A Cabinet Of Greek Curiosities

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A Cabinet Of Greek Curiosities Page 25

by J. C. McKeown


  Prodicus of Ceos: 5th-century B.C. sophist and rhetorician.

  Protagoras of Abdera (ca. 490–420 B.C.): philosopher and sophist.

  Ps.: pseudo, as in, for example, Ps.-Aristotle, author of a work falsely attributed to Aristotle.

  Ptolemy I Savior (367/366–282 B.C.): one of Alexander’s generals, subsequently ruler of Egypt.

  Ptolemy II Philadelphus (308–246 B.C.): son of Ptolemy I.

  Pyrrhus (319/318–272 B.C.): king of Epirus in western Greece, who invaded Italy in 280 to fight the Romans.

  Pythagoras of Samos: 6th-century B.C. philosopher.

  Pytheas of Massilia: 4th-century B.C. astronomer and geographer.

  Pythia: the priestess through whom Apollo delivered his oracles at Delphi.

  Quadrireme: ship with four banks of oars.

  Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus ca. A.D. 35–ca. 100): author of The Education of the Orator, a highly influential treatise on rhetoric.

  Salamis: island off the coast of Attica, site of the Greek naval victory over Xerxes in 480 B.C.

  Samos: island off the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Sappho of Lesbos: 7th-century B.C. lyric poetess.

  Satrap: governor of a province in the Persian empire.

  Scholia: explanatory notes written as commentaries to texts.

  Scylla: a beautiful woman whose waist was encircled with ravening hounds that snatched sailors from passing ships.

  Scythians: barbarians living north and east of the Danube.

  Seleucus I: one of Alexander’s generals, subsequently founder of a dynasty of kings ruling much of the Middle East.

  Semonides of Amorgos: poet, probably 7th century B.C.

  Sextus Empiricus: Skeptic philosopher, probably 2nd century A.D.

  Sicyon: city near the Isthmus of Corinth.

  Smyrna: Greek city on the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey).

  Sophist: itinerant professor of higher education.

  Sophocles: with Aeschylus and Euripides, the greatest of the 5th-century Athenian tragedians.

  St. Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 150–ca. 212): Christian apologist and philosopher.

  Stobaeus (Iohannes Stobaeus [John of Stobi (in Macedonia)]): probably 5th-century A.D. author of an anthology of extracts from prose and poetry on many topics.

  Strabo (?64 B.C.–A.D.? 24): author of a voluminous treatise in Greek, the Geography.

  Suda: 10th-century Byzantine historical encyclopedia.

  Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus ca. A.D. 70–after 130): author of biographies of Julius Caesar and the first eleven emperors, as well as of poets, rhetoricians, and teachers.

  Sybaris: Greek city in southern Italy.

  Synesius (ca. A.D. 370–ca. 413): Neoplatonist philosopher and Christian bishop.

  Syracuse: Greek city on the east coast of Sicily.

  Talent: the largest unit of Greek money, worth six thousand drachmas.

  Thales of Miletus: 6th-century B.C. scientist and philosopher.

  Thasos: island in the north Aegean.

  Thebes: city in Boeotia.

  Themistocles (ca. 524–459 B.C.): Athenian politician and architect of the Greek victory at Salamis.

  Theocritus of Syracuse: 3rd-century B.C. poet.

  Theophrastus (ca. 370–ca. 287 B.C.): successor to Aristotle as head of the Lyceum.

  Thermopylae: pass between the mountains and the sea in central Greece, where the Spartans and their allies delayed the Persian army in 480 B.C.

  Thucydides (ca. 455–ca. 400 B.C.): Athenian admiral and author of an account of the Peloponnesian War.

  Timotheus of Gaza: 5th/6th-century A.D. grammarian.

  Tiresias: legendary Theban prophet.

  Trireme: ship with three banks of oars.

  Valerius Maximus: early 1st-century A.D. author of a collection of Famous Deeds and Sayings.

  Vettius Valens of Antioch (A.D. 120–?): author of a treatise on astrology.

  Vitruvius ([Marcus Vitruvius Pollio]? before 70–ca. 25 B.C.): author of a highly influential treatise on architecture.

  Xenocrates of Chalcedon (ca. 396–ca. 314 B.C.): head of the Academic school of philosophy at Athens.

  Xenophanes of Colophon: 6th-century B.C. natural philosopher and poet.

  Xenophon (ca. 430–354 B.C.): Athenian soldier and writer on philosophy, politics, history, hunting, and horses.

  Xerxes I: King of Persia 486–465 B.C.

  Zeno of Citium (335–263 B.C.): founder of Stoicism.

  THE COIN IMAGES

  ALL IMAGES of coins, at the chapter heads and throughout the interior, are reproduced courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., http://www.cngcoins.com/.

  Chapter I: Wild celery on a 6th-century B.C. didrachm from Selinus (“Celery Town”) in Sicily.

  Chapter II: Pegasus on a 4th-century B.C. stater from Syracuse.

  Chapter III: A bee on a 4th-century B.C. tetradrachm from Ephesus.

  Chapter IV: A satyr and a nymph on a late 5th-century B.C. stater from Thasos.

  Chapter V: Athena in an elephant chariot on a drachm minted by Seleucus I Nicator of Syria. Seleucus was given five hundred war elephants by the Indian emperor Chandragupta under the terms of a peace treaty in 305 B.C.

  Chapter VI: An owl on an Athenian tetradrachm minted in the second half of the 5th century B.C.

  Chapter VII: Heracles on a tetrobol minted at Sparta in the first half of the 1st century B.C.

  Chapter VIII: Alexander the Great/Heracles in a lion’s skin, minted soon after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C.

  Chapter IX: Young man on a dolphin, minted at Tarentum in the mid-3rd century B.C.

  Chapter X: An unidentified Achaemenid king on a 4th-century B.C. Persian daric.

  Chapter XI: Zeus on an early 3rd-century B.C. tetradrachm minted by King Pyrrhus of Epirus.

  Chapter XII: Hera on a stater minted at Elis in 376 B.C. to celebrate the 101st Olympic Games.

  Chapter XIII: Two heads on a 4th-century B.C. drachm from Istros on the Black Sea.

  Chapter XIV: Medusa on a 4th-century B.C. hemidrachm from Parion on the Hellespont.

  Chapter XV: Apollo on a 4th-century B.C. tetradrachm minted by Mausolus of Caria.

  Chapter XVI: Artemis the Savior on a bronze coin of Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse (ruled 317–289 B.C.).

  Chapter XVII: Arethusa, nymph of the spring in Syracuse, on a decadrachm minted in Syracuse at the end of the 5th century B.C.

  Chapter XVIII: A crab on a 5th-century B.C. tetradrachm fom Acragas in Sicily.

  Chapter XIX: A triform male head on an early 3rd-century B.C. obol from Cilicia.

  Chapter XX: A winged thunderbolt on a coin from Syracuse minted just before the city fell to the Romans in 211 B.C.

  Chapter XXI: Helios, the sun god, on a didrachm from Rhodes minted soon after Helios was depicted as the Colossus of Rhodes, set up to commemorate the failed siege of the city by Demetrius I of Macedon in 305 B.C.

  Chapter XXII: Apollo, the god of prophecy, on a 4th-century B.C. tetradrachm from Rhegium in south Italy.

  Chapter XXIII: A lion’s head on a 5th-century B.C. teradrachm from Leontini in Sicily, punning on the city’s name.

  Chapter XXIV: A wolf’s head on a late 2nd- or early 1st-century B.C. triobol from Argos.

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Amber Kleijwegt

  4, 36, 62, 114

  Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

  10, 41, 55, 127, 195, 253, 272

  Scala/Art Resource, NY

  66, 94, 188

  © The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY

  167, 206, 218

  Berlin/Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin/Ingrid Geske/Art Resource, NY

  38, 199

  Berlin/Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin/Johannes Laurentius/Art Resource, NY

  46

  © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

  67, 96

  Athenian Agora Excavations of the Ame
rican School of Classical Studies at Athens

  49

  Courtesy of NY Carlsburg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

  95

  Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY

  87

  Nimatallah/Art Resource, NY

  118

  Courtesy of the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum

  18

  Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd.

  29

  Martin von Wagner Museum. Photographer: Peter Neckermann

  133

  Courtesy of the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge University

  197

  Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas/Art Resource, NY

  204

  Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY

  225

  Foto Claire Niggli, Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig

  226

  Courtesy of the Epigraphical Museum, Athens, EM 12862 (IG II2, 8334)

  233

  © The Trustees of the British Museum

  238

  © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, Inv. Gl 292

  242

  © Royal Museums of Art and History, Musée du Cinquantenaire, Belgium

  258

  The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection Malibu, California.

  264

  Alinari/Art Resource, NY

  267

 

 

 


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