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Serapeum Of Alexandria
The Serapeum of Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom was an ancient Greek temple built by Ptolemy III Euergetes (reigned 246–222 BC) and dedicated to Serapis, who was made the protector of Alexandria, Egypt. There are also signs of Harpocrates. It has been referred to as the daughter of the Library of Alexandria. The site has been heavily plundered. History The site is located on a rocky plateau, overlooking land and sea. By all detailed accounts, the Serapeum was the largest and most magnificent of all temples in the Greek quarter of Alexandria. Besides the image of the god, the temple precinct housed an offshoot collection of the Library of Alexandria. The geographer Strabo tells that this stood in the west of the city. Nothing now remains above ground, except the enormous Pompey's Pillar (column), Pompey's Pillar. According to Alan Rowe (archaeologist), Rowe and B. R. Rees, Rees 1956, accounts of Serapeum's still standing buildings they saw there have been left by Apht ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandria - Pompey's Pillar - View Of Ruins
Alexandria ( ; ) is the second largest city in Egypt and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile River delta. Founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, eventually replacing Memphis, in present-day Greater Cairo, as Egypt's capital. Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" and "Pearl of the Mediterranean Coast" internationally, Alexandria is a popular tourist destination and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. The city extends about along the northern coast of Egypt and is the largest city on the Mediterranean, the second-largest in Egypt (after Cairo), the fourth-largest city in the Arab world, the ninth-largest city in Africa, and the ninth-largest urban area in Africa. The city was founded originally in the vicinity of an Egyptian settlement named Rhacotis (that became the Egyptian quarter of the city) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Brown (historian)
Peter Robert Lamont Brown (born 26 July 1935) is an Irish historian. He is the Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. Brown is credited with having brought coherence to the field of Late Antiquity, and is often regarded as the inventor of said field. His work has concerned, in particular, the religious culture of the later Roman Empire and early medieval Europe, and the relation between religion and society. Early life and education Peter Brown was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1935, to a Scots-Irish Protestant family. Until 1939, he spent winter and spring each year in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, where his father worked as a railway engineer based at Khartoum. For the rest of the year, he would return with his mother to Bray, in County Wicklow, near Dublin. Following the outbreak of war, Brown and his mother remained in Ireland, though his father did not return finally until 1948. Brown has a stutter and came later in life to be noted as an example of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eunapius
Eunapius (; c. 347 - c. 420) was a Greek sophist, rhetorician, and historian from Sardis in the region of Lydia in Asia Minor. His principal surviving work is the ''Lives of Philosophers and Sophists'' (; ), a collection of the biographies of 24 philosophers and sophists. Life He was born at Sardis, around the year 347 AD. While still a youth, he went to Athens, where he became a pupil of Prohaeresius the rhetorician. Back in his native city he studied under his relative, the sophist Chrysanthius. He as well possessed considerable knowledge of medicine. In his later years, he seems to have lived at Athens, teaching rhetoric. He was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries by the last Hierophant, Nestorius.Eunapius, ''Vit. Soph.'' 7.3.1; K. Clinton, ''Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries'' (1974) p. 42ff. There is evidence that he was still living in the reign of Theodosius II as he mentions an event that happened in 414 AD. The exact date of his death is unknown but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcadius
Arcadius ( ; 377 – 1 May 408) was Roman emperor from 383 to his death in 408. He was the eldest son of the ''Augustus'' Theodosius I () and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and the brother of Honorius (). Arcadius ruled the eastern half of the empire from 395, when their father died, while Honorius ruled the west. In his time, he was seen as a weak ruler dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia.Nicholson, p. 119 Early life Arcadius was born in 377 in Hispania, the eldest son of Theodosius I and Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of Honorius. On 19 January 383, his father declared the five-year-old Arcadius an Augustus and co-ruler for the eastern half of the Empire. Ten years later a corresponding declaration made Honorius the Augustus of the western half. Arcadius passed his early years under the tutelage of the rhetorician Themistius and Arsenius Zonaras, a monk. Reign Early reign Both of Theodosius's sons were young and inexperien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clemency
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction. Pardons can be viewed as a tool to overcome miscarriage of justice, allowing a grant of freedom to someone who is believed to be wrongly convicted or subjected to an excessive penalty. The second-best theory of pardons views pardons as second-best to fair justice. Pardons can be granted in many countries when individuals are deemed to have demonstrated that they have "paid their debt to society", or are otherwise considered to be deserving of them. In some jurisdictions of some nations, accepting a pardon may ''implicitly'' constitute an admission of guilt; the offer is refused in some cases. Cases of wrongful conviction are in recent times more often dealt with by appeal rather than by pardon; however, a pardon is sometimes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citadel
A citadel is the most fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of ''city'', meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. In a fortification with bastions, the citadel is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but often forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy. It is positioned to be the last line of defence, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system. History 3300–1300 BC Some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley civilisation, where citadels represented a centralised authority. Citadels in Indus Valley were almost 12 meters tall. The purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phallus
A phallus (: phalli or phalluses) is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ''ithyphallic''. Any object that symbolically—or, more precisely, iconically—resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic (as in "phallic symbol"). Such symbols often represent fertility and cultural implications that are associated with the male sexual organ, as well as the male orgasm. Etymology The term is a loanword from Latin ''phallus'', itself borrowed from Greek (''phallos''), which is ultimately a derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root *''bʰel''- "to inflate, swell". Compare with Old Norse (and modern Icelandic) ''boli'', "bull", Old English ''bulluc'', "bullock", Greek , "whale". Archaeology The Hohle phallus, a 28,000-year-old siltstone phallus discovered in the Hohle Fels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Ancient Rome, Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''baccheia''. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his Cult of Dionysus, cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thrace, Thracian, others as Greek. In O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Theophilus I Of Alexandria
Theophilus of Alexandria (Greek: Θεόφιλος; died 15 October 412) was the 23rd Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark from 385 to 412. He is remembered as a pivotal figure in late antique Christianity, known for his assertive role in suppressing paganism and managing ecclesiastical disputes that shaped the doctrinal course of the early Church. Historical Context Theophilus rose to the patriarchate during a time of significant transformation in the Roman Empire. Christianity had recently gained imperial support through the policies of Constantine and Theodosius I, displacing long-dominant pagan cults. Alexandria, a center of learning and philosophical traditions, became a focal point of religious and political tensions. Early Life and Patriarchate Little is known about Theophilus’s early life, though he was likely born in Egypt in the mid-4th century. He succeeded Pope Timothy I as Patriarch of Alexandria in 385 AD. His nephew, Cyril of Alexandria, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrannius Rufinus
Tyrannius Rufinus, also called Rufinus of Aquileia (; 344/345–411), was an early Christian monk, philosopher, historian, and theologian who worked to translate Greek patristic material, especially the work of Origen, into Latin. Life Rufinus was born in 344 or 345 in the Roman city of Julia Concordia (now Concordia Sagittaria), near Aquileia (in modern-day Italy) at the head of the Adriatic Sea. It appears that both of his parents were Christians. Around 370, he was living in a monastic community in Aquileia when he met Jerome. In about 372, Rufinus followed Jerome to the eastern Mediterranean, where he studied in Alexandria under Didymus the Blind for some time, and became friends with Macarius the elder and other ascetics in the desert. In Egypt, if not even before leaving Italy, he had become intimately acquainted with Melania the Elder, a wealthy and devout Roman widow. When she moved to Palestine, taking with her a number of clergy and monks on whom the persecutions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sozomen
Salamanes Hermias Sozomenos (; ; c. 400 – c. 450 AD), also known as Sozomen, was a Roman lawyer and historian of the Christian Church. Family and home Sozoman was born around 400 in Bethelia, a small town near Gaza, into a wealthy Christian family of Palestine. He told the history of Southern Palestine derived from oral tradition. He appeared to be familiar with the region around Gaza, and mentioned having seen Bishop Zeno of Majuma, at the seaport of Gaza. Sozomen wrote that his grandfather lived at Bethelia, near Gaza, and became a Christian together with his household, probably under Constantius II. A neighbor named Alaphrion was miraculously healed by Saint Hilarion, who cast out a demon from Alaphrion, and, as eyewitnesses to the miracle, his family converted, along with Alaphrion's. The conversion marked a turning-point in the Christianization of southern Palestine, according to his account. The grandfather became within his own circle a highly esteemed interpret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Of Cappadocia
George of Cappadocia ( Greek: Γεώργιος ό Καππάδοκης) died 24 December 361) was the intruding Arian bishop of Alexandria from 356 until his martyrdom. Biography Early life George was born, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, at Epiphania in Cilicia, and, if so, must have been Cappadocian only by descent. (The name "of Cappadocia" by which he is commonly known comes from Athan. Ep. ad Episc. 7.) Gregory Nazianzen describes him as not purely free-born, and as "unlearned," but he undoubtedly collected a library which Julian, no bad judge, describes as "very large and ample," richly stored with philosophical, rhetorical, and historical authors, and with various works of "Galilean" or Christian theology. Intrusion In February 356, after Athanasius had retired from Alexandria in consequence of the attack on his church, which all but ended in his seizure, he heard that George was to be intruded into his throne, as Gregory had been sixteen years previously. Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
