1.
Pushkin Museum
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The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Svyatoslav Richters December nights has been held in the Pushkin museum since 1981. The museums current name is misleading, in that it has no direct associations with the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The facility was founded by professor Ivan Tsvetaev, Tsvetaev persuaded the millionaire and philanthropist Yuriy Nechaev-Maltsov and the fashionable architect Roman Klein of the urgent need to give Moscow a fine arts museum. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts building was designed by Roman Klein and Vladimir Shukhov, construction work began in 1898 and continued till 1912. Ivan Rerberg headed structural engineering effort on the site for 12 years. In 2008, President Dmitri A. Medvedev announced plans for a $177 million restoration, in 2014, Russian architect Yuri Grigoryan, and his firm Project Meganom, were chosen to take over the project. Tsvetaevs dream was realised in May 1912, when the museum opened its doors to the public, the museum was originally named after Alexander III, although the government provided only 200,000 rubles toward its construction, in comparison with over 2 million from Nechaev-Maltsev. Its first exhibits were copies of ancient statuary, thought indispensable for the education of art students, the only genuinely ancient items - Moscow Mathematical Papyrus and Story of Wenamun - had been contributed by Vladimir Golenishchev three years earlier. After the Russian capital was moved to Moscow in 1918, the Soviet government decided to transfer thousands of works from St Petersburgs Hermitage Museum to the new capital, the entire collection of Western art from the Museum Roumjantsev was added too. These paintings formed a nucleus of the Pushkin museums collections of Western art, but the most important paintings were added later from the State Museum of New Western Art. These comprised Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artwork, including top works by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Dufrénoy, Derain, among them, Van Goghs La Vigne Rouge, apparently the only painting sold during the artists lifetime. In 1937, Pushkins name was appended to the museum, because the Soviet Union marked the centenary of the death that year. After World War II the evacuated Dresden Gallery had been stored in Moscow for 10 years, the Pushkin Museum has a numismatic collection which is unpublished. It includes archaeological material from Central Asia, such as a hoard of Kushano-Sasanian coins acquired in 2002 William Craft Brumfield
2.
Holkham Hall
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Holkham Hall is an 18th-century country house located adjacent to the village of Holkham, Norfolk, England. The house was constructed in the Palladian style for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester by the architect William Kent, aided by the architect, the Holkham Estate, had been built up by Sir Edward Coke, the founder of his family fortune. He bought Neales manor in 1609, though never lived there and his fourth son, John, inherited the land and married heiress Meriel Wheatley in 1612. They made Hill Hall their home and by 1659 John had complete ownership of all three Holkham manors and it is the ancestral home of the Coke family, the Earls of Leicester of Holkham. The interior of the hall is opulently, but by the standards of the day, ornament is used with such restraint that it was possible to decorate both private and state rooms in the same style, without oppressing the former. The principal entrance is through the Marble Hall, which is in fact made of pink Derbyshire alabaster, this leads to the piano nobile, or the first floor, the most impressive of these rooms is the Saloon, which has walls lined with red velvet. Each of the state rooms is symmetrical in its layout and design, in some rooms. Holkham was built by 1st Earl of Leicester, Thomas Coke, a cultivated and wealthy man, Coke made the Grand Tour in his youth and was away from England for six years between 1712 and 1718. Coke returned to England, not only with a newly acquired library, however, after his return, he lived a feckless life, preoccupying himself with drinking, gambling and hunting, and being a leading supporter of cockfighting. He made an investment in the South Sea Company and when the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720. Coke, who had been made Earl of Leicester in 1744, thomass wife, Lady Margaret Tufton, Countess of Leicester, would oversee the finishing and furnishing of the house. These followed the guidelines and ideals for the house as defined by Kent, the Palladian revival style chosen was at this time making its return in England. The style made a appearance in England before the Civil War. However, following the Restoration it was replaced in favour by the Baroque style. The Palladian revival, popular in the 18th century, was based on the appearance of the works of the 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. However it did not adhere to Palladios strict rules of proportion, the style eventually evolved into what is generally referred to as Georgian, still popular in England today. Although Thomas Coke oversaw the project, he delegated the on-site architectural duties to the local Norfolk architect Matthew Brettingham, Brettingham was already the estate architect, and was in receipt of £50 a year in return for taking care of his Lordships buildings. William Kent was mainly responsible for the interiors of the Southwest pavilion, or family wing block, Kent produced a variety of alternative exteriors, suggesting a far richer decoration than Coke wanted
3.
Alimos
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Alimos is a municipality in the South Athens, Greece. It was formed in 1968 comprising two settlements, the seaside town of Kalamaki, and the inland community of Trachones. Alimos had 41,720 inhabitants in the 2011 census, Alimos is situated on the Saronic Gulf coast,8 km south of Athens city centre. The municipality has an area of 5.909 km2, the Hellinikon Olympic Complex, built on the grounds of the former Ellinikon International Airport for the 2004 Summer Olympics, lies south of Alimos. The built-up area of Alimos is continuous with those of the neighbouring suburbs Palaio Faliro, Agios Dimitrios, Ilioupoli, Argyroupoli, Alimos has a large marina and several beaches. The main roads of Alimos are Poseidonos Avenue along the coast, Kalamakiou Avenue, the nearest subway station is at Alimos metro station, in the eastern part of the municipality. The western, coastal part of the municipality is connected with Athens city centre by the Athens Tram. The first settlements uncovered by archeologists in Alimos date back to the Neolithic period, in classical antiquity, Halimous was a fishing town on the outskirts of the city-state of Athens and constituted one of the demes of Attica. The area of Ano Kalamaki, known as Euonymeia, constituted a distinct settlement, testament to its development during this period are the ruins of the amphitheater of Euonymos, quite unusual in the ancient world in its rectangular design. The site can be found on Archaiou Theatrou Street in Ano Kalamaki, the most significant historical affiliation of Alimos is that with Thucydides. Thucydides was born in Halimous, and is referred to as Thucydides the Halimousian. The bust of Thucydides is the emblem of Alimos, which is used between schools in the area. Furthermore, the First High School of Alimos is called Thoukydidio, Kalamaki was part of the community of Brachami until 1927, when it became a separate community. The community Kalamaki was abolished in 1968, when the municipality Alimos was founded, Alimos has public and private schools of grades, apart from higher education, in several places throughout the city. The city has 12 public kindergartens,8 public elementary schools,6 public Junior High Schools and 5 High Schools, furthermore, there are several private schools, where tuition fees are needed. Alimos has two clubs with presence in panhellenic championships, the polo club N. O. Kalamaki with presence in A1 Ethniki and the football club Trachones F. C. with presence in Gamma Ethniki, in Alimos is located the Byzantine Sport Center that is used by the two sport clubs come from Constantinople, A. O. These clubs settled in Alimos in 1973 and have many honours in Greek Table Tennis Championship, the commercial activity in Kalamaki or Alimos is concentrated in the major avenues that cross the city regional and the streets that are inside the city links
4.
Athens
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
5.
History of the Peloponnesian War
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The History of the Peloponnesian War is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League. It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian historian who also happened to serve as an Athenian general during the war and his account of the conflict is widely considered to be a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. The History is divided into eight books, analyses of the History generally occur in one of two camps. On the one hand, some view the work as an objective. Thucydides is considered to be one of the fathers of Western history. Thucydides also makes use of speeches in order to elaborate on the event in question. While the inclusion of long first-person speeches is somewhat alien to modern historical method and these include addresses given to troops by their generals before battles and numerous political speeches, both by Athenian and Spartan leaders, as well as debates between various parties. Of the speeches, the most famous is the funeral oration of Pericles, Thucydides undoubtedly heard some of these speeches himself while for others he relied on eyewitness accounts. Some of the speeches are probably fabricated according to his expectations of, as he puts it, despite being an Athenian and a participant in the conflict, Thucydides is often regarded as having written a generally unbiased account of the conflict with respect to the sides involved in it. In the introduction to the piece he states, my work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, there are scholars, however, who doubt this. Ernst Badian, for example has argued that Thucydides has a strong pro-Athenian bias, the work does display a clear bias against certain people involved in the conflict, such as Cleon. The gods play no role in Thucydides work. This is very different from Herodotus, who mentions the role of the gods. Instead, Thucydides regards history as being caused by the choices, despite the absence of actions of the gods, religion and piety play critical roles in the actions of the Spartans, and to a lesser degree, the Athenians. However, despite Thucydides lack of trust in information that was not experienced firsthand, such as Homers, he does use the poets epics to infer facts about the Trojan War. In fact, Thucydides claims that Troy could have conquered in half the time had the Greek leaders allocated resources properly. Except for a few short excursuses, the remainder of the History rigidly maintains its focus on the Peloponnesian War to the exclusion of other topics. While the History concentrates on the aspects of the Peloponnesian War
6.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
7.
Classical Athens
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Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, the peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved in the 440s to 430s BC, known as the Age of Pericles. The radical politician of aristocratic background, Cleisthenes, then took charge, the reforms of Cleisthenes replaced the traditional four Ionic tribes with ten new ones, named after legendary heroes of Greece and having no class basis, which acted as electorates. Each tribe was in divided into three trittyes, while each trittys had one or more demes —depending on their population—which became the basis of local government. The tribes each selected fifty members by lot for the Boule, the public opinion of voters could be influenced by the political satires written by the comic poets and performed in the city theaters. Most offices were filled by lot, although the ten strategoi were elected, prior to the rise of Athens, Sparta, a city-state with a militaristic culture, considered itself the leader of the Greeks, and enforced a hegemony. In 499 BC Athens sent troops to aid the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor and this provoked two Persian invasions of Greece, both of which were repelled under the leadership of the soldier-statesmen Miltiades and Themistocles. In 490 the Athenians, led by Miltiades, prevented the first invasion of the Persians, guided by king Darius I, in 480 the Persians returned under a new ruler, Xerxes I. Simultaneously the Athenians led a naval battle off Artemisium. However, this action was not enough to discourage the Persian advance which soon marched through Boeotia, setting up Thebes as their base of operations. This forced the Athenians to evacuate Athens, which was taken by the Persians, subsequently the Athenians and their allies, led by Themistocles, defeated the Persian navy at sea in the Battle of Salamis. It is interesting to note that Xerxes had built himself a throne on the coast in order to see the Greeks defeated, spartas hegemony was passing to Athens, and it was Athens that took the war to Asia Minor. These victories enabled it to bring most of the Aegean and many parts of Greece together in the Delian League. He fostered arts and literature and gave to Athens a splendor which would never return throughout its history and he executed a large number of public works projects and improved the life of the citizens. Hence, he gave his name to the Athenian Golden Age, silver mined in Laurium in southeastern Attica contributed greatly to the prosperity of this Golden Age of Athens. During the time of the ascendancy of Ephialtes as leader of the democratic faction, the conflict marked the end of Athenian command of the sea. The war between Athens and the city-state Sparta ended with an Athenian defeat after Sparta started its own navy, Athenian democracy was briefly overthrown by the coup of 411, brought about because of its poor handling of the war, but it was quickly restored. The war ended with the defeat of Athens in 404
8.
Historian
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A historian is a person who researches, studies, and writes about the past, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race, if the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the individual is an historian of prehistory. Although historian can be used to describe amateur and professional historians alike, some historians, though, are recognized by publications or training and experience. Historian became an occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany. Modern historical analysis usually draws upon other social sciences, including economics, sociology, politics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, while ancient writers do not normally share modern historical practices, their work remains valuable for its insights within the cultural context of the times. Understanding the past appears to be a human need. What constitutes history is a philosophical question, the earliest chronologies date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, though no historical writers in these early civilizations were known by name. Systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, a development that became an important influence on the writing of history elsewhere around the Mediterranean region, the earliest known critical historical works were The Histories, composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus who later became known as the father of history. Herodotus attempted to distinguish between more and less reliable accounts, and personally conducted research by travelling extensively, giving accounts of various Mediterranean cultures. Although Herodotus overall emphasis lay on the actions and characters of men and he was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, while his successor Xenophon introduced autobiographical elements and character studies in his Anabasis. The Romans adopted the Greek tradition, while early Roman works were still written in Greek, the Origines, composed by the Roman statesman Cato the Elder, was written in Latin, in a conscious effort to counteract Greek cultural influence. Strabo was an important exponent of the Greco-Roman tradition of combining geography with history, livy records the rise of Rome from city-state to empire. His speculation about what would have happened if Alexander the Great had marched against Rome represents the first known instance of alternate history, in Chinese historiography, the Classic of History is one of the Five Classics of Chinese classic texts and one of the earliest narratives of China. Sima Qian was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing and his written work was the Shiji, a monumental lifelong achievement in literature. Christian historiography began early, perhaps as early as Luke-Acts, which is the source for the Apostolic Age. Writing history was popular among Christian monks and clergy in the Middle Ages and they wrote about the history of Jesus Christ, that of the Church and that of their patrons, the dynastic history of the local rulers. In the Early Middle Ages historical writing often took the form of annals or chronicles recording events year by year, muslim historical writings first began to develop in the 7th century, with the reconstruction of the Prophet Muhammads life in the centuries following his death. With numerous conflicting narratives regarding Muhammad and his companions from various sources, to evaluate these sources, they developed various methodologies, such as the science of biography, science of hadith and Isnad
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General officer
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A general officer is an officer of high rank in the army, and in some nations air forces or marines. The term general is used in two ways, as the title for all grades of general officer and as a specific rank. It originates in the 16th century, as a shortening of captain general, the adjective general had been affixed to officer designations since the late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction. Today, the title of General is known in countries as a four-star rank. However different countries use different systems of stars for senior ranks and it has a NATO code of OF-9 and is the highest rank currently in use in a number of armies. The various grades of general officer are at the top of the rank structure. Lower-ranking officers in military forces are typically known as field officers or field-grade officers. There are two systems of general ranks used worldwide. In addition there is a system, the Arab system of ranks. Variations of one form, the old European system, were used throughout Europe. It is used in the United Kingdom, from which it spread to the Commonwealth. The other is derived from the French Revolution, where ranks are named according to the unit they command. The system used either a general or a colonel general rank. The rank of marshal was used by some countries as the highest rank. Many countries actually used two brigade command ranks, which is why some countries now use two stars as their brigade general insignia, mexico and Argentina still use two brigade command ranks. As a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major, confusion arises because a lieutenant is outranked by a major. Originally the serjeant major was, exclusively, the commander of the infantry, junior only to the captain general, the distinction of serjeant major general only applied after serjeant majors were introduced as a rank of field officer. Serjeant was eventually dropped from both titles, creating the modern rank titles
10.
Peloponnesian War
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The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases and this period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched an expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily. This ushered in the phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War. The destruction of Athens fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved, but Sparta refused. The Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world, the economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece, poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into a struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Indeed, the fifty years of Greek history that preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. The city proceeded to conquer all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, by the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens. This tribute was used to support a fleet and, after the middle of the century, to fund massive public works programs in Athens. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action at this time, conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, Athens sent out a sizable contingent, but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots, the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta. When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the country, a fifteen-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War, ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and a number of other states. The war was ended by the Thirty Years Peace, signed in the winter of 446/5 BC. The Thirty Years Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens powerful ally Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens, the rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap, and Athens found itself facing the prospect of revolts throughout the empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a war to determine the fate of the empire
11.
Sparta
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Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity the city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece, given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars. Between 431 and 404 BC, Sparta was the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, from which it emerged victorious. Spartas defeat by Thebes in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Spartas prominent role in Greece, however, it maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. It then underwent a period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages. Modern Sparta is the capital of the Greek regional unit of Laconia, Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which completely focused on military training and excellence. Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates, mothakes, perioikoi, Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanges were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed more rights and equality to men than elsewhere in the classical world. Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in the West following the revival of classical learning and this love or admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. At its peak around 500 BC the size of the city would have been some 20,000 –35,000 free residents, plus numerous helots, olliers theory of the Spartan mirage has been widely accepted by scholars. The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the location of the Spartans. The first refers primarily to the cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River. The second word was Lacedaemon, this was used sometimes as an adjective and is the name commonly used in the works of Homer. Herodotus seems to denote by it the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne and it could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it was not. It denoted the terrain on which Sparta was situated, in Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside, wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken. The hollow suggests the Eurotas Valley, Sparta on the other hand is the country of lovely women, a people epithet. The name of the population was used for the state of Lacedaemon
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Realism (international relations)
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Realism is the predominant school of thought in international relations theory, theoretically formalising the realpolitik statesmanship of early modern Europe. Although a highly diverse body of thought, it can be thought of as unified by the belief that world politics ultimately is always, crudely, realists are of three kinds in what they take the source of ineliminable conflict to be. Realists also disagree about what kind of action states ought to take to navigate world politics, Jonathan Haslam from the University of Cambridge characterizes Realism as a spectrum of ideas. Realism is often associated with Realpolitik as both are based on the management of the pursuit, possession, and application of power, the theories of Realism are contrasted by the cooperative ideals of Liberalism. Realism is a tradition of international theory centered upon four propositions, the international system exists in a state of constant antagonism. States are the most important actors, all states within the system are unitary, rational actors States tend to pursue self-interest. Groups strive to attain as many resources as possible, the primary concern of all states is survival. States build up military to survive, which may lead to a security dilemma, in summary, realists think that Mankind is not inherently benevolent but rather self-centered and competitive. This perspective, which is shared by such as Thomas Hobbes, views human nature as egocentric. It is also disposed of the notion that an individuals intuitive nature is made up of anarchy, in regards to self-interest, these individuals are self-reliant and are motivated in seeking more power. They are also believed to be fearful and this view contrasts with the approach of liberalism to international relations. The state emphasizes an interest in accumulating power to ensure security in an anarchic world, power is a concept primarily thought of in terms of material resources necessary to induce harm or coerce other states. The use of power places an emphasis on coercive tactics being acceptable to either accomplish something in the national interest or avoid something inimical to the national interest, the state is the most important actor under realism. It is unitary and autonomous because it speaks and acts with one voice, the power of the state is understood in terms of its military capabilities. A key concept under realism is the distribution of power referred to as system polarity. Polarity refers to the number of blocs of states that power in an international system. A multipolar system is composed of three or more blocs, a system is composed of two blocs, and a unipolar system is dominated by a single power or hegemon. Under unipolarity realism predicts that states will band together to oppose the hegemon, although all states seek hegemony under realism as the only way to ensure their own security, other states in the system are incentivised to prevent the emergence of a hegemon through balancing
13.
Fear
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Fear in human beings may occur in response to a specific stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to body or life. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat, in humans and animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate, an irrational fear is called a phobia. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested there is only a small set of basic or innate emotions. This hypothesized set includes such emotions as acute stress reaction, anger, angst, anxiety, fright, horror, joy, panic, and sadness. Fear is closely related to, but should be distinguished from, the emotion anxiety, the fear response serves survival by generating appropriate behavioral responses, so it has been preserved throughout evolution. Many physiological changes in the body are associated with fear, summarized as the fight-or-flight response and this primitive mechanism may help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear. People develop specific fears as a result of learning and this has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with John B. Watsons Little Albert experiment in 1920, which was inspired after observing a child with a fear of dogs. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory, the fear became generalized to include other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, dog, and even a ball of cotton. Fear can be learned by experiencing or watching a frightening traumatic accident, for example, if a child falls into a well and struggles to get out, he or she may develop a fear of wells, heights, enclosed spaces, or water. There are studies looking at areas of the brain that are affected in relation to fear, when looking at these areas, it was proposed that a person learns to fear regardless of whether they themselves have experienced trauma, or if they have observed the fear in others. In a study completed by Andreas Olsson, Katherine I and this suggests that fear can develop in both conditions, not just simply from personal history. Fear is affected by cultural and historical context, for example, in the early 20th century, many Americans feared polio, a disease that can lead to paralysis. There are consistent cross-cultural differences in how people respond to fear, display rules affect how likely people are to show the facial expression of fear and other emotions. Although many fears are learned, the capacity to fear is part of human nature, many studies have found that certain fears are much more common than others. These fears are also easier to induce in the laboratory and this phenomenon is known as preparedness
14.
Self-interest
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Self-interest generally refers to a focus on the needs or desires of the self. A number of philosophical, psychological, and economic theories examine the role of self-interest in motivating human action, philosophical concepts concerned with self-interest include, Enlightened self-interest, a philosophy which states that acting to further the interests of others also serves ones own self-interest. Ethical egoism, the position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest. Hedonism, the school of ethics which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good, epicureanism, a philosophical system related to hedonism. Individualism, a philosophy stressing the worth of individual selves, rational egoism, the position that all rational actions are those done in ones self-interest
15.
Siege of Melos
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The Siege of Melos occurred in 416 BC during the Peloponnesian War, a war fought between Athens and Sparta. Melos is an island in the Aegean Sea roughly 110 km east of mainland Greece, at the time it was populated by Dorians. Though the Melians were of the ethnic group as the Spartans. Athens invaded Melos in 416 BC and demanded that the Melians surrender and pay tribute to Athens, the proud Melians refused, and after a siege the Athenians captured their city, slaughtered the men, and enslaved the women and children. This siege is best remembered for the Melian Dialogue, which is a dramatization of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians before the former launched the siege. It is taught as a case study in political realism to illustrate that selfish. The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 to 404 BC, on one side was the Peloponnesian League, an alliance of Greek cities led by Sparta. On the other side was the Delian League, an alliance led by Athens. The people of Melos were Dorians, the ethnic group as the Spartans. In 427 BC the Melians donated at least twenty Aeginetan minae to the Spartan war effort, otherwise, the island remained neutral in the war. In 426 BC, Athens sent an army of 2,000 men led by Nicias to raid the Melian countryside, in 425 or 424 BC, Athens formally demanded of Melos a tribute of fifteen talents of silver. This sum could have paid the wages of a crew for 15 months, or bought 540 metric tons of wheat. Only the islands of Paros and Thasos were assessed for more at 30 and 60 talents respectively and this is evidence that Melos was a prosperous island. Melos had never paid tribute to Athens before, and they refused to pay now, the fleet that transported this army had 38 ships,30 from Athens,6 from Chios, and 2 from Lesbos. This expedition was led by the generals Cleomedes and Tisias, after setting up camp on the island, the Athenians sent emissaries to negotiate with the rulers of Melos. The emissaries demanded that Melos join the Delian League and pay tribute to Athens or face destruction, the Athenians laid siege to the city and withdrew most of their troops from the island to fight elsewhere. The Melians made a number of sorties, at one point capturing part of the Athenians lines, Athens sent reinforcements under the command of Philocrates. The Athenians also had help from traitors within Melos, Melos surrendered in the winter of 416 or 415 BC
16.
International relations theory
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International relations theory is the study of international relations from a theoretical perspective. It attempts to provide a framework upon which international relations can be analyzed. The three most prominent theories are realism, liberalism and constructivism, many often conflicting ways of thinking exist in IR theory, including constructivism, institutionalism, Marxism, neo-Gramscianism, and others. However, two positivist schools of thought are most prevalent, realism and liberalism, constructivism, however, is increasingly becoming mainstream. The study of International relations as theory can be traced to E. H. Carrs The Twenty Years Crisis which was published in 1939 and to Hans Morgenthaus Politics Among Nations published in 1948. International relations as a discipline is believed to have emerged after the First World War with the establishment of a Chair of International Relations at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Early international relations scholarship in the years focused on the need for the balance of power system to be replaced with a system of collective security. These thinkers were later described as Idealists, the leading critique of this school of thinking was the realist analysis offered by Carr. However, a recent study by David Long and Brian Schmidt in 2005. They claim, that the history of the field can be traced back to late 19th Century imperialism and internationalism and their revisionist account claims that up until 1918, International Relations already existed in the form of colonial administration, race science and race development. Explanatory and constitutive approaches in international relations theory is a distinction made when classifying international relations theories, explanatory theories are ones which see the world as something external to theorize about it. A constitutive theory is one which believes that theories actually help construct the world, Realism or political realism has been the dominant theory of international relations since the conception of the discipline. The theory claims to rely upon an ancient tradition of thought which includes such as Thucydides, Machiavelli. Early realism can be characterized as a reaction against interwar idealist thinking, the outbreak of World War II was seen by realists as evidence of the deficiencies of idealist thinking. There are various strands of modern-day realist thinking, however, the main tenets of the theory have been identified as statism, survival, and self-help. Statism, Realists believe that states are the main actors in international politics. As such it is a theory of international relations. This contrasts with liberal international relations theories which accommodate roles for non-state actors, survival, Realists believe that the international system is governed by anarchy, meaning that there is no central authority
17.
Pericles' Funeral Oration
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Pericles Funeral Oration is a famous speech from Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War. The speech was delivered by Pericles, an eminent Athenian politician and it was an established Athenian practice by the late 5th century to hold a public funeral in honour of all those who had died in war. The remains of the dead were left out for three days in a tent, where offerings could be made for the dead. Then a funeral procession was held, with ten cypress coffins carrying the remains, one for each of the Athenian tribes, the procession led to a public grave, where they were buried. The last part of the ceremony was a speech delivered by a prominent Athenian citizen, several funeral orations from classical Athens are still extant, which seem to corroborate Thucydides assertion that this was a regular feature of Athenian funerary custom in wartime. The Funeral Oration was recorded by Thucydides in book two of his famous History of the Peloponnesian War. Although Thucydides records the speech in the first person as if it were a word for word record of what Pericles said, there can be little doubt that he edited the speech at the very least. We can be sure that Pericles delivered a speech at the end of the first year of the war. Another confusing factor is that Pericles is known to have delivered another funeral oration in 440 BC during the Samian War and it is possible that elements of both speeches are represented in Thucydides version. Nevertheless Thucydides was extremely meticulous in his documentation, and records the varied certainty of his sources each time, significantly he begins recounting the speech by saying, Περικλῆς ὁ Ξανθίππου. ἔλεγε τοιάδε, i. e. Pericles, son of Xanthippos, had he quoted the speech verbatim, he would have written τάδε instead of τοιάδε. The Funeral Oration is significant because it departs from the formula of Athenian funeral speeches. David Cartwright describes it as a eulogy of Athens itself, the speech is a glorification of Athens achievements, designed to stir the spirits of a state still at war. Pericles begins his praise of the war dead, as the other Athenian funeral orations do, by praising the ancestors of present day Athenians, touching briefly on the acquisition of the empire. Instead, Pericles proposes to focus on the road by which we reached our position, the form of government under which our greatness grew, and the national habits out of which it sprang. This amounts to a focus on present-day Athens, Thucydides Pericles thus decides to praise the war dead by glorifying the city for which they died. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences. if a man is able to serve the state, the freedom we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other and these lines form the roots of the famous phrase equal justice under law
18.
Classics
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Classics or Classical Studies is the study of classical antiquity. It encompasses the study of the Graeco-Roman world, particularly of its languages, and literature but also it encompasses the study of Graeco-Roman philosophy, history, and archaeology. Traditionally in the West, the study of the Greek and Roman classics was considered one of the cornerstones of the humanities and it has been traditionally a cornerstone of a typical elite education. The word Classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus, meaning belonging to the highest class of citizens, the word was originally used to describe the members of the highest class in ancient Rome. By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality, for example, Aulus Gellius, in his Attic Nights, contrasts classicus and proletarius writers. By the 6th century AD, the word had acquired a meaning, referring to pupils at a school. Thus the two meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality, and to the standard texts used as part of a curriculum. In the Middle Ages, classics and education were tightly intertwined, according to Jan Ziolkowski, while Latin was hugely influential, however, Greek was barely studied, and Greek literature survived almost solely in Latin translation. The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod, whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, were unavailable in the Middle Ages. Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus, for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period, the Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history, as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin. From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism, Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe. This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch and Boccaccio who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems, the late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models. Classical models were so prized that the plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines. From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin, in this period Johann Winckelmanns claims for the superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement, in the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School. The 19th century saw the influence of the world, and the value of a classical education, decline, especially in the US
19.
Civil war
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The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources. Most modern civil wars involve intervention by outside powers, according to Patrick M. Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted on average just over four years, a dramatic rise from the one-and-a-half-year average of the 1900–1944 period. For example, there were no more than five civil wars underway simultaneously in the first half of the 20th century while there were over 20 concurrent civil wars close to the end of the Cold War. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, the Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997,104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007. The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term civil war and this includes civil wars, however no specific definition of civil war is provided in the text of the Conventions. That the legal Government is obliged to have recourse to the military forces against insurgents organized as military. That the insurgents have an organization purporting to have the characteristics of a State and that the insurgent civil authority exercises de facto authority over the population within a determinate portion of the national territory. That the armed forces act under the direction of an authority and are prepared to observe the ordinary laws of war. That the insurgent civil authority agrees to be bound by the provisions of the Convention, scholars investigating the cause of civil war are attracted by two opposing theories, greed versus grievance. Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war, a comprehensive study of civil war was carried out by a team from the World Bank in the early 21st century. A second source of finance is national diasporas, which can fund rebellions, the study found that statistically switching the size of a countrys diaspora from the smallest found in the study to the largest resulted in a sixfold increase in the chance of a civil war. Opportunity cost of rebellion Higher male secondary school enrollment, per capita income, the study interpreted these three factors as proxies for earnings forgone by rebellion, and therefore that lower forgone earnings encourage rebellion
20.
Athenian democracy
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Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens. It was a system of democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation. The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles, after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides, the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification rather than the Periclean system, Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable. Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes contributed to the development of Athenian democracy and he broke up the power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived rather than on their wealth. The word democracy combines the elements dêmos and krátos, and thus means literally people power, in the words monarchy and oligarchy, the second element comes from archē, meaning beginning, and hence also first place or power, sovereignty. One might expect the term demarchy to have adopted, by analogy. However, the word demarchy had already taken and meant mayoralty. We are not certain that the democracy was extant when systems that came to be called democratic were first instituted. The word is attested in Herodotus, who some of the earliest surviving Greek prose. Around 460 BC an individual is known with the name of Democrates, a name possibly coined as a gesture of democratic loyalty, Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime. Aristotle cites many other cities as well, yet, it is only with reference to Athens that we can attempt to trace some of specific sixth century events that led to the institution of democracy at the end of the century. Before the first attempt at government, Athens was ruled by a series of archons or chief magistrates. The members of these institutions were generally aristocrats, who ruled the polis for their own advantage, in 621 BC Draco codified a set of notoriously harsh laws that were a clear expression of the power of the aristocracy over everybody else. This did not stop the aristocratic families feuding amongst themselves to obtain as much power as possible, however, the enfranchisement of the local laboring classes was succeeded by the development of chattel slavery, the enslavement of, in large part, foreigners. Solon, the mediator, reshaped the city by absorbing the traditional aristocracy in a definition of citizenship which allotted a political function to every resident of Attica. Athenians were not slaves but citizens, with the right, at the very least, under these reforms, the position of archon was opened to all with certain property qualifications, and a Boule, a rival council of 400, was set up
21.
Plague of Athens
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The Plague of Athens was an epidemic which devastated the city-state of Athens in ancient Greece during the second year of the Peloponnesian War when an Athenian victory still seemed within reach. It is believed to have entered Athens through Piraeus, the port and sole source of food. Much of the eastern Mediterranean also saw outbreak of the disease, the plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/426 BC. Some 30 pathogens have been suggested as causing the plague, Sparta and its allies, with the exception of Corinth, were almost exclusively land based powers, able to summon large land armies which were very nearly unbeatable. Unfortunately the strategy also resulted in adding many people from the countryside to an already well-populated city, introducing a severe crowding factor as well as resource shortages. Due to the quarters and poor hygiene exhibited at that time Athens became a breeding ground for disease and many citizens died including Pericles, his wife. In the history of epidemics the Plague of Athens is remarkable for its one-sided affliction, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, the historian Thucydides who was present and contracted the disease himself and survived describes the epidemic. In overcrowded Athens the disease killed an estimated one third to two thirds of the population, the sight of the burning funeral pyres of Athens caused the Spartans to withdraw their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy. Many of Athens infantry and expert seamen died as well as their general Pericles, after the death of Pericles, Athens was led by a succession of leaders Thucydides described as incompetent or weak. According to Thucydides, not until 415 BC had Athens recovered sufficiently to mount a major offensive, accounts of the Athenian plague graphically describe the social consequences of an epidemic. Thucydides account clearly details the complete disappearance of social morals during the time of the plague, the impact of disease on social and religious behavior was also documented during the worldwide pandemic best known as the Black Death. Thucydides states that people ceased fearing the law since they felt they were living under a death sentence. Likewise, people started spending money indiscriminately, many felt they would not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of wise investment, while some of the poor unexpectedly became wealthy by inheriting the property of their relatives. It is also recorded that people refused to behave honorably because most did not expect to live long enough to enjoy a reputation for it. Another reason for the lack of honorable behavior was the sheer contagiousness of the illness and those who tended to the ill were most vulnerable to catching the disease. This meant that people died alone because no one was willing to risk caring for them. The dead were heaped on top of other, left to rot. Sometimes those carrying the dead would come across a burning funeral pyre, dump a new body on it
22.
Pericles
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Pericles was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during the Golden Age—specifically the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful, Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, a contemporary historian, acclaimed him as the first citizen of Athens. Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire, and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, it is principally through his efforts that Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world and he started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis. This project beautified and protected the city, exhibited its glory, Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist. Pericles was born c.495 BC, in Athens, Greece and he was the son of the politician Xanthippus, who, though ostracized in 485–484 BC, returned to Athens to command the Athenian contingent in the Greek victory at Mycale just five years later. Agariste was the great-granddaughter of the tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes, according to Herodotus and Plutarch, Agariste dreamed, a few nights before Pericles birth, that she had borne a lion. Interestingly, legends say that Philip II of Macedon had a dream before the birth of his son. Pericles belonged to the tribe of Acamantis and his early years were quiet, the introverted young Pericles avoided public appearances, instead preferring to devote his time to his studies. His familys nobility and wealth allowed him to pursue his inclination toward education. He learned music from the masters of the time and he is considered to have been the first politician to attribute importance to philosophy and he enjoyed the company of the philosophers Protagoras, Zeno of Elea, and Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras, in particular, became a friend and influenced him greatly. Pericles manner of thought and rhetorical charisma may have been in part products of Anaxagoras emphasis on emotional calm in the face of trouble and his proverbial calmness and self-control are also often regarded as products of Anaxagoras influence. In the spring of 472 BC, Pericles presented The Persians of Aeschylus at the Greater Dionysia as a liturgy, Plutarch says that Pericles stood first among the Athenians for forty years. If this was so, Pericles must have taken up a position of leadership by the early 460s BC- in his early or mid-thirties, throughout these years he endeavored to protect his privacy and to present himself as a model for his fellow citizens. For example, he would often avoid banquets, trying to be frugal, in 463 BC, Pericles was the leading prosecutor of Cimon, the leader of the conservative faction who was accused of neglecting Athens vital interests in Macedon. Although Cimon was acquitted, this proved that Pericles major political opponent was vulnerable. The leader of the party and mentor of Pericles, Ephialtes, the Ecclesia adopted Ephialtes proposal without opposition
23.
Gold mining
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Gold mining is the resource extraction of gold by mining. As of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes, the second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, followed by Russia with 250 tonnes. It is impossible to know the date that humans first began to mine gold. The graves of the necropolis were built between 4700 and 4200 BC, indicating that gold mining could be at least 7000 years old. A group of German and Georgian archaeologists claims the Sakdrisi site in southern Georgia, dating to the 3rd or 4th millennium BC, bronze age gold objects are plentiful, especially in Ireland and Spain, and there are several well known possible sources. Romans used hydraulic mining methods, such as hushing and ground sluicing on a scale to extract gold from extensive alluvial deposits. Mining was under the control of the state but the mines may have been leased to civilian contractors some time later, Gold was a prime motivation for the campaign in Dacia when the Romans invaded Transylvania in what is now modern Romania in the second century AD. The legions were led by the emperor Trajan, and their exploits are shown on Trajans Column in Rome, under the Eastern Roman Empire Emperor Justinians rule, gold was mined in the Balkans, Anatolia, Armenia, Egypt, and Nubia. In the area of the Kolar Gold Fields in Bangarpet Taluk, Kolar District of Karnataka state, India, gold was first mined prior to the 2nd and 3rd century AD by digging small pits. The Champion reef at the Kolar gold fields was mined to a depth of 50 metres during the Gupta period in the fifth century AD, during the Chola period in the 9th and 10th century AD, the scale of the operation grew. The metal continued to be mined by the eleventh century kings of South India, the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1560, and later by Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore state and it is estimated that the total gold production in Karnataka to date is 1000 tons. The mining of the Slovak deposit primarily around Kremnica was the largest of the Medieval period in Europe, the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa. The Carlin Trend of Nevada, U. S. was discovered in 1961, as of 2015, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes/year. The second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, despite the decreasing gold content of ores, the production is increasing. This can be achieved with industrial installations, and new process, placer mining is the technique by which gold that has accumulated in a placer deposit is extracted. Placer deposits are composed of loose material that makes tunneling difficult. Gold panning is mostly a manual technique of separating gold from other materials, wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. The pan is submerged in water and shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel, as gold is much denser than rock, it quickly settles to the bottom of the pan
24.
Thrace
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It comprises southeastern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and the European part of Turkey. In antiquity, it was referred to as Europe, prior to the extension of the term to describe the whole continent. The name Thrace comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Southeastern Europe, the word itself was established by the Greeks for referring to the Thracian tribes, from Ancient Greek Thrake, descending from Thrāix. The name of the continent Europe first referred to Thrace proper, the region obviously took the name of the principal river there, Hebros, probably from the Indo-European arg white river, according to an alternative theory, Hebros means goat in Thracian. In Turkey, it is referred to as Rumeli, Land of the Romans. The name appears to derive from an ancient heroine and sorceress Thrace, who was the daughter of Oceanus and Parthenope, the historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into Asia, Libya, Europa and this largely coincided with the Thracian Odrysian kingdom, whose borders varied over time. After the Macedonian conquest, this regions former border with Macedonia was shifted from the Struma River to the Mesta River and this usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth, Thrace referred only to the tract of land covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region. The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace, the largest cities of Thrace are, İstanbul, Plovdiv, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Yambol, Komotini, Alexandroupoli, Xanthi, Edirne, Çorlu and Tekirdağ. Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are Christians, while most of the Turkish inhabitants of Thrace are Muslims, Ancient Greek mythology provides them with a mythical ancestor, named Thrax, son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homers Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas, later in the Iliad, Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an appearance. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is given as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont, Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus. In addition to the tribe that Homer calls Thracians, ancient Thrace was home to other tribes, such as the Edones, Bisaltae, Cicones. Thrace is also mentioned in Ovids Metamorphoses in the episode of Philomela, Procne, Tereus, the King of Thrace, lusts after his sister-in-law, Philomela. He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, Philomela manages to get free, however. She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing Itys, at the end of the myth, all three turn into birds – Procne, a swallow, Philomela, a nightingale, and Tereus, a hoopoe
25.
Thasos
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Thasos or Thassos is a Greek island, geographically part of the North Aegean Sea, but administratively part of the Kavala regional unit. It is the northernmost Greek island, and 12th largest by area, Thasos is also the name of the largest town of the island, situated at the northern side, opposite the mainland and about 10 kilometres from Keramoti. Thassos island is known from ancient times for its making it a climatic and balneoclimateric resort area. Thasos economy relies on timber, marble quarries, olive oil, tourism has also become important since the 1960s, although not to the level of other Greek islands. Even earlier activity is demonstrated by the presence of large pieces of megalithic anthropomorphic stelai built into these walls, which, so far, have no parallels in the Aegean area. There is then a gap in the record until the end of the Bronze Age c 1100 BC. Here built tombs covered with small mound of earth were typical until the end of the Iron Age, the temple still existed in the time of Herodotus. An eponymous Thasos, son of Phoenix was said to have been the leader of the Phoenicians, around 650 BC, or a little earlier, Greeks from Paros founded a colony on Thasos. A generation or so later, the poet Archilochus, a descendant of these colonists, wrote of casting away his shield during a war against an indigenous Thracian tribe. Herodotus says that the best mines on the island were opened by the Phoenicians on the east side of the island. Archilochus described Thasos as an asss backbone crowned with wild wood, the islands capital, Thasos, had two harbours. Besides its gold mines, the wine, nuts and marble of Thasos were well known in antiquity, Thasian coins had the head of the wine god Dionysos on one side and bunches of grape of the other. Thasos was important during the Ionian Revolt against Persia, after the capture of Miletus Histiaeus, the Ionian leader, laid siege. The attack failed, but, warned by the danger, the Thasians employed their revenues to build war ships and this excited the suspicions of the Persians, and Darius compelled them to surrender their ships and pull down their walls. After the defeat of Xerxes the Thasians joined the Delian League, Thasos was part of the Eastern Roman Empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, from 395 on. According to the 6th century Synecdemus, it belonged to the province of Macedonia Prima, the island was a major source of marble until the disruption of the Slavic invasions in the late 6th/7th centuries, and several churches from Late Antiquity have been found on it. The island remained in Byzantine hands for most of the Middle Ages and it functioned as a naval base in the 13th century, under its own doux, and came briefly under the rule of the Genoese Tedisio Zaccaria in 1307–13. Returning to Byzantine control, its bishopric was raised to an archdiocese by Manuel II Palaiologos, Thasos was captured by the Genoese Gattilusi family ca
26.
Amphipolis
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Amphipolis is best known for the magnificent ancient Greek city, and later Roman city, whose impressive remains can still be seen. Excavations in and around the city have revealed important buildings, ancient walls, at the nearby vast Kasta burial mound, an important ancient Macedonian tomb has recently been revealed. The unique and beautiful Lion of Amphipolis monument nearby is a destination for visitors. It is today a municipality in the Serres regional unit of Greece, the seat of the municipality is Rodolivos. A second attempt took place in 437 BC on the site under the guidance of Hagnon, son of Nicias. The city and its first walls date from this time, the new settlement took the name of Amphipolis, a name which is the subject of much debate about its etymology. However, a probable explanation is the one given by Julius Pollux. Amphipolis became the power base of the Athenians in Thrace and, consequently. The Athenian population remained very much in the minority in the city, for this reason Amphipolis remained an independent city and an ally of the Athenians, rather than a colony or member of the confederacy. However, in 424 BC the Spartan general Brasidas easily took control of the city, a new Athenian force under the command of Cleon failed once more in 422 BC during the Battle of Amphipolis at which both Cleon and Brasidas lost their lives. Brasidas survived long enough to hear of the defeat of the Athenians and was buried at Amphipolis with impressive pomp, from then on he was regarded as the founder of the city and honoured with yearly games and sacrifices. The city itself kept its independence until the reign of king Philip II despite several Athenian attacks, in 357 BC, Philip succeeded where the Athenians had failed and conquered the city, thereby removing the obstacle which Amphipolis presented to Macedonian control over Thrace. The city was not immediately incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom, and for some time preserved its institutions, the border of Macedonia was not moved further east, however, Philip sent a number of Macedonian governors to Amphipolis, and in many respects the city was effectively Macedonianized. Nomenclature, the calendar and the currency were all replaced by Macedonian equivalents, the importance of the city in this period is shown by Alexander the Greats decision that it was one of the six cities at which large luxurious temples costing 1500 talents were built. Alexander prepared for campaigns here against Thrace in 335BC and the his army, the port was also used as naval base during his campaigns in Asia. After Alexanders death, his wife Roxane and their small son Alexander IV were exiled by Cassander and later murdered here, throughout Macedonian sovereignty Amphipolis was a strong fortress of great strategic and economic importance, as shown by inscriptions. Amphipolis became one of the stops on the Macedonian royal road, and later on the Via Egnatia. Apart from the ramparts of the town, the gymnasium
27.
Struma (river)
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The Struma or Strymónas is a river in Bulgaria and Greece. Its catchment area is 10,800 square kilometres and it takes its source from the Vitosha Mountain in Bulgaria, runs first westward, then southward, enters Greek territory at the Kula village. In Greece it is the main waterway feeding and exiting from Lake Kerkini, the river flows into the Strymonian Gulf in Aegean Sea, near Amphipolis in the Serres regional unit. The rivers length is 415 kilometres, parts of the river valley belong to a Bulgarian coal-producing area, more significant in the past than nowadays. The Greek portion is a valley which is dominant in agriculture, the tributaries include the Rila River, the Dragovishtitsa, the Blagoevgradska Bistritsa, the Konska River, the Sandanska Bistritsa and the Angitis. The Ancient Greek city of Amphipolis was founded near the entrance to the Aegean. When Xerxes I of Persia crossed the river during his invasion in 480 BC he buried alive nine young boys, the forces of Alexander I of Macedon defeated the remnants of Xerxes army near Ennea Odoi in 479 BC. In 424 BC the Spartan general Brasidas after crossing the entire Greek peninsula sieged and conquered Amphipolis, the Battle of Kleidion was fought by the river in 1014. In 1913, the Greek Army was nearly surrounded in the Kresna Gorge of the Struma during the Second Balkan War, the Bulgarians were defeated in the war, however, and the Treaty of Bucharest resulted in significant territorial losses for Bulgaria. The river valley was part of the Macedonian front in World War I, the ship Struma, which took Jewish refugees out of Romania in World War II and was torpedoed and sunk in the Black Sea, causing nearly 800 deaths, was named after the river. The name Strymón, was a hydronym in ancient Greek mythology, Strymón was also used as a personal name in various regions of Ancient Greece during the 3rd century BC. Struma Glacier on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Struma River, media related to Struma River at Wikimedia Commons Livius. org, Strymon
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Strategos
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Strategos or Strategus, plural strategoi, is used in Greek to mean military general. In the Hellenistic world and the Byzantine Empire the term was used to describe a military governor. In the modern Hellenic Army it is the highest officer rank, the ten were of equal status, and replaced the polemarchos, who had hitherto been the senior military commander. At Marathon in 490 BC they decided strategy by majority vote, at this date the polemarchos had a casting vote, and one view is that he was the commander-in-chief, but from 486 onwards the polemarchos, like the other archontes, was appointed by lot. The annual election of the strategoi was held in the spring, if a strategos died or was dismissed from office, a by-election might be held to replace him. This system continued at least until ca, 356/7 BC, but by the time Aristotle wrote his Constitution of the Athenians in ca.330 BC, the appointments were made without any reference to tribal affiliation. Hence, during the Hellenistic period, although the number of the tribes was increased, as political power passed to the rhetores in the later 5th century, the strategoi were limited to their military duties. Originally, the strategoi were appointed ad hoc to various assignments and this was generalized in Hellenistic times, when each strategos was given specific duties. One of them, the strategos epi ta hopla, ascended to major prominence in the Roman period, the Athenian people kept a close eye on their strategoi. If the vote went against anyone, he was deposed and as a rule tried by jury, the strategos as an office is attested at least for Syracuse from the late 5th century BC, Erythrae, and in the koinon of the Arcadians in the 360s BC. The title of strategos autokrator was also used for generals with broad powers, thus Philip II of Macedon was elected as strategos autokrator of the League of Corinth. g. In the Hellenistic empires of the Diadochi, notably Lagid Egypt, for which most details are known, in Egypt, the strategoi were originally responsible for the Greek military colonists established in the country. Quickly, they assumed a role in the administration alongside the nomarches, the governor of each of the nomes. Already by the time of Ptolemy II, the strategos was the head of the administration, while conversely his military role declines. Ptolemy V established the office of epistrategos to oversee the individual strategoi, the latter had now become solely civilian officials, combining the role of the nomarches and the oikonomos, while the epistrategos retained powers of military command. In addition, hypostrategoi could be appointed as subordinates, the office largely retained its Ptolemaic functions and continued to be staffed by the Greek population of the country. The Odrysian kingdom of Thrace was also divided into strategiai, each headed by a strategos, based on the various Thracian tribes and subtribes. At the time of the annexation into the Roman Empire in 46 AD, there were 50 such districts, which were initially retained in the new Roman province
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Brasidas
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Brasidas was a Spartan officer during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War. Brasidas was the son of Tellis and Argileonis, and won his first laurels by the relief of Methone, during the following year he seems to have been eponymous ephor, and in 429 he was sent out as one of the three commissioners to advise the admiral Cnemus. As trierarch he distinguished himself in the assault on the Athenian position at the Battle of Pylos, an attack on Eion was foiled by the arrival of Thucydides, the historian, at the head of an Athenian squadron. Brasidas refused to return Scione, and also accepted the revolt of Mende shortly afterwards, an Athenian fleet under Nicias and Nicostratus recovered Mende and blockaded Scione, which fell two years later. Meanwhile, Brasidas joined Perdiccas in a campaign against Arrhabaeus, king of the Lyncesti and this brought to a head the quarrel between Brasidas and Perdiccas. In April 422 the truce with Sparta expired, and in the same summer Cleon was dispatched to Thrace, when Cleon brought part of his army forward to probe the defenses, Brasidas recognized an opportunity to defeat his superior force in detail. Brasidas plan for his victory was typical of his campaigns in Thrace. Brasidas personally led the Spartans in a charge from Amphipolis. His allies sallied from the gate and attacked from the north. Edonian and Chalcidian cavalry and light infantry pursued the fleeing Athenians, killing 600 men, on the Spartan side only seven fatalities are reported, but one of them was Brasidas, who was mortally wounded at the head of his Spartan troops. He was buried at Amphipolis with impressive pomp, and for the future was regarded as the founder of the city and honored with yearly games and sacrifices. At Sparta a cenotaph was erected in his memory near the tombs of Pausanias and Leonidas, ch. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki in her three decade research at Amphipolis offers evidence of the recovery and identification of Brasidas burial at the ancient Amphipolis agora. Thucydides characterization of Brasidas suggests that Brasidas united in himself the stereotypical Spartan courage with those virtues in which regular Spartans were most signally lacking, Brasidas was apparently quick in forming his plans and carried them out without delay or hesitation. Furthermore, the rhetoric in the speech of Brasidas to the Acanthians is of higher quality than the other Spartan speeches recorded by Thucydides. See in particular Thucydides, what Diodorus xii. adds is mainly oratorical elaboration or pure invention, a fuller account will be found in the histories of Greece and in G. Schimmelpfeng, De Brasidae Spartani rebus gestis atque ingenio. Make no show of cowardice then on your part, seeing the greatness of the issues at stake, history of the Peloponnesian War Brasidas by Jona Lendering
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Battle of Amphipolis
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The Battle of Amphipolis was fought in 422 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. It was the culmination of events began in 424 BC with the capture of Amphipolis by the Spartans. In the winter of 424–423, around the time as the Battle of Delium, the Spartan general Brasidas besieged Amphipolis. The city was defended by the Athenian general Eucles, who sent for help from Thucydides, in order to capture the city before Thucydides arrived, Brasidas offered to let everyone who wished to stay keep their property, and offered safe passage to those who wanted to leave. Amphipolis surrendered, despite protests from Eucles, Thucydides arrived at the nearby port of Eion on the same day the city surrendered, and defended it with help from those who had left Amphipolis. Meanwhile, Brasidas began to ally with more Thracian towns, as well as Perdiccas II of Macedon, the Athenians were afraid that their other allies would quickly capitulate, as the Amphipolitans had, if Brasidas offered them favourable terms of peace. Thucydides, who recounted the capture of Amphipolis in his History of the Peloponnesian War, is considered to be partially or entirely responsible for the fall of Amphipolis. Some have seen his actions as gross negligence, although he claimed he was unable to arrive in time to save the city and he was recalled to Athens where he was tried and exiled. In response to the fall of the city, Athens and Sparta signed an armistice, according to the terms of the truce, It is proposed that each side should remain in its own territory, holding what it now holds. The armistice is to last for one year. While the negotiations were going on, Brasidas captured Scione and refused to give it back when news of the treaty arrived, the Athenian leader Cleon sent a force to take it back, despite the treaty. When the armistice ended in 422, Cleon arrived in Thrace with a force of 30 ships,1,200 hoplites and he recaptured Torone and Scione, at Scione, the Spartan commander Pasitelidas was killed. He then took up position at Eion, while Brasidas took his position at Cerdylion, in the rout that followed, Brasidas was mortally injured, although the Athenians did not realize it. Cleon was also killed when he was attacked by troops under the Spartan commander Clearidas, the entire Athenian army fled back to Eion, although about 600 of them were killed before they reached the port. Only seven other Spartans were killed, Brasidas lived long enough to learn of his victory, and was honorably buried in the agora area of Amphipolis. The Amphipolitans began to regard him as a hero and the founder of the city, after the battle, neither the Athenians or the Spartans wanted to continue the war, and the Peace of Nicias was signed in 421 BC. This treaty was eventually broken. Thucydides was exiled for his failure to protect Amphipolis, thus ending the period of the war in which he directly participated, ch. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki in her three decade research at Amphipolis offers evidence of the recovery and identification of Brasidas burial at the ancient Amphipolis agora. London, J. M. Dent, New York, E. P. Dutton
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Exile
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To be in exile means to be away from ones home, while either being explicitly refused permission to return or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return. It can be a form of punishment and solitude and it is common to distinguish between internal exile, i. e. forced resettlement within the country of residence, and external exile, which is deportation outside the country of residence. Although most commonly used to describe a situation, the term is also used for groups. Exile can also be a departure from ones homeland. Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. In some cases the head of state is allowed to go into exile following a coup or other change of government. A wealthy citizen who departs from an abode for a lower tax jurisdiction in order to reduce his/her tax burden is termed a tax exile. Creative people such as authors and musicians who achieve sudden wealth sometimes find themselves among this group, in 2012, Eduardo Saverin, one of the founders of Facebook, made headlines by renouncing his U. S. citizenship before his companys IPO. In some cases a person lives in exile to avoid legal issues. For example, nuns were exiled following the Communist coup détat of 1948 in Czechoslovakia, many Jewish prayers include a yearning to return to Jerusalem and the Jewish homeland. The entire population of Crimean Tatars that remained in their homeland Crimea was exiled on 18 May 1944 to Central Asia as a form of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment on false accusations. At Diego Garcia, between 1967 and 1973 the British Government forcibly removed some 2,000 Chagossian resident islanders to make way for a military base today jointly operated by the US, since the Cuban Revolution over one million Cubans have left Cuba. Most of these self-identify as exiles as their motivation for leaving the island is political in nature, most of the exiles children also consider themselves to be Cuban exiles. It is to be noted that under Cuban law, children of Cubans born abroad are considered Cuban citizens, during a foreign occupation or after a coup détat, a government in exile of a such afflicted country may be established abroad. Exile is a motif in ancient Greek tragedy. In the ancient Greek world, this was seen as a worse than death. The motif reaches its peak on the play Medea, written by Euripides in the fifth century BC, euripides’ Medea has remained the most frequently performed Greek tragedy through the 20th century. After Medea was abandoned by Jason and had become a murderer out of revenge, she fled to Athens and married king Aigeus there, due to a conflict with him, she must leave the Polis and go away into exile
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Herodotus
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Herodotus was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire and lived in the fifth century BC, a contemporary of Socrates. The Histories is the work which he is known to have produced. Despite Herodotus historical significance, little is known of his personal life and his place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact, of these only fragments of Hecataeuss work survive yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus’s work, Genealogies, This points forward to the ‘folksy’ yet ‘international’ outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as “a curious false start to history” since despite his critical spirit. It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a recorded by Eusebius. But Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, He argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe. Yet, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his notions of the Danube. His debt to previous authors of prose ‘histories’ might be questionable, however, this point is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship. It is on account of the strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics in early modern times branded him “The Father of Lies”. Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement, similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a “logos-writer”. Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view, the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus’s own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, modern accounts of his life typically go something like this, Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, the epic poet Panyassis – a relative of Herodotus – is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. Herodotus expresses affection for the island of Samos, and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos, Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, yet he was born in Halicarnassus, which was a Dorian settlement
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Miltiades
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Miltiades, also known as Miltiades the Younger, was the son of Cimon Coalemos, a renowned Olympic chariot-racer. He was an Athenian citizen and is mostly for his role in the Battle of Marathon. Miltiades was a well-born Athenian, and considered himself a member of the Aeacidae and he came of age during the tyranny of the Peisistratids. His family was prominent, due in part to their success with Olympic chariot-racing. Miltiades was named after his fathers maternal half-brother, Miltiades the Elder, miltiadess son Cimon was a major Athenian figure of the 470s and 460s BC. His daughter Elpinice is remembered for her confrontations with Pericles, as recorded by Plutarch, around 555 BC, Miltiades the Elder left Athens to establish a colony on the Thracian Chersonese, setting himself up as a semi-autonomous tyrant under the protection of Athens. Miltiades the Elder was childless, so when he died around 520 BC, his nephew, Miltiades the Youngers brother, Stesagoras, inherited the tyranny of the Chersonese. Four years later, Stesagoras met his death by an axe to the head, Stesagoras reign had been tumultuous, full of war and revolt. Wishing to achieve control over his lands than his brother had. When the men of rank from the Chersonese came to console him and he then ensured his power by employing 500 troops. He also made an alliance with King Olorus of Thrace by marrying his daughter, in around 513 BC, Darius I, the king of Persia, led a large army into the area, forcing the Thracian Chersonese into submission and making Miltiades a vassal of Persian rule. Miltiades tried to convince the officers to destroy the bridge and leave Darius and his forces to die, but the others were afraid. When the king heard of the sabotage, Miltiades rule became a perilous affair. Miltiades joined the Ionian Revolt of 499 BC against Persian rule and he established friendly relations with Athens by capturing the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, which he then ceded to Athens, who had ancient claims to these lands. The Ionian Revolt collapsed in 494 BC, and in 492 BC Miltiades, the Athens to which Miltiades returned was no longer a tyranny, it had overthrown the Peisistratids and become a democracy 15 years earlier. Thus, Miltiades initially faced a hostile reception for his rule in the Thracian Chersonese. His trial was further complicated by the politics of his aristocratic rivals, however, Miltiades successfully presented himself as a defender of Greek freedoms against Persian despotism. He also promoted the fact that he had been a witness to Persian tactics
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Cimon
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Cimon or Kimon was an Athenian statesman and general in mid-5th century BC Greece. He was the son of Miltiades, the victor of the Battle of Marathon, Cimon played a key role in creating the powerful Athenian maritime empire following the failure of the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes I in 480-479 BC. Cimon became a military hero and was elevated to the rank of admiral after fighting in the Battle of Salamis. One of Cimon’s greatest exploits was his destruction of a Persian fleet, in 462 BC, he led an unsuccessful expedition to support the Spartans during the helot uprisings. For this participation in policy, he has often been called a laconist. Cimon also led the Athenian aristocratic party against Pericles and opposed the revolution of Ephialtes seeking to retain aristocratic party control over Athenian institutions. Cimon was born into Athenian nobility in 510 BC and he was a member of the Philaidae clan, from the deme of Laciadae. His grandfather was Cimon the Silly, who won three Olympic victories with his chariot and was assassinated by the sons of Peisistratus. His father was the celebrated Athenian general Miltiades and his mother was Hegesipyle, daughter of the Thracian king Olorus, while Cimon was a young man, his father was fined 50 talents after an accusation of treason by the Athenian state. As Miltiades could not afford to pay this amount, he was put in jail, Cimon inherited this debt and, according to Diodorus, some of his fathers unserved prison sentence in order to obtain his body for burial. As the head of his household, he also had to look after his sister or half-sister Elpinice, according to Plutarch, the wealthy Callias took advantage of this situation by proposing to pay Cimons debts for Elpinices hand in marriage. He later married Isodice, Megacles granddaughter and a member of the Alcmaeonidae family and their first children were twin boys named Lacedaemonius and Eleus. During the Battle of Salamis, Cimon distinguished himself by his bravery and he is mentioned as being a member of an embassy sent to Sparta in 479 BC. Between 478 BC and 476 BC, a number of Greek maritime cities around the Aegean Sea did not wish to submit to Persian control again, there, they formed the Delian League, and it was agreed that Cimon would be their principal commander. As strategos, Cimon commanded most of the League’s operations until 463 BC, during this period, he and Aristides drove the Spartans under Pausanias out of Byzantium. Cimon also captured Eion on the Strymon from the Persian general Boges and he also conquered Scyros and drove out the pirates who were based there. On his return, he brought the “bones” of the mythological Theseus back to Athens, to celebrate this achievement, three Herma statues were erected around Athens. Around 466 BC, Cimon carried the war against Persia into Asia Minor, Cimons land and sea forces captured the Persian camp and destroyed or captured the entire Persian fleet of 200 triremes manned by Phoenicians
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Aristocracy
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Aristocracy is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning rule of the best, at the time of the words origins in Ancient Greece, the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best qualified citizens—and often contrasted it favourably with monarchy, rule by an individual. In later times, aristocracy was usually seen as rule by a group, the aristocratic class. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, in Ancient Rome, the Republic consisted of an aristocracy—as well as consuls, a senate, and a tribal assembly. In the Middle Ages and early modern era, aristocracies primarily consisted of an aristocratic class, privileged by birth. Since the French Revolution, aristocracy has generally been contrasted with democracy, however, this distinction is often oversimplified. In exchange feudal aid is received from tenants or vassals, oaths of military allegiance, however an oligarchy, nobility or royalty had the right to set taxes, assemble or raise armies and command loyalty by virtue of traditional authority. In the 1651 book Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes an aristocracy as a commonwealth in which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part and it is a system in which only a small part of the population represents the government. Modern depictions of aristocracy tend to regard it not as the ancient Greek concept of rule by the best, history, John Cannon, Oxford University Press,1997, ISBN 978-0-19-866176-4 Aristocracy in the Modern World, Ellis Wasson, Palgrave Macmillan,2006
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Democracy
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Democracy, in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. Democracy is sometimes referred to as rule of the majority, Democracy was originally conceived in Classical Greece, where political representatives were chosen by a jury from amongst the male citizens, rich and poor. The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French, in the 5th century BC, to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, the term is an antonym to aristocracy, meaning rule of an elite. While theoretically these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically, the political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In 1906, Finland became the first government to harald a more inclusive democracy at the national level. Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders, No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics. These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law, other uses of democracy include that of direct democracy. In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, in the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a central attribute. In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review, though the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations. Majority rule is listed as a characteristic of democracy. Hence, democracy allows for political minorities to be oppressed by the tyranny of the majority in the absence of legal protections of individual or group rights. An essential part of a representative democracy is competitive elections that are substantively and procedurally fair, i. e. just. It has also suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society. While representative democracy is sometimes equated with the form of government. Many democracies are constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, the term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from demos, common people and kratos, strength, led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC
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Pausanias (geographer)
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Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the time of Roman emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece, a work that describes ancient Greece from his first-hand observations. This work provides crucial information for making links between classical literature and modern archaeology, andrew Stewart assesses him as, A careful, pedestrian writer. interested not only in the grandiose or the exquisite but in unusual sights and obscure ritual. He is occasionally careless, or makes unwarranted inferences, and his guides or even his own notes sometimes mislead him, yet his honesty is unquestionable, before visiting Greece, he had been to Antioch, Joppa and Jerusalem, and to the banks of the River Jordan. In Egypt, he had seen the pyramids, while at the temple of Ammon, in Macedonia, he appears to have seen the alleged tomb of Orpheus in Libethra. Crossing over to Italy, he had something of the cities of Campania. He was one of the first to write of seeing the ruins of Troy, Alexandria Troas, Pausanias Description of Greece is in ten books, each dedicated to some portion of Greece. He begins his tour in Attica, where the city of Athens, subsequent books describe Corinthia, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaea, Arcadia, Boetia, Phocis and Ozolian Locris. He famously leaves out key portions of Greece such as Crete, the project is more than topographical, it is a cultural geography. Pausanias digresses from description of architectural and artistic objects to review the mythological and historical underpinnings of the society that produced them and his work bears the marks of his attempt to navigate that space and establish an identity for Roman Greece. He is not a naturalist by any means, though he does from time to comment on the physical realities of the Greek landscape. He notices the pine trees on the sandy coast of Elis, the deer and the boars in the oak woods of Phelloe. Pausanias is most at home in describing the art and architecture of Olympia. Yet, even in the most secluded regions of Greece, he is fascinated by all kinds of depictions of gods, holy relics, Pausanias has the instincts of an antiquary. Some magnificent and dominating structures, such as the Stoa of King Attalus in the Athenian Agora or the Exedra of Herodes Atticus at Olympia are not even mentioned. While he never doubts the existence of the gods and heroes, he criticizes the myths. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned and they bear the impression of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance, when he quotes a book at second hand he takes pains to say so
38.
Plutarch
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Plutarch was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist, Plutarchs surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers. Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the town of Chaeronea, about 80 km east of Delphi. The name of Plutarchs father has not been preserved, but based on the common Greek custom of repeating a name in alternate generations, the name of Plutarchs grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony. His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are mentioned in his essays and dialogues. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarchs wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not to grieve too much at the death of their two-year-old daughter, interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation. The exact number of his sons is not certain, although two of them, Autobulus and the second Plutarch, are often mentioned. Plutarchs treatise De animae procreatione in Timaeo is dedicated to them, another person, Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarchs son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens under Ammonius from 66 to 67, at some point, Plutarch took Roman citizenship. He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek god Apollo. For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the famous Delphic Oracle, twenty miles from his home. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, at his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the 78 essays, Plutarch held the office of archon in his native municipality, probably only an annual one which he likely served more than once. He busied himself with all the matters of the town. The Suda, a medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Emperor Trajan made Plutarch procurator of Illyria, however, most historians consider this unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, and Plutarch probably did not speak Illyrian. Plutarch spent the last thirty years of his serving as a priest in Delphi. He thus connected part of his work with the sanctuary of Apollo, the processes of oracle-giving
39.
Demagogue
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Demagogues overturn established customs of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so. Demagogues have appeared in democracies since ancient Athens, demagogues have usually advocated immediate, forceful action to address a national crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Even though democracy gave power to the people, elections still tended to favor the aristocratic class. Demagogues were a new kind of leader who emerged from the lower classes, demagogues relentlessly advocated action, usually violent—immediately and without deliberation. Throughout its history, people have used the word demagogue carelessly, to disparage any leader whom the speaker thinks manipulative, pernicious. James Fenimore Cooper in 1838 identified four fundamental characteristics of demagogues, They fashion themselves as a man or woman of the common people and their politics depends on a visceral connection with the people, which greatly exceeds ordinary political popularity. They manipulate this connection, and the popularity it affords, for their own benefit. They threaten or outright break established rules of conduct, institutions, the central feature of the practice of demagoguery is persuasion by means of passion, shutting down reasoned deliberation and consideration of alternatives. Demagogues pander to passion, prejudice, bigotry, and ignorance, see below for a survey of the methods of persuasion used by most demagogues throughout history. Demagogues have arisen in democracies from Athens to the present day, 20th Century demagogues include Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Joseph McCarthy. The Greek historian Polybius thought that democracies are inevitably undone by demagogues and he said that every democracy eventually decays into a government of violence and the strong hand, leading to tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments. The Athenian leader Cleon is known as a notorious demagogue mainly because of three events described in the writings of Thucydides and Aristophanes, the Athenians rescinded the resolution the following day when they came to their senses. They gave him the job, expecting him to fail, Cleon shrank at being called to make good on his boast, and tried to get out of it, but he was forced to take the command. In fact, he succeeded—by getting the general Demosthenes to do it, three years later, Cleon and his Spartan counterpart Brasidas were killed at the Battle of Amphipolis, enabling a restoration of peace that lasted until the outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian War. Modern commentators suspect that Thucydides and Aristophanes exaggerated the vileness of Cleons real character, both had personal conflicts with Cleon, and The Knights is a satirical, allegorical comedy that doesnt even mention Cleon by name. Thucydides and Aristophanes came from the classes, predisposed to look down on the commercial classes. Nevertheless, their portrayals define the archetypal example of the demagogue or rabble-rouser, alcibiades convinced the people of Athens to attempt to conquer Sicily during the Peloponnesian War, with disastrous results. He led the Athenian assembly to support making him commander by claiming victory would come easily, appealing to Athenian vanity and it should be noted, however, that Alcibiadess expedition could have succeeded if he was not denied command due to the political maneuvers of his rivals
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Hyperbolus
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Hyperbolus was an Athenian politician active during the first half of the Peloponnesian war, coming to particular prominence after the death of Cleon. Like Cleon, he counts as a demagogue, one who exercised power solely through speech in the assembly and it appears that like other such leaders he was wealthy. He is referred to by Aristophanes in the play Peace as having been a lampmaker previous to being a political figure, in attacks on him with comedy he is represented as being of slavish and foreign background, both of which are improbable. Sometime in the years 417-415 BC he was ostracised, perhaps the last person to be subject to the practice, the validity of Plutarchs take on these events, however, is hard to gauge. Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edition, Hyperbolus, the Ostracism of Hyberbolus, J. P. Rhodes, in Ritual, Finance, Politics, Athenian Democratic Accounts presented to David Lewis, eds. R. Osborne, S. Hornblower, pp. 85–99, the New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens by W. Robert Connor. Media related to Hyperbolus at Wikimedia Commons
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Corfu
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Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its satellite islands. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality, the municipality has an area of 610.936 km2, the island proper 592.877 km2. The principal city of the island and seat of the municipality is also named Corfu, Corfu is home to the Ionian University. The island is bound up with the history of Greece from the beginnings of Greek mythology and its history is full of battles and conquests. Castles punctuating strategic locations across the island are a legacy of these struggles, two of these castles enclose its capital, which is the only city in Greece to be surrounded in such a way. As a result, Corfus capital has been declared a Kastropolis by the Greek government. From medieval times and into the 17th century, the island was recognised as a bulwark of the European States against the Ottoman Empire, the fortifications of the island were used by the Venetians to defend against Ottoman intrusion into the Adriatic. Corfu repulsed several Ottoman sieges, before falling under British rule following the Napoleonic Wars, in 2007, the citys old quarter was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, following a recommendation by ICOMOS. Corfu is a popular tourist destination. The island was the location of the 1994 European Union summit, the Greek name, Kerkyra or Korkyra, is related to two powerful water deities, Poseidon, god of the sea, and Asopos, an important Greek mainland river. According to myth, Poseidon fell in love with the beautiful nymph Korkyra, daughter of Asopos and river nymph Metope, Poseidon brought Korkyra to the hitherto unnamed island and, in marital bliss, offered her name to the place, Korkyra, which gradually evolved to Kerkyra. They had a child they called Phaiax, after whom the inhabitants of the island were named Phaiakes, Corfus nickname is the island of the Phaeacians. The name Corfù, an Italian version of the Byzantine Κορυφώ, meaning city of the peaks, derives from the Byzantine Greek Κορυφαί, the northeastern edge of Corfu lies off the coast of Sarandë, Albania, separated by straits varying in width from 3 to 23 km. The southeast side of the island lies off the coast of Thesprotia and its shape resembles a sickle, to which it was compared by the ancients, the concave side, with the city and harbour of Corfu in the centre, lies toward the Albanian coast. With the islands area estimated at 592.9 square kilometres, it runs approximately 64 km long, two high and well-defined ranges divide the island into three districts, of which the northern is mountainous, the central undulating, and the southern low-lying. The more important of the two ranges, that of Pantokrator stretches east and west from Cape Falacro to Cape Psaromita, and attains its greatest elevation in the summit of the same name. The second range culminates in the mountain of Santi Jeca, or Santa Decca, as it is called by misinterpretation of the Greek designation Άγιοι Δέκα, or the Ten Saints
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Historiography
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Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic using particular sources, techniques, beginning in the nineteenth century, with the ascent of academic history, there developed a body of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups, in 2007, of 5,723 faculty in the departments of history at British universities,1,644 identified themselves with social history and 1,425 identified themselves with political history. In the early period, the term historiography meant the writing of history. In that sense certain official historians were given the title Historiographer Royal in Sweden, England, the Scottish post is still in existence. Understanding the past appears to be a human need. What constitutes history is a philosophical question, the earliest chronologies date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, though no historical writers in these early civilizations were known by name. For the purposes of article, history is taken to mean written history recorded in a narrative format for the purpose of informing future generations about events. Before writing, there was only oral history or oral tradition, in China, the earliest history was recorded in oracle bone script which was deciphered and may date back to around late 2nd millennium BCE. The Zuo Zhuan, attributed to Zuo Qiuming in the 5th century BCE, is the earliest written of narrative history in the world, the Classic of History is one of the Five Classics of Chinese classic texts and one of the earliest narratives of China. It is traditionally attributed to Confucius, zhan Guo Ce was a renowned ancient Chinese historical compilation of sporadic materials on the Warring States period compiled between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. Sima Qian was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing and his written work was the Shiji, a monumental lifelong achievement in literature. His work influenced every subsequent author of history in China, including the prestigious Ban family of the Eastern Han Dynasty era, traditional Chinese historiography describes history in terms of dynastic cycles. In this view, each new dynasty is founded by a morally righteous founder, over time, the dynasty becomes morally corrupt and dissolute. Eventually, the dynasty becomes so weak as to allow its replacement by a new dynasty, the tradition of Korean historiography was established with the Samguk Sagi, a history of Korea from its allegedly earliest times. It was compiled by Goryeo court historian Kim Busik after its commission by King Injong of Goryeo. It was completed in 1145 and relied not only on earlier Chinese histories for source material, the latter work is now lost. The earliest works of history produced in Japan were the Rikkokushi, the first of these works were the Nihon Shoki, compiled by Prince Toneri in 720
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Book 11#1:13". History of the Peloponnesian War. Wikisource.
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