|
Riddles (Greek)
The main Ancient Greek terms for ''riddle'' are αἴνιγμα (''ainigma'', plural αἰνίγματα ''ainigmata'', deriving from αἰνίσσεσθαι 'to speak allusively or obscurely', itself from αἶνος 'apologue, fable') and γρῖφος (''grîphos'', pl. γρῖφοι ''grîphoi''). The two terms are often used interchangeably, though some ancient commentators tried to distinguish between them. Riddles appear to have been a popular component of ancient symposium, symposia, and have at various points in the history of the Greek-speaking world also been a significant literary form. Ancient period Sources Most surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse.Christine Luz, 'What has it got in its Pocketses? Or, What Makes a Riddle a Riddle?', in ''The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry'', ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 83-99 (p. 84). Though there may already have been anthologies of rid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attic Red-figure Pelike, Oedipus Solves The Riddle Of The Sphinx And Frees Thebes, By The Achilleus Painter, 450-440 BC, Altes Museum Berlin (13718779634)
An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the top floor of a building and the slanted roof, they are known for being awkwardly shaped spaces with exposed rafters and difficult-to-reach corners. While some attics are converted into bedrooms, home offices, or attic apartments complete with windows and staircases, most remain difficult to access (and are usually entered using a loft hatch and ladder). Attics help control temperatures in a house by providing a large mass of slowly moving air, and are often used for storage. The hot air rising from the lower floors of a building is often retained in attics, further compounding their reputation as inhospitable environments. However, in recent years attics have been insulated to help decrease heating costs, since, on average, uninsulated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Biblioteca-Medicea-Laurenziana Plutei-32
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palatine Anthology
The ''Palatine Anthology'' (or ''Anthologia Palatina''), sometimes abbreviated ''AP'', is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantinus Cephalas of the 10th century, which in turn is based on older anthologies. It contains material from the 7th century BC until 600 AD and later on was the main part of the '' Greek Anthology'' which also included the '' Anthology of Planudes'' "The Greek Anthology as we have it today consists of the fifteen Books of the Palatine Anthology followed by a 'Planudean Appendix' of 388 poems occurring in Planudes but not in the Palatine manuscript..." and more material. The manuscript of the ''Palatine Anthology'' was discovered by Saumaise (Salmasius) in 1606 in the Palatine library at Heidelberg (Codex Palatinus 23). In 1623, after the Thirty Years' War, it was sent with the rest of the Palatine Library to Rome as a present from Maximilian I of Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes ( grc-gre, Μάξιμος Πλανούδης, ''Máximos Planoúdēs''; ) was a Byzantine Greek monk, scholar, anthologist, translator, mathematician, grammarian and theologian at Constantinople. Through his translations from Latin into Greek and from Greek into Latin, he brought the Greek East and the Latin West into closer contact with one another. He is now best known as a compiler of the ''Greek Anthology''. Biography Maximus Planudes lived during the reigns of the Byzantine emperors Michael VIII and Andronikos II. He was born at Nicomedia in Bithynia in 1260, but the greater part of his life was spent in Constantinople, where as a monk he devoted himself to study and teaching. On entering the monastery he changed his original name Manuel to Maximus. Planudes possessed a knowledge of Latin remarkable at a time when Rome and Italy were regarded with some hostility by the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire. To this accomplishment he probably owed his selection as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex.Walsh ''A New Dictionary of Saints'' pp. 21–22 He was certainly not, as his early biographer Faritius asserts, the brother of King Ine. After his death he was venerated as a saint, his feast day being the day of his death, 25 May. Life Early life and education Aldhelm received his first education in the school of the Irish scholar and monk Máeldub (also ''Maildubh'', ''Maildulf'' or ''Meldun'') (died ), who had settled in the British stronghold of Bladon (or ''Bladow'') on the site of the town called Mailduberi, Maldubesburg, Meldunesburg, etc., and finally Malmesbury, after him. In 668, Pope Vitalian sent Theodore of Tarsus to be Archbishop of Canterbury. At the same time the North A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ares
Ares (; grc, Ἄρης, ''Árēs'' ) is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality. Although Ares' name shows his origins as Mycenaean, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Still further away from Greece, the Scythians were said to ritually kill one in a hundred prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuel Moschopoulos
Manuel Moschopoulos ( Latinized as Manuel Moschopulus; el, ), was a Byzantine commentator and grammarian, who lived during the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century and was an important figure in the Palaiologan Renaissance. ''Moschopoulos'' means "little calf," and is probably a nickname. Life Moschopoulos was a student of Maximos Planudes and possibly his successor as a head of a school in Constantinople, where he taught throughout his life. A mysterious and ill-documented excursion into politics led to his imprisonment for a while. Works His chief work is ''Erotemata grammaticalia'' (),See Uncial 0135. in the form of question and answer, based upon an anonymous epitome of grammar, and supplemented by a lexicon of Attic nouns. He was also the author of ''scholia'' on the first and second books of the ''Iliad'', on Hesiod, Theocritus, Pindar and other classical and later authors; of riddles, letters, and a treatise on the magic squares. His grammatical treatises ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eustathios Makrembolites
Eustathios Makrembolites ( el, ; ''fl. c.'' 1150–1200), Latinized as Eustathius Macrembolites, was a Byzantine revivalist of the Greek romance, flourished in the second half of the 12th century CE. He is sometimes conflated/equated with his contemporary, the Eparch of the City Eumathios Makrembolites ( el, ). His title ''Protonobilissimus'' shows him to have been a person of distinction and, if he is also correctly described in the manuscripts as chief keeper of the ecclesiastical archives, he must have been a Christian. He was the author of a Byzantine novel, ''The Story of Hysmine and Hysminias'', in eleven books. Although he borrowed from Homer and other Attic poets, the chief source of his phraseology was the rhetorician Choricius of Gaza. The style is remarkable for the absence of hiatus and a laboured use of antithesis. The digressions on works of art, apparently the result of personal observation, are considered by some scholars the best part of the work. The novel e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodore Prodromos
Theodore Prodromos or Prodromus ( el, Θεόδωρος Πρόδρομος; c. 1100 – c. 1165/70), probably also the same person as the so-called Ptochoprodromos (Πτωχοπρόδρομος "Poor Prodromos"), was a Byzantine Greek writer, well known for his prose and poetry. Biography Very little is known about his life. Further developing a genre begun by Nicholas Kallikles, he wrote many occasional poems for a widespread circle of patrons at the Byzantine court. Some of the literary pieces attributed to him are unpublished, while still others may be wrongly attributed to him. Even so, there does emerge from these writings the figure of an author in reduced circumstances, with a marked inclination towards begging, who was in close touch with the court circles during the reigns of John II Komnenos (1118–1143) and Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180). He was given a prebend by Manuel I, and he ended his life as a monk. Despite the panegyric and conventional treatment, his writings ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basilios Megalomites
The name Basil (''royal, kingly'') comes from the male Greek name Vassilios (, female version ), which first appeared during the Hellenistic period. It is derived from " basileus" ( el, βασιλεύς, links=no), of greek origin, meaning "king", "emperor" or "tzar", from which words such as basilica and basilisk (via Latin) as well as the eponymous herb basil (via Old French) derive, and the name of the Italian region Basilicata, which had been long under the rule of the Byzantine Emperor (also called ''basileus''). It was brought to England by the Crusaders, having been common in the eastern Mediterranean. It is more often used in Britain and Europe than in the United States. It is also the name of a common herb. In Arabic, Bas(s)el (, ''bāsil'') is a name for boys that means "brave, fearless, intrepid". Different derived names in different languages include Barsegh in Armenian; Basile in French; Basilius in German; Basilio in Italian and Spanish; Basílio in Portuguese; Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Psellos
Michael Psellos or Psellus ( grc-gre, Μιχαὴλ Ψελλός, Michaḗl Psellós, ) was a Byzantine Greek monk, savant, writer, philosopher, imperial courtier, historian and music theorist. He was born in 1017 or 1018, and is believed to have died in 1078, although it has also been maintained that he remained alive until 1096. He served as a high ranking advisor to several Byzantine emperors and was instrumental in the re-positioning of power of those emperors. Biography and political career The main sources of information about Psellos' life are his own works, which contain extensive autobiographical passages. Michael Psellos was probably born in Constantinople. His family hailed from Nicomedia and, according to his own testimony, counted members of the consular and patrician elite among its ancestors. His baptismal name was Constantine; Michael was the monastic name he chose when he entered a monastery later in life. "Psellos" ('the stammerer') probably was a personal by-na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Mauropous
John Mauropous ( el, , ''Iōánnēs Maurópous'', lit. "John Blackfoot") was an Eastern Roman poet, hymnographer, and author of letters and orations, who lived in the 11th century. Life John Mauropous was born in Paphlagonia around 1000. He came to Constantinople, and quickly gained a reputation as a teacher. Among his students, Michael Psellos was to be the most important. It was also Psellos who introduced him to the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-1055). For a couple of years, Mauropous belonged to the favoured circle of poets and scholars that Constantine gathered around him, he functioned as a court orator. But for an unknown reason, these friends suddenly fell from favour around the year 1050, and presumably on this occasion,This is disputed by Kazhdan in "Some Problems in the Biography of John Mauropous", ''JÖB'' 43 (1993) p. 87-111, where he dates Mauropous' appointment in the 1070s. But Kazhdan's arguments are convincingly refuted by A. Karpozilos in "The Bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
