1.
Laurentian Library
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The Laurentian Library is a historic library in Florence, Italy, containing more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. It contains the manuscripts and books belonging to the library of the Medici family. The library is renowned for its architecture, designed by Michelangelo, a Codex Laurentianus identifies any of the book-bound manuscripts in the library. The Laurentian Library was commissioned in 1523 and construction began in 1525, however and it was then continued by Tribolo, Basari, and Ammannati based on plans and verbal instructions from Michelangelo. In this way, the library integrates parts executed by Michelangelo with others built much later in an interpretation of his instructions, the Laurentian Library is one of Michelangelos most important architectural achievements. Even Michelangelos contemporaries realized that the innovations and use of space in the Laurentian Library were revolutionary, the admirable distribution of the windows, the construction of the ceiling, and the fine entrance of the Vestibule can never be sufficiently extolled. The two-story Quattrocento cloister remained unchanged by the addition of the library, because of this, certain features of Michelangelo’s plan, such as length and width, were already determined. Therefore, new walls were built on pre-existing walls and cloisters, because the walls were built on pre-existing walls, recessing the columns into the walls was a structural necessity. This led to a style and pattern that Michelangelo took advantage of. The vestibule, also known as the ricetto, is 19.50 m long,10.50 m wide and it was built above existing monastic quarters on the east range of the cloister, with an entrance from the upper level of the cloisters. Originally, Michelangelo planned for a skylight, but Clement VII believed that it would cause the roof to leak, blank tapering windows––framed in pietra serena, surmounted by either triangular or segmental pediments, and separated by paired columns set into the wall––circumscribe the interior of the vestibule. The plan of the stairs changed dramatically in the design phase, originally in the first design in 1524, two flights of stairs were placed against the side walls and formed a bridge in front of the reading room door. A year later the stairway was moved to the middle of the vestibule, Tribolo attempted to carry out this plan in 1550 but nothing was built. Ammannati took on the challenge of interpreting Michelangelo’s ideas to the best of his abilities using a clay model, scanty material. The staircase leads up to the room and takes up half of the floor of the vestibule. The treads of the flights are convex and vary in width. The three lowest steps of the flight are wider and higher than the others, almost like concentric oval slabs. As the stairway descends, it divides into three flights, the reading room is 46.20 m. long,10.50 m. wide, and 8.4 m. high
2.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
3.
Geographer
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A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earths natural environment and human society. Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, geographers do not study only the details of the natural environment or human society, but they also study the reciprocal relationship between these two. For example, they study how the natural environment contributes to the human society, in particular, physical geographers study the natural environment while human geographers study human society. There is a painting by Johannes Vermeer titled The Geographer. These paintings are thought to represent the growing influence and rise in prominence of scientific enquiry in Europe at the time of their painting. Human geography, including Urban geography, cultural geography, economic geography, political geography, historical geography, marketing geography, health geography, and social geography
4.
Hadrian
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Hadrian was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He is known for building Hadrians Wall, which marked the limit of Britannia. He also rebuilt the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus, philhellene in most of his tastes, he is considered by some to have been a humanist, and he is regarded as the third of the Five Good Emperors. Hadrian was born Publius Aelius Hadrianus into a Hispano-Roman family, although Italica near Santiponce is often considered his birthplace, his actual place of birth remains uncertain. It is generally accepted that he came from a family with roots in Hispania. His predecessor, Trajan, was a cousin of Hadrians father. Trajan did not designate an heir officially, but according to his wife Pompeia Plotina, Trajans wife and his friend Licinius Sura were well disposed towards Hadrian, and he may well have owed his succession to them. During his reign, Hadrian travelled to every province of the Empire. An ardent admirer of Greece, he sought to make Athens the cultural capital of the Empire and he used his relationship with his Greek lover Antinous to underline his philhellenism, and this led to the establishment of one of the most popular cults of ancient times. Hadrian spent a deal of time with the military, he usually wore military attire and even dined. He ordered rigorous military training and drilling and made use of reports of attacks to keep the army on alert. On his accession to the throne, Hadrian withdrew from Trajans conquests in Mesopotamia, Assyria and Armenia, late in his reign he suppressed the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea, renaming the province Syria Palaestina. In 138 Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius on the condition that he adopt Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus as his own heirs and they would eventually succeed Antoninus as co-emperors. Hadrian died the year at Baiae. In Hadrians time, there was already an established convention that one could not write a contemporary Roman imperial history for fear of competing with the emperors themselves. Information on the history of Hadrians reign comes mostly from later. A general account of his reign is Book 69 of the early 3rd century Roman History by Cassius Dio and his original Greek text of this book is lost, what survives is a brief, much later, Byzantine-era abridgment by the 11th century monk Xiphilinius. He selected from Dios account of Hadrians reign based on his religious interests
5.
Antoninus Pius
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Antoninus Pius, also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was one of the Five Good Emperors in the Nerva–Antonine dynasty and he died of illness in 161 and was succeeded by his adopted sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus as co-emperors. He was born as the child of Titus Aurelius Fulvus. The Aurelii Fulvii were therefore a new senatorial family from Gallia Narbonensis whose rise to prominence was supported by the Flavians. The link between Antoninus family and their home province explains the importance of the post of Proconsul of Gallia Narbonensis during the late Second Century. Antoninus was born near Lanuvium and his mother was Arria Fadilla, the Arrii Antoninii were an older senatorial family from Italy, very influential during Nervas reign. Arria Fadilla, Antoninus mother, married afterwards Publius Julius Lupus, a man of rank, suffect consul in 98. Some time between 110 and 115, Antoninus married Annia Galeria Faustina the Elder and they are believed to have enjoyed a happy marriage. Faustina was the daughter of consul Marcus Annius Verus and Rupilia Faustina, Faustina was a beautiful woman, and despite rumours about her character, it is clear that Antoninus cared for her deeply. Faustina bore Antoninus four children, two sons and two daughters and they were, Marcus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, his sepulchral inscription has been found at the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome. Marcus Galerius Aurelius Antoninus, his sepulchral inscription has been found at the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome and his name appears on a Greek Imperial coin. Aurelia Fadilla, she married Lucius Lamia Silvanus, consul 145 and she appeared to have no children with her husband and her sepulchral inscription has been found in Italy. Annia Galeria Faustina Minor or Faustina the Younger, a future Roman Empress, married her maternal cousin, when Faustina died in 141, Antoninus was greatly distressed. In honour of her memory, he asked the Senate to deify her as a goddess and he had various coins with her portrait struck in her honor. These coins were scripted ‘DIVA FAUSTINA’ and were elaborately decorated and he further created a charity which he founded and called it Puellae Faustinianae or Girls of Faustina, which assisted destitute girls of good family. Finally, Antoninus created a new alimenta, instead, he lived with Galena Lysistrata, one of Faustinas freed women. Concubinage was a form of female companionship sometimes chosen by powerful men in Ancient Rome, especially widowers like Vespasian and their union could not produce any legitimate offspring who could threaten any heirs, such as those of Antoninus. Also, as one could not have a wife and a concubine at the same time
6.
Marcus Aurelius
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Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus death in 169, Marcus Aurelius was the last of the so-called Five Good Emperors. He was a practitioner of Stoicism, and his untitled writing, during his reign, the Roman Empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire in the East, Aurelius general Avidius Cassius sacked the capital Ctesiphon in 164. A revolt in the East led by Avidius Cassius failed to gain momentum and was suppressed immediately, the major sources for the life and rule of Marcus Aurelius are patchy and frequently unreliable. For Marcus life and rule, the biographies of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus and Lucius Verus are largely reliable, a body of correspondence between Marcus tutor Fronto and various Antonine officials survives in a series of patchy manuscripts, covering the period from c.138 to 166. Marcus own Meditations offer a window on his life, but are largely undateable. The main narrative source for the period is Cassius Dio, a Greek senator from Bithynian Nicaea who wrote a history of Rome from its founding to 229 in eighty books. Dio is vital for the history of the period, but his senatorial prejudices. Inscriptions and coin finds supplement the literary sources, Marcus family originated in Ucubi, a small town southeast of Córdoba in Iberian Baetica. Verus elder son—Marcus Aurelius father—Marcus Annius Verus married Domitia Lucilla, Lucilla was the daughter of the patrician P. Calvisius Tullus Ruso and the elder Domitia Lucilla. The elder Domitia Lucilla had inherited a fortune from her maternal grandfather and her paternal grandfather by adoption. Lucilla and Verus had two children, a son, Marcus, born on 26 April 121 AD, and a daughter, Annia Cornificia Faustina, Verus probably died in 124 AD, during his praetorship, when Marcus was only three years old. Though he can hardly have known him, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations that he had learned modesty and manliness from his memories of his father, Lucilla, following prevailing aristocratic customs, probably did not spend much time with her son. Marcus was in the care of nurses, even so, Marcus credits his mother with teaching him religious piety, simplicity in diet and how to avoid the ways of the rich. In his letters, Marcus makes frequent and affectionate reference to her, he was grateful that, although she was fated to die young, yet she spent her last years with me. After his fathers death, Aurelius was raised by his paternal grandfather Marcus Annius Verus who, technically this was not an adoption, since an adoption would be the legal creation of a new and different patria potestas. Another man, Lucius Catilius Severus, also participated in his upbringing, Severus is described as Marcus maternal great-grandfather, he is probably the stepfather of the elder Lucilla. Marcus was raised in his parents home on the Caelian Hill and it was an upscale region, with few public buildings but many aristocratic villas
7.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
8.
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
9.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
10.
Greeks
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The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, Sicily, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world, many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor, other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greeks speak the Greek language, which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic. They are part of a group of ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an archetypal diaspora people. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor. Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus, the Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as an era of heroes, closeness of the gods. The Homeric Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past, as part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC, the works of Homer and Hesiod were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period, the classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras, the Peloponnesian War, the large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies, left both greatly weakened. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia, two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers. The Hellenistic civilization was the period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death. This Hellenistic age, so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures and this age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi, Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian peoples and this led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation
11.
Lydia
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Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian, at its greatest extent, the Kingdom of Lydia covered all of western Anatolia. Lydia was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, with Sardis as its capital, tabalus, appointed by Cyrus the Great, was the first satrap. Lydia was later the name of a Roman province, coins are said to have been invented in Lydia around the 7th century BC. The endonym Śfard survives in bilingual and trilingual stone-carved notices of the Achaemenid Empire and these in the Greek tradition are associated with Sardis, the capital city of King Gyges, constructed during the 7th century BC. The region of the Lydian kingdom was during the 15th-14th centuries part of the Arzawa kingdom, the Lydian language is not part of the Luwian subgroup. An Etruscan/Lydian association has long been a subject of conjecture, however, recent decipherment of Lydian and its classification as an Anatolian language mean that Etruscan and Lydian were not even part of the same language family. The boundaries of historical Lydia varied across the centuries and it was bounded first by Mysia, Caria, Phrygia and coastal Ionia. Later, the power of Alyattes II and Croesus expanded Lydia. Lydia never again shrank back into its original dimensions, the Lydian language was an Indo-European language in the Anatolian language family, related to Luwian and Hittite. It used many prefixes and grammatical particles, Lydian finally became extinct during the 1st century BC. Lydia developed after the decline of the Hittite Empire in the 12th century BC, in Hittite times, the name for the region had been Arzawa. According to Greek source, the name of the Lydian kingdom was Maionia, or Maeonia. Homer describes their capital not as Sardis but as Hyde, Hyde may have been the name of the district in which Sardis was located. Later, Herodotus adds that the Meiones were renamed Lydians after their king Lydus, son of Atys and this etiological eponym served to account for the Greek ethnic name Lydoi. During Biblical times, the Lydian warriors were famous archers, some Maeones still existed during historical times in the upland interior along the River Hermus, where a town named Maeonia existed, according to Pliny the Elder and Hierocles. In Greek myth, Lydia had also adopted the symbol, that also appears in the Mycenaean civilization. Omphale, daughter of the river Iardanos, was a ruler of Lydia, all three heroic ancestors indicate a Lydian dynasty claiming Heracles as their ancestor
12.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
13.
Ionia
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Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements, never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian tribe who, in the Archaic Period, settled mainly the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea. Ionian states were identified by tradition and by their use of Eastern Greek and it was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south. The cities within the region figured large in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks, according to Greek tradition, the cities of Ionia were founded by colonists from the other side of the Aegean. Their settlement was connected with the history of the Ionic people in Attica, which asserts that the colonists were led by Neleus and Androclus, sons of Codrus. So intricate is the coastline that the voyage along its shores was estimated at four times the direct distance. A great part of area was, moreover, occupied by mountains. None of these mountains attains a height of more than 1,200 metres, the geography of Ionia placed it in a strategic position that was both advantageous and disadvantageous. Ionia was always a maritime power founded by a people who made their living by trade in peaceful times, the coast was rocky and the arable land slight. The native Luwians for the most part kept their fields further inland, the coastal cities were placed in defensible positions on islands or headlands situated so as to control inland routes up the rift valleys. The people of those valleys were of different ethnicity, the populations of the cities came from many civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean. Ancient demographics are available only from literary sources, Herodotus states that in Asia the Ionians kept the division into twelve cities that had prevailed in Ionian lands of the north Peloponnese, their former homeland, which became Achaea after they left. These Asian cities were Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Erythrae, Clazomenae and Phocaea, together with Samos and Chios. Smyrna, originally an Aeolic colony, was occupied by Ionians from Colophon. These cities do not match those of Achaea, moreover, the Achaea of Herodotus time spoke Doric, but in Homer it is portrayed as being in the kingdom of Mycenae, which most likely spoke Mycenaean Greek, which is not Doric. If the Ionians came from Achaea, they departed during or after the change from East Greek to West Greek there, Mycenaean continued to evolve in the mountainous region of Arcadia. Miletus and some other cities founded earlier by non-Greeks received populations of Mycenaean Greeks probably under the name of Achaeans, the tradition of Ionian colonizers from Achaea suggests that they may have been known by both names even then. In the Indian historic literary texts, the Ionians are referred to as yavanar or yona, in modern Turkish, the people of that region were called yunan and the country that is now Greece is known as Yunanistan
14.
Antioch
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Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient Greco-Roman city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. Its ruins lie near the city of Antakya, Turkey. Antioch was founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, the citys geographical, military, and economic location benefited its occupants, particularly such features as the spice trade, the Silk Road, and the Persian Royal Road. It eventually rivaled Alexandria as the city of the Near East. It was also the center of Hellenistic Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period. Most of the development of Antioch was done during the Roman Empire. Antioch was called the cradle of Christianity as a result of its longevity, the Christian New Testament asserts that the name Christian first emerged in Antioch. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis, a single route proceeds south in the Orontes valley. The settlement of Meroe pre-dated Antioch, a shrine of the Semitic goddess Anat, called by Herodotus the Persian Artemis, was located here. This site was included in the suburbs of Antioch. There was a village on the spur of Mount Silpius named Io and this name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians—an eagerness which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the citys coins. Io may have been an early colony of trading Greeks. John Malalas also mentions a village, Bottia, in the plain by the river. Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch and this account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a 4th-century orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antiochs status. But the story is not unlikely in itself, after Alexanders death in 323 BC, his generals divided up the territory he had conquered. Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he proceeded to found four sister cities in northwestern Syria, one of which was Antioch and he is reputed to have built sixteen Antiochs. Seleucus founded Antioch on a site chosen through ritual means, an eagle, the bird of Zeus, had been given a piece of sacrificial meat and the city was founded on the site to which the eagle carried the offering. Seleucus did this on the 22nd day of the month of Artemisios in the year of his reign
15.
Jaffa, Israel
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Jaffa or Yafo, is the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda. The town was mentioned in Egyptian sources and the Amarna letters as Yapu, mythology says that it is named for Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, the one who built it after the Flood. The Hellenist tradition links the name to Iopeia, or Cassiopeia, an outcropping of rocks near the harbor is reputed to have been the place where Andromeda was rescued by Perseus. Pliny the Elder associated the name with Iopa, daughter of Aeolus, the Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi referred to it as Yaffa. The tell of Jaffa rises to a height of 40 metres, with a view of the coastline. The accumulation of debris and landfill over the centuries made the even higher. Archaeological evidence shows that Jaffa was inhabited roughly 7500 BCE, the natural harbour of Jaffa has been in use since the Bronze Age. The city is mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho. The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 BCE, Jaffa is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the territorial border of the Tribe of Dan, hence the modern term Gush Dan for the center of the coastal plain. The tribe of Dan did not manage to dislocate the Philistines from Jaffa, in the Song of Deborah the prophetess asks, דן למה יגור אוניות, Why doth Dan dwell in ships. After Canaanite and Philistine dominion, King David and his son King Solomon conquered Jaffa, the city remained in Israelite hands even after the split of the united Kingdom of Israel. In 701 BCE, in the days of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, after a period of Babylonian occupation, under Persian rule, Jaffa was governed by Phoenicians from Tyre. Alexander the Greats troops were stationed in Jaffa and it later became a port of the Seleucid Empire until it was taken over by the Maccabees and ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty. During the First Jewish–Roman War, Jaffa was captured and burned by Cestius Gallus, the Roman Jewish historian Josephus writes that 8,400 inhabitants were massacred. Pirates operating from the rebuilt port incurred the wrath of Vespasian, the New Testament account of Saint Peter bringing back to life the widow Dorcas (recorded in Acts of the Apostles,9, 36–42, takes place in Jaffa, then called in Greek Ἰόππη. Peter retells the story of his vision in Acts 11, 4-17, in Midrash Tannaim in its chapter Deuteronomy 33,19, reference is made to Jose ben Halafta traveling through Jaffa. Jaffa seems to have attracted serious Jewish scholars in the 4th and 5th century, the Jerusalem Talmud in Moed Ketan references Rav Acha of Jaffa, and in Pesachim chapter 1 refers to Rav Phineas of Jaffa
16.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
17.
Jordan River
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The Jordan River is a 251-kilometre -long river in the Middle East that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and on to the Dead Sea. Israel and the West Bank border the river to the west, while the Golan Heights, both Jordan and the West Bank take their names from the river. The Jordan River has a course and a lower one. In this sense, the Jordan Valley may be separated into upper, central, over its upper course, the river drops rapidly in a 75-kilometre run to the once large and swampy Lake Hula, which is slightly above sea level. Exiting the now much diminished lake, it goes through an even steeper drop over the 25 kilometres down to the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan deposits much of the silt it is carrying within the lake, which it leaves again near its southern tip. At that point the river is situated about 210 metres below sea level, two major tributaries enter from the east during this last section, the Yarmouk River and Zarqa River. Its section north of the Sea of Galilee is within the boundaries of Israel, south of the lake, it forms the border between the Kingdom of Jordan, and Israel. The streams coming together to create the River Jordan in its basin are, west to east, Iyyon. Hasbani, a stream flows from Mount Lebanon. Dan, a stream whose source is also at the base of Mount Hermon, Banias, a stream arising from a spring at Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon. The full text of W. F. Lynchs 1849 book Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan, in 1964, Israel began operating a pumping station that diverts water from the Sea of Galilee to the National Water Carrier. Also in 1964, Jordan constructed a channel that diverted water from the Yarmouk River, another tributary of the Jordan River to the East Ghor Canal. Syria has also built reservoirs that catch the Yarmouks waters, environmentalists blame Israel, Jordan and Syria for extensive damage to the Jordan River ecosystem. In modern times, the waters are 70% to 90% used for human purposes, because of this and the high evaporation rate of the Dead Sea, as well as industrial extraction of salts through evaporation ponds, the sea is shrinking. All the shallow waters of the end of the sea have been drained in modern times and are now salt flats. A small section of the northernmost portion of the Lower Jordan, 3-kilometre below the Sea of Galilee, has been kept pristine for baptism and local tourism. Most polluted is the 100-kilometre downstream stretch—a meandering stream from above the confluence with the Yarmouk to the Dead Sea, environmentalists say the practice of letting sewage and brackish water flow into the river has almost destroyed its ecosystem. Rescuing the Jordan could take decades, according to environmentalists, the same environmentalist organization had said in a report that the Jordan River could dry up by 2011 unless the decay is stopped
18.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
19.
Egyptian pyramids
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The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt. As of November 2008, sources cite either 118 or 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids, most were built as tombs for the countrys pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods. The earliest known Egyptian pyramids are found at Saqqara, northwest of Memphis, the earliest among these is the Pyramid of Djoser which was built during the third dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, the most famous Egyptian pyramids are those found at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Several of the Giza pyramids are counted among the largest structures ever built, the Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence. By the time of the Early Dynastic Period, those with sufficient means were buried in bench-like structures known as mastabas, the second historically-documented Egyptian pyramid is attributed to the architect Imhotep, who planned what Egyptologists believe to be a tomb for the pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep is credited with being the first to conceive the notion of stacking mastabas on top of each other, the result was the Pyramid of Djoser, which was designed to serve as a gigantic stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could ascend to the heavens. Such was the importance of Imhoteps achievement that he was deified by later Egyptians, the most prolific pyramid-building phase coincided with the greatest degree of absolutist rule. It was during this time that the most famous pyramids, the Giza pyramid complex, were built. Long after the end of Egypts own pyramid-building period, a burst of pyramid-building occurred in what is present-day Sudan, al-Aziz Uthman tried to destroy the Giza pyramid complex. He gave up after damaging the Pyramid of Menkaure because the task proved too huge, the shape of Egyptian pyramids is thought to represent the primordial mound from which the Egyptians believed the earth was created. Pyramids were often named in ways that referred to solar luminescence. For example, the name of the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur The Southern Shining Pyramid. While it is agreed that pyramids were burial monuments, there is continued disagreement on the particular theological principles that might have given rise to them. One suggestion is that they were designed as a type of resurrection machine, the Egyptians believed the dark area of the night sky around which the stars appear to revolve was the physical gateway into the heavens. One of the shafts that extend from the main burial chamber through the entire body of the Great Pyramid points directly towards the center of this part of the sky. This suggests the pyramid may have designed to serve as a means to magically launch the deceased pharaohs soul directly into the abode of the gods
20.
Amun
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Amun was a major Ancient Egyptian deity. He was attested since the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amaunet, with the 11th dynasty, he rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Monthu. After the rebellion of Thebes against the Hyksos and with the rule of Ahmose I, Amun acquired national importance, expressed in his fusion with the Sun god, Ra, Amun-Ra retained chief importance in the Egyptian pantheon throughout the New Kingdom. Amun-Ra in this period held the position of transcendental, self-created creator deity par excellence, he was the champion of the poor or troubled and his position as King of Gods developed to the point of virtual monotheism where other gods became manifestations of him. With Osiris, Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods, as the chief deity of the Egyptian Empire, Amun-Ra also came to be worshipped outside of Egypt, according to the testimony of ancient Greek historiographers in Libya and Nubia. As Zeus Ammon he came to be identified with Zeus in Greece, Amun and Amaunet are mentioned in the Old Egyptian Pyramid Texts. The name Amun meant something like the one or invisible. Amun rose to the position of tutelary deity of Thebes after the end of the First Intermediate Period, as the patron of Thebes, his spouse was Mut. In Thebes, Amun as father, Mut as mother and the Moon god Khonsu formed a family or Theban Triad. The history of Amun as the god of Thebes begins in the 20th century BC. The city of Thebes does not appear to have been of great significance before the 11th dynasty, major construction work in the Precinct of Amun-Re took place during the 18th dynasty when Thebes became the capital of the unified ancient Egypt. Construction of the Hypostyle Hall may have begun during the 18th dynasty, though most building was undertaken under Seti I. Merenptah commemorated his victories over the Sea Peoples on the walls of the Cachette Court and this Great Inscription shows the kings campaigns and eventual return with booty and prisoners. Next to this inscription is the Victory Stela, which is largely a copy of the more famous Israel Stela found in the complex of Merenptah on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. Merenptahs son Seti II added 2 small obelisks in front of the Second Pylon, and this was constructed of sandstone, with a chapel to Amun flanked by those of Mut and Khonsu. The last major change to the Precinct of Amun-Res layout was the addition of the first pylon, the local patron deity of Thebes, Amun, therefore became nationally important. The pharaohs of that new dynasty attributed all their enterprises to Amun. The victory accomplished by pharaohs who worshipped Amun against the rulers, brought him to be seen as a champion of the less fortunate
21.
Pindar
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Pindar was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved and his poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they are reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning. His poetry, while admired by critics, still challenges the casual reader, Pindar was the first Greek poet to reflect on the nature of poetry and on the poets role. A dream of a shadow Is our mortal being, but when there comes to men A gleam of splendour given of heaven, Then rests on them a light of glory And blessed are their days. His poetry illustrates the beliefs and values of Archaic Greece at the dawn of the classical period, five ancient sources contain all the recorded details of Pindars life. One of them is a short biography discovered in 1961 on an Egyptian papyrus dating from at least 200 AD and it has been claimed that biographical interpretations of the poems are due to a fatal conjunction of historicism and Romanticism. In other words, we know almost nothing about Pindars life based on traditional sources or his own poems. However, the pendulum of fashion has begun to change direction again. He was probably born in 522 BC or 518 BC in Cynoscephalae and his fathers name is variously given as Daiphantus, Pagondas or Scopelinus, and his mothers name was Cleodice. It is reported that he was stung on the mouth by a bee in his youth, Pindar was about twenty years old in 498 BC when he was commissioned by the ruling family in Thessaly to compose his first victory ode. He studied the art of poetry in Athens, where his tutor was Lasos of Hermione. The early-to-middle years of Pindars career coincided with the Persian invasions of Greece in the reigns of Darius and it is possible that Pindar spent much of this time at Aegina. Thrasybulus had driven the winning chariot and he and Pindar were to form a lasting friendship, Pindar seems to have used his odes to advance his, and his friends, personal interests. In 462 BC he composed two odes in honour of Arcesilas, king of Cyrene, pleading for the return from exile of a friend, Demophilus. In the latter ode Pindar proudly mentions his own ancestry, which he shared with the king, as an Aegeid or descendent of Aegeus, the historian Herodotus considered the clan important enough to deserve mention. Pindar might not actually claim to be an Aegeid since his I statements do not necessarily refer to himself. He was possibly the Theban proxenos or consul for Aegina and/or Molossia, as indicated in another of his odes, Nemean 7, in which he glorifies Neoptolemus, a national hero of Aegina and Molossia
22.
Macedonia (region)
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Macedonia /ˌmæsᵻˈdoʊniə/ is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, however it came to be defined as the geographical region by the mid 19th century. Nowadays the region is considered to include parts of six Balkan countries, Greece and it covers approximately 67,000 square kilometres and has a population of 4.76 million. Its oldest known settlements date back approximately 9,000 years, from the middle of the 4th century BC, the Kingdom of Macedon became the dominant power on the Balkan peninsula, since then Macedonia has had a diverse history. The definition of Macedonia has changed several times throughout history, expansion of Kingdom of Macedon,1. Kingdom of Perdiccas I, Macedonian Kingdom of Emathia consisting of six provinces Emathia, Pieria, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Eordea, Kingdom of Alexander I, All the above provinces plus the eastern annexations Crestonia, Bisaltia and the western annexations Elimiotis, Orestis and Lynkestis. Kingdom of Philip II, All the above plus the appendages of Pelagonia and Macedonian Paeonia to the north, Sintike, Odomantis and Edonis to the east. In the 2nd century, Macedonia covered approximately the area where it is considered to be today, for reasons that are still unclear, over the next eleven centuries Macedonias location was changed significantly. The Roman province of Macedonia consisted of what is today Northern and Central Greece, much of the area of the present-day Republic of Macedonia. Simply put, the Romans created a larger administrative area under that name than the original ancient Macedon. In the Byzantine Empire, a province under the name of Macedonia was carved out of the original Theme of Thrace and this thema variously included parts of Thrace and gave its name to the Macedonian dynasty. Hence, Byzantine documents of this era that mention Macedonia are most probably referring to the Macedonian thema, during medieval and modern times, Macedonia has been known as a Balkan region inhabited by ethnic Greeks, Albanians, Vlachs, Serbs, Bulgarians, Jews, and Turks. Today, as a region where several very different cultures meet. Macedonian Greeks self-identify culturally and regionally as Macedonians and they form the majority of the regions population. They number approximately 2,500,000 and, today, smaller Greek minorities exist in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, although their numbers are difficult to ascertain. Ethnic Macedonians self-identify as Macedonians in a sense as well as in the regional sense. They are the second largest ethnic group in the region, because of their primarily Slavic origin they are also known as Macedonian Slavs and Slav Macedonians. They form the majority of the population in the Republic of Macedonia where according to the 2002 census, according to the latest Bulgarian census held in 2001, there are 3,117 people declaring themselves ethnic Macedonians in the Blagoevgrad Province of Bulgaria
23.
Orpheus
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Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called Orphic mysteries and he was credited with the composition of the Orphic Hymns, a collection of which only two have survived. Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles, some ancient Greek sources note Orpheus Thracian origins. The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a fragment of the sixth-century BC lyric poet Ibycus. He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod, most ancient sources accept his historical existence, Aristotle is an exception. Pindar calls Orpheus the father of songs and identifies him as a son of the Thracian king Oeagrus, Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus as the greatest of all poets and musicians, it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus had perfected it. Poets such as Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and divert the course of rivers. Orpheus was one of the handful of Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return, his music, Orpheus was an augur and seer, he practiced magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Jason, Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban. He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and civilization to savages. Bertrand Russell noted, The Orphics were a sect, wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later. The intoxication that they sought was that of enthusiasm, of union with the god and they believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus, from Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious. Strabo presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a close to Olympus. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. He made money as a musician and wizard – Strabo uses agurteúonta, agúrtēs most often meant charlatan and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Egyptian who considered Orpheus a mágeuse, according to Apollodorus and a fragment of Pindar, Orpheus father was Oeagrus, a Thracian king, or, according to another version of the story, the god Apollo. His mother was the muse Calliope, or, a daughter of Pierus and his birthplace and place of residence was in Pimpleia, Olympus
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Leibethra
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Libethra or Leibethra was a city close to Olympus where Orpheus was buried by the Muses. His tomb was destroyed by a flood of the river Sys. It was a place where the Libethrian Nymphs were worshiped, remains of Libethra have been found and there exists an archeological site close to Olympus. The location of Libethra was held to be a place of the Muses. The Libethrians, it is said, received out of Thrace an oracle from Dionysus, stating that when the sun should see the bones of Orpheus, then the city of Libethra would be destroyed by a boar. The citizens paid little regard to the oracle, thinking that no other beast was big or mighty enough to take their city, the Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Leibethra below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. Cults of the Muses were also located in Leibethra, well-known springs and memorials dedicated to Orpheus were there in great number. When Alexander the Great set out against Persia, the the cypress-wood statue of Orpheus was said to sweat, genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology by Carlos Parada 27th department of antiquities in Greece, Leibethra Leibethra, The Tomb of Orpheus
25.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
26.
Campania
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Campania is a region in Southern Italy. Located on the Italian Peninsula, with the Mediterranean Sea to the west, it includes the small Phlegraean Islands, Campania was colonised by Ancient Greeks and was part of Magna Græcia. During the Roman era, the area maintained a Greco-Roman culture, the capital city of Campania is Naples. Campania is rich in culture, especially in regard to gastronomy, music, architecture, archeological and ancient sites such as Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum and Velia. The name of Campania itself is derived from Latin, as the Romans knew the region as Campania felix, the rich natural sights of Campania make it highly important in the tourism industry, especially along the Amalfi Coast, Mount Vesuvius and the island of Capri. During the 8th century BC, people from Euboea in Greece, known as Cumaeans, another Oscan tribe, the Samnites, moved down from central Italy into Campania. The Roman consul Quintus Publilius Filo recaptured Neapolis by 326 BC, the Second Samnite War ended with the Romans controlling southern Campania and additional regions further to the south. Campania was a part of the Roman Republic by the end of the 4th century BC, valued for its pastures. Its Greek language and customs made it a centre of Hellenistic civilization, during the Pyrrhic War the battle took place in Campania at Maleventum in which the Romans, led by consul Curius Dentatus, were victorious. They renamed the city Beneventum, which grew in stature until it was only to Capua in southern Italy. During the Second Punic War in 216 BC, Capua, in a bid for equality with Rome, the rebellious Capuans were isolated from the rest of Campania, which remained allies of Rome. Naples resisted Hannibal due to the imposing walls, Capua was eventually starved into submission in the Roman retaking of 211 BC, and the Romans were victorious. The rest of Campania, with the exception of Naples, adopted the Latin language as official and was Romanised. As part of the Roman Empire, Campania, with Latium, Roman Emperors chose Campania as a holiday destination, among them Claudius and Tiberius, the latter of whom is infamously linked to the island of Capri. It was also during this period that Christianity came to Campania, Two of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, are said to have preached in the city of Naples, and there were also several martyrs during this time. Unfortunately, the period of calm was violently interrupted by the epic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 which buried the cities of Pompeii. The area had many duchies and principalities during the Middle Ages, in the hands of the Byzantine Empire, under the Normans, the smaller independent states were brought together as part of the Kingdom of Sicily, before the mainland broke away to form the Kingdom of Naples. It was during this period elements of Spanish, French
27.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
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Troy
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The present-day location is known as Hisarlik. It was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, a new capital called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually in the Byzantine era and these excavations revealed several cities built in succession. Troy VII has been identified with the city that the Hittites called Wilusa, the origin of the Greek Ἴλιον. Today, the hill at Hisarlık has given its name to a village near the ruins. It lies within the province of Çanakkale, some 30 km south-west of the provincial capital, the map here shows the adapted Scamander estuary with Ilium a little way inland across the Homeric plain. Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998, Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC, Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII, in the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander, where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, recent geological findings have permitted the identification of the ancient Trojan coastline, and the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric geography of Troy. In November 2001, the geologist John C, kraft from the University of Delaware and the classicist John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin, presented the results of investigations, begun in 1977, into the geology of the region. Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the major work attributed to Homer. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, the Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and there made sacrifices at tombs associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. After the 1995 find of a Luwian biconvex seal at Troy VII, with the rise of critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were, for a long time, consigned to the realms of legend. However, the location of ancient Troy had from classical times remained the subject of interest. The Troad peninsula was anticipated to be the location, leChavaliers location, published in his Voyage de la Troade, was the most commonly accepted theory for almost a century. In 1822, the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren was the first to identify with confidence the position of the city as it is now known, the hill, near the city of Çanakkale, was known as Hisarlık. In 1868, Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık, in 1871–73 and 1878–79, he excavated the hill and discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period
29.
Alexandria Troas
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Alexandria Troas is the site of an ancient Greek city situated on the Aegean Sea near the northern tip of Turkeys western coast, a little south of Tenedos. It is located southeast of modern Dalyan, a village in the Ezine district of Çanakkale Province, the site sprawls over an estimated 400 hectares, among the few structures remaining today are a ruined bath, an odeon, a theatre, gymnasium complex and a recently uncovered stadion. The circuit of the old walls can still be traced and it did not receive its name until its name was changed by Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in 301 BC, in memory of Alexander III of Macedon. In its heyday the city may have had a population of about 100,000, strabo mentions that a Roman colony was created at the location in the reign of Augustus, named Colonia Alexandria Augusta Troas. Augustus, Hadrian and the rich grammarian Herodes Atticus contributed greatly to its embellishment, constantine considered making Troas the capital of the Roman Empire. In Roman times, it was a significant port for travelling between Anatolia and Europe, paul of Tarsus sailed for Europe for the first time from Alexandria Troas and returned there from Europe. Ignatius of Antioch also paused at this city before continuing to his martyrdom at Rome, in the 10th century Troas is given as a suffragan of Cyzicus and distinct from the famous Troy, it is not known when the city was destroyed and the diocese disappeared. The bishopric remains a titular see of the Catholic Church under the name Troas, Troas is also a titular see of the Orthodox Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Bishop Savas of Troas served as hierarch from 2002 to 2011, karasid Turkomans settled in the area of the Troad in the 14th century. Their beylik was conquered by the Ottomans in 1336, the ruins of Alexandria Troas came to be known among the Turks as Eski Stambul, the Old City. The sites stones were plundered for building material. As of the century the site served as a lurking place for bandetti. By 1911, the site had been overgrown with vallonea oaks and much plundered, but the circuit of the old walls could still be traced and they had a circumference of about ten kilometres, and were fortified with towers at regular intervals. Remains of an ancient bath and gymnasium complex can be found within this area, trajan built an aqueduct which can still be traced. The harbour had two basins, now almost choked with sand. It is the subject of an early twenty-first century study by German archaeologists digging and surveying at the site and their excavation uncovered the remains of a large stadium dating to about 100 BC. Feuser, Stefan, Der Hafen von Alexandria Troas
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Attica
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Attica is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea, the modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes the Saronic Islands, Cythera, and the municipality of Troizinia on the Peloponnesian mainland. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, Attica is a triangular peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea. It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the 10 mi long Cithaeron mountain range, to the west, it is bordered by the sea and the canal of Corinth. The Saronic Gulf lies to the south, and the island of Euboea lies off the north, mountains separate the peninsula into the plains of Pedias, Mesogaia, and Thriasion. The mountains of Attica are the Hymettus, the portion of the Geraneia, the Parnitha, the Aigaleo. Four mountains—Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus —delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens-Piraeus metroplex now spreads, Athens water reservoir, Lake Marathon, is an artificial lake created by damming in 1920. Pine and fir forests cover the area around Parnitha, Hymettus, Penteli, Myrrhinous and Laurium are forested with pine trees, whereas the rest are covered by shrubbery. The Kifisos is the longest river of Attica, according to Plato, Atticas ancient boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, and, toward the continent, they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes. The boundary line came down toward the sea, bounded by the district of Oropus on the right, during antiquity, the Athenians boasted about being autochthonic, which is to say that they were the original inhabitants of the area and had not moved to Attica from another place. The traditions current in the classical period recounted that, during the Greek Dark Ages, Attica had become the refuge of the Ionians, who belonged to a tribe from the northern Peloponnese. Supposedly, the Ionians had been forced out of their homeland by the Achaeans, supposedly, the Ionians integrated with the ancient Atticans, who, afterward, considered themselves part of the Ionian tribe and spoke the Ionian dialect. Many Ionians later left Attica to colonize the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, during the Mycenaean period, the Atticans lived in autonomous agricultural societies. The main places where prehistoric remains were found are Marathon, Rafina, Nea Makri, Brauron, Thorikos, Agios Kosmas, Eleusis, Menidi, Markopoulo, Spata, Aphidnae, all of these settlements flourished during the Mycenaean period. According to tradition, Attica comprised twelve small communities during the reign of Cecrops, strabo assigns these the names of Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia, and possibly Phaleron. These were said to have been incorporated in an Athenian state during the reign of Theseus. Modern historians consider it likely that the communities were progressively incorporated into an Athenian state during the 8th. Until the 6th century BC, aristocratic families lived independent lives in the suburbs, only after Peisistratoss tyranny and the reforms implemented by Cleisthenes did the local communities lose their independence and succumb to the central government in Athens
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Ancient Corinth
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Corinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnese to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately 5 kilometres northeast of the ancient ruins, for Christians, Corinth is well-known from the two letters of Saint Paul in the New Testament, First Corinthians and Second Corinthians. Corinth is also mentioned in the Book of Acts as part of the Apostle Pauls missionary travels, in addition, the second book of Pausanias Description of Greece is devoted to Corinth. Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities of Greece, the Romans demolished Corinth in 146 BC, built a new city in its place in 44 BC, and later made it the provincial capital of Greece. According to Hellenic myth, the city was founded by Corinthos, however, other myths suggest that it was founded by the goddess Ephyra, a daughter of the Titan Oceanus, thus the ancient name of the city. There is evidence that the city was destroyed around 2000 BC, some ancient names for the place are derived from a pre-Greek Pelasgian language, such as Korinthos. It seems likely that Corinth was also the site of a Bronze Age Mycenaean palace-city, like Mycenae, Tiryns, according to myth, Sisyphus was the founder of a race of ancient kings at Corinth. It was also in Corinth that Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, during the Trojan War, as portrayed in the Iliad, the Corinthians participated under the leadership of Agamemnon. In a Corinthian myth recounted to Pausanias in the 2nd century AD, Briareus and his verdict was that the Isthmus of Corinth belonged to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth belonged to Helios. Thus, Greeks of the Classical age accounted for the cult of the sun-titan in the highest part of the site. The Upper Peirene spring is located within the walls of the acropolis, the spring, which is behind the temple, they say was the gift of Asopus to Sisyphus. The latter knew, so runs the legend, that Zeus had ravished Aegina, the daughter of Asopus, Corinth had been a backwater in 8th-century Greece. The Bacchiadae were a tightly-knit Doric clan and the kinship group of archaic Corinth in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. In 747 BC, an aristocratic revolution ousted the Bacchiad kings and they dispensed with kingship and ruled as a group, governing the city by annually electing a prytanis, probably a council, and a polemarchos to head the army. During Bacchiad rule from 747 to 650 BC, Corinth became a unified state, large scale public buildings and monuments were constructed at this time. In 733 BC, Corinth established colonies at Corcyra and Syracuse, by 730 BC, Corinth emerged as a highly advanced Greek city with at least 5,000 people. Aristotle tells the story of Philolaus of Corinth, a Bacchiad who was a lawgiver at Thebes and he became the lover of Diocles, the winner of the Olympic games. They both lived for the rest of their lives in Thebes and their tombs were built near one another and Philolaus tomb points toward the Corinthian country, while Diocles faces away
32.
Sparta
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Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity the city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece, given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars. Between 431 and 404 BC, Sparta was the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, from which it emerged victorious. Spartas defeat by Thebes in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Spartas prominent role in Greece, however, it maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. It then underwent a period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages. Modern Sparta is the capital of the Greek regional unit of Laconia, Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which completely focused on military training and excellence. Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates, mothakes, perioikoi, Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanges were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed more rights and equality to men than elsewhere in the classical world. Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in the West following the revival of classical learning and this love or admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. At its peak around 500 BC the size of the city would have been some 20,000 –35,000 free residents, plus numerous helots, olliers theory of the Spartan mirage has been widely accepted by scholars. The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the location of the Spartans. The first refers primarily to the cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River. The second word was Lacedaemon, this was used sometimes as an adjective and is the name commonly used in the works of Homer. Herodotus seems to denote by it the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne and it could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it was not. It denoted the terrain on which Sparta was situated, in Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside, wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken. The hollow suggests the Eurotas Valley, Sparta on the other hand is the country of lovely women, a people epithet. The name of the population was used for the state of Lacedaemon
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Messenia (ancient region)
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Messenia or Messinia was an ancient district of the southwestern Peloponnese more or less overlapping the modern Messenia region of Greece. To the north it had a border with Elis along the Neda river, from there the border with Arcadia ran along the tops of Mount Elaeum and Mount Nomia and then through foothills of Taygetus. The eastern border with Laconia went along the Taygetus ridge up to the Koskaraka river, ancient Messenia descended continuously without change of name and with little change of territory to the modern Regional Unit of Greece of the same name. The population remained Greek although there was immigration of Slavs, Albanians. The earliest inhabitants of Messenia were thought by the Greeks of the Classical period to have been Pelasgians, supposedly, the Hellenic tribes had then arrived in Greece, and Messenia was settled by Aeolian Greeks. The Mycenaean city of Pylos has been identified with the site of Ano Englianos. Excavations at Pylos and Nichoria have revealed for Messenias late Bronze Age a bureaucratic, the Messenians spoke Mycenaean Greek, and worshipped the Greek gods at local shrines like that at Sphagianes. During the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese during the Greek Dark ages, Messenia was supposedly invaded by Dorians under Cresphontes and they took as their capital Stenyclarus in the northern plain, and then extended, first their suzerainty, and then their rule over the whole district. During the Archaic period the wealth of Messenia in fertile soil. Two generations later the Messenians revolted and under the leadership of Aristomenes kept the Spartans at bay for some seventeen years. Descriptions of this revolt indicate that Messenia was allowed to retain a degree of autonomy after the first war. However, the stronghold of Ira finally fell after a siege of eleven years, as the object of the Spartans was to increase the number of lots of land for their citizens, many of the conquered Messenians were reduced to the condition of Helots. The Messenians revolted again in 464 BC, after an earthquake destroyed Sparta. The insurgents defended themselves for years on the rock-citadel of Ithome. After the decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, when the Spartans suffered a defeat at the hands of Thebes, Epaminondas invaded Messenia. Epaminondas invited the exiled Messenians scattered in Italy, Sicily, Africa, the city of Messene was founded in 369 BC to be the capital of the country and, like Megalopolis in Arcadia, became a powerful check on Sparta. Other towns, as well, were founded or rebuilt at this time, although quite independent, Messenia never became really powerful or able to stand without external support. After the fall of the Theban power, to which it had owed its foundation, it became an ally of Philip II of Macedon, subsequently the Messenians joined with the Achaean League, and Messenian troops fought along with the Achaeans and Antigonus Doson at Sellasia in 222 BC
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Elis
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Elis /ˈɛlᵻs/ or Eleia /ɛˈlaɪ. ə/ is an ancient district that corresponds to the modern Elis regional unit. Elis is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, thus the city-state of Elis was formed. Homer mentions that Elis participated in the Trojan War, the first Olympic festival was organized in Elean land, Olympia, Greece by the authorities of Elis in the 8th century BC, with tradition dating the first games at 776 BC. The Hellanodikai, the judges of the Games, were of Elean origin, the local form of the name was Valis, or Valeia, and its meaning, in all probability was, “the lowland”. In its physical constitution Elis is similar to Achaea and Arcadia, its mountains are mere offshoots of the Arcadian highlands, according to Strabo, the first settlement was created by Oxylus the Aetolian who invaded there and subjugated the residents. The city of Elis underwent synoikism—as Strabo notes—in 471 BC, Elis held authority over the site of Olympia and the Olympic games. As described by Strabo, Elis was divided into three districts, Coele or Lowland Elis, Pisatis, or the territory of Pisa, Coele Elis, the largest and most northern of the three, was watered by the river Peneus and its tributary the Ladon. The district was famous during antiquity for its cattle and horses, Pisatis extended south from Coele Elis to the right bank of the river Alpheus, and was divided into eight departments named after as many towns. Triphylia stretches south from the Alpheus to the river Neda, nowadays Elis is a small village of 150 citizens, located 14 km NE of Amaliada, built over the ruins of the ancient town. It has a museum that contains treasures, discovered in various excavations and it also has one of the most well-preserved ancient theaters in Greece. Built in the 4th century BC, the theater had a capacity of 8,000 people, below it Early Helladic, sub-Mycenaean, Elis is well known for breeding horses and its hosting of the Olympic games. And when he was asked again, according to the account given by Hegesander, which were the greatest barbarians, in Hesychius and other ancient lexica Eleans are also listed as barbarophones. Indeed, the North-West Doric dialect of Elis is, after the Aeolic dialects, chisholm, Hugh, ed. Elis, Philosophical School of. Map from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture Elis - the city of the Olympic games Mait Kõiv, Early History of Elis and Pisa, Invented or Evolving Traditions
35.
Achaea (ancient region)
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Achaea or Achaia was the northernmost region of the Peloponnese, occupying the coastal strip north of Arcadia. Its approximate boundaries were to the south the range of Erymanthus, to the south-east the range of Cyllene, to the east Sicyon. Apart from the plain around Dyme, to the west, Achaea was generally a mountainous region, the name of Achaea has a slightly convoluted history. Homer uses the term Achaeans as a term for Greeks throughout the Iliad, conversely. The region later known as Achaea is instead referred to as Aegialus, both Herodotus and Pausanias recount the legend that the Achaean tribe was forced out of their lands in the Argolis by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese. Consequently, the Achaeans forced the Aegialians out of their land, the Ionians took temporary refuge in Athens, and Aegialus became known as Achaea. It was supposedly for this reason that the known as Achaea in Classical Greece did not correspond to Homeric references. Under the Romans, Achaea was a province covering much of central and this is the Achaea referenced in the New Testament. The name, Achaea, was used in the crusader state, the Principality of Achaea. The modern Greek prefecture of Achaea is largely based on the ancient region, dolmens and cromlechs have been found in the ancient area of Achaea dating back to the Neolithic period. Flint axes and blades fabricated from materials such as quartz or obsidian have been found in chamber tombs from this ancient region. Among other finds, alabaster pottery sherds have been discovered during excavations at Antheia in Achaia, the twelve cities of Achaea were grouped into an early Achaean League which had important cultural and religious functions. In its later 3rd century BC incarnation the Achaean League would play an important role in Greek politics, according to Pausanias, in 688 BC the city of Hyperesia was threatened by an army from Sicyon. The locals defended their city by placing burning torches on their goats horns, the Sicyonians retreated and the Hyperesians renamed their town Aigeira to honor the goats. During the 5th century BC the cities of Achaea were neutral in the Persian Wars and were neutral in the struggles between Athens and Sparta. We begin to more of Achaea in the following centuries. In 373 BC the Achaean city of Helice was destroyed in a great cataclysm, “Immense columns of flame”, the first record in history of the phenomenon of earthquake lights, were seen in the days leading up to the earthquake. The quake hit at night causing Helice to subside and then a massive tsunami rushed in from the Corinthian Gulf to inundate the city, the city of Boura, further inland, was also destroyed in the earthquake
36.
Arcadia (ancient region)
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Arcadia was a region in the central Peloponnese. It took its name from the mythological character Arcas and in Greek mythology, in European Renaissance arts, Arcadia was celebrated as an unspoiled, harmonious wilderness. There is also a regional unit of Greece of the same name. Arcadia was gradually linked in a confederation that included all the Arcadian towns and was named League of the Arcadians. It successfully faced in 7th century BC the threat of Sparta and they participated in the Persian Wars alongside other Greeks by sending forces at Thermopylae and Plataea. During the Peloponnesian War Arcadia allied with Sparta and Corinth, in the following years, during the period of the Hegemony of Thebes, the Theban general Epaminondas reinforced the Arcadian federation in order to form a rival pole to the neighboring Sparta. Then he founded Megalopolis which became its new capital, over the next centuries Arcadia weakened. It initially subjugated to the Macedonians and later the Arcadians joined the Achaean League, geographically, ancient Arcadia occupied the highlands at the centre of the Peloponnese. To the north, it bordered Achaea along the ridge of ground running from Mount Erymanthos to Mount Cyllene. To the east, it had borders with Argolis and Corinthia along the ridge of ground running from Mount Cyllene round to Mount Oligyrtus. To the south-west, the border with Messania ran along the tops of Mount Nomia, and Mount Elaeum, most of the region of Arcardia was mountainous, apart from the plains around Tegea and Megalopolis, and the valleys of the Alpheios and Ladon rivers. The Arcadians were an ancient Greek tribe which was situated in the mountainous Peloponnese and it is considered one of the oldest Greek tribes which settled in Greece and it was probably a relative tribe of the proto-Greeks who are mentioned by the ancient authors as Pelasgians. Whilst Herodotus seems to have found the idea that the Arcadians were not Greek far-fetched and this is testified by ancient myths, like the myth of Arcas, the myth of Lycaon etc. Arcadia is also one of the regions described in the catalogue of ships in the Iliad, agamemnon himself gave Arcadia the ships for the Trojan war because Arcadia did not have a navy. Due to its remote, mountainous character, Arcadia seems to have been a cultural refuge, arcadocypriot never became a literary dialect, but it is known from inscriptions. Tsan is a letter of the Greek alphabet occurring only in Arcadia, shaped like Cyrillic И, of these the strongest were the cities which controlled the few fertile valleys, Mantinea, Tegea and Orchomenos. The remaining towns were more mountainous or had smaller plains, some of these were Asea, Ypsounta, Teuthis, Heraea, Thyraion, Nestani, Alea, Lykosoura, Trikolonon, Tropea, Caphyae, Pallantion, Feneos etc. From 370 BC the capital of Arcadia became Megalopolis
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Boeotia
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Boeotia, sometimes alternatively Latinised as Beotia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece and it was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its largest city is Thebes, Boeotia lies to the north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It also has a coastline on the Gulf of Euboea. It bordered on Megaris in the south, Attica in the southeast, Euboea in the northeast, Opuntian Locris in the north and Phocis in the west. The main mountain ranges of Boeotia are Mount Parnassus in the west, Mount Helicon in the southwest, Cithaeron in the south and its longest river, the Cephissus, flows in the central part, where most of the low-lying areas of Boeotia are found. Lake Copais was a lake in the center of Boeotia. It was drained in the 19th century, lake Yliki is a large lake near Thebes. The earliest inhabitants of Boeotia, associated with the city of Orchomenus, were called Minyans, pausanias mentions that Minyans established the maritime Ionian city of Teos, and occupied the islands of Lemnos and Thera. The Argonauts were sometimes referred to as Minyans, also, according to legend the citizens of Thebes paid an annual tribute to their king Erginus. The early wealth and power of Boeotia is shown by the reputation and visible Mycenean remains of several of its cities, especially Orchomenus, the origin of the name Boeotians may lie in the mountain Boeon in Epirus. Some toponyms and the common Aeolic dialect indicate that the Boeotians were related to the Thessalians and they moved south and settled in another rich plain, while others filtered across the Aegean and settled on Lesbos and in Aeolis in Asia Minor. Others are said to have stayed in Thessaly, withdrawing into the hill country, many ancient Greek legends originated or are set in this region. The older myths took their form during the Mycenean age when the Mycenean Greeks established themselves in Boeotia. Many of them are related to the myths of Argos, and others indicate connections with Phoenicia, Boeotia was also notable for the ancient oracular shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea. Graea, an ancient city in Boeotia, is thought to be the origin of the Latin word Graecus, from which English derives the words Greece. The major poets Hesiod and Pindar were Boeotians, on the other hand, the lack of good harbours hindered its maritime development. The importance of the legendary Minyae has been confirmed by archaeological remains, the Boeotian population entered the land from the north possibly before the Dorian invasion
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Phocis (ancient region)
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Phocis was an ancient region in the central part of Ancient Greece, which included Delphi. A modern administrative unit, also called Phocis, is named after the ancient region, although the modern region is substantially larger than the ancient one. Ancient Phocis was about 1,619 km² in area, bounded on the west by Ozolian Locris and Doris, on the north by Opuntian Locris, on the east by Boeotia, and on the south by the Gulf of Corinth. The massive ridge of Parnassus, which traverses the heart of the country, being neither rich in material resources nor well placed for commercial enterprise, Phocis was mainly pastoral. No large cities grew up within its territory, and its places, such as Delphi. The early history of Phocis remains quite obscure, in 457 BC an attempt to extend their influence to the headwaters of the Cephissus in the territory of Doris brought a Spartan army into Phocis in defence of the metropolis of the Dorians. In the 4th century BC Phocis was constantly endangered by its Boeotian neighbours, after helping the Spartans to invade Boeotia during the Corinthian War, the Phocians were placed on the defensive. They received assistance from Sparta in 380 BC, but were compelled to submit to the growing power of Thebes. The Phocian levy took part in the inroads of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus, except in the campaign of Mantinea. In return for this negligence the Thebans fastened a religious quarrel upon their neighbours, the Phocians participated in two important battles, the Battle of Crocus Field and the Battle of Thermopylae. The Phocians, led by two generals, Philomelus and Onomarchus, replied by seizing Delphi and using its riches to hire a mercenary army. The conditions which he imposed – the obligation to restore the funds. In 339 BC the Phocians began to rebuild their cities, in the year they fought against Philip at Chaeronea. Again in 323 BC they took part in the Lamian War against Antipater, henceforth little more is heard of Phocis. During the 3rd century BC it passed into the power of Macedonia and of the Aetolian League, the Phocian League is last heard of under Trajan
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Ozolian Locris
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Various etymologies were proposed by the ancients about the origin of the name of the regions inhabitants, the Ozolai. Some derived it from the Greek verb ὄζειν which means to smell, Ozolian Locris is mountainous and for the most part unproductive. The declivities of Mount Parnassus from Phocis on the east, Aselinon oros in the centre and Mount Corax from Aetolia on the west, the frontier of the Ozolian Locrians on the west was close to the promontory Antirrhium, opposite the promontory Rhium on the coast of Achaea. The eastern frontier of Locris, on the coast, was close to the Phocian town of Crissa, and the Crissaean gulf washed on its side the Locrian. Ozolian Locris is said to have been a colony from the Opuntian Locrians, the chief town of the Ozolians was Amphissa and their most important port Naupactus. More inland from west to east, were Aegitium, Croculeium, Teichium, Olpae and they belonged at a later period to the Aetolian League. Regions of ancient Greece Locris This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, on the geography of the Locrian tribes, see Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. pp.66, seq.170, seq.587, seq
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Seliana
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Seliana also known as Phelloe is a village in the municipal unit of Aigeira, in the eastern part of Achaea, north Peloponnese, Greece. The village is built at an altitude of ~750 m on the foothills of the fir forest of Sarantapikho, the village had a population of 52 in 2011. Aigeira is 10 km to the north, and Kalavryta is 21 km to the west, Seliana is connected by a 19 km road that leads to the town of Aegeira and the Greek National Road 8A, Athens - Corinth - Aigeira - Patras. The village of Seliana coincides with ancient Phelloe a small town of ancient Greece described in Pausanias book Description of Greece - Achaea. In the village there are few remnants of ancient Phelloe in different places, there is a strong relation between the village of Seliana and the village of Selianitika. According to historian A. Fotopoulos the inhabitants of Seliana descended from the mountains to the region of Kryovrysi near Aigio during the Ottoman period. Initially the residents of Seliana were spending the winter in Selianitika, the residents of Seliana carried with them the parish of Saint Basil and today Saint Basil is the patron saint of the village of Selianitika. Museum of Aigio, Ταμείο Αρχαιολογικών Πόρων και Απαλλοτριώσεων, Athens 2004 ISBN 960-214-254-5 Αθ, Φωτόπουλος, Ιστορικά και Λαογραφικά της Ανατολικής Αιγιάλειας και Καλαβρύτων, Αθήνα1982
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Alalcomenae
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Alalcomenae is the name of several towns in Greece. Alalcomenae was a town on the south-west bank of Lake Copais in Boeotia and it was famous for a temple to the goddess Athena Alalcomeneis. The ancient geographer Strabo refers to an Alalcomenae on the island of Asteria. Plutarch, however, refers to Alalcomenae as a city of the Ithacans and this could mean that he imagined it as being on Ithaca, or merely that it belonged to Ithaca. Strabos discussion makes it clear that it was a minor village, nonetheless. Strabo refers to another Alalcomenae in his description of Thesprotia, the town still exists, now called Alalkomenes, in the Kalampaka area of Thessaly
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Mount Helicon
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Mount Helicon is a mountain in the region of Thespiai in Boeotia, Greece, celebrated in Greek mythology. With an elevation of 1,749 metres, it is located approximately 10 kilometres from the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth. In Greek mythology, two springs sacred to the Muses were located here, the Aganippe and the Hippocrene, both of which bear horse in their names. In a related myth, the Hippocrene spring was created when the winged horse Pegasus aimed his hoof at a rock, on Mt. Helicon too was the spring where Narcissus was inspired by his own beauty. In his Aitia, Callimachus recounts his dream in which he was once more. There had been an built on Helicon in their honor which contained statues of these Muses. The Hippocrene spring was considered to be a source of poetic inspiration, there the Muses inspired him and he began to sing of the origins of the gods. Thus Helicon became an emblem of poetical inspiration, Callimachus explicitly follows in the footsteps of Hesiod and he placed on Helicon the episode in which Tiresias stumbles upon Athena bathing and is blinded but given the art of prophecy. He explored the sacred grove by the spring Aganippe thoroughly and left a description as it then was. He saw images of Eupheme, nurse of the Muses, in the temenos were statues, some by famous masters, of Apollo and Dionysus and famed poets. The poetical image of Helicon established by the Roman poets became once more an emblem of inspiration with the Renaissance and is often referred to in poetry. Helicon was the inspiration for the balls held by the Hungarian composer Leó Festetics at his castle near Keszthely, Festetics also named the library he founded Helikon Library, promoting literacy and culture in his home city. A band in Manitowoc, Wisconsin named Heliconian River plays a blend of folk, rock, and bluegrass. The Scottish band Mogwai recorded two tracks as part of their Government Commissions, BBC Sessions 1996–2003 album entitled New Paths to Helicon, Pt.1 and New Paths to Helicon, Pt.2. Irish author Seamus Heaney wrote a poem entitled “Personal Helicon”, which references the story of Narcissus, the mountain as home of muses inspired the name of Helicon West, an open-mic/featured reader series in Logan, Utah, United States which began in 2005. Richard Hunter, The Shadow of Callimachus, Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome 2006, 16ff De Monte Sororum, In the Grove
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Tithorea
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Tithorea is a village and a former municipality in Phthiotis, Greece. Since the 2011 reforms of administration, Tithorea constitutes a municipal unit in the municipality of Amfikleia-Elateia. The municipal unit has an area of 149.593 km2, the municipal unit consists of the town Kato Tithorea and the villages of Agia Marina, Agia Paraskevi, Modi and Tithorea. Liakoura, the highest summit of Mount Parnassus at a height of 2,457 m, the river Cephissus flows in the valley North of the town. Kato Tithorea has a station on the Athens-Thessaloniki railway line, the village Tithorea is situated at the northern foot of the Parnassus,5 km southwest of Kato Tithorea. It is a settlement with stone houses. Tithorea was named after the ancient Phocian town Tithorea, also referred to as Neon, built on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, before 1926 it was known as Velitsa, a Slavic toponym. The ancient city was built after the destruction of the cities by Xerxes Persian army in 480 BC. According to Herodotus, inhabitants from ruined cities located on the banks of the Cephissus fled to the foot of the Parnassus around Tithorea, after the Persians left, the Phocians settled around Tithorea where a fortress was built. The city reached its peak in the 3rd century BC, when it minted its own coins
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Mount Kyllini
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Mount Kyllini or Mount Cyllene, is a mountain on the Peloponnesus peninsula in Greece, famous for its association with the god Hermes. It rises to 2,376 m above sea level, making it the second highest point on the peninsula and it is located near the border between the historic regions of Arcadia and Achaea—in the northeast of Arcadia, and entirely within modern Corinthia. It is located west of Corinth, northwest of Stymfalia, north of Tripoli, much of the mountain is barren and rocky, although the area below 2000 m is largely forested. There is an observatory at 908 m, at 22.67 east longitude and 37.97 north latitude, the nearest mountain ranges are Oligyrtos to the south and Chelmos/Aroania to the west. Roads pass near the southern and western slopes, but there are not many on the mountain itself, the municipal boundary of Stymfalia–Feneos–Evrostini and Xylokastro passes through the mountain. In Greek mythology, Hermes was born in a cave on the mountain. The Homeric Hymn Hymn to Pan recalled that Hermes, there where his sacred place is as god of Kyllene. For there, though a god, he used to tend curly-fleeced sheep, in ancient times there was a temple and statue dedicated to him on the mountains summit. Hyginus records that it was on Cyllene that the seer Tiresias changed sex when he struck two copulating snakes, Cyllene herself was a mountain nymph who had taken for her consort Pelasges in the most ancient times that Greek mythographers could recall. Several modern places are also named Kyllini, the Pleiades were born on Mount Kyllini. Feneos, west Kastania,1,000 m Kessari, southeast Goura, southwest Mount Ziria, a lair for divine herbs Ζήρια Ζήρια ή Κυλλήνη Greek Mountain Flora
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Delphi
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Delphi is famous as the ancient sanctuary that grew rich as the seat of the oracle that was consulted on important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. Moreover, it was considered as the navel of the world by the Greeks as represented by the Omphalos and it occupies an impressive site on the south-western slope of Mount Parnassus overlooking the coastal plain to the south and the valley of Phocis. It is now an archaeological site and the modern town is nearby. The site of Delphi is located in upper central Greece, on multiple plateaux/terraces along the slope of Mount Parnassus, and includes the Sanctuary of Apollo and this semicircular spur is known as Phaedriades, and overlooks the Pleistos Valley. In myths dating to the period of Ancient Greece, the site of Delphi was believed to be determined by Zeus when he sought to find the centre of his Grandmother Earth. He sent two eagles flying from the eastern and western extremities, and the path of the eagles crossed over Delphi where the omphalos, Apollo was said to have slain Python, a drako a serpent or a dragon who lived there and protected the navel of the Earth. Python is claimed by some to be the name of the site in recognition of Python which Apollo defeated. The Homeric Hymn to Delphic Apollo recalled that the ancient name of this site had been Krisa, others relate that it was named Pytho and that Pythia, the priestess serving as the oracle, was chosen from their ranks by a group of priestesses who officiated at the temple. At the settlement site in Delphi, which was a settlement of the late 9th century. Pottery and bronze work as well as tripod dedications continue in a steady stream, the victors at Delphi were presented with a laurel crown which was ceremonially cut from a tree by a boy who re-enacted the slaying of the Python. Delphi was set apart from the other sites because it hosted the mousikos agon. These Pythian Games rank second among the four stephanitic games chronologically and these games, though, were different from the games at Olympia in that they were not of such vast importance to the city of Delphi as the games at Olympia were to the area surrounding Olympia. Delphi would have been a renowned city whether or not it hosted these games, it had other attractions that led to it being labeled the omphalos of the earth, in other words, in the inner hestia of the Temple of Apollo, an eternal flame burned. The name Delphoi comes from the root as δελφύς delphys, womb. Apollo is connected with the site by his epithet Δελφίνιος Delphinios, the epithet is connected with dolphins in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, recounting the legend of how Apollo first came to Delphi in the shape of a dolphin, carrying Cretan priests on his back. The Homeric name of the oracle is Pytho, another legend held that Apollo walked to Delphi from the north and stopped at Tempe, a city in Thessaly, to pick laurel which he considered to be a sacred plant. In commemoration of this legend, the winners at the Pythian Games received a wreath of laurel picked in the Temple, Delphi became the site of a major temple to Phoebus Apollo, as well as the Pythian Games and the famous prehistoric oracle. Even in Roman times, hundreds of votive statues remained, described by Pliny the Younger, additionally, according to Plutarchs essay on the meaning of the E at Delphi—the only literary source for the inscription—there was also inscribed at the temple a large letter E
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Thebes, Greece
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Thebes is a city in Boeotia, central Greece. It played an important role in Greek myths, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed a Mycenaean settlement and clay tablets written in the Linear B script, Thebes was the largest city of the ancient region of Boeotia and was the leader of the Boeotian confederacy. It was a rival of ancient Athens, and sided with the Persians during the 480 BC invasion under Xerxes. Theban forces ended the power of Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC under the command of Epaminondas, the Sacred Band of Thebes famously fell at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC against Philip II and Alexander the Great. Prior to its destruction by Alexander in 335 BC, Thebes was a force in Greek history. During the Byzantine period, the city was famous for its silks, the modern city contains an Archaeological Museum, the remains of the Cadmea, and scattered ancient remains. Modern Thebes is the largest town of the unit of Boeotia. Thebes is situated in a plain, between Lake Yliki to the north, and the Cithaeron mountains, which divide Boeotia from Attica and its elevation is 215 metres above mean sea level. It is about 50 kilometres northwest of Athens, and 100 kilometres southeast of Lamia, motorway 1 and the Athens–Thessaloniki railway connect Thebes with Athens and northern Greece. The municipality of Thebes covers an area of 830.112 square kilometres, the unit of Thebes 321.015 square kilometres. In 2011, as a consequence of the Kallikratis reform, Thebes was merged with Plataies, Thisvi, and Vagia to form a larger municipality, the other three become units of the larger municipality. Five main cycles of story may be distinguished, The foundation of the citadel Cadmea by Cadmus, the building of a seven-gated wall by Amphion, and the cognate stories of Zethus, Antiope and Dirce. See Theban pederasty and Pederasty in ancient Greece for detailed discussion, the immolation of Semele and the advent of Dionysus. The Greeks attributed the foundation of Thebes to Cadmus, a Phoenician king from Tyre, Cadmus was famous for teaching the Phoenician alphabet and building the Acropolis, which was named the Cadmeia in his honor and was an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural center. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed cist graves dated to Mycenaean times containing weapons, ivory, *Tʰēgʷai in LHIIIB lost contact with Egypt but gained it with Miletus and Cyprus. In the late LHIIIB, according to Palaima, *Tʰēgʷai was able to pull resources from Lamos near Mount Helicon, and from Karystos and Amarynthos on the Greek side of the isle of Euboia. As a fortified community, it attracted attention from the invading Dorians, and this centralizing policy is as much the cardinal fact of Theban history as the counteracting effort of the smaller towns to resist absorption forms the main chapter of the story of Boeotia
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Battle of Leuctra
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The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought on July 6,371 BC, between the Boeotians led by Thebans and the Spartans along with their allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict. The battle took place in the neighbourhood of Leuctra, a village in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae, the Theban victory shattered Sparta’s immense influence over the Greek peninsula, which Sparta had gained since its victory in the Peloponnesian War. During this period, Thebes had had an ally in Athens, when it came to swearing an oath to respect the treaty, Sparta swore on behalf of itself and its allies. When Epaminondas came forward, asking to swear on behalf of the whole Boeotian League, in this, Sparta saw an opportunity to reassert its shaky authority in central Greece. Hence, the Spartan king, Cleombrotus I, marched to war from Phocis, initially, the six Boeotian generals present were divided as to whether to offer battle, with Epaminondas being the main advocate in favor of battle. Only when a seventh arrived, who sided with Epaminondas, was the decision made, in spite of inferior numbers and the doubtful loyalty of his Boeotian allies, the Boeotians would offer battle on the plain before the town. Several ancient writers give figures for one or both of the armies, but, unfortunately, they are contradictory and, in some cases, modern scholars estimates have varied from 6,000 to 9,000 for the Boeotian force. For the Spartan side, most modern scholars favor Plutarchs figure of 10,000 in infantry and 1,000 cavalry, the battle opened with the Spartans mercenary peltasts attacking and driving back the Boeotian camp followers and others who were reluctant to fight. There followed a cavalry engagement, in which the Thebans drove their enemies off the field, initially, the Spartan infantry were sent into disarray when their retreating cavalry hopelessly disrupted Cleombrotuss attempt to outflank the Theban left column. At this point the Theban left hit the Spartan right with the Sacred Band of Thebes, led by Pelopidas, the decisive engagement was then fought out between the Theban and Spartan infantry. The normal practice of the Spartans was to establish their heavily armed infantry in a mass, or phalanx. This was considered to allow for the best balance between depth and width, the infantry would advance together so that the attack flowed unbroken against their enemy. By contrast, the shakiest and/or least influential troops were placed on the left wing. In the Spartan battleplan, therefore, the hippeis and the king of Sparta would stand on the wing of the phalanx. In a major break with tradition, Epaminondas massed his cavalry and a column of Theban infantry on his left wing. His shallower and weaker center and right wing columns were drawn up so that they were further to the right and rear of the proceeding column. The Theban center and right were held back, screened by skirmishers, the infantry engaged, and the Thebans smashed the Spartan right wing. The Spartans twelve-deep formation on their right wing could not sustain the impact of their opponents 50-deep column
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pausanias (traveller)". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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