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Wace, Alan John Bayard

(Encyclopedia)Wace, Alan John Bayard, 1879–1957, English archaeologist. From 1914 to 1923 he was director of the British School at Athens. He served as professor of classical archaeology at Cambridge (1934–44) ...

Taranto

(Encyclopedia)Taranto täˈräntō [key], Lat. Tarentum, city (1991 pop. 232,334), capital of Taranto prov., Apulia, S Italy, on the Gulf of Taranto, an arm of the Ionian Sea. Taranto is, after La Spezia, the chief...

Pheidippides

(Encyclopedia)Pheidippides fīdĭpˈĭdēz [key], fl. 490 b.c., semilegendary Athenian courier sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at Marathon. He ran 150 miles in two days. At the conclusion of...

Peloponnesian War

(Encyclopedia)Peloponnesian War pĕlˈəpənēˈzhən [key], 431–404 b.c., decisive struggle in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta. It ruined Athens, at least for a time. The rivalry between Athens' maritim...

Kelley, Edgar Stillman

(Encyclopedia)Kelley, Edgar Stillman, 1857–1944, American composer and critic, b. Sparta, Wis., studied in Chicago and at the Stuttgart Conservatory. He taught (1901–2) at Yale, replacing Horatio Parker, and af...

Leda, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Leda lēˈdə [key], in Greek mythology, daughter of Thestios, king of Aetolia, and wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. According to most legends, she was seduced by Zeus, who visited her in the form o...

Alcman

(Encyclopedia)Alcman ălkˈmən [key], fl. 620 b.c., Greek lyric poet of Sparta. He was the earliest writer of Dorian choral poetry whose work has survived. Short choral fragments and a longer one (part of a parthe...

Leonidas

(Encyclopedia)Leonidas lēŏnˈĭdəs [key], d. 480 b.c., king of Sparta. He succeeded (c.491 b.c.) his half-brother, Cleomenes I. When the Persians invaded Greece under Xerxes (480 b.c.), Leonidas with 300 Spartan...

Gylippus

(Encyclopedia)Gylippus jĭlĭˈpəs [key], fl. 415–404 b.c., Spartan commander in the Peloponnesian War. He was sent to help Syracuse in its defense against Athenian attack, and it was his resourcefulness and ski...

Villehardouin

(Encyclopedia)Villehardouin vēlärdwăNˈ [key], French noble family that ruled the Peloponnesus from 1210 to 1278. Geoffroi I de Villehardouin, d. 1218, nephew of the historian and marshal of Champagne and Romani...

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