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Diadochi

(Encyclopedia)Diadochi dīădˈəkī [key] [Gr.,=successors], the Macedonian generals and administrators who succeeded Alexander the Great. Alexander's empire, the largest that the world had known to that time, was...

Demetrius Phalereus

(Encyclopedia)Demetrius Phalereus fəlērˈo͞os, fəlērˈēəs [key] [Lat.,=of Phalerum], d. c.280 b.c., Athenian orator. One of the first Peripatetics, he wrote extensively in history, rhetoric, and literary cri...

Idfu

(Encyclopedia)Idfu ĕdˈ– [key], town (1986 pop. 45,737), S central Egypt, on the Nile River. It is an agricultural trade center and has paper mills and a sugar refinery. Idfu was the capital of a predynastic upp...

Abubus

(Encyclopedia)Abubus əbyo͞oˈbəs [key], in First Maccabees, father of the Ptolemy who murdered Simon the Maccabee. ...

Ptolemaic system

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemaic system tŏlˌəmāˈĭk [key], historically the most influential of the geocentric cosmological theories, i.e., theories that placed the earth motionless at the center of the universe with a...

Amenemhet I

(Encyclopedia)Amenemhet I äˌmĕnĕmˈhĕt, āˌ– [key], d. 1970 b.c., king of ancient Egypt, founder of the XII dynasty. The son of a powerful Theban family, he seized the kingship c.2000 b.c. The XII dynasty u...

Rafa

(Encyclopedia)Rafa or Rafah both: räˈfä [key], town in the present Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border. The ancient name was Raphia. There in 217 b.c., Ptolemy IV defeated Antiochus III. ...

Mary of England

(Encyclopedia)Mary of England (Mary Tudor), 1496–1533, queen consort of Louis XII of France, daughter of Henry VII of England and sister of Henry VIII. She was betrothed in 1507 to the future Holy Roman Emperor C...

Alexander Balas

(Encyclopedia)Alexander Balas bāˈləs [key], d. 145 b.c., ruler of Syria, putative son of Antiochus IV. He seized power from his uncle Demetrius I (c.152 b.c.); Jonathan the Maccabee supported him. He died in bat...

Cleomenes III

(Encyclopedia)Cleomenes III, c.260–219 b.c., king of Sparta (235–221 b.c.). He was probably the most energetic king Sparta ever had, a conscious imitator of Agis III (see under Agis). In his determined effort t...