Achaean LeagueThe Achaean League (Greek: Κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, Koinon ton Akhaion "League of Achaeans") was a Hellenistic-era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese. The league was named after the region of Achaea in the northwestern Peloponnese, which formed its original core. The first league was formed in the fifth century BC. The second Achaean League was established in 280 BC. As a rival of Antigonid Macedon and an ally of Rome, the league played a major role in the expansion of the Roman Republic into Greece.
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world.
Rough breathingIn the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing (dasỳ pneûma or δασεῖα daseîa; spīritus asper) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an h sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even after the Hellenistic period, when the sound disappeared from the Greek language. In the monotonic orthography of Modern Greek phonology, in use since 1982, it is not used at all. The absence of an /h/ sound is marked by the smooth breathing.
Library of CelsusThe Library of Celsus (Βιβλιοθήκη του Κέλσου) is an ancient Roman building in Ephesus, Anatolia, today located nearby the modern town of Selçuk, in the İzmir Province of western Turkey. The building was commissioned in the years 110s CE by a consul of the Roman Empire, Tiberius Julius Aquila Polemaeanus, as a funerary monument for his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, former proconsul of Asia, and completed during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, sometime after Aquila's death.
Hellenistic artHellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BCE, when the Greek mainland was taken, and essentially ending in 30 BCE with the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt following the Battle of Actium. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and His Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
LesbosLesbos or Lesvos (Lésvos ˈlezvos) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of , with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece and the eighth largest in the Mediterranean. It is separated from Asia Minor by the narrow Mytilini Strait. On the southeastern coast is the island's capital and largest city, Mytilene (Μυτιλήνη), whose name is also used as a moniker for the whole island. Lesbos is a separate regional unit with the seat in Mytilene, which is also the capital of the larger North Aegean region.
ZetaZeta (UK'ziːtə, US'zeɪtə; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; ζῆτα, ζήτα, classical d͡zɛ̌:ta or zdɛ̌:ta zē̂ta; ˈzita zíta) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter zayin . Letters that arose from zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З. Unlike the other Greek letters, this letter did not take its name from the Phoenician letter from which it was derived; it was given a new name on the pattern of beta, eta and theta.
Optative moodThe optative mood (ˈQptətɪv or Qpˈteɪtɪv; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mood. English has no morphological optative, but various constructions impute an optative meaning. Examples of languages with a morphological optative mood are Ancient Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Friulian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Navajo, Old Prussian, Old Persian, Sanskrit, Turkish, and Yup'ik.
Coptic languageCoptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is an Egyptian language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic was supplanted by Arabic as the primary spoken language of Egypt following the Muslim conquest of Egypt and was slowly replaced over the centuries. Coptic has no native speakers today, although it remains in daily use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and of the Coptic Catholic Church.
Biblical studiesBiblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament). For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from ancient history, historical criticism, philology, theology, textual criticism, literary criticism, historical backgrounds, mythology, and comparative religion. Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature.
