The Major Works (English Library)

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The Major Works (English Library) Page 46

by Sir Thomas Browne


  Archangelus of Burgonovus (fl. late 16th cent.): Italian Hebraist and cabalist

  Archemorus: the infant whose funeral honours are described in Statius, Thebaid, VI

  Archimedes (287?–212 B.C.): Greek mathematician

  ‘Arden’: not identified (but according to Mr Robbins, he may be the early seventeenth-century chiliast Henry Arthington)

  Areopagite, the: see Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite

  Argus: the hundred-eyed giant ordered to watch Io

  Aries: the first sign of the zodiac; also the constellation between Pisces and Taurus

  Ariosto, Lodovico (1474–1533): Italian poet

  Aristeus (Aristeas): legendary Greek epic poet and historian

  Aristides the Just (530?–468? B.C.): Athenian statesman and general

  Aristotle (384–322 B.C.): Greek philosopher

  Arius (c. 250–c. 336): heresiarch, denied Christ’s divinity

  Arrian (fl. 2nd cent.): Greek historian and biographer

  Artaxerxes I Longimanus: king of Persia (464–424 B.C.)

  Artaxerxes II Mnemon: king of Persia (404–359 B.C.)

  Artemidorus (late 2nd/early 3rd cent.): Ephesian author of Oneirocritica, the period’s chief extant work on dream interpretation

  Artemisia: wife of Mausolus (q.v.)

  Arthur: legendary king of medieval Britain

  Asa: king of Judah (see 2 Chronicles 14–16)

  Ashurbanipal: king of Assyria (668–629? B.C.)

  Asshur: i.e. Assyria, or its major city or principal god; also used of kings (e.g. Shalmaneser)

  Assur: see previous entry

  Astraea: see p. 434, note 84

  Astrampsychus (3rd cent.?): occult writer on dreams: cf. Artemidorus

  Athenaeus (late 2nd/early 3rd cent.): Greek scholar

  Atlas: the giant obliged to support the earth on his shoulders

  Atropos: one of the three Fates who cuts the thread of life

  Attalus III Philometor: king of Pergamum (138–133 B.C.)

  Aubrey, John (1626–1697): English antiquary

  Augustine, St (354–430): Bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa, the greatest theologian of the early Latin Church

  Augustine, St, of Canterbury (d. 604/5): missionary to Kent and first Archbishop of Canterbury

  Augustus: first Roman emperor (27 B.C.-A.D. 14)

  Aulus Gellius (fl. 117?-180?): Latin grammarian

  Ausonius (310?–395): Roman poet and rhetorician

  Austin: see Augustine

  Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198): Arabian philosopher

  Avicenna (980–1037): Arabian philosopher

  Bacchus: the god of wine and revelry

  Bacon, Sir Edmund: see p. 321, note 18

  Bacon, Sir Francis (1561–1626): philosopher and essayist

  Bacon, Nicholas (1623–1666): see p. 319, note 1.

  Bado Aureo, Johannes de (fl. late 14th cent.): the obscure author of the oldest British treatise on heraldry

  Bajazet I: Ottoman emperor (1389–1403), captured by Timur (Tambur-laine)

  Baldwin: the first king of Jerusalem (1100–1118)

  Barcephas: see Moses Bar-Cepha

  Barnabas: disciple of St Paul and missionary (Acts 4.36)

  Baronius, Caesar Cardinal (1538–1607): Italian ecclesiastical historian

  Basil the Great, St (c. 330–379): Bishop of Caesarea, Father of the Church

  Bauhin, Jean (1541–1613): French physician and botanist

  Beaumont, Francis (1584–1616): English dramatist

  Becanus, Martinus (1550–1624): Jesuit from Brabant, theologian and exegete

  Bede, St (c. 673–735): English scholar, ‘Father of English History’

  Bel: i.e. Baal, a great Babylonian deity; the efficacy of its statue is ridiculed in the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon

  Belinus: British king (see Geoffrey of Monmouth, III, 1 ff.)

  Belisarius (505?–565): general of the Eastern Roman Empire

  Bellinus: see Belinus

  Bellisarius: see Belisarius

  Bellonius (Pierre Belon, 1517–1564): French physician and naturalist

  Belus: see Bel

  Bembus (Pietro Cardinal Bembo, 1470–1547): Italian historian, poet, scholar

  Benedict III: Pope (855–858)

  Benjamin: Jacob’s youngest and favourite son (see Genesis 35.18); also the tribe

  Berosus (3rd cent. B.C.): Babylonian historian

  Besler, Basil (1561–1629): German naturalist

  Bethlem Gábor: prince of Transylvania (1613–1629) and king of Hungary (1620–1629)

  Bevis: hero of the medieval romance Sir Bevis of Hampton

  Bias: one of the seven wise men of ancient Greece (‘I carry everything with me’ – i.e. in the head)

  Biringuccio, Vanucci (1480–1539): Italian mathematician and military scientist

  Blancanus, Josephus: Italian author of Aristotelis loca mathematica (1615)

  Blount, Sir Henry (1602–1682): English traveller and author

  Blount, Thomas (1618–1679): English scholar: see below, p. 537

  Blunt, Sir Henry: see Blount

  Boadicea (d. 62): British queen, revolted against Romans

  Bochart, Samuel (1599–1667): French theologian and scholar

  Boethius (c. 480 – c. 524): Roman philosopher and statesman

  Boorde, Andrew (1490?–1549): English physician and writer

  Bosio, Antonio (d. 1629): Italian archaeologist

  Bosio, Giacomo (fl. late 16th cent.): Italian historian and scholar

  Bovillus (Charles Bouelles, 1470?–1553?): French mathematician and philosopher

  Boyle, Robert (1627–1691): English physicist and chemist

  Brennus: Brennius, British king, brother of Belinus (q.v.)

  Britannicus (41–55): son of Claudius I (q.v.), set aside in favour of Nero

  Browne, Edward (1644–1708): Sir Thomas’s eldest son: physician and author; see above, pp. 499 ff.

  Bullokar, John (fl. 1622): English lexicographer: see below, p. 537

  Burton, Robert (1577–1640): English scholar, author of Anatomy of Melancholy (pseudonym: Democritus Junior)

  Burton, William (1575–1645): English antiquary

  Cabeus (Niccolo Cabeo, 1585–1650): Italian mathematician and philosopher

  Cacus: see p. 406, note 81

  Cadamustus (Alvise Cadamosto, 1432–1477): Venetian explorer and writer

  Cadmus: legendary founder of Thebes, said to have introduced the art of writing from Phoenicia

  Caesar, G. Julius: Roman dictator (49–44 B.C.) and author

  Cain: eldest son of Adam and Eve

  Cajetan, Tomasso de Vio Cardinal (1470–1534): Italian-Spanish theologian

  Caligula: Roman emperor (37–41)

  Calvin, John (1509–1564): French Reformer and theologian

  Cambyses II: last Median king of Persia (d. 522 B.C.)

  Camden, William (1551–1623): English antiquary and historian

  Canute II the Great: king of England (1016–1035) and Denmark (1018-1035)

  Caracalla: Roman emperor (211–217)

  Cardan (Girolamo Cardano, 1501–1576): Italian physician and mathematician

  Carew, Richard (1555–1620): English antiquary and translator

  Cartaphilus: see p. 257

  Casalius, Joannes Baptista (fl. mid 17th cent.): Italian antiquary and writer

  Casaubon, Meric (1599–1671): English classical scholar

  Cassiodorus (c. 485–c. 580): Roman author and monk

  Cassius Longinus (d. 42): Roman tribune, one of Caesar’s assassins

  Castellus (Pietro Castelli, d. 1657): Italian physician and botanist

  Castor: one of the Dioscuri (‘sons of Zeus’)

  Cato the Elder (234–149 B.C.): Roman consul

  Cato the Younger (Cato of Utica, 95–46 B.C.): Roman statesman and philosopher

  Cebes: see p. 408, note 93

  Cestius, Gaius (1st cent. B.C.): Roman praetor and tribune
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  Cham: see Ham

  Charlemagne: Charles I the Great, king of the Franks (768–814) and emperor of the West (800–814)

  Charles II: king of Great Britain (1660–1685)

  Charles V: Holy Roman Emperor (1519–1556)

  Charles the Great: see Charlemagne

  Charles Wayne, the stars of: ‘Certaine Starres winding about the North pole of the world, in fashion like foure wheeles and horses drawing it’ (Bullokar)

  Charon: see p. 301, note 23

  Charybdis: the mythical whirlpool off the coast of Sicily (see Odyssey, XII)

  Cheops: king of Egypt (c. 2900–2877 B.C.)

  Chifflet, Jean Jacques (1588–1660): French medical and political writer

  Childeric I: king of the Salian Franks (458?–481)

  Chimaera: in Greek mythology, a fire-breathing female monster

  Chiron: the wisest of the Centaurs, teacher of Achilles and Hercules

  Christian IV: king of Denmark and Norway (1588–1648)

  Christopher, St (3rd cent.): the patron of wayfarers

  Chrysippus of Soli (c. 280–207 B.C.): Stoic philosopher

  Chrysostom: see John Chrysostom

  Chus: see Cush

  Chymera: see Chimaera

  Cicero (106–43 B.C.): Roman orator, philosopher and statesman

  Cimon (507–449 B.C.): Athenian statesman and general

  Claudian (d. c. 395): Latin poet

  Claudius I: Roman emperor (9 B.C.-A.D. 54)

  Clemens: see next entry

  Clement of Alexandria, St (c. 150-c. 215): theologian

  Cleobulus (fl. 560 B.C.): Greek lyric poet, one of the Seven Sages

  Cleopatra: queen of Egypt (51–49 and 48–30 B.C.)

  Clusius, Carolus (1526–1609): Dutch physician and botanist

  Cockeram, Henry (fl. 1650): English lexicographer: see below, p. 537

  Codrus: last king of Athens, said to have reigned c. 1068 B.C.

  Colonna, Fabio (1567?–1650): Italian naturalist

  Columbus, Christopher (1446?–1506): Italian explorer

  Columbus, Realdus (d. 1577?): Italian anatomist

  Columna: see Colonna

  Commodus: Roman emperor (180–192)

  Constans I: Roman emperor (337–350)

  Constantine the Great: Roman emperor (306–337)

  Copernicus, Nicolas (1473–1543): Polish astronomer, his heliocentric theory not confirmed much before the end of the 17th century; see p. 160, note 139

  Cornelius Sylla: see Sulla

  Costa, Christophorus a: see Acosta

  Covarrubias y Orozco, Sebastián de (fl. early 17th cent.): Spanish scholar

  Craesus: see Croesus

  Crassus, Lucius Licinius (140–91 B.C.): Roman orator and statesman

  Croesus (6th cent. B.C.): king of Lydia, celebrated for his wealth

  Crucius (Alsario della Croce, fl. early 17th cent.): Italian physician and writer

  Cupid (Eros): the god of love, son of Venus

  Curtius: see Quintus Curtius

  Curtius, Benedictus (Benoît Court, fl. 1533–1560): French jurist and writer on agriculture (Horti, 1560)

  Curtius, Marcus (d. 362 B.C.): Roman knight, self-sacrificed for Rome (Livy, VII, 6)

  Cush (Kush): the eldest son of Ham (see Genesis 10.6)

  Cuthbert (d. 758): Archbishop of Canterbury

  Cuthred: king of the West Saxons (740–754)

  Cynthia: see p. 281, note 29

  Cypraeus, Joannes Adolphus (16th cent.): German ecclesiastical historian

  Cyprian, St (d. 258): Bishop of Carthage, pastoral theologian

  Cyril, St (376–444): Bishop of Alexandria, Father of the Church

  Cyrus the Elder: see next entry

  Cyrus the Great: king of Persia (500–529 B.C.), founder of the Persian Empire

  Cyrus the Younger (424?–401 B.C.): Persian prince and satrap, conspired against his brother Artaxerxes II (q.v.) with help of mercenaries under Xenophon (q.v.)

  Damocles: courtier under Dionysius the Elder (q.v.) who sat him under a suspended sword to demonstrate the perils of a ruler’s life

  Damon and Pythias: ‘loved each other so well, as that one offered to suffer death for the other’ (Cockeram)

  Dan: the son of Jacob by Bilhah, Rachel’s maid (see Genesis 30.6); also the tribe – ‘an adder’ (Gen. 49.17) which, omitted from the list of tribes (Rev. 7.4–8), was expected to yield the Antichrist from its ranks

  Daniel: ‘prophet’, protagonist of the homonymous Biblical book

  Dante (1265–1321): Italian poet

  Darius III Codomannus: king of Persia (336–330 B.C.)

  David: the second king of Israel, accepted as author of Psalms

  Dee, John (1527–1608): English mathematician and astrologer

  Deiphobus: Trojan prince, Helen’s husband after Paris’s death (see Aeneid, VI, 495 ff.)

  de Laet Jean (1593–1649): Flemish geographer and naturalist

  della Porta, Giovanni Battista (1538?–1615): Italian natural philosopher (Villa, 1592)

  Demetrius: the silversmith of Ephesus (see Acts 19.23 ff.)

  Demetrius I Poliorcetes: king of Macedon (294–283 B.C.)

  Democritus (late 5th/early 4th cent. B.C.): the Greek ‘laughing philosopher’, proverbially a mocker of human follies

  Demosthenes (c. 385–322 B.C.): Athenian statesman, the greatest of Greek orators

  Deucalion: the only survivor, with his wife Pyrrha, of the flood sent by Jupiter

  Diana: Olympian goddess of hunting and virginity; also her great temple at Ephesus

  Didymus (c. 65 B.C.-A.D. 10): Alexandrian scholar and commentator on Homer

  Digby, Sir Kenelm (1603–1665): English author and diplomat

  Dio Cassius: see Dion Cassius

  Diocletian: Roman emperor (284–305)

  Diodorus Siculus (late 1st cent. B.C.): Greek historian

  Diogenes (412?–323 B.C.): Greek Cynic philosopher

  Diogenes Laertius (2nd cent.): Greek author of Lives of the Philosophers

  Diomedes: son of Tydeus, leader of Argos and Tiryns in the Trojan War

  Dion Cassius (c.155–c.235): Greek historian.

  Dionysius the Elder: tyrant of Syracuse (405–367 B.C.)

  Dionysius the Younger: tyrant of Syracuse (367–356 and 347–344 B.C.)

  Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (c. 500): mystical theologian, often confused with St Paul’s convert in Athens (Acts 17.34)

  Dionysus: see previous entries

  Dioscorides (4th cent. B.C.): Greek historian and moralist

  Dioscorides Pedanius (fl. 1st cent. B.C.): Greek medical writer

  Domitian: Roman emperor (81–96)

  Doria, Andrea (1468?–1560): Genoese admiral and statesman

  Dorset, Thomas Marquess of: see p. 295, note 82

  Du Bellay, Joachim (1522?–1560): French poet and critic

  Dugdale, Sir William (1605–1686): English antiquary and historian

  Du Loir (fl. 1639–1654): French traveller and writer

  Duns Scotus, Johannes (c. 1264–1308): medieval philosopher, ‘Doctor of Subtlety’

  Ecclesiastes: see Solomon

  Elagabalus: see Heliogabalus

  Eliah: see Elijah

  Elias: see next entry

  Elijah (9th cent. B.C.): Hebrew prophet, ‘translated’ into heaven (2 Kings 2.1–18) and so a type of the Resurrection

  Elizium: see Elysium

  Elyot, Sir Thomas (1490?–1546): English scholar: see below, p. 538

  Elysium: abode of the blessed after death

  Emanuel I the Great: king of Portugal (1495–1521)

  Enoch: Hebrew patriarch, ‘translated’ into heaven (Genesis 5.24) and so a type of the Resurrection

  Epaminondas (c. 418–362 B.C.): Theban statesman and general

  Ephraim: the youngest son of Jacob (q.v.)

  Epictetus (c. 60 – post 118): Greek Stoic philosopher

  Epicurus (342?-270 B.C.): Greek philosophe
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  Epimenides (7th cent. B.C.): Cretan philosopher and poet-prophet, quoted by St Paul (Titus 1.12)

  Epiphanius, St (c. 315–403): Bishop of Salamis, militant defender of orthodoxy

  Erasmus, Desiderius (1467–1536): Dutch scholar and humanist

  Esarhaddon: king of Assyria and Babylonia (681–669 B.C.), father of Ashurbanipal (q.v.)

  Esdras: title of two books of the Septuagint (four of the Vulgate) in the Apocrypha; cf. Ezra

  Esther: the Jewish wife of ‘Ahasuerus’ (q.v.); also the homonymous Biblical book

  Euphorbus: the Trojan killed by Menelaus (see Iliad, XVII, 9 ff.)

  Euripides (c. 480–406 B.C.): the last of the three greatest Attic tragedians

  Eusebius (c. 260–340): Bishop of Caesarea, ‘Father of Church History’

  Eustathius: Bishop of Thessalonica (1175-c. 1192), commentator on Homer

  Eve: according to tradition, the first woman

  Evelyn, John (1620–1706): English diarist

  Ezekiel (early 6th cent.? B.C.): Hebrew prophet; also the homonymous Biblical book

  Ezra (5th/4th cent.? B.C.): Jewish reformer; also the homonymous Biblical book (cf. Esdras)

  Favorinus (2nd cent.): Greek philosopher

  Ferdinand II: German emperor (1619–1637)

  Fernel, Jean (1497–15 5 8): French physician, author of De abditis rerum causis (1548): see p. 77, note 85

  Ferrarius, Omnibonus: German author of De arte medica infantium (1605)

  Ficino, Marsilio (1433–1499): Florentine Neoplatonist and humanist

  Fletcher, John (1579–1625): English dramatist

  Fourcroy, A.F.: see p. 295, note 79

  Francis I: king of France (1515–1547)

  Frontinus, Sextus Julius (40?–104): praetor urbanus of Rome, soldier and author

  Frotho the Great: legendary Danish king, probably the same as Unguinus (q.v.)

  Fuchs(ius), Leonhard (1501–1566): German physician and botanist

  Gad: a son of Jacob (see Genesis 30.9 ff.); also the tribe

  Gaffarel, Jacques (1601–1681): French Hebraist and astrologer

  Gaguinus: see Guagninus

  Galba: Roman emperor (68–69)

  Galen (fl. 2nd cent.): Greek physician and writer: see p. 77, note 85

  Galileo Galilei (1564–1642): the great Italian astronomer

  Gallienus: Roman emperor (253–268)

  Gamaliel: Jewish rabbi, teacher of St Paul in his pre-Christian days (Acts 5.34, 22.3)

  Garcias ab Horto: see Orta

  Gargantua: see Rabelais

  Gassendus (Pierre Gassend, 1592–165 5): French philospher, mathematician, and physician

  Gauricus, Lucas (1476–1558): Italian mathematician and astrologer

 

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