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Niehoff, Johannes (Freiburg) I. General (CT) [German version] A. Chronology and Delineation (CT) 'Greece' (G.) can be understood in a dual sense: on the one hand, the term is used to refer to the modern Greek state since its foundation (1830); however, 'G.' can also – without immediate reference to questions of statehood - describe the territories of the former Byzantine empire in which the Greek-speaking culture found expression after 1204 or 1453, whether in the context of the Ottoman Empire (OE) or within…

[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…

[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 Peninsula in southern Greece (21,439 km²), connected to the mainland (Attica, Boeotia) by the Isthmus of Corinth. It is predominantly mountainous (cf. Cyllene [1], Erymanthus [1], Lycaeum, western Messenian massif with Ithome [1], Taygetus, Parnon) and highly fragmented (cf. the numerous small rivers, particularly in Achaea, e.g. Alpheus [1], Pamisus, Eurotas, Inachus [2]; also the many small coastal plains a…

[German version] (Lat. Ragusium, Greek Ῥαούσιον/ Rhaoúsion, Slavic Dubrovnik; regarding the name cf. [1]), city on the Dalmatian coast. The beginnings of the trading city that was to become so famous a rival of Venice on the Adriatic Sea were hazy already for the historians of R. at the time of Humanism so that they arrived at different legends of its origin reminiscent of the type of ancient aetiology (cf. the depictions in [2; 3; 4]). The report by Constantinus [1] Porphyrogennetus (Const. de administ…

[German version] (Μηνολόγιον; Mēnológion). A collection of the lives of Saints of the Orthodox Church, arranged according to the feast-day of the corresponding saint, in accordance with the ecclesiastical year ( calendar). In contrast to the Synaxarion, which provides only brief notices for each saint, and to the Menaion, which usually contains liturgical songs and prayers for the saint's festival, the βίοι/ bíoi (‘lives’) of the Menologion are normally longer. It may have been mentioned first in Theodoros Studites [1. vol. 1, 21], yet the first preserved …

[German version] [1] Daughter of Creon (Μεγάρα/ Megára, Μεγάρη/ Megárē). Daughter of Creon [1] of Thebes, wife of Heracles [1] (Hom. Od. 11,269-270), who had received her hand in thanks for the liberation of Thebes from tribute to Erginus, and mother of some of the Heraclidae. Whereas the Thebans according to Paus. 9,11,2 tell of the insane Heracles' infanticide (on his insanity Cypria p. 40,28f. PEG) as nothing other than what Stesichorus (= 230 PMGF) and Panyassis (= fr. 1 PEG) relate, the version of P…

I. Geography and history [German version] A. The name and its development The name I. acquired its modern meaning during the Augustan period; it originally described the kingdom of the Oenotrian ruler Italus, comprising the Bruttian peninsula from Sila to Scylletium (Antiochus FGrH 555 F 5; according to Hecat. FGrH 1 F 41,51-53, Medma, Locris, Caulonia, and Krotalla were in I.). Hellanicus links I. with the term vitulus (‘calf’) and the legend of the calf of  Geryoneus which had run away from Hercules (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1,35); Timaeus associates the name wit…

[German version] The term ‘diglossia’ (not to be confused with  bilingualism) was already used late in the 19th cent. to characterize the Greek language situation. However, it only became a central concept in sociolinguistics with Ch. Ferguson's essay [1] in which he developed the canonical definition using Swiss German, (Modern) Greek, Arabic and Haitian Creole as examples. It considers diglossia to be a language situation in which the spoken primary language (which Ferguson labelled ‘L’ as in ‘Low’; in the Greek language area this was the δημοτική, dhimotikí), whether regionally…

[German version] The S. (Σκλαβηνοί/ Sklabēnoí since the 6th cent. AD; Lat. Sclaveni in Iordanes [1], from the early Slavic slověne; Σκλάβος/ Sklábos first in the High Middle Ages, from which 'slave', Arabic ṣaqāliba) are the youngest of the major linguistic groups of Europe; they first appear on the horizon of the Graeco-Roman culture in Late Antiquity. To date, the study of this process and the multifaceted acculturation processes between the S. and the ancient Mediterranean cultures, which occurred after c. AD 500, has been determined by the initial conditions of Slavic…

(Θρᾷκες/ Thrâikes, Θρῇκες/ Thrêikes; Θρᾴκη/ Thrâikē, Θρῄκη/ Thrêikē): the 'Thracians' and the country 'Thrace' settled by them; Lat. Thraci, Thracia. [German version] I. Name Thraci (Th.) is a Greek collective term, based on linguistic and cultural homogeneity, for the population of the northern Balkan Peninsula from the north coast of the Aegean (Aegean Sea, also called the 'Thracian Sea': Str. 1,2,20) to the Danube (Ister, Istrus [1]; ancient authors often include the territory as far as the northern Carpathians), an…

This item can be found on the following maps: Theatre | Coloniae | Dark Ages | Achaeans, Achaea | Macedonia, Macedones | Oracles | Peloponnesian War | Pilgrimage (Πάτραι/ Pátrai, ethnicon usually Πατρεύς/ Patreús, Latin Patrae, ethnicon Patrensis). [German version] I. Topography Town in western Achaea, with an important harbour, still known as P. today (on the name see [1]), created by synoikismós from seven villages (δῆμοι/ dḗmoi) (Str. 8,3,2; [2. 89-95, 120f.; 3; 4]). Unlike the modern town, P. was not on the coastal plain, but on the first, low rise above it…

[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. ( capitanata). This term thus corresponds in part to Magna Graecia. Niehoff, Johannes (Freiburg) Bibliography ODB, s.v. Katepano.

(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 …

(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. Lafond, Yves (Bochum) Olshausen, Eckart (Stutt…

(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). Kaletsch, Hans (Regensburg) Bibliography W. Ruge, s.v. P. (1), RE 18,3, 654  G.E. Bean, J.M. Cook, The Halicarnassus Peninsula, in: ABSA 50,…

[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 plants, and animals. Aside from the experiental knowledge,…

(Ἀθῆναι; Athênai; Lat. Athenae). [German version] [1] Capital of Attica This item can be found on the following maps: Writing | Theatre | Caesar | Christianity | Dark Ages | Grain Trade, Grain Import | Hellenistic states | Celts | Limes | Macedonia, Macedones | Marble | Mycenaean culture and archaeology | Natural catastrophes | Persian Wars | Punic Wars | Rome | Athletes | Attica | Attica | Delian League | Athenian League (Second) | Aegean Koine | Aegean Koine | Education / Culture | Mineral Resources Goette, Hans Rupprecht (Athens) [German version] I. Geography A. is the primary location …

[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 Asia minor in this sense is first used in Oros. 1,2,26 (early 5th cent. AD). Olshausen, Eckart (Stuttgart) [German version] II. Geography AM is the westernmost part of the Asian continent between 36° and 42° northern latitude, and 26° and 44° eastern longitude, stretching from the Aegean to the Euphrates ( c. 1,200 km), and fro…