Alexander The Great In Legend
   HOME



picture info

Alexander The Great In Legend
The vast conquests of the Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonian king Alexander the Great quickly inspired the formation and diffusion of legendary material about his deity, journeys, and tales. These appeared shortly after his death, and some may have already begun forming during his lifetime. Common themes and symbols among legends about Alexander include the Gates of Alexander, the Horns of Alexander, and the Gordian Knot. In the third century AD, an anonymous author writing in the name of Alexander's court historian Callisthenes (commonly referred to as Pseudo-Callisthenes) authored the Greek ''Alexander Romance''. This text would spawn a genre of literature about the legends and exploits of Alexander across centuries, going through over one hundred versions in premodern times and appearing in almost every language in both European and Islamic worlds. Greek tradition Prophesied conqueror Philip II of Macedon, King Philip II had a dream in which he took a Seal (emblem), wax ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Coronation Of Alexander
''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a con ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Zeus Ammon
Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt near the Libyan Desert, remained the only oracle of Amun throughout. With the 11th Dynasty ( BC), Amun rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Montu. Initially possibly one of eight deities in the Hermapolite creation myth, his worship expanded. After the rebellion of Thebes against the Hyksos and with the rule of Ahmose I (16th century BC), Amun acquired national importance, expressed in his fusion with the Sun god, Ra, as Amun-Ra (alternatively spelled Amon-Ra or Amun-Re). On his own, he was also thought to be the king of the gods. Amun-Ra retained chief importance in the Egyptian pantheon throughout the New Kingdom (with the exception of the " Atenist heresy" under Akhenaten). Amun-Ra in this period (16th–11th centuries BC) hel ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Scythians
The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian peoples, Iranian Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, where they remained established from the 7th century BC until the 3rd century BC. Skilled in Horses in warfare, mounted warfare, the Scythians replaced the Agathyrsi and the Cimmerians as the dominant power on the western Eurasian Steppe in the 8th century BC. In the 7th century BC, the Scythians crossed the Caucasus Mountains and frequently raided West Asia along with the Cimmerians. After being expelled from West Asia by the Medes, the Scythians retreated back into the Pontic Steppe in the 6th century BC, and were later conquered by the Sarmatians in the 3rd to 2nd centuries ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic (''Natural History''), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is Lost literary work, no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used ''Bella Ger ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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]  


picture info

Delphi
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks considered the centre of the world to be in Delphi, marked by the stone monument known as the Omphalos of Delphi (navel). According to the Suda, Delphi took its name from the Delphyne, the she-serpent (''Drakaina (mythology), drakaina'') who lived there and was killed by the god Apollo (in other accounts the serpent was the male serpent (''drakon'') Python (mythology), Python). The sacred precinct occupies a delineated region on the south-western slope of Mount Parnassus. It is now an extensive archaeological site, and since 1938 a part of Mount Parnassus, Parnassos National Park. The precinct is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in having had a great influence in the ancient world, as evidenced ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Styx
In Greek mythology, Styx (; ; lit. "Shuddering"), also called the River Styx, is a goddess and one of the rivers of the Greek Underworld. Her parents were the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, and she was the wife of the Titan Pallas and the mother of Zelus, Nike, Kratos, and Bia. She sided with Zeus in his war against the Titans, and because of this, to honor her, Zeus decreed that the solemn oaths of the gods be sworn by the water of Styx. Family According to the usual account, Styx was the eldest of the Oceanids, the many daughters of the Titan Oceanus, the great world-encircling river, and his sister-wife, the Titaness Tethys. However, according to the Roman mythographer Hyginus, she was the daughter of Nox ("Night", the Roman equivalent of Nyx) and Erebus (Darkness). She married the Titan Pallas and by him gave birth to the personifications Zelus (Glory, Emulation), Nike (Victory), Kratos (Strength, Dominion), and Bia (Force, Violence). The geographer Pausania ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Scythia
Scythia (, ) or Scythica (, ) was a geographic region defined in the ancient Graeco-Roman world that encompassed the Pontic steppe. It was inhabited by Scythians, an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people. Etymology The names and are themselves Latinisations of the Ancient Greek names () and (), which were themselves derived from the ancient Greek names for the Scythians, () and (), derived from the Scythian endonym . Geography Scythia proper The territory of the Scythian kingdom of the Pontic steppe extended from the Don river in the east to the Danube river in the west, and covered the territory of the treeless steppe immediately north of the Black Sea's coastline, which was inhabited by nomadic pastoralists, as well as the fertile black-earth forest-steppe area to the north of the treeless steppe, which was inhabited by an agricultural population. The northern border of this Scythian kingdom were the deciduous woodlands, while several rivers, incl ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Claudius Aelianus
Claudius Aelianus (; ), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "honey-tongued" ( ); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself. This cites: * ''Editio princeps'' of complete works by Gesner, 1556; Hercher, 1864-1866. * English translation of the ''Various History'' only by Fleming, 1576, and Stanley, 1665 * Translation of the ''Letters'' by Quillard (French), 1895 His two chief works are valuable for the numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost, and for the surprising lore, which offers unexpected glimpses into the Greco-Roman world-view. ''De Natura Animalium'' is also the only Greco-Roman work to mention Gilgamesh. ''De Natura Animalium'' ''On the Nature of Animals'' (alternatively "On the Characteristics of Anima ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Temple Of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis or Artemision (; ), also known as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, localised form of the goddess Artemis (equated with the Religion in ancient Rome, Roman goddess Diana (mythology), Diana). It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey). It is believed to have been ruined or destroyed by AD 401. Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain at the site. The earliest version of the temple (a Bronze Age ''temenos'') antedated the Ionic immigration by many years. Callimachus, in his ''Hymn to Artemis'', attributed it to the Amazons. In the 7th century BC, it was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BC, under Chersiphron, the Cretan architect, and his son Metagenes. The project was funded by Croesus of Lydia, and took 10 years to complete. This version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BC by an arsonist, commonly thought to have ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Plutarch
Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and ''Moralia'', a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (). Family Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, about east of Delphi, in the Greek region of Boeotia. His family was long established in the town; his father was named Autobulus and his grandfather was named Lamprias. His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, which speak of Timon in particular in the most affectionate terms. Studies and life Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy in Athens under Ammonius of Athens, Ammonius from AD 66 to 67. He attended th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira (ancient city), Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece, Classical period. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle), Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]