Transaction Publishers
Transaction Publishers was a New Jersey–based publishing house that specialized in social science books. Located on the Livingston Campus of Rutgers University, Transaction maintained close connections to academic life and it was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016 and now forms part of its Routledge imprint. As of February 1,2017, Transaction Publishers became a part of Routledge, Transaction was an academic publisher of the social sciences. It was founded by Irving Louis Horowitz, who served as Transactions Chairman of the Board, in an evaluation of twenty-one international social-science book publishers according to nineteen quality criteria, Transaction Publishers ranked sixth. Transaction began on July 1,1962 as part of a multiplex grant sponsored by the Ford Foundation at Washington University in St. Louis. From beginnings as a science magazine, Social Science and Modern Society, Transaction Publishers evolved into a full-fledged publisher of books, journals. In 1969, Transaction relocated to the newly formed Livingston College, on the Livingston campus of Rutgers University in Piscataway, the Transaction mission with respect to the university has been, and continues to be, the enhancement of its social science and public policy capacities.
Many editors and advisors are drawn from the faculty, close to 200 faculty members have been authors and editors of Transaction books. AldineTransaction is an imprint of Transaction Publishers, formerly a division of Walter de Gruyter, Inc. Aldine Publishing Co. was acquired by Transaction in July 2004, AldineTransaction publishes classic books in the fields of sociology, economics, physical anthropology, and public policy. It acquired book lists from Precedent Publishers in 2009 and the Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research in 2011, Transaction has published more than 6,000 titles, with more than 90 percent still in print. Transaction once published academic journals, including its flagship journal, however, the archive documents the expansion of social science research over the past half century. Official website Irving Louis Horowitz-Transaction Publishers Archives, 1939-2009 online searchable archive at Penn State
Cumae
Cumae was an ancient city of Magna Graecia on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BC, Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, the ruins of the city lie near the modern village of Cuma, a frazione of the comune Bacoli in the Province of Naples, Italy. Cumae is perhaps most famous as the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl and her sanctuary is now open to the public. In Roman mythology, there is an entrance to the underworld located at Avernus, a lake near Cumae. They were already established at Pithecusae, they were led by the paired oecists Megasthenes of Chalcis and its name refers to the peninsula of Cyme in Euboea. It spread its influence throughout the area over the 7th and 6th centuries BC, gaining sway over Puteoli and Misenum and, all these facts were recalled long afterwards, Cumaes first brief contemporary mention in written history is in Thucydides. The growing power of the Cumaean Greeks led many indigenous tribes of the region to organize against them, notably the Dauni, contact between the Romans and the Cumaeans is recorded during the reign of Aristodemus.
Livy states that prior to the war between Rome and Clusium, the Roman senate sent agents to Cumae to purchase grain in anticipation of a siege of Rome. Also Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last legendary King of Rome, lived his life in exile with Aristodemus at Cumae after the Battle of Lake Regillus, during the reign of Aristodemus, the Cumaean army assisted the Latin city of Aricia to defeat the Etruscan forces of Clusium. The combined fleets of Cumae and Syracuse defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae in 474 BC, the Greek period at Cumae came to an end in 421 BC, when the Oscans broke down the walls and took the city, ravaging the countryside. Cumae came under Roman rule with Capua and in 338 was granted partial citizenship, in the Second Punic War, in spite of temptations to revolt from Roman authority, Cumae withstood Hannibals siege, under the leadership of Tib. At the end of the 4th century, the temple of Zeus at Cumae was transformed into a Christian basilica, the first historically documented bishop of Cumae was Adeodatus, a member of a synod convoked by Pope Hilarius in Rome in 465.
Misenus was excommunicated on his return but was rehabilitated and took part as bishop of Cumae in two synods of Pope Symmachus. Pope Gregory the Great entrusted the administration of the diocese of Cumae to the bishop of Misenum, both Misenum and Cumae ceased to be residential sees and the territory of Cumae became part of the diocese of Aversa after the destruction of Cumae in 1207. Accordingly, Cumae is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, in 1207, forces from Naples, acting for the boy-King of Sicily, destroyed the city and its walls, as the stronghold of a nest of bandits. The seaward side of the rise on which Cumae was built was used as a bunker. Not to be confused with the namesake Cuma in Asia Minor A bishopric was established around 450 AD, in 700 it gained territory from the suppressed Diocese of Miseno. In 1207 it was suppressed itself, its territory being divided and merged into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aversa, saint Massenzio Rainaldo Giovanni Gregorio Leone In 1970, the diocese was nominally restored as a Latin titular see
Muses
The Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature and the arts in Greek mythology. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs and they were adopted by the Romans as a part of their pantheon. In current English usage, muse can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, the earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin, there, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number. They were again called Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory, three ancient Muses were reported in Plutarchs Quaestiones Convivales. According to Pausanias in the second century AD, there were three original Muses, worshiped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, Aoidḗ, Melétē, and Mnḗmē. Together, these three form the picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshiped as well, but with other names, Nḗtē, Mésē, and Hýpatē, alternatively they were called Kēphisṓ, Apollōnís, and Borysthenís, which names characterize them as daughters of Apollo.
In tradition, a set of four Muses were recognized, Thelxinóē, Aoidḗ Archē, one of the people frequently associated with the Muses was Pierus. By some he was called the father of a total of seven Muses, called Neilṓ, Tritṓnē, Asōpṓ, Heptápora, Achelōís, Tipoplṓ, and Rhodía. According to Hesiods Theogony, they were daughters of Zeus, the second king of the gods. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the deities, Uranus. Sometimes the Muses are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and it was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the muses were born. Athena tamed the horse and presented him to the muses, classical writers set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. In one myth, the Muses judged a contest between Apollo and Marsyas and they gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. In a myth, Thamyris challenged them to a singing contest and they won and punished Thamyris by blinding him and robbing him of his singing ability.
He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses, the first are the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia, some Greek writers give the names of the nine Muses as Kallichore, Eunike, Thelxinoë, Euterpe, Eukelade and Enope
University of California Press
University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California and its headquarters are located in Oakland, California. It distributes titles published by the Huntington Library, Watershed Media, each year it publishes approximately 180 new books and 31 journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences and keeps about 3,500 book titles in print. The Press commissioned as its corporate typeface University of California Old Style from type designer Frederic Goudy from 1936-8, finley Joan of Arc, The Image of Female Heroism, Marina Warner Strong Democracy, Participatory Politics for a New Age, Benjamin R. These titles were selected for their merit and for their illumination of California history. The Ford by Mary Austin Thieves Market by A. I, by Al Young Official University of California Press website California Digital Library - University of California Libraries Free Online - UC Press E-Books Collection Mark Twain Project Online
Achelous
In Greek mythology, Achelous was originally the god of all water, and the rivers of the world were viewed by many as his sinews. His name is pre-Greek, its not entirely certain. Recent arguments suggest it is Semitic in origin, with the Greek root Aχ stemming from Akkadian aḫu, which means bank of the river, and aḫû, meaning seashore. Likewise, the Greek root ἑλώἴος probably stems from the Akkadian illu, meaning watercourse or water of the river invading land, and elu and ilu, which mean deity. Achelous was an important deity in Etruscan mythology, intimately related to water as in the Greek tradition, man-faced bull iconography was first adapted to represent Achelous by the Etruscans in the 8th century BC, and the Greeks copied this tradition. Recent arguments have demonstrated both the form and substance of Achelous, as a god of water primarily depicted as a man-faced bull, have roots in Old Europe in the Bronze Age. Some Greek sources say that he was the son of Gaia and Oceanus, ancient Greeks generally believed with Hesiod that Tethys and Oceanus were the parents of all three thousand river gods.
In the Renaissance, the improvisatory mythographer Natalis Comes made for his parents Gaia and Helios, Homer placed Achelous above all, by Roman times, Homers reference was interpreted as making Achelous prince of rivers. Others derived the legends about Achelous from Egypt, and describe him as a second Nilus and this wide extent of the worship of Achelous accounts for his being regarded as the representative of sweet water in general, that is, as the source of all nourishment. Achelous was a suitor for Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus king of Calydon, but was defeated by Heracles, who wed her himself. The contest of Achelous with Heracles was represented on the throne of Amyclae, on several coins of Acarnania the god is represented as a bull with the head of an old man. The sacred bull, the serpent and the Minotaur are all associated with the Earth goddess Gaia. Achelous was sometimes depicted as an old man or a vigorous bearded man in his prime, with a horned head. When he battled Heracles over the river nymph Deianeira, Achelous turned himself into a serpent, Heracles tore off one of his horns and forced the god to surrender.
Achelous had to trade the goat horn of Amalthea to get it back, Heracles gave it to the Naiads, who transformed it into the cornucopia. Achelous relates the bitter episode afterwards to Theseus in Ovids Metamorphoses, sophocles makes Deianeira relate these occurrences in a somewhat different manner. The most common depiction of Acheloios in Archaic and Classical times was as a man-faced bull. Often times, a city would feature a bull on its coinage to represent a local epithet of Achelous, such as Achelous Gelas of Gela, Sicily, or Achelous Sebethos of Neapolis
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature, the Eclogues, the Georgics, a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Romes greatest poets and his Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Virgils work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dantes Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through Hell, the tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists, modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his biographers. Macrobius says that Virgils father was of a background, however.
He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum and Naples, after considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. From Virgils admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, according to Servius, schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed Parthenias or maiden because of his social aloofness. Virgil seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life, according to the Catalepton, he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples. A group of works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen poems, some of which may be Virgils, and another. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, the Eclogues are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus.
The loss of his farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgils motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues, the ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside,2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love and attraction toward people of any gender. Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called Messianic Eclogue uses the imagery of the age in connection with the birth of a child. Virgil came to many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus. At Maecenas insistence Virgil spent the years on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics which he dedicated to Maecenas
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea.
Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages and cultures.
The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers and he composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons, many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi had success with expensive stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldis arrival, and Vivaldi himself died less than a year in poverty. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in 1678 in Venice, the capital of the Republic of Venice and he was baptized immediately after his birth at his home by the midwife, which led to a belief that his life was somehow in danger.
Though not known for certain, the childs immediate baptism was most likely due either to his health or to an earthquake that shook the city that day. In the trauma of the earthquake, Vivaldis mother may have dedicated him to the priesthood, Vivaldis official church baptism took place two months later. Vivaldis parents were Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio, as recorded in the register of San Giovanni in Bragora, Giovanni Battista, who was a barber before becoming a professional violinist, taught Antonio to play the violin and toured Venice playing the violin with his young son. Antonio was probably taught at an age, judging by the extensive musical knowledge he had acquired by the age of 24. Giovanni Battista was one of the founders of the Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia, the president of the Sovvegno was Giovanni Legrenzi, an early Baroque composer and the maestro di cappella at St Marks Basilica. It is possible that Legrenzi gave the young Antonio his first lessons in composition, the Luxembourg scholar Walter Kolneder has discerned the influence of Legrenzis style in Vivaldis early liturgical work Laetatus sum, written in 1691 at the age of thirteen.
His symptoms, strettezza di petto, have interpreted as a form of asthma. This did not prevent him from learning to play the violin, composing or taking part in musical activities, in 1693, at the age of fifteen, he began studying to become a priest. He was ordained in 1703, aged 25, and was nicknamed il Prete Rosso. Not long after his ordination, in 1704, he was given a dispensation from celebrating Mass because of his ill health, Vivaldi only said Mass as a priest a few times and appeared to have withdrawn from priestly duties, though he remained a priest. In September 1703, Vivaldi became maestro di violino at a called the Pio Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. While Vivaldi is most famous as a composer, he was regarded as an exceptional technical violinist as well, Vivaldi was only 25 when he started working at the Ospedale della Pietà
Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse was an 18th-century German composer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, Hasse was born in Bergedorf, near Hamburg, and died in Venice. Hasses career began in singing, when he joined the Hamburg Opera in 1718 as a tenor, in 1719 he obtained a singing post at the court of Brunswick, where in 1721 his first opera, was performed, Hasse himself sang in the production. He is thought to have left Germany during 1722, during the 1720s he lived mostly in Naples, dwelling there for six or seven years. In 1725 his serenata Antonio e Cleopatra, was performed at Naples, the roles were sung by Carlo Broschi, better known as Farinelli. Hasses popularity in Naples increased dramatically and for years his workload kept him extremely busy. In this period he composed his only full opera buffa, La sorella amante, in addition to several intermezzi and he visited the Venetian Carnival of 1730, where his opera Artaserse was performed at S Giovanni Grisostomo.
Metastasios libretto was reworked for the occasion, and Farinelli took a leading role. Two of his arias from this opera he performed every night for a decade for Philip V of Spain, soon after the couples arrival in Dresden, Faustina performed before the court. In October Hasse left Dresden to direct premieres of his operas at Turin and Rome. Come the autumn of 1732 and Hasse was at Naples again, in February 1733 Augustus the Strong of Poland and Saxony, Hasses early royal patron at Dresden, died. As the court went into a year of mourning, Hasse was permitted to remain abroad, many of his sacred works, composed for Venices churches, date to this time. For much of 1734 Hasse was at Dresden, but from 1735 until 1737 he was in Italy, largely at Naples, Faustina performed in the September 1735 premiere of Tito Vespasiano at Pesaro. His next stay in Dresden was his longest, between the first months of 1740 and January 1744, in this time he revised Artaserse, composing new arias for Faustina, and wrote a couple of original intermezzi.
His general avoidance of comic opera seems to have due to Faustina. Between the winter of 1744 and late summer 1745, Hasse was in Italy, but returned to Dresden for a year. Frederick the Great, a flute player, visited the court in December 1745. The King of Prussia was present at a performance of one of Hasses Te Deums, soon after Hasse visited Venice and Munich, returning to Dresden in June 1747 to stage his opera La spartana generosa, performed to celebrate multiple royal weddings at this time
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German, British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712 and he was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera, musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that Handel was not only a great composer, he was a dramatic genius of the first order. As Alexanders Feast was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works, after his success with Messiah he never composed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759 and his funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.
Handel was born in 1685 in Halle-on-Saal, Duchy of Magdeburg, to Georg Händel and his father,63 when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Georg Händel was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching and they were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Hapsburg possession as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War. Halle was a prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry. Even the smaller churches all had able organists and fair choirs, and humanities, the Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. But since the middle of the war the city was under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, the arts and music, flourished only among the higher strata, which did not describe Handels family. Handel was the child of this marriage, the first son died still born.
Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric, Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687 and Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690. Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the gymnasium in Halle, Mainwaring is the source for almost all information of Handels childhood, and much of that information came from J. C. Smith, Jr. Handels confidant and copyist. Whether they came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation and it is from Mainwaring that the portrait of Handels father as implacably opposed to any musical education comes. This did nothing to dampen young Handels inclination, in fact, Mainwaring tells the story of Handels secret attic spinnet, Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately conveyd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep, but Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training.
Somehow Handel made his way to the organ, where he surprised everyone with his playing. Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction, Handels father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel
Greek mythology
It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic and Hellenistic periods and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c.
Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive.
Greek lyric poets, including Pindar and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
History of Naples
The history of Naples is long and varied. The first Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the 2nd millennium BC, the Greek culture of Naples was important to Roman society. When the city part of the Roman Republic in the central province of the Empire. Virgil is an example of the political and cultural freedom of Naples, Naples is a microcosm of the European history because it saw several civilizations come and go, each leaving traces in its art and architecture. Naples was the capital of duchies and one Empire, Naples was an advocate for Italian unification during the Neapolitan War. Today Naples is part of the Italian Republic, and is the third largest municipality by population, the Naples area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. Settlers from two cities in Euboea, jointly colonised the nearby Cumae, the earliest Greek city on mainland Italy, the earliest founding of Naples itself is claimed in legend to be the Greek colony Phaleron, after the hero Phaleros, one of the Argonauts.
However, the first Greek settlements were established on the site during the 2nd millennium BC, at the end of the Greek Dark Ages a larger mainland colony – initially known as Parthenope – developed around the 9-8th century BC. Parthenope was the name of the siren in Greek mythology, said to have washed ashore at Megaride, around this time Greeks became locked in a power struggle with the Etruscans, who sought to dominate the area. Etruscans attacked Cumae and, although the attack failed, it signaled a growing Etruscan determination to dominate the area, there is evidence that the city had slid into decadence and, some argue, had virtually ceased to exist. However, literary evidence shows that the city was destroyed because the hegemony of Cumae was threatened, the primitive center of Parthenope came to be called simply Palaipolis, the old city. The two separate centers were more diversified during the Samnite Wars, neapolis had a powerful line of walls, in front of which the Carthaginian invader Hannibal had to retreat when the city was allied with the Romans.
Other features were an odeon and a theatre, and the temple of the patron gods. In the Roman era the city was a centre of Hellenistic culture that attracted Romans who wished to perfect their knowledge of Greek culture. The pleasant climate made it a resort, as recounted by Virgil. The famous district of Posillipo takes its name from the ruins of Villa Pausílypon, meaning, in Greek, the city was celebrated for its many feasts and spectacles. According to legend, the saints Peter and Paul came to the city to preach, christians had a prominent role in the late years of the Roman Empire, and there are several notable catacombs, especially in the northern part of the city. The first palæo-Christian basilicas were built next to the entrances to the catacombs
