Branches of Mathematics

Pure mathematics

• Algebra
• Calculus
• Geometry
• Topology
• Trignometry
• Combinatorics
• Logic
• Number theory

Applied mathematics

• Dynamical systems and differential equations
• Mathematical physics
• Computing
• Information theory and signal processing
• Probability and statistics
• Game theory
• Operations research

Related Topics

• Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Linear Equations
• Applied Physics
• Nano Technology
• Engineering Sciences
• Mathematical Medicine
• Fluid dynamics
• Computational Mathematics
• Gamma Ray Optics
• Onfrared Optics
• Relative Velocity
• Iciam
• Intelligent Imaging Neuroscience
• Biomedical Engineering
• Neuroscience Research
• Quantum Cosmology
• Brain Research

• 182 BC
• 200 BC
• Achaean League
• Acropolis of Athens
• Adrian Goldsworthy
• Aegean Sea
• Aemilius Paulus
• Aeolic Greek
• Aeolis
• Aeschylus
• Aesop
• Africa
• Agora
• Alcaeus of Mytilene
• Alcibiades
• Alexander the Great
• Alexandria
• Anacyclosis
• Anaxagoras
• Anaximander
• Ancient Corinth
• Ancient Crete
• Ancient Greece
• Ancient Greek
• Ancient Greek law
• Ancient Greek temple
• Antioch
• Antisthenes
• Apella
• Arcadia
• Arcadocypriot Greek
• Archaic Greece
• Archilochus
• Archimedes
• Archons of Athens
• Areopagus
• Aristophanes
• Aristotle
• Army of Macedon
• Arnaldo Momigliano
• Arrian
• Aspasia
• Athenaeus
• Athenian democracy
• Athenian festivals
• Attalid dynasty
• Attic Greek
• Attic numerals
• Bacchylides
• Battle of Lilybaeum
• Battle of the Trebia
• Battle of Ticinus
• Callisthenes
• Carthage
• Carthaginians
• Cato the Elder
• Cicero
• Classical Athens
• Classical Greece
• Companion cavalry
• Crete
• Cryptography
• Cyprus
• Dardanelles
• Delos
• Delphi
• Democritus
• Demosthenes
• Diadochi
• Diodorus
• Diogenes of Sinope
• Discourses on Livy
• Doric Greek
• Doris (Asia Minor)
• Edward Tufte
• Empedocles
• English language
• Epaminondas
• Ephesus
• Epicurus
• Eratosthenes
• Euclid
• Euripides
• First Punic War
• Florence
• French language
• Gorgias
• Graphē paranómōn
• Greek alphabet
• Greek astronomy
• Greek Dark Ages
• Greek language
• Greek mathematics
• Greek numerals
• Greeks
• Hagiographic
• Hannibal
• Heliaia
• Hellenistic armies
• Hellenistic Greece
• Hellenistic Period
• Heraclitus
• Herodotus
• Hesiod
• Hipparchus
• Hippocrates
• Hipponax
• Hispania
• Homer
• Homeric Greek
• Hoplite
• Hypatia
• Ibycus
• Ionia
• Ionian Sea
• Ionic Greek
• Isaac Casaubon
• Italian language
• Italy
• John Adams
• Jose Ortega y Gasset
• JSTOR
• King of Athens
• Kings of Macedon
• Koine Greek
• Kydonia
• LacusCurtius
• Latin alphabet
• League of Corinth
• Leonidas I
• Leucippus
• Linear A
• Linear B
• Livy
• Locrian Greek
• Lucian
• Lycortas
• Lycurgus of Sparta
• Lysander
• Magna Graecia
• Megalopolis, Greece
• Menander
• Miletus
• Military tactics
• Milo of Croton
• Mimnermus
• Minoan civilization
• Mixed government
• Montesquieu
• Mycenaean Greece
• Mycenaean Greek
• Niccolò Machiavelli
• Numantine War
• Olympia, Greece
• Paideia
• Pamphylian Greek
• Paolo Sarpi
• Parallel Lives
• Parmenides
• Parthenon
• Pausanias (general)
• Peloponnese
• Peltast
• Penguin Classics
• Pergamon
• Pericles
• Perseus of Macedonia
• Perseus Project
• Pezhetairos
• Phalanx formation
• Philip II of Macedon
• Philopoemen
• Pindar
• Plato
• Plutarch
• Polybius
• Polybius (game)
• Polybius square
• Pontus
• Protagoras
• Proto-Greek language
• Ptolemy
• Pyrrhus of Epirus
• Pythagoras
• Reasoning
• Rhodes
• Robert Pashley
• Roman Greece
• Roman Republic
• Rome
• Ron Mellor
• Sappho
• Sarissa
• Scipio
• Scipio Aemilianus
• Scipio Africanus
• Scylax
• Second Punic War
• Seleucid army
• Sempronius Asellio
• Separation of powers
• Siege of Saguntum
• Simonides of Ceos
• Socrates
• Solon
• Sophocles
• Sparta
• Spartan Army
• Steganography
• Stesichorus
• Strabo
• Strategia
• Telegraphy
• Temple of Artemis
• Temple of Hephaestus
• Temple of Zeus
• Thales of Miletus
• Themistocles
• Theognis of Megara
• Theopompus
• Thermopylae
• Third Macedonian War
• Third Punic War
• Thucydides
• Timaeus (historian)
• Timocreon
• Troy
• Tyrtaeus
• Via Domitia
• Wikipedia Link rot
• Wikipedia Persondata
• William Camden
• Xenophobia
• Xenophon
• Xyston
• Zeno of Citium
• 
  

• 
  Achaean League
  The Achaean League (Greek: κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν) was a Hellenistic era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese, which existed between 280 BC and 146 BC. The league was named after the region of Achaea.
  The regional Achaean League was reformed in 281/0 BC (on the basis of a looser alliance of the founding city-states extending back to the 5th century BC), and soon expanded beyond its Achaean heartland. It was first joined by the city of Sicyon in 251, which provided it with its first great leader, Aratus of Sicyon. The League soon grew to control much of the Peloponnesus, considerably weakening the Macedonian hold on the area. It acquired Corinth in 243 BC, Megalopolis in 235 BC and Argos in 229 BC. The increased size of the league meant a bigger citizen army and more wealth, which was used to hire mercenaries. However the league soon ran into difficulties with the revived Sparta of Cleomenes III. Aratus was forced to call in the aid of the Macedonian King, Antigonus Doson, to defeat Cleomenes in Sellasia. Antigonus re-established Macedonian control over much of the region.
  
  wn.com/Achaean_League
• 
  Acropolis of Athens
  Coordinates: 37°58′17″N 23°43′34″E / 37.971421°N 23.726166°E / 37.971421; 23.726166
  The Acropolis of Athens (Greek: Ακρόπολη Αθηνών) is an ancient citadel located on a high rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and containing the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word acropolis (pl. acropoleis) comes from the Greek words ἄκρον (akron, "edge, extremity") and πόλις (polis, "city"). Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as "The Acropolis" without qualification.
  The Acropolis was formally proclaimed as the preeminent monument on the European Cultural Heritage list of monuments on 26 March 2007.
  
  wn.com/Acropolis_of_Athens
• 
  Aegean Sea
  The Aegean Sea (/ɨˈdʒiːən/; Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος, Egeo Pelagos [eˈʝeo ˈpelaɣos] ( listen); Turkish: Ege Denizi or historically Turkish: Adalar Denizi) is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus. The Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The Aegean Region consists of nine provinces in southwestern Turkey, in part bordering on the Aegean sea.
  The sea was traditionally known as Archipelago (in Greek, Αρχιπέλαγος, meaning "chief sea"), but in English this word's meaning has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally, to any island group.
  The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi) in area, and measures about 610 kilometres (380 mi) longitudinally and 300 kilometres (190 mi) latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is 3,543 metres (11,624 ft), east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south (generally from west to east): Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes.
  
  wn.com/Aegean_Sea
• 
  Alexandria
  Alexandria (Arabic: الإسكندرية‎ Al Iskandariyya, Coptic: Ⲣⲁⲕⲟⲧⲉ Rakotə, Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Alexándria, Koine Greek: Ἀλεξάνδρεια ἡ κατ' Αἴγυπτον IPA: [ɑlɛˈksɑndɾiɑ e kɑt ˈɛʝypton] "Alexandria in Egypt", Egyptian Arabic: اسكندريه [eskendeˈrejːæ]) is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about 32 km (20 mi) along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypt's imports and exports. Alexandria is also an important tourist resort. It is home to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (the new Library of Alexandria). It is an important industrial centre because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez.
  Alexandria was founded around a small pharaonic town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great. It remained Egypt's capital for nearly a thousand years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (Fustat was later absorbed into Cairo). Alexandria was known because of its Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its library (the largest library in the ancient world); and the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, which began in 1994, is revealing details of Alexandria both before the arrival of Alexander, when a city named Rhacotis existed there, and during the Ptolemaic dynasty.
  
  wn.com/Alexandria
• 
  Ancient Corinth
  Coordinates: 37°54′19″N 22°52′49″E / 37.9053455°N 22.8801924°E / 37.9053455; 22.8801924
  Corinth, or Korinth (Greek: Κόρινθος, Kórinthos) was a city-state (polis) on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northeast of the ancient ruins. Since 1896, systematic archaeological investigations of the Corinth Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have revealed large parts of the ancient city, and recent excavations conducted by the Greek Ministry of Culture have brought important new facets of antiquity to light.
  Neolithic pottery suggests that the site of Corinth was occupied from at least as early as 6500BC, and continually occupied into the Early Bronze Age , when, it has been suggested, the settlement acted as a centre of trade However, there is a dramatic drop in ceramic remains during the Early Helladic II phase, and only sparse ceramic remains in the EHIII and MH phases; thus it appears that the area was very sparsely inhabited in the period immediately before the Myceanaean period. While pottery dating to the Mycenaean period is negligable at the site of Corinth, there was a settlement on the coast near Lechaion which traded across the Corinthian Gulf; the site of Corinth itself was likely not heavily occupied again until around 900BC, when it is believed the Dorians settled there.
  
  wn.com/Ancient_Corinth
• 
  Antioch
  Antioch on the Orontes (Greek: Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Δάφνῃ, "Antioch on Daphne"; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ Μεγάλη, "Antioch the Great"; Syriac: ܐܢܛܝܘܟܝܐ Anṭiokia; Hebrew: אנטיוכיה, antiyokhya; Georgian: ანტიოქია; Armenian: Անտիոք Antiok; Latin: Antiochia ad Orontem; Arabic:انطاکیه, Anṭākiya; also Syrian Antioch) was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.
  Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the Near East and was a cradle of Christianity. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis. Its residents are known as Antiochenes. Once a great metropolis of half a million people, it declined to insignificance during the Middle Ages because of repeated earthquakes, the Crusaders' invasions, and a change in trade routes following the Mongol conquests, which then no longer passed through Antioch from the far east.
  
  wn.com/Antioch
• 
  Arcadia
  Arcadia (Greek: Αρκαδία - Arkadía) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan. In European Renaissance arts, Arcadia was celebrated as an unspoiled, harmonious wilderness.
  Arcadia has its present-day capital at Tripoli. It covers about 18% of the Peloponnese peninsula, making it the largest regional unit on the peninsula. Arcadia has a ski resort on Mount Mainalo, located about 20 km NW of Tripoli. Other mountains of Arcadia are the Parnon in the southeast and the Lykaion in the west.
  The climate consists of hot summers and mild winters in the eastern part, the southern part, the low lying areas and the central area at altitudes lower than 1,000 m. The area primarily receives rain during fall and winter months in the rest of Arcadia. Winter snow occurs commonly in the mountainous areas for much of the west and the northern part, the Taygetus area, the Mainalon.
  
  wn.com/Arcadia
• 
  Areopagus
  The Areopagus or Areios Pagos (Ancient Greek: Ἄρειος Πάγος) is the "Rock of Ares", north-west of the Acropolis, which in classical times functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases in Athens. Ares was supposed to have been tried here by the gods for the murder of Poseidon's son Alirrothios (a typical example of an aetiological myth).
  The origin of its name is not clear. In Greek pagos means big piece of rock. Areios could have come from Ares or from the Erinyes, as on its foot was erected a temple dedicated to the Erinyes where murderers used to find shelter so as not to face the consequences of their actions. Later, the Romans referred to the rocky hill as "Mars Hill", after Mars, the Roman God of War. Near the Areopagus was also constructed the basilica of Dionysius Areopagites.
  In pre-classical times (before the 5th century BC), the Areopagus was the council of elders of the city, similar to the Roman Senate. Like the Senate, its membership was restricted to those who had held high public office, in this case that of Archon. In 594 BC, the Areopagus agreed to hand over its functions to Solon for reform. He instituted democratic reforms, reconstituted its membership and returned control to the organization.
  
  wn.com/Areopagus
• 
  Attalid dynasty
  The Attalid dynasty was a Hellenistic dynasty that ruled the city of Pergamon after the death of Lysimachus, a general of Alexander the Great. The Attalid kingdom was the rump state left after the collapse of the Lysimachian Empire. One of Lysimachus' officers, Philetaerus, took control of the city in 282 BC. The later Attalids were descended from his father, and they expanded the city into a kingdom. Attalus I proclaimed himself King in the 230s BC, following his victories over the Galatians. The Attalids ruled Pergamon until Attalus III bequeathed the kingdom to the Roman Republic in 133 BC to avoid a likely succession crisis.
  On the interior of the Pergamon Altar is a frieze depicting the life of Telephus, son of Herakles, whom the ruling Attalid dynasty associated with its city and utilized to claim descendance from the Olympians. Pergamon, having entered the Greek world much later than its counterparts to the west, could not boast the same divine heritage as older city-states, and retroactively had to cultivate its place in Greek mythos.
  
  wn.com/Attalid_dynasty
• 
  Battle of the Trebia
  The Battle of the Trebia (or Trebbia) was the first major battle of the Second Punic War, fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and the Roman Republic in December of 218 BC, on or around the winter solstice. It was a resounding Roman defeat with heavy losses, and yet some 10,000 and more Romans, over 2.5 legions, were victorious on their part of battlefield and retreated with honor to Placentia (Piacenza). In this battle Hannibal got the better of the Romans by exercising the careful and innovative planning for which he was famous. The impetuous and short-sighted opposing general, the consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus, allowed himself to be provoked into a frontal assault under physically difficult circumstances and failed to see that he was being led into a trap.
  The battle took place in the flat country of the Province of Piacenza on the left bank of the Trebbia River, a shallow, braided stream, not far south from its confluence (from the south) with the Po river. The battle is named for the river. Although the precise location is not known for certain it is generally accepted as being visible from the Via Emilia, now paralleled by highway A21/E70 and a railroad trunk line, all of which come from Piacenza, a contemporaneously placed Roman colony (though perhaps on an existing settlement), and cross the river north of where the Romans did in the battle. The area is possibly in the comune of Rottofreno at its main settlement, San Nicolò a Trebbia, in the vicinity of the coordinates given at the head of this article.
  
  wn.com/Battle_of_the_Trebia
• 
  Battle of Ticinus
  The Battle of Ticinus was a battle of the Second Punic War fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and the Romans under Publius Cornelius Scipio in November 218 BC. The battle took place in the flat country of Pavia county on the right bank of the Ticino River not far north from its confluence (from the north) with the Po River. The battle is named from the river, not the contemporaneous settlement of Ticinum (today's Pavia) nearby. Although the precise location is not known, it is generally accepted that a settlement known today as Vigevano is mentioned in the text of Livy and that Scipio's camp was at Gambolo to the south, whose coordinates are given on the map. The conflict would have been west of there. It was the first battle of the war against Romans on Italian soil and the first battle of the war to employ legion-sized forces. Its loss by the Romans and temporary disablement of Scipio's command set the stage for the Roman disaster at the Battle of Trebbia in December.
  This battle was mainly a cavalry engagement. It was so fast-moving that the javelin-throwers deployed by the Romans had no chance to fire even a single volley and milled around on the field, being a major cause of the Roman defeat. Scipio was wounded and barely escaped with his life. He was in fact rescued on the field by his 18-year-old son, the later Scipio Africanus.
  
  wn.com/Battle_of_Ticinus
• 
  Carthage
  Carthage (Latin: Carthago or Karthago, Ancient Greek: Καρχηδών Karkhēdōn, Arabic: قرطاج Qarṭāj‎, Berber: ⴽⴰⵔⵜⴰⵊⴻⵏ Kartajen, Etruscan: *Carθaza, Modern Hebrew: קרתגו‎ Qartágo, from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt meaning New City (Aramaic: קרתא חדאתא, Qarta Ḥdatha), implying it was a 'new Tyre', is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC. It is currently a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia, with a population of 20,715 (2004 Census).
  The first civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic (a form of the word "Phoenician") or Carthaginian. The city of Carthage is located on the eastern side of Lake Tunis across from the centre of Tunis. According to Greek historians it was founded by Canaanite-speaking Phoenician colonists from Tyre (in modern Lebanon) under the leadership of Elissa who was renamed (Queen Dido) in Virgil's Aeneid. It became a large and rich city and thus a major power in the Mediterranean. The resulting rivalry with Syracuse, Numidia, and Rome was accompanied by several wars with respective invasions of each other's homeland.
  
  wn.com/Carthage
• 
  Classical Athens
  The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece (508–322 BC) was a notable polis (city-state) of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (aftermath of Lamian War). The peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved in the 440s to 430s BC, known as the Age of Pericles.
  In the classical period, Athens was a center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Akademia and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization, and the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European continent.
  
  wn.com/Classical_Athens
• 
  Crete
  Crete (Greek: Κρήτη; [kriti]) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits (such as its own dialect, poetry, and music). Crete was the centre of the Minoan civilization (c. 2700–1420 BC), the earliest civilization in Europe, comprising the first palaces in Europe.
  The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and the Bible (Caphtor). It was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting some form similar to both was the Minoan name for the island.
  The Mycenaean Greek name for Crete is unknown; it is not mentioned in extant Linear B texts. The name Crete (Κρήτη) first appears in Homer's Odyssey. Its etymology is unknown. One speculative proposal derives it from a hypothetical Luvian word *kursatta (cf. kursawar "island", kursattar "cutting, sliver"). In Latin, it became Creta.
  
  wn.com/Crete
• 
  Cyprus
  Cyprus ⁱ/ˈsaɪprəs/ (Greek: Κύπρος, Kýpros, IPA: [ˈcipɾos]; Turkish: Kıbrıs, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs]), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [cipɾiaˈci ðimokɾaˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs dʒumhuɾijeˈti]), is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, northwest of Israel and north of Egypt. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and the Republic of Cyprus is a member state of the European Union.
  The earliest known human activity on the island dates back to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, which has been declared a World Heritage Site with an "enhanced protection" status in the event of armed conflict by UNESCO, along with the archaeological sites of Paphos and the Painted Churches of the Troodos Region. Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world.
  
  wn.com/Cyprus
• 
  Dardanelles
  Coordinates: 40°12′N 26°24′E / 40.2°N 26.4°E / 40.2; 26.4
  The Dardanelles ( /dɑrdəˈnɛlz/; Turkish: Çanakkale Boğazı, Greek: Δαρδανέλλια, Dardanellia), formerly known as Hellespont ( /ˈhɛlɨspɒnt/; Ancient Greek: Ἑλλήσποντος, Hellespontos, literally "Sea of Helle"), is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately 40°13′N 26°26′E / 40.217°N 26.433°E / 40.217; 26.433. The strait is 61 kilometres (38 mi) long but only 1.2 to 6 kilometres (0.75 to 3.7 mi) wide, averaging 55 metres (180 ft) deep with a maximum depth of 103 metres (338 ft). Water flows in both directions along the strait, from the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean via a surface current and in the opposite direction via an undercurrent.
  Like the Bosphorus, it separates Europe (the Gallipoli peninsula) from the mainland of Asia. The strait is an international waterway, and together with the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
  
  wn.com/Dardanelles
• 
  Ephesus
  Ephesus (/ˈɛfəsəs/);Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος, Ephesos; Turkish Efes) was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean world.
  The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected new public baths. Following the Edict of Thessalonica from emperor Theodosius I, the temple was destroyed in 401 AD by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom. The town was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614 AD. The city's importance as a commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes).
  Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation. The Gospel of John may have been written here. The city was the site of several 5th century Christian Councils, see Council of Ephesus. It is also the site of a large gladiators' graveyard.
  
  wn.com/Ephesus
• 
  Florence
  Florence (Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] ( listen), alternate obsolete form: Fiorenza; Latin: Florentia) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area.
  Florence is famous for its history. A centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time, Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy.
  The historic centre of Florence attracts millions of tourists each year, and Euromonitor International ranked the city as the world's 72nd most visited in 2009, with 1,685,000 visitors. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the city is noted for its history, culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace, amongst others, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics.
  
  wn.com/Florence
• 
  Hispania
  Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the 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 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 remaining Tarraconensis was again split off as Carthaginensis, and probably then too the Balearic Islands and all the resulting provinces formed one civil diocese under the vicarius for the Hispaniae (that is, the Celtic provinces). The name, Hispania, was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The modern name Spain derives from Hispania.
  The origin of the word Hispania is much disputed and the evidence for the various speculations are based merely upon what are at best mere resemblances, likely to be accidental, and suspect supporting evidence. One theory holds it to be of Punic derivation, from the Phoenician language of colonizing Carthage. Specifically, it may derive from a Punic cognate of Hebrew אי-שפניא (i-shfania) meaning "Island of the Hyrax" or "island of the hare" or "island of the rabbit" (Phoenician-Punic and Hebrew are both Canaanite languages and therefore closely related to each other). Another theory, proposed by the etymologist Eric Partridge in his work Origins, is that it is of Iberian derivation and that it is to be found in the pre-Roman name for Seville, Hispalis, which strongly hints at an ancient name for the country of *Hispa, an Iberian or Celtic root whose meaning is now lost. It may alternatively derive from Heliopolis (Greek for "city of the sun"). Occasionally it was called Hesperia, the western land, by Roman writers, or Hesperia ultima.
  
  wn.com/Hispania
• 
  Ionian Sea
  The Ionian Sea (Greek: Ιόνιο Πέλαγος, Greek pronunciation: [iˈonio ˈpelaɣos], Italian: Mar Ionio, Italian pronunciation: [maɾ ˈjɔːnio], Albanian: Deti Jon), is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and west coast of Greece.
  All major islands in the sea belong to Greece. They are collectively referred to as the Ionian Islands, the major ones being Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and Lefkas.
  There are ferry routes between Patras and Igoumenitsa, Greece, and Brindisi and Ancona, Italy, that cross the east and north of the Ionian Sea, and from Piraeus westward. Calypso Deep, the deepest point in the Mediterranean at −5,267 m (−17,280.2 ft), is located in the Ionian Sea, at 36°34′N 21°8′E / 36.567°N 21.133°E / 36.567; 21.133. The sea is one of the most seismically active areas in the world.
  The name Ionian comes from Greek Ἰόνιον (πέλαγος). In Ancient Greek the adjective Ionios (Ἰόνιος) was used as an epithet for the sea because Io swam across it. Its etymology is unknown. Ancient Greek writers, especially Aeschylus, linked it to the myth of Io. There were also narratives about other eponymic legendary figures; according to one version, Ionius was a son of Adrias (eponymic for the Adriatic Sea); according to another, Ionius was a son of Dyrrhachus, eponymic for the ancient Greek city of Dyrrhachium (modern Durrës in Albania). When Dyrrhachus was attacked by his own brothers, Heracles, who was passing through the area, came to his aid, but in the fight the hero killed his ally's son by mistake. The corpse was cast into the sea, which thereafter was called the Ionian Sea.
  
  wn.com/Ionian_Sea
• 
  Italy
  Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
  Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
  
  wn.com/Italy
• Kydonia
  Cydonia or Kydonia (Greek Κυδωνία, "quince") was an important ancient city-state on the northwest coast of the island of Crete. It is at the site of the modern-day Greek city of Chania. In legend Cydonia was founded by King Cydon, a son of Hermes and of Akakallis, the daughter of King Minos.
  Cydonians are mentioned in book 12 of the Aeneid, where their excellent bow skills are used in an extended Virgilian simile describing the Fury's descent to Juturna.
  The exact location of Kydonia was not understood until Robert Pashley worked it out based solely on ancient historical literature, without any archaeological recovery; Kydonia was centred around the present day harbour area and Kastelli Hill. Today's archaeological recoveries from the ancient city of Kydonia are largely stored in the Chania Archaeological Museum in present day Chania.
  Coordinates: 35°31′02″N 24°01′11″E / 35.5173°N 24.0196°E / 35.5173; 24.0196
  
  wn.com/Kydonia
• 
  Miletus
  Miletus (mī lē' təs) (Ancient Greek: Μίλητος, Milētos; Latin: Miletus) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia (in what is now Aydin Province, Turkey), near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria. Before the Persian invasion in the middle of the 6th century BC, Miletus was considered the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities.
  Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander. The first available evidence is of the Neolithic. In the early and middle Bronze age the settlement came under Minoan influence. Legend has it that an influx of Cretans occurred displacing the indigenous Leleges. The site was renamed Miletus after a place in Crete.
  The Late Bronze Age, 13th century BCE, saw the arrival of Luwian language speakers from south central Anatolia calling themselves the Carians. Later in that century the first Greeks arrived. The city at that time rebelled against the Hittite Empire. After the fall of that empire the city was destroyed in the 12th century BCE and starting about 1000 BCE was resettled extensively by the Ionian Greeks. Legend offers an Ionian foundation event sponsored by a founder named Neleus from the Peloponnesus.
  
  wn.com/Miletus
• 
  Parthenon
  Coordinates: 37°58′13″N 23°43′21″E / 37.97025°N 23.72247°E / 37.97025; 23.72247
  The Parthenon (Greek: Παρθενών) is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although decoration of the Parthenon continued until 432 BC. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the culmination of the development of the Doric order. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece and of Athenian democracy and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments. The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a program of selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the partially ruined structure.
  
  wn.com/Parthenon
• 
  Peloponnese
  The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus (Greek: Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnisos; see also list of Greek place names), is a large peninsula, located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth. During the late Middle Ages and the Ottoman era, the peninsula was known as the Morea (Greek: Μωρέας, colloq. Μωριάς), a name still in colloquial use.
  The peninsula is divided among three regions of Greece: most of it belongs to the Peloponnese region, and parts belong to the West Greece and Attica regions.
  It was here that the Greek War of Independence began; the Peloponnesians have had an almost total dominance of politics and government in Greece since then.
  The Peloponnese covers an area of some 21,549.6  km² (8,320 square miles) and constitutes the southernmost part of mainland Greece. While technically it may be considered an island, since the construction of the Corinth Canal in 1893 – like other peninsulas that have been separated from their mainland by man-made bodies of waters – it is rarely, if ever, referred to as an "island". It has two land connections with the rest of Greece, a natural one at the Isthmus of Corinth, and an artificial one in the shape of the Rio-Antirio bridge (completed 2004).
  
  wn.com/Peloponnese
• 
  Pergamon
  Pergamon (Ancient Greek: τὸ Πέργαμον or ἡ Πέργαμος), or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located 16 miles (26 km) from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus (modern day Bakırçay), that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC. Pergamon was cited in the book of Revelation as one of the seven churches of Asia. Today, the main sites of ancient Pergamon are to the north and west of the modern city of Bergama.
  The Attalid kingdom was the rump state left after the collapse of the Kingdom of Thrace.
  The Attalids, the descendants of Attalus, father of Philetaerus who came to power in 281 BC following the collapse of the Kingdom of Thrace, were among the most loyal supporters of Rome in the Hellenistic world. Under Attalus I (241-197 BC), they allied with Rome against Philip V of Macedon, during the first and second Macedonian Wars, and again under Eumenes II (197-158 BC), against Perseus of Macedon, during the Third Macedonian War. For support against the Seleucids, the Attalids were rewarded with all the former Seleucid domains in Asia Minor.
  
  wn.com/Pergamon
• 
  Rome
  Rome (/ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma pronounced [ˈroːma] ( listen); Latin: Rōma) is a city and special comune ("Roma Capitale") in Italy. Rome is the capital of Italy and the capital of Lazio (Latin: Latium). With 2.8 million residents in 1,285.3 km² (496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. Between 3.2 and 3.7 million people live in the Rome metropolitan area. The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.
  Rome's history spans two and a half thousand years. It was the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, which was the dominant power in Western Europe and the lands bordering the Mediterranean for over seven hundred years from the 1st century BC until the 7th century AD and the city is regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization. Since the 1st century AD Rome has been the seat of the Papacy and, after the end of Byzantine domination, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.
  
  wn.com/Rome
• 
  Sparta
  Coordinates: 37°4′55″N 22°25′25″E / 37.08194°N 22.42361°E / 37.08194; 22.42361
  Sparta (Doric Σπάρτα; Attic Σπάρτη Spartē), or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.
  Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars. Between 431 and 404 BC, Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, from which it emerged victorious, though at great cost. Sparta's defeat by Thebes in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Sparta's prominent role in Greece. However, it maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC.
  Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which completely focused on military training and excellence. Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens, who enjoyed full rights), Mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans), Perioikoi (freedmen), and Helots (state-owned serfs, enslaved non-Spartan local population). Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanges were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed considerably more rights and equality to men than elsewhere in the classical world.
  
  wn.com/Sparta
• 
  Temple of Artemis
  Coordinates: 37°56′59″N 27°21′50″E / 37.94972°N 27.36389°E / 37.94972; 27.36389
  The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον, or Artemision), also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey), and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction in 401. Only foundations and sculptural fragments of the latest of the temples at the site remain.
  The first sanctuary (temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, and dates to the Bronze Age. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons. In the 7th century the old temple was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction began around 550 BC, under the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia: the project took 10 years to complete, only to be destroyed in an act of arson by Herostratus. It was later rebuilt.
  
  wn.com/Temple_of_Artemis
• 
  Temple of Hephaestus
  The Temple of Hephaestus, also known as the Hephaisteion or earlier as the Theseion, is the best-preserved ancient Greek temple; it remains standing largely as built. It is a Doric peripteral temple, and is located at the north-west side of the Agora of Athens, on top of the Agoraios Kolonos hill. From the 7th century until 1834, it served as the Greek Orthodox church of St. George Akamates.
  Hephaestus was the patron god of metal working and craftsmanship. There were numerous potters' workshops and metal-working shops in the vicinity of the temple, as befits the temple's honoree. Archaeological evidence suggests that there was no earlier building on the site except for a small sanctuary that was burned when the Persians occupied Athens in 480 BC. The name Theseion or Temple of Theseus was attributed to the monument under the assumption it housed the remains of the Athenian hero Theseus, brought back to the city from the island of Skyros by Kimon in 475 BC, but refuted after inscriptions from within the temple associated it firmly with Hephaestus.
  
  wn.com/Temple_of_Hephaestus
• 
  Thermopylae
  Thermopylae ( /θərˈmɒpɨliː/; Ancient and Katharevousa Greek Θερμοπύλαι, Demotic Θερμοπύλες: "hot gateways") is a location in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from its hot sulphur springs. "Hot gates" is also "the place of hot springs and cavernous entrances to Hades".
  Thermopylae is primarily known for the battle that took place there between the Greek forces including the 300 Spartans and the Persian forces, spawning the famous epitaph beginning with "Go tell the Spartans". It is also the locality of the city Anthela (Ἀνθήλη), where the first Amphictyony is mentioned.
  Thermopylae is located in eastern central Greece on the only land route large enough to bear any significant traffic between Lokris and Thessaly. Passage from north to south along the east coast of the Balkan peninsula requires use of the pass. Further west the way is blocked by mountains and the Gulf of Corinth. For this reason the area has been the site of several battles.
  The ancient name of the region was Malis after the Malians (Ancient Greek: Μαλιεῖς), a Greek tribe that resided at the mouth of the river Spercheios in Greece. The Malian Gulf is named after them. In the western valley of the Spercheios, their land was adjacent to the Aenianes. Their main town was Trachis. In the town of Anthela, the Malians had an important temple of Demeter, an early centre of the Anthelan Amphictiony.
  
  wn.com/Thermopylae
• 
  Troy
  Coordinates: 39°57′27″N 26°14′20″E / 39.9575°N 26.23889°E / 39.9575; 26.23889
  Troy (Ancient Greek: Ἴλιον, Ilion, and Τροία, Troia; Latin: Trōia and Īlium;Hittite: Wilusa or Truwisa;Turkish: Truva) was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida. It is best known for being the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. Metrical evidence from the Iliad and the Odyssey seems to show that the name Ἴλιον (Ilion) formerly began with a digamma: Ϝίλιον (Wilion). This was later supported by the Hittite form Wilusa.
  A new city called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually during the Byzantine era.
  In 1865, English archaeologist Frank Calvert excavated trial trenches in a field he had bought from a local farmer at Hisarlık, and in 1868, Heinrich Schliemann, wealthy German businessman and archaeologist, also began excavating in the area after a chance meeting with Calvert in Çanakkale. These excavations revealed several cities built in succession. Schliemann was at first skeptical about the identification of Hissarlik with Troy, but was persuaded by Calvert and took over Calvert's excavations on the eastern half of the Hissarlik site, which was on Calvert's property. Troy VII has been identified with the Hittite Wilusa, the probable origin of the Greek Ἴλιον, and is generally (but not conclusively) identified with Homeric Troy.
  
  wn.com/Troy

• Adrian Goldsworthy
  Adrian Keith Goldsworthy (born 1969) is a British historian and author who specialises in ancient Roman history.
  Goldsworthy attended Westbourne School, Penarth. After studying ancient and modern history at St John's College, Oxford, he completed a D.Phil in ancient military history from Oxford University in 1994, and then used his dissertation as the foundation of his first book, The Roman Army at War 100 BC – AD 200.
  Goldsworthy was a Junior Research Fellow at Cardiff University for two years, and he has taught briefly at King's College London and was an assistant professor on the University of Notre Dame's London programme for six years. His expertise is in Roman history, but he also taught a course on the military history of the Second World War at Notre Dame University. Goldsworthy said that although he enjoyed teaching, he enjoyed writing more and now writes full-time.
  Goldsworthy has appeared on History Channel documentaries and the television game show Time Commanders, serving as an expert on battles being fought by the contestants, and he gave a speech about Roman history and politics to the cast of a 2010 Liverpool production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.
  
  wn.com/Adrian_Goldsworthy
• 
  Aeschylus
  Aeschylus (Ancient Greek: Αἰσχύλος, Aiskhulos; c. 525/524 BC – c. 456/455 BC) was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy: our knowledge of the genre begins with his work and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict amongst them whereas, previously, characters had interacted only with the chorus.
  Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times, and there is a longstanding debate about his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus Bound. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy and his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.
  
  wn.com/Aeschylus
• 
  Aesop
  Aesop (pronounced /ˈiːsɒp/ EE-sop, Greek: Αἴσωπος, Aisōpos, c. 620-564 BC) was a fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains uncertain and (if they ever existed) no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. In many of the tales, animals speak and have human characteristics.
  Scattered details of Aesop's life can be found in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work called The Aesop Romance tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος) who by his cleverness acquires freedom and becomes an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name have included Esop(e) and Isope. A later tradition (dating from the Middle Ages) depicts Aesop as a black Ethiopian. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last 2500 years have included several works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs.
  
  wn.com/Aesop
• 
  Alcaeus of Mytilene
  Alcaeus (Alkaios, Ancient Greek: Ἀλκαῖος) of Mytilene (c. 620 – 6th century BC), Ancient Greek lyric poet who supposedly invented the Alcaic verse. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was an older contemporary and an alleged lover of Sappho, with whom he may have exchanged poems. He was born into the aristocratic governing class of Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos, where he was involved in political disputes and feuds.
  The broad outlines of the poet's life are well known. He was born into the aristocratic, warrior class that dominated Mytilene, the strongest city-state on the island of Lesbos and, by the end of the seventh century BC, the most influential of all the Asiatic Greek cities, with a strong navy and colonies securing its trade-routes in the Hellespont. The city had long been ruled by kings born to the Penthilid clan but, during the poet's life, the Penthilids were a spent force and rival aristocrats and their factions contended with each other for supreme power. Alcaeus and his older brothers were passionately involved in the struggle but experienced little success. Their political adventures can be understood in terms of three tyrants who came and went in succession:
  
  wn.com/Alcaeus_of_Mytilene
• 
  Alcibiades
  Alcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae ( /ˌælsɨˈbaɪ.ədiːz/;Greek: Ἀλκιβιάδης Κλεινίου Σκαμβωνίδης, transliterated Alkibiádēs Kleiníou Skambōnidēs; c. 450–404 BC), was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War. He played a major role in the second half of that conflict as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician.
  During the course of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades changed his political allegiance on several occasions. In his native Athens in the early 410s BC, he advocated an aggressive foreign policy, and was a prominent proponent of the Sicilian Expedition, but fled to Sparta after his political enemies brought charges of sacrilege against him. In Sparta, he served as a strategic adviser, proposing or supervising several major campaigns against Athens. In Sparta too, however, Alcibiades soon made powerful enemies and was forced to defect to Persia. There he served as an adviser to the satrap Tissaphernes until his Athenian political allies brought about his recall. He then served as an Athenian General (Strategos) for several years, but his enemies eventually succeeded in exiling him a second time.
  
  wn.com/Alcibiades
• 
  Alexander the Great
  Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
  Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.
  
  wn.com/Alexander_the_Great
• 
  Anaxagoras
  Anaxagoras (Greek: Ἀναξαγόρας, Anaxagoras, "lord of the assembly"; c. 500 BC – 428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae in Asia Minor, Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to bring philosophy from Ionia to Athens. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the sun, which he described as a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese. According to Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch he fled to Lampsacus due to a backlash against his pupil Pericles.
  Anaxagoras is famous for introducing the cosmological concept of Nous (mind), as an ordering force. He regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements, referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively.
  Anaxagoras appears to have had some amount of property and prospects of political influence in his native town of Clazomenae in Asia Minor. However, he supposedly surrendered both of these out of a fear that they would hinder his search for knowledge. Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition: Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have." A sentence, denoted by Maximus, as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom!". Although a Greek, he may have been a soldier of the Persian army when Clazomenae was suppressed during the Ionian Revolt.
  
  wn.com/Anaxagoras
• 
  Anaximander
  Anaximander ( /əˌnæksɨˈmændər/; Greek: Ἀναξίμανδρος, Anaximandros; c. 610 – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia; Milet in modern Turkey. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales. He succeeded Thales and became the second master of that school where he counted Anaximenes and arguably, Pythagoras amongst his pupils.
  Little of his life and work is known today. According to available historical documents, he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies, although only one fragment of his work remains. Fragmentary testimonies found in documents after his death provide a portrait of the man.
  Anaximander was one of the earliest Greek thinkers at the start of the Axial Age, the period from approximately 700 BC to 200 BC, during which similarly revolutionary thinking appeared in China, India, Iran, the Near East, and Ancient Greece. He was an early proponent of science and tried to observe and explain different aspects of the universe, with a particular interest in its origins, claiming that nature is ruled by laws, just like human societies, and anything that disturbs the balance of nature does not last long. Like many thinkers of his time, Anaximander's contributions to philosophy relate to many disciplines. In astronomy, he tried to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation to the Earth. In physics, his postulation that the indefinite (or apeiron) was the source of all things led Greek philosophy to a new level of conceptual abstraction. His knowledge of geometry allowed him to introduce the gnomon in Greece. He created a map of the world that contributed greatly to the advancement of geography. He was also involved in the politics of Miletus and was sent as a leader to one of its colonies.
  
  wn.com/Anaximander
• 
  Antisthenes
  Antisthenes (Greek: Ἀντισθένης; c. 445 BCE – c. 365 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates. He adopted and developed the ethical side of Socrates' teachings, advocating an ascetic life lived in accordance with virtue. Later writers regarded him as the founder of Cynic philosophy.
  
  wn.com/Antisthenes
• 
  Archilochus
  Archilochus, or, Archilochos (Ancient Greek: Ἀρχίλοχος) (c. 680 BC – c. 645 BC) was a poet from the island of Paros in the Archaic period in Greece celebrated for his versatile and innovative use of poetic meters and as the earliest known Greek author to compose almost entirely on the theme of his own emotions and experiences. Alexandrian scholars included him in their canonic list of iambic poets, along with Semonides and Hipponax, yet ancient commentators also numbered him with Tyrtaeus and Callinus as the possible inventor of the elegy. However modern critics often characterize him simply as a lyric poet. Although his work now only survives in fragments, he was revered by the ancient Greeks as one of their most brilliant authors, able to be mentioned in the same breath as Homer and Hesiod, yet he was also censured by them as the archetypal poet of blame — his invectives were even said to have driven his former fiancee and her father to suicide. He presented himself as a man of few illusions either in war or in love, such as in the following elegy, where discretion is seen to be the better part of valour:
  
  wn.com/Archilochus
• 
  Archimedes
  Archimedes of Syracuse (Ancient Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης; c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors.
  Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of surfaces of revolution and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers.
  
  wn.com/Archimedes
• 
  Aristophanes
  Aristophanes (English pronunciation: /ˌærɨˈstɒfəniːz/; Ancient Greek: [aristopʰánɛːs]; Ἀριστοφάνης, ca. 446 BC – ca. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his 40 plays survive virtually complete. These, together with fragments of some of his other plays, provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, and they are in fact used to define the genre. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy, Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander contributing to the trial and execution of Socrates although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher. His second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is possible that the case was argued in court but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights, the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through the Chorus in that play, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all." (κωμῳδοδιδασκαλίαν εἶναι χαλεπώτατον ἔργον ἁπάντων)
  
  wn.com/Aristophanes
• 
  Aristotle
  Aristotle (Ancient Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
  Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.
  
  wn.com/Aristotle
• Arnaldo Momigliano
  Arnaldo Dante Momigliano KBE (September 5, 1908, Caraglio, Piemont–September 1, 1987, London) was an Italian historian known for his work in historiography, characterized by Donald Kagan as the "world’s leading student of the writing of history in the ancient world."
  He became Professor of Roman history at the University of Turin in 1936, but as a Jew soon lost his position due to the anti-Jewish Racial Laws enacted by the Fascist regime in 1938, and moved to England, where he remained. After a time at Oxford University, he went to University College London, where he was Professor from 1951 to 1975. Momigliano visited regularly at the University of Chicago where he was named Alexander White Professor in the Humanities, and at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He wrote reviews for The New York Review of Books.
  In addition to studying the ancient Greek historians and their methods, he also took an interest in modern historians, such as Edward Gibbon, and wrote a number of studies of them. With respect to identifying and explaining the forces held responsible for the gradual disintegration of the Roman Empire, Momigliano stressed the wasteful futility of that^{[clarification needed]} endeavor while redirecting his students' focus:
  
  wn.com/Arnaldo_Momigliano
• 
  Arrian
  Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon' (ca. AD 86 - 160), known in English as Arrian^{[pronunciation?]} (Ἀρριανός), and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman (ethnic Greek) historian, public servant, military commander and philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period. As with other authors of the Second Sophistic, Arrian wrote primarily in Attic (Indica is in Herodotus' Ionic dialect, his philosophical works in Koine Greek) .
  Anabasis of Alexander is perhaps his best known work and is generally considered one of the best sources on the campaigns of Alexander the Great, not to be confused with Anabasis, then best-known work of the Athenian military leader and author Xenophon from the 4th century BC. Arrian is also considered as one of the founders of a primarily military-based focus on history. His other works include Discourses of Epictetus and Indica.
  Arrian was born of Greek ethnicity in the coastal town of Nicomedia (present-day Izmit), the capital of the Roman province of Bithynia, in what is now north-western Turkey, about 70 km from Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul). He studied philosophy in Nicopolis in Epirus, under the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, and wrote two books about the philosopher's teachings. At the same time he entered the Imperial service, and served as a junior adviser on the consilium of Gaius Avidius Nigrinus, governor of Achaea and a close friend of the future Emperor Hadrian, around 111-114. Very little is known about his subsequent career - though it is probable that he served in Gaul and on the Danube frontier, and possible that he was in Baetica and Parthia - until he held the office of Consul in 129 or 130. In 131 he was appointed governor of the Black Sea province of Cappadocia and commander of the Roman legions on the frontier with Armenia. It was unusual at this time for a Greek to hold such high military command.
  
  wn.com/Arrian
• 
  Aspasia
  Aspasia (/æˈspeɪziə/ or /æˈspeɪʒə/; Ancient Greek: Ἀσπασία; ca. 470 BC–ca. 400 BC) was a Milesian woman who was famous for her involvement with the Athenian statesman Pericles. Very little is known about the details of her life. She spent most of her adult life in Athens, and she may have influenced Pericles and Athenian politics. She is mentioned in the writings of Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon, and other authors of the day.
  Ancient writers also reported that Aspasia was a brothel keeper and a harlot, although these accounts are disputed by modern scholars, on the grounds that many of the writers were comic poets concerned with defaming Pericles. Some researchers question even the historical tradition that she was a hetaera, or courtesan, and have suggested that she may actually have been married to Pericles. Aspasia had a son by Pericles, Pericles the Younger, who later became a general in the Athenian military and was executed after the Battle of Arginusae. She is believed to have become the courtesan of Lysicles, another Athenian statesman and general, following the death of Pericles the Elder.
  
  wn.com/Aspasia
• 
  Athenaeus
  Athenaeus (^{[pronunciation?]}; Ancient Greek Ἀθήναιος Nαυκρατίτης - Athếnaios Naukratítês, Latin Athenaeus Naucratita), of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcus Aurelius, but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus, who died in 192, shows that he survived that emperor.
  Several of his publications are lost, but the fifteen volume Deipnosophistae mostly survives.
  Athenaeus himself states that he was the author of a treatise on the thratta — a kind of fish mentioned by Archippus and other comic poets—and of a history of the Syrian kings. Both works are lost.
  The Deipnosophistae, which mean "dinner-table philosophers" or perhaps "authorities on banquets", survives in fifteen books. The first two books, and parts of the third, eleventh and fifteenth, are extant only in epitome, but otherwise the work seems to be entire. It is an immense store-house of information, chiefly on matters connected with dining, but also containing remarks on music, songs, dances, games, courtesans, and luxury. Nearly 800 writers and 2500 separate works are referred to by Athenaeus; one of his characters (not necessarily to be identified with the historical author himself) boasts of having read 800 plays of Athenian Middle Comedy alone. Were it not for Athenaeus, much valuable information about the ancient world would be missing, and many ancient Greek authors such as Archestratus would be almost entirely unknown. Book XIII, for example, is an important source for the study of sexuality in classical and Hellenistic Greece.
  
  wn.com/Athenaeus
• 
  Bacchylides
  Bacchylides (^{[pronunciation?]}; Ancient Greek: Βακχυλίδης) (5th century BC) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been a commonplace of Bacchylidean scholarship since at least Longinus (De Sublimitate 33,5). Some scholars however have associated these qualities with superficial charm. He has often been compared unfavourably with his contemporary, Pindar, as "a kind of Boccherini to Pindar's Haydn", yet the differences in their styles doesn't allow for easy comparison and "to blame Bacchylides for not being Pindar is as childish a judgement as to condemn...Marvel for missing the grandeur of Milton." His career coincided with the ascendency of dramatic styles of poetry, as embodied in the works of Aeschylus or Sophocles, and he is in fact one of the last poets of major significance within the more ancient tradition of purely lyric poetry. The most notable features of his lyrics are their clarity in expression and simplicity of thought, making them an ideal introduction to the study of Greek lyric poetry in general and to Pindar's verse in particular.
  
  wn.com/Bacchylides
• Callisthenes
  Callisthenes of Olynthus (in Greek Καλλισθένης; ca. 360-328 BC) was a Greek historian. He was the son of Hero^{[disambiguation needed ]} and Proxenus of Atarneus, which made him the great nephew of Aristotle by his sister Arimneste. They first met when Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great. Through his great-uncle's influence, he was later appointed to attend Alexander the Great on his Asiatic expedition as a professional historian.
  During the first years of Alexander's campaign in Asia, Callisthenes showered praises upon the Macedonian conqueror. As the king and army penetrated further into Asia, however, Callisthenes' tone began to change. He began to sharply criticize Alexander's adoption of Persian customs, with special scorn for Alexander's growing desire that those who presented themselves before him perform the servile ceremony of proskynesis. Callisthenes was later implicated in a treasonous conspiracy and thrown into prison, where he died from torture or disease. His death was commemorated in a special treatise (Callisthenes or a Treatise on Grief) by his friend Theophrastus, whose acquaintance he made during a visit to Athens.
  
  wn.com/Callisthenes
• 
  Cato the Elder
  Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BC, Tusculum – 149 BC) was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient), or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.
  He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some military service but not for the discharge of the higher civil offices. He was bred, after the manner of his Latin forefathers, to agriculture, to which he devoted himself when not engaged in military service. But, having attracted the notice of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome, and successively held the offices of Cursus Honorum: Military tribune (214 BC), Quaestor (204 BC), Aedile (199 BC), Praetor (198 BC), Consul (195 BC) together with his old patron, and finally Censor (184 BC).
  Cato the Elder was also an ancestor of Nero, who was one of the most notorious Roman Emperors.
  Cato the Elder was born in Tusculum, a municipal town of Latium, to which his ancestors had belonged for some generations. His father had earned the reputation of a brave soldier, and his great-grandfather had received a reward from the state for five horses killed under him in battle. However the Tusculan Porcii had never obtained the privileges of the Roman magistracy. Cato the Elder, their famous descendant, at the beginning of his career in Rome, was regarded as a novus homo (new man), and the feeling of his unsatisfactory position, working along with the belief of his inherent superiority, contributed to aggravate and drive his ambition. Early in life, he so far exceeded the previous deeds of his predecessors that he is frequently spoken of, not only as the leader, but as the founder, of the Porcia Gens.
  
  wn.com/Cato_the_Elder
• 
  Cicero
  Marcus Tullius Cicero ( /ˈsɪsɨroʊ/; Classical Latin: [ˈkɪkɛroː]; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as Tully), was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, Roman consul and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
  He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary (with neologisms such as humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia) distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher.
  Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. According to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, "Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity." The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.
  
  wn.com/Cicero
• 
  Democritus
  Democritus (Greek: Δημόκριτος, Dēmokritos, "chosen of the people") (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos.
  His exact contributions are difficult to disentangle from his mentor Leucippus, as they are often mentioned together in texts. Their speculation on atoms, taken from Leucippus, bears a passing and partial resemblance to the nineteenth-century understanding of atomic structure that has led some to regard Democritus as more of a scientist than other Greek philosophers; however their ideas rested on very different bases. Largely ignored in ancient Athens, Democritus was nevertheless well known to his fellow northern-born philosopher Aristotle. Plato is said to have disliked him so much that he wished all his books burned. Many consider Democritus to be the "father of modern science".
  Democritus was born in the city of Abdera in Thrace, an Ionian colony of Teos, although some called him a Milesian. He was born in the 80th Olympiad (460–457 BC) according to Apollodorus of Athens, and although Thrasyllus placed his birth in 470 BC, the later date is probably more likely.John Burnet has argued that the date of 460 is "too early", since according to Diogenes Laërtius ix.41, Democritus said that he was a "young man (neos)" during Anaxagoras' old age (circa 440–428). It was said that Democritus' father was so wealthy that he received Xerxes on his march through Abdera. Democritus spent the inheritance which his father left him on travels into distant countries, to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. He traveled to Asia, and was even said to have reached India and Ethiopia.
  
  wn.com/Democritus
• 
  Demosthenes
  Demosthenes (English pronunciation: /dɪˈmɒs.θəniːz/, Greek: Δημοσθένης, Dēmosthénēs [dɛːmostʰénɛːs]; 384–322 BC) was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, in which he argued effectively to gain from his guardians what was left of his inheritance. For a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speech-writer (logographer) and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits.
  Demosthenes grew interested in politics during his time as a logographer, and in 354 BC he gave his first public political speeches. He went on to devote his most productive years to opposing Macedon's expansion. He idealized his city and strove throughout his life to restore Athens' supremacy and motivate his compatriots against Philip II of Macedon. He sought to preserve his city's freedom and to establish an alliance against Macedon, in an unsuccessful attempt to impede Philip's plans to expand his influence southwards by conquering all the other Greek states. After Philip's death, Demosthenes played a leading part in his city's uprising against the new King of Macedonia, Alexander the Great. However, his efforts failed and the revolt was met with a harsh Macedonian reaction. To prevent a similar revolt against his own rule, Alexander's successor in this region, Antipater, sent his men to track Demosthenes down. Demosthenes took his own life, in order to avoid being arrested by Archias, Antipater's confidant.
  
  wn.com/Demosthenes
• 
  Diogenes of Sinope
  Diogenes the Cynic (Ancient Greek: Διογένης ὁ Κυνικός, Diogenēs ho Kunikos) was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Also known as Diogenes of Sinope (Greek: Διογένης ὁ Σινωπεύς, Diogenēs ho Sinōpeus), he was born in Sinope (modern-day Sinop, Turkey), an Ionian colony on the Black Sea, in 412 or 404 BCE and died at Corinth in 323 BCE.
  Diogenes of Sinope was a controversial figure. His father minted coins for a living and when Diogenes took to "defacement of the currency", he was banished from the city. After being exiled, he moved to Athens to debunk cultural conventions. Diogenes modelled himself on the example of Hercules. He believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory. He used his lifestyle and behaviour to criticise the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society. He declared himself a cosmopolitan. There are many tales about him dogging Antisthenes' footsteps and becoming his faithful hound, but it is by no means certain that the two men ever met. Diogenes made a virtue of poverty. He begged for a living and slept in a tub in the marketplace. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He publicly mocked Alexander and lived. He embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures.
  
  wn.com/Diogenes_of_Sinope
• 
  Edward Tufte
  Edward Rolf Tufte ( /ˈtʌfti/; born 1942) is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University. He is noted for his writings on information design and as a pioneer in the field of data visualization.
  Edward Rolf Tufte was born in 1942 in Kansas City, Missouri, to Virginia Tufte and Edward E. Tufte. He grew up in Beverly Hills, California, and graduated from Beverly Hills High School. He received a BA and MS in statistics from Stanford University and a PhD in political science from Yale. His dissertation, completed in 1968, was entitled The Civil Rights Movement and Its Opposition. He was then hired by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where he taught courses in political economy and data analysis while publishing three quantitatively inclined political science books.
  In 1975, while at Princeton, Tufte was asked to teach a statistics course to a group of journalists who were visiting the school to study economics. He developed a set of readings and lectures on statistical graphics, which he further developed in joint seminars he subsequently taught with renowned statistician John Tukey, a pioneer in the field of information design. These course materials became the foundation for his first book on information design, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
  
  wn.com/Edward_Tufte
• 
  Empedocles
  Empedocles (pronounced: /ɛmˈpɛdəkliːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς; Empedoklēs; Ancient Greek: [empedoklɛ̂ːs]; ca. 490–430 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements. He also proposed powers called Love and Strife which would act as forces to bring about the mixture and separation of the elements. These physical speculations were part of a history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life. Influenced by the Pythagoreans, he supported the doctrine of reincarnation. Empedocles is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to record his ideas in verse. Some of his work survives, more than in the case of any other Presocratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments.
  Empedocles was born, c. 490 BC, at Agrigentum (Acragas) in Sicily to a distinguished family. Very little is known about his life. His father Meto seems to have been instrumental in overthrowing the tyrant of Agrigentum, presumably Thrasydaeus in 470 BC. Empedocles continued the democratic tradition of his house by helping to overthrow the succeeding oligarchic government. He is said to have been magnanimous in his support of the poor; severe in persecuting the overbearing conduct of the aristocrats; and he even declined the sovereignty of the city when it was offered to him.
  
  wn.com/Empedocles
• 
  Epaminondas
  Epaminondas (Ancient Greek: Ἐπαμεινώνδας; ca. 418 BC – 362 BC), or Epameinondas, was a Theban general and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a preeminent position in Greek politics. In the process he broke Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for some 230 years, having been defeated in the Messenian War ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was militarily influential as well, inventing and implementing several major battlefield tactics.
  The Roman orator Cicero called him "the first man of Greece", but Epaminondas has fallen into relative obscurity in modern times. The changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long outlive him, as the cycle of shifting hegemonies and alliances continued unabated. A mere twenty-seven years after his death, a recalcitrant Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great. Thus Epaminondas—who had been praised in his time as an idealist and liberator—is today largely remembered for a decade (371 BC to 362 BC) of campaigning that sapped the strength of the great land powers of Greece and paved the way for the Macedonian conquest.
  
  wn.com/Epaminondas
• 
  Epicurus
  Epicurus (Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκουρος, Epikouros, "ally, comrade"; 341 BCE – 270 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators.
  For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
  
  wn.com/Epicurus
• 
  Eratosthenes
  Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Ancient Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης, IPA: [eratostʰénɛːs]; English /ɛrəˈtɒsθəniːz/; c. 276 BC – c. 195 BC) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, athlete, astronomer, and music theorist.
  He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. He invented a system of latitude and longitude.
  He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth by using a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period (with remarkable accuracy). He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis (also with remarkable accuracy). He may also have accurately calculated the distance from the earth to the sun and invented the leap day. He also created the first map of the world incorporating parallels and meridians within his cartographic depictions based on the available geographical knowledge of the era. In addition, Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology; he endeavored to fix the dates of the chief literary and political events from the conquest of Troy.
  
  wn.com/Eratosthenes
• 
  Euclid
  Euclid ( /ˈjuːklɪd/ EWK-lid; Ancient Greek: Εὐκλείδης Eukleidēs), fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). His Elements is one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics, serving as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the late 19th or early 20th century. In the Elements, Euclid deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms. Euclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory and rigor.
  "Euclid" is the anglicized version of the Greek name Εὐκλείδης, meaning "Good Glory".
  Little is known about Euclid's life, as there are only a handful of references to him. The date and place of Euclid's birth and the date and circumstances of his death are unknown, and only roughly estimated in proximity to contemporary figures mentioned in references. No likeness or description of Euclid's physical appearance made during his lifetime survived antiquity. Therefore, Euclid's depiction in works of art is the product of the artist's imagination.
  
  wn.com/Euclid
• 
  Euripides
  Euripides (Ancient Greek: Εὐριπίδης) (ca. 480 – 406 BC) was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived complete (there has been debate about his authorship of Rhesus, largely on stylistic grounds) and there are also fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly due to mere chance and partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined — he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes and Menander.
  Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. Yet he also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of...that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg," in which "...imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates", and yet he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
  
  wn.com/Euripides
• 
  Gorgias
  Gorgias  /ˈɡɔrdʒiəs/ (Greek: Γοργίας, Ancient Greek: [ɡorɡías]; "the Nihilist"; c. 485 – c. 380 BC),Greek sophist, pre-socratic philosopher and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophists. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. "Like other Sophists he was an itinerant, practicing in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to invite miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies."
  His chief claim to recognition resides in the fact that he transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Attica, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose.
  Gorgias originated from Leontini, a Greek colony in Sicily, and what is often called the home of Spartan rhetoric. It is known that Gorgias had a father named Charmander and two siblings – a brother named Herodicus and a sister who dedicated a statue to Gorgias in Delphi (McComiskey 6-7).
  
  wn.com/Gorgias
• 
  Greeks
  The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes (Greek: Ἕλληνες, [ˈelines]), are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.
  Greek colonies and communities have been historically established in most corners of the Mediterranean, but Greeks have always been centered around the Aegean Sea, where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were uniformly distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, Pontus, Egypt, Cyprus and Constantinople; many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of the ancient Greek colonization.
  In the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), a large-scale population exchange between Greece and Turkey transferred and confined Christians from Turkey, except Constantinople (effectively ethnic Greeks) into the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. Other ethnic Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and in diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church.
  
  wn.com/Greeks
• 
  Hannibal
  Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca (247 – 183/182 BC) was a Punic Carthaginian military commander and tactician, generally considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. His father, Hamilcar Barca, was the leading Carthaginian commander during the First Punic War, his younger brothers were Mago and Hasdrubal, and he was brother-in-law to Hasdrubal the Fair.
  Hannibal lived during a period of great tension in the Mediterranean, when the Roman Republic established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage, the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid empire. One of his most famous achievements was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy. In his first few years in Italy, he won three dramatic victories—Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae—and won over many allies of Rome. Hannibal occupied much of Italy for 15 years, but a Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was decisively defeated by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama. Scipio had studied Hannibal's tactics and brilliantly devised some of his own, and finally defeated Rome's nemesis at Zama, having previously driven Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, out of the Iberian Peninsula.
  
  wn.com/Hannibal
• 
  Heraclitus
  Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος—Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".
  Heraclitus is famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe, as stated in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice" (see panta rhei, below). He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same", all existing entities being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.
  
  wn.com/Heraclitus
• 
  Herodotus
  Herodotus ( /hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (circa 484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.
  The Histories, otherwise known as The Researches or The Inquiries, were divided by later Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses: the "Muse of History", Clio, representing the first book, then Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope for books 2 to 9, respectively. At its simplest and broadest level of meaning, The Histories is structured as a dynastic history of four Persian kings:
  
  wn.com/Herodotus
• 
  Hesiod
  Hesiod ( /ˈhiːsiəd/ or /ˈhɛsiəd/;Ancient Greek: Ἡσίοδος, Hēsíodos) was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought (he is sometimes identified as the first economist), archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping.
  Hesiod practised various styles of traditional verse, including gnomic, hymnic, genealogical and narrative poetry, but he was not able to manipulate them all fluently. Comparisons with Homer can be unflattering. As one modern scholar observed: "It is as if an artisan with his big, awkward fingers were patiently, fascinatedly, imitating the fine seam of the professional tailor."
  The dating of his life is a contested issue in scholarly circles and it is covered below in Dating.
  
  wn.com/Hesiod
• 
  Hipparchus
  Hipparchus/hɪˈpɑːrkəs/, or more correctly Hipparchos (Greek: Ἵππαρχος, Hipparkhos; c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC), was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician of the Hellenistic period. He is considered the founder of trigonometry.
  Hipparchus was born in Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey), and probably died on the island of Rhodes. He is known to have been a working astronomer at least from 162 to 127 BC. Hipparchus is considered the greatest ancient astronomical observer and, by some, the greatest overall astronomer of antiquity. He was the first whose quantitative and accurate models for the motion of the Sun and Moon survive. For this he certainly made use of the observations and perhaps the mathematical techniques accumulated over centuries by the Chaldeans from Babylonia. He developed trigonometry and constructed trigonometric tables, and he solved several problems of spherical trigonometry. With his solar and lunar theories and his trigonometry, he may have been the first to develop a reliable method to predict solar eclipses. His other reputed achievements include the discovery of Earth's precession, the compilation of the first comprehensive star catalog of the western world, and possibly the invention of the astrolabe, also of the armillary sphere, which he used during the creation of much of the star catalogue. It would be three centuries before Claudius Ptolemaeus' synthesis of astronomy would supersede the work of Hipparchus; it is heavily dependent on it in many areas.
  
  wn.com/Hipparchus
• 
  Hippocrates
  Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos (Ancient Greek: Ἱπποκράτης; Hippokrátēs; c. 460 BC – c. 370 BC) was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the father of Western medicine in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession.
  However, the achievements of the writers of the Corpus, the practitioners of Hippocratic medicine, and the actions of Hippocrates himself are often commingled; thus very little is known about what Hippocrates actually thought, wrote, and did. Hippocrates is commonly portrayed as the paragon of the ancient physician, credited with coining the Hippocratic Oath, still relevant and in use today. He is also credited with greatly advancing the systematic study of clinical medicine, summing up the medical knowledge of previous schools, and prescribing practices for physicians through the Hippocratic Corpus and other works.
  
  wn.com/Hippocrates
• 
  Hipponax
  Hipponax (Ancient Greek: Ἱππῶναξ) of Ephesus and later Clazomenae was an Ancient Greek iambic poet who composed verses depicting the vulgar side of life in Ionian society in the sixth century BC. He was celebrated by ancient authors for his malicious wit (especially for his attacks on some contemporary sculptors, Bupalus and Athenis), and he was reputed to be physically deformed (a reputation that might have been inspired by the nature of his poetry). Little of his work survives despite its interest to Alexandrian scholars, who collected it in two or three books. He influenced Alexandrian poets searching for alternative styles and uses of language, such as Callimachus and Herodas, and his colourful reputation as an acerbic, social critic also made him a popular subject for verse, as in this epigram by Theocritus:
  Ancient literary critics credited him with inventing literary parody and "lame" poetic meters suitable for vigorous abuse, as well as with influencing comic dramatists such as Aristophanes. His witty, abusive style appears for example in this quote by Herodian, who however was mainly interested in its linguistic aspects (many of the extant verses were preserved for us by lexicographers and grammarians interested in rare words):
  
  wn.com/Hipponax
• 
  Homer
  In the Western classical tradition, Homer ( /ˈhoʊmər/; Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Hómēros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.
  When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC. Modern researchers appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC.
  The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece. Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds.
  
  wn.com/Homer
• 
  Hypatia
  Hypatia (ca. AD 350–370–March 415) ( /haɪˈpeɪʃə/ hy-PAY-shə; Ancient Greek: Ὑπατία; Hypatía) was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher in Roman Egypt who was the first historically noted woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy.
  As a Neoplatonist philosopher, she belonged to the mathematic tradition of the Academy of Athens, as represented by Eudoxus of Cnidus; she was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry and strongly encouraged law in place of nature.
  Hypatia lived in Roman Egypt, and was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of witchcraft and godlessness and of causing religious turmoil. Kathleen Wilder proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, while Maria Dzielska and Christian Wildberg note that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian.
  
  wn.com/Hypatia
• 
  Ibycus
  Ibycus (Ancient Greek: Ἴβυκος) (floruit: 2nd half of 6th century BC), was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, a citizen of Rhegium in Magna Graecia, probably active at Samos during the reign of the tyrant Polycrates and numbered by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. He was mainly remembered in antiquity for pederastic verses but he also composed lyrical narratives on mythological themes in the manner of Stesichorus. His work survives today only as quotations by ancient scholars or recorded on fragments of papyrus recovered from archaeological sites in Egypt, yet his extant verses include some of the finest examples of Greek poetry. The following lines, dedicated to a lover, Euryalus, were recorded by Athenaeus as a famous example of amorous praise:
  The rich language of these lines, in particular the accumulation of epithets, typical of Ibycus, is shown in the following translation:
  This mythological account of his lover recalls Hesiod's account of Pandora who was decked out by the same goddesses (the Graces, the Seasons and Persuasion) so as to be a bane to mankind  — an allusion consistent with Ibycus's view of love as unavoidable turmoil.
  
  wn.com/Ibycus
• 
  Isaac Casaubon
  Isaac Casaubon (18 February 1559, Geneva – 1 July 1614, London) was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned in Europe.
  He was born in Geneva to two French Huguenot refugees. The family returned to France after the Edict of Saint-Germain in 1562, and settled at Crest in Dauphiné, where Arnaud Casaubon, Isaac's father, became minister of a Huguenot congregation. Until he was nineteen, Isaac had no education other than that given him by his father. Arnaud was away from home for long periods in the Calvinist camp, and the family regularly fled to the hills to hide from bands of armed Catholics who patrolled the country. It was in a cave in the mountains of Dauphiné, after the massacre of St Bartholomew, that Isaac received his first lesson in Greek, from the textbook Isocrates ad Demonicum.
  At the age of nineteen Isaac was sent to the Academy of Geneva, where he read Greek under Francis Portus a Cretan. Portus died in 1581, recommending Casaubon, then only twenty-two, as his successor. He remained at Geneva as professor of Greek until 1596. There he married twice, his second wife being Florence Etiennes, daughter of the scholar-printer Henri Estienne. At Geneva, Casaubon lacked example, encouragement and assistance and struggled against the troops of the Catholic dukes of Savoy, but became a consummate Greek and classical scholar. He spent all the money he could spare on books, including copying classics that were not then in print. Even though Henri Estienne, Theodore de Beza (rector of the university and professor of theology), and Jacques Lect (Lectius), were men of superior learning, they often had no time for Casaubon.
  
  wn.com/Isaac_Casaubon
• 
  John Adams
  John Adams (October 30, 1735 (O.S. October 19, 1735)  – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, and the second President of the United States (1797–1801). He was also a lawyer, statesman, diplomat, political theorist, and a leading champion of independence in 1776. Hailing from New England, Adams, a prominent lawyer and public figure in Boston, was highly educated and represented Enlightenment values promoting republicanism. A Federalist, he was highly influential and one of the key Founding Fathers of the United States.
  Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence and assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence. As a diplomat in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780 which soon after ended slavery in Massachusetts, but was in Europe when the federal Constitution was drafted on similar principles later in the decade. One of his greatest roles was as a judge of character: in 1775, he nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief, and 25 years later nominated John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the United States.
  
  wn.com/John_Adams
• 
  Leonidas I
  Leonidas I (/liːˈɒnɨdəs/ lee-ON-i-dəs or /liːˈɒn.ɨ.dæs/; Doric and Modern Greek: Λεωνίδας, Leōnidas; Ionic Greek: Λεωνίδης, Leōnidēs; "son of the lion"; died 9 August 480 BCE) was a Greek hero-king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery. Leonidas I is notable for his leadership at the Battle of Thermopylae.
  According to Herodotus, Leonidas' mother was his father's niece and had been barren for so long that the ephors, the five annually elected administrators of the Spartan constitution, tried to prevail upon King Anaxandridas to set aside his wife and take another. Anaxandridas refused, claiming his wife was blameless, whereupon the ephors agreed to allow him to take a second wife without setting aside his first. This second wife, a descendent of Chilon the Wise, promptly bore a son, Cleomenes. However, one year after Cleomenes' birth, Anaxandridas' first wife also gave birth to a son, Dorieus. Leonidas was the third son of Anaxandridas' first wife, and either the elder brother or twin of Cleombrotus. Because Leonidas was not heir to the throne, he was not exempt from attending the agoge, the public school that the sons of all Spartans had to complete in order to qualify for citizenship. Leonidas was thus one of the few Spartan kings to have ever undergone the notoriously harsh training of Spartan youth.
  
  wn.com/Leonidas_I
• 
  Leucippus
  Leucippus or Leukippos (Greek: Λεύκιππος, first half of 5th century BCE) was one of the earliest Greeks to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus.
  According to this atomism, if you take a piece of wood and then cut it in to two equal parts, then do it continuously, eventually you will find a part that you can't cut. This smallest possible part is the "atom". A possible earlier candidate for atomism is Mochus of Sidon, from the Trojan War era (13th or 12th century BCE).
  He was most likely born in Miletus, although Abdera and Elea are also mentioned as possible birth-places.
  Leucippus is a shadowy figure, as his dates are not recorded and he is often mentioned in conjunction with his more well-known pupil Democritus, who replaced indeterminism with determinism as the ontological cause of atomic movement. It is therefore difficult to determine which contributions come from Democritus and which come from Leucippus.
  
  wn.com/Leucippus
• 
  Livy
  Titus Livius Patavinus (59 BC – AD 17) — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Books from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time. He was on familiar terms with the Julio-Claudian family, advising Augustus's grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, as a young man not long before 14 AD in a letter to take up the writing of history. Livy and Augustus's wife, Livia, were from the same clan in different locations, although not related by blood.
  Livy was born as Titus Livius in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua. There is a debate about the year of Titus Livius' birth, 64 BC or more likely 59 BC. At the time of Livy’s birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest city in the Italian peninsula. Patavium was a part of the province of Cisalpine Gaul at the time. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the city was well known for its conservative values in morality and politics.
  
  wn.com/Livy
• 
  Lucian
  Lucian of Samosata (Ancient Greek: Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, Latin: Lucianus Samosatensis; c. AD 125 – after AD 180) was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature. Although he wrote solely in Greek, he was ethnically Assyrian.
  Few details of Lucian's life can be verified with any degree of accuracy. He claimed to have been born in Samosata, in the former kingdom of Commagene, which had been absorbed by the Roman Empire and made part of the province of Syria. In his works, Lucian refers to himself as a "Syrian", and "barbarian", perhaps indicating "he was from the Semitic and not the imported Greek population" of Samosata. Lucian almost certainly did not write all of the more than eighty works attributed to him — declamations, essays both laudatory and sarcastic, satiric epigrams, and comic dialogues and symposia with a satirical cast, studded with quotations in alarming contexts and allusions set in an unusual light, designed to be surprising and provocative. His name added luster to any entertaining and sarcastic essay: over 150 surviving manuscripts attest to his continued popularity. The first printed edition of a selection of his works was issued at Florence in 1499. His best known works are A True Story (a romance, patently not "true" at all, which he admits in his introduction to the story), and Dialogues of the Gods (Θεῶν διάλογοι) and Dialogues of the Dead (Νεκρικοί Διάλογοι).
  
  wn.com/Lucian
• Lycortas
  Lycortas of Megalopolis was a politician of the Achaean League active in the first half of the 2nd century BC. He is now primarily known as the father of the historian Polybius. A political ally of Philopoemen, he shared the latter's view that the Romans should be dealt with according to the strict letter of their treaty with the League, and that no more assistance should be given to them than was absolutely necessary. In this way they hoped to delay the inevitable increase of Rome's power over Greece. Lycortas' son Polybius shared his father's views, and for this reason was one of the thousand Greeks deported to Italy in the aftermath of the Roman victory at Pydna in 168 BC. Lycortas' own fate is unknown, owing to the fragmentary nature of our sources at this point.
  
  wn.com/Lycortas
• 
  Lycurgus of Sparta
  Lycurgus (pronounced /laɪˈkɜrɡəs/; Greek: Λυκοῦργος, Lukoûrgos; Ancient Greek: [lykôrɡos]; (c.820–730 BC?) was the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, who established the military-oriented reformation of Spartan society in accordance with the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. All his reforms were directed towards the three Spartan virtues: equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity.
  He is referred to by ancient historians and philosophers Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, Polybius, Plutarch and Epictetus. It is not clear if this Lycurgus was an actual historical figure; however, many ancient historians believed Lycurgus was responsible for the communalistic and militaristic reforms that transformed Spartan society, most notably the Great Rhetra. Ancient historians place him in the first half of the 7th century BC.
  The following account is taken almost solely from Plutarch's "Life of Lycurgus," which is more of an anecdotal collection than a real biography. The actual person Lycurgus may or may not have existed, but as a symbolic founder of the Spartan state he was looked to as the initiator of many of its social and political institutions; much, therefore, of Plutarch's account is concerned to find the "origin" of contemporary Spartan practices.
  
  wn.com/Lycurgus_of_Sparta
• 
  Lysander
  Lysander (^{[pronunciation?]}; died 395 BC, Greek: Λύσανδρος, Lýsandros) was a Spartan general who commanded the Spartan fleet in the Hellespont which defeated the Athenians at Aegospotami in 405 BC. The following year, he was able to force the Athenians to capitulate, bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end; he organized the dominion of Sparta over Greece in the last decade of his life.
  Little is known of Lysander's early life. Lysander's father was Aristocleitus, who was a member of the Spartan Heracleidae; that is, like most Dorian men of good family, he claimed descent from Heracles. Nevertheless, Lysander was a mothax: his family was poor and when he was young he needed sponsorship to be able to participate in the Spartan training to be a soldier.
  Lysander was appointed Spartan navarch (admiral) for the Aegean Sea in 407 BC. It was during this period that he gained the friendship and support of Cyrus the Younger, a son of Darius II of Persia and Parysatis.
  Lysander then undertook the major project of creating a strong Spartan fleet based at Ephesus which could take on the Athenians and their allies.
  
  wn.com/Lysander
• 
  Menander
  Menander (Ancient Greek: Μένανδρος, Menandros; ca. 342–291 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He was the author of more than a hundred comedies, and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the City Dionysia is unknown but may well have been similarly spectacular.
  One of the most popular writers of antiquity, his work was lost in the Middle Ages and is known in modernity in highly fragmentary form, much of which was discovered in the 20th century. Only one play, Dyskolos, has survived in its entirety.
  Menander was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso. He presumably derived his taste for comic drama from his uncle Alexis.
  He was the friend, associate, and perhaps pupil of Theophrastus, and was on intimate terms with the Athenian dictator Demetrius of Phalerum. He also enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy Soter, the son of Lagus, who invited him to his court. But Menander, preferring the independence of his villa in the Peiraeus and the company of his mistress Glycera, refused. According to the note of a scholiast on the Ibis of Ovid, he drowned while bathing, and his countrymen honored him with a tomb on the road leading to Athens, where it was seen by Pausanias. Numerous supposed busts of him survive, including a well-known statue in the Vatican, formerly thought to represent Gaius Marius.
  
  wn.com/Menander
• 
  Milo of Croton
  Milo of Croton (Greek: Μίλων; gen.: Μίλωνος) was a 6th century BC wrestler from the Magna Graecian city of Croton in southern Italy who enjoyed a brilliant wrestling career and won many victories in the most important athletic festivals of ancient Greece. In addition to his athletic victories, Milo is credited by the ancient commentator Diodorus Siculus with leading his fellow citizens to military triumph over neighboring Sybaris in 510 BC.
  Milo was said to be an associate of Pythagoras. One story tells of the wrestler saving the philosopher's life when a roof was about to collapse upon him and another that Milo may have married the philosopher's daughter Myia. Like other successful athletes of ancient Greece, Milo was the subject of fantastic tales of strength and power, some, perhaps, based upon misinterpretations of his statues. Among other tales, he was said to have carried a bull on his shoulders and to have burst a band about his brow by simply inflating the veins of his temples.
  The date of Milo's death is unknown, but he reportedly was attempting to rend a tree asunder when his hands became trapped in the cleft of its trunk and a pack of wolves surprised and devoured him. Milo has been depicted in works of art by Pierre Puget, Étienne-Maurice Falconet and others. In literature, he has been referenced by Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel and by Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida.
  
  wn.com/Milo_of_Croton
• 
  Mimnermus
  Mimnermus (Greek: Μίμνερμος, Mímnermos) was a Greek elegiac poet from either Colophon or Smyrna in Ionia, who flourished about 630-600 BC. He was strongly influenced by the example of Homer yet he wrote short poems suitable for performance at drinking parties and was remembered by ancient authorities chiefly as a love poet. Mimnermus in turn exerted a strong influence on Hellenistic poets such as Callimachus and thus also on Roman poets such as Propertius, who even preferred him to Homer for his eloquence on love themes (see Comments by other poets below). His work was collected by Alexandrian scholars in just two 'books' (relatively few compared for example with the twenty-six books for Stesichorus) and today only small fragments survive. The fragments confirm the ancient estimate of him as a "consumate poet" but also indicate that he was in fact a "sturdier character" than the indulgent love poet he was assumed to be by various ancient commentators. Almost no reliable, biographical details have been recorded. One ancient account linked him romantically with a flute girl who subsequently gave her name to one of his two books - Nanno.
  
  wn.com/Mimnermus
• 
  Montesquieu
  Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (/ˈmɒntɨskjuː/; French pronunciation: [mɔ̃tɛskjø]; 18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He was largely responsible for the popularization of the terms feudalism and Byzantine Empire.
  He was born at the Château de la Brède in the southwest of France. His father, Jacques de Secondat, was a soldier with a long noble ancestry. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel who died when Charles de Secondat was seven, was a female inheritor of a large monetary inheritance who brought the title of barony of La Brède to the Secondat family.^{[citation needed]} After having studied at the Catholic College of Juilly, Charles-Louis de Secondat married. His wife, Jeanne de Lartigue, a Protestant, brought him a substantial dowry when he was 26. The next year, he inherited a fortune upon the death of his uncle, as well as the title Baron de Montesquieu and Président à Mortier in the Parliament of Bordeaux. By that time, England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution (1688–89), and had joined with Scotland in the Union of 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1715 the long-reigning Louis XIV died and was succeeded by the five-year-old Louis XV. These national transformations impacted Montesquieu greatly; he would later refer to them repeatedly in his work.
  
  wn.com/Montesquieu
• 
  Niccolò Machiavelli
  Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (Italian pronunciation: [nikkoˌlɔ makjaˈvɛlli], 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. A founder of modern political science, he was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence, and is respectively interpreted by many as a satire of these powers.
  Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the first son and third child of attorney, Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. The Machiavelli family are believed to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice, one of the offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months, who formed the government, or Signoria. Machiavelli, like many people of Florence, was however not a full citizen of Florence, due to the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time, even under the republican regime.
  
  wn.com/Niccolò_Machiavelli
• 
  Paolo Sarpi
  Fra (Brother) Paolo Sarpi (August 14, 1552 – January 15, 1623) was a Venetian patriot, scholar, scientist and church reformer. His most important roles were as a canon lawyer and historian active on behalf of the Venetian Republic.
  He was born Pietro Sarpi in Venice, the son of a tradesman, but was orphaned at an early age. He was educated by his maternal uncle and then Giammaria Capella, a Servite monk. Ignoring the opposition of his remaining family, he entered the Servite order in 1566. He assumed the name of Fra (Brother) Paolo, by which, with the epithet Servita, he was always known to his contemporaries.
  In 1570 he sustained 318 theses at a disputation in Mantua, and was so applauded that the Duke of Mantua made him court theologian. Sarpi spent four years at Mantua, studying mathematics and the Oriental languages. He then went to Milan in 1575, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Borromeo to whom he was an adviser; but was soon transferred by his superiors to Venice, as professor of philosophy at the Servite convent. In 1579, he was sent to Rome on business connected with the reform of his order, which brought him into close contact with three successive popes, as well as the grand inquisitor and other influential people.
  
  wn.com/Paolo_Sarpi
• 
  Parmenides
  Parmenides of Elea ( /pɑrˈmɛnɨdiːz əv ˈɛliə/; Ancient Greek: Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; fl. early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In "the way of truth" (a part of the poem), he explains how reality (coined as "what-is") is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, necessary, and unchanging. In "the way of opinion," he explains the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful. These ideas strongly influenced the whole of Western philosophy, perhaps most notably through its effect on Plato.
  
  wn.com/Parmenides
• 
  Pericles
  Pericles (Ancient Greek: Περικλῆς, Periklēs, "surrounded by glory"; c. 495 – 429 BC) was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically influential Alcmaeonid family.
  Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, his contemporary historian, acclaimed him as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", though the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars, or as late as the next century.
  Pericles promoted the arts and literature; it is principally through his efforts that Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural centre of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis (including the Parthenon). This project beautified the city, exhibited its glory, and gave work to the people. Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist.
  
  wn.com/Pericles
• 
  Philip II of Macedon
  Philip II of Macedon (Greek: Φίλιππος Β' ὁ Μακεδών – φίλος phílos, "friend" + ἵππος híppos, "horse" — transliterated  Philippos (help·info); 382–336 BC), was a Greek king (basileus) of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336 BC. He was the father of Alexander the Great and Philip III.
  Philip was the youngest son of the king Amyntas III and Eurydice I. In his youth, (c. 368–365 BC) Philip was held as a hostage in Thebes, which was the leading city of Greece during the Theban hegemony. While a captive there, Philip received a military and diplomatic education from Epaminondas, became eromenos of Pelopidas, and lived with Pammenes, who was an enthusiastic advocate of the Sacred Band of Thebes.
  In 364 BC, Philip returned to Macedon. The deaths of Philip's elder brothers, King Alexander II and Perdiccas III, allowed him to take the throne in 359 BC. Originally appointed regent for his infant nephew Amyntas IV, who was the son of Perdiccas III, Philip managed to take the kingdom for himself that same year.
  
  wn.com/Philip_II_of_Macedon
• 
  Philopoemen
  Philopoemen (in Greek, Φιλοποίμην, transliterated as Philopoimen), (253 BC, Megalopolis – 183 BC, Messene) was a skilled Greek general and statesman, who was Achaean strategos on eight occasions.
  From the time he was appointed as strategos in 209 BC, Philopoemen helped turn the Achaean League into an important military power in Greece. He was called "the last of the Greeks" by an anonymous Roman.
  The son of Craugis of Megalopolis, his father died early in his life. He was then adopted by an important citizen of Megalopolis, Cleander.
  Philopoemen was educated by academic philosophers Ecdemus and Demophanes. Both were Megapolitans, who had helped to depose previous tyrants of Megalopolis, Sicyon and Cyrene. Thus, he was inculcated with notions of freedom and democracy. Philopoemen strove to emulate the 4th-century BC Theban general and statesman, Epaminondas. Philopoemen believed that as a public servant, personal virtue was at all times a necessary condition. So Philopoemen wore humble garments for the rest of his life, spurning any expensive adornments.
  
  wn.com/Philopoemen
• 
  Pindar
  Pindar (Ancient Greek: Πίνδαρος, Pindaros, pronounced [píndaros]; Latin: Pindarus) (ca. 522–443 BC), was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable.". His poems however can also seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least up until the discovery in 1896 of some poems by his rival Bacchylides, when comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of the poet himself. The brilliance of his poetry then began to be more widely appreciated. However his style still challenges the casual reader and he continues to be a much admired though largely unread poet.
  
  wn.com/Pindar
• 
  Plato
  Plato ( /ˈpleɪtoʊ/; Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "broad"; 424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. In the words of A. N. Whitehead:
  The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.
  Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to him. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts. Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, and mathematics.
  
  wn.com/Plato
• 
  Plutarch
  
  Plutarch (English pronunciation: /'pluːtɑːk/; Greek: Πλούταρχος, Ploútarkhos, Koine Greek: [plŭːtarkʰos]) then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Μέστριος Πλούταρχος),c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He was born to a prominent family in Chaeronea, Boeotia, a town about twenty miles east of Delphi.
  Plutarch was born in 46 AD in the small town of Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as Boeotia. His family was wealthy. The name of Plutarch's father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus (Greek: Nίκαρχoς), from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations. The name of Plutarch's grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony.
  His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their two year old daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. Interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation.
  
  wn.com/Plutarch
• 
  Polybius
  Polybius^{[pronunciation?]} (ca. 200–118 BC), Greek Πολύβιος) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece. Polybius is also renowned for his ideas concerning the separation of powers in government, later used in Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and in the drafting of the United States Constitution.
  Polybius was born in Arcadia around 200 BC. He was the son of Lycortas, a Greek politician who became Cavalry Commander of the Achaean League. His father's opposition to Roman control of Macedonia resulted in his imprisonment. Polybius was then deported to Rome, where Lucius Aemilius Paulus employed him to tutor his two sons.
  Polybius had the opportunity to return to Macedonia in 152 BC; he elected to stay, however, in Rome, as by that time he had placed his allegiance in the Roman Republic. He became a close friend of the Roman military commander Scipio Aemilianus, accompanying the general to Hispania and Africa. Polybius's The Histories provides a detailed account of Rome's ascent to empire and included his eyewitness accounts of the Roman victory over Hannibal and the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC. Polybius held that historians should only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of having factual integrity in historical writing, while avoiding bias.
  
  wn.com/Polybius
• 
  Protagoras
  Protagoras ( /ˈproʊtæɡərəs/; Greek: Πρωταγόρας, ca. 490 BC – 420 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue. He is also believed to have created a major controversy during ancient times through his statement that "man is the measure of all things". This idea was revolutionary for the time and contrasted with other philosophical doctrines that claimed the universe was based on something objective, outside the human influence.
  Protagoras was born in Abdera, Thrace, in Ancient Greece. According to Aulus Gellius, he originally made his living as a porter, but one day he was seen by the philosopher Democritus carrying a load of small pieces of wood tied with a short cord. Democritus discovered that Protagoras had tied the load himself with such perfect geometric accuracy that it revealed him to be a mathematic prodigy. He immediately took him into his own household and taught him philosophy.
  
  wn.com/Protagoras
• 
  Ptolemy
  Claudius Ptolemy ( /ˈtɒləmi/; Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, Klaudios Ptolemaios; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; c. AD 90 – c. AD 168), was a Greek-Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid. This theory, proposed by Theodore Meliteniotes, could be correct, but it is late (ca. 1360) and unsupported. There is no reason to suppose that he ever lived anywhere else than Alexandria, where he died around AD 168.
  Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, Ἡ Μεγάλη Σύνταξις, "The Great Treatise", originally Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις, "Mathematical Treatise"). The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise known sometimes in Greek as the Apotelesmatika (Ἀποτελεσματικά), more commonly in Greek as the Tetrabiblos (Τετράβιβλος "Four books"), and in Latin as the Quadripartitum (or four books) in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
  
  wn.com/Ptolemy
• 
  Pyrrhus of Epirus
  Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos (Greek: Πύρρος, Pyrros; 319/318 BC–272 BC) was a Greekgeneral and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house (from circa 297 BC), and later he became king of Epirus (r. 306–302, 297–272 BC) and Macedon (r. 288–284, 273–272 BC). He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. Some of his battles, though successful, cost him heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined. He is the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives (Greek: Βίοι Παράλληλοι).
  Pyrrhus was the son of Aeacides and Phthia, a Thessalian woman, and a second cousin of Alexander the Great (via Alexander's mother, Olympias). He had two sisters: Deidamia and Troias. Pyrrhus was only two years old when his father was dethroned, in 317 BC, his family taking refuge with Glaukias, king of the Taulantians, one of the largest Illyrian tribes. Pyrrhus was raised by Beroea, Glaukias's wife and a Molossian of the Aeacidae dynasty.
  
  wn.com/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus
• 
  Pythagoras
  Pythagoras of Samos (Ancient Greek: Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος [Πυθαγόρης in Ionian Greek] Pythagóras ho Sámios "Pythagoras the Samian", or simply Πυθαγόρας; b. about 570 – d. about 495 BC) was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and might have travelled widely in his youth, visiting Egypt and other places seeking knowledge. Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, a Greek colony in southern Italy, and there set up a religious sect. His followers pursued the religious rites and practices developed by Pythagoras, and studied his philosophical theories. The society took an active role in the politics of Croton, but this eventually led to their downfall. The Pythagorean meeting-places were burned, and Pythagoras was forced to flee the city. He is said to have ended his days in Metapontum.
  
  wn.com/Pythagoras
• Robert Pashley
  Robert Pashley (4 September 1805 – 29 May 1859) was a 19th century English traveller and economist. See Wikisource
  Pashley was born in York and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. Distinguished in mathematics and Classics, in 1830 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity at his first sitting. In 1832 he took his MA degree, and as a travelling Fellow undertook a journey in Italy Greece, Asia Minor and Crete, of which he published his two-volume Travels in Crete. His work is considered a classic of writing on the Ottoman Empire, with his detailed observations on local geography, customs and social issues.
  His remains are buried at Kensal Green cemetery.
  Pashley was one of the foremost researchers of Cretan culture in the first half of the nineteenth century. Pashley was the first one to work out the location of the ancient buried city of Cydonia, relying only on ancient literature, without the aid of archaeological recovery. In his travel to Crete in 1830 he observed that Greek was the common language of this island that was then part of the Ottoman Empire, even though a substantial part of the population was then Muslim.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Pashley
• 
  Sappho
  Sappho ( /ˈsæfoʊ/; Attic Greek Σαπφώ [sapːʰɔː], Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω [psapːʰɔː]) was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.
  The only contemporary source for Sappho's life is her own poetry, and scholars are skeptical of reading it biographically. Later biographical accounts are also unreliable.
  Strabo indicates that Sappho was the contemporary of Alcaeus of Mytilene (born ca. 620 BC) and Pittacus (ca. 645 - 570 BC), and according to Athenaeus, she was the contemporary of Alyattes of Lydia (ca. 610 - 560 BC). The Suda, a 10th century Byzantine encyclopædia, dates her to the 42nd Olympiad (612/608 BC), meaning either that she was born then or that this was her floruit. The versions of Eusebius state that she was famous by the first or second year of the 45th or 46th Olympiad (between 600 and 594 BC). Taken together, these references make it likely that she was born ca. 620 BC, or a little earlier.
  
  wn.com/Sappho
• Scipio Aemilianus
  Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus (185 – 129 BC), also known as Scipio Aemilianus or Scipio Africanus the Younger, was a leading general and politician of the ancient Roman Republic. As consul he commanded at the final siege and destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, and was a leader of the senators opposed to the Gracchi in 133 BC.
  He was born the younger son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus, the conqueror of Macedonia, and fought when he was 17 years old by his father's side at the Battle of Pydna, which decided the fate of Macedonia and made northern Greece subject to Rome. He was adopted by Publius Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, and his name was changed to Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. He therefore was the nephew of Publius Cornelius Scipio's wife, Aemilia Tertia - as Aemilia and Lucius were siblings and their father was Lucius Aemilius Paullus.
  In 151 BC, a time of disaster for the Romans in Spain, he voluntarily offered his services in that province and developed influence over the native tribes similar to that which Scipio Africanus, his grandfather by adoption, had acquired nearly 60 years before. Though Carthage had been reduced in power following the Second Punic War, there was still lingering resentment in Rome. Cato the Elder, for example, ended every speech (no matter the subject) by saying, "Also, I think Carthage must be destroyed." In 150 BC an appeal was made to Scipio by the Carthaginians to act as mediator between them and the Numidian prince Massinissa who, supported by a party at Rome, was incessantly encroaching on Carthaginian territory. In 149 BC war was declared by Rome, and a force sent to besiege Carthage.
  
  wn.com/Scipio_Aemilianus
• 
  Scipio Africanus
  Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236–183 BC), also known as Scipio Africanus, Scipio the Elder, and Scipio the Great was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic. He was best known for defeating Hannibal at the final battle of the Second Punic War at Zama, a feat that earned him the agnomen Africanus, the nickname "the Roman Hannibal", as well as recognition as one of the finest commanders in military history. An earlier great display of his tactical abilities had come already at the Battle of Ilipa.
  Publius Cornelius Scipio, later Africanus from his victory at the Battle of Zama, the founder of the Africanus branch of the Cornelii Scipiones, was born by Caesarian section into the Scipio branch of the Cornelia gens. The birth year is calculated from a series of statements made by multiple ancient historians of how old he was when certain events in his life occurred. The statements all seem to agree or be reconcilable: if he was 17 when he led a charge to his father's rescue at the Battle of Ticinus (218 BC), and 24 when he volunteered to take over the army in Hispania when no one else would (211 BC), after the defeat and death there of his uncle and father, the two consuls, and 27 when he led a victorious campaign against the city of New Carthage on the coast of Hispania (209 BC), then he must have been born in 236/5, usually stated as 236 BC. The year was 517 from the foundation of Rome.
  
  wn.com/Scipio_Africanus
• Sempronius Asellio
  Publius Sempronius Asellio (born around 158 BC, died after 91 BC¹) was an early Roman historian and one of the first writers of historiographic work in Latin. He was a military tribune of P. Scipio Aemilianus Africanus at the siege of Numantia in Hispania in 134 B.C. Later he joined the circle of writers centred around Scipio Aemilianus. Asellio wrote the history of the events of which he was engaged in (Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 2.13.3), and thus preceded Caesar in his more famous accounts of his military campaigns.
  Asellio, whose background is unknown, probably belonged to the prestigious plebeian gens Sempronia. He was greatly influenced by his co-writer Polybius, who was supported by Scipio Aemilianus. Polybius attempted not only to record events as they took place, but also to look for the causes that led to them. Asellio was the first Roman historian to follow this method². In his work, he showed contempt for the previous Roman historians of the annalistic school. According to him, they wrote nothing else than a diary as far as form was concerned (Asellio cited by Gellius 5.18.7-9).³.
  
  wn.com/Sempronius_Asellio
• 
  Simonides of Ceos
  Simonides of Ceos (Ancient Greek: Σιμωνίδης ὁ Κεῖος) (c. 556 BC-468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born at Ioulis on Kea. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets, along with Bacchylides (his nephew) and Pindar (reputedly a bitter rival). Both Bacchylides and Pindar benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry and he was more involved than either of them in the major events and personalities of their times. His fame owes much to traditional accounts of his colourful life, as one of the wisest of men, as a greedy miser, as an inventor of a system of mnemonics and also of some letters of the Greek alphabet (ω, η, ξ, ψ ). Such accounts include fanciful elements yet he had a real influence on the sophistic enlightenment of the classical era. His fame as a poet rests largely on his ability to present basic human situations with affecting simplicity. In the words of the Roman rhetorician Quintilian:
  He is popularly associated with epitaphs commemorating fallen warriors, as for example the Lacedaemonians at The Battle of Thermopylae:
  
  
  wn.com/Simonides_of_Ceos
• 
  Socrates
  Socrates ( /ˈsɒkrətiːz/; Greek: Σωκράτης, Ancient Greek pronunciation: [sɔːkrátɛːs], Sōkrátēs; c. 469 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.
  Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed.
  
  wn.com/Socrates
• 
  Solon
  Solon (^{[pronunciation?]}; Ancient Greek: Σόλων, c. 638 BC – 558 BC) was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.
  Knowledge of Solon is limited by the lack of documentary and archeological evidence covering Athens in the early 6th century BC. He wrote poetry for pleasure, as patriotic propaganda, and in defence of his constitutional reforms. His works only survive in fragments. They appear to feature interpolations by later authors and it is possible that fragments have been wrongly attributed to him (see Solon the reformer and poet). Ancient authors such as Herodotus and Plutarch are the main source of information, yet they wrote about Solon long after his death, at a time when history was by no means an academic discipline. Fourth century orators, such as Aeschines, tended to attribute to Solon all the laws of their own, much later times. Archaeology reveals glimpses of Solon's period in the form of fragmentary inscriptions but little else. For some scholars, our "knowledge" of Solon and his times is largely a fictive construct based on insufficient evidence while others believe a substantial body of real knowledge is still attainable. Solon and his times can appear particularly interesting to students of history as a test of the limits and nature of historical argument.
  
  wn.com/Solon
• 
  Sophocles
  Sophocles ( /ˈsɒfəkliːz/; Ancient Greek: Σοφοκλῆς, Sophoklēs, Greek pronunciation: [sopʰoklɛ̂ːs]; c. 497/6 BC – winter 406/5 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. According to the Suda, a 10th century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most-fêted playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in around 30 competitions, won perhaps 24, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won 14 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won only 4 competitions.
  The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.
  
  wn.com/Sophocles
• 
  Stesichorus
  Stesichorus (Ancient Greek: Στησίχορος, circa 640 – 555 BC) was the first great poet of the Greek West. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres but he is also famous for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy. He was ranked among the nine lyric poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria and yet his work attracted relatively little interest among ancient commentators, so that remarkably few fragments of his poetry now survive. As one scholar observed in 1967: "Time has dealt more harshly with Stesichorus than with any other major lyric poet." Recent discoveries, recorded on Egyptian papyrus (notably and controversially, the Lille Stesichorus), have led to some improvements in our understanding of his work, confirming his role as a link between Homer's epic narrative and the lyric narrative of poets like Pindar.
  
  wn.com/Stesichorus
• 
  Strabo
  Strabo,,^{[pronunciation?]}, also written Strabon (Greek: Στράβων; 64/63 BC – ca. AD 24), was a Greek geographer, philosopher and historian.
  Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey), a city that he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea. His mother was Georgian. Pontus had recently fallen to the Roman Republic, and although politically he was a proponent of Roman imperialism, Strabo belonged on his mother's side to a prominent family whose members had held important positions under the resisting regime of King Mithridates VI of Pontus.
  Strabo's life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and time spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae, after which point there is little record of his proceedings until 17 AD.
  
  wn.com/Strabo
• 
  Themistocles
  Themistocles (Greek: Θεμιστοκλῆς; "Glory of the Law"; c. 524–459 BC), was an Athenian politician and a general. He was one of a new breed of politicians who rose to prominence in the early years of the Athenian democracy, along with his great rival Aristides. As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower class Athenians, and generally being at odds with the Athenian nobility. Elected archon in 493 BC, he took steps to increase the naval power of Athens, which would be a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece, he fought at the Battle of Marathon, and was possibly one of the 10 Athenian strategoi (generals) in that battle.
  In the years after Marathon, and in the run up to the second Persian invasion he became the most prominent politician in Athens. He continued to advocate a strong Athenian navy, and in 483 BC he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes; these would prove crucial in the forthcoming conflict with Persia. During the second invasion, he was in effective command of the Greek allied navy at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. Due to subterfuge on the part of Themistocles, the Allies lured the Persian fleet into the Straits of Salamis, and the decisive Greek victory there was the turning point in the invasion, which was ended the following year by the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Plataea.
  
  wn.com/Themistocles
• 
  Theognis of Megara
  Theognis of Megara (Ancient Greek: Θέογνις ὁ Μεγαρεύς, Théognis ho Megareús) was an ancient Greek 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 verses attributed to him. Some of these verses inspired ancient commentators to value him as a moralist yet the entire corpus is valued today for its "warts and all" portrayal of aristocratic life in archaic Greece.
  The verses preserved under Theognis' name are written from the viewpoint of an aristocrat confronted by social and political revolution typical of Greek cities in the archaic period. Part of his work is addressed to Cyrnus, who is presented as his erōmenos. The author of the poems celebrated him in his verse and educated him in the aristocratic values of the time, yet Cyrnus came to symbolize much about his imperfect world that the poet bitterly resented:
  
  wn.com/Theognis_of_Megara
• Theopompus
  Theopompus (Ancient Greek: Θεόπομπος) (born c. 380 BC) was a Greek historian and rhetorician
  Theopompus was born on Chios. In early youth he seems to have spent some time at Athens, along with his father, who had been exiled on account of his Laconian sympathies. Here he became a pupil of Isocrates, and rapidly made great progress in rhetoric; we are told that Isocrates used to say that Ephorus required the spur but Theopompus the bit (Cicero, Brutus, 204).
  At first he appears to have composed epideictic speeches, in which he attained to such proficiency that in 352‑351 he gained the prize of oratory given by Artemisia II of Caria in honour of her husband, although Isocrates was himself among the competitors. It is said to have been the advice of his teacher that finally determined his career as an historian—a career for which he was peculiarly qualified owing to his abundant patrimony and his wide knowledge of men and places. Through the influence of Alexander, he was permitted to return to Chios about 333, and figured for some time as one of the leaders of the aristocratic party in his native town. After Alexander's death he was again expelled, and took refuge with Ptolemy in Egypt, where he appears to have met with a somewhat cold reception. The date of his death is unknown.
  
  wn.com/Theopompus
• 
  Thucydides
  Thucydides (/θ[unsupported input]ˈsɪdɪˌdiz/; Greek: Θουκυδίδης, Thoukydídēs; c. 460 BC – c. 395 BC) was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history", because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
  He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right. His text is still studied at advanced military colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations theory.
  More generally, Thucydides showed an interest in developing an understanding of human nature to explain behaviour in such crises as plague, massacres, as in that of the Melians, and civil war.
  
  wn.com/Thucydides
• 
  Timocreon
  Timocreon of Ialysus in Rhodes (Τιμοκρέων) was a Greek lyric poet who flourished about 480 BC, at the time of the Persian Wars. His poetry survives only in a very few fragments and he has received less attention from modern scholars than he deserves. He seems to have composed convivial verses for drinking parties. However he is remembered particularly for his bitter clashes with Themistocles and Simonides over the issue of his medizing (siding with the Persian invaders), for which he had been banished from his home around the time of the Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis. He was also an athlete of some distinction and reputedly a glutton.
  An epitaph for him, appearing in the Palatine Anthology, was credited to his rival, Simonides: "After much drinking, much eating and much slandering, I, Timocreon of Rhodes, rest here."
  
  wn.com/Timocreon
• 
  Tyrtaeus
  Tyrtaeus (also Tyrtaios, Ancient Greek: Τυρταῖος) was a Greek poet who composed verses in Sparta around the time of the Second Messenian War, the date of which isn't clearly established—sometime in the latter part of the seventh century BC. He is known especially for political and military elegies, exhorting Spartans to support the state authorities and to fight bravely against the Messenians, who had temporarily succeeded in wresting their estates from Spartan control. His verses mark a critical point in Spartan history, when Spartans began to turn from their flourishing arts and crafts and from the lighter verses of poets like Alcman (roughly his contemporary), to embrace a regime of military austerity: "life in Sparta became spartan". Some modern scholars believe that Tyrtaeus helped to precipitate and formulate this transition but others see no real evidence for this and some even question the authenticity of his few surviving verses—an origin in fifth or fourth century Athens has sometimes been suggested. Traditional accounts of his life, on which we rely for biographical details, were almost entirely deduced from his poetry or were simply fiction, as for example an account by Pausanias of his supposed transformation from a lame, stupid school teacher in Athens to the mastermind of Spartan victories against the Messenians.
  
  wn.com/Tyrtaeus
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
• 
  William Camden
  William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and officer of arms. He wrote the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.
  Camden was born in London. His father, Sampson Camden, was a member of The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. He attended Christ's Hospital and St Paul's School, and in 1566 entered Oxford (Magdalen College, Broadgates Hall, and finally Christ Church). At Christ Church, he became acquainted with Philip Sidney, who encouraged Camden's antiquarian interests. He returned to London in 1571 without a degree. In 1575, he became Usher of Westminster School, a position that gave him the freedom to travel and pursue his antiquarian researches during school vacations.
  In 1577, with the encouragement of Abraham Ortelius, Camden began his great work Britannia, a topographical and historical survey of all of Great Britain and Ireland. His stated intention was "to restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britaine to its antiquity." The first edition was published in 1586. The work, which was written in Latin, was very popular, going into seven editions by 1607, each considerably enlarged from its predecessor. The 1607 edition included for the first time a full set of English county maps, based on the surveys of Christopher Saxton and John Norden, and engraved by William Kip and William Hole (who also engraved the fine title page). The first English language edition, again expanded, translated by Philemon Holland (probably in collaboration with Camden), appeared in 1610.
  
  wn.com/William_Camden
• 
  Xenophon
  Xenophon (Ancient Greek: Ξενοφῶν, Xenophōn; c. 430 – 354 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates. He is known for his writings on the history of his own times, the 4th century BC, preserving the sayings of Socrates, and descriptions of life in ancient Greece and the Persian Empire.
  Xenophon's birth date is uncertain, but most scholars agree that he was born around 431 BC near the city of Athens. Xenophon was born into the ranks of the upper classes, thus granting him access to certain privileges of the aristocracy of ancient Attica. While a young man, Xenophon participated in the expedition led by Cyrus the Younger against his older brother, king Artaxerxes II of Persia, in 401 BC. Xenophon writes that he had asked the veteran Socrates for advice on whether to go with Cyrus, and that Socrates referred him to the divinely inspired Delphic oracle. Xenophon's query to the oracle, however, was not whether or not to accept Cyrus' invitation, but "to which of the gods he must pray and do sacrifice, so that he might best accomplish his intended journey and return in safety, with good fortune". The oracle answered his question and told him to which gods to pray and sacrifice. When Xenophon returned to Athens and told Socrates of the oracle's advice, Socrates chastised him for asking so disingenuous a question.
  
  wn.com/Xenophon
• 
  Zeno of Citium
  Zeno of Citium (Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Κιτιεύς, Zēnōn ho Kitiéŭs;, c. 334 BC – c. 262 BC) was a Greek language philosopher of Phoenician origin from Citium (Greek: Κίτιον). Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of virtue in accordance with nature. It proved very successful, and flourished as the dominant philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman era.
  Zeno was born c. 334 BC, in Citium in Cyprus. Most of the details known about his life come from the anecdotes preserved by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Diogenes relates a legend that Zeno was a merchant and that after surviving a shipwreck, Zeno wandered into a bookshop in Athens and was attracted to some writings about Socrates. He asked the librarian how to find such a man. In response, the librarian pointed to Crates of Thebes, the most famous Cynic living at that time in Greece.
  
  wn.com/Zeno_of_Citium