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Ostanes
Ostanes (from Greek ), also spelled Hostanes and Osthanes, is a legendary Persian magus and alchemist. It was the pen-name used by several pseudo-anonymous authors of Greek and Latin works from Hellenistic period onwards. Together with Pseudo-Zoroaster and Pseudo-Hystaspes, Ostanes belongs to the group of pseudepigraphical "Hellenistic Magians", that is, a long line of Greek and other Hellenistic writers who wrote under the name of famous "Magians". While Pseudo-Zoroaster was identified as the "inventor" of astrology, and Pseudo-Hystaspes was stereotyped as an apocalyptic prophet, Ostanes was imagined to be a master sorcerer. Real Ostanes? Unlike "Zoroaster" and "Hystaspes", which have well attested Iranian language counterparts, for "Ostanes" there is "no evidence of a figure of a similar name in Iranian tradition.".''cf.'' . In the ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' entry for Ostanes, Morton Smith cites Justi's ''Namensbuch'' for instances of the name which refer to real persons. Sm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darius II
Darius II ( ; ), also known by his given name Ochus ( ), was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 423 BC to 405 or 404 BC. Following the death of Artaxerxes I, in 424 BC or 423 BC, there was a struggle for power between his sons. The victor, Ochus, adopted the name Darius (Greek sources often call him Darius ''Nothos'', "Bastard"). His reign was marked by a series of revolts by various satraps and involvement in the Greek Peloponnesian War. It seems that Darius II was quite dependent on his wife Parysatis. In excerpts from Ctesias some harem intrigues are recorded, in which he played a disreputable part. The Elephantine papyri mention Darius II as a contemporary of the high priest Johanan of Ezra 6:10. Darius II is potentially mentioned in the books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament). There is some debate on whether these books refer to Darius the Great though. Rise to Power Texts from the Babylonian Muras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vishtaspa
Vishtaspa ( ; ; ; ) is the Avestan-language name of a figure appearing in Zoroastrian scripture and tradition, portrayed as an early follower of Zoroaster, and his patron, and instrumental in the diffusion of the prophet's message. Although Vishtaspa is not epigraphically attested, he is – like Zoroaster – traditionally assumed to have been a historical figure, although obscured by accretions from legend and myth. In Zoroastrian tradition, which builds on allusions found in the Avesta, Vishtaspa is a righteous king who helped propagate and defend the faith. In the non-Zoroastrian Sistan cycle texts, Vishtaspa is a loathsome ruler of the Kayanian dynasty who intentionally sends his eldest son to a certain death. In Greco-Roman literature, Zoroaster's patron was the pseudo-anonymous author of a set of prophecies written under his name. In the Avesta Vishtaspa is referred to in the Gathas, the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism which were considered to have been composed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoroaster
Zarathushtra Spitama, more commonly known as Zoroaster or Zarathustra, was an Iranian peoples, Iranian religious reformer who challenged the tenets of the contemporary Ancient Iranian religion, becoming the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism. Variously described as a Sage (philosophy), sage or a wonderworker; in the oldest Zoroastrian scriptures, the Gatha (Zoroaster), Gathas, which he is believed to have authored, he is described as a preacher and a poet-prophet. He also had an impact on Heraclitus, Plato, Pythagoras, and the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He spoke an Eastern Iranian language, named Avestan by scholars after the Avesta, corpus of Zoroastrian religious texts written in that language. Based on this, it is tentative to place his homeland somewhere in the eastern regions of Greater Iran (perhaps in modern-day Afghanistan or Tajikistan), but his exact birthplace is uncertain. His life is traditionally dated to sometime around th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchemist
Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.. Greek-speaking alchemists often referred to their craft as "the Art" (τέχνη) or "Knowledge" (ἐπιστήμη), and it was often characterised as mystic (μυστική), sacred (ἱɛρά), or divine (θɛíα). Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of " base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny's Natural History
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] |
Hermodorus
Hermodorus (), an Ephesian who lived in the 4th century BC, was an original member of Platonic Academy, Plato's Academy and was present at the death of Socrates. He is said to have circulated the works of Plato (combined Socratic tenets with the Eleaticism of Parmenides), and to have sold them in Sicily. Hermodorus himself appears to have been a philosopher, for we know the titles of two works that were attributed to him: ''On Plato'' (), and ''On Mathematics'' ().Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Prooem. 8; ii. 106; iii. 6 A.E. Taylor says:Hermodorus, an original member of Plato's Academy, stated that for the moment the friends of Socrates felt themselves in danger just after his death, and that Plato in particular, with others, withdrew for a while to the neighbouring city of Megara under the protection of Euclides of that city, a philosopher who was among the foreign friends present at the death of Socrates and combined certain Socratic tenets with the Eleaticism of Parmenides. Notes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek philosophy. His reputation is controversial among scholars because he often repeats information from his sources without critically evaluating it. In many cases, he focuses on insignificant details of his subjects' lives while ignoring important details of their philosophical teachings and he sometimes fails to distinguish between earlier and later teachings of specific philosophical schools. However, unlike many other ancient secondary sources, Diogenes Laërtius tends to report philosophical teachings without trying to reinterpret or expand on them, and so his accounts are often closer to the primary sources. Due to the loss of so many of the primary sources on which Diogenes relied, his work has become the foremost surviving source on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Alexander The Great
Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II of Macedon, Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20 and spent most of his ruling years conducting Wars of Alexander the Great, a lengthy military campaign throughout West Asia, Western Asia, Central Asia, parts of South Asia, and ancient Egypt, Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the List of largest empires, largest empires in history, stretching from History of Greece, Greece to northwestern History of India, India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders. Until the age of 16, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. In 335 BC, shortly after his assumption of kingship over Macedon, he Alexander's Balkan campaign, campaigned in the Bal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iranian Peoples
Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. The Proto-Iranian language, Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe; from the Danube, Danubian Plains in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south.: "From the first millennium b.c., we have abundant historical, archaeological and linguistic sources for the location of the territory inhabited by the Iranian peoples. In this period the territory of the northern Iranians, they being equestrian nomads, extended over the whole zone of the ste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xerxes I
Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was the son of Darius the Great and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great. In Western history, Xerxes is best known for his Second Persian invasion of Greece, invasion of Greece in 480 BC, which ended in Persian defeat. Xerxes was designated successor by Darius over his elder brother Artobazan and inherited a large, multi-ethnic empire upon his father's death. He consolidated his power by crushing revolts in Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt, Egypt and Babylonian revolts (484 BC), Babylon, and renewed his father's campaign to subjugate Ancient Greece, Greece and punish Classical Athens, Athens and its allies for their interference in the Ionian Revolt. In 480 BC, Xerxes personally led a large army and crossed the Dardanelles, Hellespont into Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
