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Fortunate Isles
The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed ( grc, μακάρων νῆσοι, ''makárōn nêsoi'') were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabited by the heroes of Greek mythology. The related idea of Brasil and other islands in Celtic mythology are sometimes conflated with the Greek sense of islands in the western Mediterranean: Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, the Aegadian Islands or other smaller islands of Sicily. Later on, the islands were said to lie in the Western Ocean near the encircling River Oceanus; Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores, Cape Verde, Bermuda, and the Lesser Antilles have sometimes been cited as possible matches. Legend According to Greek mythology, the islands were reserved for those who had chosen to be reincarnated three times, and managed to be judged as especially pure enough to gain entrance to the Elysian Fields all three times. Accounts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reincarnation
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a similar process hypothesized by some religions, in which a soul comes back to life in the same body. In most beliefs involving reincarnation, the soul is seen as immortal and the only thing that becomes perishable is the body. Upon death, the soul becomes transmigrated into a new infant (or animal) to live again. The term transmigration means passing of soul from one body to another after death. Reincarnation (''Punarjanma'') is a central tenet of the Indian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism; as well as certain Paganist religious groups, although there are Hindu and Buddhist groups who do not believe in reincarnation, instead believing in an afterlife. In various forms, it occurs as an esoteric belief in many s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Furlong
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where is it used to measure rural field lengths and distances. In the United States, some states use older definitions for surveying purposes, leading to variations in the length of the furlong of two parts per million, or about . This variation is too small to have practical consequences in most applications. Using the international definition of the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, one furlong is 201.168 metres, and five furlongs are about 1 kilometre ( exactly). History The name ''furlong'' derives from the Old English words ' (furrow) and ' (long). Dating back at least to early Anglo-Saxon times, it originally referred to the length o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hispania
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Hispania Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the western part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova, later renamed "Callaecia" (or Gallaecia, whence modern Galicia). From Diocletian's Tetrarchy (AD 284) onwards, the south of the remainder of Tarraconensis was again split off as Carthaginensis, and all of the mainland Hispanic provinces, along with the Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later grouped into a civil diocese headed by a ''vicarius''. The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire, Rome's control rapidly expanded during this period—from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. Roman society under the Republic was primarily a cultural mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Roman Pantheon. Its political organization developed, at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a senate. The top magistrates were the two consuls, who had an extensive range of executive, legislative, judicial, military, and religious powers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius (c. 126 – 73 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who led a large-scale rebellion against the Roman Senate on the Iberian peninsula. He had been a prominent member of the populist faction of Cinna and Marius. During the later years of the civil war of 83–81 BC, he was sent to recover the Iberian Peninsula. When his faction lost the war he was proscribed (outlawed) by the dictator Sulla. Supported by a majority of the native Iberian tribes, Sertorius skillfully used irregular warfare to repeatedly defeat various commanders sent by Rome to subdue him. He was never decisively beaten on the battlefield and remained a thorn in the Senate's side until his murder in 73 BC. The famous Greek biographer Plutarch dedicated one of his Parallel Lives to Sertorius; in it he pairs Sertorius with Eumenes. Like Eumenes, Sertorius was betrayed by his own men. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hagiography
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might consist of a biography or ', a description of the saint's deeds or miracles (from Latin ''vita'', life, which begins the title of most medieval biographies), an account of the saint's martyrdom (called a ), or be a combination of these. Christian hagiographies focus on the lives, and notably the miracles, ascribed to men and women canonized by the Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Church of the East. Other religious traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, Sikhism and Jainism also create and maintain hagiographical texts (such as the Sikh Janamsakhis) concerning saints, gurus and other individuals believed to be imbued with sacred power. Hagiographic works, especi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the 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 (). Life Early life 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 name is derived from Pluto (πλοῦτον), an epithet of Hades, and Archos (ἀρχός) meaning "Master", the whole name meaning something like "Whose master is Pluto". His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stadia (length)
The stadion (plural stadia, grc-gre, ; latinized as stadium), also anglicized as stade, was an ancient Greek unit of length, consisting of 600 Ancient Greek feet (''podes''). Calculations According to Herodotus, one stadium was equal to 600 Greek feet (''podes''). However, the length of the foot varied in different parts of the Greek world, and the length of the stadion has been the subject of argument and hypothesis for hundreds of years. An empirical determination of the length of the stadion was made by Lev Vasilevich Firsov, who compared 81 distances given by Eratosthenes and Strabo with the straight-line distances measured by modern methods, and averaged the results. He obtained a result of about . Various equivalent lengths have been proposed, and some have been named. Among them are: Which measure of the stadion is used can affect the interpretation of ancient texts. For example, the error in the calculation of Earth's circumference by Eratosthenes or Posidoniu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauretania
Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, seminomadic pastoralists of Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli. In 25 BC, the kings of Mauretania became Roman vassals until about 44 AD, when the area was annexed to Rome and divided into two provinces: Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis. Christianity spread there from the 3rd century onwards. After the Muslim Arabs subdued the region in the 7th century, Islam became the dominant religion. Moorish kingdom Mauretania existed as a tribal kingdom of the Berber Mauri people. In the early 1st century Strabo recorded ''Maûroi'' (Μαῦροι in greek) as the native name of a people opposite the Iberian Peninsula. This appellation was adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Libya
The Latin name ''Libya'' (from Greek Λιβύη: ''Libyē'', which came from Berber: ''Libu'') referred to North Africa during the Iron Age and Classical Antiquity. Berbers occupied the area for thousands of years before the recording of history in ancient Egypt. Climate changes affected the locations of the settlements. More narrowly, ''Libya'' could also refer to the country immediately west of Egypt, viz Marmarica (''Libya Inferior'') and Cyrenaica (''Libya Superior''). The Libyan Sea or ''Mare Libycum'' was the part of the Mediterranean Sea south of Crete, between Cyrene and Alexandria. In the Hellenistic period, the Berbers were known collectively as ''Libyans'', a Greek term for the inhabitants of the Berber world. Their lands were called "Libya" and referred to the known African continent at that time, excluding Sub-Saharan Africa which was known as Aethiopia. Egypt contains the Siwa Oasis, which was part of ancient Libya. The Siwi language, a Berber language, is stil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollonius Of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς; c. 3 BC – c. 97 AD) was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Anatolia. He is the subject of ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', written by Philostratus over a century after his death. Life dates Apollonius was born into a respected and wealthy Greek household. His primary biographer, Philostratus the Elder (circa 170c. 247), places him circa 3 BCc. 97 AD, however, the Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 155 – c. 235 AD) writes that Apollonius was in his 40s or 50s in the 90s AD, from which the scholar, Maria Dzielska gives a birth year of about 40 AD. Sources The earliest and by far the most detailed source is the ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', a lengthy, novelistic biography written by the sophist Philostratus at the request of empress Julia Domna. She died in 217 AD and he completed it after her death, probabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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