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Vari Cave
The Vari Cave, also known as the Nympholyptos Cave ( el, Σπήλαιο Νυμφολήπτου Βάρης), is a small cave northeast of Vari in Attica, Greece. In classical antiquity the cave was used as a shrine dedicated to Apollo, Pan and the Nymphs. The cave was occupied from the sixth to second century BC. The cave then fell into disuse until it was occupied again in the fourth century AD. It was finally abandoned in approximately the sixth century. The cave was excavated in 1901. It lies near the top of one of the southern spurs of Mount Hymettus at an altitude of almost 300 meters. From Vari, it can be reached on foot in one hour. The cave is unique in Greece because of its rock-cut sculptures. The marble votive tablets from the cave are now exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Because of its use for the veneration of Pan the cave is also called the Cave of Pan. It was one of the five caves of Pan in the vicinity of ancient Athens. History A ...
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Votive Tablet
An ex-voto is a votive offering to a saint or to a divinity; the term is usually restricted to Christian examples. It is given in fulfillment of a vow (hence the Latin term, short for ''ex voto suscepto'', "from the vow made") or in gratitude or devotion. Definition Ex-votos are placed in a church or chapel where the worshiper seeks grace or wishes to give thanks. The destinations of pilgrimages often include shrines decorated with ex-votos. Ex-votos can take a wide variety of forms. They are not only intended for the helping figure, but also as a testimony to later visitors of the received help. As such they may include texts explaining a miracle attributed to the helper, or symbols such as a painted or modeled reproduction of a miraculously healed body part, or a directly related item such as a crutch given by a person formerly lame. There are places where a very old tradition of depositing ex-votos existed, such as Abydos in ancient Egypt. Ex-voto paintings Especially in ...
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Paganism
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christianity, early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not ''Miles Christianus, milites Christi'' (soldiers of Christ).J. J. O'Donnell (1977)''Paganus'': Evolution and Use ''Classical Folia'', 31: 163–69. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were ''Greeks, hellene'', ''gentile'', and ''wikt:heathen, heathen''. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Classical mythology, Graeco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "Civil religion, religion of the peasantry". During and after the Middle A ...
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Muse
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture. Melete, Aoede, and Mneme are the original Boeotian Muses, and Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania are the nine Olympian Muses. In modern figurative usage, a Muse may be a source of artistic inspiration. Etymology The word ''Muses'' ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai) perhaps came from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root (the basic meaning of which is 'put in mind' in verb formations with transitive function and 'have in mind' in those with intransitive function), or from root ('to tower, mountain') since all the most important cult-centres of the Muses were on mountains or hills. ...
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Perictione
Perictione ( grc-gre, Περικτιόνη ''Periktiónē''; fl. 5th century BC) was the mother of the Greek philosopher Plato. She was a descendant of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver. Her illustrious family goes back to Dropides, archon of the year 644 b.c. She was married to Ariston, and had three sons (Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Plato) and a daughter (Potone). After Ariston's death, she remarried Pyrilampes, an Athenian statesman and her uncle. She had her fifth child, Antiphon, with Pyrilampes. Antiphon appears in Plato's ''Parmenides''. Two spurious works attributed to Perictione have survived in fragments, ''On the Harmony of Women'' and ''On Wisdom''. The works do not date from the same time and are usually assigned to a Perictione I and a Perictione II.Mary Ellen Waithe, ''A History of Women Philosophers: Volume 1, 600 BC-500 AD'', Springer. This assignment makes it seem evident that perhaps either one or neither were actually composed by this Perictione. Both works are pseudo ...
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Ariston Of Athens
Ariston of Collytus ( grc-gre, Ἀρίστων; died c. 424 BC), was the father of the Greek philosopher Plato (originally named Aristocles). Legend holds that he was descended from Codrus, the ancient king of Athens. He supposedly could trace his ancestry to the God of the sea Poseidon through Codrus and Melanthus.Diogenes Laertius Plato 1 Diogenes Laërtius on the authority of Speusippus and others, relates a story that "Ariston made violent love to Perictione, then in her bloom, and failed to win her; and that, when he ceased to offer violence, Apollo appeared to him in a dream, whereupon he left her unmolested until her child was born". Ariston died when Plato was still a boy, and his mother Perictione remarried Pyrilampes, a friend of the Athenian politician Pericles.Plato, ''The Republic'', Trans. G.M.A. Grube, Cambridge: Hackett, 1992. viii Ariston had three other children by Perictione: Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Potone Potone (; grc-gre, Πωτώνη, Pōtṓnē; born befo ...
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Olympiodorus The Younger
Olympiodorus the Younger ( el, Ὀλυμπιόδωρος ὁ Νεώτερος; c. 495 – 570) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astrologer and teacher who lived in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian's Decree of 529 AD which closed Plato's Academy in Athens and other pagan schools. Olympiodorus was the last pagan to maintain the Platonist tradition in Alexandria (see Alexandrian School); after his death the School passed into the hands of Christian Aristotelians, and was eventually moved to Constantinople. He is not to be confused with Olympiodorus the Deacon, a contemporary Alexandrian writer of Bible commentaries. Life Olympiodorus was the disciple of Ammonius Hermiae at the philosophy school in Alexandria, and succeeded him as its leader when Ammonius died c. 520. He was still teaching and writing in 565, because in his commentary on Aristotle's ''Meteorology'', he mentions a comet that appeared that year. Olympiodorus himself was able to survive the perse ...
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Claudius Aelianus
Claudius Aelianus ( grc, Κλαύδιος Αἰλιανός, Greek transliteration ''Kláudios Ailianós''; c. 175c. 235 AD), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "honey-tongued" ( ); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself. This cites: * ''Editio princeps'' of complete works by Gesner, 1556; Hercher, 1864-1866. * English translation of the ''Various History'' only by Fleming, 1576, and Stanley, 1665 * Translation of the ''Letters'' by Quillard (French), 1895 His two chief works are valuable for the numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost, and for the surprising lore, which offers unexpected glimpses into the Greco-Roman world-view. It is also the only Greco-Roman work to mention Gilgamesh. ''De Natura Animalium'' ...
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Ancient Roman Pottery
Pottery was produced in enormous quantities in ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. It is found all over the former Roman Empire and beyond. Monte Testaccio is a huge mound, waste mound in Rome made almost entirely of broken amphorae used for transporting and storing liquids and other products – in this case probably mostly Spanish olive oil, which was landed nearby, and was the main fuel for lighting, as well as its use in the kitchen and washing in the Thermae, baths. It is usual to divide Roman domestic pottery broadly into coarse wares and fine wares, the former being the everyday pottery jars, dishes and bowls that were used for cooking or the storage and transport of foods and other goods, and in some cases also as tableware, and which were often made and bought locally. Fine wares were serving vessels or tableware used for more formal dining, and are usually of more decorative and elegant appearance. Some of the most important of these were made at specialised p ...
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Arcadius
Arcadius ( grc-gre, Ἀρκάδιος ; 377 – 1 May 408) was Roman emperor from 383 to 408. He was the eldest son of the ''Augustus'' Theodosius I () and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and the brother of Honorius (). Arcadius ruled the eastern half of the empire from 395, when their father died, while Honorius ruled the west. A weak ruler, his reign was dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia.Nicholson, p. 119 Early life Arcadius was born in 377 in Hispania, the eldest son of Theodosius I and Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of Honorius. On 16 January 383, his father declared the five-year-old Arcadius an Augustus and co-ruler for the eastern half of the Empire. Ten years later a corresponding declaration made Honorius Augustus of the western half. Arcadius passed his early years under the tutelage of the rhetorician Themistius and Arsenius Zonaras, a monk. Emperor Early reign Both of Theodosius' sons were young and inexperienced, su ...
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Constantius II
Constantius II (Latin: ''Flavius Julius Constantius''; grc-gre, Κωνστάντιος; 7 August 317 – 3 November 361) was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars, court intrigues, and usurpations. His religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts that would continue after his death. Constantius was a son of Constantine the Great, who elevated him to the imperial rank of ''Caesar'' on 8 November 324 and after whose death Constantius became ''Augustus'' together with his brothers, Constantine II and Constans on 9 September 337. He promptly oversaw the massacre of his father-in-law, an uncle, and several cousins, consolidating his hold on power. The brothers divided the empire among themselves, with Constantius receiving Greece, Thrace, the Asian provinces, and Egypt in the east. For the following decade a costly and inco ...
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Constantine The Great
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to Constantine the Great and Christianity, convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now Niš, Serbia), he was the son of Constantius Chlorus, Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer of Illyrians, Illyrian origin who had been one of the four rulers of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, mother of Constantine I, Helena, was a Greeks, Greek Christian of low birth. Later canonized as a saint, she is traditionally attributed with the conversion of her son. Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius. He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces (against the Sasanian Empire, Persians) before being recalled in the west (in AD 305) to fight alongside his father in Roman Britain, Britain. After his father's death in 306, Constantine be ...
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