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Theognis
Theognis of Megara (, ''Théognis ho Megareús'') was a Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC. The work attributed to him consists of gnomic poetry quite typical of the time, featuring ethical maxims and practical advice about life. He was the first Greek poet known to express concern over the eventual fate and survival of his own work and, along with Homer, Hesiod and the authors of the Homeric Hymns, he is among the earliest poets whose work has been preserved in a continuous manuscript tradition (the work of other archaic poets is preserved as scattered fragments). In fact more than half of the extant elegiac poetry of Greece before the Alexandrian period is included in the approximately 1,400 lines of verse attributed to him, though several poems traditionally attributed to him were composed by others, e.g. Solon and Euenus. Some of these verses inspired ancient commentators to value him as a moralist yet the entire corpus is valued today for its " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pederasty In Ancient Greece
Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged relationship between an older male (the ''erastes'') and a younger male (the '' eromenos'') usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods. Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus. It has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and may have developed in the late 7th century BC as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture, which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women. Pederasty was both idealized and criticized in ancient literature and philosophy. The argument has recently been made that idealization was universal in the Archaic period; criticism began in Athens as part of the general Classical Athenian reassessment of Archaic culture. Scholars have de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megara
Megara (; , ) is a historic town and a municipality in West Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis Island, Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King Pandion II, of whom Nisos was the ruler of Megara. Megara was also a trade port, its people using their ships and wealth as a way to gain leverage on armies of neighboring poleis. Megara specialized in the exportation of wool and other animal products including livestock such as horses. It possessed two harbors, Pagae to the west on the Corinthian Gulf, and Nisaea to the east on the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. History Late Bronze Mycenaean period In the Late Bronze Age, Megara features prominently as a small kingdom in the myths and legends of Homer. Megara emerged between two fortified ports, Nisaea on the Saronic Gulf and Pagae on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnomic Poetry
Gnomic poetry consists of meaningful sayings put into verse to aid the memory. They were known by the Greeks as gnomes (cf. the Greek adjective γνωμικός (''gnomikos'') "appertaining to an opinion or aphorism"). A ''gnome'' was defined by the Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham as "a saying pertaining to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth, with an apt brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done". It belongs to the broad family of wisdom literature, which expresses general truths about the world. Topics range over the divine and secular, from moral aphorisms to hierarchical social relationships. Ancient Greek gnomic literature The gnomic poets of Greece, who flourished in the 6th century BC, were those who arranged series of sententious maxims in verse. These were collected in the 4th century, by Lobon of Argos, an orator, but his collection has disappeared. Hesiod's ''Works and Days'' is considered to be one of the earliest works of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phocylides
Phocylides (), Greek gnomic poet of Miletus, contemporary of Theognis of Megara, was born about 560 BC. A few fragments of his " maxims" have survived (chiefly in the ''Florilegium'' of Stobaeus), in which he expresses his contempt for the pomps and vanities of rank and wealth, and sets forth in simple language his ideas of honour, justice and wisdom. An example is an epigram quoted by Dio Chrysostom: Aristotle also found cause to quote him: Works Phocylides of Miletus was once credited with writing Pseudo-Phocylides, a complete didactic poem (230 hexameters). However, that text is now considered to be the work of an Alexandrian Christian of Jewish origin who lived between 170 BC and AD 50. The Jewish element is shown in verbal agreement with passages of the Old Testament (especially the Wisdom of Sirach); the Christian by the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. Some Jewish authorities, however, maintain that there are in reality no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theagenes Of Megara
Theagenes of Megara () ruled the ancient Greek city of Megara in the seventh century BC. The only sources for his life are anecdotes recorded by authors several centuries after his death, whose reliability is uncertain. Although very little is known of his life, he is considered one of the archetypal early Greek tyrants (''tyrannoi''). Life Aristotle claims that Theagenes of Megara convinced the Megarians to give him a bodyguard, which he then used to seize control of the city. Elsewhere Aristotle claims that Theagenes came to power by slaughtering the flocks of the rich by a river. It is unclear how reliable these stories are: the bodyguard is a stereotypical trope in accounts of ancient tyrants' seizures of power and the meaning of the slaughter of the flocks is disputed. Aristotle presents the event as an example of a tyrant gaining power by intervening in social conflict between the rich aristocracy and the poor masses on the side of the latter.E. Stein-Hölkeskamp (2009) 107-8. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hesiod
Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Griffin, "Greek Myth and Hesiod", J.Boardman, J.Griffin and O. Murray (eds.), ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'', Oxford University Press (1986), p. 88. Several of Hesiod's works have survived in their entirety. Among these are ''Theogony'', which tells the origins of the gods, their lineages, and the events that led to Zeus's rise to power, and ''Works and Days'', a poem that describes the five Ages of Man, offers advice and wisdom, and includes myths such as Pandora's box. Hesiod is generally regarded by Western authors as 'the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject.' Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek relig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrtaeus
Tyrtaeus (; ''Tyrtaios''; fl. mid-7th century BC) was a Greek elegiac poet from Sparta whose works were speculated to fill five books. His works survive from quotations and papyri, and include 250 lines or parts of lines. He wrote at a time of two crises affecting the city: a civic unrest threatening the authority of kings and elders, later recalled in a poem named ''Eunomia'' ("Law and Order"), where he reminded citizens to respect the divine and constitutional roles of kings, council, and ''demos''; and the Second Messenian War, during which he served as a sort of "state poet", exhorting Spartans to fight to the death for their city. In the 4th century BC, when Tyrtaeus was an established classic, Spartan armies on campaign were made to listen to his poetry. The ''Suda'' states that he wrote martial songs; these were important in Spartan festivals and were done through anapaestic and iambic chants that accompanied armed dances and processions. Life Birth and place of orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solon
Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy.Stanton, G. R. ''Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Sourcebook'', Routledge, London (1990), p. 76.E. Harris, "A New Solution to the Riddle of the Seisachtheia", in ''The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece'', eds. L. Mitchell and P. Rhodes (Routledge 1997) 103 Solon's efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral declineAristotle, ''Politics'', 1273b 35–1274a 21 resulted in his Solonian Constitution, constitutional reform overturning most of Draco (lawgiver), Draco's Draconian constitution, laws. Solon's reforms included debt relief later known and celebrated among Athenians as the (shaking off of burdens). He is described by Aristotle in the ''Constitution of the Athenians (Aristotle), Athenian Constitution'' as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attica
Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core city of the metropolitan area, as well as its surrounding suburban cities and towns. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Sea, bordering on Boeotia to the north and Megaris to the west. The southern tip of the peninsula, known as Laurion, Lavrio, was an important Mines of Laurion, mining region. The history of Attica is closely linked with that of Athens. In ancient times, Attica corresponded with the Athens city-state. It was the most prominent region in Ancient Greece, specifically during the Golden Age of Athens in the Classical Greece, classical period. Classical Athens, Ancient Attica (the classical Classical Athens, Athens city-state) was divided into deme, demoi, or municipalities, from the reform of Cleisthenes in 508/7 BC, gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Didymus Chalcenterus
Didymus Chalcenterus (Latin; Greek: , ''Dídymos Chalkéderos'', "Didymus Bronze-Guts"; c. 63 BC – c. AD 10) was an Ancient Greek scholar and grammarian who flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus. Life The epithet "Bronze-Guts" came from his indefatigable industry: he was said to have written so many books that he was unable to recollect what he had written in earlier ones, and so often contradicted himself. Athenaeus (4.139c) records that he wrote 3,500 treatises, while Seneca gives the figure of 4,000. As a result, he acquired the additional nickname (, ''biblioláthas''), meaning "Book-Forgetting" or "Book-forgetter", a term coined by Demetrius of Troezen. He lived and taught in Alexandria and Rome, where he became the friend of Varro. He is chiefly important as having introduced Alexandrian learning to the Romans. Works He was a follower of the school of Aristarchus, and wrote a treatise on Aristarchus' edition of Homer entitled ''On Aristarchus' recension'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megara Hyblaea
Megara Hyblaea () – perhaps identical with Hybla Major – is an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek colony of Magna Graecia in Sicily, situated near Augusta, Sicily, Augusta on the east coast, north-northwest of Syracuse, Italy, Syracuse, Italy, on the deep bay formed by the Xiphonian promontory. There were at least three (and possibly as many as five) cities named "Hybla" in ancient accounts of Sicily which are often confounded with each other, and among which it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish. History It was unquestionably a Greek colony, deriving its origin from the Megara in Ancient Greece, Greece; and the circumstances attending its foundation are related in detail by Thucydides. He tells us that a colony from Megara, under the command of a leader named Lamis (), arrived in Sicily about the time that Leontini was founded by the Chalcis, Chalcidic colonists, and settled themselves first near the mouth of the river Pantagias, at a place called Trotilon (Latin: Tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in History of Athens, Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms, theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
