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Phalaris
Phalaris () was the tyrant of Akragas (now Agrigento) in Sicily in Magna Graecia, from approximately 570 to 554 BC. History Phalaris was renowned for his excessive cruelty. Among his alleged atrocities is cannibalism: he was said to have eaten suckling babies. Another expression of his sadistic brutality is that he supposedly ordered a sculptor named Perilaus to make him a brazen hollow bull. The bull could hold a man and was used as an execution machine. The condemned person was placed inside, then the bull was closed and a fire lit underneath. The sculpture was made in such a way that, while the condemned met a horrible death in the burning furnace, their cries were said to sound like the bellowing of a bull. Phalaris was entrusted with the building of the temple of Zeus Atabyrius in the citadel and took advantage of his position to make himself tyrant. Under his rule, Agrigentum seemed to have attained considerable prosperity. He supplied the city with water, adorned it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenism. In 1892, A. E. Housman called Bentley "the greatest scholar that England or perhaps that Europe ever bred". Bentley's ''Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris'', published in 1699, proved that the letters in question, supposedly written in the 6th century BCE by the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, were actually a forgery produced by a Greek sophist in the 2nd century CE. Bentley's investigation of the subject is still regarded as a landmark of textual criticism. He also showed that the sound represented in transcriptions of some Greek dialects by the letter digamma appeared also in Homeric poetry, even though it was not represented there in writing by any letter. Bentley became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1700. His autocrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stesichorus
Stesichorus (; , ''Stēsichoros''; c. 630 – 555 BC) was a Greek Greek lyric, lyric poet native of Metauros (Gioia Tauro today). He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy. He was ranked among the nine lyric poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria, and yet his work attracted relatively little interest among ancient commentators, so that remarkably few fragments of his poetry now survive. As David Campbell notes: "Time has dealt more harshly with Stesichorus than with any other major lyric poet." Recent discoveries, recorded on Egyptian papyrus (notably and controversially, the Lille Stesichorus),P.J. Parsons, "The Lille Stesichorus", ''Zeitschreift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' Vol. 26 (1977), pages 7–36 have led to some i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telemachus (Acragas)
Telemachus was the mythical leader of a 554 BC general uprising in the Greek city-state of Acragas, Sicily, Magna Graecia, which culminated in the overthrow of the cruel tyrant Phalaris Phalaris () was the tyrant of Akragas (now Agrigento) in Sicily in Magna Graecia, from approximately 570 to 554 BC. History Phalaris was renowned for his excessive cruelty. Among his alleged atrocities is cannibalism: he was said to have eaten .... Some versions of the legend state that Phalaris was roasted to death in his own brazen bull. Telemachus was the ancestor of Aenesidamus and of Aenesidamus's son Theron (tyrant c. 488–472 BC). References Ancient Acragantines 6th-century BC Greek people {{AncientGreece-bio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agrigento
Agrigento (; or ) is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy and capital of the province of Agrigento. Founded around 582 BC by Greek colonists from Gela, Agrigento, then known as Akragas, was one of the leading cities during the golden age of Ancient Greece. The city flourished under Theron's leadership in the 5th century BC, marked by ambitious public works and the construction of renowned temples. Despite periods of dormancy during the Punic Wars, Agrigento emerged as one of Sicily's largest cities in the Republican era. During the Principate, Agrigento's strategic port and diverse economic ventures, including sulfur mining, trade and agriculture, sustained its importance throughout the high and late Empire. Economic prosperity persisted in the 3rd to 4th centuries AD, but excavations show decline in activity after the 7th century. Agrigento is also the place of birth to several notable personalities, among which it is worth to mention Empedocles (5th century BC), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Himera
Himera (Greek language, Greek: ), was a large and important ancient Greece, ancient Greek city situated on the north coast of Sicily at the mouth of the river of the same name (the modern Imera Settentrionale), between Panormus (modern Palermo) and Cephaloedium (modern Cefalù) in the ''comune'' of Termini Imerese. Many of its remains can be visited and there are two museums on the site. History Foundation and earliest history image:Imera tempio della vittoria mod.jpg, 250px, Ideal reconstruction of the Temple of Victory. Himera was the first Greek settlement on this part of the island and was a strategic outpost just outside the eastern boundary of the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian-controlled west. Thucydides says it was the only Greek city on this coast of Sicily, which must however be understood with reference only to independent cities. Mylae, which was also on the north coast and certainly of Greek origin, was a dependency of Zancle (modern Messina). All authorities agree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atabyrius
Atabyrius () was a cultic epithet of the god Zeus from Greek mythology, under which he was probably worshipped in the form of a bull. This was a toponymic surname derived from Mount Atabyris or Atabyrion (modern Attavyros) on the island of Rhodes, near the city of Kameiros (modern Camirus). In mythology, the Cretan Althaemenes was said to have built a temple to this aspect of the god. The cult was widespread, and may have had Cretan or Phoenician or Theban origins (owing to the prevalence of bovine figures in Theban myth). It was written that upon this mountain there were brazen bulls which roared when anything extraordinary was going to happen.Scholia on Pindar, ''Olympian'' 7.159 The poet Pindar, in the late 6th and early 5th century BCE, was the first to mention this association of Zeus with this mountain, and the historian Diodorus Siculus writes that in his own time, in the 1st century BCE, Zeus Atabyrius was being worshipped in the city of Agrigentum, Sicily, more than a th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of torture, Some definitions restrict torture to acts carried out by the state (polity), state, while others include non-state organizations. Most victims of torture are poor and marginalized people suspected of crimes, although torture against political prisoners, or during armed conflict, has received disproportionate attention. Judicial corporal punishment and capital punishment are sometimes seen as forms of torture, but this label is internationally controversial. A variety of methods of torture are used, often in combination; the most common form of physical torture is beatings. Beginning in the twentieth century, many torturers have preferred non-scarring or psychological torture, psychological meth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theron Of Acragas
Theron (, ''gen''.: Θήρωνος; died 473 BC), son of Aenesidemus, was a Greek tyrant of the town of Acragas in Sicily in Magna Graecia from 488 BC. According to Polyaenus, he came to power by using public funds allocated for the hire of private contractors meant to assist with a temple building project, to instead hire a personal group of bodyguards. With this force at his disposal, he was able to seize control of the town's government. He soon became an ally of Gelo, who at that time controlled Gela, and from 485 BC, Syracuse. Gelo later became Theron's son-in-law. Theron went to war with the city of Selinunte and the tyrant of Himera, Terillus. His kingdom covered a big part of Western Sicily, as a numismatic distribution study has brought afore. The latter, expelled from his city, therefore sought an alliance with Carthage through his son-in-law Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium. Theron occupied Himera but was then besieged in this city by a Carthaginian army, assisted by Teri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pindar
Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himsel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrant
A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to repressive means. The original Greek term meant an absolute sovereign who came to power without constitutional right, yet the word had a neutral connotation during the Archaic and early Classical periods. However, Greek philosopher Plato saw ''tyrannos'' as a negative form of government, and on account of the decisive influence of philosophy on politics, deemed tyranny the "fourth and worst disorder of a state."Plato, ''The Republic'' Book VIII The philosophers Plato and Aristotle defined a tyrant as a person who rules without law, using extreme and cruel methods against both his own people and others. The ''Encyclopédie'' defined the term as a usurper of sovereign power who makes "his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carthage
Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. It became the capital city of the civilization of Ancient Carthage and later Roman Carthage. The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic people, Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeter of the new city. As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scipio Aemilianus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus (185 BC – 129 BC), known as Scipio Aemilianus or Scipio Africanus the Younger, was a Roman general and statesman noted for his military exploits in the Third Punic War against Carthage and during the Numantine War in Spain. He oversaw the final defeat and destruction of the city of Carthage. He was a prominent patron of writers and philosophers, the most famous of whom was the Greek historian Polybius. In politics, he opposed the populist reform program of his murdered brother-in-law, Tiberius Gracchus. Family Scipio Aemilianus was the second son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the commander of the Romans' victorious campaign in the Third Macedonian War, and his first wife, Papiria Masonis. Scipio was adopted by his first cousin, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of his aunt Aemilia Tertia and her husband Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the acclaimed commander who won the decisive battle of the Second ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
