Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus (Ancient Greek: Ἀγαθίας σχολαστικός) c. AD 530-582/594), of Myrina (Mysia), an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor (now in Turkey), was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558.

Agathias was a native of Myrina (Mysia). His father was Memnonius. His mother was presumably Pericleia. A brother of Agathias is mentioned in primary sources, but his name has not survived. Their probable sister Eugenia is known by name. The Suda clarifies that Agathias was active in the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I, mentioning him as a contemporary of Paul the Silentiary, Macedonius of Thessalonica and Tribonian.

Agathias mentions being present in Alexandria as a law student at the time when an earthquake destroyed Berytus (Beirut). The law school of Berytus had been recognized as one of the three official law schools of the empire (533). Within a few years, as the result of the disastrous earthquake of 551, the students were transferred to Sidon. The dating of the event to 551: as a law student, Agathias could be in his early twenties, which would place his birth to c. 530.

Macedonius of Thessalonica or Macedonius Consul (Greek: Μακηδόνιος or Μακεδόνιος Ύπατος, ο Θεσσαλονικεύς, c.500-560 AD) a Byzantine hypatos during the reign of Justinian, is the author of 42 epigrams in the Greek Anthology, the best of which are some delicate and fanciful amatory pieces. His poems were published in 567 AD by Agathias in his collection of contemporary epigrams, the "Kyklos".

Margit Carstensen (born 29 February 1940) is a German theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Margit Carstensen is the daughter of a physician, and was born and raised in the north-German city of Kiel. Upon graduation from the local Gymnasium in 1958, she attended acting school in Hamburg.[1] This education led to her first stage appearances in Kleve, Heilbronn, Münster and Braunschweig. In 1965 Margit Carstensen received a four year engagement with the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (German Playhouse) in Hamburg. There she played leading roles in plays by, among others, John Osborne and the classical Spanish playwright Lope de Vega.

In 1969 she gained local fame in the Theater am Goetheplatz in Bremen, where she met director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.[2] She then worked under his direction in a comedy by the eighteenth century Venetian Carlo Goldoni The Coffee Shop (which was recorded for television in 1970), bringing her to national fame. She subsequently played the role of serial murderess Geesche Gottfried in the premiere of Fassbinder’s own play Bremen Freedom (also televised, in 1972), and then in the title role of his Henrik Ibsen adaptation Nora Helmer (televised in 1974) derived from A Doll's House.

John Arbuthnot, often known simply as Dr. Arbuthnot, (baptised April 29, 1667 – February 27, 1735), was a physician, satirist and polymath in London. He is best remembered for his contributions to mathematics, his membership in the Scriblerus Club (where he inspired both Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels book III and Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry, Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus, and possibly The Dunciad), and for inventing the figure of John Bull.

In his mid-life, Arbuthnot, complaining of the work of Edmund Curll, among others, who would commission and invent a biography as soon as an author died, said, "Biography is one of the new terrors of death," and so a biography of Arbuthnot is made difficult by his own reluctance to leave records. Alexander Pope noted to Joseph Spence that Arbuthnot allowed his infant children to play with, and even burn, his writings. Throughout his professional life, Arbuthnot exhibited a strong humility and conviviality, and his friends complained that he would not take credit for his own work.

Edmondo De Amicis (21 October 1846 – 11 March 1908) was an Italian novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer. His best-known book is the children's novel Heart.

Born in Oneglia (today part of the city of Imperia), he went to military school in Modena, and became an Army officer in the new Kingdom of Italy. De Amicis fought in the battle of Custoza during the Third Independence War, a defeat of Savoy forces against the Austrian Empire; the spectacle left him disappointed, and contributed to his later decision to leave military life.

In Florence, he wrote his first sketches dealing with his frontline experience, collected as La vita militare ("Military Life", 1868), and first published by the journal of the Ministry of Defense, L'Italia Militare. In 1870, he joined the staff of the journal La Nazione in Rome, and his correspondence at the time later served as base for his travel writings: Spagna (1873), Olanda (1874), Ricordi di Londra (1874), Marocco (1876), Costantinopoli (1878), Ricordi di Parigi (1879). A new edition of Costantinopoli, considered by many his masterpiece and the best description of the city in the 19th century, was published in 2005, with a foreword by Umberto Eco.