Ammianus Marcellinus
[Na]One of the last great Roman historians. Originally from Antioch, born c.ad 330, he served in the army and settled in Rome c.ad 378. His History, written in Latin for a Roman audience, spanned the ...
Anacharsis
Said by Herodotus to have been a Scythian prince of the 6th century bc, who having travelled widely (and according to one account found that in Greece the Spartans were the only people with whom it ...
Ancient Historians
The earliest extant classical writer to mention Egypt is the Greek epic poet Homer. He says little, but his comments had a considerable effect in orienting interest and confirming attitudes ...
ancient scholarship
GreekIn one sense of the term, scholarship began when literature became a central element of education and the prescribed texts had to be explained and interpreted to pupils in a class. An early ...
animal
Animal Farm a fable (1945) by George Orwell which consists of a satire on Russian Communism as it developed under Stalin. The animals of the farm, led by the pigs, revolt against the cruel farmer, ...
anthropology
In philosophical usage, a general theory of human nature, sometimes thought to be the necessary foundation of history and all social sciences. The philosophy of anthropology considers such issues as ...
Antiochus (10)
Of Syracuse, probably the oldest of the western Greek historians (see historiography, Greek), active in the 5th cent. bc, after Herodotus (1) but before Thucydides (2). He wrote: 1. Sicelica ...
Arabs
Ancient tribes and peoples who lived in, and around the modern Arabian peninsula. Herodotus was acquainted with the Arabs of southern Palestine and the Sinai, and mentions the Arabs of the incense ...
Araxes
Properly the Armenian river now called Aras, Ras, or Yerash, rising in Bin Geul Dağ, then flowing eastwards across Erzerum and the Mogan Steppe. Until ad 1897 it joined the ...
Arcesilas I, II, III, IV
Second, fourth, sixth, and eighth kings of the Battiads, who ruled Cyrene from its foundation (c.630 bc) for some 200 years. Information on their reigns comes almost entirely from Herodotus ...
Argos
A city in the NE Peloponnese of Greece. One of the oldest cities of ancient Greece, it dominated the Peloponnese and the western Aegean in the 7th century bc. Argive, a citizen of Argos, is used ...
Arimaspeans
A fabulous one-eyed tribe from the distant north whose name (Ἀριμασποί) Herodotus (1) claims to be able to derive from Scythian arima ‘one’, spou ‘eye’ (4. 27; cf. 3. 116 ...
Arrian
c. ad 86–160.Born in Nicomedia, he held local office and pursued studies with Epictetus, whose lectures he later published. In Greece between 108 and 112 he attracted the friendship of Hadrian, who ...
Artemisia
Early 5th‐cent. bcruler, under Persian suzerainty, over Halicarnassus and Cos. In the Persian Wars Artemisia accompanied Xerxes' expedition with five ships. Acc. to the Halicarnassian Herodotus, she ...
Atlas
In Greek mythology a brother of Prometheus who was originally a marine god before Perseus showed him the Gorgon's head and turned him into a rock mountain supporting the heavens. A mythical god, or ...
Babylon
An ancient city in Mesopotamia, the capital of Babylonia in the 2nd millennium bc under Hammurabi. The city (of which only ruins now remain) lay on the Euphrates and was noted by Classical writers ...
battle of Salamis
(480 bc)A naval battle fought in the Aegean Sea during the Greek-Persian wars. Themistocles, the Greek commander, lured the Persian fleet of Xerxes, the Persian king, into the narrow waters between ...
Berber
An indigenous person of northern and north-western Africa. Traditionally, the Berbers speak Berber languages, although most literate Berbers also speak Arabic. The Berbers are Sunni Muslims, and ...
Bibliotheca
Also Myriobiblon (Μυριóβιβλον, “thousand books”), conventional titles of a work of Photios. In the oldest MS (Venice, Marc. gr. 450) the heading of the work is “List and Description of ...
bilingualism
Widespread bilingualism at some level was characteristic of the ancient world. Latin and esp. Greek were the languages of culture and education (in the Roman empire, Latin was the language of law and ...
