People - Ancient Greece

Anaximander in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Anaximander (Ἀναξίμανδρος). A Greek philosopher of Miletus, born B.C. 611, and hence a younger contemporary of Thales and Pherecydes. He lived at the court of Polycrates of Samos, and died B.C. 547. In his philosophy the primal essence, which he was the first to call ἀρχή, was the immortal, imperishable, all-including infinite, a kind of chaos (ἄπε...

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Alexis in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Alexis (Ἄλεξις). One of the most prolific and important writers of the Middle Attic Comedy, and uncle to Menander (q.v.). He was born at Thurii, B.C. 392, and is said to have lived to the age of one hundred and six years, and to have died on the stage with the crown of victory on his head. Some two hundred and forty-five plays are attributed to him...

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Anaximĕnes in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

A Greek sophist of Lampsacus, a favourite of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. He composed orations and historical works, some treating of the actions of those two princes. Of these but little remains. On the other hand, he is the author of the Rhetoric dedicated to Alexander, the earliest extant work of this kind, which was once included ...

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Ameipsias in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Ameipsias (Ἀμειψίας). A Greek poet of the Old Comedy, contemporary with Aristophanes, whom he twice overcame. Of his plays only slight fragments remain (Ran. 14)....

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Anaximenes in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

A Greek philosopher of Miletus, a younger contemporary and pupil of Anaximander, who died about B.C. 502. He supposed air to be the fundamental principle, out of which everything arose by rarefaction and condensation. This doctrine he expounded in a work, now lost, written in the Ionic dialect....

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Agis III in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Son of Archidamus III., reigned B.C. 338-330. He attempted to overthrow the Macedonian power in Europe while Alexander the Great was in Asia, but was defeated and killed in battle by Antipater in the year 330....

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Amphis in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Amphis (Ἄμφις). A Greek comic poet of Athens, contemporary with Plato. His works are lost (Ath. 1.8 foll., Mein.)....

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Albīnus in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Albīnus or Albus Postumius. The name of a patrician family at Rome, many of the members of which held the highest offices of the State, from the commencement of the Republic to its downfall. The founder of the family was dictator B.C. 498, when he conquered the Latins in the great battle near Lake Regillus (q.v.)....

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Andocĭdes in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Andocĭdes (Ἀνδοκίδης). The second in order of time in the roll of great Attic orators. He was born B.C. 439, and belonged by birth to the aristocratic party, but fell out with it in B.C. 415, when he was involved in the famous trial for mutilating the statues of Hermes, and, to save his own and his kinsmen's lives, betrayed his aristocratic accompl...

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Anacreon in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Anacreon (Ανακρέων). A famous Greek lyric poet, born about B.C. 550, at Teos, an Ionian town of Asia, whose inhabitants, to escape the threatened yoke of Persia, migrated to Abdera in Thrace, B.C. 540. From Abdera, Anacreon went to the tyrant Polycrates of Samos, after whose death (B.C. 522) he removed to Athens on the invitation of Hipparchus, and...

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