1.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
2.
History of Athens
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Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for at least 5000 years. Following a period of decline under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The name of Athens, connected to the name of its patron goddess Athena, the etiological myth explaining how Athens acquired this name through the legendary contest between Poseidon and Athena was described by Herodotus, Apollodorus, Ovid, Plutarch, Pausanias and others. It even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon, both Athena and Poseidon requested to be patrons of the city and to give their name to it, so they competed with one another for the honour, offering the city one gift each. Poseidon produced a spring by striking the ground with his trident, Athena created the olive tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. The Athenians, under their ruler Cecrops, accepted the olive tree, a sacred olive tree said to be the one created by the goddess was still kept on the Acropolis at the time of Pausanias. It was located by the temple of Pandrosus, next to the Parthenon, according to Herodotus, the tree had been burnt down during the Persian Wars, but a shoot sprung from the stump. The Greeks saw this as a symbol that Athena still had her there on the city. Plato, in his dialogue Cratylus, offers his own etymology of Athenas name connecting it to the phrase ἁ θεονόα or hē theoû nóēsis. The site on which Athens stands was first inhabited in the Neolithic period, perhaps as a settlement on top of the Acropolis. The Acropolis is a defensive position which commands the surrounding plains. The settlement was about 20 km inland from the Saronic Gulf, in the centre of the Cephisian Plain, to the east lies Mount Hymettus, to the north Mount Pentelicus. Ancient Athens, in the first millennium BC, occupied a small area compared to the sprawling metropolis of modern Greece. The Acropolis was situated just south of the centre of this walled area, the Agora, the commercial and social centre of the city, lay about 400 m north of the Acropolis, in what is now the Monastiraki district. The hill of the Pnyx, where the Athenian Assembly met, the Eridanus river flowed through the city. One of the most important religious sites in ancient Athens was the Temple of Athena, known today as the Parthenon, which stood on top of the Acropolis, where its evocative ruins still stand. Two other major sites, the Temple of Hephaestus and the Temple of Olympian Zeus or Olympeion also lay within the city walls. According to Thucydides, the Athenian citizens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War numbered 40,000, making with their families a total of 140,000 people in all
3.
Pericles
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Pericles was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during the Golden Age—specifically the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful, Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, a contemporary historian, acclaimed him as the first citizen of Athens. Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire, and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, it is principally through his efforts that Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world and he started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis. This project beautified and protected the city, exhibited its glory, Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist. Pericles was born c.495 BC, in Athens, Greece and he was the son of the politician Xanthippus, who, though ostracized in 485–484 BC, returned to Athens to command the Athenian contingent in the Greek victory at Mycale just five years later. Agariste was the great-granddaughter of the tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes, according to Herodotus and Plutarch, Agariste dreamed, a few nights before Pericles birth, that she had borne a lion. Interestingly, legends say that Philip II of Macedon had a dream before the birth of his son. Pericles belonged to the tribe of Acamantis and his early years were quiet, the introverted young Pericles avoided public appearances, instead preferring to devote his time to his studies. His familys nobility and wealth allowed him to pursue his inclination toward education. He learned music from the masters of the time and he is considered to have been the first politician to attribute importance to philosophy and he enjoyed the company of the philosophers Protagoras, Zeno of Elea, and Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras, in particular, became a friend and influenced him greatly. Pericles manner of thought and rhetorical charisma may have been in part products of Anaxagoras emphasis on emotional calm in the face of trouble and his proverbial calmness and self-control are also often regarded as products of Anaxagoras influence. In the spring of 472 BC, Pericles presented The Persians of Aeschylus at the Greater Dionysia as a liturgy, Plutarch says that Pericles stood first among the Athenians for forty years. If this was so, Pericles must have taken up a position of leadership by the early 460s BC- in his early or mid-thirties, throughout these years he endeavored to protect his privacy and to present himself as a model for his fellow citizens. For example, he would often avoid banquets, trying to be frugal, in 463 BC, Pericles was the leading prosecutor of Cimon, the leader of the conservative faction who was accused of neglecting Athens vital interests in Macedon. Although Cimon was acquitted, this proved that Pericles major political opponent was vulnerable. The leader of the party and mentor of Pericles, Ephialtes, the Ecclesia adopted Ephialtes proposal without opposition
4.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
5.
Vatican Museums
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The Vatican Museums are the museums of the Vatican City and are located within the citys boundaries. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display, and currently employ 640 people who work in 40 different administrative, scholarly, Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling decorated by Michelangelo and the Stanze di Raffaello decorated by Raphael, are on the route through the Vatican Museums. In 2013, they were visited by 6 million people, which combined makes it the 6th most visited art museum in the world, there are 54 galleries, or sale, in total, with the Sistine Chapel, notably, being the very last sala within the Museum. It is one of the largest museums in the world, in 2017, the Museums official website and social media presence was completely redone, in accord with current standards and appearances for modern websites. Pope Julius II sent Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarroti, who were working at the Vatican, on their recommendation, the pope immediately purchased the sculpture from the vineyard owner. The pope put the sculpture of Laocoön and his sons on public display at the Vatican exactly one month after its discovery, the Museum Christianum was founded by Benedict XIV, and some of the Vatican collections formed the Lateran Museum, which Pius IX founded by decree in 1854. The Museums celebrated their 500th anniversary in October 2006 by permanently opening the excavations of a Vatican Hill necropolis to the public, on 1 January 2017 Barbara Jatta became the Director of the Vatican Museums, replacing Antonio Paolucci who had been director since 2007. The art gallery was housed in the Borgia Apartment until Pope Pius XI ordered construction of a proper building, the new building, designed by Luca Beltrami, was inaugurated on 27 October 1932. The museum has paintings including, Giottos Stefaneschi Triptych Olivuccio di Ciccarello, Opere di Misericordia Raphaels Madonna of Foligno, Oddi Altarpiece, the group of museums includes several sculpture museums surrounding the Cortile del Belvedere. The museum takes its name from two popes, Clement XIV and Pius VI, the pope who brought the museum to completion, Clement XIV came up with the idea of creating a new museum in Innocent VIIIs Belvedere palace and started the refurbishment work. Pope Clement XIV founded the Pio-Clementino museum in 1771, and originally it contained the Renaissance, the museum and collection were enlarged by Clements successor Pius VI. Today, the museum works of Greek and Roman sculpture. Some notable galleries are, Greek Cross Gallery, with the porphyri sarcophagi of Constance and Saint Helen, daughter and mother of Constantine the Great. Sala Rotonda, shaped like a miniature Pantheon, the room has impressive ancient mosaics on the floors, Gallery of the Statues, as its name implies, holds various important statues, including Sleeping Ariadne and the bust of Menander. It also contains the Barberini Candelabra, Gallery of the Busts, Many ancient busts are displayed. Cabinet of the Masks, The name comes from the mosaic on the floor of the gallery, found in Villa Adriana, along the walls, several famous statues are shown including the Three Graces. One wove the thread of life, second nurtured it, third cut it. The center piece is Belvedere Torso, revered by Michelangelo and other Renaissance men, sala degli Animali, So named because of the many ancient statues of animals
6.
Kresilas
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Kresilas was a Greek sculptor in the Classical period, from Kydonia. He was trained in Argos and then worked in Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war and he is best known for his statue Pericles with the Corinthian helmet. Kresilas hailed from the city-state of Kydonia, on the island of Crete and he was trained in Argos as a student of Dorotheos, with whom he worked at Delphi and Hermione. Between 450 and 420 BC he worked mainly in Athens, as a follower of Myrons school and in the post-Phidias period he brought elements of compactness due to the Peloponnesian period. Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote of a competition between the four sculptors Polykleitos, Phidias, Kresilas, and Phradmon, on the best statues of Amazons for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Each sculptor placed himself at first place, but Phidias, Kresilas, and Phradmon had all put Polykleitos at second place, thus, Polykleitos won, Pheidias came second, and Kresilas third. In Athens he created, for example, a statue of Pericles with the Corinthian helmet upon the head as a sign of his position as strategos. Pliny the Elder said of it, a work worthy of the title and its base was found in the Athenian Acropolis, it was doubtless the bronze that Pausanias saw there. It seems the series of Pericles portrait busts derive from it, of which there are examples at the Vatican Museums, British Museum and Altes Museum. Kresilas also created the wounded men and a dying Amazon for Ephesus in concurrence, possibly the model for many copies and he has also been identified as the originator of the Velletri type of Athena statue. He created a Diomedes statue according to Homers description, as a result, Kresilas was mistakenly included in artist Judy Chicagos symbolic history of women in Western civilization, The Dinner Party. Furtwängler, Adolf, Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, A Series of Essays on the History of Art, Volume 2, artists and Signatures in Ancient Greece, Cambridge University Press,2015. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philippe De Montebello, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide, natural History, Volume IX, Books 33-35. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press,1952, the Art of Ancient Greece, Sources and Documents, Cambridge University Press,1990. Enciclopedia dellarte antica classica e orientale, arte greca, Dalletà classica alletà ellenistica. The wounded Amazon of Kresilas Picture of an Amazon Busts of Pericles
7.
Acropolis of Athens
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The word acropolis comes from the Greek words ἄκρον and πόλις. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is known as The Acropolis without qualification. The Acropolis is located on a rock that rises 150 m above sea level in the city of Athens. It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, while the earliest artifacts date to the Middle Neolithic era, there have been documented habitations in Attica from the Early Neolithic. There is little doubt that a Mycenaean megaron stood upon the hill during the late Bronze Age, nothing of this megaron survives except, probably, a single limestone column-base and pieces of several sandstone steps. Soon after the palace was constructed, a Cyclopean massive circuit wall was built,760 meters long, up to 10 meters high and this wall would serve as the main defense for the acropolis until the 5th century. The wall consisted of two built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called emplekton. There were two lesser approaches up the hill on its side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he mentions the strong-built House of Erechtheus, at some point before the 13th century BC, an earthquake caused a fissure near the northeastern edge of the Acropolis. This fissure extended some 35 meters to a bed of marl in which a well was dug. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the served as an invaluable. There is no evidence for the existence of a Mycenean palace on top of the Athenian Acropolis. However, if there was such a palace, it seems to have been supplanted by later building activity, not a lot is known about the architectural appearance of the Acropolis until the Archaic era. In the 7th and the 6th centuries BC, the site was taken over by Kylon during the failed Kylonian revolt, nevertheless, it seems that a nine-gate wall, the Enneapylon, had been built around the biggest water spring, the Clepsydra, at the northwestern foot. A temple to Athena Polias, the deity of the city, was erected around 570–550 BC. Whether this temple replaced an older one, or just a sacred precinct or altar, is not known, probably, the Hekatompedon was built where the Parthenon now stands. Between 529–520 BC yet another temple was built by the Peisistratids and this temple of Athena Polias was built upon the Doerpfeld foundations, between the Erechtheion and the still-standing Parthenon. Arkhaios Neōs was destroyed by the Persian invasion in 480 BC, however, the temple may have been burnt down in 406/405 BC as Xenophon mentions that the old temple of Athena was set on fire
8.
Pausanias (geographer)
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Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the time of Roman emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece, a work that describes ancient Greece from his first-hand observations. This work provides crucial information for making links between classical literature and modern archaeology, andrew Stewart assesses him as, A careful, pedestrian writer. interested not only in the grandiose or the exquisite but in unusual sights and obscure ritual. He is occasionally careless, or makes unwarranted inferences, and his guides or even his own notes sometimes mislead him, yet his honesty is unquestionable, before visiting Greece, he had been to Antioch, Joppa and Jerusalem, and to the banks of the River Jordan. In Egypt, he had seen the pyramids, while at the temple of Ammon, in Macedonia, he appears to have seen the alleged tomb of Orpheus in Libethra. Crossing over to Italy, he had something of the cities of Campania. He was one of the first to write of seeing the ruins of Troy, Alexandria Troas, Pausanias Description of Greece is in ten books, each dedicated to some portion of Greece. He begins his tour in Attica, where the city of Athens, subsequent books describe Corinthia, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaea, Arcadia, Boetia, Phocis and Ozolian Locris. He famously leaves out key portions of Greece such as Crete, the project is more than topographical, it is a cultural geography. Pausanias digresses from description of architectural and artistic objects to review the mythological and historical underpinnings of the society that produced them and his work bears the marks of his attempt to navigate that space and establish an identity for Roman Greece. He is not a naturalist by any means, though he does from time to comment on the physical realities of the Greek landscape. He notices the pine trees on the sandy coast of Elis, the deer and the boars in the oak woods of Phelloe. Pausanias is most at home in describing the art and architecture of Olympia. Yet, even in the most secluded regions of Greece, he is fascinated by all kinds of depictions of gods, holy relics, Pausanias has the instincts of an antiquary. Some magnificent and dominating structures, such as the Stoa of King Attalus in the Athenian Agora or the Exedra of Herodes Atticus at Olympia are not even mentioned. While he never doubts the existence of the gods and heroes, he criticizes the myths. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned and they bear the impression of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance, when he quotes a book at second hand he takes pains to say so
9.
Propylaea
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A propylaea, propylea or propylaia is any monumental gateway in Greek architecture. Much the best known Greek example is the propylaea that serves as the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens, the Greek Revival Brandenburg Gate of Berlin and the Propylaea in Munich both evoke the central portion of the Athens propylaea. According to Plutarch, the Propylaea was designed by the architect Mnesicles, construction began in 437 BC and was terminated in 432, when the building was still unfinished. The Propylaea was constructed of white Pentelic marble and gray Eleusinian marble or limestone, structural iron was also used, though William Bell Dinsmoor analyzed the structure and concluded that the iron weakened the building. The structure consists of a building with two adjoining wings on the west side, one to the north and one to the south. The core is the building, which presents a standard six-columned Doric façade both on the West to those entering the Acropolis and on the east to those departing. The columns echo the proportions of the columns of the Parthenon, there is no surviving evidence for sculpture in the pediments. The central building contains the gate wall, about two-thirds of the way through it, the central passageway was the culmination of the Sacred Way, which led to the Acropolis from Eleusis. Entrance into the Acropolis was controlled by the Propylaea, though it was not built as a fortified structure, it was important that people not ritually clean be denied access to the sanctuary. In addition, runaway slaves and other miscreants could not be permitted into the sanctuary where they could claim the protection of the gods, the state treasury was also kept on the Acropolis, making its security important. The gate wall and the portion of the building sit at a level five steps above the western portion. The ceiling in the part of the central building was famous in antiquity. It consisted of marble blocks carved in the shape of ceiling coffers, the outer wings to the right and left of the central building stood on the same platform as the western portion of the central building but were much smaller, not only in plan but in scale. Like the central building, the wings use Doric colonnades and Doric entablatures, the central building also has an Ionic colonnade on either side of the central passageway between the western Doric colonnade and the gate wall. This is therefore the first building known to us with Doric and Ionic colonnades visible at the same time and it is also the first monumental building in the classical period to be more complex than a simple rectangle or cylinder. The western wing on the north was famous in antiquity as the location of paintings of important Greek battles, Pausanias reports their presence, but few scholars believe the room was planned to hold them. Recent scholarship, following the lead of John Travlos, has taken the northern wing to have been a room for ritual dining, the evidence for that is the off-center doorway and the position near the entrance to the Acropolis. The wing on the south, though smaller, was clearly designed to make the whole structure appear to be symmetrical
10.
Strategos
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Strategos or Strategus, plural strategoi, is used in Greek to mean military general. In the Hellenistic world and the Byzantine Empire the term was used to describe a military governor. In the modern Hellenic Army it is the highest officer rank, the ten were of equal status, and replaced the polemarchos, who had hitherto been the senior military commander. At Marathon in 490 BC they decided strategy by majority vote, at this date the polemarchos had a casting vote, and one view is that he was the commander-in-chief, but from 486 onwards the polemarchos, like the other archontes, was appointed by lot. The annual election of the strategoi was held in the spring, if a strategos died or was dismissed from office, a by-election might be held to replace him. This system continued at least until ca, 356/7 BC, but by the time Aristotle wrote his Constitution of the Athenians in ca.330 BC, the appointments were made without any reference to tribal affiliation. Hence, during the Hellenistic period, although the number of the tribes was increased, as political power passed to the rhetores in the later 5th century, the strategoi were limited to their military duties. Originally, the strategoi were appointed ad hoc to various assignments and this was generalized in Hellenistic times, when each strategos was given specific duties. One of them, the strategos epi ta hopla, ascended to major prominence in the Roman period, the Athenian people kept a close eye on their strategoi. If the vote went against anyone, he was deposed and as a rule tried by jury, the strategos as an office is attested at least for Syracuse from the late 5th century BC, Erythrae, and in the koinon of the Arcadians in the 360s BC. The title of strategos autokrator was also used for generals with broad powers, thus Philip II of Macedon was elected as strategos autokrator of the League of Corinth. g. In the Hellenistic empires of the Diadochi, notably Lagid Egypt, for which most details are known, in Egypt, the strategoi were originally responsible for the Greek military colonists established in the country. Quickly, they assumed a role in the administration alongside the nomarches, the governor of each of the nomes. Already by the time of Ptolemy II, the strategos was the head of the administration, while conversely his military role declines. Ptolemy V established the office of epistrategos to oversee the individual strategoi, the latter had now become solely civilian officials, combining the role of the nomarches and the oikonomos, while the epistrategos retained powers of military command. In addition, hypostrategoi could be appointed as subordinates, the office largely retained its Ptolemaic functions and continued to be staffed by the Greek population of the country. The Odrysian kingdom of Thrace was also divided into strategiai, each headed by a strategos, based on the various Thracian tribes and subtribes. At the time of the annexation into the Roman Empire in 46 AD, there were 50 such districts, which were initially retained in the new Roman province
11.
Contrapposto
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Contrapposto is an Italian term that means counterpose. It is used in the arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips. This gives the figure a more dynamic, or alternatively relaxed appearance and it can also be used to refer to multiple figures which are in counter-pose to one another. It can further encompass the tension as a figure changes from resting on a leg to walking or running upon it. The leg that carries the weight of the body is known as the engaged leg, contrapposto is less emphasized than the more sinuous S Curve, and creates the illusion of past and future movement. Contrapposto was an important sculptural development, for its appearance marks the first time in Western art that the human body is used to express a psychological disposition. The balanced, harmonious pose of the Kritios Boy suggests a calm and relaxed state of mind, the first known statue to use contrapposto is Kritios Boy, c.480 BC, so called because it was once attributed to the sculptor Kritios. It is possible, even likely, that earlier bronze statues had used the technique, the statue is a Greek marble original and not a Roman copy. Prior to the introduction of contrapposto, the statues that dominated ancient Greece were the archaic kouros, contrapposto has been used since the dawn of classical western sculpture. The Polykletian statues – for example, Discophoros and Doryphoros – are idealized athletic young men with the divine sense, in these works, the pelvis is no longer axial with the vertical statue as in the archaic style of earlier Greek sculpture before Kritios Boy. Contrapposto can be seen in the Roman copies of the statues of Hermes and Heracles. A famous example is the statue of Hermes with the infant Dionysus in Olympia by Praxiteles. It can also be seen in the Roman copies of Polyclitus amazon, Greek Art emphasized humanism along with the human mind and the human body’s beauty. Greek youths trained and competed in contests in the nude. A great contribution to the pose was the concept of a canon of proportions. Classical contrapposto was revived in the Renaissance by the Italian artists Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci, followed by Michelangelo, Raphael, one of the major achievements of the Italian Renaissance was the re-discovery of contrapposto, although in Mannerism it became greatly over-used. The technique continues to be employed in sculpture
12.
Corinthian helmet
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The Corinthian helmet originated in ancient Greece and took its name from the city-state of Corinth. It was a made of bronze which in its later styles covered the entire head and neck, with slits for the eyes. A large curved projection protected the nape of the neck, out of combat, a Greek hoplite would wear the helmet tipped upward for comfort. This practice gave rise to a series of variant forms in Italy, numerous examples of Corinthian helmets have been excavated, and they are frequently depicted on pottery. The Corinthian helmet was depicted on more sculpture than any other helmet, it seems the Greeks romantically associated it with glory, the Romans also revered it, from copies of Greek originals to sculpture of their own. Given many Roman appropriations of ancient Greek ideas, this change was inspired by the over the forehead position common in Greek art. This helmet remained in use well into the 1st century AD, herodotus mentions the Corinthian helmet in his Histories when writing of the Machlyes and Auseans, two tribes living along the River Triton in ancient Libya. The tribes chose annually two teams of the fairest maidens who fought each other ceremonially with sticks and stones and they were dressed in the finest Greek panoply topped off with a Corinthian helmet. The ritual fight was part of a festival honoring the virgin goddess Athena, young women who succumbed to their wounds during the ordeal were thought to have been punished by the goddess for lying about their virginity. An earlier version of the Corinthian helmet is worn by the Marvel Comics super villain Magneto
13.
Ancient Greek comedy
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Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy, New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that comedy is a representation of laughable people, C. A. Trypanis wrote that comedy is the last of the great species of poetry Greece gave to the world. These divisions appear to be arbitrary, and ancient comedy almost certainly developed constantly over the years. The most important Old Comic dramatist is Aristophanes, born in 446 B. C. his works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively define the genre today. He was one of a number of comic poets working in Athens in the late 5th century, his most important contemporary rivals being Hermippus. The Old Comedy subsequently influenced later European writers such as Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, in particular, they copied the technique of disguising a political attack as buffoonery. For ancient scholars, the term may have meant little more than later than Aristophanes and his contemporaries, for at least a time, mythological burlesque was popular among the Middle Comic poets. Stock characters of all sorts also emerge, courtesans, parasites, revellers, philosophers, boastful soldiers, because no complete Middle Comic plays have been preserved, it is impossible to offer any real assessment of their literary value or genius. But many Middle Comic plays appear to have revived in Sicily and Magna Graecia in this period, suggesting that they had considerable widespread literary. New Comedy followed the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and lasted throughout the reign of the Macedonian rulers and it is comparable to situation comedy and comedy of manners. The three best-known playwrights belonging to this genre are Menander, Philemon and Diphilus, Menander was the most successful of these three comedians. His comedies not only provided their audience with a respite from reality. This led an ancient critic to ask if life influenced Menander in the writing of his plays or if the case was vice versa and this seems to be what made him more successful than the other Greek comedians who wrote in the same genre. These plays were much less satirical than preceding comedies, the other two comedians are Philemon and Diphilus. Philemon was a comedian whose comedies dwelt on philosophical issues and Diphilus was a comedian whose comedies were noted for their broad comedy, philemons comedies survive only in fragments, but Diphilus comedies were translated and adapted by Plautus. Examples of these comedies are Plautus Asinaria and Rudens, based on the translation and adaptation of Diphilus comedies by Plautus, one can conclude that he was skilled in the construction of his plots. Substantial fragments of New Comedy have survived, but no complete plays, the most substantially preserved text is the Dyskolos by Menander, discovered on a papyrus, and first published in 1958
14.
Athenian democracy
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Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens. It was a system of democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation. The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles, after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides, the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification rather than the Periclean system, Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable. Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes contributed to the development of Athenian democracy and he broke up the power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived rather than on their wealth. The word democracy combines the elements dêmos and krátos, and thus means literally people power, in the words monarchy and oligarchy, the second element comes from archē, meaning beginning, and hence also first place or power, sovereignty. One might expect the term demarchy to have adopted, by analogy. However, the word demarchy had already taken and meant mayoralty. We are not certain that the democracy was extant when systems that came to be called democratic were first instituted. The word is attested in Herodotus, who some of the earliest surviving Greek prose. Around 460 BC an individual is known with the name of Democrates, a name possibly coined as a gesture of democratic loyalty, Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime. Aristotle cites many other cities as well, yet, it is only with reference to Athens that we can attempt to trace some of specific sixth century events that led to the institution of democracy at the end of the century. Before the first attempt at government, Athens was ruled by a series of archons or chief magistrates. The members of these institutions were generally aristocrats, who ruled the polis for their own advantage, in 621 BC Draco codified a set of notoriously harsh laws that were a clear expression of the power of the aristocracy over everybody else. This did not stop the aristocratic families feuding amongst themselves to obtain as much power as possible, however, the enfranchisement of the local laboring classes was succeeded by the development of chattel slavery, the enslavement of, in large part, foreigners. Solon, the mediator, reshaped the city by absorbing the traditional aristocracy in a definition of citizenship which allotted a political function to every resident of Attica. Athenians were not slaves but citizens, with the right, at the very least, under these reforms, the position of archon was opened to all with certain property qualifications, and a Boule, a rival council of 400, was set up
15.
Themistocles
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Themistocles was an Athenian politician and general. He was one of a new breed of politicians who rose to prominence in the early years of the Athenian democracy. As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower class Athenians, elected archon in 493 BC, he convinced the polis to increase the naval power of Athens, a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece, he fought at the Battle of Marathon, in the years after Marathon, and in the run up to the second Persian invasion he became the most prominent politician in Athens. He continued to advocate a strong Athenian navy, and in 483 BC he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes, during the second invasion, he was in effective command of the Greek allied navy at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. After the conflict ended, Themistocles continued to be pre-eminent among Athenian politicians, however, he aroused the hostility of Sparta by ordering Athens to be re-fortified, and his perceived arrogance began to alienate him from the Athenians. In 472 or 471 BC, he was ostracised, and went into exile in Argos, the Spartans now saw an opportunity to destroy Themistocles, and implicated him in the treasonous plot of their own general Pausanias. He was made governor of Magnesia, and lived there for the rest of his life, Themistocles died in 459 BC, probably of natural causes. Themistocless reputation was rehabilitated, and he was re-established as a hero of the Athenian cause. Themistocles can still reasonably be thought of as the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Greece from the Persian threat and his naval policies would have a lasting impact on Athens as well, since maritime power became the cornerstone of the Athenian Empire and golden age. Themistocles was born in Athens around 524 BC, the son of Neocles and his mother is more obscure, according to Plutarch, she was either a Thracian woman called Abrotonon, or Euterpe, a Carian from Halicarnassus. Like many contemporaries, little is known of his early years, some authors report that he was unruly as a child and was consequently disowned by his father. Plutarch considers this to be false, however, in an early example of his cunning, Themistocles persuaded well-born children to exercise with him in Cynosarges, thus breaking down the distinction between alien and legitimate. Plutarch further reports that Themistocles was preoccupied, even as a child and his teacher is said to have told him, My boy, you will be nothing insignificant, but definitely something great, either for good or evil. Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter to Lysander of Alopece, —Archeptolis, Polyeuctus, and Cleophantus, plato the philosopher mentions Cleophantus as a most excellent horseman, but otherwise insignificant person. And Themistocles had two older than these three, Neocles and Diocles. Neocles died when he was young by the bite of a horse, Themistocles grew up in a period of upheaval in Athens. The tyrant Peisistratos had died in 527 BC, passing power to his sons, Hipparchus, Hipparchus was murdered in 514 BC, and in response to this, Hippias became paranoid and started to rely increasingly on foreign mercenaries to keep a hold on power
16.
Lesbos
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Lesbos, sometimes referred to as Mytilini after its capital, is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of 1,632.819 square kilometres with 320 kilometres of coastline and it is separated from Turkey by the narrow Mytilini Strait and in late Palaeolithic/Mesolithic times was joined to the Anatolian mainland before the end of the last glacial period. Lesbos is a regional unit of the North Aegean region. The others are Chios, Ikaria, Lemnos, and Samos, the total number of islands governed by the North Aegean are nine, Lesbos, Chios, Psara, Oinousses, Ikaria, Fournoi Korseon, Lemnos, Agios Efstratios and Samos. The capital of the North Aegean Region is Mytilene, the population of Lesbos is approximately 86,000, a third of whom live in its capital, Mytilene, in the southeastern part of the island. The remaining population is distributed in small towns and villages, the largest are Plomari, Kalloni, the Gera Villages, Agiassos, Eresos, and Molyvos. In fact the archaeological and linguistic record may indicate a late Iron Age arrival of Greek settlers although references in Late Bronze Age Hittite archives indicate a likely Greek presence then, the name Mytilene itself seems to be of Hittite origin. According to Homers Iliad, however, Lesbos was part of the kingdom of Priam in what is now Turkey, much work remains to be done to determine just what was happening and when. In the Middle Ages, it was under Byzantine and then Genoese rule, Lesbos was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1462. The Ottomans then ruled the island until the First Balkan War in 1912, according to Classical Greek mythology, Lesbos was the patron god of the island. Macar was reputedly the first king whose many daughters bequeathed their names to some of the present larger towns, in Classical myth his sister, Canace, was killed to have him made king. The place names with female origins are likely to be much earlier settlements named after local goddesses, homer refers to the island as Macaros edos, the seat of Macar. The abundant grey pottery ware found on the island and the worship of Cybele, the island was governed by an oligarchy in archaic times, followed by quasi-democracy in classical times. For a short period it was a member of the Athenian confederacy, its apostasy from which is recounted by Thucydides in the Mytilenian Debate, in Hellenistic times, the island belonged to various Successor kingdoms until 79 BC when it passed into Roman hands. During the Middle Ages it belonged to the Byzantine Empire, in 802, the Byzantine Empress Irene was exiled to Lesbos after her deposition, and died there. The island served as a base for the fleet of the rebel Thomas the Slav in the early 820s. In the 10th century, it was part of the theme of the Aegean Sea, in the 1090s, the island was briefly occupied by the Turkish emir Tzachas, but he was unable to capture Methymna, which resisted throughout. In the 12th century, the became a frequent target for plundering raids by the Republic of Venice
17.
Hadrian's Villa
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The Hadrians Villa is a large Roman archaeological complex at Tivoli, Italy. It is a property of the Republic of Italy, and directed, the villa was constructed at Tibur as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD. Hadrian was said to dislike the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, the picturesque landscape around Tibur had made the area a popular choice for villas and rural retreats. It was reputedly popular with people from the Spanish peninsula resident in the city of Rome and this may have contributed to Hadrians choice of the property - although born in Rome his parents came from Spain and he may have been familiar with the area during his early life. There may also have been a connection through his wife Vibia Sabina who was the niece of the Emperor Trajan, sabinas family held large landholdings and it is speculated the Tibur property may have been one of them. A villa from the Republican era formed the basis for Hadrians establishment, during the later years of his reign, Hadrian actually governed the empire from the villa. Hadrian started using the Villa as his official residence around AD128, a large court therefore lived there permanently and large numbers of visitors and bureaucrats would have to have been entertained and temporarily housed on site. The postal service kept it in contact with Rome 29 km away, Hadrians parents had died when he was young and he and his sister were adopted by Trajan. It is possible that Hadrians court at the villa was predominately male but its likely that his childhood nurse Germana, after Hadrian, the villa was occasionally used by his various successors. Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra, possibly lived here in the 270s. During the decline of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, the facility was used as a warehouse by both sides during the destructive Gothic War between the Ostrogoths and Byzantines. Remains of lime kilns have been found, where marble from the complex was burned to extract lime for building material, in the 16th century, Cardinal Ippolito II dEste had much of the remaining marble and statues in Hadrians Villa removed to decorate his own Villa dEste located nearby. Since that period excavations have turned up more fragments and sculptures some of which have been kept in situ or housed on site in the display buildings. The buildings are constructed in travertine, brick, lime, pozzolana, the complex contains over 30 buildings, covering an area of at least 1 square kilometre of which much is still unexcavated. The site was due to its abundant waters and readily available aqueducts that passed through Rome, including Anio Vetus, Anio Nobus, Aqua Marcia. The area was known as the location of villas before Hadrian obtained the property - it was, and still is, the villa was the greatest Roman example of an Alexandrian garden, recreating a sacred landscape. The villa shows echoes of many different architectural styles, mostly Greek, Hadrian, a very well-traveled emperor, borrowed these designs, such as the caryatids by the Canopus, along with the statues beside them depicting the Egyptian dwarf and fertility god, Bes. Hadrians biography states that areas in the villa were named after places Hadrian saw during his travels, only a few places mentioned in the biography can be accurately correlated with the present-day ruins
18.
Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica
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Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica is a museum in Rome, Italy, featuring a collection of works acquired by the collector Giovanni Barracco, who donated his collection to the City of Rome in 1902. Among the works are Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician art, the 400 works of the collection are divided according to the civilization and are displayed in nine rooms, on the first and second floors, while the ground floor contains a small reception area. On the first floor Egyptian works are presented in Rooms I, room II includes works from Mesopotamia, including cuneiform tablets of the third millennium BCE and items from neo-Assyrian palaces dating from the ninth and seventh centuries BCE. The third room contains two important Phoenician items together with some Etruscan art, while the fourth displays works from Cyprus, the second floor exhibits classical art. Room V presents original sculptures and copies from the Roman period as well as Greek sculpture of the fifth century BCE, room VI displays copies of classical and late classical Roman work, along with funerary sculptures from Greece. Rooms VII and VIII, show a collection of Greek and Italic ceramics, the final room shows examples of works from public monuments of the Roman period, together with specimens of medieval art. Wounded Bitch, a sculpture by Lysippus, Fourth Century BC Official website Il Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica The Museum Volunteers Association in Italian
19.
Tivoli, Lazio
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Tivoli is a town and comune in Lazio, central Italy, about 30 kilometres east-north-east of Rome, at the falls of the Aniene river where it issues from the Sabine hills. The city offers a view over the Roman Campagna. Catillus and his three sons Tiburtus, Coras, and Catillus drove out the Siculi from the Aniene plateau, according to a more historical account, Tibur was instead a colony of Alba Longa. Historical traces of settlement in the date back to the 13th century BC. The citys name may share a root with the river Tiber. Virgil in his Aeneid makes Coras and the younger Catillus twin brothers, from Etruscan times Tibur, a Sabine city, was the seat of the Tiburtine Sibyl. In the nearby woods, Faunus had a sacred grove, at first an independent ally of Rome, Tibur allied itself with the Gauls in 361 BC. Vestiges remain of its walls of this period, in opus quadratum. In 338 BC, however, Tibur was defeated and absorbed by the Romans, the city acquired Roman citizenship in 90 BC and became a resort area famed for its beauty and its good water, and was enriched by many Roman villas. The most famous one, of which the ruins remain, is the Villa Adriana, maecenas and Augustus also had villas at Tibur, and the poet Horace had a modest villa, he and Catullus and Statius all mention Tibur in their poems. In 273, Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra, was assigned a residence here by the Emperor Aurelian. The 2nd-century temple of Hercules Victor is being excavated, the present Piazza del Duomo occupies the Roman forum. The name of the city came to be used in form as Tiburi instead of Tibur and so transformed through Tibori to Tiboli. But its inhabitants are still called Tiburtini and not Tivolesi, in 547, in the course of the Gothic War, the city was fortified by the Byzantine general Belisarius, but was later destroyed by Totilas army. After the end of the war it became a Byzantine duchy, after Italy was conquered by Charlemagne, Tivoli was under the authority of a count, representing the emperor. From the 10th century onwards Tivoli, as an independent commune governed by its elected consuls, was the fiercest rival of Rome in the struggle for the control over the impoverished central Lazio, Emperor Otto III conquered it in 1001, and Tivoli fell under the papal control. Reminders of the turbulence of communal life are the tower houses that may be seen in Vicolo dei Ferri, Via di Postera, Via del Seminario. In the 13th century Rome imposed a tribute on the city, in the 14th century Tivoli sided with the Guelphs and strongly supported Urban VI against Antipope Clement VII
20.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
21.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
