Abydos
1 A town of ancient Mysia in Asia Minor, situated on a hill overlooking the Dardanelles, north‐east of the modern Turkish city of Çanakkale. Abydos was the scene of the story of Hero and Leander and ...
Acanthus
Was a colony of Andros (Thucydides 4. 84) near the narrowest point of the Akte prong of Chalcidice and thus close to the canal dug in 480 bc on the ...
Achaemenid
A member of the dynasty ruling in Persia from Cyrus I to Darius III (553–330 bc); the name comes from Greek Akhaimenēs ‘Achaemenes’, the reputed ancestor of the dynasty.
Ahasuerus
Name given in the Hebrew scriptures to the Emperor Xerxes, husband of Esther. Ahasuerus is also the name of a king in the Book of Daniel, and is traditionally the name of the Wandering Jew.
Alastor
Avenging deity or daimōn. Personification of the curse which falls on a family through guilt. The alastōr exacts punishment for murder by causing new bloodshed and ensuring continuity of guilt ...
Alexander I
‘the Philhellene’, king of Macedon c. 498–454 bc. Subject to Persia from 492 and related by marriage to the Persian noble Bubares, he used his influence to extend his territory ...
Antenor
Athenian sculptor active in the late 6th century bc. In antiquity he was famous for his bronze group of the Tyrannicides (c.510 bc, now lost), which stood in the agora ...
Aristogiton
Athenian tyrannicide. He and Harmodius, both of the family of Gephyraei, provoked, acc. to Thucydides (2), by amorous rivalry, plotted along with others to kill Hippias (1) at the Panathenaic ...
Artaphernes
But only the former is correct: cf. El. Irdapirna and OP †Rta-farnah-. (1) Full brother of Darius I and satrap of Sardis, who put down the Ionian Revolt. He figures ...
Artaxerxes
In Ezra 4: 7 etc. the reference is probably to Artaxerxes I, king of Persia 465–424bce, whose appointment of Nehemiah as governor in Jerusalem was probably to assist his ambitions against Egypt.
Athos
100 kilometres south-east of Thessalonica, Athos forms the easternmost of the three peninsulas that prolong Chalcidike southwards, as well as the most mountainous and least accessible. It is a vast ...
Babylonia
[CP]A region taking in the whole of the southern alluvial plain of Mesopotamia, which although traditionally linked with the city of Babylon was not always connected to it or ruled from it.
Bacis
A Boeotian chresmologue (oracle-collector) ‘maddened by the nymphs’ (Pausanias 4. 27. 4) whose oracles were known from the 5th cent. bc onwards (e.g. Herodotus 8. 20. 77 and 9. 43 ...
battle of Plataea
A battle in 479 bc, during the Persian Wars, in which the Persian forces were defeated by the Greeks near the city of Plataea in Boeotia.
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 ...
battle of Thermopylae
In the pass between the mountains and the sea (see preceding entry) 6,000–7,000 Greeks, led by Leonidas king of Sparta, attempted to hold the invading Persians, probably in August 480 bc. See persian ...
canal
Darius I completed the canal begun by Necho (see saïtes) to connect the Pelusiac branch of the Nile above (south of) Bubastis to the Red Sea. Ptolemy II built a longer canal, from the still undivided ...
Chalcidicē
A big peninsula projecting from Macedonia and ending in three promontories, was inhabited originally by the Sithonians. Their name survived in ‘Sithonia’, the central promontory between the western ...
Chalcis
The chief city of Euboea throughout antiquity, controlling the narrowest part of the Euripus channel and (after 411 bc) a bridge to the mainland. In the 8th cent. Chalcis, with its neighbour Eretria, ...
Critius
Greek sculptor, active in Athens in the early 5th century bc. He worked in collaboration with another sculptor called Nesiotes, their chief work being the bronze Tyrannicides, erected in 477 ...
