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Apega Of Nabis
The Apega of Nabis, also known as the Iron Apega, was described by Polybius as an ancient torture device similar to the iron maiden (torture device), iron maiden. It was invented by Nabis of Sparta, Nabis, a king who ruled Sparta as a tyrant from 207 to 192 BC. Device description The mechanical Apega, according to Polybius, was a machine, a well-executed replica of the Apega of Sparta, real wife of Nabis, and was used by Nabis to collect money from unwilling Spartan citizens. Those who did not give money were sent to deal with his wife. This was the replica, dressed in expensive clothing, with arms outstretched. When the drunken visitors hugged her, this triggered the arms to close. The device's arms, hands, and breasts were covered with iron nails, and the arms were capable of crushing the body of its victim. Nabis would control the machine through hidden devices until the victim agreed to pay a tribute or to the point of death. The automaton, Apega, was one of the advanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. They also form a significant Greek diaspora, diaspora (), with many Greek communities established around the world.. Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people themselves have always been centered on the Aegean Sea, Aegean and Ionian Sea, Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age.. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Many of these regions coincided to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrienne Mayor
Adrienne Mayor (born ) is a historian of ancient science and a classical folklorist. Mayor specializes in ancient history and the study of " folk science", or how pre-scientific cultures interpreted data about the natural world, and how these interpretations form the basis of many ancient myths, folklore and popular beliefs. Her work in pre-scientific fossil discoveries and traditional interpretations of paleontological remains has opened up a new field within the emerging discipline of geomythology and classical folklore. Mayor's book, ''Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & the Scorpion Bombs'', on the origins of biological and chemical warfare revealed the ancient roots of poison weaponry and tactics. Life From 1980 to 1996, she worked as a copy editor, and printmaker. Since 2006, Mayor has been a research scholar in the Classics Department and the History and Philosophy of Science Program at Stanford University. Mayor has published books and articles on the history of automatons, Am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Three Impostors
''The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations'' is an episodic horror fiction, horror novel by Welsh people, Welsh writer Arthur Machen, first published in 1895 in literature, 1895 in The Bodley Head's Keynotes Series. It was revived in paperback by Ballantine Books as the forty-eighth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1972. Contents * Prologue * Adventure of the Gold Tiberius * The Encounter of the Pavement ** Novel of the Dark Valley * Adventure of the Missing Brother ** Novel of the Black Seal * Incident of the Private Bar * The Decorative Imagination ** Novel of the Iron Maid * The Recluse of Bayswater ** Novel of the White Powder * Strange Occurrence in Clerkenwell ** History of the Young Man with Spectacles * Adventure of the Deserted Residence Synopsis The novel comprises several weird tales and culminates in a denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rituals. The three impostors of the title are membe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen ( or ; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh people, Welsh author and mysticism, mystic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his influential supernatural fiction, supernatural, fantasy fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella ''The Great God Pan'' (1890; 1894) has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." He is also well known for "The Bowmen", a short story that was widely read as fact, creating the legend of the Angels of Mons. Biography Early years Machen was born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in Caerleon, Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire. The house of his birth, opposite the Olde Bull Inn in The Square at Caerleon is marked with a commemorative blue plaque. The landscape of Monmouthshire (which he usually referred to by the name of the medieval Welsh kingdom, Kingdom of Gwent, Gwen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, nature of the world; the lives and activities of List of Greek deities, deities, Greek hero cult, heroes, and List of Greek mythological creatures, mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult (religious practice), cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of mythmaking itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral tradition, oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of First Men Or Women In Mythology And Religion
A protoplast, from ancient Greek (''prōtóplastos'', "first-formed"), in a religious context initially referred to the first human or, more generally, to the first organized body of progenitors of humankind (as in Adam and Eve or Manu and Shatrupa), or of surviving humanity after a cataclysm (as in Deucalion or Noah). List of protoplasts ; Abrahamic mythology * Adam and Eve * Noah * Adam Kadmon (esoteric) * Adam kasia ("hidden Adam") and Adam pagria ("bodily Adam") (esoteric), in Mandaeism * Lilith (esoteric) ; Australian Aboriginal mythology * Wurugag and Waramurungundi * Yhi * Kidili ;Ayyavazhi mythology * Kaliyan and Kalicchi ;Aztec mythology * Tata/Coxcox and Nana/Xochitl - new progenitors of humankind after the flood * Oxomoco and Cipactonal - first human couple created ; Baganda *Kintu ;Cherokee * Selu and Kanati ;Chinese folk religion * Fu Xi and Nüwa (sometimes said to be created by Pangu) * Pangu ;Cowichan peoples * Quiltumtun ;Germanic mytholo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god cooperated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground '' kylix'' in the British Museum—is Anesidora (), "she who sends up gifts" (''up'' implying "from below" within the earth). The Pandora myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world, according to which, Pandora opened a jar ('' pithos''; commonly referred to as " Pandora's box") releasing all the evils of humanity. It has been argued that Hesiod's interpretation of Pandora's story went on to influence both Jewish and Christian theology and so perpetuated her bad reputation into the Renaissance. Later poets, dramatists, painters and sculptors made her their subject. Hesiod Hesiod, both in his ''Theogony'' (briefly, without naming Pandora outright, line 570) and in ''Works and Days'', gives the earliest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greed
Greed (or avarice, ) is an insatiable desire for material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions) or social value, such as status or power. Nature of greed The initial motivation for (or purpose of) greed and actions associated with it may be the promotion of personal or family survival. It may at the same time be an intent to deny or obstruct competitors from potential means (for basic survival and comfort) or future opportunities; therefore being insidious or tyrannical and having a negative connotation. Alternately, the purpose could be defense or counteractive response to such obstructions being threatened by others. Modern economic thought frequently distinguishes ''greed'' from ''self-interest'', even in its earliest works, and spends considerable effort distinguishing the line between the two. By the mid-19th century – affected by the phenomenological ideas of Hegel – economic and political thinkers began to define greed inherent t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noble Court
A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word ''court'' may also be applied to the coterie of a senior member of the nobility. Royal courts may have their seat in a designated place, several specific places, or be a mobile, itinerant court. In the largest courts, the royal households, many thousands of individuals constituted the court. These courtiers included the monarch or noble's camarilla and retinue, household, nobility, clergy, those with court appointments, bodyguards, and may also include emissaries from other kingdoms or visitors to the court. Foreign princes and foreign nobility in exile may also seek refuge at a court. Near Eastern and Far Eastern courts often included the harem and concubines as well as eunuchs who fulfilled a variety of functions. At times, the harem was walled off and sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arsinoe II
Arsinoë II (, 316 BC – between 270 and 268 BC) was Queen consort of Thrace, Anatolia, and Macedonia by her first and second marriage, to king Lysimachus and king Ptolemy Keraunos respectively, and then Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt by marriage to her brother, Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus. As an Egyptian queen she acquired the royal name Arsinoe Philadelphos, as well the title ''nswt-bjtj'' ("King of Upper and Lower Egypt") that may suggest she was co-ruler with her husband; the exact meaning of this elevation and whether it occurred during her life or posthumously is uncertain. After her death, Arsinoe was deified at the orders of her husband and the cult of Arsinoe Philadelphos became widespread in the Ptolemaic territories. Life Early life Arsinoë was the first daughter of Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter, founder of the Hellenistic state of Egypt, and his second wife Berenice I of Egypt. She was maybe born in Memphis, but was raised in the new city of Alexandri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was also styled as Thea Neotera () and Philopatris (); see 70/69 BC10 or 12 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh.She was also a diplomat, Ancient navies and vessels, naval commander, linguist, and Ancient Greek medicine, medical author; see and . A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general and Government of Macedonia (ancient kingdom)#Companions, friends, councils, and assemblies, companion of Alexander the Great. writes about Ptolemy I Soter: "The Ptolemaic dynasty, of which Cleopatra was the last representative, was founded at the end of the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
