the Boule, the public opinion of voters could be influenced by the political satires written by the comic poets and performed in the city theaters. Most offices were filled by lot, although the ten strategoi were elected, prior to the rise of Athens, Sparta, a city-state with a militaristic culture, considered itself the leader of the Greeks, and enforced a hegemony. In 499 BC Athens sent troops to aid the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor and this provoked two Persian invasions of Greece, both of which were repelled under the leadership of the soldier-statesmen Miltiades and Themistocles. In 490 the Athenians, led by Miltiades, prevented the first invasion of the Persians, guided by king Darius I, in 480 the Persians returned under a new ruler, Xerxes I. Simultaneously the Athenians led a naval battle off Artemisium. However, this action was not enough to discourage the Persian advance which soon marched through Boeotia, setting up Thebes as their base of operations. This forced the Athenians to evacuate Athens, which was taken by the Persians, subsequently the Athenians and their allies, led by Themistocles, defeated the Persian navy at sea in the Battle of Salamis. It is interesting to note that Xerxes had built himself a throne on the coast in order to see the Greeks defeated, spartas hegemony was passing to Athens, and it was Athens that took the war to Asia Minor. These victories enabled it to bring most of the Aegean and many parts of Greece together in the Delian League. He fostered arts and literature and gave to Athens a splendor which would never return throughout its history and he executed a large number of public works projects and improved the life of the citizens. Hence, he gave his name to the Athenian Golden Age, silver mined in Laurium in southeastern Attica contributed greatly to the prosperity of this Golden Age of Athens. During the time of the ascendancy of Ephialtes as leader of the democratic faction, the conflict marked the end of Athenian command of the sea. The war between Athens and the city-state Sparta ended with an Athenian defeat after Sparta started its own navy, Athenian democracy was briefly overthrown by the coup of 411, brought about because of its poor handling of the war, but it was quickly restored. The war ended with the defeat of Athens in 404
2.
Theophrastus
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Theophrastus, a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at an age and initially studied in Platos school. After Platos death, he attached himself to Aristotle who took to Theophrastus his writings, when Aristotle fled Athens, Theophrastus took over as at the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for years, during which time the school flourished greatly. He is often considered the father of botany for his works on plants, after his death, the Athenians honoured him with a public funeral. His successor as head of the school was Strato of Lampsacus, the interests of Theophrastus were wide ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on Renaissance science. There are also surviving works On Moral Characters, On Sensation, On Stones, in philosophy, he studied grammar and language and continued Aristotles work on logic. He also regarded space as the arrangement and position of bodies, time as an accident of motion. In ethics, he regarded happiness as depending on external influences as well as on virtue and he was a native of Eresos in Lesbos. His given name was Tyrtamus, but he became known by the nickname Theophrastus, given to him, it is said. After receiving instruction in philosophy in Lesbos from one Alcippus, he moved to Athens and he became friends with Aristotle, and when Plato died Theophrastus may have joined Aristotle in his self-imposed exile from Athens. When Aristotle moved to Mytilene on Lesbos in 345/4, it is likely that he did so at the urging of Theophrastus. It seems that it was on Lesbos that Aristotle and Theophrastus began their research into science, with Aristotle studying animals. Theophrastus probably accompanied Aristotle to Macedonia when Aristotle was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 343/2, around 335 BC, Theophrastus moved with Aristotle to Athens where Aristotle began teaching in the Lyceum. Aristotle in his will made him guardian of his children, including Nicomachus with whom he was close, Aristotle likewise bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works, and designated him as his successor at the Lyceum. Eudemus of Rhodes also had claims to this position. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for years, and died at the age of eighty-five according to Diogenes
3.
Ancient Greek comedy
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Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy, New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that comedy is a representation of laughable people, C. A. Trypanis wrote that comedy is the last of the great species of poetry Greece gave to the world. These divisions appear to be arbitrary, and ancient comedy almost certainly developed constantly over the years. The most important Old Comic dramatist is Aristophanes, born in 446 B. C. his works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively define the genre today. He was one of a number of comic poets working in Athens in the late 5th century, his most important contemporary rivals being Hermippus. The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, in particular, they copied the technique of disguising a political attack as buffoonery. For ancient scholars, the term may have meant little more than later than Aristophanes and his contemporaries, for at least a time, mythological burlesque was popular among the Middle Comic poets. Stock characters of all sorts also emerge, courtesans, parasites, revellers, philosophers, boastful soldiers, because no complete Middle Comic plays have been preserved, it is impossible to offer any real assessment of their literary value or genius. But many Middle Comic plays appear to have revived in Sicily and Magna Graecia in this period, suggesting that they had considerable widespread literary. New Comedy followed the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and lasted throughout the reign of the Macedonian rulers and it is comparable to situation comedy and comedy of manners. The three best-known playwrights belonging to this genre are Menander, Philemon and Diphilus, Menander was the most successful of these three comedians. His comedies not only provided their audience with a respite from reality. This led an ancient critic to ask if life influenced Menander in the writing of his plays or if the case was vice versa and this seems to be what made him more successful than the other Greek comedians who wrote in the same genre. These plays were much less satirical than preceding comedies, the other two comedians are Philemon and Diphilus. Philemon was a comedian whose comedies dwelt on philosophical issues and Diphilus was a comedian whose comedies were noted for their broad comedy, philemons comedies survive only in fragments, but Diphilus comedies were translated and adapted by Plautus. Examples of these comedies are Plautus Asinaria and Rudens, based on the translation and adaptation of Diphilus comedies by Plautus, one can conclude that he was skilled in the construction of his plots. Substantial fragments of New Comedy have survived, but no complete plays, the most substantially preserved text is the Dyskolos by Menander, discovered on a papyrus, and first published in 1958
4.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
5.
Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control
6.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
7.
Princeton University Art Museum
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The Princeton University Art Museum is the Princeton Universitys gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1882, it now houses over 92,000 works of art that range from antiquity to the contemporary period and its collections concentrate on the Mediterranean region, Western Europe, China, the United States, and Latin America. The Museum has a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, including ceramics, marbles, bronzes. Medieval Europe is represented by sculpture, metalwork, and stained glass, the collection of Western European paintings includes examples from the early Renaissance through the nineteenth century, and there is a growing collection of twentieth-century and contemporary art. Photographic holdings are a strength, numbering over 27,000 works from the invention of daguerreotype in 1839 to the present. The Museum is also noted for its Asian art gallery, which includes a collection of Chinese calligraphy, painting, ancient bronze works, jade carvings. In addition to its collections, the Museum mounts regular temporary exhibitions featuring works from its own holdings as well as made from public. Admission is free and the Museum is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday,10,00 am to 5,00 pm, Thursday,10,00 am to 10,00 pm, and Sunday 1,00 to 5,00 pm. The portrait was a donation from Belcher himself, given shortly before the College moved in 1756 to the newly built Nassau Hall and it was joined by a portrait of King George II, who had issued the letters patent establishing the College. The two portraits hung in the prayer hall, and were displayed alongside various antiquities and objects of natural history. The creation of the Art Museum in a formal sense took place under the leadership of James McCosh. The Scottish McCosh brought with him from Europe new progressive academic disciplines, by 1882, McCosh charged William Cowper Prime, a Princeton alumnus and founding trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and George B. McClellan, the Civil War general and then Governor of New Jersey and they argued, The foundation of any system of education in Historic Art must obviously be in object study. A museum of art objects is so necessary to the system that without it we are of opinion it would be of utility to introduce the proposed department. ”The intention was to go beyond the fields of art and classics to include, “many other branches of the collegiate course. ”They anticipated, “large future growth, ” as the College could “look with confidence to her sons, in all parts of the world. The collections of the Museum were initially held in Nassau Hall, along with the natural history collection of professor Arnold Henry Guyot. A new purpose-built fireproof Romanesque Revival Museum was designed by A, page Brown and completed in 1890 on the site of the current museum. On completion of the building the Museum received the Trumball-Prime collection of pottery and porcelain from William Prime, early additions included the purchase of a large collection of Cypriot pottery from the Metropolitan Museum in 1890, and purchases of Etruscan, Roman, and South Italian pottery. Marquand established an endowment from his own resources to further purchases
8.
Demosthenes
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Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics, Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, for a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speech-writer and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits. Demosthenes grew interested in politics during his time as a logographer and he went on to devote his most productive years to opposing Macedons expansion. He idealized his city and strove throughout his life to restore Athens supremacy, after Philips death, Demosthenes played a leading part in his citys uprising against the new king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great. However, his efforts failed and the revolt was met with a harsh Macedonian reaction, to prevent a similar revolt against his own rule, Alexanders successor in this region, Antipater, sent his men to track Demosthenes down. Demosthenes took his own life, in order to avoid being arrested by Archias, the Alexandrian Canon compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace recognised Demosthenes as one of the ten greatest Attic orators and logographers. Longinus likened Demosthenes to a thunderbolt, and argued that he perfected to the utmost the tone of lofty speech, living passions, copiousness, readiness. Quintilian extolled him as lex orandi, and Cicero said about him that inter omnis unus excellat, Demosthenes was born in 384 BC, during the last year of the 98th Olympiad or the first year of the 99th Olympiad. His father—also named Demosthenes—who belonged to the tribe, Pandionis. Aeschines, Demosthenes greatest political rival, maintained that his mother Kleoboule was a Scythian by blood—an allegation disputed by modern scholars. Demosthenes was orphaned at the age of seven, although his father provided well for him, his legal guardians, Aphobus, Demophon and Therippides, mishandled his inheritance. As soon as Demosthenes came of age in 366 BC, he demanded they render an account of their management, according to Demosthenes, the account revealed the misappropriation of his property. Although his father left an estate of nearly fourteen talents, Demosthenes asserted his guardians had left nothing except the house, and fourteen slaves and thirty silver minae. At the age of 20 Demosthenes sued his trustees in order to recover his patrimony and delivered five orations, the courts fixed Demosthenes damages at ten talents. When all the trials came to an end, he succeeded in retrieving a portion of his inheritance. According to Pseudo-Plutarch, Demosthenes was married once, the only information about his wife, whose name is unknown, is that she was the daughter of Heliodorus, a prominent citizen. Demosthenes also had a daughter, the one who ever called him father
9.
Ovid
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Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists and he enjoyed enormous popularity, but, in one of the mysteries of literary history, was sent by Augustus into exile in a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid himself attributes his exile to carmen et error, a poem and a mistake and his poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology, Ovid talks more about his own life than most other Roman poets. Information about his biography is drawn primarily from his poetry, especially Tristia 4.10, other sources include Seneca the Elder and Quintilian. Ovid was born in Sulmo, in an Apennine valley east of Rome, to an important equestrian family and that was a significant year in Roman politics. He was educated in rhetoric in Rome under the teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro with his brother who excelled at oratory and his father wanted him to study rhetoric toward the practice of law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, after the death of his brother at 20 years of age, Ovid renounced law and began travelling to Athens, Asia Minor, and Sicily. Ovids first recitation has been dated to around 25 BC, when he was eighteen and he was part of the circle centered on the patron Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and seems to have been a friend of poets in the circle of Maecenas. 4.10. 41–54, Ovid mentions friendships with Macer, Propertius, Horace, Ovid was very popular at the time of his early works, but was later exiled by Augustus in AD8. He married three times and divorced twice by the time he was thirty years old and he had one daughter, who eventually bore him grandchildren. His last wife was connected in some way to the influential gens Fabia, the first 25 years of Ovids literary career were spent primarily writing poetry in elegiac meter with erotic themes. The chronology of early works is not secure, tentative dates. 2.18. 19–26 that seems to describe the collection as a published work. The authenticity of some of these poems has been challenged, between the publications of the two editions of the Amores can be dated the premiere of his tragedy Medea, which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant. Ovid may identify this work in his poetry as the carmen, or song. The Ars Amatoria was followed by the Remedia Amoris in the same year and this corpus of elegiac, erotic poetry earned Ovid a place among the chief Roman elegists Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, of whom he saw himself as the fourth member
10.
Vatican City
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Vatican City, officially Vatican City State or the State of Vatican City, is a walled enclave within the city of Rome. With an area of approximately 44 hectares, and a population of 842, however, formally it is not sovereign, with sovereignty being held by the Holy See, the only entity of public international law that has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world. It is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Bishop of Rome – the Pope, the highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various national origins. Vatican City is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin. According to the terms of the treaty, the Holy See has full ownership, exclusive dominion, within Vatican City are religious and cultural sites such as St. Peters Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the worlds most famous paintings and sculptures, the unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by the sale of postage stamps and tourist mementos, fees for admission to museums, and the sale of publications. The name Vatican City was first used in the Lateran Treaty, signed on 11 February 1929, the name is taken from Vatican Hill, the geographic location of the state. Vatican is derived from the name of an Etruscan settlement, Vatica or Vaticum meaning garden, located in the area the Romans called vaticanus ager. The official Italian name of the city is Città del Vaticano or, more formally, Stato della Città del Vaticano, although the Holy See and the Catholic Church use Ecclesiastical Latin in official documents, the Vatican City officially uses Italian. The Latin name is Status Civitatis Vaticanæ, this is used in documents by not just the Holy See. The name Vatican was already in use in the time of the Roman Republic for an area on the west bank of the Tiber across from the city of Rome. Under the Roman Empire, many villas were constructed there, after Agrippina the Elder drained the area and laid out her gardens in the early 1st century AD. In AD40, her son, Emperor Caligula built in her gardens a circus for charioteers that was completed by Nero, the Circus Gaii et Neronis, usually called, simply. Even before the arrival of Christianity, it is supposed that this originally uninhabited part of Rome had long considered sacred. A shrine dedicated to the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis remained active long after the Constantinian Basilica of St. Peter was built nearby, the particularly low quality of Vatican water, even after the reclamation of the area, was commented on by the poet Martial. The Vatican Obelisk was originally taken by Caligula from Heliopolis in Egypt to decorate the spina of his circus and is thus its last visible remnant and this area became the site of martyrdom of many Christians after the Great Fire of Rome in AD64. Ancient tradition holds that it was in this circus that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down, opposite the circus was a cemetery separated by the Via Cornelia. Peters in the first half of the 4th century, the Constantinian basilica was built in 326 over what was believed to be the tomb of Saint Peter, buried in that cemetery
11.
Plutarch
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Plutarch was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist, Plutarchs surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers. Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the town of Chaeronea, about 80 km east of Delphi. The name of Plutarchs father has not been preserved, but based on the common Greek custom of repeating a name in alternate generations, the name of Plutarchs grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony. His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are mentioned in his essays and dialogues. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarchs wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not to grieve too much at the death of their two-year-old daughter, interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation. The exact number of his sons is not certain, although two of them, Autobulus and the second Plutarch, are often mentioned. Plutarchs treatise De animae procreatione in Timaeo is dedicated to them, another person, Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarchs son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens under Ammonius from 66 to 67, at some point, Plutarch took Roman citizenship. He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek god Apollo. For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the famous Delphic Oracle, twenty miles from his home. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, at his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the 78 essays, Plutarch held the office of archon in his native municipality, probably only an annual one which he likely served more than once. He busied himself with all the matters of the town. The Suda, a medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Emperor Trajan made Plutarch procurator of Illyria, however, most historians consider this unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, and Plutarch probably did not speak Illyrian. Plutarch spent the last thirty years of his serving as a priest in Delphi. He thus connected part of his work with the sanctuary of Apollo, the processes of oracle-giving
12.
Roman art
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Roman art refers to the visual arts made in Ancient Rome and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Roman art includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work, sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by Romans, but figure painting was also very highly regarded. Roman coins were an important means of propaganda, and have survived in enormous numbers, other perishable forms of art have not survived at all. Stylistic eclecticism and practical application are the hallmarks of much Roman art, though very little remains of Greek wall art and portraiture, certainly Greek sculpture and vase painting bears this out. These forms were not likely surpassed by Roman artists in fineness of design or execution. As another example of the lost Golden Age, he singled out Peiraikos, whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few. ”The adjective vulgar is used here in its original meaning, the Greek antecedents of Roman art were legendary. In the mid-5th century BC, the most famous Greek artists were Polygnotos, noted for his murals, and Apollodoros. In sculpture, Skopas, Praxiteles, Phidias, and Lysippos were the foremost sculptors, Ancient Greek treatises on the arts are known to have existed in Roman times though are now lost. Many Roman artists came from Greek colonies and provinces, the high number of Roman copies of Greek art also speaks of the esteem Roman artists had for Greek art, and perhaps of its rarer and higher quality. One exception is the Roman bust, which did not include the shoulders, the traditional head-and-shoulders bust may have been an Etruscan or early Roman form. Where Greek artists were highly revered in their society, most Roman artists were anonymous, there is no recording, as in Ancient Greece, of the great masters of Roman art, and practically no signed works. Roman culture assimilated many cultures and was for the most part tolerant of the ways of conquered peoples, Roman art was commissioned, displayed, and owned in far greater quantities, and adapted to more uses than in Greek times. Wealthy Romans were more materialistic, they decorated their walls with art, their home with decorative objects, when Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Byzantium, Roman art incorporated Eastern influences to produce the Byzantine style of the late empire. When Rome was sacked in the 5th century, artisans moved to, of the vast body of Roman painting we now have only a very few pockets of survivals, with many documented types not surviving at all, or doing so only from the very end of the period. A succession of dated styles have been defined and analysed by modern art historians beginning with August Mau, there are a number of other parts of painted rooms surviving from Rome and elsewhere, which somewhat help to fill in the gaps of our knowledge of wall-painting. Nothing remains of the Greek paintings imported to Rome during the 4th and 5th centuries, in sum, the range of samples is confined to only about 200 years out of the about 900 years of Roman history, and of provincial and decorative painting. Most of this painting was done using the secco method. There is evidence from mosaics and a few inscriptions that some Roman paintings were adaptations or copies of earlier Greek works
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Menander". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
