Timaeus - Timaeus Timaeus (c. 345—c. 250 BC), Greek historian, was born at Tauromenium in Sicily. Driven out by Agathocles, he migrated to Athens, where be studied rhetoric under a pupil of Isocrates and lived for fifty years. During the reign of Hiero II he returned to Sicily (probably to Syracuse), where he died. While at Athens he completed his great historical work, The Histories, in more than 30 books, was divided into unequal sections, containing the history of Italy and Sicily in early times; of Sicily alone; of Sicily and Greece; of the cities and kings of Syria (unless the text of Suidas is corrupt); the lives of Agathocles and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. The chronological sketch (The victors at Olympia) perhaps formed an appendix to the.
Johannes Kepler - all, the Cube, then the Pyramid, and finally the Dodecahedron. To the second group belongs, first, the Octahedron, and second, the Icosahedron. That is why the most important portion of the universe, the Earth - where God's image is reflected in man - separates the two groups. For, as I have proved next, the solids of the first group must lie beyond the earth's orbit, and those of the second group within...Thus I was led to assign the Cube to Saturn, the Tetrahedron to Jupiter, the Dodecahedron to Mars, the Icosahedron to Venus, and Octahedron to Mercury ... To emphasize his theory, Kepler envisaged an impressive model of the universe which shows a cube, inside a sphere, with a tetrahedron inscribed in it, another sphere inside it with a dodecahedron inscribed,.
John of Salisbury - then agitating England. With Becket he withdrew to France during the king's displeasure; he returned with him in 1170, and was in Canterbury at the time of his assassination. In the following years, during which he continued in an influential situation in Canterbury, but at what precise date is unknown, he wrote a Life of Becket. In 1176 he was made bishop of Chartres, where he passed the remainder of his life. In 1179 he took an active part in the third Lateran council. He died at or near Chartres on October 25 1180. John's writings enable us to understand with much completeness the literary and scientific position of the 12th century. His views imply a cultivated intelligence well versed in practical affairs, opposing to the extremes of both nominalism and.
Hegesias of Magnesia - 648), speaks of him as the founder of the florid style of composition known as "Asiatic" (cf. Timaeus). Hegesias was also known as the "death-persuader" as many of his students would commit suicide after hearing him. Agatharchides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Cicero all speak of him in disparaging terms, although Varro seems to have approved of his work. He professed to imitate the simple style of Lysias, avoiding long periods,and expressing himself in short, jerky sentences, without modulation or finish. His vulgar affectation and bombast made his writings a mere caricature of the old Attic. Dionysius describes his composition as tinselled, ignoble and effeminate. It is generally supposed, from the fragment quoted as a specimen by Dionysius, that Hegesias is to be classed among the writers of lives of Alexander the.
History of philosophy - of Socrates. Socrates (469-399 BC), Athenian philosopher, put to death on charges of corrupting the youth. Prodicus (fl. 5th cent. BC), Sophist contemporay with Socrates. Democritus (460-370 BC), famous atomic philosopher. Euclides of Megara (450-380 BC), associate of Socrates and founder of the Megarian school. Antisthenes (445-360 BC), companion of Socrates, often associated with the later Cynic movement. Aristippus (435-356 BC), companion of Socrates, traditionally the founder of the Cyrenaic school devoted to hedonism. Plato (429-347 BC), younger associate of Socrates, founder of the Academy, teacher of Aristotle. Xenophon (427-355 BC), historian and philosophical author, famous for his accounts of Socrates. Speusippus (407-339 BC), pupil of Plato who succeeded him as second head of the Academy. Diogenes of Sinope (400-325 BC), Cynic philosopher. Xenocrates (396-314 BC), follower of Plato and third.
History of anatomy in ancient times - form part of that collection of treatises which have long been known to the learned world under the general name of the Hippocratic writings. Though composed, like the genuine remains of the physician of Cos, in the Ionian dialect, all of them differ from these in being more diffuse in style, more elaborate in form, and in studying to invest their anatomical and medical matter with the fanciful ornaments of the Platonic philosophy. Hippocrates had the merit of early recognizing the value of facts apart from opinions, and of those facts especially which lead to general results; and in the few genuine writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he has recourse to the simplest language, expresses himself in terms which, though short and pithy, are always.
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus - and his successors. It began with Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, and ended at about the same point as Livy (AD 9). The last event recorded by the epitomator Justin is the recovery of the Roman standards captured by the Parthians (20 BC). He left untouched Roman history up to the time when Greece and the East came into contact with Rome, possibly because Livy had sufficiently treated it. The work was based upon the writings of Greek historians, such as Theopompus (also the author of a Philippica), Ephorus, Timaeus, Polybius. Chiefly on the ground that such a work was beyond the powers of a Roman, it is generally agreed that Trogus did not gather together the information from the leading Greek historians for himself, but that it was already combined.
Gylippus - Spartans to send a general to lead the Syracusan resistance against the Athenian expedition, Gylippus was appointed (414 BC), and his arrival was a turning point of the struggle. Diodorus, probably following Timaeus, represents him as inducing the Syracusans to pass sentence of death on the captive Athenian generals, but there is also the statement of Philistus (Plutarch, Nicias, 28), a Syracusan who himself took part in the defence, and Thucydides (vii. 86), that he tried, though without success, to save their lives, wishing to take them to Sparta as a signal proof of his success. Gylippus, like his father, met his downfall in a financial scandal; entrusted by Lysander with an immense sum which he was to deliver to the ephors at Sparta, he could not resist the temptation to.
Diodorus Siculus - portion of his narrative. He shows none of the critical faculties of the historian, merely setting down a number of unconnected details. His narrative contains frequent repetitions and contradictions, is without colouring, and monotonous; and his simple diction, which stands intermediate between pure Attic and the colloquial Greek of his time, enables us to detect in the narrative the undigested fragments of the materials which he employed. In spite of its defects, however, the Bibliotheca is of considerable value as to some extent supplying the loss of the works of older authors, from which it is compiled. Unfortunately, Diodorus does not always quote his authorities, but his general sources of information were in history and chronology, Castor, Ephorus and Apollodorus; in geography, Agatharchides and Artemidorus. In special sections he followed special.
Demiurge - precise nature and character of the Demiurge varies considerably, from being the benign architect of matter in some systems, to the personification of evil in others. Plato refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Timaeus as the entity who "fashioned and shaped" the material world. Plato describes the Demiurge as unreservedly good and hence desirous that the world should be as good as possible. The reason why the world is imperfect is that the Demiurge had to work on pre-existing chaotic matter. Gnosticism also presents this distinction between the overall "creator" and the Demiurge. However, in contrast to Plato, many systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as being antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Creator, the Demiurge being focused solely on material reality and the "sensuous soul". In this.
David Ruhnken - university librarian, in which Ruhnken was successful. Ruhnken's later years were clouded by severe domestic misfortune, and by the political commotions which, after the outbreak of the war with England in 1780, troubled the Netherlands without ceasing, and threatened to extinguish the university of Leiden. Ruhnken was not in any way a recluse or a pedant. He had good looks, attractive manners, and an open unpretentious personality. He was sociable and cared nothing for rank. His biographer says of him in his early days that he knew how to sacrifice to the Sirens without proving traitor to the Muses. Life in the open air had a great attraction for him; he was fond of sport, and would sometimes devote to it two or three days in the week. In his bearing.
Daniel Albert Wyttenbach - last year was to be devoted to theology and Christian dogma. Up to now, Wyttenbach had submitted passively to his father's wishes concerning his career, but he now turned away from theological lectures, and devoted his leisure to the task of deepening and extending his knowledge of Greek literature. He possessed at the time, as he tells us, no more acquaintance with Greek than his own pupils at a later time could acquire from him during four months' study. He had access only to the bare texts of the authors. Wyttenbach was undaunted, and four years' persistent study gave him a knowledge of Greek such as few Germans of that time possessed. His love for philosophy carried him towards the Greek philosophers, especially Plato. During this period Ruhnken's notes on the.
250 BC - Metellus captures 140 war elephants in Sicily, transports them to Rome and displays them in the Circus Maximus. Births Deaths Marcus Atilius Regulus, Roman general and consul Timaeus, Greek historian Erasistratus, Greek anatomist (approximate date) Zhao Xiang Wang, King of the Qin Dynasty of China. Xiao Wen Wang, King of the Qin Dynasty of China..
Agathocles - have been meditating a fresh attack on Carthage at the time of his death. His last years were harassed by ill-health and the turbulence of his grandson Archagathus, at whose instigation he is said to have been poisoned; according to others, he died a natural death. He was a born leader of mercenaries, and, although he did not shrink from cruelty to gain his ends, he afterwards showed himself a mild and popular "tyrant." See Justin xxii., xxiii.; Diodorus Siculus xix., xxi., xxii. (follows generally Timaeus who had a special grudge against Agathocles); Polybius ix. 23; Schubert, Geschichte des Agathokles (1887); Grote, History of Greece, ch. 97; from a 1911 encyclopedia.
Atlantis - destroyed by a natural disaster (probably an earthquake) about 9,000 years before Plato's own time. Accounts Plato's Timaeus and Critias are the only written mentions of Atlantis, in which he gives some information on the size and location of the Atlantis island. Atlantis might be a work of pure fiction, however, possibly intended to illustrate Plato's philosophy on the ideal government. Plato's account purports to be based on a visit to Egypt by the Athenian lawgiver Solon. Sonchis, priest of Thebes, translated it into Greek for Solon. Aristotle wrote of a large island in the Atlantic that the Carthaginians knew as Antilia. It is interesting that this name makes sense in Portuguese: ante-ilha meaning before/against-island. Proclus, the commentator of "Timaeus" mentions that Marcellus, relying on ancient historians, stated in his Aethiopiaka.
Atomism - people to notice that it was much more pleasurable to live in a community in which there was harmony, in which there was friendship, in which there was freedom, in which men and women were treated equally, in which people felt that there was fairness, and in which people felt that they had something to look forward to when they thought about the next day, the next month, the next year. And in attempting to describe the principles that actually worked for people to give them pleasure, value, and hope, Epicurus and his community of Epicureans developed a series of aphorisms for people to revise according to what worked, to discuss when sorting through problems, and to memorize for testing and using in helping each other--because they were alone in the.
Xenocrates - intelligible ideas; and mind as a plurality, i.e. particular mind, perceives its own plurality as transitory, mutable, sensible things. The idea, inasmuch as it is a law of universal mind, which in particular minds produces aggregates of sensations called things, is a "determinant", and as such is styled "quantity" and perhaps "number"; but the ideal numbers are distinct from arithmetical numbers. Xenocrates, however, failing, as it would seem, to grasp the idealism which was the metaphysical foundation of Plato's theory of natural kinds, took for his principles arithmetical unity and plurality, and accordingly identified ideal numbers with arithmetical numbers. In thus reverting to the crudities of certain Pythagoreans, he laid himself open to the criticisms of Aristotle, who, in his Metaphysics, recognizing amongst contemporary Platonists three principal groups those who, like.
The City of the Sun - sedition. A Latin version was written in 1613 - 1614 and published in Frankfurt in 1623. The City of the Sun is presented as a dialogue between "a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller and a Genoese Sea-Captain". Inspired by Plato's Republic and the description of Atlantis in Timaeus, it describes a theocratic society where goods, women and children are held in common. In the final part of the work, Campanella prophesies -- in the vealed language of astrology -- that the Spanish kings, in alliance with the Pope, are destined to be the instruments of a Divine Plan: the final victory of the True Faith and its diffusion in the whole world. While one could argue that Campanella was simply thinking of the conquest of the New World, it seems that.
Creator god - matter of faith, the possibility of evolution). Liberal versions, in contrast to both of these views of acts of the Creator, may not understand any of these to be statements of fact, but rather, spiritual insights more vaguely defined. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Physical reality (space, matter and/or energy) is eternal, and therefore does not have an absolute origin. The Creator is an architect and organizer of pre-existent matter and energy, who constructed the present universe out of the raw material. Hinduism Hinduism holds that God is the foundation of all being, and that the universe has a definite origin from God; and yet at the ultimate level, all assertions of a distinction between God and creation are meaningless. This is not to say however, that in.
The Garden of Cyrus - divided Spirits, there may be (for ought I know) an universal and common Spirit to the whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, and is yet of the Hermeticall philosophers; if there be a common nature that unites and ties the scattered and divided individuals into one species, why may there not be one that untyes them all? Text The opening lines of The Garden of Cyrus depicts the creation of the cosmos. Like many alchemist-physicians Browne was fascinated with life's beginnings, thus cosmic imagery opens his joyous Discourse upon life, light and beauty. The act of the Creation itself is likened to the alchemical opus - God is viewed as a cosmic alchemist. The opening paragraph of Cyrus alludes to Vulcan of the alchemists. The Roman god of fire.
