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[German version] [1] Town in northeastern Sicily This item can be found on the following maps: Sicily | Socii (Roman confederation) | | Commerce | Italy, languages | Colonization | Punic Wars | Punic Wars (Μεσσάνα/ Messána, Ionian Μεσσήνη/ Messḗnē, Lat. Messana). Town in northeastern Sicily, modern Messina. The original name Zancle (Ζάγκλη/ Zánklē = Siculan: ‘sickle’) is derived from the topographically suggestive shape of the natural harbour (Thuc. 6,4,5). Sonnabend, Holger (Stuttgart) [German version] A. Foundation The site was settled at an early time because of its o…

(Ἤπειρος; Ḗpeiros, Epirus) [German version] I. Region E. is located at the north-western fringe of the Greek cultural sphere, nowadays comprising northern Greece and southern Albania. From Homer (8th cent. BC) to the late 5th cent., the geographical term ἤπειρος ( ḗpeiros) referred to the mainland north of the Gulf of Ambracia. There is a wide variation in the attribution of individual tribes to E. both in ancient and modern literature, making it impossible clearly to define E.'s geographic expansion [1]. E. was bordered in the west by the Ionian Sea, its southern border (to the  Acarnanians and  Amphilochi) was the Gulf of Ambracia, and its eastern one to the Macedonians ( Macedonia),  Thessalians, and Athamanes ( Athamania) the high mountains of the Pindus range, passable only in a few places; its northern border is taken to be the Aous and the Acroceraunian Mountains, but both culturally and linguistically, the boundaries to the Illyrians in the transitory area of Amantia and  Byllis are fluid. West to east communication within E. is very restricted, because the region is dissected from NNW to SSE by four mighty limestone and flysch mountain ranges, with a height of up to 2,633 m. The rivers in the mountainous regions are not navigable, even though they carry a lot of water because of the high level of precipitation; the Aous (mod. Vjosë) has its mouth in Albania, the Thyamis (Kalamas) in a sizeable delta opposite Corcyra, the Acheron south of the mod. Parga, and the Luros and Arachthus flow into the Gulf of Ambraci…

[German version] The title (πράξεις [τῶν] ἀποστόλων; práxeis [tôn] apostólōn or acta/actus apostolorum), which was first documented in the late 2nd cent., is almost certainly not its original. Paul is not really considered an apostle by the author. Acts is part of the Lukan historical corpus together with the Gospel designated as πρῶτος λόγος ( prôtos lógos) in 1.1. Repetitions and contradictions (e.g. Lk 24,50-53 and Acts 1,9-11) are explained as a variatio. The structure of Acts is presented in 1,8: spread of the gospel by ‘witnesses’ and the ‘power of the Holy Gh…

(ἡ Πελοπόννησος/ hē Pelopónnēsos, Doric Πελοπόννασος/ Pelopónnasos). [German version] I. Geography…

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[German version] [1] Attic Paralia deme of the phyle Hippothontis This item can be found on the following maps: Dark Ages | Linear B | Macedonia, Macedones | Mycenaean culture and archaeology | Peloponnesian War | Attica | Attica | Aegean Koine | Education / Culture …

This item can be found on the following maps: …

This item can be found on the following maps: Theatre | Coloniae | Dark Ages | Achaeans, Achaea | Macedonia, Macedones | Oracles | Peloponnesian War | Pilgrimage (Πάτραι/ Pátrai, ethnicon usua…

[German version] Since Southern Italy was governed by a katepano (Byzantine, usually a military title, derived from κατ' ἐπάνω, attested from the 9th cent. AD onward) prior to the Norman conquest, the Normans referred to the previously Byzantine regions as K. ( …

(ὁ Πόντος/ ho Póntos, Lat. Pontus). Olshausen, Eckart (Stuttgart) [German version] I. Location Region on the south coast of the Black Sea (Pontos Euxeinos) between Paphlagonia (west), Colchis (east) and Cappadocia (south), divided into a narrow northern coastal plain with various Greek towns (cf. Amisus, Cotyora, Pharnaceia, Trapezus) and an interior south of the northern Anatolian frontier mountain range around Iris [3] and Lycus [19], still known into the 1st cent. BC as Καππαδοκία ἡ περὶ τὸν Εὔξεινον/ Kappadokía hē perì tòn Eúxeinon (Pol. 5,43,1; cf. ἡ πρὸς τῷ Πόντῳ Καππαδοκία/ hē pròs tôi Póntōi

(Ναυπλία/ Nauplía, Byzantine τὸ Ναύπλιον/ tò Naúplion or τὸ Ἀνάπλι/ tò Anápli, present-day Nafplio). [German version] I. Position Port on a rocky peninsula near the Kolpos Argolikos (Str. 8,2,2; Scyl. 49; 6,11; Ptol. 3,16,11) on the northern slope of the town’s mountain, Akronafplia (formerly Iç Kale, 85m high). Greater parts of the Hellenistic acropolis wall lie under the later Byzantine- Venetian- Turkish fort. It lies to the north-west of the Palamidi (215 m high) which is surmounted by a fortress built by the Venetians in 1711-1714.…

(Πάνορμος; Pánormos). [German version] [1] Harbour on the coast of Karia Harbour on the coast of Karia (Stadiasmus maris magni 285; 287; 294 with contradictory details) between Miletus [2] and Myndus, located at a distance of 80 stadia (14.8 km) from them, therefore near (Aşağı) Gölköy, which is the location also assumed for Caryanda, near the natural harbour of the Türkbükü bay or further to the west at the Ağaçbaşı-Limanı bay (Paşa Limanı).…

[German version] I. Collective term for agricultural technical literature In the broader sense, G. refers to a genre of  technical literature, represented by numerous writings, which aims at a systematic representation of ‘scientific’ knowledge about all types of agriculture [1; 2; 3. 427ff.]. The spectrum of knowledge contained therein is very broad: it reaches from naïve peasant magic to speculative attempts at classifying types of soil, useful pla…

[German version] I. Name Strabo was the first to refer to the peninsula of Asia Minor (AM) west of the  Taurus (Str. 2,5,24; 12,1,3; cf. Plin. HN 5,27f.; Ptol. 5,2) as a single unit by the name of Asia in the narrower sense, as opposed to the continent of Asia. The term of …

This item can be found on the following maps: | Coloniae | Hellenistic states | Hellenistic states | Macedonia, Macedones | Moesi, Moesia | Rome …

[German version] A. General, Terminology The term Judaism is derived from the Hebrew Yehuda (cf. the tribal name Juda,  Juda and Israel), whose etymology is not entirely certain. It denotes not only the Jewish religion, but also - and quite particularly so - the ethnic belonging to the Jewish people, which is not unproblematical from our modern view, as well as the people's entire cultural, political and philosophical milieu, in Ancient Israel and in the  Diaspora. A generally recognized, handy definition of Judai…

Niehoff, Johannes (Freiburg) I. General (CT) [German version] A. Chronology and Delineation (CT) 'Greece' (G.) can be unders…

(Koran) [German version] A. Definition The sacred book of the Muslims, the word of God, received through the prophet Muhammad c. AD 610-632. Schönig, Hanne (Halle/Saale) [German version] B. Origin The divine revelations had already been collected in oral and written form by the faithful during the lifetime of the prophet, but it was the 3rd Caliph Othman (ʿUṯmān; 644-56) who compiled them in their ultimate, unchangeable, canonical form. Schönig, Hanne (Halle/Saale) [German version] C. Structure and form - language and style The 114 Suras (loan word from Talmudic šūrah ‘sequence, lin…

This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids | Writing | Christianity | Zenobia | Kypros | Diadochi and Epigoni | Natural catastrophes | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pompeius | Rome | Rome | Aegean Koine | Education / Culture (Πάφος; Páphos). [German version] I. Old Paphus In antiquity two cities on the southern coast of Cyprus bore the name P.; from the Roman Imperial period, they were differentiated as New P. (Νέα Πάφος/ Néa Páphos, near modern Kato P.) and Old P. (Παλαίπαφος/ Palaípaphos, near modern Kouklia). (Old) P. is first mentioned on the Prism of Asarhaddon (673/2 B…