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Plato's Academy Mosaic
Plato's Academy mosaic is a free standing mosaic panel found in the villa of T. Siminius Stephanus in Pompeii. It is roughly a square, 86 cm x 85 cm, and can be seen presently at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, where it is kept as item MANN 124545. Most generally it is taken to present some variation on the topic of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages of Ancient Greece. The figures are in classical attire of toga and sandals, gathered under a tree, against a backdrop of allusive elements, including stone columns suggestive of the grand civic architecture of the age, and glimpses of distant cliffs or havens, perhaps metaphysical in nature. Since its discovery in 1897 Sedley D., (2021) An Iconography of Xenocrates' Platonism, in Authority and Authoritative texts in the Platonist Tradition, ed. Erler M., et al., Cambridge UP, p.38 many hypotheses about the personages and the meaning of the representation have been proposed. Overview Otto Brendel published in 1936 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plato's Academy
The Academy (), variously known as Plato's Academy, or the Platonic Academy, was founded in Athens by Plato ''circa'' 387 BC. The academy is regarded as the first institution of higher education in the west, where subjects as diverse as biology, geography, astronomy, mathematics, history, and many more were taught and investigated. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC. The Platonic Academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC. A neo-Platonic academy was later established in Athens that sought to continue the tradition of Plato's Academy. This academy was shut down by Justinian in 529 AD, when some of the scholars fled to Harran, where the study of classical texts continued. In 1462 Cosimo de' Medici established the Platonic Academy of Florence, which help ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Callippus
Callippus (; ; c. 370 BC – c. 300 BC) was a Greek astronomer and mathematician. Biography Callippus was born at Cyzicus, and studied under Eudoxus of Cnidus at the Academy of Plato. He also worked with Aristotle at the Lyceum, which means that he was active in Athens prior to Aristotle's death in 322 BC. He observed the movements of the planets and attempted to use Eudoxus' scheme of connected spheres to account for their movements. However, he found that 27 spheres were insufficient to account for the planetary movements, and so he added seven more for a total of 34. According to the description in Aristotle's ''Metaphysics'' (XII.8), he added two spheres for the Sun, two for the Moon, and one each for Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Callippus made careful measurements of the lengths of the seasons, finding them (starting with the spring equinox) to be 94 days, 92 days, 89 days, and 90 days. This variation in the seasons implies a variation in the speed of the Sun, called the "sol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis, Egypt
Memphis (, ; Bohairic ; ), or Men-nefer, was the ancient capital of Inebu-hedj, the first Nome (Egypt), nome of Lower Egypt that was known as ''mḥw'' ("North"). Its ruins are located in the vicinity of the present-day village of Mit Rahina (), in markaz (county) Badrashin, Giza, Egypt. Along with the Memphite Necropolis, pyramid fields that stretch on a desert plateau for more than on its west, including the famous Giza pyramid complex, Pyramids of Giza, Memphis and its necropolis have been listed as a World Heritage Site. The site is open to the public as an open-air museum. According to legends related in the early third century BC by Manetho, a priest and historian who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom during the Hellenistic period of ancient Egypt, the city was founded by Pharaoh, King Menes. It was the List of Egyptian capitals, capital of ancient Egypt (''Kemet'' or ''Kumat'') during both the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom and remain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Rowe (archaeologist)
Alan Jenvey Rowe (29 October 1891 – 3 January 1968) was a British archaeologist most famous for his studies on ancient Egypt. Rowe was an Egyptologist and lecturer in Near Eastern Archaeology in Manchester University. Life Born in Deptford and raised in Essex, Rowe's work included Egypt, Cyrenaica, Australia, Palestine and Syria. Career Excavations Between 1923 and 1925 he took part in a core expedition to Giza. He worked from 1928 to 1931 on the pyramid of Meidum, and surrounding areas, during this time he discovered the first royal necropolis built in a style of a royal court. His work ended due to the Great Depression of 1931. In 1934 he led an expedition to Tel Gezer (midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv), but the locations identified for excavation turned out not to be workable. In 1938 he led a team from Liverpool University to the Pyramid of Athribis, unfortunately the structure was already in such a heavily damaged state, preventing more thorough examinations. Betw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villa Albani
The Villa Albani (later Villa Albani-Torlonia) is a villa in Rome, built on the Via Salaria for Cardinal Alessandro Albani. It was built between 1747 and 1767 by the architect Carlo Marchionni in a project heavily influenced by otherssuch as Giovanni Battista Nolli, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Johann Joachim Winckelmannto house Albani's collection of antiquities, curated by Winckelmann. The villa has been conserved intact into the 21st century by the Torlonia, Torlonia Family, who bought it in 1866. In 1870, the treaty following the Capture of Rome from the Papal States was signed here. History Planned in 1743, the building of the villa began in 1747 according to Giuseppe Vasi and was celebrated as complete in 1763. Its purpose was to house Cardinal Albani's evolving and renewed collections of antiquities and ancient Roman sculpture, which soon filled the casino that faced the Villa down a series of formal parterres. The villa with its collection, fountains, statues, stair ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelianism, Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira (ancient city), Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical Greece, Classical period. His father, Nicomachus (father of Aristotle), Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At around eighteen years old, he joined Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty seven (). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speusippus
Speusippus (; ; c. 408 – 339/8 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek philosopher. Speusippus was Plato's nephew by his sister Potone. After Plato's death, c. 348 BC, Speusippus inherited the Platonic Academy, Academy, near age 60, and remained its head for the next eight years. However, following a stroke, he passed the chair to Xenocrates. Although the successor to Plato in the Academy, Speusippus frequently diverged from Plato's teachings. He rejected Plato's Theory of Forms, and whereas Plato had identified the Form of the Good, Good with the ultimate ''principle'', Speusippus maintained that the Good was merely secondary. He also argued that it is impossible to have satisfactory knowledge of any thing without knowing all the differences by which it is separated from everything else. The standard edition of the surviving fragments and testimonies is Leonardo Tarán's ''Speusippus of Athens: A Critical Study with a Collection of the Related Texts and Commentary'' (1982). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archytas
Archytas (; ; 435/410–360/350 BC) was an Ancient Greek mathematician, music theorist, statesman, and strategist from the ancient city of Taras (Tarentum) in Southern Italy. He was a scientist and philosopher affiliated with the Pythagorean school and famous for being the reputed founder of mathematical mechanics and a friend of Plato. As a Pythagorean, Archytas believed that arithmetic (logistic), rather than geometry, provided the basis for satisfactory proofs, and developed the most famous argument for the infinity of the universe in antiquity. Life Archytas was born in Tarentum, a Greek city in the Italian Peninsula that was part of Magna Graecia, and was the son of Hestiaeus. He was presumably taught by Philolaus, and taught mathematics to Eudoxus of Cnidus and to Eudoxus' student, Menaechmus. Politically and militarily, Archytas appears to have been the dominant figure in Tarentum in his generation, somewhat comparable to Pericles in Athens a half-century earlier. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenocrates
Xenocrates (; ; c. 396/5314/3 BC) of Chalcedon was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and leader ( scholarch) of the Platonic Academy from 339/8 to 314/3 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements. He distinguished three forms of being: the sensible, the intelligible, and a third compounded of the two, to which correspond respectively, sense, intellect and opinion. He considered unity and duality to be gods which rule the universe, and the soul a self-moving number. God pervades all things, and there are daemonical powers, intermediate between the divine and the mortal, which consist in conditions of the soul. He held that mathematical objects and the Platonic Ideas are identical, unlike Plato who distinguished them. In ethics, he taught that virtue produces happiness, but external goods can minister to it and enable it to effect its purpose. Life Xenocrates was a native of Chalcedon. By the most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timaeus Of Locri
Timaeus of Locri (pronunciation in modern English ; ; ) is a character in two of Plato's dialogues, '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias''. In both, he appears as a philosopher of the Pythagorean school. If there ever existed a historical Timaeus of Locri, he would have lived in the fifth century BC, but his historicity is dubious since he only appears as a literary figure in Plato's works; all other ancient sources are either based on Plato or are fictional accounts. Historicity In Plato's works, Timaeus appears as a wealthy aristocrat from the Greek colony of Lokroi Epizephyrioi (present-day Locri in Calabria) in Magna Graecia, who had served in high offices in his native town before coming to Athens, where the dialogue of ''Timaeus'' is set. Plato does not explicitly label Timaeus a Pythagorean, but leaves enough hints for the reader to infer this. He appears competent in all areas of ancient philosophy, especially natural philosophy and astronomy. In antiquity, Timaeus's historical exis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Sedley
David Neil Sedley FBA (born 30 May 1947) is a British philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was the seventh Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University. Early life Sedley was educated at Trinity College, Oxford where he was awarded a first class honours degree in Literae Humaniores in 1969. He was awarded a PhD in 1974 by University College London for a text, translation and commentary on Book XXVIII of Epicurus' ''On Nature''. He is the younger brother of Sir Stephen Sedley. Academic career Since 1976 Sedley has been a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge; from 1996 he was Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University before in July 2000 being elevated to the Laurence Professorship of Ancient Philosophy. He retired from this position at the end of September 2014. He was succeeded in this post by his former student, Gábor Betegh. He has held visiting appointments at Princeton University (September 1981 – March 1982), University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aratus
Aratus (; ; c. 315/310 240 BC) was a Greek didactic poet. His major extant work is his hexameter poem ''Phenomena'' (, ''Phainómena'', "Appearances"; ), the first half of which is a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus. It describes the constellations and other celestial phenomena. The second half is called the ''Diosemeia'' (Διοσημεῖα "Forecasts"), and is chiefly about weather lore. Although Aratus was somewhat ignorant of Greek astronomy, his poem was very popular in the Greek and Roman world, as is proven by the large number of commentaries and Latin translations, some of which survive. Life There are several accounts of Aratus's life by anonymous Greek writers, and the Suda and Eudocia also mention him. From these it appears that he was a native of Soli in Cilicia (although one authority says Tarsus). He is known to have studied with Menecrates in Ephesus and Philitas in Cos. As a disciple of the Peripatetic philosopher Praxipha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
