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Bunyan, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Bunyan, Paul, legendary American lumberjack. He was the hero of a series of “tall tales” popular through the timber country from Michigan westward. Bunyan was known for his fantastic strength and ...

Gilgamesh

(Encyclopedia)Gilgamesh gĭlˈgəmĕsh [key], in Babylonian legend, king of Uruk. He is the hero of the Gilgamesh epic, written on 12 tablets c.2000 b.c. and discovered among the ruins at Nineveh. The epic was lost...

Parsifal

(Encyclopedia)Parsifal pärˈsĭfäl [key], figure of Arthurian legend also known as Sir Percivale, who is in turn a later form of a hero of Celtic myth. The name originally occurs as Pryderi, an alternative name o...

Rangabe, Alexandros Rizos

(Encyclopedia)Rangabe or Rhangavis, Alexandros Rizos älĕkˈsänᵺrôs rēˈzôs räNgäbāˈ, rängˌgävēsˈ [key], 1810–92, Greek scholar, author, and diplomat, b. Constantinople. After 1831 he held governm...

Kolettes, Ioannis

(Encyclopedia)Kolettes, Ioannis yō-äˈnēs kôlĕtˈās [key], 1773–1847, Greek political leader. A major political figure both during and after the Greek War of Independence. His cynical, opportunistic policie...

George of Trebizond

(Encyclopedia)George of Trebizond trĕbˈĭzŏnd [key], c.1396–1486, Greek scholar, b. Crete. Settling in Venice, he taught Greek, philosophy, and rhetoric there and in Vicenza before going to Rome in 1442. He be...

Suidas

(Encyclopedia)Suidas syo͞oˈĭdəs [key], title of a Greek lexicon-encyclopedia. The name is also applied to its compiler, who seems to have lived in the 10th cent. a.d. Included in the lexicon are texts from clas...

Septuagint

(Encyclopedia)Septuagint sĕpˈtyo͞oəjĭnt [key] [Lat.,=70], oldest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Hellenistic Jews, possibly from Alexandria, c.250 b.c. Legend, according to the fictional l...

Grivas, George

(Encyclopedia)Grivas, George grēˈväs [key], 1898–1974, Greek and Cypriot general, b. Cyprus. He joined the Greek army and early became an advocate of enosis (the union of Cyprus with Greece). After World War I...

Magna Graecia

(Encyclopedia)Magna Graecia măgˈnə grēˈshə [key] [Lat.,=great Greece], Greek colonies of S Italy. The Greek overseas expansion of the 8th cent. b.c. founded a number of towns that became the centers of a new,...