1.
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
2.
Manuscript
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A manuscript is any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to being mechanically printed or reproduced in some automated way. More recently, it is understood to be a written, typed, or word-processed copy of a work. Before the arrival of printing, all documents and books were manuscripts, manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, explanatory figures or illustrations. Manuscripts may be in form, scrolls or in codex format. Illuminated manuscripts are enriched with pictures, border decorations, elaborately embossed initial letters or full-page illustrations. The traditional abbreviations are MS for manuscript and MSS for manuscripts, while the forms MS. ms or ms. for singular, and MSS. mss or mss. for plural are also accepted. The second s is not simply the plural, by an old convention, it doubles the last letter of the abbreviation to express the plural, just as pp. means pages. Before the invention of printing in China or by moveable type in a printing press in Europe. Historically, manuscripts were produced in form of scrolls or books, manuscripts were produced on vellum and other parchment, on papyrus, and on paper. In Russia birch bark documents as old as from the 11th century have survived, in India, the palm leaf manuscript, with a distinctive long rectangular shape, was used from ancient times until the 19th century. Paper spread from China via the Islamic world to Europe by the 14th century, when Greek or Latin works were published, numerous professional copies were made simultaneously by scribes in a scriptorium, each making a single copy from an original that was declaimed aloud. Manuscripts in Tocharian languages, written on leaves, survived in desert burials in the Tarim Basin of Central Asia. Volcanic ash preserved some of the Roman library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, ironically, the manuscripts that were being most carefully preserved in the libraries of antiquity are virtually all lost. Originally, all books were in manuscript form, in China, and later other parts of East Asia, woodblock printing was used for books from about the 7th century. The earliest dated example is the Diamond Sutra of 868, in the Islamic world and the West, all books were in manuscript until the introduction of movable type printing in about 1450. Manuscript copying of books continued for a least a century, as printing remained expensive, private or government documents remained hand-written until the invention of the typewriter in the late 19th century. In the Philippines, for example, as early as 900AD, specimen documents were not inscribed by stylus and this type of document was rare compared to the usual leaves and bamboo staves that were inscribed. However, neither the leaves nor paper were as durable as the document in the hot
3.
Gloss (annotation)
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A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text, or in the language if that is different. A collection of glosses is a glossary, a collection of medieval legal glosses, made by glossators, is called an apparatus. The compilation of glosses into glossaries was the beginning of lexicography, in modern times a glossary, as opposed to a dictionary, is typically found in a text as an appendix of specialized terms that the typical reader may find unfamiliar. Also, satirical explanations of words and events are called glosses, the German Romantic movement used the expression of gloss for poems commenting on a given other piece of poetry, often in the Spanish Décima style. Glosses were originally made in the margin or between the lines of a text in a classical language, the meaning of a word or passage is explained by the gloss. Today parenthetical explanations in scientific writing and technical writing are often called glosses. Hyperlinks to a glossary sometimes supersede them, the word gloss was first used in the 1570s to refer to the insertion of a word as an explanation. It began to be used to mean to explain away in the 1630s, glosses and other marginal notes were a primary format used in medieval Biblical theology, and were studied and memorized for their own merit. Many Biblical passages came to be associated with a particular gloss, in the medieval legal tradition, the glosses on Roman law and Canon law created standards of reference, so-called sedes materiae. In common law countries, the term judicial gloss refers to what is considered an authoritative or official interpretation of a statute or regulation by a judge, judicial glosses are often very important in avoiding contradictions between statutes, and determining the constitutionality of various provisions of law. A gloss, or glosa, is a verse in traditional Iberian literature and music which follows, glosses are of some importance in philology, especially if one language—usually, the language of the author of the gloss—has left few texts of its own. A series of glosses in the Old English language to Latin Bibles give us a running translation of Biblical texts in that language, glosses of Christian religious texts are also important for our knowledge of Old Irish. In linguistics, a gloss in running text may be marked by single quotation marks. For example, A Cossack longboat is called a chaika seagull, the moose gains its name from the Algonquian mus or mooz. A longer or more complex transcription may rely upon an interlinear gloss, such a gloss may be placed between a text and its translation when it is important to understand the structure of the language being glossed, and not just the overall meaning of the passage. Sign languages are typically transcribed word-for-word by means of a written in the predominant oral language in all capitals, American Sign Language. Prosody is often glossed as superscript words, with its scope indicated by brackets, pure fingerspelling is usually indicated by hyphenation
4.
History of literature
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Some recorded materials, such as compilations of data are not considered literature, and this article relates only to the evolution of the works defined above. Literature and writing, though connected, are not synonymous, scholars have often disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like literature than anything else, the definition is largely subjective. Moreover, given the significance of distance as a cultural isolator in earlier centuries, the historical development of literature did not occur at an even pace across the world. Much has been written, for example, about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in the 1st century BC, the deliberate suppression of texts by organisations of either a spiritual or a temporal nature further shrouds the subject. Certain primary texts, however, may be isolated which have a role as literatures first stirrings. Many texts handed down by oral tradition over several centuries before they were fixed in form are difficult or impossible to date. The core of the Rigveda may date to the mid 2nd millennium BC, the Pentateuch is traditionally dated to the 15th century, although modern scholarship estimates its oldest part to date to the 10th century BC at the earliest. Homers Iliad and Odyssey date to the 8th century BC and mark the beginning of Classical Antiquity and they also stand in an oral tradition that stretches back to the late Bronze Age. The great Hindu epics were also transmitted orally, likely predating the Maurya period, the Classic of Poetry is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works by anonymous authors dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. The Chu Ci anthology is a volume of poems attributed to or considered to be inspired by Qu Yuans verse writing. Qu Yuan is the first author of verse in China to have his name associated to his work and is regarded as one of the most prominent figures of Romanticism in Chinese classical literature. The first great author on military tactics and strategy was Sun Tzu, among the earliest Chinese works of narrative history, Zuo Zhuan is a gem of classical Chinese prose. This work and the Shiji or Records of the Grand Historian, were regarded as the models by many generations of prose stylists in ancient China. The books that constitute the Hebrew Bible developed over roughly a millennium, the oldest texts seem to come from the eleventh or tenth centuries BCE, whilst most of the other texts are somewhat later. They are edited works, being collections of various sources intricately and carefully woven together, the Old Testament was compiled and edited by various men over a period of centuries, with many scholars concluding that the Hebrew canon was solidified by about the 3rd century BC. The works have been subject to various literary evaluations, friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “In the Jewish Old Testament, there are men, things and speeches in so grand a style that Greek and Indian literature have nothing to compare to it. One stands with awe and reverence before these tremendous remnants of what man once was, the taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone of greatness and smallness. ”Ancient Greek society placed considerable emphasis upon literature. Notable among later Greek poets was Sappho, who defined, in many ways, a playwright named Aeschylus changed Western literature forever when he introduced the ideas of dialogue and interacting characters to playwriting
5.
Eustathius of Thessalonica
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Eustathius of Thessalonica was a Greek scholar and Archbishop of Thessalonica. He was officially canonized on June 10,1988, and his feast day is on September 20, a pupil of Nicholas Kataphloron, Eustathius was appointed to the offices of superintendent of petitions, professor of rhetoric, and was ordained a deacon in Constantinople. He was ordained bishop of Myra, around the year 1178, he was appointed to the archbishopric of Thessalonica, where he remained until his death around 1195/1196. Accounts of his life and work are given in the orations by Euthymius. Niketas Choniates praised him as the most learned man of his age and he wrote commentaries on ancient Greek poets, theological treatises, addresses, letters, and an important account of the sack of Thessalonica by William II of Sicily in 1185. Of his works, his commentaries on Homer are the most widely referred to, other works exhibit impressive character, and oratorical power, which earned him the esteem of the Komnenoi emperors. Politically, Eustathios was a supporter of emperor Manuel I, an original thinker, Eustathios sometimes praised such secular values as military prowess. He decried slavery, and believed in the concept of progress of civilization from a primitive to a more advanced state. His most important works are the following, On the Capture of Thessalonica, the Greek text was edited by Kyriakidis, with an Italian translation by V. Rotolo, there is an English translation by J. Melville-Jones, and a German translation by H. Hunger. A number of orations, some of which have been edited by P. Wirth, in 2013 a translation of six of the earliest of these speeches was published with a commentary by Andrew F. Stone. Commentaries on Homers Iliad and Odyssey and these address questions of grammar, etymology, mythology, history and geography. They are not so much original commentaries as extracts from earlier commentators - there are many correspondences with Homeric scholia and this is a great tribute to the state of the libraries of Constantinople and of classical scholarship there in the 12th century. He was also a reader of the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus. Some of the etymological and grammatical comments by Eustathioss Alexandrian predecessors are full of errors, the first printed edition, by Majoranus, was published in Rome in 1542-1550, an inaccurate reprint being later published in Basel in 1559-1560. A. Potitus edition, contains only the commentary on the first five books of the Iliad with a Latin translation and these were superseded by the edition of M. van der Valk,1971 onwards. Extracts from the commentaries are quoted in editions of the Homeric poems. This is as diffuse as the commentary on Homer, but includes numerous valuable extracts from earlier writers, no manuscript of this has come to light, but the introduction survives. (The introduction was first published by Tafel in his Eustathii Thessalonicensis Opuscula, from which it was reprinted separately by Schneidewin, some were first published by Tafel in the 1832 Opuscula just mentioned, some appeared later, as by P. Wirth for the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae series
6.
Byzantine Empire under the Komnenos dynasty
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The Byzantine Empire or Byzantium is a term conventionally used by historians to describe the Greek ethnic and speaking Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople. Having survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, in the context of Byzantine history, the period from about 1081 to about 1185 is often known as the Komnenian or Comnenian period, after the Komnenos dynasty. Moreover, it was during the Komnenian period that contact between Byzantium and the Latin Christian West, including the Crusader states, was at its most crucial stage. Above all, the impact of Byzantine art on the west at this period was enormous. The Komnenoi also made a significant contribution to the history of Asia Minor, by reconquering much of the region, the Komnenoi set back the advance of the Turks in Anatolia by more than two centuries. In the process, they planted the foundations of the Byzantine successor states of Nicaea, Epirus, meanwhile, their extensive programme of fortifications has left an enduring mark upon the Anatolian landscape, which can still be appreciated today. The Komnenian era was born out of a period of great difficulty, in fact, most of the money was given away in the form of gifts to favourites of the emperor, extravagant court banquets, and expensive luxuries for the imperial family. Meanwhile, the remnants of the armed forces were allowed to decay. Elderly men with ill-maintained equipment mixed with new recruits who had never participated in a training exercise, the simultaneous arrival of aggressive new enemies – Turks in the east and Normans in the west – was another contributory factor. In 1040, the Normans, originally landless mercenaries from northern parts of Europe in search of plunder, in order to deal with them, a mixed force of mercenaries and conscripts under the formidable George Maniakes was sent to Italy in 1042. Maniakes and his army conducted a successful campaign, but before it could be concluded he was recalled to Constantinople. Angered by a series of outrages against his wife and property by one of his rivals, he was proclaimed emperor by his troops, however, a mortal wound led to his death shortly afterwards. With opposition thus absent in the Balkans, the Normans were able to complete the expulsion of the Byzantines from Italy by 1071, despite the seriousness of this loss, it was in Asia Minor that the empires greatest disaster would take place. With imperial armies weakened by years of insufficient funding and civil warfare, Emperor Romanos Diogenes realised that a time of re-structuring, consequently, he attempted to lead a defensive campaign in the east until his forces had recovered enough to defeat the Seljuks. However, he suffered a defeat at the hands of Alp Arslan at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Romanos was captured, and although the Sultans peace terms were fairly lenient, on his release, Romanos found that his enemies had conspired against him to place their own candidate on the throne in his absence. After two defeats in battle against the rebels, Romanos surrendered and suffered a death by torture. The new ruler, Michael Doukas, refused to honour the treaty that had signed by Romanos
7.
Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty
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From the start, the régime faced numerous problems. The Turks of Asia Minor had since 1263 been raiding and expanding into Byzantine territory in Asia Minor, Anatolia, which had formed the very heart of the shrinking empire, was systematically lost to numerous Turkic ghazis, whose raids evolved into conquering expeditions inspired by Islamic zeal. By 1380, the Byzantine Empire consisted of the capital Constantinople and a few other isolated exclaves, the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire, the Despotate of the Morea and the Empire of Trebizond, fell shortly afterwards. However, the Palaiologan period witnessed a flourishing in art. The migration of Byzantine scholars to the West also helped to spark the Renaissance in Italy, in addition, the disintegration of the Byzantine Empire allowed the Bulgarians, the Serbs and the various Turcoman emirates of Anatolia to make gains. Although Epirus was initially the strongest of the three Greek states, the Nicaeans were the ones who succeeded in taking back the city of Constantinople from the Latin Empire, the Nicaean Empire was successful in holding its own against its Latin and Seljuk opponents. At the Battle of Meander Valley, a Turkic force was repelled, in the west, the Latins were unable to expand into Anatolia, consolidating Thrace against Bulgaria was a challenge that kept the Latins occupied for the duration of the Latin Empire. In 1261, the Empire of Nicaea was ruled by John IV Laskaris, however, John IV was overshadowed by his co-emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos. In 1261, while the bulk of the Latin Empires military forces were absent from Constantinople, Thrace, Macedonia and Thessalonica had already been taken by Nicaea in 1246. Following the capture of Constantinople, Michael ordered the blinding of John IV in December 1261, as a result, Patriarch Arsenios excommunicated Michael, but he was deposed and replaced by Joseph I. The Fourth Crusade and their successors, the Latin Empire, had much to reduce Byzantiums finest city to an underpopulated wreck. Michael VIII began the task of restoring many monasteries, public buildings, the Hagia Sophia, horribly looted in the Crusade of 1204, was refurbished to Greek Orthodox tradition. The Kontoskalion harbour and the walls of Constantinople were all strengthened against a new expedition by the Latin West. Many hospitals, hospices, markets, baths, streets and churches were built, even a new Mosque was built to compensate for the one burnt during the Fourth Crusade. These attempts were costly and crippling taxes were placed on the peasantry, nonetheless, the city grew new cultural and diplomatic contacts, notably with the Mamelukes. Both had common enemies, Latin aggression, and later on, the Sultanate of Rum was in chaos and decentralized ever since the Mongol invasions in ca. The situation became worse when Charles of Anjou, brother of the King of France, in 1267, Pope Clement IV arranged a pact, whereby Charles would receive land in the East in return for assisting a new military expedition to Constantinople. Unfortunately for Michael VIII, the new union was seen as a fake by the Clements successor, the Greek Church was excommunicated, and Charles was given renewed Papal support for the invasion of Constantinople
8.
Homer
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Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
9.
Iliad
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The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly. The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC. Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution gives a date of 760–710 BC, in the modern vulgate, the Iliad contains 15,693 lines, it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects. Note, Book numbers are in parentheses and come before the synopsis of the book, after an invocation to the Muses, the story launches in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besieging Greeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive of Agamemnon, although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollos help, and Apollo causes a plague to afflict the Greek army, after nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon but will go home. Odysseus takes a ship and returns Chryseis to her father, whereupon Apollo ends the plague, in the meantime, Agamemnons messengers take Briseis away. Achilles becomes very upset, sits by the seashore, and prays to his mother, Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to bring the Greeks to the breaking point by the Trojans, so Agamemnon will realize how much the Greeks need Achilles. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees, Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Agamemnon heeds the dream but decides to first test the Greek armys morale, the plan backfires, and only the intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout. Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnons war. After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain, the poet takes the opportunity to describe the provenance of each Greek contingent. When news of the Greek deployment reaches King Priam, the Trojans too sortie upon the plain, in a list similar to that for the Greeks, the poet describes the Trojans and their allies. The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by his brother and head of the Trojan army, Hector. While Helen tells Priam about the Greek commanders from the walls of Troy, Paris is beaten, but Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with Helen before Menelaus can kill him
10.
Biblioteca Marciana
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The library is named after St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice. It is not to be confused with the State Archive of the Republic of Venice, the library was provided with a building designed by Jacopo Sansovino. The first sixteen arcaded bays of his design were constructed during 1537 to 1553, with work on frescoes, one of the early librarians, from 1530, was Pietro Bembo. However, the stock began to be collected before the construction of the building. The Marciana was enriched by the transfer in the eighteenth century of the collections accumulated in several monasteries. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice and S, major additions made to the collection include,1589, Melchiorre Guilandino of Marienburg,1595, Jacopo Contarini da S. The Library has since expanded back into its adjacent original quarters, today, besides about a million printed books, the Biblioteca Marciana contains about 13,000 manuscripts and 2883 incunabula and 24,055 works printed between 1500 and 1600. Among the irreplaceable treasures are unique scores of operas by Francesco Cavalli and sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti
11.
Venetus A
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Venetus A is the more common name for the tenth century AD manuscript catalogued in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice as Codex Marcianus Graecus 454, now 822. Venetus A is the most famous manuscript of the Homeric Iliad, as a result, the task of tracing their contents to their sources is extraordinarily difficult and obscure. The study of the Iliadic scholia is a significant ongoing topic in Homeric scholarship. The A scholia, for which Venetus A is by far the most important source, derive from the so-called VMK, named for the four ancient scholars Aristonicus, Didymus, Herodian, and Nicanor. The main source for the A scholia was probably a compilation of their work, because all four of these scholars worked in the tradition of the Alexandrian scholar Aristarchus, much of the A scholia can be traced back to Aristarchus himself. The relationship between the A scholia and other branches of the Iliadic scholia, however, is more debatable. A text which does not survive, known as ApH for its authors Apion, two stemmata or family trees for Venetus A may be summarised from the work of van der Valk and Erbse respectively, Of the two, Erbses viewpoint tends to be the more highly regarded. Another important source that feeds into A is a group of scholia on mythographical and allegorical topics, the current standard edition of the Iliads scholia, that of Erbse, omits these scholia. On the origins of the Proclean Chrestomathy which is preserved in Venetus A, see also Epic Cycle. Venetus A was created in the tenth century AD, all text on the manuscript dates to the same period, including the Iliad text, critical marks, and two sets of scholia in different writing styles. The twelfth century Byzantine scholar and archbishop Eustathius, even if he never saw the manuscript itself, certainly knew texts which were related to it. At some point Venetus A was transported to Italy, but how, at one point it was thought that Giovanni Aurispa brought it there. Aurispa already owned the two volumes in 1421, this suggests that he may have them back from a trip to Greece in 1413. For a long time it was thought that two volumes were Venetus A and Venetus B. Venetus A came into the possession of Cardinal Bessarion, the Greek immigrant and scholar, Bessarion collected over a thousand books in the fifteenth century, including the only complete text of Athenaios Deipnosophistai, the autograph of Planudes Greek Anthology, and Venetus A. In 1468, Bessarion donated his library to the Republic of Venice, and this collection became the core of the Biblioteca Marciana. Bessarion made a condition that scholars wishing to consult the library should deposit books, the earliest known scholar to have used Venetus A as a source is Martinus Phileticus in the 1480s, in this he was followed by Vettore Fausto in 1546 or 1547. In 1554, Bessarions library was transferred to the designed for it by Sansovino
12.
Homeric scholarship
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Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in scholarship, for the purpose of the present article, Homeric scholarship is divided into three main phases, antiquity, the 18th and 19th centuries, and the 20th century and later. Scholia are ancient commentaries, initially written in the margins of manuscripts, not necessarily at the bottom, as are their modern equivalents, some are interlinear, written in very small characters. Over time the scholia were copied along with the work, when the copyist ran out of free text space, he listed them on separate pages or in separate works. Today’s equivalents are the notes or the notes section at the end of the book. Notes are merely a continuation of the practice of creating or copying scholia in printed works, although the incunabula, the works of Homer have been heavily annotated from their written beginnings. The total number of notes on manuscripts and printed editions of the Iliad, the number of manuscripts of the Iliad is currently approximately 1800. The papyri of the Odyssey are less in number but are still in the order of dozens, the inventory is incomplete, and new finds continue to be made, but not all these texts contain scholia. No compendium has collated all of the Homeric scholia, following the Principle of Economy, the allocation of scarce publication space to overwhelming numbers of scholia, the compilers have had to make decisions about what is important enough to compile. Certain types, or lines, have distinguished, scholia have lines of descent of their own. The sources of the scholia are noted at the end of each book and their comments, and these scholia, are termed critical. A-scholia are found in manuscripts as well. Venetus A contains some bT scholia, the bT manuscripts descend from an earlier c. bT scholia are termed exegetical, as opposed to critical. They are from Porphyry and Heraclitus, with some from Didymus, the D scholia, or scholia Didymi, named erroneously for Didymus, are the earliest and largest group. They occur primarily in the 9th century Z, and the 11th century Q, but also in others, such as A and T. ”Some are also called the scholia minora and the scholia vulgata. Among the non-minor scholia are mythological aetia, plots, and paraphrases, the order of precedence and chronological order of these Iliad scholia is D, A, bT, and other. Material in them probably ranges from the 5th century BCE to as late as the 7th or 8th century CE, the same scheme applies to the Odyssey, except that A scholia, mainly of the Iliad, are in deficit
13.
Hesiod
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Hesiod was a Greek poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as a persona with an active role to play in his subject. Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs, modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping. The dating of his life is an issue in scholarly circles. Epic narrative allowed poets like Homer no opportunity for personal revelations, however, Hesiods extant work comprises didactic poems in which he went out of his way to let his audience in on a few details of his life. There are three references in Works and Days, as well as some passages in his Theogony that support inferences made by scholars. Some scholars have seen Perses as a creation, a foil for the moralizing that Hesiod develops in Works and Days. Gregory Nagy, on the hand, sees both Persēs and Hēsiodos as fictitious names for poetical personae. The family association with Cyme might explain his familiarity with eastern myths, evident in his poems, however, while his poetry features some Aeolisms there are no words that are certainly Boeotian—he composed in the main literary dialect of the time, Ionian. Pausanias asserted that Boeotians showed him an old tablet made of lead on which the Works were engraved. If he did write or dictate, it was perhaps as an aid to memory or because he lacked confidence in his ability to produce poems extempore and it certainly wasnt in a quest for immortal fame since poets in his era had no such notions. However, some suspect the presence of large-scale changes in the text. Possibly he composed his verses during idle times on the farm and he was in fact a misogynist of the same calibre as the later poet, Semonides. He resembles Solon in his preoccupation with issues of good versus evil and how a just and he resembles Aristophanes in his rejection of the idealised hero of epic literature in favour of an idealised view of the farmer. Yet the fact that he could eulogise kings in Theogony and denounce them as corrupt in Works, two different—yet early—traditions record the site of Hesiods grave. This tradition follows a familiar ironic convention, the oracle that predicts accurately after all, the other tradition, first mentioned in an epigram by Chersias of Orchomenus written in the 7th century BC claims that Hesiod lies buried at Orchomenus, a town in Boeotia. Eventually they came to regard Hesiod too as their hearth-founder, later writers attempted to harmonize these two accounts. Greeks in the fifth and early 4th centuries BC considered their oldest poets to be Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod
14.
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
15.
Sophocles
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Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were later than those of Aeschylus. He competed in 30 competitions, won 18, and was never judged lower than second place, Aeschylus won 14 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won 5 competitions. Sophocles influenced the development of drama, most importantly by adding a third actor and he also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus. Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, was a member of the rural deme of Hippeios Colonus in Attica, which was to become a setting for one of his plays. Sophocles was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, Sophocles was born into a wealthy family and was highly educated. Sophocles first artistic triumph was in 468 BC, when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the master of Athenian drama. According to Plutarch, the victory came under unusual circumstances, instead of following the usual custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other strategoi present to decide the victor of the contest. Plutarch further contends that following this loss Aeschylus soon left for Sicily, although Plutarch says that this was Sophocles first production, it is now thought that his first production was probably in 470 BC. Triptolemus was probably one of the plays that Sophocles presented at this festival, in 480 BC Sophocles was chosen to lead the paean, celebrating the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. Early in his career, the politician Cimon might have one of his patrons, although if he was, there was no ill will borne by Pericles, Cimons rival. In 443/2 he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, in 420 BC, he welcomed and set up an altar for the image of Asclepius at his house, when the deity was introduced to Athens. For this, he was given the posthumous epithet Dexion by the Athenians and he was also elected, in 413 BC, one of the commissioners who responded to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. Sophocles died at the age of ninety or ninety-one in the winter of 406/5 BC, as with many famous men in classical antiquity, his death inspired a number of apocryphal stories. The most famous is the suggestion that he died from the strain of trying to recite a long sentence from his Antigone without pausing to take a breath, another account suggests he choked while eating grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens. A third holds that he died of happiness after winning his final victory at the City Dionysia, one of his sons, Iophon, and a grandson, also called Sophocles, also became playwrights. Several ancient sources mention Sophocles homosexuality or bisexuality, Athenaios reported that Sophocles loved boys like Euripides loved women. The poet Ion of Chios relates an anecdote involving Sophocles seducing a serving boy at a symposium, Aeschylus, who dominated Athenian playwriting during Sophocles early career, followed suit and adopted the third character into his own work towards the end of his life
16.
Aristophanes
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Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete and these, together with fragments of some of his other plays, provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, and are used to define it. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy and his second play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. In my opinion, he says through the Chorus in that play, less is known about Aristophanes than about his plays. In fact, his plays are the source of information about him. It was conventional in Old Comedy for the Chorus to speak on behalf of the author during a called the parabasis. However, these facts relate almost entirely to his career as a dramatist, Aristophanes claimed to be writing for a clever and discerning audience, yet he also declared that other times would judge the audience according to its reception of his plays. He sometimes boasts of his originality as a dramatist yet his plays consistently espouse opposition to new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts, in politics, such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes was an old-fashioned conservative, yet that view of him leads to contradictions. It has been argued that Aristophanes produced plays mainly to entertain the audience, an elaborate series of lotteries, designed to prevent prejudice and corruption, reduced the voting judges at the City Dionysia to just five in number. These judges probably reflected the mood of the audiences yet there is uncertainty about the composition of those audiences. The theatres were certainly huge, with seating for at least 10000 at the Theatre of Dionysus, the conservative views expressed in the plays might therefore reflect the attitudes of the dominant group in an unrepresentative audience. The production process might also have influenced the views expressed in the plays, throughout most of Aristophanes career, the Chorus was essential to a plays success and it was recruited and funded by a choregus, a wealthy citizen appointed to the task by one of the archons. Thus the political conservatism of the plays may reflect the views of the wealthiest section of Athenian society, when Aristophanes first play The Banqueters was produced, Athens was an ambitious, imperial power and the Peloponnesian War was only in its fourth year. His plays often express pride in the achievement of the older generation yet they are not jingoistic, the plays are particularly scathing in criticism of war profiteers, among whom populists such as Cleon figure prominently. However it is whether he led or merely responded to changes in audience expectations. Aristophanes won second prize at the City Dionysia in 427 BC with his first play The Banqueters and he won first prize there with his next play, The Babylonians. Some influential citizens, notably Cleon, reviled the play as slander against the polis, Cleon also seems to have had no real power to limit or control Aristophanes, the caricatures of him continued up to and even beyond his death
17.
Apollonius of Rhodes
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Apollonius of Rhodes, is best known as the author of the Argonautica, an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. In fact almost nothing at all is known about Apollonius and even his connection with Rhodes is a matter for speculation, the most reliable information we have about ancient poets is largely drawn from their own works. Unfortunately, Apollonius of Rhodes reveals nothing about himself. Oxy,1241, which provides names of several heads of the Library of Alexandria. Other scraps can be gleaned from miscellaneous texts, the reports from all the above sources however are scanty and often self-contradictory. The two Lives and the Suda name Apollonius father as Silleus or Illeus, but both names are rare and may derive from σίλλος or lampoon, suggesting a comic source. The second Life names his mother as Rhode, but this is unlikely, Rhodē means Rhodian woman, and is almost certainly derived from an attempt to explain Apollonius epithet Rhodian. The Lives, the Suda, and the geographical writer Strabo say that he came from Alexandria, Athenaeus and Aelian say that he came from Naucratis, no source gives the date of his birth. The Lives and the Suda agree that Apollonius was a student of the poet, Vita B states that Callimachus was his instructor in rhetoric, but the terminology is anachronistic. Moreover, in ancient biographies pupil and student are figures of speech designating the influence one poet may have exercised over another, head of the Library of Alexandria. The second Life, the Suda, and P. Oxy,1241 attest that Apollonius held this post. 1241 bears some signs of confusion since it lists Apollonius under Ptolemy I Soter, the Suda says that Apollonius succeeded Eratosthenes, but this doesnt fit the evidence either. There was another Alexandrian librarian named Apollonius and this may have caused some of the confusion, the epithet Rhodios or Rhodian indicates that Apollonius had some kind of association with the island of that name. The Lives and the Suda attest to his move there from Alexandria and they differ about whether he died in Rhodes or came back to Alexandria to take up the position of head of the Library. According to Vita A, he was a teacher in Rhodes. In fact the epithet of Rhodes need not indicate any physical association with the island and it might simply reflect the fact that he once wrote a poem about Rhodes. According to Athenaeus, he was called the Naucratite. Some modern scholars doubt that he was given that title but, if he was. Only the two Lives give information about Apollonius death, and they disagree, the first reports that he died in Rhodes, the second reports that he died after returning to Alexandria and adds that some say he was buried with Callimachus
18.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
19.
Maurus Servius Honoratus
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These works, In tria Virgilii Opera Expositio, constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence, by Bernardo Cennini,1471. In the Saturnalia of Macrobius, Servius appears as one of the interlocutors, allusions in that work, the commentary on Virgil has survived in two distinct manuscript traditions. The first is a short commentary, which is attributed to Servius in the superscription in the manuscripts. A second class of manuscripts, all deriving from the 10th and 11th centuries, the added matter is undoubtedly ancient, dating from a time but little removed from that of Servius, and is founded to a large extent on historical and antiquarian literature which is now lost. The writer is anonymous and probably a Christian, although not if, as is often suggested, a third class of manuscripts, written for the most part in Italy, gives the core text with interpolated scholia, which demonstrate the continued usefulness of the Virgilii Opera Expositio. The authentic commentary of Maurus Servius Honoratus is in effect the only complete extant edition of a classic author written before the collapse of the Empire in the West, Servius set his face against the prevalent allegorical methods of exposition of text. For the antiquarian and the historian, the value of his work lies in his preservation of facts in Roman history, religion, antiquities and language. Not a little of the erudition of Varro and other ancient scholars has survived in his pages. The edition of Georg Thilo and Hermann Hagen, remains the only edition of the whole of Servius work. Currently in development is the Harvard Servius, of the five volumes. E. K. Rand, Is Donatuss Commentary on Virgil Lost, Donatuss authorship of the supplementary material. Servio, stratificazioni esegetiche e modelli culturali / Servius, exegetical stratifications, Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article, Maurus Servius Honoratus Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil is at the Perseus Project in Latin. De Centum Metris at Intratext. com De Centum Metris at Forum Romanorum Servii grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, Georius Thilo, lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1881-1902, vol. 2, vol.3 part 1, vol.3 part 2
20.
Virgil
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Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature, the Eclogues, the Georgics, a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Romes greatest poets and his Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Virgils work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dantes Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through Hell, the tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists, modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgils father was of a background, however. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples, after considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. From Virgils admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, according to Servius, schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed Parthenias or maiden because of his social aloofness. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life, according to the Catalepton, he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples. A group of works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen poems, some of which may be Virgils, and another. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, the Eclogues are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. The loss of his farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgils motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues, the ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside,2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love and attraction toward people of any gender. Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called Messianic Eclogue uses the imagery of the age in connection with the birth of a child. Virgil came to many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus. At Maecenas insistence Virgil spent the years on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics which he dedicated to Maecenas
21.
Horace
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Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses and caustic iambic poetry and his career coincided with Romes momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavians right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas. Some of the writings contained in his writings can be supplemented from the short. He was born on 8 December 65 BC in the Samnite south of Italy and his home town, Venusia, lay on a trade route in the border region between Apulia and Lucania. Various Italic dialects were spoken in the area and this perhaps enriched his feeling for language and he could have been familiar with Greek words even as a young boy and later he poked fun at the jargon of mixed Greek and Oscan spoken in neighbouring Canusium. Literary Latin must have sounded to him like a semi-foreign language, one of the works he probably studied in school was the Odyssia of Livius Andronicus, crammed into Italian boys with threats and floggings by teachers like the Orbilius mentioned in one of his poems. School was made particularly irksome by a number of his fellow pupils, the army veterans could have been settled there at the expense of local families uprooted by Rome as punishment for their part in the Social War. Such state-sponsored migration must have added still more variety to the area. According to a tradition reported by Horace, a colony of Romans or Latins had been installed in Venusia after the Samnites had been driven out early in the third century. In that case, young Horace could have felt himself to be a Roman though there are indications that he regarded himself as a Samnite or Sabellus by birth. Italians in modern and ancient times have always been devoted to their towns, even after success in the wider world. Images of his setting and references to it are found throughout his poems. Horaces father was probably a Venutian taken captive by Romans in the Social War, either way, he was a slave for at least part of his life. He was evidently a man of strong abilities however and managed to gain his freedom, thus Horace claimed to be the free-born son of a prosperous coactor. The father spent a fortune on his sons education, eventually accompanying him to Rome to oversee his schooling. The poet later paid tribute to him in a poem that one scholar considers the best memorial by any son to his father. As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude, I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedmans son
22.
Terence
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Publius Terentius Afer, better known in English as Terence, was a Roman playwright during the Roman Republic, of Berber descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC, Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. Terence apparently died young, probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome, all of the six plays Terence wrote have survived. One famous quotation by Terence reads, Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, or I am human and this appeared in his play Heauton Timorumenos. He may have born in or near Carthage or in Greek Italy to a woman taken to Carthage as a slave. Terences cognomen Afer suggests he lived in the territory of the Libyan tribe called by the Romans Afri near Carthage prior to being brought to Rome as a slave. Later, after the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, it was used to refer to anyone from the land of the Afri and it is therefore most likely that Terence was of Libyan descent, considered ancestors to the modern-day Berber peoples. In any case, he was sold to P. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, Terence then took the nomen Terentius, which is the origin of the present form. He was a member of the so-called Scipionic Circle, when he was 25, Terence travelled to Greece and never returned. It is mostly believed that Terence died during the journey, before his disappearance he exhibited six comedies which are still in existence. According to some ancient writers, he died at sea, like Plautus, Terence adapted Greek plays from the late phases of Attic comedy. Terence wrote in a simple conversational Latin, and most students who persevere long enough to be able to him in the original find his style particularly pleasant. Aelius Donatus, Jeromes teacher, is the earliest surviving commentator on Terences work, there is evidence, however, that Terence was performed much earlier. The short dialogue Terentius et delusor was probably written to be performed as an introduction to a Terentian performance in the 9th century, due to his clear and entertaining language, Terences works were heavily used by monasteries and convents during the Middle Ages and The Renaissance. Scribes often learned Latin through the copying of Terences texts. Priests and nuns often learned to speak Latin through reenactment of Terences plays, although Terences plays often dealt with heretical material, the quality of his language promoted the copying and preserving of his text by the church. The preservation of Terence through the church enabled his work to much of later Western drama. Terences plays were a part of the Latin curriculum of the neoclassical period
23.
Cicero
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Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order. According to Michael Grant, the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature, Cicero introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars, following Julius Caesars death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. His severed hands and head were then, as a revenge of Mark Antony. Petrarchs rediscovery of Ciceros letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, according to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity. Cicero was born in 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome and his father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life, although little is known about Ciceros mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Ciceros brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife, Ciceros cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was given to one of Ciceros ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is likely that Ciceros ancestors prospered through the cultivation. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames, the family names of Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this name when he entered politics. During this period in Roman history, cultured meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek, Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience. It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite, according to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Ciceros fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the latter two became Ciceros friends for life, and Pomponius would become, in Ciceros own words, as a second brother, with both maintaining a lifelong correspondence. Cicero wanted to pursue a career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum
24.
Pro Milone
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The Pro Tito Annio Milone ad iudicem oratio is a speech made by Marcus Tullius Cicero on behalf of his friend Titus Annius Milo. Milo was accused of murdering his political enemy Publius Clodius Pulcher on the Via Appia, Cicero wrote the speech in 52 BCE. Milo was a praetor at the time who was attempting to gain the much-vaunted post of consul, Clodius was a former tribune standing for the office of praetor. The charge was brought against Milo for the death of Clodius following a violent altercation on the Via Appia, after the initial brawl, it seems that Clodius was wounded during the fight that was started by both mens slaves. Presumably, Cicero correctly realised that to be the primary weakness, when initially questioned about the circumstances of Clodius death, Milo responded with the excuse of self-defense and that it was Clodius who laid a trap for Milo to kill him. Cicero had to fashion his speech to be congruent with Milos initial excuse, in doing so, it also burnt down much of the curia, Clodius supporters also launched an attack on the house of the then interrex, Marcus Lepidus. Pompey thus ordered a special inquest to investigate that as well as the murder of Clodius, Cicero refers to this incident throughout the Pro Milone by implying that there was greater general indignation and uproar at the burning of the curia than there was at the murder of Clodius. The violent nature of the crime as well as its revolutionary repercussions made Pompey set up a panel of judges. Thus, he avoided the corruption, rife in the scene of the late Roman Republic. In addition, armed guards were stationed around the law courts to placate the violent mobs of both sides supporters, the first four days of the trial were dedicated to opposition argument and the testimony of witnesses. On the first day, Gaius Causinius Schola appeared as a witness against Milo and that worked up Clodius supporters, who terrified the advocate on Milos side, Marcus Marcellus. As he began his questioning of the witnesses, the crowd drowned out his voice, the action taken by Pompey prevented much furore from the vehemently anti-Milo crowds for the rest of the case. On the second day of the trial, the cohorts were introduced by Pompey. On the fifth and final day, Cicero delivered Pro Milone in the hope of reversing the damning evidence, throughout the duration of his speech, Cicero does not even attempt to convince the judges that Milo did not kill Clodius. Cicero claims that the killing of Clodius was lawful and in self-defense, Clodius, on the other hand, had been distinctly absent from his usual rantings in the popular assemblies. Milo was encumbered in a coach, with his wife, a riding cloak. Clodius, however, was on horseback not with a carriage, his wife or his usual retinue but with a band of armed brigands, if Cicero could convince the judges that Clodius had laid a trap for Milo, he could postulate that Milo murdered out of self-defense. Cicero never even mentions the possibility that the two met by chance, the conclusion of both Asconius and Appian, Clodius is made out repeatedly in the Pro Milone to be a malevolent, invidious, effeminate character who craves power and organises the ambush on Milo
25.
In Toga Candida
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In Toga Candida is a speech given by Cicero during his election campaign in 64 BC for the consulship of 63 BC. The speech was directed at his competitors, Catilina and Antonius, the speech no longer survives, though a commentary on it written by Asconius does survive. The speech is called Oratio in Toga Candida since candidates wore specially whitened togas, Cicero used his election campaign speech to denounce his rivals and hint at secret powers behind Catiline. The tactics were successful and he secured the consulship, the First Catilinarian Conspiracy, A further re-examination of the evidence Fragments of the speech and more information
26.
Aeneid
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The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter, the hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgils masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature, the Aeneid can be divided into two halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 and Books 7–12. These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgils ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odysseys wandering theme and the Iliads warfare themes and this is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme and an invocation to the Muse and he then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story, the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. This is consistent with her throughout the Homeric epics. Also in the manner of Homer, the story begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home and it has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be the cup bearer to her husband, Jupiter—replacing Junos daughter, Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe, Aeolus does not accept the bribe, but agrees to carry out Junos orders, the storm then devastates the fleet. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas rouses the spirits of his men, There, Aeneass mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and recounts to him the history of Carthage. At a banquet given in honour of the Trojans, Aeneas sadly recounts the events that occasioned the Trojans arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the war described in the Iliad, Cunning Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into the walled city of Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a warrior, Sinon, to inform the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laocoön saw through the Greek plot and urged the horses destruction, then, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, two serpents emerged from the sea and devoured Laocoön, along with his two sons. The Trojans then took the horse inside the walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged from it. In a dream, Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, advised Aeneas to flee with his family, Aeneas awoke and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was alone to fend off the Greeks
27.
Macrobius
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Only in later manuscripts were his names reversed as Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, which James Willis then adopted for his edition of the Commentary. Little is known for certain about Macrobius, but there are many theories and he states at the beginning of his Saturnalia that he was born under a foreign sky, and both of his major works are dedicated to his son, Eustachius. His major works have led experts to assume that he was a pagan, which foreign sky Macrobius was born under has been the subject of much speculation. Terrot Glover considers Macrobius either an ethnic Greek, or born in one of the Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire, such as Egypt, J. E. Sandys went further and argued that Macrobius was born in one of the Greek provinces. Scholars have attempted to identify him with a Macrobius who is mentioned in the Codex Theodosianus as a prefect of Spain. The Codex Theodosianus also records a praepositus named Macrobius in 422, a number of older authorities go so far as to identify Macrobius the author with the first, and date his floruit to 399–410. Further, Cameron points out that during his lifetime Macrobius was referred to as Theodosius and it is significant that the only surviving law addressed to this Theodosius sanctions a privilege for Africa Proconsularis on the basis of information received concerning Byzacena, Cameron notes. Macrobiuss most influential one of the most widely cited books of the Middle Ages—was a commentary in two books on the Dream of Scipio narrated by Cicero at the end of his Republic. In astronomy, this work is noted for giving the diameter of the Sun as twice the diameter of the Earth. Of a third work On the Differences and Similarities of the Greek and Latin Verb, we possess an abstract by a certain Johannes. See editions by Ludwig von Jan, Franz Eyssenhardt, James Willis, the grammatical treatise will be found in Jans edition and Heinrich Keils Grammatici latini, see also Georg Friedrich Schömann, Commentatio macrobiana. Macrobiuss Saturnalia consists of an account of the held at the house of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus during the holiday of the Saturnalia. It contains a variety of curious historical, mythological, critical, antiquarian. The work takes the form of a series of dialogues among learned men at a fictional banquet. The latter part of the book is taken up with a dissertation upon luxury and the sumptuary laws intended to check it. The seventh book consists largely of the discussion of various physiological questions, the primary value of the work lies in the facts and opinions quoted from earlier writers. Cambridge, MA/ London, Harvard University Press,2011, percival Vaughan Davies, Macrobius, The Saturnalia. New York, Columbia University Press,1969, william Harris Stahl, Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
28.
Somnium Scipionis
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Upon his arrival in Africa, a guest at the court of Massinissa, Scipio Aemilianus is visited by his dead grandfather, Scipio Africanus, hero of the Second Punic War. He finds himself looking down upon Carthage from a place full of stars, shining. Nevertheless, Scipio Aemilianus sees that Rome is an insignificant part of the earth, the planetary spheres are enumerated with references to Pythagorean thought and the idea of the Music of the Spheres. Then the climatic belts of the earth are observed, from the fields to the deserts, and there is discussion of the nature of the Divine. The literary and philosophical influence of the Somnium was great, Macrobius commented on it in his Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, which in turn was an important source for medieval dream theory. The tale is modelled on The Myth of Er in Platos Republic, although the story of Er records a near-death experience, while the journey of Scipios disembodied soul takes place in a dream, both give examples of belief in astral projection. Macrobius Commentary upon Scipios Dream was known to the sixth-century philosopher Boethius, the work assumed the astrological cosmos formulated by Claudius Ptolemy. Chretien de Troyes referred to Macrobius work in his first Arthurian romance, Erec, chaucer referred to the work in The Nuns Priests Tale and especially in the Parlement of Foules. Some critics consider Raphaels painting Vision of a Knight to be a depiction of Scipios Dream, the composer Mozart, at the age of fifteen, wrote a short opera entitled Il sogno di Scipione based upon Scipio Aemilianuss soul-journey through the cosmos. Iain Pears wrote a novel called The Dream of Scipio which refers to Ciceros work in various direct and indirect ways. This story is the basis for Chris McCullys poem Scipios Dream from his collection Not Only I, images from a 12th-century manuscript of Macrobius Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis. Source, Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, ms, Somnium Scipionis The Dream of Scipio
29.
Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree
30.
Parmenides (dialogue)
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Parmenides is one of the dialogues of Plato. It is widely considered to be one of the more, if not the most, challenging, the Parmenides purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a young Socrates. The heart of the opens with a challenge by Socrates to the elder and revered Parmenides. But this difficulty vanishes, says Socrates, if we are prepared to make the distinction between sensibles on one hand and Forms, in which sensibles participate, on the other, at this point, Parmenides takes over as Socrates interlocutor and dominates the remainder of the dialogue. After establishing that Socrates himself has made the distinction between Forms and sensibles, Parmenides asks him what sorts of Form he is prepared to recognize. Parmenides suggests that when he is older and more committed to philosophy, he will consider all the consequences of his theory, even regarding seemingly insignificant objects like hair and mud. For the remainder of the first part of the dialogue, Parmenides draws Socrates out on certain aspects of the Theory of Forms, if particular things come to partake of the Form of Beauty or Likeness or Largeness they thereby become beautiful or like or large. Parmenides presses Socrates on how precisely many particulars can participate in a single Form, on one hand, if the Form as a whole is present in each of its many instances, then it would as a whole be in numerically different places, and thus separate from itself. Socrates suggests that the Form might be like a day, Parmenides counters that this would be little different from a single sail covering a number of people, wherein different parts touch different individuals, consequently, the Form is many. But if this second Form of Largeness is also large, then there should be a third Form of Largeness over the large things, hence, instead of there being one Form in every case, we are confronted with an indefinite number. This Largeness regress is commonly known under the given to it by Aristotle. To the suggestion that each Form is a thought existing in a soul, thus maintaining the unity of the Form, thus we still have to explain the participation relation. Further, if things share in Forms which are no more than thoughts, then either things consist of thoughts and think, or else they are thoughts, Socrates now suggests that the Forms are patterns in nature of which the many instances are copies or likenesses. Parmenides argues that if the many instances are like the Forms, yet if things are like, then they come to be like by participating in Likeness, therefore Likeness is like the likeness in concrete things, and another regress is generated. Called the great difficulty by Parmenides, the theory of Forms arises as a consequence of the assertion of the existence of the Forms. Forms do not exist in our world but have their being with reference to one another in their own world, similarly, things of our world are related among themselves, but not to Forms. Just as Mastership has its being relative to Slavery, so mastership in our world has its being relative to slavery in our world, no terrestrial master is master of Slave itself, and no terrestrial master-slave relation has any relationship to the ideal Master-Slave relation. And so it is with knowledge, all our knowledge is such with respect to our world, not to the world of the Forms, while ideal Knowledge is knowledge of the things not of our world but of the world of the Forms
31.
Timaeus (dialogue)
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Timaeus is one of Platos dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character Timaeus of Locri, written c.360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world, participants in the dialogue include Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias. Some scholars believe that it is not the Critias of the Thirty Tyrants who is appearing in this dialogue, but his grandfather and it has been suggested that Timaeus influenced a book about Pythagoras, written by Philolaus. The dialogue takes place the day after Socrates described his ideal state, in Platos works such a discussion occurs in the Republic. Hermocrates wishes to oblige Socrates and mentions that Critias knows just the account to do so, Critias proceeds to tell the story of Solons journey to Egypt where he hears the story of Atlantis, and how Athens used to be an ideal state that subsequently waged war against Atlantis. Critias believes that he is getting ahead of himself, and mentions that Timaeus will tell part of the account from the origin of the universe to man, the history of Atlantis is postponed to Critias. The main content of the dialogue, the exposition by Timaeus, Timaeus begins with a distinction between the physical world, and the eternal world. The physical one is the world changes and perishes, therefore it is the object of opinion. The eternal one never changes, therefore it is apprehended by reason, the speeches about the two worlds are conditioned by the different nature of their objects. Indeed, a description of what is changeless, fixed and clearly intelligible will be changeless and fixed, while a description of changes and is likely, will also change. As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief, therefore, in a description of the physical world, one should not look for anything more than a likely story. Timaeus suggests that since nothing becomes or changes without cause, then the cause of the universe must be a demiurge or a god, and since the universe is fair, the demiurge must have looked to the eternal model to make it, and not to the perishable one. Hence, using the eternal and perfect world of forms or ideals as a template, he set about creating our world, Timaeus continues with an explanation of the creation of the universe, which he ascribes to the handiwork of a divine craftsman. The demiurge, being good, wanted there to be as good as was the world. The demiurge is said to bring out of substance by imitating an unchanging. The ananke, often translated as necessity, was the only other co-existent element or presence in Platos cosmogony, later Platonists clarified that the eternal model existed in the mind of the Demiurge. Timaeus describes the substance as a lack of homogeneity or balance, in which the four elements were shapeless, mixed, considering that order is favourable over disorder, the essential act of the creator was to bring order and clarity to this substance. Therefore, all the properties of the world are to be explained by the choice of what is fair and good, or
32.
Euclid's Elements
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Euclids Elements is a mathematical and geometric treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt circa 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions, the books cover Euclidean geometry and the ancient Greek version of elementary number theory. Elements is the second-oldest extant Greek mathematical treatise after Autolycus On the Moving Sphere and it has proven instrumental in the development of logic and modern science. According to Proclus, the element was used to describe a theorem that is all-pervading. The word element in the Greek language is the same as letter and this suggests that theorems in the Elements should be seen as standing in the same relation to geometry as letters to language. Euclids Elements has been referred to as the most successful and influential textbook ever written, for centuries, when the quadrivium was included in the curriculum of all university students, knowledge of at least part of Euclids Elements was required of all students. Not until the 20th century, by which time its content was taught through other school textbooks. Scholars believe that the Elements is largely a collection of theorems proven by other mathematicians, the Elements may have been based on an earlier textbook by Hippocrates of Chios, who also may have originated the use of letters to refer to figures. This manuscript, the Heiberg manuscript, is from a Byzantine workshop around 900 and is the basis of modern editions, papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29 is a tiny fragment of an even older manuscript, but only contains the statement of one proposition. Although known to, for instance, Cicero, no record exists of the text having been translated into Latin prior to Boethius in the fifth or sixth century. The Arabs received the Elements from the Byzantines around 760, this version was translated into Arabic under Harun al Rashid circa 800, the Byzantine scholar Arethas commissioned the copying of one of the extant Greek manuscripts of Euclid in the late ninth century. Although known in Byzantium, the Elements was lost to Western Europe until about 1120, the first printed edition appeared in 1482, and since then it has been translated into many languages and published in about a thousand different editions. Theons Greek edition was recovered in 1533, in 1570, John Dee provided a widely respected Mathematical Preface, along with copious notes and supplementary material, to the first English edition by Henry Billingsley. Copies of the Greek text still exist, some of which can be found in the Vatican Library, the manuscripts available are of variable quality, and invariably incomplete. By careful analysis of the translations and originals, hypotheses have been made about the contents of the original text, ancient texts which refer to the Elements itself, and to other mathematical theories that were current at the time it was written, are also important in this process. Such analyses are conducted by J. L. Heiberg and Sir Thomas Little Heath in their editions of the text, also of importance are the scholia, or annotations to the text. These additions, which distinguished themselves from the main text. The Elements is still considered a masterpiece in the application of logic to mathematics, in historical context, it has proven enormously influential in many areas of science
33.
Boethius
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Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius, was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century. Boethius was born in Rome to a family around 480 AD. His family, the Anicii, included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and his father, Manlius Boethius, who was appointed consul in 487, died while Boethius was young. Another patrician, Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, adopted and raised Boethius, instilling in him a love for literature and philosophy. Both Memmius Symmachus and Boethius were fluent in Greek, a rare skill at the time in the Western Empire, for this reason. The French scholar Pierre Courcelle has argued that Boethius studied at Alexandria with the Neo-Platonist philosopher Ammonius Hermiae, on account of his erudition, Boethius entered the service of Theodoric the Great at a young age and was already a senator by the age of 25. Boethius married his foster-fathers daughter, Rusticiana, their children included two boys, Symmachus and Boethius. In 522, the year his two sons were appointed joint consuls, Boethius accepted the appointment to the position of magister officiorum. This may have set in place a course of events that would lead to loss of royal favour, five hundred years later, this continuing disagreement led to the East-West Schism in 1054, in which communion between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church was broken. In 523 Boethius fell from power, after a period of imprisonment in Pavia for what was deemed a treasonable offence, he was executed in 524. The primary sources are in agreement over the facts of what happened. At a meeting of the Royal Council in Verona, the referandarius Cyprianus accused the ex-consul Caecina Decius Faustus Albinus of treasonous correspondence with Justin I. Boethius leapt to his defense, crying, The charge of Cyprianus is false, but if Albinus did that, so also have I, Cyprianus then also accused Boethius of the same crime, and produced three men who claimed they had witnessed the crime. First the pair were detained in the baptistery of a church, then Boethius was exiled to the Ager Calventianus, a distant country estate, the basic facts in the case are not in dispute, writes Jeffrey Richards. What is disputed about this sequence of events is the interpretation that should be put on them, Boethius claims his crime was seeking the safety of the Senate. He describes the three witnesses against him as dishonorable, Basilius had been dismissed from Royal service for his debts, while Venantius Opilio, however, other sources depict these men in a far more positive light. For example, Cassiodorus describes Cyprianus and Opilio as utterly scrupulous, just and loyal and mentions they are brothers, Theodoric was feeling threatened by international events. The Acacian Schism had been resolved, and the Nicene Christian aristocrats of his kingdom were seeking to renew their ties with Constantinople, the Catholic Hilderic had become king of the Vandals and had put Theodorics sister Amalafrida to death, and Arians in the East were being persecuted
34.
Baruch Spinoza
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Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. Spinozas magnum opus, Ethics, was published posthumously in 1677, the work opposed René Descartes philosophy on mind–body dualism, and earned Spinoza recognition as one of Western philosophys most important thinkers. In the Ethics, Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, hegel said, You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him the prince of philosophers, Spinozas given name, which means Blessed, varies among different languages. In Hebrew, it is written ברוך שפינוזה, in Portuguese, hes called Benedito Bento de Espinosa and in Latin, Benedictus de Spinoza. Spinoza was raised in a Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam and he developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. Jewish religious authorities issued a herem against him, causing him to be shunned by Jewish society at age 23. His books were later put on the Catholic Churchs Index of Forbidden Books. Spinoza lived a simple life as a lens grinder, turning down rewards and honours throughout his life. He died at the age of 44 allegedly of a lung illness and he is buried in the churchyard of the Christian Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague. The Spinoza family probably had its origins in Espinosa de los Monteros, near Burgos, or in Espinosa de Cerrato, near Palencia, the family was expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to Portugal. Portugal compelled them to convert to Catholicism in 1498, attracted by the Decree of Toleration issued in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht, Portuguese conversos first sailed to Amsterdam in 1593 and promptly reconverted to Judaism. In 1598 permission was granted to build a synagogue, and in 1615 an ordinance for the admission, as a community of exiles, the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were highly proud of their identity. Spinozas father was born roughly a century after this conversion in the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira. When Spinozas father was still a child, Spinozas grandfather, Isaac de Spinoza and they were expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where Isaac died in 1627. Spinozas father, Miguel, and his uncle, Manuel, then moved to Amsterdam where they resumed the practice of Judaism, Miguel was a successful merchant and became a warden of the synagogue and of the Amsterdam Jewish school. He buried three wives and three of his six children died before reaching adulthood, Amsterdam and Rotterdam operated as important cosmopolitan centres where merchant ships from many parts of the world brought people of various customs and beliefs. This flourishing commercial activity encouraged a relatively tolerant of the play of new ideas
35.
Ethics (Spinoza)
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Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, usually known as the Ethics, is a philosophical treatise written by Benedict de Spinoza. It was written between 1664 and 1665 and was first published in 1677, the book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of Euclid in philosophy. The first part of the addresses the relationship between God and the universe. Tradition held that God exists outside of the universe, created it for a reason, according to Spinoza, God is the natural world. As with many of Spinozas claims, what means is a matter of dispute. Spinoza claims that the things that make up the universe, including human beings, are Gods modes and this means that we and everything else are, in some sense, dependent upon God. The nature of this dependence is disputed, some scholars say that the modes are properties of God in the traditional sense. Others say that modes are effects of God, Gods creation of the universe is not a decision, much less one motivated by a purpose. The second part of the Ethics focuses on the human mind, Spinoza denies each of Descartess points. Regarding, Spinoza argues that the mind and the body are a thing that is being thought of in two different ways. The whole of nature can be described in terms of thoughts or in terms of bodies. However, we cannot mix these two ways of describing things, as Descartes does, and say that the mind affects the body or vice versa. Moreover, the minds self-knowledge is not fundamental, it know its own thoughts better than it knows the ways in which its body is acted upon by other bodies. Further, there is no difference between contemplating an idea and thinking that it is true, and there is no freedom of the will at all. Sensory perception, which Spinoza calls knowledge of the first kind, is entirely inaccurate and we can also have a kind of accurate knowledge called knowledge of the second kind, or reason. This encompasses knowledge of the common to all things, and includes principles of physics. We can also have knowledge of the kind, or intuitive knowledge. This is a sort of knowledge that, somehow, relates particular things to the nature of God, in the third part of the Ethics, Spinoza argues that all things, including human beings, strive to persevere in their being
36.
Thomas Bayes
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Thomas Bayes was an English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister who is known for having formulated a specific case of the theorem that bears his name, Bayes theorem. Bayes never published what would become his most famous accomplishment. Thomas Bayes was the son of London Presbyterian minister Joshua Bayes and he came from a prominent nonconformist family from Sheffield. In 1719, he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study logic, on his return around 1722, he assisted his father at the latters chapel in London before moving to Tunbridge Wells, Kent, around 1734. There he was minister of the Mount Sion chapel, until 1752, in his later years he took a deep interest in probability. Others speculate he was motivated to rebut David Humes argument against believing in miracles on the evidence of testimony in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and his work and findings on probability theory were passed in manuscript form to his friend Richard Price after his death. By 1755 he was ill and by 1761 had died in Tunbridge Wells and he was buried in Bunhill Fields burial ground in Moorgate, London, where many nonconformists lie. Bayes solution to a problem of probability was presented in An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances which was read to the Royal Society in 1763 after Bayes death. Richard Price shepherded the work through this presentation and its publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London the following year and this was an argument for using a uniform prior distribution for a binomial parameter and not merely a general postulate. This essay contains a statement of a case of Bayes theorem. In the first decades of the century, many problems concerning the probability of certain events. For example, given a number of white and black balls in an urn. Or the converse, given one or more balls has been drawn, what can be said about the number of white. These are sometimes called inverse probability problems, Bayes Essay contains his solution to a similar problem posed by Abraham de Moivre, author of The Doctrine of Chances. In addition, a paper by Bayes on asymptotic series was published posthumously, Bayesian probability is the name given to several related interpretations of probability as an amount of epistemic confidence – the strength of beliefs, hypotheses etc. –, rather than a frequency. This allows the application of probability to all sorts of propositions rather than just ones that come with a reference class, Bayesian has been used in this sense since about 1950. Since its rebirth in the 1950s, advancements in computing technology have allowed scientists from many disciplines to pair traditional Bayesian statistics with random walk techniques, the use of the Bayes theorem has been extended in science and in other fields. Within modern utility theory, the definition would result by rearranging the definition of expected utility to solve for the probability
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scholium". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.