|
Apion
Apion (; fl. 1st century CE), also called Apion Pleistoneices (, ''Apíōn Pleistoníkēs'') and Apion Mochthos (μόχθος) was a Greek or Graeco-Egyptian scholar of Ptolemaic Egypt, born in the El Kargeh oasis. He studied under Didymus Chalcenterus and later succeeded Theon as head of the Alexandrian school. Apion gained recognition as a lecturer, speaking in Rome and elsewhere. In 40 CE, he was part of a delegation sent by the Greek community of Alexandria to the Roman Emperor Gaius (Caligula) following anti-Jewish riots. The Jewish historian Josephus criticized Apion extensively in Book 2 of his polemic '' Against Apion'' ( Lat: ''Contra Apionem''). Apion wrote extensively about his native Egypt. Details of his life come almost exclusively from other ancient sources, most prominently Pliny the Elder, Aulus Gellius, as well as the 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia the ''Suda''. According to Aulus Gellius, wrote a version of the folk tale " Androcles and the Lion" (''N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Against Apion
''Against Apion'' ( ''Peri Archaiotētos Ioudaiōn Logos''; Latin ''Contra Apionem'' or ''In Apionem'') is a work written by Flavius Josephus (c. 37 CE – c. 100 CE ) as a defense of Judaism against criticism by the Egyptian author Apion. Josephus was a Roman–Jewish historian, defector, and courtier to the emperors of the Flavian dynasty; Apion was a Hellenized Egyptian grammarian and sophist. The work is dated to after 94 CE. Purpose In the centuries of imperial conquests in the Eastern Mediterranean, first by Alexander and his successors (see Hellenistic period) and then by the Romans, a phenomenon arose among the literate elites of the various civilizations that were incorporated into the newly formed imperial states. This took the form of historians from different cultures (typically Egyptian, Jewish, or Greek) writing histories in the form of polemics, with each author claiming his own civilization as the world's oldest, a designation that—to the authors a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed Hasmonean royal ancestry. He initially fought against the Roman Empire during the First Jewish–Roman War as general of the Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in AD 67 to the Roman army led by military commander Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat. Josephus claimed the Jewish messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish–Roman War made reference to Vespasian becoming Roman emperor. In response, Vespasian decided to keep him as a slave and presumably interpreter. After Vespasian became emperor in AD 69, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the Emperor's family name of '' Flavius''. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androcles
Androcles (, alternatively spelled Androclus in Latin) is the main character of a common folk tale about a man befriending a lion. The tale is included in the Aarne–Thompson classification system as type 156. The story reappeared in the Middle Ages as "The Shepherd and the Lion" and was then ascribed to Aesop's Fables. It is numbered 563 in the Perry Index and can be compared to Aesop's '' The Lion and the Mouse'' in both its general trend and in its moral of the reciprocal nature of mercy. Classical tale The earliest surviving account of the Androcles episode is found in Aulus Gellius's 2nd century ''Attic Nights''. The author relates there a story told by Apion in his lost work ''Aegyptiaca''/Αἰγυπτιακά ''(Wonders of Egypt)'', the events of which Apion claimed to have personally witnessed in Rome. In this version, Androclus (going by the Latin variation of the name) is a runaway slave of a former Roman consul administering a part of Rome. He takes shelte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Gavius Apicius
Marcus Gavius Apicius is believed to have been a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Tiberius. The Roman cookbook ''Apicius'' is often attributed to him, though it is impossible to prove the connection. He was the subject of ''On the Luxury of Apicius'', a famous work, now lost, by the Greek grammarian Apion. M. Gavius Apicius apparently owed his cognomen (his third name) to an earlier Apicius (1st century BC), Apicius, who lived around 90 BC, whose family name it may have been: if this is true, ''Apicius'' had come to mean "gourmand" as a result of the fame of this earlier lover of luxury. Biography Evidence for the life of M. Gavius Apicius derives partly from contemporary or almost-contemporary sources but is partly filtered through the above-named work by Apion, whose purpose was presumably to explain the names and origins of luxury foods, especially those anecdotally linked to Apicius. From these sources the followi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollonius The Sophist
Apollonius the Sophist () was a famous grammarian, who probably lived towards the end of the 1st century AD and taught in Rome in the time of Tiberius. He was born in Alexandria, the son of another grammarian, Archibius of Alexandria (or was possibly Archibius's father). He was the author of a Homeric dictionary (Λέξεις Ὁμηρικαί), the only work of this kind existent today. His chief authorities were Aristarchus of Samothrace and Apion's Homeric glossary (although some sources cite Apion as a disciple of Apollonius). The surviving text of this dictionary is an epitome, that is, it is a shortened summary of the original. In the original version, Apollonius apparently supplied at least one quotation in each entry. It was edited for the first time by Villoison (1773, 2 vol. in quarto) from a manuscript of Saint Germain, and also by I. Bekker (1833). Notes References * Apollonii sophistae lexicon homericum', Immanuel Bekker August Immanuel Bekker (21 May 17857 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theon (1st Century BC)
Theon (; fl. 1st century BC) of Alexandria was a grammarian who taught at Rome in the reigns of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius. He succeeded Areius in this role, and was succeeded by Apion. He was the son of the grammarian Artemidorus of Tarsus and the head of the school at Alexandria. Theon was the author of a ''Lexicon to the Greek comedians'' (), which is quoted by Hesychius in the Prooemium to his own Lexicon. It is doubtful whether he was the author of the comic lexicon quoted by the Scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius. He is one of the authors from whose works the Scholia to Aristophanes were derived. A ''Commentary on the Odyssey'' by a certain Theon is quoted in the ''Etymologicum Magnum''. In one of the Scholia on Aristophanes, (the authenticity of which is debated) Theon is mentioned as one of the commentators on Apollonius Rhodius. It is possible, however, that one or both of these Commentaries on Homer and Apollonius, should be assigned to Aelius Theon, also of Alex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egyptian Greeks
The Egyptian Greeks, also known as Egyptiotes () or simply Greeks in Egypt (), are the ethnic Greek community from Egypt that has existed from the Hellenistic period until the aftermath of the Egyptian coup d'état of 1952, when most were forced to leave. Antiquity Greeks have been present in Egypt since at least the 7th century BC. Herodotus visited ancient Egypt in the 5th century BC and claimed that the Greeks were one of the first groups of foreigners that ever lived there. Diodorus Siculus claimed that Rhodian Actis, one of the Heliadae, built the city of Heliopolis before the cataclysm; likewise the Athenians built Sais. Siculus reports that all the Greek cities were destroyed during the cataclysm, but the Egyptian cities including Heliopolis and Sais survived. First historical colonies According to Herodotus (ii. 154), King Psammetichus I (664–610 BC) established a garrison of foreign mercenaries at Daphnae, mostly Carians and Ionian Greeks. In 7th century BC, aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristarchus Of Samothrace
Aristarchus of Samothrace ( ''Aristarchos o Samothrax''; BC) was an ancient Greek grammarian, noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the head librarian of the Library of Alexandria and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes of Byzantium in that role. Life Aristarchus left the island of Samothrace at a young age and went to Alexandria, where he studied with the director of the library. Later, he was a teacher at the royal courtyard, and then director of the library from 153 to 145BC. After he was persecuted by his disciple Ptolemy the Benefactor, he found refuge in Cyprus, where he died. It is said that Aristarchus had a remarkable memory and was completely indifferent as to his external appearance. Accounts of his death vary, though they agree that it was during the persecutions of Ptolemy VIII of Egypt. In one account, he contracted an incurable dropsy and starved himself to death while in exile on Cyprus. Work Homeric poems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Fragment
A literary fragment is a piece of text that may be part of a larger work, or that employs a 'fragmentary' form characterised by physical features such as short paragraphs or sentences separated by white space, and thematic features such as discontinuity, ambivalence, ambiguity, or lack of a traditional narrative structure. While it is difficult to classify literary fragments, a number of critics agree on a basic taxonomy of two types of fragment: those who intentionally use fragmentation as a form in their writing, and those that are fragmented because they are incomplete or because parts have been lost over time. As a form, the literary fragment has been employed during the Romantic, Modernist, Postmodern and Contemporary literary periods as a way to reckon with the challenges of modernity. Criticism and theory The literary fragment and the concept of fragmentariness presents several challenges to literary criticism, in part because of the difficulty in determining what const ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History (Pliny)
The ''Natural History'' () is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of Pliny the Elder#Death, his death during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia. The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which typically do not show those qualities. Ancient Greek The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuariesincluding statues of athletesand on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams. Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cynthia Damon
Cynthia Ellen Murray Damon (born 1957) is a Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on Latin literature and Roman historiography, having published translations and commentaries on authors such as Caesar and Tacitus. Career Cynthia Damon received her B.A. in History from Stanford University in 1979, M.A. in Classics from Boston College in 1984 and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1990, as well as an honorary A.M. from Amherst College in 2004. Damon taught at Harvard University as Assistant Professor from 1990 to 1995, at Amherst College as Assistant Professor and Professor 1995-2007, and moved to the University of Pennsylvania as Professor of Classical Studies in 2007. In 2015 Damon was awarded the College of Liberal and Professional Studies Distinguished Teaching Award for Standing Faculty. Damon was the editor of '' Transactions of the American Philological Association'' from 2001 to 2005 and member of the board of directo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
