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Hecatomb
In ancient Greece, a hecatomb (; ; ''hekatómbē'') was a sacrifice of 100 cattle (''hekaton'' "one hundred", ''bous'' "bull") to the Greek gods. In practice, as few as 12 could make up a hecatomb. Although originally the sacrifice of a hundred oxen in the religious ceremonies of the Greeks and Romans; later "hecatomb" came to describe a large number of any kind of animals devoted to sacrifice. Figuratively, "hecatomb" is used to describe the sacrifice or destruction by fire, tempest, disease, or the sword of any large number of persons or animals; and also of the wholesale destruction of inanimate objects, and even of mental and moral attributes. Ancient Greece Hecatombs were offered to Greek gods Hera, Athena, and Apollo during special religious ceremonies. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo
Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. He is considered to be the most beautiful god and is represented as the ideal of the ''kouros'' (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth). Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as ''Apulu''. As the patron deity of Delphi (''Apollo Pythios''), Apollo is an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Pythia, Delphic Oracle and also the deity of ritual purification. His oracles were often consulted for guidance in various matters. He was in general seen as the god who affords help and wards off e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Worship
Worship or deification of fire (also pyrodulia, pyrolatry or pyrolatria), or fire rituals, religious rituals centred on a fire, are known from various religions. Fire has been an important part of homo, human culture since the Lower Paleolithic. Religious or animist notions connected to fire are assumed to reach back to such early australopithecine, prehuman times. There may be a fire god, as a personification of fires in general, and he may be believed to reside in some sense in any particular ritual fire, or the fire may represent worship of another deity. Indo-European religions In Indo-European languages, there were two concepts regarding fire: that of an animate type called (cf. Sanskrit ''agni'', , English ''ignite'' from Latin ''ignis'', Polish ''ogień'' and Russian ''ogon''), and an inanimate type *''péh₂wr̥'' (cf. English ''fire'', Greek ''pyr'', Sanskrit ''pu''). A similar distinction existed for water. Fire rituals that are commonly found among Indo-European peo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parthenon South Frieze 47
The Parthenon (; ; ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of classical Greek art, and the Parthenon is considered an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy, and Western civilization. The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC in thanksgiving for the Greek victory over the Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC; work on the artwork and decorations continued until 432 BC. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-15th century, it became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and communities. Prior to the Roman period, most of these regions were officially unified only once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 to 323 BC. In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Three centuries after the decline of Mycenaean Greece during the Bronze Age collapse, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War. The u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Gods
In ancient Greece, deities were regarded as immortal, anthropomorphic, and powerful. They were conceived of as individual persons, rather than abstract concepts or notions, and were described as being similar to humans in appearance, albeit larger and more beautiful. The emotions and actions of deities were largely the same as those of humans; they frequently engaged in sexual activity, and were jealous and amoral. Deities were considered far more knowledgeable than humans, and it was believed that they conversed in a language of their own. Their immortality, the defining marker of their godhood, meant that they ceased aging after growing to a certain point. In place of blood, their veins flowed with ichor, a substance which was a product of their diet, and conferred upon them their immortality. Divine power allowed the gods to intervene in mortal affairs in various ways: they could cause natural events such as rain, wind, the growing of crops, or epidemics, and were able to dicta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hera
In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Olympus, sister and wife of Zeus, and daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea. One of her defining characteristics in myth is her jealous and vengeful nature in dealing with any who offended her, especially Zeus's numerous adulterous lovers and illegitimate offspring. Her iconography usually presents her as a dignified, matronly figure, upright or enthroned, crowned with a ''polos'' or diadem, sometimes veiled as a married woman. She is the patron goddess of lawful marriage. She presides over weddings, blesses and legalises marital unions, and protects women from harm during childbirth. Her sacred animals include the Cattle, cow, cuckoo, and Peafowl, peacock. She is sometimes shown holding a pomegranate as an emblem of immort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include Owl of Athena, owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. From her origin as an Aegean tutelary deity, palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as ''Polias'' and ''Poliouchos'' (both derived from ''polis'', meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numero ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Olympic Games
The ancient Olympic Games (, ''ta Olympia''.), or the ancient Olympics, were a series of Athletics (sport), athletic competitions among representatives of polis, city-states and one of the Panhellenic Games of ancient Greece. They were held at the Panhellenic sanctuary, Panhellenic religious sanctuary of Olympia, Greece, Olympia, in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a aition, mythological origin. The originating Olympic Games are traditionally dated to 776 BC. The games were held every four years, or Olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies. These Olympiads were referred to based on the winner of their ''Stadion (running race), stadion'' sprint, e.g., "the third year of the eighteenth Olympiad when Ladas of Argos won the ''stadion''". They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Greece in the Roman era, Roman rule in the 2nd century BC. Their last recorded celebration was in AD 393, under the emperor Theodosius I, but archaeological evidenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe (mythology), Hebe, and Hephaestus.Hard 2004p. 79 At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione (Titaness/Oceanid), Dione, by whom the ''Iliad'' states that he fathered Aphrodite. According to the ''Theogony'', Zeus's first wife was Metis (mythology), Metis, by whom he had Athena.Hesiod, ''Theogony'886900 Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. The ''Iliad'' is often regarded as the first substantial piece of Western literature, European literature and is a central part of the Epic Cycle. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the war's final weeks. In particular, it traces the anger () of Achilles, a celebrated warrior, from a fierce quarrel between him and King Agamemnon, to the death of the Trojan prince Hector.Homer, ''Iliad, Volume I, Books 1–12'', translated by A. T. Murray, revised by William F. Wyatt, Loeb Classical Library 170, Cambridge, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an English novelist and critic, best known for the satirical utopian novel ''Erewhon'' (1872) and the semi-autobiographical novel '' The Way of All Flesh'' (published posthumously in 1903 with substantial revisions and published in its original form in 1964 as ''Ernest Pontifex or The Way of All Flesh''). Both novels have remained in print since their initial publication. In other studies he examined Christian orthodoxy, history of evolutionary thought, evolutionary thought, and Italian art, and made prose translations of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' that are still consulted. Early life Butler was born on 4 December 1835 at the rectory in the village of Langar, Nottinghamshire. His father was Rev. Thomas Butler, son of Samuel Butler (schoolmaster), Dr. Samuel Butler, then headmaster of Shrewsbury School and later Bishop of Lichfield. Dr. Butler was the son of a tradesman and descended from a line of yeomen; despite his fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flaying
Flaying is a method of slow and painful torture and/or execution in which skin is removed from the body. Generally, an attempt is made to keep the removed portion of skin intact. Scope A dead animal may be flayed when preparing it to be used as human food, or for its hide or fur. This is more commonly called skinning. Flaying of humans is used as a method of torture or execution, depending on how much of the skin is removed. This is often referred to as flaying alive. There are also records of people flayed after death, generally as a means of debasing the corpse of a prominent enemy or criminal, sometimes related to religious beliefs (e.g., to deny an afterlife); sometimes the skin is used, again for deterrence, esoteric/ritualistic purposes, etc. (e.g., scalping). Causes of death Dermatologist Ernst G. Jung notes that the typical causes of death due to flaying are shock, critical loss of blood or other body fluids, hypothermia, or infections, and that the actual death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
