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Pontus, ancient country, Asia

(Encyclopedia)Pontus, ancient country, NE Asia Minor (now Turkey), on the Black Sea coast. On its inland side were Cappadocia and W Armenia. It was not significantly penetrated by Persian or Hellenic civilization. ...

Murray, Gilbert

(Encyclopedia)Murray, Gilbert (George Gilbert Aimé Murray), 1866–1957, British classical scholar, b. Sydney, Australia. In 1908 Murray was appointed regius professor of Greek at Oxford. He is best known as a Gre...

Lyceum, gymnasium near ancient Athens

(Encyclopedia)Lyceum līsēˈəm [key], gymnasium near ancient Athens. There Aristotle taught; hence the extension of the term lyceum to Aristotle's school of philosophers, the Peripatetics. ...

Kadesh, ancient city of Syria

(Encyclopedia)Kadesh kāˈdĕsh [key], ancient city of Syria, on the Orontes River. There Ramses II fought (c.1300 b.c.) the Hittites in a great battle that ended in a truce. ...

Orion, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Orion ōrīˈən [key], in Greek mythology, Boeotian hunter. When Oenopion delayed giving his daughter Merope to him, Orion, when drunk, violated her. Oenopion then blinded him, but his vision was res...

Andromeda, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Andromeda ăndrŏmˈĭdə [key], in Greek mythology, princess of Ethiopia, daughter of King Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and Cassiopeia. According to most legends Cassiopeia angered Poseidon by saying t...

Pausanias, geographer of ancient Greece

(Encyclopedia)Pausanias, fl. a.d. 150, traveler and geographer, probably b. Lydia. His Description of Greece is an invaluable source for the topography, monuments, and legends of ancient Greece. There are translati...

Euclid, Greek mathematician

(Encyclopedia)Euclid yo͞oˈklĭd [key], fl. 300 b.c., Greek mathematician. Little is known of his life other than the fact that he taught at Alexandria, being associated with the school that grew up there in the l...

Siren, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Siren sīˈrən [key], in Greek mythology, one of three sea nymphs, usually represented with the head of a woman and the body of a bird. Daughters of Phorcus or of Achelous, the Sirens inhabited an is...

Müller, Karl Otfried

(Encyclopedia)Müller, Karl Otfried mülˈər [key], 1797–1840, German classical scholar and archaeologist. He was professor of classics at the Univ. of Göttingen (1819–39), lecturing on art history, literatu...