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# Alboin
## Invasion of Italy {#invasion_of_italy}
### Siege of Ticinum {#siege_of_ticinum}
The first attested instance of strong resistance to Alboin\'s migration took place at the town of Ticinum (Pavia), which he started to besiege in 569 and captured only after three years. The town was of strategic importance, sitting at the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino and connected by waterways to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy and the seat of the Praetorian prefecture of Italy. Its fall cut direct communications between the garrisons stationed on the Alpes Maritimae and the Adriatic coast.
Careful to maintain the initiative against the Byzantines, by 570 Alboin had taken their last defences in northern Italy except for the coastal areas of Liguria and Venetia and a few isolated inland centres such as Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), Segusio (Susa), and the island of Amacina in the Larius Lucus (Lake Como). During Alboin\'s kingship the Lombards crossed the Apennines and plundered Tuscia, but historians are not in full agreement as to whether this took place under his guidance and if this constituted anything more than raiding. According to Herwig Wolfram, it was probably only in 578--579 that Tuscany was conquered, but Jörg Jarnut and others believe this began in some form under Alboin, although it was not completed by the time of his death.
Alboin\'s problems in maintaining control over his people worsened during the siege of Ticinum. The nature of the Lombard monarchy made it difficult for a ruler to exert the same degree of authority over his subjects as had been exercised by Theodoric over his Goths, and the structure of the army gave great authority to the military commanders or *duces*, who led each band (*fara*) of warriors. Additionally, the difficulties encountered by Alboin in building a solid political entity resulted from a lack of imperial legitimacy, as, unlike the Ostrogoths, they had not entered Italy as *foederati* but as enemies of the Empire.
The king\'s disintegrating authority over his army was also manifested in the invasion of Frankish Burgundy which from 569 or 570 was subject to yearly raids on a major scale. The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus\' victory at Embrun. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard-Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram in about 571. Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia, Sigebert I. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham.
The weakening of royal authority may also have resulted in the conquest of much of southern Italy by the Lombards, in which modern scholars believe Alboin played no role at all, probably taking place in 570 or 571 under the auspices of individual warlords. However it is far from certain that the Lombard takeover occurred during those years, as very little is known of Faroald and Zotto\'s respective rises to power in Spoletium (Spoleto) and Beneventum (Benevento).
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# Alboin
## Assassination
### Earliest narratives {#earliest_narratives}
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| \"When his wife Chlotsinda died, Albin married another wife whose father he had killed a short time before. For this reason, the woman always hated her husband and awaited an opportunity to avenge the wrong done to her father, and so it happened that she fell in love with one of the household slaves and poisoned her husband. When he died she went off with the slave but they were overtaken and put to death together.\" |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ***Gregory of Tours***\ |
| Historia Francorum, Book II, Ch. 41 |
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Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.
It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on 28 June 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin\'s death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by Marius of Aventicum in his *Chronica*, written about a decade after Alboin\'s murder. According to his version, the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called Hilmegis (Paul\'s Helmechis), with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. Roger Collins describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.
Also contemporary is Gregory of Tours\' account presented in the *Historia Francorum*, and echoed by the later Fredegar. Gregory\'s account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband\'s servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the *Historia* and calls its account of Alboin\'s demise \"a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity\".
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# Alboin
## Assassination
### Skull cup {#skull_cup}
Elements present in Marius\' account are echoed in Paul\'s *Historia Langobardorum*, which also contains distinctive features. One of the best-known aspects unavailable in any other source is that of the skull cup. In Paul, the events that led to Alboin\'s downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast, Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin \"invited her to drink merrily with her father\". This reignited the queen\'s determination to avenge her father. The tale has been often dismissed as a fable and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason, he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king Ratchis. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples and, in particular, among the Lombards\' neighbours, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a shamanistic ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man\'s powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund\'s skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy\'s skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen\'s answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.
The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the promised land, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites original sin and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.
### Death
In her plan to kill her husband Rosamund found an ally in Helmichis, the king\'s foster brother and *spatharius* (arms bearer). According to Paul the queen then recruited the king\'s *cubicularius* (bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on 28 June, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin\'s sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him. Alboin\'s remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.
Peredeo\'s figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the *Origo* had for the first time mentioned his name as \"Peritheus\", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo\'s name and the Latin word *perditus*, meaning \"lost\", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.
Alboin\'s death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elbe to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and Bavarians celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.
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# Alboin
## Aftermath
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| \"Helmegis then, upon the death of his king, attempted to usurp his kingdom, but he could not at all do this, because the Langobards, grieving greatly for the king\'s death, strove to make way with him. And straightway Rosemund sent word to Longinus, prefect of Ravenna, that he should quickly send a ship to fetch them. Longinus, delighted by such a message, speedily sent a ship in which Helmegis with Rosemund his wife embarked, fleeing at night.\" |
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| ***Paul the Deacon***\ |
| Historia Langobardorum, Book II, Ch. 29 |
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To complete the coup d\'état and legitimize his claim to the throne, Helmichis married the queen, whose high standing arose not only from being the king\'s widow but also from being the most prominent member of the remaining Gepid nation, and as such her support was a guarantee of the Gepids\' loyalty to Helmichis. The latter could also count on the support of the Lombard garrison of Verona, where many may have opposed Alboin\'s aggressive policy and could have cultivated the hope of reaching an entente with the Empire. The Byzantines were almost certainly deeply involved in the plot. It was in their interest to stem the Lombard tide by bringing a pro-Byzantine regime into power in Verona, and possibly, in the long run, break the unity of the Lombards\' kingdom, winning over the dukes with honours and emoluments.
The coup ultimately failed, as it met with the resistance of most of the warriors, who were opposed to the king\'s assassination. As a result, the Lombard garrison in Ticinum proclaimed Duke Cleph the new king, and Helmichis, rather than going to war against overwhelming odds, escaped to Ravenna with Longinus\' assistance, taking with him his wife, his troops, the royal treasure and Alboin\'s daughter Albsuinda. In Ravenna, the two lovers became estranged and killed each other. Subsequently, Longinus sent Albsuinda and the treasure to Constantinople. thumb\|upright=1.5\|alt=A map of Italy divided in orange and green colors, with a green blot for \"Longobard\" an orange one for \"Byzantine\"\|Lombard and Byzantine territories at Alboin\'s death (572) Cleph kept the throne for only 18 months before being assassinated by a slave. Possibly he too was killed at the instigation of the Byzantines, who had every interest in avoiding a hostile and solid leadership among the Lombards. An important success for the Byzantines was that no king was proclaimed to succeed Cleph, opening a decade of interregnum, thus making them more vulnerable to attacks from the Franks and Byzantines. It was only when faced with the danger of annihilation by the Franks in 584 that the dukes elected a new king in the person of Authari, son of Cleph, who began the definitive consolidation and centralization of the Lombard kingdom while the remaining imperial territories were reorganized under the control of an exarch in Ravenna with the capacity to defend the country without the Emperor\'s assistance.
The consolidation of Byzantine and Lombard dominions had long-lasting consequences for Italy, as the region was from that moment on fragmented among multiple rulers until Italian unification in 1871
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
**Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa** (c. 1453 -- 16 December 1515), was a Portuguese general, admiral, statesman and *conquistador*. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander.
Albuquerque advanced the three-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. Among his achievements, Albuquerque managed to conquer Goa and was the first European of the Renaissance to raid the Persian Gulf, and he led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He is generally considered a highly effective military commander, and \"probably the greatest naval commander of the age\", given his successful strategy of attempting to close all the Indian Ocean naval passages to the Atlantic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to the Pacific, transforming it into a Portuguese *mare clausum*. He was appointed head of the \"fleet of the Arabian and Persian sea\" in 1506.
Many of the conflicts in which he was directly involved took place in the Indian Ocean, in the Persian Gulf regions for control of the trade routes, and on the coasts of India. His military brilliance in these initial campaigns enabled Portugal to become the first global empire in history. He led the Portuguese forces in numerous battles, including the conquest of Goa in 1510 and the capture of Malacca in 1511.
During the last five years of his life, he turned to administration, where his actions as the second governor of Portuguese India were crucial to the longevity of the Portuguese Empire. He oversaw expeditions that resulted in establishing diplomatic contacts with the Ayutthaya Kingdom through his envoy Duarte Fernandes, with Pegu in Myanmar, and Timor and the Moluccas through a voyage headed by António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão. He laid the path for European trade with Ming China through Rafael Perestrello. He also aided in establishing diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, and established diplomatic ties with Persia during the Safavid dynasty.
Throughout his career, he received epithets such as \"the Terrible\", \"the Great\", \"the Lion of the Seas\", \"the Portuguese Mars\", and \"the Caesar of the East\".
## Early life {#early_life}
Afonso de Albuquerque was born in 1453 in Alhandra, near Lisbon. He was the second son of Gonçalo de Albuquerque, Lord of Vila Verde dos Francos, and Dona Leonor de Menezes. His father held an important position at court and was connected by remote illegitimate descent with the Portuguese monarchy. He was a descendant of King Denis's illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches, Lord of Albuquerque. He was educated in mathematics and Latin at the court of Afonso V of Portugal, where he befriended Prince John, the future King John II of Portugal.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Early military service, 1471--1509 {#early_military_service_14711509}
In 1471, under the command of Afonso V, he was present at the conquest of Tangier and Arzila in Morocco, and he served there as an officer for some years. In 1476, he accompanied Prince John in wars against Castile, including the Battle of Toro. He participated in the campaign on the Italian peninsula in 1480 to assist Ferdinand I of Naples in repelling the Ottoman invasion of Otranto. On his return in 1481, when John was crowned as King John II, Albuquerque was made master of the horse and chief equerry (**estribeiro-mor**) to the king, a post which he held throughout John\'s reign. In 1489, he returned to military campaigning in North Africa, as commander of defense in the Graciosa fortress, an island in the river Luco near the city of Larache. In 1490 Albuquerque was part of the guard of John II. He returned to Arzila in 1495, where his younger brother Martim died fighting by his side.
### First expedition to India, 1503 {#first_expedition_to_india_1503}
When King Manuel I of Portugal ascended to the throne following the death of his cousin John II, he held a cautious attitude towards Albuquerque, who was a close friend of his predecessor and seventeen years Manuel\'s senior. Eight years later, on 6 April 1503 Albuquerque was sent on his first expedition to India together with his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque. Each commanded three ships, sailing with Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Nicolau Coelho. They engaged in several battles against the forces of the Zamorin of Calicut (*Calecute*, Kozhikode) and succeeded in establishing the king of Cochin (*Cochim*, Kochi) securely on his throne. In return, the king of Cochin gave the Portuguese permission to build the Portuguese fort *Immanuel* (Fort Kochi) and establish trade relations with Quilon (*Coulão*, Kollam). This laid the foundation for the eastern Portuguese Empire.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Second expedition to India, 1506--1509 {#second_expedition_to_india_15061509}
### Return, 1506 {#return_1506}
thumb\|upright=1.3\|Map of the Arabian Peninsula showing the Red Sea with Socotra island (red) and the Persian Gulf (blue) with the Strait of Hormuz (Cantino planisphere, 1502) Albuquerque returned home in July 1504 and was well received by King Manuel I. After he assisted with the creation of a strategy for the Portuguese efforts in the east, King Manuel entrusted him with the command of a squadron of five vessels in the fleet of sixteen sailing for India in early 1506, headed by Tristão da Cunha. The aim of the expedition was to conquer Socotra and build a fortress there, hoping to close the trade in the Red Sea.
Albuquerque went as \"chief-captain for the Coast of Arabia\", sailing under da Cunha\'s orders until reaching Mozambique. He carried a sealed letter with a secret mission ordered by the king: after fulfilling the first mission, he was to replace the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, whose term ended two years later. Before departing, he legitimized his son Brás (\"Braz\" in the old Portuguese spelling), born to a common Portuguese woman named Joana Vicente in 1500.
### First conquest of Socotra, Muscat and Ormuz, 1507 {#first_conquest_of_socotra_muscat_and_ormuz_1507}
The fleet left Lisbon on 6 April 1506. Albuquerque piloted his ship himself, having lost his appointed pilot on departure. In Mozambique Channel, they rescued Captain João da Nova, who had encountered difficulties on his return from India; da Nova and his ship, the *Flor de la mar*, joined da Cunha\'s fleet. From Malindi, da Cunha sent envoys to Ethiopia, which at the time was thought to be closer to India than it actually is, under the aegis of Albuquerque. After failing to reach Ethiopia, he managed to land the envoys in Filuk. After successful attacks on Arab cities on the East African coast, the expedition conquered the island of Socotra and built a fortress at Suq, hoping to establish a base to stop the Red Sea commerce to the Indian Ocean. However, Socotra was abandoned four years later, as it was eventually realised to be a poor location for a base. At Socotra, they parted ways: Tristão da Cunha sailed for India, where he would relieve the Portuguese besieged at Cannanore, while Afonso took seven ships and 500 men to Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, one of the chief eastern centers of commerce. On his way, he conquered the cities of Curiati (Kuryat), Muscat in July 1507, and Khor Fakkan, accepting the submission of the cities of Kalhat and Sohar. He arrived at Hormuz on 25 September and soon captured the city, which agreed to become a tributary state of the Portuguese king. Ormuz was then a tributary state of Shah Ismail I (`{{Reign|1501|1524}}`{=mediawiki}) of Safavid Persia. In a famous episode, shortly after its conquest, Albuquerque was confronted by Persian envoys, who demanded the payment of the due tribute from him instead. He ordered them to be given a stock of cannonballs, arrows and weapons, retorting that \"such was the currency struck in Portugal to pay the tribute demanded from the dominions of King Manuel\". According to Brás de Albuquerque, it was Shah Ismael who first addressed Albuquerque as \"Lion of the seas\".
Afonso began building the Fort of Our Lady of Victory (later renamed Fort of Our Lady of the Conception) on Hormuz Island, engaging his men of all ranks in the work. However, some of his officers, claiming that Afonso was exceeding his orders, revolted against the heavy work and climate and departed for India. With his fleet reduced to two ships and left without supplies, he was unable to maintain his position. In January 1508, he was forced to abandon Ormuz. He raided coastal villages to resupply the settlement of Socotra, returned to Ormuz, and then headed to India.
### Arrest at Cannanore, 1509 {#arrest_at_cannanore_1509}
Afonso arrived at Cannanore on the Malabar coast in December 1508, where he opened the sealed letter that he had received from the king before the viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, which named him as governor to succeed Almeida. The viceroy, supported by the officers who had abandoned Afonso at Ormuz, had a matching royal order but declined to yield. He protested that his term ended only in January and stated his intention to avenge his son\'s death by fighting the Mamluk fleet of Mirocem, refusing Afonso\'s offer to fight the Mamluk fleet himself. Afonso avoided confrontation, which could have led to civil war, and moved to Kochi, India, to await further instruction from the king. Increasingly isolated, he wrote to Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who arrived in India with a new fleet, but was ignored as Sequeira joined Almeida. At the same time, Afonso refused approaches from opponents of Almeida who encouraged him to seize power.
On 3 February 1509, Almeida fought the naval Battle of Diu against a joint fleet of Mamluks, Ottomans, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Sultan of Gujarat. His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Mamluks abandoned the Indian Ocean, easing the way for Portuguese rule there for the next century. In August, after a petition from Afonso\'s former officers with the support of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira claiming him unfit for governance, Afonso was sent in custody to St. Angelo Fort in Cannanore. There he remained under what he considered as imprisonment.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Governor of Portuguese India, 1509--1515 {#governor_of_portuguese_india_15091515}
Afonso was released after three months\' confinement, on the arrival at Cannanore of the Marshal of Portugal Fernando Coutinho with a large fleet sent by the king. Coutinho was the most important Portuguese noble to visit India up to that point. He brought an armada of fifteen ships and 3,000 men to defend Afonso\'s rights, and to take Calicut.
On 4 November 1509, Afonso became the second Governor of Portuguese India, a position he would hold until his death. Almeida set off to return to Portugal, but he was killed before he got there in a skirmish with the Khoekhoe. Upon his assuming office, Afonso intended to dominate the Muslim world and control the Spice trade.
Initially, King Manuel I and his council in Lisbon tried to distribute the power by outlining three areas of jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean. In 1509, the nobleman Diogo Lopes de Sequeira was sent with a fleet to Southeast Asia, to seek an agreement with Sultan Mahmud Shah of Malacca, but failed and returned to Portugal. To Jorge de Aguiar was given the region between the Cape of Good Hope and Gujarat. He was succeeded by Duarte de Lemos, but left for Cochin and then for Portugal, leaving his fleet to Afonso.
### Conquest of Goa, 1510 {#conquest_of_goa_1510}
In January 1510, obeying the orders from the king and aware of the absence of the Zamorin, Afonso advanced on Calicut. The attack was initially successful, but unravelled when Marshal Coutinho, infuriated by Albuquerque\'s success against Calicut and desiring glory for himself, attacked the Zamorin\'s palace against Albuquerque\'s advice, and was ambushed. During the retreat, Afonso was badly wounded and was forced to flee to the ships, barely escaping with his life, while Coutinho was killed.
Soon after the failed attack, Afonso assembled a fleet of 23 ships and 1200 men. Contemporary reports state that he wanted to fight the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate fleet in the Red Sea or return to Hormuz. However, he had been informed by Timoji (a privateer in the service of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire) that it would be easier to fight them in Goa, where they had sheltered after the Battle of Diu, and also of the illness of the Sultan Yusuf Adil Shah, and war between the Deccan sultanates. So he relied on surprise in the capture of Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur.
A first assault took place in Goa from 4 March to 20 May 1510. After the initial occupation, feeling unable to hold the city given the poor condition of its fortifications, the cooling of Hindu residents\' support and insubordination among his ranks following an attack by Ismail Adil Shah, Afonso refused a truce offered by the Sultan and abandoned the city in August. His fleet was scattered, and a palace revolt in Kochi hindered his recovery, so he headed to Fort Anjediva. New ships arrived from Portugal, which were intended for the nobleman Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos at Malacca, who had been given a rival command of the region.
Three months later, on 25 November Afonso reappeared at Goa with a renovated fleet. Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos was compelled to accompany him with the reinforcements for Malacca and about 300 Malabari reinforcements from Cannanore. In less than a day, they took Goa from Ismail Adil Shah and his Ottoman allies, who surrendered on 10 December. It is estimated that 6000 of the 9000 Muslim defenders of the city died, either in the fierce battle in the streets or by drowning while trying to escape. Afonso regained the support of the Hindu population, although he frustrated the initial expectations of Timoji, who aspired to become governor. Afonso rewarded him by appointing him chief \"Aguazil\" of the city, an administrator and representative of the Hindu and Muslim people, as a knowledgeable interpreter of the local customs. He then made an agreement to lower the yearly tribute. In Goa, Afonso established the first Portuguese mint in the East, after Timoja\'s merchants had complained of the scarcity of currency, taking it as an opportunity to solidify the territorial conquest. The new coin, based on the existing local coins, showed a cross on the obverse and an armillary sphere (or \"esfera\"), King Manuel\'s badge, on the reverse. Gold cruzados or *manueis*, silver *esferas* and *alf-esferas*, and bronze \"leais\" were issued.
Albuquerque founded at Goa the *Hospital Real de Goa* or Royal Hospital of Goa, by the Church of Santa Catarina. Upon hearing that the doctors were extorting the sickly with excessive fees, Albuquerque summoned them, declaring that \"You charge a physician\'s pay and don\'t know what disease the men who serve our lord the King suffer from. Thus, I want to teach you what is it that they die from\" and put them to work building the city walls all day till nightfall before releasing them.
Despite constant attacks, Goa became the center of Portuguese India, with the conquest triggering the compliance of neighbouring kingdoms: the Sultan of Gujarat and the Zamorin of Calicut sent embassies, offering alliances and local grants to fortify.
Afonso then used Goa to secure the spice trade in favor of Portugal and sell Persian horses to Vijayanagara and Hindu princes in return for their assistance.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Governor of Portuguese India, 1509--1515 {#governor_of_portuguese_india_15091515}
### Conquest of Malacca, 1511 {#conquest_of_malacca_1511}
Afonso explained to his armies why the Portuguese wanted to capture Malacca:
: \"*The King of Portugal has often commanded me to go to the Straits, because\...this was the best place to intercept the trade which the Moslems\...carry on in these parts. So it was to do Our Lord\'s service that we were brought here; by taking Malacca, we would close the Straits so that never again would the Moslems be able to bring their spices by this route\.... I am very sure that, if this Malacca trade is taken out of their hands, Cairo and Mecca will be completely lost.*\" (The Commentaries of the Great Afonso de Albuquerque)
In February 1511, through a friendly Hindu merchant, Nina Chatu, Afonso received a letter from Rui de Araújo, one of the nineteen Portuguese held at Malacca since 1509. It urged moving forward with the largest possible fleet to demand their release, and gave details of the fortifications. Afonso showed it to Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos, as an argument to advance as a joint fleet. In April 1511, after fortifying Goa, he gathered a force of about 900 Portuguese, 200 Hindu mercenaries and about eighteen ships. He then sailed to Malacca against orders and despite the protest of Diogo Mendes, who claimed command of the expedition. Afonso eventually centralized the Portuguese government in the Indian Ocean. After the Malaccan conquest, he wrote a letter to the king to explain his disagreement with Diogo Mendes, suggesting that further divisions could be harmful to the Portuguese in India. Under his command was Ferdinand Magellan, who had participated in the failed embassy of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509.
After a false start towards the Red Sea, they sailed to the Strait of Malacca. It was the richest city that the Portuguese tried to take, and a focal point in the trade network where Malay traders met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Bengali, Persian and Arabic, among others, described by Tomé Pires as of invaluable richness. Despite its wealth, it was mostly a wooden-built city, with few masonry buildings but was defended by a mercenary force estimated at 20,000 men and more than 2000 pieces of artillery. Its greatest weakness was the unpopularity of the government of Sultan Mahmud Shah, who favoured Muslims, arousing dissatisfaction amongst other merchants.
Afonso made a bold approach to the city, his ships decorated with banners, firing cannon volleys. He declared himself lord of all the navigation, demanded the Sultan release the prisoners and pay for damages, and demanded consent to build a fortified trading post. The Sultan eventually freed the prisoners, but was unimpressed by the small Portuguese contingent. Afonso then burned some ships at the port and four coastal buildings as a demonstration. The city being divided by the Malacca River, the connecting bridge was a strategic point, so at dawn on 25 July, the Portuguese landed and fought a tough battle, facing poisoned arrows, taking the bridge in the evening. After fruitlessly waiting for the Sultan\'s reaction, they returned to the ships and prepared a junk (offered by Chinese merchants), filling it with men, artillery and sandbags. Commanded by António de Abreu, it sailed upriver at high tide to the bridge. The day after, all had landed. After a fierce fight during which the Sultan appeared with an army of war elephants, the defenders were dispersed and the Sultan fled. Afonso waited for the reaction of the Sultan. Merchants approached, asking for Portuguese protection. They were given banners to mark their premises, a sign that they would not be looted. On 15 August, the Portuguese attacked again, but the Sultan had fled the city. Under strict orders, they looted the city, but respected the banners.
Afonso prepared Malacca\'s defenses against a Malay counterattack, building a fortress, assigning his men to shifts and using stones from the mosque and the cemetery. Despite the delays caused by heat and malaria, it was completed in November 1511, its surviving door now known as \"A Famosa\" (\'the famous\'). It was possibly then that Afonso had a large stone engraved with the names of the participants in the conquest. To quell disagreements over the order of the names, he had it set facing the wall, with the single inscription *Lapidem quem reprobaverunt aedificantes* (Latin for \"The stone the builders rejected\", from David\'s prophecy, Psalm 118:22--23) on the front.
He settled the Portuguese administration, reappointing Rui de Araújo as factor, a post assigned before his 1509 arrest, and appointing rich merchant Nina Chatu to replace the previous Bendahara. Besides assisting in the governance of the city and the first Portuguese coinage, he provided the junks for several diplomatic missions. Meanwhile, Afonso arrested and had executed the powerful Javanese merchant Utimuti Raja who, after being appointed to a position in the Portuguese administration as representative of the Javanese population, had maintained contacts with the exiled royal family.
#### Shipwreck on the *Flor de la mar*, 1511 {#shipwreck_on_the_flor_de_la_mar_1511}
On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old *Flor de la Mar* carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King Manuel a show of Malaccan treasures. There were also offerings from the Ayutthaya Kingdom (Thailand) to the king of Portugal, and all his own fortune. On the voyage, the *Flor de la Mar* was wrecked in a storm, and Afonso barely escaped drowning.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Governor of Portuguese India, 1509--1515 {#governor_of_portuguese_india_15091515}
### Missions from Malacca {#missions_from_malacca}
#### Embassies to Pegu, Sumatra and Siam, 1511 {#embassies_to_pegu_sumatra_and_siam_1511}
Most Muslim and Gujarati merchants having fled the city, Afonso invested in diplomatic efforts demonstrating generosity to Southeast Asian merchants, like the Chinese, to encourage good relations with the Portuguese. Trade and diplomatic missions were sent to continental kingdoms: Rui Nunes da Cunha was sent to Pegu (Burma), from where King Binyaram sent back a friendly emissary to Kochi in 1514 and Sumatra, Sumatran kings of Kampar and Indragiri sending emissaries to Afonso accepting the new power, as vassal states of Malacca. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Afonso sent Duarte Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the Ayutthaya Kingdom (Thailand), returning in a Chinese junk. He was one of the Portuguese who had been arrested in Malacca, having gathered knowledge about the culture of the region. There he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between the kingdom of Portugal and the court of the king of Siam Ramathibodi II, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Afonso and the king of Portugal.
#### Expedition to the \"spice islands\" (Maluku islands), 1512 {#expedition_to_the_spice_islands_maluku_islands_1512}
In November, after having secured Malacca and learning the location of the then secret \"spice islands\", Afonso sent three ships to find them, led by trusted António de Abreu with deputy commander Francisco Serrão. Malay sailors were recruited to guide them through Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Ambon Island to Banda Islands, where they arrived in early 1512. There they remained for a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg and cloves. António de Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst Serrão sailed towards the Moluccas, but he was shipwrecked near Seram. Sultan Abu Lais of Ternate heard of their stranding, and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, brought them to Ternate in 1512 where they were permitted to build a fort on the island, the *`{{Interlanguage link|Forte de São João Baptista de Ternate|pt|vertical-align=sup}}`{=mediawiki}*, built in 1522.
### Return to Cochin and Goa {#return_to_cochin_and_goa}
Afonso returned from Malacca to Cochin, but could not sail to Goa as it faced a serious revolt headed by the forces of Ismael Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, commanded by Rasul Khan and his countrymen. During Afonso\'s absence from Malacca, the Portuguese who opposed the taking of Goa had waived its possession, even writing to the king that it would be best to let it go. Held up by the monsoon and with few forces available, Afonso had to wait for the arrival of reinforcement fleets headed by his nephew D. Garcia de Noronha, and Jorge de Mello Pereira.
While at Cochin, Albuquerque started a school. In a private letter to King Manuel I, he stated that he had found a chest full of books with which to teach the children of married Portuguese settlers (*casados*) and Christian converts, of which there were about a hundred, to read and write.
On 10 September 1512, Afonso sailed from Cochin to Goa with fourteen ships carrying 1,700 soldiers. Determined to recapture the fortress, he ordered trenches dug and a wall breached. But on the day of the planned final assault, Rasul Khan surrendered. Afonso demanded the fort be handed over with its artillery, ammunition and horses, and the deserters to be given up. Some had joined Rasul Khan when the Portuguese were forced to flee Goa in May 1510, others during the recent siege. Rasul Khan consented, on condition that their lives be spared. Afonso agreed and he left Goa. He did spare the lives of the deserters, but had them horribly mutilated. One such renegade was Fernão Lopes, bound for Portugal in custody, who escaped at the island of Saint Helena and led a \'Robinson Crusoe\' life for many years. After such measures the town became the most prosperous Portuguese settlement in India.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Administration and diplomacy, 1512--1515 {#administration_and_diplomacy_15121515}
### Ethiopian embassy, 1512 {#ethiopian_embassy_1512}
In December 1512 an envoy from Ethiopia arrived at Goa. Mateus was sent by the regent queen Eleni, following the arrival of the Portuguese from Socotra in 1507, as an ambassador for the king of Portugal in search of a coalition to help face growing Muslim influence. He was received in Goa with great honour by Afonso, as a long-sought \"Prester John\" envoy. His arrival was announced by King Manuel to Pope Leo X in 1513. Although Mateus faced the distrust of Afonso\'s rivals, who tried to prove he was some impostor or Muslim spy, Afonso sent him to Portugal. The king is described as having wept with joy at their report.
In February 1513, while Mateus was in Portugal, Afonso sailed to the Red Sea with a force of about 1000 Portuguese and 400 Malabaris. He was under orders to secure that channel for Portugal. Socotra had proved ineffective to control the Red Sea entrance and was abandoned, and Afonso\'s hint that Massawa could be a good Portuguese base might have been influenced by Mateus\' reports.
### Campaign in the Red Sea, 1513 {#campaign_in_the_red_sea_1513}
Knowing that the Mamluks were preparing a second fleet at Suez, he wanted to advance before reinforcements arrived in Aden, and accordingly laid siege to the city. Aden was a fortified city, but although he had scaling ladders they broke during the chaotic attack. After half a day of fierce battle, Afonso was forced to retreat. He cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, with the first European fleet to have sailed this route. He attempted to reach Jeddah, but the winds were unfavourable and so he sheltered at Kamaran island in May, until sickness among the men and lack of fresh water forced him to retreat. In August 1513, after a second attempt to reach Aden, he returned to India with no substantial results. In order to destroy the power of Egypt, he wrote to King Manuel of the idea of diverting the course of the Nile river to render the whole country barren. He also intended to steal the body of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left the Holy Land.
Although Albuquerque\'s expedition failed to reach Suez, such an incursion into the Red Sea by a Christian fleet for the first time in history stunned the Muslim world, and panic spread in Cairo.
### Submission of Calicut {#submission_of_calicut}
Albuquerque achieved during his term a favourable end to hostilities between the Portuguese and the Zamorin of Calicut, which had lasted since the massacre of the Portuguese in Calicut in 1502. As naval trade faltered and vassals defected, with no foreseeable solutions to the conflict with the Portuguese, the court of the Zamorin fell to in-fighting. The ruling Zamorin was assassinated and replaced by a rival, under the instigation of Albuquerque, permitting peace talks to commence. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fortress in Calicut itself, and acquired rights to obtain as much pepper and ginger as they wished, at stipulated prices, and half the customs duties of Calicut as yearly tribute. Construction of the fortress began immediately, under the supervision of chief architect Tomás Fernandes.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Administration and diplomacy, 1512--1515 {#administration_and_diplomacy_15121515}
### Goa, 1514 {#goa_1514}
With peace concluded, in 1514 Afonso devoted himself to governing Goa and receiving embassies from Indian governors, strengthening the city and encouraging marriages of Portuguese men and local women. At that time, Portuguese women were barred from traveling overseas in order to maintain discipline among the men on board the ships. In 1511 under a policy which Afonso promulgated, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local women. To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as *casados*, or \"married men\") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Afonso\'s encouragement, mixed marriages flourished, giving birth to Portuguese-Indians or *mestiços*. He appointed local people for positions in the Portuguese administration and did not interfere with local traditions (except \"sati\", the practice of immolating widows, which he banned).
In March 1514 King Manuel sent to Pope Leo X a huge and exotic embassy led by Tristão da Cunha, who toured the streets of Rome in an extravagant procession of animals from the colonies and wealth from the Indies. His reputation reached its peak, laying foundations of the Portuguese Empire in the East.
In early 1514, Afonso sent ambassadors to Gujarat\'s Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay, to seek permission to build a fort on Diu, India. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including an Indian rhinoceros. Afonso sent the rhino to King Manuel, making it the first living example of a rhinoceros seen in Europe since the Roman Empire. King Manuel named the rhino Genda after the Gujarat word for ball, and later gifted it to Pope Leo X, but before completing its journey to Italy the boat carrying the rhino sank and the animal drowned. In 1515, German artist Albrecht Dürer created his famous woodcut known as Dürer\'s Rhinoceros, based on a description from a letter and a brief sketch made by an unknown artist who had seen the actual animal. Dürer\'s interpretation of the rhino cemented the idea of how a rhino should look like in people\'s mindsets up until the late-eighteenth century.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Administration and diplomacy, 1512--1515 {#administration_and_diplomacy_15121515}
### Conquest of Ormuz and Illness {#conquest_of_ormuz_and_illness}
In 1513, at Cannanore, Afonso was visited by a Persian ambassador from Shah Ismail I, who had sent ambassadors to Gujarat, Ormuz and Bijapur. The shah\'s ambassador to Bijapur invited Afonso to send back an envoy to Persia. Miguel Ferreira was sent via Ormuz to Tabriz, where he had several interviews with the shah about common goals of defeating the Mamluk sultan.
At the same time, Albuquerque decided to conclude the effective conquest of Hormuz. He had learned that after the Portuguese retreat in 1507, a young king was reigning under the influence of a powerful Persian vizier, Reis Hamed, whom the king greatly feared. At Ormuz in March 1515, Afonso met the king and asked the vizier to be present. He then had him immediately stabbed and killed by his entourage, thus \"freeing\" the terrified king, so the island in the Persian Gulf yielded to him without resistance and remained a vassal state of the Portuguese Empire. Ormuz itself would not be Persian territory for another century, until an English-Persian alliance finally expelled the Portuguese in 1622. At Ormuz, Afonso met with Miguel Ferreira, returning with rich presents and an ambassador, carrying a letter from the Persian potentate Shah Ismael, inviting Afonso to become a leading lord in Persia. There he remained, engaging in diplomatic efforts, receiving envoys and overseeing the construction of the new fortress, while becoming increasingly ill. His illness was reported as early as September 1515. In November 1515, he embarked on a journey back to Goa.
#### Death
At this time, his political enemies at the Portuguese court were planning his downfall. They had lost no opportunity in stirring up the jealousy of King Manuel against him, insinuating that Afonso intended to usurp power in Portuguese India. While on his return voyage from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, near the harbor of Chaul, he received news of a Portuguese fleet arriving from Europe, bearing dispatches announcing that he was to be replaced by his personal foe, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Realizing the plot that his enemies had moved against him, profoundly disillusioned, he voiced his bitterness: \"Grave must be my sins before the King, for I am in ill favor with the King for love of the men, and with the men for love of the King.\"
Feeling himself near death, he donned the surcoat of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a knight, and drew up his will, appointed the captain and senior officials of Ormuz, and organized a final council with his captains to decide the main matters affecting the Portuguese State of India. He wrote a brief letter to King Manuel, asking him to confer onto his natural son \"all of the high honors and rewards\" that Afonso had received, and assuring Manuel of his loyalty.
On 16 December 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque died within sight of Goa. As his death was known, in the city \"great wailing arose\", and many took to the streets to witness his body carried on a chair by his main captains, in a procession lit by torches amidst the crowd. Afonso\'s body was buried in Goa, according to his will, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill), which he had been built in 1513 to thank the Madonna for his escape from Kamaran island. That night, the population of Goa, both Hindu and Portuguese, gathered to mourn his death.
In Portugal, King Manuel\'s zigzagging policies continued, still trapped by the constraints of real-time medieval communication between Lisbon and India and unaware that Afonso was dead. Hearing rumours that the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was preparing a magnificent army at Suez to prevent the conquest of Ormuz, he repented of having replaced Afonso, and in March 1516 urgently wrote to Albergaria to return the command of all operations to Afonso and provide him with resources to face the Egyptian threat. He organized a new Portuguese navy in Asia, with orders that Afonso (if he was still in India), be made commander-in-chief against the Sultan of Cairo\'s armies. Manuel would afterwards learn that Afonso had died many months earlier, and that his reversed decision had been delivered many months too late.
After 51 years, in 1566, his body was moved to Nossa Senhora da Graça church in Lisbon, which was ruined and rebuilt after the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake.
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# Afonso de Albuquerque
## Legacy
King Manuel I of Portugal was belatedly convinced of Afonso\'s loyalty, and endeavoured to atone for his lack of confidence in Afonso by heaping honours upon his son, Brás de Albuquerque (1500--1580), whom he renamed \"Afonso\" in memory of the father. Afonso de Albuquerque was a prolific writer, having sent numerous letters during his governorship, covering topics from minor issues to major strategies. In 1557 his son published his biography under the title *Commentarios do Grande Affonso d\'Alboquerque*.
In 1572, Afonso\'s actions were described in *The Lusiads*, the Portuguese main epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões (Canto X, strophes 40--49). The poet praises his achievements, but has the muses frown upon the harsh rule of his men, of whom Camões was almost a contemporary fellow. In 1934, Afonso was celebrated by Fernando Pessoa in *Mensagem*, a symbolist epic. In the first part of this work, called \"Brasão\" (Coat-of-Arms), he relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields in the Portuguese coat-of-arms, Afonso being one of the wings of the griffin headed by Henry the Navigator, the other wing being King John II.
A variety of mango, which was created by Portuguese Jesuits in Goa via grafting techniques, was named in his honour.
Numerous homages have been paid to Afonso. He is featured in the Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument. There is a square named after him in Lisbon, which also features a bronze statue, as well as a prominent statue of his enrobed figure in a garden square in Bairro Gomes da Costa in Porto.
Two Portuguese Navy ships have been named in his honour: the sloop NRP *Afonso de Albuquerque* (1884) and the warship NRP *Afonso de Albuquerque*
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# Alcaeus
**Alcaeus of Mytilene** (`{{IPAc-en|æ|l|ˈ|s|iː|ə|s}}`{=mediawiki}; *Ἀλκαῖος ὁ Μυτιληναῖος*, *Alkaios ho Mutilēnaios*; c. 625/620 -- c. 580 BC) was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was a contemporary of Sappho, with whom he may have exchanged poems. He was born into the aristocratic governing class of Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos, where he was involved in political disputes and feuds.
## Biography
The broad outlines of the poet\'s life are well known. He was born into the aristocratic, warrior class that dominated Mytilene, the strongest city-state on the island of Lesbos and, by the end of the seventh century BC, the most influential of all the North Aegean Greek cities, with a strong navy and colonies securing its trade-routes in the Hellespont. The city had long been ruled by kings born to the Penthilid clan but, during the poet\'s life, the Penthilids were a spent force and rival aristocrats and their factions contended with each other for supreme power. Alcaeus and his older brothers were passionately involved in the struggle but experienced little success. Their political adventures can be understood in terms of three tyrants who came and went in succession:
- Melanchrus -- he was overthrown sometime between 612 BC and 609 BC by a faction that, in addition to the brothers of Alcaeus, included Pittacus (later renowned as one of the Seven Sages of Greece); Alcaeus at that time was too young to be actively involved;
- Myrsilus -- it is not known when he came to power but some verses by Alcaeus (frag. 129) indicate that the poet, his brothers and Pittacus made plans to overthrow him and that Pittacus subsequently betrayed them; Alcaeus and his brothers fled into exile where the poet later wrote a drinking song in celebration of the news of the tyrant\'s death (frag. 332);
- Pittacus -- the dominant political figure of his time, he was voted supreme power by the political assembly of Mytilene and appears to have governed well (590--580 BC), even allowing Alcaeus and his faction to return home in peace.
Sometime before 600 BC, Mytilene fought Athens for control of Sigeion and Alcaeus was old enough to participate in the fighting. According to the historian Herodotus, the poet threw away his shield to make good his escape from the victorious Athenians then celebrated the occasion in a poem that he later sent to his friend, Melanippus. It is thought that Alcaeus travelled widely during his years in exile, including at least one visit to Egypt. His older brother, Antimenidas, appears to have served as a mercenary in the army of Nebuchadnezzar II and probably took part in the conquest of Askelon. Alcaeus wrote verses in celebration of Antimenides\'s`{{clarification needed|date=October 2024}}`{=mediawiki} return, including mention of his valour in slaying the larger opponent (frag. 350), and he proudly describes the military hardware that adorned their family home (frag. 357). `{{Quotation|Alcaeus was in some respects not unlike a [[Royalist]] soldier of the age of the [[Stuarts]]. He had the high spirit and reckless gaiety, the love of country bound up with belief in a caste, the licence tempered by generosity and sometimes by tenderness, of a cavalier who has seen good and evil days. — [[Richard Claverhouse Jebb]]<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=DbLHNxS6heMC&pg=PA3 R. C. Jebb, ''Greek Literature'', MacMillan and Co. 1878, p. 59]</ref>}}`{=mediawiki}
thumb\|right\|upright=1.8\|*Sappho and Alcaeus* by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. The Walters Art Museum. Alcaeus was a contemporary and a countryman of Sappho and, since both poets composed for the entertainment of Mytilenean friends, they had many opportunities to associate with each other on a quite regular basis, such as at the *Kallisteia*, an annual festival celebrating the island\'s federation under Mytilene, held at the \'Messon\' (referred to as *temenos* in frs. 129 and 130), where Sappho performed publicly with female choirs. Alcaeus\'s reference to Sappho in terms more typical of a divinity, as *holy/pure, honey-smiling Sappho* (fr. 384), may owe its inspiration to her performances at the festival. The Lesbian or Aeolic school of poetry \"reached in the songs of Sappho and Alcaeus that high point of brilliancy to which it never after-wards approached\" and it was assumed by later Greek critics and during the early centuries of the Christian era that the two poets were in fact lovers, a theme which became a favourite subject in art (as in the urn pictured above).
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# Alcaeus
## Poetry
The poetic works of Alcaeus were collected into ten books, with elaborate commentaries, by the Alexandrian scholars Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace sometime in the 3rd century BC, and yet his verses today exist only in fragmentary form, varying in size from mere phrases, such as *wine, window into a man* (fr. 333) to entire groups of verses and stanzas, such as those quoted below (fr. 346). Alexandrian scholars numbered him in their canonic nine (one lyric poet per Muse). Among these, Pindar was held by many ancient critics to be pre-eminent, but some gave precedence to Alcaeus instead. The canonic nine are traditionally divided into two groups, with Alcaeus, Sappho and Anacreon, being \'monodists\' or \'solo-singers\', with the following characteristics:
- They composed and performed personally for friends and associates on topics of immediate interest to them;
- They wrote in their native dialects (Alcaeus and Sappho in Aeolic dialect, Anacreon in Ionic);
- They preferred quite short, metrically simple stanzas or \'strophes\' which they re-used in many poems -- hence the \'Alcaic\' and \'Sapphic\' stanzas, named after the two poets who perfected them or possibly invented them.
The other six of the canonic nine composed verses for public occasions, performed by choruses and professional singers and typically featuring complex metrical arrangements that were never reproduced in other verses. However, this division into two groups is considered by some modern scholars to be too simplistic and often it is practically impossible to know whether a lyric composition was sung or recited, or whether or not it was accompanied by musical instruments and dance. Even the private reflections of Alcaeus, ostensibly sung at dinner parties, still retain a public function.
Critics often seek to understand Alcaeus in comparison with Sappho: `{{Quotation|If we compare the two, we find that Alcaeus is versatile, Sappho narrow in her range; that his verse is less polished and less melodious than hers; and that the emotions which he chooses to display are less intense.|David Campbell<ref name="David A 1982 page 287">David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), p. 287</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Quotation|The Aeolian song is suddenly revealed, as a mature work of art, in the spirited stanzas of Alcaeus. It is raised to a supreme excellence by his younger contemporary, Sappho, whose melody is unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, among all the relics of Greek verse.|Richard Jebb<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard |last=Jebb|title=Bacchylides: the poems and fragments|publisher= [[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1905|page= 29 |url=https://archive.org/stream/bacchylidespoem00jebbgoog#page/n9/mode/1up}}</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Quotation|In the variety of his subjects, in the exquisite rhythm of his meters, and in the faultless perfection of his style, all of which appear even in mutilated fragments, he excels all the poets, even his more intense, more delicate and more truly inspired contemporary Sappho.|James Easby-Smith<ref name="digitized1"/>}}`{=mediawiki} The Roman poet, Horace, also compared the two, describing Alcaeus as \"more full-throatedly singing\" -- see Horace\'s tribute below. Alcaeus himself seems to underscore the difference between his own \'down-to-earth\' style and Sappho\'s more \'celestial\' qualities when he describes her almost as a goddess (as cited above), and yet it has been argued that both poets were concerned with a balance between the divine and the profane, each emphasising different elements in that balance.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus exhorts us to \"Observe in Alcaeus the sublimity, brevity and sweetness coupled with stern power, his splendid figures, and his clearness which was unimpaired by the dialect; and above all mark his manner of expressing his sentiments on public affairs\", while Quintilian, after commending Alcaeus for his excellence \"in that part of his works where he inveighs against tyrants and contributes to good morals; in his language he is concise, exalted, careful and often like an orator\"; goes on to add: \"but he descended into wantonness and amours, though better fitted for higher things\".
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# Alcaeus
## Poetry
### Poetic genres {#poetic_genres}
The works of Alcaeus are conventionally grouped according to five genres.
- **Political songs**: Alcaeus often composed on a political theme, covering the power struggles on Lesbos with the passion and vigour of a partisan, cursing his opponents, rejoicing in their deaths, delivering blood-curdling homilies on the consequences of political inaction and exhorting his comrades to heroic defiance, as in one of his \'ship of state\' allegories. Commenting on Alcaeus as a political poet, the scholar Dionysius of Halicarnassus once observed that \"if you removed the meter you would find political rhetoric\".
- **Drinking songs**: According to the grammarian Athenaeus, Alcaeus made every occasion an excuse for drinking and he has provided posterity several quotes in proof of it. Alcaeus exhorts his friends to drink in celebration of a tyrant\'s death, to drink away their sorrows, to drink because life is short and along the lines *in vino veritas*, to drink through winter storms and to drink through the heat of summer. The latter poem in fact paraphrases verses from Hesiod, re-casting them in Asclepiad meter and Aeolian dialect.
- **Hymns**: Alcaeus sang about the gods in the spirit of the Homeric hymns, to entertain his companions rather than to glorify the gods and in the same meters that he used for his \'secular\' lyrics. There are for example fragments in \'Sapphic\' meter praising the Dioscuri, Hermes and the river Hebrus (a river significant in Lesbian mythology since it was down its waters that the head of Orpheus was believed to have floated singing, eventually crossing the sea to Lesbos and ending up in a temple of Apollo, as a symbol of Lesbian supremacy in song). According to Pomponius Porphyrion, the hymn to Hermes was imitated by Horace in one of his own \'sapphic\' odes (C.1.10: *Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis*).
- **Love songs**: Almost all Alcaeus\'s amorous verses, mentioned with disapproval by Quintilian above, have vanished without trace. There is a brief reference to his love poetry in a passage by Cicero. Horace, who often wrote in imitation of Alcaeus, sketches in verse one of the Lesbian poet\'s favourite subjects -- Lycus of the black hair and eyes (C.1.32.11--12: *nigris oculis nigroque/crine decorum*). It is possible that Alcaeus wrote amorously about Sappho, as indicated in an earlier quote.
- **Miscellaneous**: Alcaeus wrote on such a wide variety of subjects and themes that contradictions in his character emerge. The grammarian Athenaeus quoted some verses about perfumed ointments to prove just how unwarlike Alcaeus could be and he quoted his description of the armour adorning the walls of his house as proof that he could be unusually warlike for a lyric poet. Other examples of his readiness for both warlike and unwarlike subjects are lyrics celebrating his brother\'s heroic exploits as a Babylonian mercenary and lyrics sung in a rare meter (Sapphic Ionic in minore) in the voice of a distressed girl, \"Wretched me, who share in all ills!\" -- possibly imitated by Horace in an ode in the same meter (C.3.12: *Miserarum est neque amori dare ludum neque dulci*). He also wrote Sapphic stanzas on Homeric themes but in un-Homeric style, comparing Helen of Troy unfavourably with Thetis, the mother of Achilles.
### A drinking poem (fr. 346) {#a_drinking_poem_fr._346}
The following verses demonstrate some key characteristics of the Alcaic style (square brackets indicate uncertainties in the ancient text): `{{Verse translation|italicsoff=y|
{{lang|grc|πώνωμεν· τί τὰ λύχν' ὀμμένομεν; δάκτυλος ἀμέρα·
κὰδ δ'ἄερρε κυλίχναις μεγάλαις [αιτα]ποικίλαισ·
οἶνον γὰρ Σεμέλας καὶ Δίος υἶος λαθικάδεον
ἀνθρώποισιν ἔδωκ'. ἔγχεε κέρναις ἔνα καὶ δύο
πλήαις κὰκ κεφάλας, [ἀ] δ' ἀτέρα τὰν ἀτέραν κύλιξ
ὠθήτω...}}<ref>David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric Poetry'', Bristol Classical Press (1982), p. 60</ref>
|
Let's drink! Why are we waiting for the lamps? Only an inch of daylight left.
Lift down the large cups, my friends, the painted ones;
for wine was given to men by the son of Semele and Zeus
to help them forget their troubles. Mix one part of water to two of wine,
pour it in up to the brim, and let one cup push the other along...<ref>Andrew M.Miller (trans.), ''Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation'', Hackett Publishing Co. (1996), p. 48</ref>}}`{=mediawiki}
The Greek meter here is relatively simple, comprising the Greater Asclepiad, adroitly used to convey, for example, the rhythm of jostling cups (*ἀ δ\' ἀτέρα τὰν ἀτέραν*). The language of the poem is typically direct and concise and comprises short sentences --- the first line is in fact a model of condensed meaning, comprising an exhortation (\"Let\'s drink!\"), a rhetorical question (\"Why are we waiting for the lamps?\") and a justifying statement (\"Only an inch of daylight left\"). The meaning is clear and uncomplicated, the subject is drawn from personal experience, and there is an absence of poetic ornament, such as simile or metaphor. Like many of his poems (e.g., frs. 38, 326, 338, 347, 350), it begins with a verb (in this case \"Let\'s drink!\") and it includes a proverbial expression (\"Only an inch of daylight left\") though it is possible that he coined it himself.
### A hymn (fr. 34) {#a_hymn_fr._34}
Alcaeus rarely used metaphor or simile and yet he had a fondness for the allegory of the storm-tossed ship of state. The following fragment of a hymn to Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri) is possibly another example of this though some scholars interpret it instead as a prayer for a safe voyage. `{{poemquote|Hither now to me from your isle of Pelops,
You powerful children of Zeus and Leda,
Showing yourselves kindly by nature, Castor
And Polydeuces!
Travelling abroad on swift-footed horses,
Over the wide earth, over all the ocean,
How easily you bring deliverance from
Death's gelid rigor,
Landing on tall ships with a sudden, great bound,
A far-away light up the forestays running,
Bringing radiance to a ship in trouble,
Sailed in the darkness!}}`{=mediawiki}
The poem was written in Sapphic stanzas, a verse form popularly associated with his compatriot, Sappho, but in which he too excelled, here paraphrased in English to suggest the same rhythms. There were probably another three stanzas in the original poem but only nine letters of them remain. The \'far-away light\' (*Πήλοθεν λάμπροι*) is a reference to St. Elmo\'s Fire, an electrical discharge supposed by ancient Greek mariners to be an epiphany of the Dioscuri, but the meaning of the line was obscured by gaps in the papyrus until reconstructed by a modern scholar; such reconstructions are typical of the extant poetry (see Scholars, fragments and sources below). This poem does not begin with a verb but with an adverb (Δευτέ) but still communicates a sense of action. He probably performed his verses at drinking parties for friends and political allies -- men for whom loyalty was essential, particularly in such troubled times.
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# Alcaeus
## Tributes from other poets {#tributes_from_other_poets}
### Horace
The Roman poet Horace modelled his own lyrical compositions on those of Alcaeus, rendering the Lesbian poet\'s verse-forms, including \'Alcaic\' and \'Sapphic\' stanzas, into concise Latin -- an achievement he celebrates in his third book of odes. In his second book, in an ode composed in Alcaic stanzas on the subject of an almost fatal accident he had on his farm, he imagines meeting Alcaeus and Sappho in Hades: `{{Verse translation|lang=la|
quam paene furvae regna [[Proserpina]]e
et iudicantem vidimus [[Aeacus|Aeacum]]
:sedesque descriptas piorum et
::Aeoliis fidibus querentem
Sappho puellis de popularibus
et te sonantem plenius aureo,
:Alcaee, plectro dura navis,
::dura fugae mala, dura belli! <ref>Horace ''Od.'' 2.13.21–8</ref>
|
How close the realm of dusky Proserpine
Yawned at that instant! I half glimpsed the dire
Judge of the dead, the blest in their divine
Seclusion, Sappho on the Aeolian lyre,
Mourning the cold girls of her native isle,
And you, Alcaeus, more full-throatedly
Singing with your gold quill of ships, exile
And war, hardship on land, hardship at sea.<ref name="classics116"/>}}`{=mediawiki}
### Ovid
Ovid compared Alcaeus to Sappho in Letters of the Heroines, where Sappho is imagined to speak as follows: `{{Verse translation|
nec plus Alcaeus consors patriaeque lyraeque
:laudis habet, quamvis grandius ille sonet.
|
Nor does Alcaeus, my fellow-countryman and fellow-poet,
:receive more praise, although he resounds more grandly.<ref>Ovid ''Her''.15.29s, cited and translated by David A. Campbell, ''Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus'', Loeb Classical Library (1982), p
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# Alcamenes
**Alcamenes** (*Ἀλκαμένης*) was an ancient Greek sculptor of Lemnos and Athens, who flourished in the 2nd half of the 5th century BC. He was a younger contemporary of Phidias and noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an Aphrodite of the Gardens were conspicuous.
Pausanias says that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. Pausanias also refers to a statue of Ares by Alcamenes that was erected on the Athenian agora, which some have related to the Ares Borghese. However, the temple of Ares to which he refers had only been moved from Acharnes and re-sited in the Agora in Augustus\'s time, and statues known to derive from Alcamenes\' statue show the god in a breastplate, so the identification of Alcamenes\' Ares with the Ares Borghese is not secure.
At Pergamum there was discovered in 1903 a Hellenistic copy of the head of the Hermes \"Propylaeus\" of Alcamenes. As, however, the deity is represented in a Neo-Attic, archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive and original artist.
It is safer to judge him by the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon, in which he must almost certainly have taken a share under the direction of Phidias. He is said to be the most eminent sculptor in Athens after the departure of Phidias for Olympia, but enigmatic in that none of the sculptures associated with his name in classical literature can be securely connected with existing copies
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# Alcidamas
**Alcidamas** (*Ἀλκιδάμας*), of Elaea, in Aeolis, was a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the 5th-4th century BC [1](https://dlib.bc.edu/islandora/object/bc-ir:100196/datastream/PDF/view).
## Life
He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates, to whom he was a rival and opponent. We possess two declamations under his name: *On Sophists* (Περὶ Σοφιστῶν), directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date); *Odysseus* (perhaps spurious) in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy.
According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speaking *ex tempore* on every conceivable subject. Aristotle (*Rhet.* iii. 3) criticizes his writings as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived: *Messeniakos*, advocating the freedom of the Messenians and containing the sentiment that \"God has left all men free; nature has made no man a slave\"; a *Eulogy of Death*, in consideration of the wide extent of human sufferings; a *Techne* or instruction-book in the art of rhetoric; and a *Phusikos logos*. Lastly, his *Mouseion* (a word invoking the Muses) seems to have contained the narrative of the *Contest of Homer and Hesiod*, of which the version that has survived is the work of a grammarian in the time of Hadrian, based on Alcidamas. This hypothesis of the contents of the *Mouseion*, originally suggested by Nietzsche (*Rheinisches Museum* 25 (1870) & 28 (1873)), appears to have been confirmed by three papyrus finds`{{mdash}}`{=mediawiki}one 3rd century BC (*Flinders Petrie Papyri*, ed. Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.), one 2nd century BC (Basil Mandilaras, \'A new papyrus fragment of the *Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi*\' *Platon* 42 (1990) 45--51) and one 2nd or 3rd century AD (University of Michigan pap. 2754: Winter, J. G., \'A New Fragment on the Life of Homer\' *TAPA* 56 (1925) 120--129 [2](http://images.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?rgn1=apis_inv;op2=And;rgn2=ic_all;op3=And;rgn3=ic_all;c=apis;q1=2754;back=back1152510816;size=50;subview=detail;resnum=1;view=entry;lastview=reslist;cc=apis;entryid=x-1622;viewid=2754V.TIF))
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# Aldine Press
The **Aldine Press** was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495.
The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics. The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and intended for portability and ease of reading. According to Curt F. Bühler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus Manutius. After Manutius\' death in 1515, the press was continued by his wife Maria and her father Andrea Torresani (`{{interlanguage link|Andrea Torresano|qid=Q3616075}}`{=mediawiki}), until Manutius\' son Paulus (1512--1574) took over. His grandson Aldus Manutius the Younger then ran the firm until his death in 1597. Today, the antique books printed by the Aldine Press in Venice are referred to as *Aldines*, as are the letterforms and typefaces pioneered by the Aldine Press.
The press enjoyed a monopoly of works printed in Greek in the Republic of Venice, effectively giving it copyright protection. Protection outside the Republic was more problematic, however. The firm maintained an agency in Paris, but its commercial success was affected by many counterfeit editions, produced in Lyon and elsewhere.
## Beginnings
Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine Press, was originally a humanist scholar and a teacher. Manutius met Andrea Torresani, who had acquired publishing equipment from the widow of Nicholas Jenson. The ownership of the press was originally split in two, with one half belonging to Pier Francesco Barbarigo, the nephew of Agostino Barbarigo, who was the doge at the time, and the other half belonging to Torresani. Manutius owned one fifth of Torresani\'s share of the press. Manutius was mainly in charge of the scholarship and editing, leaving financial and operating concerns to Barbarigo and Torresani. In 1496, Manutius established his own location of the press in a building called the *Thermae* in the Sestiere di San Polo on the campo Sant\'Agostin in Venice, today *numero civico* (house number) 2343 San Polo on the *Calle della Chiesa* (Alley of the Church), now the location of the restaurant *Due Colonne*. Though there are two commemorative plaques located on the building *numero civico* 2311 *Rio Terà Secondo*, historians regard them to be erroneously placed based on contemporaneous letters addressed to Manutius. The first erroneous plaque had been placed by Abbot don Vincenzo Zenier in 1828.
Manutius lived and worked in the *Thermae* in order to produce published books from the Aldine Press. This was also the location of the \"New Academy\", where a group of Manutius\' friends, associates, and editors came together to translate Greek and Latin texts. In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Torresani. Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but the marriage combined the two partners\' shares in the publishing business. After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani\'s house. Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to Torresani\'s house in the parish of San Paternian. It was later demolished in 1873 and was covered by a bank building in the Venice square, *Campo Manin*.
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# Aldine Press
## Accomplishments
The press was started by Manutius due to a combination of his love of classics and the need for preservation of Hellenic studies. During its initial era, the press printed new copies of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek and Latin classics.
The first edition of Plato\'s works (known as the Aldine edition) was dedicated to Pope Leo X and included the poem of Musurus and the life of Plato by Diogenes Laertius, which were also included in the first two editions of Plato\'s works printed in Basel. The two Basel editions were introduced by a Latin preface written by the German humanist Simon Grynaeus, a scholar of Greek, who dedicated the work to the humanist Thomas More.
Manutius also printed dictionaries and grammars to help people interpret the books, used by scholars wanting to learn Greek, who would employ learned Greeks in order to teach them directly. Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein claims that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had placed under threat the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but that publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it once more. Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text. The Aldine Press also expanded into modern languages, mainly Italian and French.
### Humanist typefaces {#humanist_typefaces}
Manutius eventually took on a project to improve upon the Humanistic font designs of Jenson\'s typefaces, hiring Francesco Griffo to design and cut typefaces for his print editions of classical literature. Humanistic fonts, based on the formal hand of Renaissance humanist scribes and notaries, had been in development from the time movable print arrived in Italy, notably by the French printer Nicolas Jenson in 1470. Griffo developed his own further refinements of style, resulting in one of the earliest roman typefaces produced.
### Italic typeface {#italic_typeface}
Adapting this admired and influential roman-faced font, Manutius and Griffo went on to produce a cursive variant, the first of what is now known as italic type. The word *italic* is derived from early Italian versions of italic faces, which were designed primarily in order to save on the cost of paper. The Aldine Press first used italic type in a woodcut of Saint Catherine of Siena in 1500. Their 1501 edition of Virgil\'s *Opera* was the first book to be printed in italic type. The roman typeface and italic form created and pioneered by Manutius and Griffo were highly influential in typographic development.
### Portable books (or *libelli portatiles*) {#portable_books_or_libelli_portatiles}
Beginning in 1505, Manutius produced plain texts in a portable form, using the term *enchiridion*, meaning \"handbook\" (later misnamed \"pocketbook\"). The octavo was the first version of the editio minor. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment comparable to that of large volumes of text and commentary during this era. These books consisted on an edited text issued without commentary, printed in a typeface mimicking chancery script (the cursive handwriting of the humanist), produced in a small book which could sit comfortably in the hand. The editio minor, in many ways, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual no longer had to go to the book, but rather the book came along with them.
### Imprint and motto {#imprint_and_motto}
In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher\'s device the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. \"The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately to Pietro Bembo. Aldus told Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Roman Emperor Vespasian bearing an image of this device. The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with the saying \"Festina Lente\", meaning \"make haste slowly.\" This would later become the motto for the Aldine Press.
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# Aldine Press
## After 1515 {#after_1515}
Manutius died on February 6, 1515. Following his death, the firm was run by Torresani and his daughter Maria, the widow of Manutius. The name of the press was changed in 1508 to \"In the House of Aldus and Andrea Torresano,\" and kept this name until 1529. In 1533, Paulus Manutius managed the firm, starting it up again and changing its name to \"Heirs of Aldus and Andrea Torresano\". In 1539, the imprint changed to \"Sons of Aldo Manuzio\". In 1567, Aldus Manutius the Younger (grandson of Aldus Manutius) took over and maintained the business until his death.
## Publications
A partial list of publications from the Aldine Press, cited from *Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze*.
- *Musarum Panagyris,* Aldus Manutius, sometime between March 1487 and March 1491.
- *Erotemata cum interpretatione Latina,* Constantine Lascaris, 8 March 1495.
- *Opusculum de Herone et Leandro, quod et in Latinam Linguam ad verbum tralatum est,* Musaeus, before November 1495 (Greek text) and 1497--98 (Latin text).
- *Dictionarium Graecum,* Johannes Crastonus, December 1497.
- *Institutiones Graecae grammatices,* Urban Valeriani, January 1497.
- *Rudimenta grammatices latinae linguae,* Aldus Manutius, June 1501.
- *Poetae Christiani veteres*, June 1502.
- *Institutionum grammaticarum libri quatuor,* Aldus Manutius, December 1514.
- *Suda*, February 1514.
Works published from the Greeks. Manutius printed thirty editiones principes of Greek texts, allowing these texts to escape the fragility of the manuscript tradition.
- *Eclogae triginta\...,* Theocritus, February 1496.
- *Theophrastus de historia plantarum\...,* Aristotle, 1 June 1497.
- *De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum\...,* Iamblichus, September 1497.
- *Aristophanis Comoediae novem,* Aristophanes, 15 July 1498.
- *Omnia opera Angeli Politiani\...,* Angeloa Ambrogini Poliziano, July 1498.
- *Herodoti libri novem quibus musarum indita sunt nomina,* Herodotus, September 1502.
- *Omnia Platonis opera,* Plato, May 1513.
- *Oratores Graeci*, May 1513.
- *Deipnosophistae,* Athenaeus, August 1514.
Latin works
- *Scriptores astronomici veteres,* Firmicus Maternus, 17 October 1499.
- *Petri Bembi de Aetna ad Angelum Chabrielem liber,* Pietro Bembo, February 1496.
- *Diaria de Bello Carolino,* Alessandro Benedetti, 1496 (the first published work of the Aldine Press using the humanist typeface).
- *Libellus de epidemia, quam vulgo morgum Gallicum vocant,* Niccolò Leoniceno, June 1497.
- *Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,* Francesco Colonna, December 1499.
- *Epistole devotissime de Sancta Catharina da Siena,* St. Catherina of Siena, 19 September 1500.
- *Opera,* Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil), April 1501.
- *Opera,* Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), May 1501.
- *Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium\...libri,* Marcus Tullius Cicero, (Cicero) March 1514.
Libelli Portatiles
- *Le cose volgari de Messer Francesco Petrarcha,* Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), July 1501.
- *Opera,* Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, January 1502.
- *Epistolae ad familiares,* Marcus Tullius Cicero (Cicero), April 1502.
- *Le terze rime,* Dante Alighieri, August 1502.
- *Pharsalia,* Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan), April 1502.
- *Tragaediae septem cum commentariis,* Sophocles, August 1502.
- *Tragoediae septendecim,* Euripides, February 1503.
- *Fastorum\...libri, de tristibus\..., de ponto,* Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid), February 1503.
- *Florilegium diversorum epigrammatum in septem libros,* Greek Anthology, November 1503.
- *Opera,* Homer, sometime after 31 October 1504.
- *Urania sive de stellis,* Joannes Jovianus Pontanus, May & August 1505.
- *Vita, et Fabellae Aesopi\...,* Aesop, October 1505.
- *Epistolarum libri decem,* Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, November 1508.
- *Commentariorum de Bello Gallico libri,* Gaius Julius Caesar, December 1513.
- *Odes,* Pindar, January 1513.
- *Sonetti et Canzoni. Triumphi,* Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), August 1514.
### Archives
The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was originally housed in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, and is now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, and the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University
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# Alexander I of Epirus
**Alexander I of Epirus** (*Ἀλέξανδρος Α\'*; c. 370 BC -- 331 BC), also known as **Alexander Molossus** (*Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μολοσσός*), was a king of Epirus (343/2--331 BC) of the Aeacid dynasty. As the son of Neoptolemus I and brother of Olympias, Alexander I was an uncle, and a brother-in-law, of Alexander the Great. He was also an uncle to Pyrrhus of Epirus.
## Biography
Neoptolemus I ruled jointly with his brother Arybbas. When Neoptolemus died in c. 357 BC, his son Alexander was only a child and Arrybas became the sole king. In c. 350 BC, Alexander was brought to the court of Philip II of Macedon in order to protect him. In 343/2 in his late 20s, Philip made him king of Epirus, after dethroning his uncle Arybbas.
When Olympias was repudiated by her husband in 337 BC, she went to her brother, and endeavoured to induce him to make war on Philip. Alexander, however, declined the contest, and formed a second alliance with Philip by agreeing to marry the daughter of Philip (Alexander\'s niece) Cleopatra. During the wedding in 336 BC, Philip was assassinated by Pausanias of Orestis.
In 334 BC, Alexander I, at the request of the Greek colony of Taras (in Magna Graecia), crossed over into Italy, to aid them in battle against several Italic tribes, including the Lucanians and Bruttii. After a victory over the Samnites and Lucanians near Paestum in 332 BC, he made a treaty with the Romans. He then took Heraclea from the Lucanians, Terina from the Bruttii, and Sipontum on the Adriatic coast. Through the treachery of some Lucanian exiles, he was compelled to engage under unfavourable circumstances in the Battle of Pandosia and was killed by a Lucanian. He left a son, Neoptolemus, and a daughter, Cadmea.
In a famous passage, Livy speculates on what would have been the outcome of a military showdown between Alexander the Great and the Roman Republic. He reports that as Alexander of Epirus lay mortally wounded on the battlefield at Pandosia he compared his fortunes to those of his famous nephew and said that the latter \"waged war against women\"
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# Alexander Balas
**Alexander I Theopator Euergetes**, surnamed **Balas** (*Alexandros Balas*), was the ruler of the Seleucid Empire from 150 BC to August 145 BC. Picked from obscurity and supported by the neighboring Roman-allied Kingdom of Pergamon, Alexander landed in Phoenicia in 152 BC and started a civil war against Seleucid King Demetrius I Soter. Backed by mercenaries and factions of the Seleucid Empire unhappy with the existing government, he defeated Demetrius and took the crown in 150 BC. He married the princess Cleopatra Thea to seal an alliance with the neighboring Ptolemaic kingdom. His reign saw the steady retreat of the Seleucid Empire\'s eastern border, with important eastern satrapies such as Media being lost to the nascent Parthian Empire. In 147 BC, Demetrius II Nicator, the young son of Demetrius I, began a campaign to overthrow Balas, and civil war resumed. Alexander\'s ally, Ptolemaic king Ptolemy VI Philometor, moved troops into Coele-Syria to support Alexander, but then switched sides and threw his support behind Demetrius II. At the Battle of the Oenoparus River in Syria, he was defeated by Ptolemy VI and he died shortly afterward.
## Life
### Origins and mission to Rome {#origins_and_mission_to_rome}
Alexander Balas claimed to be the son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodice IV and heir to the Seleucid throne. The ancient sources, Polybius and Diodorus say that this claim was false and that he and his sister Laodice VI were really natives of Smyrna of humble origin. However, Polybius became friends with Balas\'s rival King Demetrius I when both were hostages in Rome, so Polybius is not an unbiased source on this matter. Modern scholars disagree about whether the story of Attalus finding a commoner who looked the part is true or was propaganda put about by Alexander\'s opponents.
According to Diodorus, Alexander was originally put forward as a candidate for the Seleucid throne by Attalus II of Pergamum. Attalus had been disturbed by the Seleucid king Demetrius I\'s interference in Cappadocia, where he had dethroned king Ariarathes V. Boris Chrubasik is sceptical, noting that there is little subsequent evidence for Attalid involvement with Alexander. However, Selene Psoma has proposed that a large set of coins minted in a number of cities under Attalid control in this period was produced by Attalus II in order to fund Alexander\'s bid for the kingship.
Alexander and his sister were maintained in Cilicia by Heracleides, a former minister of Antiochus IV and brother of Timarchus, an usurper in Media who had been executed by the reigning king Demetrius I Soter. In 153 BC, Heracleides brought Alexander and his sister to Rome, where he presented Alexander to the Roman Senate, which recognised him as the legitimate Seleucid king and agreed to support him in his bid to take the throne. Polybius mentions that Attalus II and Demetrius I also met with the Senate at this time but does not state how this was connected to the recognition of Alexander - if at all.
### War with Demetrius I (152--150 BC) {#war_with_demetrius_i_152150_bc}
After recruiting mercenaries, Alexander and Heracleides departed to Ephesus. From there, they invaded Phoenicia by sea, seizing Ptolemais Akko. Numismatic evidence shows that Alexander had also gained control of Seleucia Pieria, Byblos, Beirut and Tyre by 151 BC. On this coinage, Alexander heavily advertised his (claimed) connection to Antiochus IV, depicting Zeus Nicephorus on his coinage as Antiochus had done. He also assumed the title of *Theopator* (\'Divinely Fathered\'), which recalled Antiochus\' epithet *Theos Epiphanes* (\'God Manifest\'). The coinage also presented Alexander Balas in the guise of Alexander the Great, with pronounced facial features and long flowing hair. This was intended to emphasise his military prowess to his soldiers.
Alexander and Demetrius I competed with another to win over Jonathan Apphus, the leader of the ascendant faction in Judaea. Jonathan was won over to Alexander\'s side by the grant of a high position in the Seleucid court and the high priesthood in Jerusalem. Reinforced by Jonathan\'s hardened soldiers, Alexander fought a decisive battle with Demetrius in July 150 BC, in which Demetrius was killed. By autumn, Alexander\'s kingship was recognised throughout the Seleucid realm.
### Reign (150--147 BC) {#reign_150147_bc}
Alexander gained control of Antioch at this time and his chancellor, Ammonius, murdered all the courtiers of Demetrius I, as well as his wife Laodice and his eldest son Antigonus. Ptolemy VI Philometor of Egypt entered into an alliance with Alexander, which was sealed by Alexander\'s marriage to his daughter Cleopatra Thea. The wedding took place at Ptolemais, with Ptolemy VI and Jonathan Apphus in attendance. Alexander took the opportunity to shower honours on Jonathan, whom he treated as his main agent in Judaea. The marriage was advertised by a special coinage issue, depicting the royal pair side by side - only the second depiction of a queen on Seleucid coinage. She is shown with divine attributes (a cornucopia and a calathus) and is depicted in front of the king. Some scholars have seen Alexander as little more than a Ptolemaic puppet, arguing that this coinage emphasises Cleopatra\'s dominance over him and that the chancellor Ammonius was a Ptolemaic agent. Other scholars argue that the alliance was advertised as an important one, but that the arguments for Alexander\'s subservience have been overstated.
### Collapse of the East {#collapse_of_the_east}
Meanwhile, the Seleucid positions in the eastern Upper Satrapies, already weakened by the previous kings\' failure to contain the Parthians and the Greco-Bactrians, suffered almost complete collapse. The Parthians under Mithridates I took advantage of the general instability to invade Media. The region had been lost to Seleucid control by the middle of 148 BC. At around the same time the local nobles in Elymais and Persis asserted their own ephemeral independence, only to be soon also subdued by the Parthians. By 148 BC at the latest the Parthians also secured their hold over Hyrcania at the coast of the Caspian Sea. By 147 BC the Parthians stood at the doorsteps of Babylonia, one of the Seleucid empire\'s hearthlands and location of one of its two capital cities, Seleucia-on-Tigris.
Alexander is not recorded to do anything of note to stem the steady erosion of Seleucid power in the East. Ancient historians hostile to him depict him as too distracted by a life of debauchery to take action to stop the Parthians, unlike earlier Seleucid Kings who would mount expeditions to the eastern satrapies to deter the Parthians. He was reputed to hand the administration over to two commanders, Hierax and Diodotus, neither of whom seemed to care for anything but their own interests. This representation is at least partially a product of his opponents\' propaganda, but it is true that under Alexander, the Seleucid Empire continued to see its reach and power slip away.
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# Alexander Balas
## Life
### War with Demetrius II and death (147--145 BC) {#war_with_demetrius_ii_and_death_147145_bc}
In early 147 BC Demetrius\' son Demetrius II returned to Syria with a force of Cretan mercenaries led by a man called Lasthenes. Much of Coele Syria was lost to him immediately, possibly as a result of the succession of the regional commander. Jonathan attacked Demetrius\'s position from the south, seizing Jaffa and Ashdod, while Alexander Balas was occupied with a revolt in Cilicia. In 145 BC Ptolemy VI of Egypt invaded Syria, ostensibly in support of Alexander Balas. In practice, Ptolemy\'s intervention came at a heavy cost; with Alexander\'s permission, he took control of all the Seleucid cities along the coast, including Seleucia Pieria. He may also have started minting his own coinage in the Syrian cities.
While he was at Ptolemais Akko, however, Ptolemy switched sides. According to Josephus, Ptolemy discovered that Alexander\'s chancellor, Ammonius, had been plotting to assassinate him, but when he demanded that Ammonius be punished, Alexander refused. Ptolemy remarried his Cleopatra Thea to Demetrius II and continued his march northward. Alexander\'s commanders of Antioch, Diodotus and Hierax, surrendered the city to Ptolemy.
Alexander returned from Cilicia with his army, but Ptolemy VI and Demetrius II defeated his forces in a Battle of the Oenoparus River. Earlier, Alexander had sent his infant son Antiochus to an Arabian dynast called Zabdiel Diocles. Alexander now fled to Arabia in order to join up with Zabdiel, but he was killed. Sources disagree about whether the killer was a pair of his own generals who had decided to switch sides or Zabdiel himself. Alexander\'s severed head was brought to Ptolemy, who also died shortly after from wounds sustained in the battle.
Zabdiel continued to look after Alexander\'s infant son Antiochus, until 145 BC when the general Diodotus declared him king, in order to serve as the figurehead of a rebellion against Demetrius II. In 130 BC, another claimant to the throne, Alexander Zabinas, would also claim to be Alexander Balas\' son; almost certainly spuriously. Alexander is the title character of the oratorio *Alexander Balus*, written in 1747 by George Frideric Handel.
## Epithets
On some of his coins he is called \"Epiphanes\" (splendid, glorious) and \"Nicephorus\" (bringer of victory) after his pretended father and on others \"Euergetes\" (benefactor) and \"Theopator\" (of divine descent). In Septuagint it was also called \"Epiphanes\"
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# Alexander of Pherae
**Alexander** (*Ἀλέξανδρος*) was Tyrant or Despot of Pherae in Thessaly, ruling from 369 to c. 356 BC. Following the assassination of Jason, the tyrant of Pherae and Tagus of Thessaly, in 370 BC, his brother Polyphron ruled for a year, but he was then poisoned by Alexander who assumed power himself. Alexander governed tyrannically and was constantly seeking to control Thessaly and the kingdom of Macedonia. He also engaged in piratical raids on Attica. Alexander was murdered by Tisiphonus, Lycophron and Peitholaus, the brothers of his wife, Thebe, as it was said that she lived in fear of her husband and hated Alexander\'s cruel and brutal character.
## Reign
The accounts of how Alexander came to power vary somewhat in minor points. Diodorus Siculus tells us that upon the assassination of the tyrant Jason of Pherae, in 370 BC, his brother Polydorus ruled for a year, but he was then poisoned by Alexander, another brother. However, according to Xenophon, Polydorus was murdered by his brother Polyphron, who was, in turn, murdered by his nephew Alexander ---son of Jason, in 369 BC. Plutarch relates that Alexander worshipped the spear he slew his uncle with as if it were a god. Alexander governed tyrannically, and according to Diodorus, differently from the former rulers, but Polyphron, at least, seems to have set him the example. The states of Thessaly, which had previously acknowledged the authority of Jason of Pherae, were not so willing to submit to Alexander the tyrant, (especially the old family of the Aleuadae of Larissa, who had most reason to fear him). Therefore, they applied for help from Alexander II of Macedon.
Alexander prepared to meet his enemy in Macedonia, but the king anticipated him, and, reaching Larissa, was admitted into the city. Alexander withdrew to Pherae whilst the Macedonian King placed a garrison in Larissa, as well as in Crannon, which had also come over to him. But once the bulk of the Macedonian army had retired, the states of Thessaly feared the return and vengeance of Alexander, and so sent for aid to Thebes, whose policy it was to put a check on any neighbour who might otherwise become too formidable. Thebes accordingly dispatched Pelopidas to the aid of Thessaly. On arrival of Pelopidas at Larissa, whence according to Diodorus, he dislodged the Macedonian garrison, Alexander presented himself and offered submission. When Pelopidas expressed indignation at the tales of Alexander\'s profligacy and cruelty, Alexander took alarm and fled.
These events appear to refer to the early part of 368 BC. In the summer of that year Pelopidas was again sent into Thessaly, in consequence of fresh complaints against Alexander. Accompanied by Ismenias, he went merely as a negotiator, without any military force, and was seized by Alexander and thrown into prison. The scholar William Mitford suggested that Pelopidas was taken prisoner in battle, but the language of Demosthenes hardly supports such an inference. The Thebans sent a large army into Thessaly to rescue Pelopidas, but they could not keep the field against the superior cavalry of Alexander, who, aided by auxiliaries from Athens, pursued them with great slaughter. The destruction of the whole Theban army is said to only have been averted by the ability of Epaminondas, who was serving in the campaign, but not as general.
In 367 BC, Alexander carried out a massacre of the citizens of Scotussa. A fresh Theban expedition into Thessaly, under Epaminondas resulted, according to Plutarch, in a three-year truce and the release of prisoners, including Pelopidas. During the next three years, Alexander seemed to renew his attempts to subdue the states of Thessaly, especially Magnesia and Phthiotis, for upon the expiry of the truce, in 364 BC, they again applied to Thebes for protection from him. The Theban army under Pelopidas is said to have been dismayed by an eclipse on 13 July 364 BC, and Pelopidas, leaving the bulk of his army behind, entered Thessaly at the head of three hundred volunteer horsemen and some mercenaries. At Cynoscephalae, the Thebans defeated Alexander, but Pelopidas was killed. This was closely followed by another Theban victory under Malcites and Diogiton. Alexander was then forced to restore the conquered towns to the Thessalians, confine himself to Pherae, join the Boeotian League, and become a dependent ally of Thebes.
If the death of Epaminondas in 362 freed Athens from fear of Thebes, it appears at the same time to have exposed it to further aggression from Alexander, who made a piratical raid on Tinos and other cities of the Cyclades, plundering them, and making slaves of the inhabitants. He also besieged Peparethus, and \"even landed troops in Attica itself, and seized the port of Panormus, a little eastward of Sounion.\" The Athenian admiral Leosthenes defeated Alexander and managed to relieve Peparethus, but Alexander escaped from being blockaded in Panormus, took several Attic triremes, and plundered the Piraeus.
## Death
The murder of Alexander is assigned by Diodorus to 357/356 BC. Plutarch gives a detailed account of it, with a lively picture of the palace. Guards watched throughout the night, except at Alexander\'s bedchamber, which was at the top of a ladder with a ferocious chained dog guarding the door. Thebe, Alexander\'s wife and cousin (or half-sister, as the daughter of Jason of Pherae), concealed her three brothers (Tisiphonus, Lycophron and Peitholaus) in the house during the day, had the dog removed when Alexander had gone to rest, and, having covered the steps of the ladder with wool, brought up the young men to her husband\'s chamber. Though she had taken away Alexander\'s sword, they feared to set about the deed until she threatened to wake him. Her brothers then entered and killed Alexander. His body was cast into the streets, and exposed to every indignity.
Of Thebe\'s motive for the murder different accounts are given. Plutarch states it to have been fear of her husband, together with hatred of Alexander\'s cruel and brutal character, and ascribes these feelings principally to the representations of Pelopidas, when she visited him in his prison. In Cicero the deed is ascribed to jealousy. Other accounts have it that Alexander had taken Thebe\'s youngest brother as his eromenos and tied him up. Exasperated by his wife\'s pleas to release the youth, he murdered the boy, which drove her to revenge.
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# Alexander of Pherae
## Other
It is written in Plutarch\'s Second Oration On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great (see *Moralia*), and in Claudius Aelianus\' *Varia Historia* that Alexander left a tragedy in a theatre because he did not wish to weep at fiction when unmoved by his own cruelty. This suggests that while Alexander was a tyrant, perhaps his iron heart could be softened. The actor was threatened with punishment because Alexander was so moved while watching
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# Alexander II of Epirus
**Alexander II** (Greek: Άλέξανδρος) was a king of Epirus, and the son of Pyrrhus and Lanassa, the daughter of the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles.
## Reign
He succeeded his father as king in 272 BC, and continued the war which his father had begun with Antigonus II Gonatas, whom he succeeded in driving from the kingdom of Macedon. He was, however, dispossessed of both Macedon and Epirus by Demetrius II of Macedon, the son of Antigonus II; upon which he took refuge amongst the Acarnanians. By their assistance and that of his own subjects, who entertained a great attachment for him, he recovered Epirus. It appears that he was in alliance with the Aetolians.
Alexander married his paternal half-sister Olympias, by whom he had two sons, Pyrrhus ΙΙ, Ptolemy ΙΙ and a daughter, Phthia. Beloch places the death of King Alexander II \"about 255\", and supports this date with an elaborate chain of reasoning. On the death of Alexander, Olympias assumed the regency on behalf of her sons, and married Phthia to Demetrius. There are extant silver and copper coins of this king. The former bear a youthful head covered with the skin of an elephant\'s head. The reverse represents Pallas holding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, and before her stands an eagle on a thunderbolt
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# Alexander Jagiellon
**Alexander Jagiellon** (*Aleksander Jagiellończyk*; *Aleksandras Jogailaitis*; 5 August 1461 -- 19 August 1506) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1492 and King of Poland from 1501 until his death in 1506. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV and a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty. Alexander was elected grand duke of Lithuania upon the death of his father and became king of Poland upon the death of his elder brother John I Albert.
## Early life {#early_life}
Alexander was born as the fourth son of King Casimir IV Jagiellon and Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of the King Albert II of Germany. At the time of his father\'s death in 1492, his eldest brother Vladislaus had already become king of Bohemia (1471) and Hungary and Croatia (1490), and the next oldest brother, Saint Casimir, had died (1484) after leading an ascetic and pious life in his final years, resulting in his eventual canonization. While the third oldest brother, John I Albert was chosen by the Polish nobility (*szlachta*) to be the next king of Poland, the Lithuanians instead elected Alexander to be their next grand duke. Alexander maintained a Lithuanian court and multiple Lithuanian priests served in his royal chapel of the Polish royal court.
## Grand Duke of Lithuania (1492--1506) {#grand_duke_of_lithuania_14921506}
The greatest challenge that Alexander faced upon assuming control of the grand duchy was an attack on Lithuania by Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia and his allies, the Crimean Khanate\'s Tatars, which commenced shortly after his accession. Ivan III considered himself the heir to the lands of Kievan Rus\', and was striving to take back the territory previously gained by Lithuania. Unable to successfully stop the incursions, Alexander sent a delegation to Moscow to make a peace settlement, which was signed in 1494 and ceded extensive land over to Ivan. In an additional effort to instill a peace between the two countries, Alexander was betrothed to Helena, the daughter of Ivan III; they were married in Vilnius on 15 February 1495. The peace did not last long, however, as Ivan III resumed hostilities in 1500. The most Alexander could do was to garrison Smolensk and other strongholds and employ his wife Helena to mediate another truce between him and her father after the disastrous Battle of Vedrosha (1500). In the terms of this truce, which was concluded on 25 March 1503, Lithuania had to surrender about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state; Alexander pledged not to touch lands including Moscow, Novgorod, Ryazan, and others, while a total of 19 cities were ceded. Historian Edvardas Gudavičius said:
> \"The war of 1492--1494 was a kind of reconnaissance mission conducted by the united Russia. \[The terms of\] the ceasefire of 1503 showed the planned political aggression of Russia, its undoubted military superiority. The concept of the sovereign of all Russia, put forward by Ivan III, did not leave room for the existence of the Lithuanian state\".
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# Alexander Jagiellon
## Grand Duke of Lithuania (1492--1506) {#grand_duke_of_lithuania_14921506}
### Also King of Poland (1501--1506) {#also_king_of_poland_15011506}
On 17 June 1501, Alexander\'s older brother John I Albert died suddenly, and Alexander was crowned king of Poland on 12 December of that year. Alexander\'s shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and *szlachta*, who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position. In 1505, the *Sejm* of the Kingdom of Poland passed the Act of *Nihil novi*, which forbade the king to issue laws without the consent of the nobility, represented by the two legislative chambers, except for laws governing royal cities, crown lands, mines, fiefdoms, royal peasants, and Jews. This was another step in Poland\'s progression towards a \"Noble\'s Democracy\".
During Alexander\'s reign, Poland suffered additional humiliation at the hands of her subject principality, Moldavia. Only the death of Stephen, the great *hospodar* of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube river. Meanwhile, the liberality of Pope Julius II, who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favor of Poland and granted Alexander Peter\'s Pence and other financial help, enabled him to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order.
Alexander Jagiellon never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favor principally upon his fellow Lithuanians, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michael Glinski, who justified his master\'s confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at Kletsk (5 August 1506), news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed in Vilnius.
According to Giedrė Mickūnaitė, interwar Lithuanian historians assumed that Alexander was the last ruler of the Gediminid dynasty who understood the Lithuanian language, yet did not speak it, but there is a lack of sources regarding that.
In 1931, during the refurbishment of Vilnius Cathedral, the forgotten sarcophagus of Alexander was discovered, and has since been put on display.
## Gallery
<File:Johann> Haller, Commune Incliti Poloniae regni privilegium constitutionum et indultuum publicitus decretorum approbatorumque (1506, cropped).jpg\|King Alexander in Polish Senate, 1506. <File:Kanclerz.jpg%7CAlexander> and his *kanclerz* Jan Łaski. <File:St>. Anne\'s Church Exterior 2, Vilnius, Lithuania - Diliff.jpg\|Gothic St. Anne\'s Church in Vilnius was constructed on his initiative in 1495--1500. <File:Krakow> Wawel 20070804 0930.jpg\|In 1504 he ordered to rebuild the Wawel in a Renaissance style. <File:Crown> and sword of Grand Duke Aleksandras Jogailaitis, Vilnius, 1931.jpg\|Crown and sword of Alexander Jagiellon <File:Lithuanian> Denar of Aleksandras Jogailaitis with Vytis (Waykimas) and the Polish Eagle.jpg\|Lithuanian coin with the coat of arms of Lithuania and Poland <File:Seal> of Aleksandras Jogailaitis with the Polish Eagle, Lithuanian Vytis (Waykimas) and other coats of arms, 1504.jpg\|Seal of Alexander Jagiellon, 1504 <File:Alexander> of Poland.PNG\|Fantasy portrait by Bacciarelli <File:Coat> of arms of Aleksandras Jogailaitis from the speech of Erasmus Vitellius in Rome, 1501 (cropped).jpg\|Coat of arms <File:Sword> of Aleksandras Jogailaitis, exhibited in the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius in 2023
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# Alexander I of Scotland
**Alexander I** (medieval Gaelic: *Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim*; modern Gaelic: *Alasdair mac Mhaol Chaluim*; c. 1078 -- 23 April 1124), posthumously nicknamed **The Fierce**, was the King of Alba (Scotland) from 1107 to his death. He was the fifth son of Malcolm III and his second wife, Margaret, sister of Edward Ætheling, a prince of the pre-conquest English royal house.
He succeeded his brother, King Edgar, and his successor was his brother David. He was married to Sybilla of Normandy, an illegitimate daughter of Henry I of England.
## Life
Alexander was the fifth (some sources say fourth) son of Malcolm III and his wife Margaret of Wessex, grandniece of Edward the Confessor. Alexander was named after Pope Alexander II.
He was the younger brother of King Edgar, who was unmarried, and his brother\'s heir presumptive by 1104 (and perhaps earlier). In that year, he was the senior layman present at the examination of the remains of Saint Cuthbert at Durham prior to their re-interment. He held lands in Scotland north of the Forth and in Lothian.
On the death of Edgar in 1107, Alexander succeeded to the Scottish crown but, in accordance with Edgar\'s instructions, their brother David was granted an appanage in southern Scotland. Edgar\'s will granted David the lands of the former kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria and this was apparently agreed in advance by Edgar, Alexander, David and their brother-in-law Henry I of England. In 1113, perhaps at Henry\'s instigation, and with the support of his Anglo-Norman allies, David demanded and received, additional lands in Lothian along the Upper Tweed and Teviot. David did not receive the title of king, but of \"prince of the Cumbrians\", and his lands remained under Alexander\'s final authority.
The dispute over Tweeddale and Teviotdale does not appear to have damaged relations between Alexander and David, although it was unpopular in some quarters. A Gaelic poem laments:
> It\'s bad what Malcolm\'s son has done,\
> dividing us from Alexander;\
> he causes, like each king\'s son before,\
> the plunder of stable Alba.
The dispute over the eastern marches does not appear to have caused lasting trouble between Alexander and Henry of England. In 1114, he joined Henry on campaign in Wales against Gruffudd ap Cynan of Gwynedd. Alexander\'s marriage with Henry\'s illegitimate daughter Sybilla of Normandy may have occurred as early as 1107, or as late as 1114.
William of Malmesbury\'s account attacks Sybilla, but the evidence argues that Alexander and Sybilla were a devoted but childless couple and Sybilla was of noteworthy piety. Sybilla died in unrecorded circumstances at *Eilean nam Ban* (Kenmore on Loch Tay) in July 1122 and was buried at Dunfermline Abbey. Alexander did not remarry and Walter Bower wrote that he planned an Augustinian Priory at the *Eilean nam Ban* dedicated to Sybilla\'s memory, and he may have taken steps to have her venerated.
Alexander had at least one illegitimate child, Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair, who was later involved in a revolt against David I in the 1130s. He was imprisoned at Roxburgh for many years afterwards, perhaps until his death sometime after 1157.
Alexander was, like his brothers Edgar and David, a notably pious king. He was responsible for foundations at Scone and Inchcolm, the latter founded in thanks for his survival of a tempest at sea nearby. He had the two towers built which flanked the great western entrance of Dunfermline Abbey, where his mother was buried.
His mother\'s chaplain and hagiographer Thurgot was named Bishop of Saint Andrews (or *Cell Rígmonaid*) in 1107, presumably by Alexander\'s order. The case of Thurgot\'s would-be successor Eadmer shows that Alexander\'s wishes were not always accepted by the religious community, perhaps because Eadmer had the backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ralph d\'Escures, rather than Thurstan of York. Alexander also patronised Saint Andrews, granting lands intended for an Augustinian Priory, which may have been the same as that intended to honour his wife.
For all his religiosity, Alexander was not remembered as a man of peace. John of Fordun says of him: `{{Blockquote|Now the king was a lettered and godly man; very humble and amiable towards the clerics and regulars, but terrible beyond measure to the rest of his subjects; a man of large heart, exerting himself in all things beyond his strength.<ref>Fordun, V, xxviii ([[William Forbes Skene|Skene's]] edition).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki}
He manifested the terrible aspect of his character in his reprisals in the Province of Moray. Andrew of Wyntoun\'s *Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland* says that Alexander was holding court at Invergowrie when he was attacked by \"men of the Isles\". Walter Bower says the attackers were from Moray and Mearns. Alexander pursued them north, to \"Stockford\" in Ross (near Beauly) where he defeated them. This, says Wyntoun, is why he was named the \"Fierce\". The dating of this is uncertain, as are his enemies\' identities. However, in 1116 the Annals of Ulster report: \"Ladhmann son of Domnall, grandson of the king of Scotland, was killed by the men of Moray.\" The king referred to is Alexander\'s father, Malcolm III, and Domnall was Alexander\'s half brother. The Province or Kingdom of Moray was ruled by the family of Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláich) and Lulach (Lulach mac Gille Coemgáin): not overmighty subjects, but a family who had ruled Alba within little more than a lifetime. Who the Mormaer or King was at this time is not known; it may have been Óengus of Moray or his father, whose name is not known. As for the Mearns, the only known Mormaer of Mearns, Máel Petair, had murdered Alexander\'s half-brother Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maíl Coluim) in 1094.
Alexander died in April 1124 at his court at Stirling; his brother David, probably the acknowledged heir since the death of Sybilla, succeeded him.
## Fictional portrayals {#fictional_portrayals}
Alexander was depicted in a fantasy novel, *Pater Nostras Canis Dirus: The Garrison Effect* (2010). Alexander is depicted as troubled by his lack of direct heirs, having no child with his wife Sybilla of Normandy. He points out that his father-in-law Henry I of England is asking them for a grandson
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# Alexander of Aphrodisias
**Alexander of Aphrodisias** (*translit=Alexandros ho Aphrodisieus*; `{{floruit|200}}`{=mediawiki} AD) was a Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and lived and taught in Athens at the beginning of the 3rd century, where he held a position as head of the Peripatetic school. He wrote many commentaries on the works of Aristotle, extant are those on the *Prior Analytics*, *Topics*, *Meteorology*, *Sense and Sensibilia*, and *Metaphysics*. Several original treatises also survive, and include a work *On Fate*, in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one *On the Soul*. His commentaries on Aristotle were considered so useful that he was styled, by way of pre-eminence, \"the commentator\" (*ὁ ἐξηγητής*).
## Life and career {#life_and_career}
Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria (present-day Turkey) and came to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century. He was a student of the two Stoic, or possibly Peripatetic, philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus, and perhaps of Aristotle of Mytilene. At Athens he became head of the Peripatetic school and lectured on Peripatetic philosophy. Alexander\'s dedication of *On Fate* to Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in gratitude for his position at Athens, indicates a date between 198 and 209. A recently published inscription from Aphrodisias confirms that he was head of one of the Schools at Athens and gives his full name as Titus Aurelius Alexander. His full nomenclature shows that his grandfather or other ancestor was probably given Roman citizenship by the emperor Antoninus Pius, while proconsul of Asia. The inscription honours his father, also called Alexander and also a philosopher. This fact makes it plausible that some of the suspect works that form part of Alexander\'s corpus should be ascribed to his father.
### Commentaries
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His extant commentaries are on *Prior Analytics* (Book 1), *Topics*, *Meteorology*, *Sense and Sensibilia*, and *Metaphysics* (Books 1--5). The commentary on the *Sophistical Refutations* is deemed spurious, as is the commentary on the final nine books of the *Metaphysics*. The lost commentaries include works on the *De Interpretatione*, *Posterior Analytics*, *Physics*, *On the Heavens*, *On Generation and Corruption*, *On the Soul*, and *On Memory*. Simplicius of Cilicia mentions that Alexander provided commentary on the quadrature of the lunes, and the corresponding problem of squaring the circle. In April 2007, it was reported that imaging analysis had discovered an early commentary on Aristotle\'s *Categories* in the Archimedes Palimpsest, and Robert Sharples suggested Alexander as the most likely author.
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# Alexander of Aphrodisias
## Life and career {#life_and_career}
### Original treatises {#original_treatises}
There are also several extant original writings by Alexander. These include: *On the Soul*, *Problems and Solutions*, *Ethical Problems*, *On Fate*, and *On Mixture and Growth*. Three works attributed to him are considered spurious: *Medical Questions*, *Physical Problems*, and *On Fevers*. Additional works by Alexander are preserved in Arabic translation, these include: *On the Principles of the Universe*, *On Providence*, and *Against Galen on Motion*.
*On the Soul* (*De anima*) is a treatise on the soul written along the lines suggested by Aristotle in his own *De anima*. Alexander contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (*nous hylikos*) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul\'s immortality. He identified the active intellect (*nous poietikos*), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God. A second book is known as the *Supplement to On the Soul* (*Mantissa*). The *Mantissa* is a series of twenty-five separate pieces of which the opening five deal directly with psychology. The remaining twenty pieces cover problems in physics and ethics, of which the largest group deals with questions of vision and light, and the final four with fate and providence. The *Mantissa* was probably not written by Alexander in its current form, but much of the actual material may be his.
*Problems and Solutions* (*Quaestiones*) consists of three books which, although termed \"problems and solutions of physical questions,\" treat of subjects which are not all physical, and are not all problems. Among the sixty-nine items in these three books, twenty-four deal with physics, seventeen with psychology, eleven with logic and metaphysics, and six with questions of fate and providence. It is unlikely that Alexander wrote all of the *Quaestiones*, some may be Alexander\'s own explanations, while others may be exercises by his students.
*Ethical Problems* was traditionally counted as the fourth book of the *Quaestiones*. The work is a discussion of ethical issues based on Aristotle, and contains responses to questions and problems deriving from Alexander\'s school. It is likely that the work was not written by Alexander himself, but rather by his pupils on the basis of debates involving Alexander.
*On Fate* is a treatise in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity. In *On Fate* Alexander denied three things - necessity (*ἀνάγκη*), the foreknowledge of fated events that was part of the Stoic identification of God and Nature, and determinism in the sense of a sequence of causes that was laid down beforehand (*προκαταβεβλημένα αἴτια*) or predetermined by antecedents (*προηγούμενα αἴτια*). He defended a view of moral responsibility we would call libertarianism today.
*On Mixture and Growth* discusses the topic of mixture of physical bodies. It is both an extended discussion (and polemic) on Stoic physics, and an exposition of Aristotelian thought on this theme.
*On the Principles of the Universe* is preserved in Arabic translation. This treatise is not mentioned in surviving Greek sources, but it enjoyed great popularity in the Muslim world, and a large number of copies have survived. The main purpose of this work is to give a general account of Aristotelian cosmology and metaphysics, but it also has a polemical tone, and it may be directed at rival views within the Peripatetic school. Alexander was concerned with filling the gaps of the Aristotelian system and smoothing out its inconsistencies, while also presenting a unified picture of the world, both physical and ethical. The topics dealt with are the nature of the heavenly motions and the relationship between the unchangeable celestial realm and the sublunar world of generation and decay. His principal sources are the *Physics* (book 7), *Metaphysics* (book 12), and the Pseudo-Aristotelian *On the Universe*.
*On Providence* survives in two Arabic versions. In this treatise, Alexander opposes the Stoic view that divine Providence extends to all aspects of the world; he regards this idea as unworthy of the gods. Instead, providence is a power that emanates from the heavens to the sublunar region, and is responsible for the generation and destruction of earthly things, without any direct involvement in the lives of individuals.
## Influence
By the 6th century Alexander\'s commentaries on Aristotle were considered so useful that he was referred to as \"the commentator\" (*ὁ ἐξηγητής*). His commentaries were greatly esteemed among the Arabs, who translated many of them, and he is heavily quoted by Maimonides.
In 1210, the Church Council of Paris issued a condemnation, which probably targeted the writings of Alexander among others.
In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul\'s mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi (against the Thomists and the Averroists), and by his successor Cesare Cremonini. This school is known as Alexandrists.
Alexander\'s band, an optical phenomenon, is named after him.
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# Alexander of Aphrodisias
## Modern editions {#modern_editions}
Several of Alexander\'s works were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice, 1495--1498; his *De Fato* and *De Anima* were printed along with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also by Schulthess, was edited by J. C. Orelli, Zürich, 1824; and his commentaries on the *Metaphysica* by H. Bonitz, Berlin, 1847. In 1989 the first part of his *On Aristotle\'s Metaphysics* was published in English translation as part of the Ancient commentators project. Since then, other works of his have been translated into English
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# Alexander Aetolus
**Alexander Aetolus** (*Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Αἰτωλός*, *Alexandros ho Aitōlos*) or **Alexander the Aetolian** was a Hellenistic Greek poet and grammarian, who worked at the Library of Alexandria and composed poetry in a variety of genres, now almost entirely lost. He is the only known Aetolian poet of antiquity.
## Life and works {#life_and_works}
Alexander was a native of Pleuron in Aetolia. A contemporary of Callimachus and Theocritus, he was born c. 315 BC, and according to the Suda the names of his parent were Satyros and Stratokleia. By the 280s he was one of a group of literary scholars working at the Library of Alexandria, where Ptolemy II Philadelphus commissioned him to organize and correct the texts of the tragedies and satyr plays in the collection of the Library. Later, along with Antagoras and Aratus, he spent time at the court of the Macedonian king Antigonus II Gonatas.
In addition to his work as a scholar, Alexander was a versatile poet who produced verse in a variety of meters and genres, although only about 70 lines of his work survive, mostly in short fragments quoted by later sources. He was admired for his tragedies, which earned him a place among the seven Alexandrian tragedians who constituted the so-called Tragic Pleiad. One of his tragedies (or perhaps a satyr play), the *Astragalistai* (\"Knucklebone-players\"), described the killing of a fellow student by the young Patroklos. Alexander also wrote epics or *epyllia*, of which a few names and short fragments survive: the *Halieus* (\"Fisherman\"), about the sea-god Glaukos, and the *Krika* or *Kirka* (perhaps \"Circe\"?) The longest surviving example of his work is a 34-line excerpt from the *Apollo*, a poem in elegiac couplets, which tells the story of Antheus and Cleoboea. A few other elegiac fragments are quoted by other authors, and two epigrams in the Greek Anthology are usually considered his work. Ancient sources also describe him as a writer of *kinaidoi* (obscene verses, known euphemistically as \"Ionic poems\") in the manner of Sotades. A short fragment in anapestic tetrameters compares the gruff and sullen personality of Euripides with the honeyed quality of his poetry.
## Editions
- A. Meineke, [*Analecta alexandrina*](https://archive.org/details/analectaalexand00meingoog/page/215/) (Berlin 1843), pp. 215--251.
- J. U. Powell, [*Collectanea alexandrina: Reliquiae minores poetarum graecorum aetatis ptolemaicae, 323--146 A.C.*](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002326711&seq=145) (Oxford 1925), pp. 121--129.
- E. Magnelli, *Alexandri Aetoli testimonia et fragmenta* (Florence 1999).
- J. L. Lightfoot, *Hellenistic Collection* (Loeb Classical Library: Cambridge, Mass. 2009), pp. 99--145 (with English translation)
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# Alexandrists
The **Alexandrists** were a school of Renaissance philosophers who, in the great controversy on the subject of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the *De Anima* given by Alexander of Aphrodisias.
According to the orthodox Thomism of the Catholic Church, Aristotle rightly regarded reason as a facility of the individual soul. Against this, the Averroists, led by Agostino Nifo, introduced the modifying theory that universal reason in a sense individualizes itself in each soul and then absorbs the active reason into itself again. These two theories respectively evolved the doctrine of individual and universal immortality, or the absorption of the individual into the eternal One.
The Alexandrists, led by Pietro Pomponazzi, assailed these beliefs and denied that either was rightly attributed to Aristotle. They held that Aristotle considered the soul as a material and therefore a mortal entity which operates during life only under the authority of universal reason. Hence the Alexandrists denied that Aristotle viewed the soul as immortal, because in their view, since they believed that Aristotle viewed the soul as organically connected with the body, the dissolution of the latter involves the extinction of the former
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# Alexis (poet)
**Alexis** (*Ἄλεξις*; `{{floruit}}`{=mediawiki} 350s`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}288 BC) was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period. He was born in Thurii (in present-day Calabria, Italy) in Magna Graecia and taken early to Athens, where he became a citizen, being enrolled in the deme *Oion* (*Οἶον*) and the tribe Leontides. It is thought he lived to the age of 106 and died on the stage while being crowned. According to the *Suda*, a 10th-century encyclopedia, Alexis was the paternal uncle of the dramatist Menander and wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments now survive, including some 130 preserved titles.
## Life
He appears to have been rather addicted to the pleasures of the table, according to Athenaeus. He had a son named Stephanus (Στέφανος) who was also a comic poet.
He won his first Lenaean victory in the 350s BC, most likely, where he was sixth after Eubulus, and fourth after Antiphanes. While being a Middle Comic poet, Alexis was contemporary with several leading figures of New Comedy, such as Philippides, Philemon, Diphilus, and even Menander. There is also some evidence that, during his old age, he wrote plays in the style of New Comedy.
Plutarch says that he lived to the age of 106 and 5 months, and that he died on the stage while being crowned victor. He was certainly alive after 345 BC, for Aeschines mentions him as alive in that year. He was also living at least as late as 288 BC, from which his birth date is calculated. According to the *Suda* he wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments including some 130 titles survive. His plays include *Meropis*, *Ankylion*, *Olympiodoros*, *Parasitos* (exhibited in 360 BC, in which he ridiculed Plato), *Agonis* (in which he ridiculed Misgolas), and the *Adelphoi* and the *Stratiotes*, in which he satirized Demosthenes, and acted shortly after 343 BC. Also *Hippos* (316 BC) (in which he referred to the decree of Sophocles against the philosophers), *Pyraunos* (312 BC), *Pharmakopole* (306 BC), *Hypobolimaios* (306 BC), and *Ankylion*.
Because he wrote a lot of plays, the same passages often appear in more than 3 plays. It was said that he also borrowed from Eubulus and many other playwrights in some of his plays. According to Carytius of Pergamum, Alexis was the first to use the part of the parasite. Alexis was known in Roman times; Aulus Gellius noted that Alexis\' poetry was used by Roman comedians, including Turpilius and possibly Plautus.
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# Alexis (poet)
## Surviving titles and fragments {#surviving_titles_and_fragments}
Only fragments have survived from any of Alexis\'s plays -- about 340 in all, totaling about 1,000 lines. They attest to the author\'s wit and refinement, which Athenaeus praises. The surviving fragments also show that Alexis invented a great many words, mostly compound words, that he used normal words in an unusual way, and made strange and unusual forms of common words. The main sources of the fragments of Alexis are Stobaeus and Athenaeus.
The following 139 titles of Alexis\'s plays have been preserved: `{{div col|colwidth=22em}}`{=mediawiki}
- *Achaiis* (\"The Achaean Woman\")
- *Adelphoi* (\"The Brothers\")
- *Agonis*, or *Hippiskos*
- *Aichmalotos* (\"The Prisoner of War\")
- *Aiopoloi* (\"Goat-Herders\")
- *Aisopos* (\"Aesop\")
- *Aleiptria* (\"Female Physical Trainer\")
- *Ampelourgos* (\"The Vine-Dresser\")
- *Amphotis*
- *Ankylion*
- *Anteia*
- *Apeglaukomenos*
- *Apobates* (\"The Trick Rider\")
- *Apokoptomenos*
- *Archilochos*
- *Asklepiokleides*
- *Asotodidaskalos* (\"Teacher of Debauchery\")
- *Atalante*
- *Atthis*
- *Bomos* (\"The Altar\")
- *Bostrychos* (\"Lock of Hair\")
- *Brettia* (\"The Bruttian Woman\")
- *Choregis*
- *Daktylios* (\"The Ring\")
- *Demetrios*, or *Philetairus*
- *Diapleousai* (\"Women Sailing Across The Sea\")
- *Didymoi* (\"The Twins\")
- *Dis Penthon* (\"Twice Grieving\")
- *Dorkis*, or *Poppyzousa* (\"Lip-Smacking Woman\")
- *Dropides*
- *Eis To Phrear* (\"Into The Well\")
- *Eisoikizomenos* (\"The Banished Man\")
- *Ekkeryttomenos*
- *Ekpomatopoios* (\"The Cup-Maker\")
- *Epidaurios* (\"The Man From Epidaurus\")
- *Epikleros* (\"The Heiress\")
- *Epistole* (\"The Letter\")
- *Epitropos* (\"The Guardian\", or \"Protector\")
- *Eretrikos* (\"Man From Eretria\")
- *Erithoi* (\"Weavers\"), or *Pannychis* (\"All-Night Festival\")
- *Galateia* (\"Galatea\")
- *Graphe* (\"The Document\")
- *Gynaikokratia* (\"Government By Women\")
- *Helene* (\"Helen\")
- *Helenes Arpage* (\"Helen\'s Capture\")
- *Helenes Mnesteres* (\"Helen\'s Suitors\")
- *Hellenis* (\"The Greek Woman\")
- *Hepta Epi Thebais* (\"Seven Against Thebes\")
- *Hesione* (\"Hesione\")
- *Hippeis* (\"Knights\")
- *Homoia*
- *Hypnos* (\"Sleep\")
- *Hypobolimaios* (\"The Changeling\")
- *Iasis* (\"The Cure, or Remedy\")
- *Isostasion*
- *Kalasiris*
- *Karchedonios* (\"The Man From Carthage\")
- *Katapseudomenos* (\"The False Accuser\")
- *Kaunioi* (\"The Men From Kaunos\")
- *Keryttomenos* (\"The Proclaimed Man\")
- *Kitharodos* (\"The Citharode\")
- *Kleobouline* (\"Cleobuline\")
- *Knidia* (\"The Woman From Cnidus\")
- *Koniates* (\"Plasterer\")
- *Kouris* (\"The Lady Hairdresser\")
- *Krateuas*, or *Pharmakopoles* (\"Pharmacist\")
- *Kybernetes* (\"The Pilot or Helmsman\")
- *Kybeutai* (\"The Dice-Players\")
- *Kyknos* (\"The Swan\")
- *Kyprios* (\"The Man from Cyprus\")
- *Lampas* (\"The Torch\")
- *Lebes* (\"The Cauldron\")
- *Leukadia* (\"Woman From Leucas\"), or *Drapetai* (\"Female Runaways\")
- *Leuke* (\"Leprosy,\" or possibly \"The White Poplar\")
- *Lemnia* (\"The Woman From Lemnos\")
- *Linos* (\"Linus\")
- *Lokroi* (\"The Locrians\")
- *Lykiskos*
- *Mandragorizomene* (\"Mandrake-Drugged Woman\")
- *Manteis* (\"Diviners,\" or \"Seers\")
- *Meropis* (\"Meropis\")
- *Midon* (\"Midon\")
- *Milesia* (\"Milesian Woman\")
- *Milkon* (\"Milcon\")
- *Minos* (\"Minos\")
- *Mylothros* (\"The Miller\")
- *Odysseus Aponizomenos* (\"Odysseus Washing Himself\")
- *Odysseus Hyphainon* (\"Odysseus Weaving Cloth\")
- *Olympiodoros*
- *Olynthia* (\"The Woman From Olynthos\")
- *Opora* (\"Autumn\")
- *Orchestris* (\"The Dancing-Girl\")
- *Orestes* (\"Orestes\")
- *Pallake* (\"The Concubine\")
- *Pamphile*
- *Pankratiastes*
- *Parasitos* (\"The Parasite\")
- *Pezonike*
- *Phaidon*, or *Phaidrias*
- *Phaidros* (\"Phaedrus\")
- *Philathenaios* (\"Lover of the Athenian People\")
- *Philiskos*
- *Philokalos*, or *Nymphai* (\"Nymphs\")
- *Philotragodos* (\"Lover of Tragedies\")
- *Philousa* (\"The Loving Woman\")
- *Phryx* (\"The Phrygian\")
- *Phygas* (\"The Fugitive\")
- *Poietai* (\"Poets\")
- *Poietria* (\"The Poetess\")
- *Polykleia* (\"Polyclea\")
- *Ponera* (\"The Wicked Woman\")
- *Pontikos* (\"The Man From Pontus\")
- *Proskedannymenos*
- *Protochoros* (\"First Chorus\")
- *Pseudomenos* (\"The Lying Man\")
- *Pylaia*
- *Pyraunos*
- *Pythagorizousa* (\"Female Disciple of Pythagoras\")
- *Rhodion*, or *Poppyzousa* (\"Lip-Smacking Woman\")
- *Sikyonios* (\"The Man From Sicyon\")
- *Skeiron*
- *Sorakoi*
- *Spondophoros* (\"The Libation-Bearer\")
- *Stratiotes* (\"The Soldier\")
- *Synapothneskontes* (\"Men Dying Together\")
- *Syntrechontes*
- *Syntrophoi*
- *Syrakosios* (\"Man From Syracuse\")
- *Tarantinoi* (\"Men From Tarentum\")
- *Thebaioi* (\"Men From Thebes\")
- *Theophoretos* (\"Possessed by a God\")
- *Thesprotoi* (\"Men From Thesprotia\")
- *Theteuontes* (\"Serfs\")
- *Thrason* (\"Thrason\")
- *Titthe* (\"The Wet-Nurse\")
- *Tokistes* (\"Money-Lender\"), or *Katapseudomenos* (\"The False Accuser\")
- *Traumatias* (\"The Wounded Man\")
- *Trophonios* (\"Trophonius\")
- *Tyndareos* (\"Tyndareus\")
## Editions of fragments {#editions_of_fragments}
- Augustus Meineke. *Poetarum Graecorum comicorum fragmenta*, (1855).
- Theodor Kock. *Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta*, i. (1880).
- Colin Austin and Rudolf Kassel. *Poetae Comici Graeci*. vol. 2
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# Alexios II Komnenos
**Alexios II Komnenos** (*Aléxios Komnēnós*; 14 September 1169`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}September 1183), Latinized **Alexius II Comnenus**, was Byzantine emperor from 1180 to 1183. He ascended to the throne as a minor. For the duration of his short reign, the imperial power was *de facto* held by regents.
## Biography
### Early years {#early_years}
Born in the purple at Constantinople, Alexios was the long-awaited son of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (who gave him a name that began with the letter alpha as a fulfillment of the AIMA prophecy) and Maria of Antioch. In 1171 he was crowned co-emperor, and in 1175 he accompanied his father at Dorylaion in Asia Minor in order to have the city rebuilt. On 2 March 1180, at the age of ten, he was married to Agnes of France aged eight, daughter of King Louis VII of France. She was thereafter known as Anna, and after Alexios\' murder three years later, Anna would be remarried to the person responsible, Andronikos, then aged 65.
### Regency of Maria and Alexios {#regency_of_maria_and_alexios}
When Manuel I died in September 1180, Alexios II succeeded him as emperor. At this time, however, he was an uneducated boy with only amusement in mind. The imperial regency was then undertaken by the dowager empress and the *prōtosebastos* Alexios Komnenos (a namesake cousin of Alexios II), who was popularly believed to be her lover.
The regents depleted the imperial treasury by granting privileges to Italian merchants and to the Byzantine aristocracy. When Béla III of Hungary and Kilij Arslan II of Rum began raiding within the Byzantine western and eastern borders respectively, the regents were forced to ask for help to the pope and to Saladin. Furthermore, a party supporting Alexios II\'s right to reign, led by his half-sister Maria Komnene and her husband the *caesar* John, stirred up riots in the streets of the capital.
The regents managed to defeat the party on April 1182, but Andronikos Komnenos, a first cousin of Manuel I, took advantage of the disorder to aim at the crown. He entered Constantinople, received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the government. His arrival was celebrated by a massacre of the Latins in Constantinople, especially the Venetian merchants, which he made no attempt to stop.
### Regency of Andronikos and death {#regency_of_andronikos_and_death}
On 16 May 1182 Andronikos, posing as Alexios\' protector, officially restored him on the throne. As for 1180, the young emperor was uninterested in ruling matters, and Andronikos effectively acted as the power behind the throne, not allowing Alexios any voice in public affairs. One after another, Andronikos suppressed most of Alexios\' defenders and supporters: his half-sister Maria Komnene, the *caesar* John, his loyal generals Andronikos Doukas Angelos, Andronikos Kontostephanos and John Komnenos Vatatzes, while Empress Dowager Maria was put in prison.
In 1183, Alexios was compelled to condemn his own mother to death. In September 1183, Andronikos was formally proclaimed emperor before the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè. Probably by the end of the same month, Andronikos ordered Alexios\' assassination; the young emperor was secretly strangled with a bow-string and his body thrown in the Bósporos.
In the years following Alexios\' mysterious disappearance, many young men resembling him tried to claim the throne. In the end, none of those *pseudo-Alexioi* managed to become emperor.
## Portrayal in fiction {#portrayal_in_fiction}
Alexios is a character in the historical novel *Agnes of France* (1980) by Greek writer Kostas Kyriazis. The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel I, Alexios II, and Andronikos I through the eyes of Agnes
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# Alexios V Doukas
**Alexios V Doukas** (*Aléxios Doúkās*; died December 1204), Latinized as **Alexius V Ducas**, was Byzantine emperor from February to April 1204, just prior to the sack of Constantinople by the participants of the Fourth Crusade. His family name was Doukas, but he was also known by the nickname **Mourtzouphlos** or **Murtzuphlus** (*Μούρτζουφλος*), referring to either bushy, overhanging eyebrows or a sullen, gloomy character. He achieved power through a palace coup, killing his predecessors in the process. Though he made vigorous attempts to defend Constantinople from the crusader army, his military efforts proved ineffective. His actions won the support of the mass of the populace, but he alienated the elite of the city. Following the fall, sack, and occupation of the city, Alexios V was blinded by his father-in-law, the ex-emperor Alexios III, and later executed by the new Latin regime. He was the last Byzantine emperor to rule in Constantinople until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople in 1261.
## Origins and character {#origins_and_character}
Though in possession of the surname used by a leading Byzantine aristocratic family, there is very little definitely known concerning the ancestry of Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos. The noble Doukas clan were not the only Doukai, as the surname was also employed by many families of humble origins. It has been claimed that Alexios Doukas was a great-great-grandson of the emperor Alexios I Komnenos (`{{reign|1081|1118}}`{=mediawiki}) in the female line (cognatic descent). This is not improbable, as all other Byzantine emperors, and the majority of attempted usurpers, of the period had a connection with the former imperial house of the Komnenoi, either by descent or marriage. A more precise theory has been proposed, that he was the son of an Isaac Doukas, and was the second cousin of Alexios IV Angelos (`{{reign|1203|1204}}`{=mediawiki}). His date of birth is also unknown, but it is sometimes given as c. 1140 because he was considered \"old\" in 1204. A letter sent to Pope Innocent III, stated that Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos was \'a blood relation\' of Alexios IV Angelos.
The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates was dismissed from office as logothete of the *sekreta* by Mourtzouphlos. His assessment of the emperor\'s character might therefore be biased; however, Choniates allows that he was extremely clever by nature, though arrogant in his manner and lecherous.
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# Alexios V Doukas
## Political intrigues and usurpation {#political_intrigues_and_usurpation}
The participation of Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos in the attempted overthrow of Alexios III Angelos (`{{reign|1195|1203}}`{=mediawiki}) by John Komnenos the Fat in 1200 had led to his imprisonment. Mourtzouphlos was probably imprisoned from 1201 until the restoration to the throne of Isaac II Angelos (`{{reign|1185|1195|1203|1204}}`{=mediawiki}), the brother and predecessor of Alexios III. Isaac II, along with his son Alexios IV Angelos, were restored to the throne through the intervention of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in July 1203. On release, Mourtzouphlos was invested with the court position of *protovestiarios* (head of the imperial finances). He had been married twice but was allegedly the lover of Eudokia Angelina, a daughter of Alexios III.
By the beginning of 1204, Isaac II and Alexios IV had inspired little confidence among the people of Constantinople with their efforts to protect the city from the Latin crusaders and their Venetian allies, and the citizens were becoming restless. The crusaders were also losing patience with the emperors; they rioted and set fires in the city when the money and aid promised by Alexios IV was not forthcoming. The fires affected about a sixth of the area of Constantinople and may have made up to a third of the population homeless; the dislocation and desperation of those affected eventually sapped the will of the people to resist the crusaders. Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos emerged as a leader of the anti-Latin movement in the city. He won the approval of the populace by his valour in leading an attack on the Latins at \"Trypetos Lithos\"; in this clash his mount stumbled and he would have been killed or captured had a band of youthful archers from the city not defended him. Mourtzouphlos exploited the hatred of the people for the Latins to serve his personal ambition.
The citizens of Constantinople rebelled in late January 1204, and in the chaos an otherwise obscure nobleman named Nicholas Kanabos was acclaimed emperor, though he was unwilling to accept the crown. The two co-emperors barricaded themselves in the Palace of Blachernae and entrusted Mourtzouphlos with a mission to seek help from the crusaders, or at least they informed him of their intentions. Instead of contacting the crusaders, Mourtzouphlos, on the night of 28--29 January 1204, used his access to the palace to bribe the \"ax-bearers\" (the Varangian Guard), and with their backing arrest the emperors. Choniates states that Mourtzouphlos, when bribing the guards, had the help of a eunuch with access to the imperial treasury. The support of the Varangians seems to have been of major importance in the success of the coup, though Mourtzouphlos also had help from his relations and associates. The young Alexios IV was eventually strangled in prison; while his father Isaac, both enfeebled and blind, died at around the time of the coup, his death variously attributed to fright, sorrow, or mistreatment. Kanabos was initially spared and offered an office under Alexios V, but he refused both this and a further summons from the emperor and took sanctuary in the Hagia Sophia; he was forcibly removed and killed on the steps of the cathedral.
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# Alexios V Doukas
## Emperor
The timing of the deaths of the deposed emperors and of Kanabos, and their relation to the coronation of Alexios V are problematic. Alexios V appears to have been acclaimed emperor as early as the night he moved against the Angeloi co-emperors, on 27 January. He was crowned soon after, on or around 5 February.
Finding the treasury empty, the new emperor confiscated money from the aristocracy and high officials to be put to public use. These actions endeared Alexios V to the citizens, but alienated his relations and other prominent supporters. Once in firm control, Alexios V closed the gates of the city to the crusaders and strengthened the fortifications. Sword in hand, he was active in leading attacks on sorties made by the crusaders in search of supplies. On 2 February, Henry of Flanders led a part of the crusader army to Filea (or Phileas), in order to obtain food supplies. As he returned towards Constantinople, Alexios V attacked his rearguard. The Byzantines were defeated, the imperial standard and an important icon of the Virgin (the *Panagia Nikopoios*) were captured. The Byzantines lost some of their best soldiers in the clash, and Alexios V was lucky to escape alive. At about this time Alexios V attempted to destroy the crusader fleet with fire-ships, but to little effect.
The loss of the icon, traditionally seen as a physical embodiment of divine protection for the city, was a severe psychological blow. Its possession by the crusaders convinced many of the population of Constantinople that the victory of the Westerners was now divinely sanctioned, as a punishment for the sins of the Byzantines.
Around 8 February, Alexios V met the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, for peace talks. The conditions demanded by the Venetian, however, were too harsh for the Byzantines to consider. Choniates states that the meeting was brought to a close by a sudden attack by crusader cavalry on Alexios V and his entourage, the emperor narrowly escaping capture. Alexios IV was probably killed the same day; the insistence by the crusaders that he be restored to the throne may have precipitated his death. When news of the death of Alexios IV reached the crusaders, relations between them and Alexios V deteriorated further. The forcible expulsion of all Latins resident in Constantinople in March seems to have been the tipping point which led the crusaders to begin actively negotiating amongst themselves regarding the partition of the Byzantine Empire. They also began to prepare for their final assault on the city, which took place the following month.
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# Alexios V Doukas
## The fall of Constantinople, flight and death {#the_fall_of_constantinople_flight_and_death}
The defenders of Constantinople held out against a crusader assault on 9 April. The crusaders\' second attack three days later, however, proved too strong to repel. Breaking through the walls near the Petria Gate, the crusaders entered the city and looted the Blachernae Palace. Alexios V attempted to rally the people to the defence of the city, but with no success. Alexios V then boarded a fishing boat and fled the city towards Thrace on the night of 12 April 1204, accompanied by Eudokia Angelina and her mother Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera. In the Hagia Sophia Constantine Laskaris was acclaimed as emperor, but being unable to persuade the Varangians to continue the fight, in the early hours of 13 April he also fled, leaving Constantinople under crusader control.
Alexios V and his companions eventually reached Mosynopolis, which had been occupied by the deposed emperor Alexios III Angelos and his followers. At first they were well received, with Alexios V marrying Eudokia Angelina. Later, however, Alexios III arranged for his new son-in-law to be made captive and blinded, thereby rendering him ineligible for the imperial throne. Having been abandoned by both his supporters and his father-in-law, Alexios V was captured near Mosynopolis, or possibly in Anatolia, by the advancing Latins under Thierry de Loos in November 1204. On his return to Constantinople as a prisoner, Alexios V was tried for treason against Alexios IV. In his trial the blind ex-emperor argued that it was Alexios IV who had committed treason to his country, through his intention to invite the crusaders to enter Constantinople in force. On being condemned, he was executed by novel means: he was thrown to his death from the top of the Column of Theodosius.
The new, alien, Latin regime of conquerors in Constantinople may have viewed the public trial and execution of the man who murdered the last \"legitimate emperor\" as a way to cast an aura of legitimacy on themselves. Alexios V was the last Byzantine Emperor to reign in Constantinople before the establishment of the Latin Empire, which controlled the city for the next 57 years, until it was recovered by the Nicaean Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261
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# August 24
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# Hymn to Proserpine
\"**Hymn to Proserpine**\" is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in *Poems and Ballads* in 1866. The poem is addressed to the goddess Proserpina, the Roman equivalent of Persephone, but laments the rise of Christianity for displacing the pagan goddess and her pantheon.
The epigraph at the beginning of the poem is the phrase *Vicisti, Galilaee*, Latin for \"You have conquered, O Galilean\", the supposed dying words of the Emperor Julian. He had tried to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire. The poem is cast in the form of a lament by a person professing the paganism of classical antiquity and lamenting its passing, and expresses regret at the rise of Christianity.
The line \"Time and the Gods are at strife\" inspired the title of Lord Dunsany\'s *Time and the Gods*.
The poem is quoted by Sue Bridehead in Thomas Hardy\'s 1895 novel *Jude the Obscure*, and also by Edward Ashburnham in Ford Madox Ford\'s *The Good Soldier*
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# The Triumph of Time
\"**The Triumph of Time**\" is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in *Poems and Ballads* in 1866. It is in adapted ottava rima and is full of elaborate use of literary devices, particularly alliteration. The theme, which purports to be autobiographical, is that of rejected love. The speaker deplores the ruin of his life, and in tones at times reminiscent of *Hamlet*, craves oblivion, for which the sea serves as a constant metaphor
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# April 28
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# Alger of Liège
**Alger of Liège** (1055--1131), known also as Alger of Cluny and Algerus Magister, was a learned clergyman and canonist from Liège, author of several notable works.
Alger was first deacon and scholaster of church of St Bartholomew in his native Liège and was then appointed (c. 1100) as a canon in St. Lambert\'s Cathedral. Moreover, he acted as the personal secretary of bishop Otbert from 1103. He declined offers from German bishops and finally retired to the monastery of Cluny after 1121, where he died at a high age, leaving behind a solid reputation for piety and intelligence.`{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Alger of Liége|volume=1|page=642}}`{=mediawiki} This cites:
- Migne, *Patrol Ser. Lat.* vol. clxxx. pp. 739--972
- Herzog-Hauck, *Realencyk. für prot. Theol.*, art, by S. M. Deutsch.
He played a leading role in the trial of Rupert of Deutz in 1116.
His *History of the Church of Liège*, and many of his other works, are lost. The most important remaining are:
1. *De Misericordia et Justitia* (On Mercy and Justice), a collection of biblical extracts and sayings of Church Fathers with commentary (an important work for the history of church law and discipline), which is to be found in the *Anecdota* of Martène, vol. v. This work has been suggested as influential on Gratian\'s Decretum
2. *De Sacramentis Corporis et Sanguinis Domini*; a treatise, in three books, against the Berengarian heresy, highly commended by Peter of Cluny and Erasmus, who published it in 1530. In this book, Alger also took on Rupert of Deutz\' views on the Eucharist and predestination.
3. *De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio*; given in Bernard Pez\'s *Anecdota*, vol. iv.
4. *De Sacrificio Missae*; given in the *Collectio Scriptor. Vet.* of Angelo Mai, vol. ix. p. 371.
5. *De dignitate ecclesie Leodiensis*, which established the reciprocal obligations of the primary and secondary churches; inserted in the Liber officiorum ecclesie Leodiensis (1323).
A biography was written by Nicholas of Liège: De Algero veterum testimonia
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# Alyattes
**Alyattes** (Lydian language: *𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤𐤯𐤤𐤮\]\]* `{{Transliteration|xld|Walweteś}}`{=mediawiki}; *Ἀλυάττης\]\]* `{{Transliteration|grc|Aluáttēs}}`{=mediawiki}; reigned c. 635 -- c. 585 BC), sometimes described as **Alyattes I**, was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Sadyattes, grandson of Ardys, and great-grandson of Gyges. He died after a reign of 57 years and was succeeded by his son Croesus.
Alyattes was the first monarch who issued coins, made from electrum (and his successor Croesus was the first to issue gold coins). Alyattes is therefore sometimes mentioned as the originator of coinage, or of currency.
## Name
The most likely etymology for the name `{{Transliteration|grc|Aluáttēs}}`{=mediawiki} derives it, via a form with initial digamma *Ϝαλυάττης* (`{{Transliteration|grc|Waluáttēs}}`{=mediawiki}), itself originally from a Lydian `{{Transliteration|xld|Walweteś}}`{=mediawiki} (Lydian alphabet: *𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤𐤯𐤤𐤮\]\]*). The name `{{Transliteration|xld|Walweteś}}`{=mediawiki} meant \"lion-ness\" (i.e. the state of being a lion), and was composed of the Lydian term `{{Transliteration|xld|walwe}}`{=mediawiki} (*𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤\]\]*), meaning \"lion\", to which was added an abstract suffix `{{Transliteration|xld|-at(t)a-}}`{=mediawiki} (*𐤠𐤯𐤠-*).
## Chronology
thumb\|upright=1.5\|Electrum trite, Alyattes, Lydia, 610--560 BC. (inscribed *KUKALI\[M\]*) Dates for the Mermnad kings are uncertain and are based on a computation by J. B. Bury and Russell Meiggs (1975) who estimated c.687--c.652 BC for the reign of Gyges. Herodotus 1.16, 1.25, 1.86 gave reign lengths for Gyges\'s successors, but there is uncertainty about these as the total exceeds the timespan between 652 (probable death of Gyges, fighting the Cimmerians) and 547/546 (fall of Sardis to Cyrus the Great). Bury and Meiggs concluded that Ardys and Sadyattes reigned through an unspecified period in the second half of the 7th century BC, but they did not propose dates for Alyattes except their assertion that his son Croesus succeeded him in 560 BC. The timespan 560--546 BC for the reign of Croesus is almost certainly accurate.
However, based on an analysis of sources contemporary with Gyges, such as Neo-Assyrian records, Anthony Spalinger has convincingly deduced dated Gyges\'s death to 644 BCE, and Alexander Dale has consequently dated Alyattes\'s reign as starting in c. 635 BCE and ending in 585 BCE.
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# Alyattes
## Life and reign {#life_and_reign}
Alyattes was the son of the king Sadyattes of Lydia and his sister and queen, Lyde of Lydia, both the children of the king Ardys of Lydia. Alyattes ascended to the kingship of Lydia during period of severe crisis: during the 7th century BCE, the Cimmerians, a nomadic people from the Eurasian Steppe who had invaded Western Asia, attacked Lydia several times but had been repelled by Alyattes\'s great-grandfather, Gyges. In 644 BCE, the Cimmerians, led by their king Lygdamis, attacked Lydia for the third time. The Lydians were defeated, Sardis was sacked, and Gyges was killed, following which he was succeeded by his son Ardys. In 637 BCE, during the seventh regnal year of Ardys, the Thracian Treres tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia, under their king Kobos, and in alliance with the Cimmerians and the Lycians, attacked Lydia. They defeated the Lydians again and for a second time sacked the Lydian capital of Sardis, except for its citadel. It is probable that Ardys was killed during this Cimmerian attack or was deposed in 637 BC for being unable to protect Lydia from the Cimmerian attacks, and Ardys\'s son and successor Sadyattes might have also been either killed during another Cimmerian attack in 653 BCE or deposed that year for his inability to successfully protect Lydia from the Cimmerian incursions. Alyattes thus succeeded his father Sadyattes amidst extreme turmoil in 635 BCE.
### Initial relations with the Ionians {#initial_relations_with_the_ionians}
Alyattes started his reign by continuing the hostilities with the Ionian city of Miletus started by Sadyattes. Alyattes\'s war with Miletus consisted largely of a series of raids to capture the Milesians\' harvest of grain, which were severely lacking in the Lydian core regions. These hostilities lasted until Alyattes\'s sixth year (c. 630 BCE), when he finally made peace with the city\'s tyrant Thrasybulus, and a treaty of friendship as well as one of military alliance was concluded between Lydia and Miletus whereby, since Miletus lacked auriferous and other metallurgic resources while cereals were scarce in Lydia, trade of Lydian metal in exchange of Milesian cereal was initiated to seal these treaties, according to which Miletus voluntarily provided Lydia with military auxiliaries and would profit from the Lydian control of the routes in inner Anatolia, and Lydia would gain access to the markets and maritime networks of the Milesians in the Black Sea and at Naucratis. Herodotus\'s account of Alyattes\'s illness, caused by Lydian troops\' destruction of the temple Athena in Assesos, and which was cured after he heeded the Pythia and rebuilt two temples of Athena in Assesos and then made peace with Miletus, is a largely legendary account of these events which appears to not be factual. This legendary account likely arose as a result of Alyattes\'s offerings to the sanctuary of Delphi.
Unlike with the other Greek cities of Anatolia, Alyattes always maintained very good relations with Ephesus, to whose ruling dynasty the Mermnads were connected by marriage: Alyattes\'s great-grandfather had married one of his daughters to the Ephesian tyrant Melas the Elder: Alyattes\'s grandfather Ardys had married his daughter Lyde to a grandson of Melas the Elder named Miletus (Lyde would later marry her own brother Sadyattes, and Alyattes would be born from this marriage); and Alyattes himself married one of his own daughters to the then tyrant of Miletus, a descendant of Miletus named Melas the Younger, and from this union would be born Pindar of Ephesus. One of the daughters of Melas the Younger might have in turn married Alyattes and become the mother of his less famous son, Pantaleon. Thanks to these close ties, Ephesus had never been subject to Lydian attacks and was exempt from paying tribute and offering military support to Lydia, and both the Greeks of Ephesus and the Anatolian peoples of the region, that is the Lydians and Carians, shared in common the temple of an Anatolian goddess equated by the Greeks to their own goddess Artemis. Lydia and Ephesus also shared important economic interests which allowed Ephesus to hold an advantageous position between the maritime trade routes of the Aegean Sea and the continental trade routes going through inner Anatolia and reaching Assyria, thus acting as an intermediary between the Lydian kingdom which controlled access to the trade routes leading to the inside of Asia and the Greeks inhabiting the European continent and the Aegean islands, and allowing Ephesus to profit from the goods transiting across its territory without fear of any military attack by the Lydians. These connections in turn provided Lydia with a port through which it could have access to the Mediterranean Sea.
### Offerings to Delphi {#offerings_to_delphi}
Like his great-grandfather Gyges, Alyattes also dedicated lavish offerings to the oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Alyattes\'s offerings consisted of a large silver crater and an iron crater-stand which had been made by welding by Glaucus of Chios, thus combining Lydian and Ionian artistic traditions.
Alyattes\'s offering to Delphi might have been sent to please the sanctuary of Apollo and the Delphains, especially the priests, to impress the Greek visitors of the sanctuary, and to influence the oracle to advise to Periander of Corinth, an ally of Thrasybulus of Miletus, to convince the latter to make peace with Alyattes.
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# Alyattes
## Life and reign {#life_and_reign}
### Lyde of Lydia story {#lyde_of_lydia_story}
According to *Tractatus de mulieribus* (citing Xenophilos of Sardeis, who wrote the history of Lydia), Lyde was the wife and sister of Sadyattes, the ancestor of Croesus. Lyde\'s son, Alyattes, when he inherited the kingdom from his father, committed the terrible crime of tearing the clothes of respectable people and spitting on many. She too held her son back as much as she could and placated those who were insulted with kind words and actions. She showed all his compassion to her son and made him feel great love for himself. When she believes that he is loved enough and abstains from food and other things, citing his illness as an excuse, Xenophilos accompanies his mother that he does not eat in the same way and has changed enough to be extremely honest and fair (someone).Alyattes after seeing this becomes a changed man.
### Relations with Caria {#relations_with_caria}
In the south, Alyattes continued what had been the Lydian policy since Gyges\'s reign of maintaining alliances with the city-states of the Carians, with whom the Lydians also had strong cultural connections, such as sharing the sanctuary of the god Zeus of Mylasa with the Carians and the Mysians because they believed these three peoples descended from three brothers. These alliances between the Lydian kings and the various Carian dynasts required the Lydian and Carian rulers had to support each other, and to solidify these alliances, Alyattes married a woman from the Carian aristocracy with whom he had a son, Croesus, who would eventually succeed him. These connections established between the Lydian kings and the Carian city-states ensured that the Lydians were able to control Caria through alliances with Carian dynasts ruling over fortified settlements, such as Mylasa and Pedasa, and through Lydian aristocrats settled in Carian cities, such as in Aphrodisias.
### Wars against the Cimmerians {#wars_against_the_cimmerians}
Alyattes had inherited more than one war from his father, and soon after his ascension and early during his reign, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BCE. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, whom Strabo credits with expelling the Treres and Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Alyattes, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.
In Polyaenus\' account of the defeat of the Cimmerians, he claimed that Alyattes used \"war dogs\" to expel them from Asia Minor, with the term \"war dogs\" being a Greek folkloric reinterpretation of young Scythian warriors who, following the Indo-European passage rite of the *kóryos*, would ritually take on the role of wolf- or dog-warriors.
Immediately after this first victory of his over the Cimmerians, Alyattes expelled from the Lydian borderlands a final remaining pocket of Cimmerian presence who had been occupying the nearby city of Antandrus for one century, and to facilitate this he re-founded the city of Adramyttium in Aeolis. Alyattes installed his son Croesus as the governor of Adramyttium, and he soon expelled these last remaining Cimmerians from Asia Minor. Adramyttium was moreso an important site for Lydia because it was situated near Atarneus and Astyra, where rich mines were located.
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# Alyattes
## Life and reign {#life_and_reign}
### Eastern conquests {#eastern_conquests}
Alyattes turned towards Phrygia in the east. The kings of Lydia and of the former Phrygian kingdom had already entertained friendly relations before the destruction of the latter by the Cimmerians. After defeating the Cimmerians, Alyattes took advantage of the weakening of the various polities all across Anatolia by the Cimmerian raids and used the lack of a centralised Phrygian state and the traditionally friendly relations between the Lydian and Phrygian elites to extend Lydian rule eastwards to Phrygia. Lydian presence in Phrygia is archaeologically attested by the existence of a Lydian citadel in the Phrygian capital of Gordion, as well as Lydian architectural remains in northwest Phrygia, such as in Dascylium, and in the Phrygian Highlands at Midas City. Lydian troops might have been stationed in the aforementioned locations as well as in Hacıtuğrul, Afyonkarahisar, and Konya, which would have provided to the Lydian kingdom access to the produce and roads of Phrygia. The presence of a Lydian ivory plaque at Kerkenes Daǧ suggests that Alyattes\'s control of Phrygia might have extended to the east of the Halys River to include the city of Pteria, with the possibility that he may have rebuilt this city and placed a Phrygian ruler there: Pteria\'s strategic location would have been useful in protecting the Lydian Empire from attacks from the east, and its proximity to the Royal Road would have made of the city an important centre from which caravans could be protected. Phrygia under Lydian rule would continue to be administered by its local elites, such as the ruler of Midas City who held Phrygian royal titles such as `{{Transliteration|xpg|lawagetai}}`{=mediawiki} (king) and `{{Transliteration|xpg|wanaktei}}`{=mediawiki} (commander of the armies), but were under the authority of the Lydian kings of Sardis and had a Lydian diplomatic presence at their court, following the framework of the traditional vassalage treaties used since the period of the Hittite and Assyrian empires, and according to which the Lydian king imposed on the vassal rulers a \"treaty of vassalage\" which allowed the local Phrygian rulers to remain in power, in exchange of which the Phrygian vassals had the duty to provide military support and sometimes offer rich tribute to the Lydian kingdom. The status of Gordion and Dascylium is however less clear, and it is uncertain whether they were also ruled by local Phrygian kings vassal to the Lydian king, or whether they were directly ruled by Lydian governors.
With the defeat of the Cimmerians having created a power vacuum in Anatolia, Alyattes continued his expansionist policy in the east, and of all the peoples to the west of the Halys River whom Herodotus claimed Alyattes\'s successor Croesus ruled over - the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandyni, Chalybes, Paphlagonians, Thyni and Bithyni Thracians, Carians, Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians, and Pamphylians - it is very likely that a number of these populations had already been conquered under Alyattes, especially since information is attested only about the relations between the Lydians and the Phrygians in both literary and archaeological sources, and there is no available data concerning relations between the other mentioned peoples and the Lydian kings. The only populations Herodotus claimed were independent of the Lydian Empire were the Lycians, who lived in a mountainous country which would not have been accessible to the Lydian armies, and the Cilicians, who had already been conquered by Neo-Babylonian Empire. Modern estimates nevertheless suggest that it is not impossible that the Lydians might have subjected Lycia, given that the Lycian coast would have been important for the Lydians because it was close to a trade route connecting the Aegean region, the Levant, and Cyprus.
At some point in the later years of his reign, Alyattes conducted a military campaign in Caria, although the reason for this intervention is yet unknown. Alyattes\'s son Croesus, as governor of Adramyttium, had to provide his father with Ionian Greek mercenaries for this war.
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# Alyattes
## Life and reign {#life_and_reign}
### Later wars against the Ionians {#later_wars_against_the_ionians}
In 600 BCE, Alyattes resumed his military activities in the west, and the second Ionian city he attacked was Smyrna despite the Lydian kings having previously established good relations with the Smyrniotes in the aftermath of a failed attack of Gyges on the city, leading to the Lydians using the port of Smyrna to export their products and import grain, Lydian craftsmen being allowed to settle in Smyrniot workshops, and Alyattes having provided funding to the inhabitants of the city for the construction of their temple of Athena. Alyattes was thus able to acquire a port which gave the Lydian kingdom permanent access to the sea and a stable source of grain to feed the population of his kingdom through this attack. Smyrna was placed under the direct rule of a member of the Mermnad dynasty, and Alyattes had new fortification walls built for Smyrna from around 600 to around 590 BCE. Although under direct Lydian rule Smyrna\'s temple of Athena and its houses were rebuilt and the city was not forced to provide the Lydian kingdom with military troops or tribute, Smyrna itself was in ruins, and it would only be around 580 BCE, under the reign of Alyattes\'s son Croesus, that Smyrna would finally start to recover.
Alyattes also initially initiated friendly relations with the Ionian city of Colophon, which included a military alliance according to which the city had to offer the service of its famous and feared cavalry, which was itself made up of the aristocracy of Colophon, to the Lydian kingdom should Alyattes request their help. Following the capture of Smyrna, Alyattes attacked the Ionian city of Clazomenae, but the inhabitants of the city managed to successfully repel him with the help of the Colophonian cavalry. Following Alyattes\'s defeat, the Lydian kingdom and the city of Clazomenae concluded a reconciliation agreement which allowed Lydian craftsmen to operate in Clazomenae and allowed the kingdom of Lydia itself to participate in maritime trade, most especially in the olive oil trade produced by the craftsmen of Clazomenae, but also to use the city\'s port to export products manufactured in Lydia proper. Soon after capturing Smyrna and his failure to capture Clazomenae, Alyattes summoned the Colophonian cavalry to Sardis, where he had them massacred in violation of hospitality laws and redistributed their horses to Lydian cavalrymen, following which he placed Colophon itself under direct Lydian rule. The reason for Alyattes\'s breaking of the friendly relations with Colophon are unknown, although the archaeologist John Manuel Cook has suggested that Alyattes might have concluded a treaty of friendship and a military alliance with Colophon to secure the city\'s non-interference in his military operations against the other Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, but Colophon first violated these agreements with Alyattes by supporting Clazomenae with its cavalry against Alyattes\'s attack, prompting the Lydian king to retaliate by massacring the mounted aristocracy of Colophon.
The status of the other Ionian Greek cities on the western coast of Asia Minor, that is Teos, Lebedus, Teichiussa, Melie, Erythrae, Phocaea and Myus, is still uncertain for the period of Alyattes\'s reign, although they would all eventually be subjected by his son Croesus.
### War against the Medes {#war_against_the_medes}
Alyattes\'s eastern conquests extended the Lydian Empire till the Upper Euphrates according to the scholar Igor Diakonoff, who identified Alyattes with the Biblical Gog. This expansionism brought the Lydian Empire in conflict in the 590s BCE with the Medes, an Iranian people who had expelled the majority of the Scythians from Western Asia after participating in the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After the majority of the Scythians were expelled by the Medes during that decade out of Western Asia and into the Pontic Steppe, a war broke out between the Median Empire and another group of Scythians, probably members of a splinter group who had formed a kingdom in what is now Azerbaijan. These Scythians left Median-ruled Transcaucasia and fled to Sardis, because the Lydians had been allied to the Scythians. After Alyattes refused to accede to the demands of the Median king Cyaxares that these Scythian refugees be handed to him, a war broke out between the Median and Lydian Kingdoms in 590 BCE which was waged in eastern Anatolia beyond Pteria. This war lasted five years, until a solar eclipse occurred in 585 BCE during a battle (hence called the Battle of the Eclipse) opposing the Lydian and Median armies, which both sides interpreted as an omen to end the war. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the king Syennesis of Cilicia acted as mediators in the ensuing peace treaty, which was sealed by the marriage of Cyaxares\'s son Astyages with Alyattes\'s daughter Aryenis, and the possible wedding of a daughter of Cyaxares with either Alyattes or with his son Croesus. The border between the Lydian and Median empires was fixed at a yet undetermined location in eastern Anatolia; the Graeco-Roman historians\' traditional account of the Halys River as having been set as the border between the two kingdoms appears to have been a retroactive narrative construction based on symbolic role assigned by Greeks to the Halys as the separation between Lower Asia and Upper Asia as well as on the Halys being a later provincial border within the Achaemenid Empire.
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# Alyattes
## Life and reign {#life_and_reign}
### Death
Alyattes died shortly after the Battle of the Eclipse, in 585 BCE itself, following which Lydia faced a power struggle between his son Pantaleon, born from a Greek woman, and his other son Croesus, born from a Carian noblewoman, out of which the latter emerged successful. The tomb of Alyattes is located in Sardis at the site now called Bin Tepe, in a large tumulus measuring sixty metres in height and of a diameter of two hundred and fifty metres. The tomb consisted of an antechamber and a chamber with a door separating them, was built of well fitted and clamped large marble blocks, its walls were finely finished on the inside, and it contained a now lost crepidoma. The tomb of Alyattes was excavated by the Prussian Consul General Ludwig Peter Spiegelthal in 1853, and by American excavators in 1962 and the 1980s, although by then it had been broken in and looted by tomb robbers who left only alabastra and ceramic vessels. Before it was plundered, the tomb of Alyattes would likely have contained burial gifts consisting of furniture made of wood and ivory, textiles, jewellery, and large sets of solver and gold bowls, pitchers, craters, and ladles.
He created the first coins in history made from electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. The weight of either precious metal could not just be weighed so they contained an imprint that identified the issuer who guaranteed the value of its contents. Today we still use a token currency, where the value is guaranteed by the state and not by the value of the metal used in the coins. Almost all coins used today descended from his invention after the technology passed into Greek usage through Hermodike II - a Greek princess from Cyme who was likely one of his wives (assuming he was referred to a dynastic \'Midas\' because of the wealth his coinage amassed and because the electrum was sourced from Midas\' famed river Pactolus); she was also likely the mother of Croesus (see croeseid symbolism). He standardised the weight of coins (1 stater = 168 grains of wheat). The coins were produced using an anvil die technique and stamped with a lion\'s head, the symbol of the Mermnadae.
## Tomb
thumb\|upright=1.5\|Section of the tomb of Alyattes. It is \"one of the largest tumuli ever built\", with a diameter of 360 meters and a height of 61 meters. thumb\|upright=1.5\|Tomb of Alyattes, 19th century. thumb\|upright=1.5\|Tomb of Alyattes today. Alyattes\' tomb still exists on the plateau between Lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the north of the Lydian capital Sardis --- a large mound of earth with a substructure of huge stones. (38.5723401, 28.0451151) It was excavated by Spiegelthal in 1854, who found that it covered a large vault of finely cut marble blocks approached by a flat-roofed passage of the same stone from the south. The sarcophagus and its contents had been removed by early plunderers of the tomb. All that was left were some broken alabaster vases, pottery and charcoal. On the summit of the mound were large phalli of stone.
Herodotus described the tomb:
Some authors have suggested that Buddhist stupas were derived from a wider cultural tradition from the Mediterranean to the Indus valley, and can be related to the funeral conical mounds on circular bases that can be found in Lydia or in Phoenicia from the 8th century B.C., such as the tomb of Alyattes.
<File:Alyattes> tumulus reconstitution.jpg\|Alyattes tumulus reconstitution <File:Alyattes> tomb entrance.jpg\|Alyattes tomb entrance <File:Alyattes> tomb passage.jpg\|Alyattes tomb passageway <File:Alyattes> tomb inner vault
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# Alypius of Antioch
**Alypius of Antioch** was a geographer and a vicarius of Roman Britain, probably in the late 350s AD. He replaced Flavius Martinus after that vicarius\' suicide. His rule is recorded is Ammianus XXIII 1, 3.
## Life
He came from Antioch and served under Constantius II and was probably appointed to ensure that nobody with western associations was serving in Britain during a time of mistrust, rebellion and suppression symbolised by the brutal acts of the imperial notary Paulus Catena. He may have had to deal with the insurrection of the usurper named Carausius II.
Alypius was afterwards commissioned to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem as part of Julian\'s systematic attempt to reverse the Christianization of the Roman Empire by restoring pagan and, in this case, Jewish practices. Among the letters of Julian are two (29 and 30) addressed to Alypius; one inviting him to Rome, the other thanking him for a geographical treatise, which no longer exists
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# Afonso II of Portugal
**Afonso II** (*italic = no*; 23 April 1185`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}25 March 1223), also called **Afonso the Fat** (*Afonso o Gordo*) and **Afonso the Leper** (*Afonso o Gafo*), was King of Portugal from 1211 until 1223. Afonso was the third monarch of Portugal.
Afonso was the second but eldest surviving son of Sancho I of Portugal and Dulce of Aragon. Afonso succeeded his father on 27 March 1211.
## Reign
As a king, Afonso II set a different approach of government. Hitherto, his father Sancho I and his grandfather Afonso I were mostly concerned with military issues either against the neighbouring Kingdom of Castile or against the Moorish lands in the south. Afonso did not pursue territory enlargement policies and managed to ensure peace with Castile during his reign. Despite this, some towns were conquered from the Moors by the private initiative of noblemen and clergy, as when Bishop Soeiro Viegas initiated the conquest of Alcácer do Sal. This does not mean that he was a weak or somehow cowardly man. The first years of his reign were marked instead by internal disturbances between Afonso and his brothers and sisters. The king managed to keep security within Portuguese borders only by outlawing and exiling his kin.
Since military issues were not a government priority, Afonso established the state\'s administration and centralized power on himself. He designed the first set of Portuguese written laws. These were mainly concerned with private property, civil justice, and minting. Afonso also sent ambassadors to European kingdoms outside the Iberian Peninsula and began amicable commercial relations with most of them.
In 1220, Afonso instituted inquirições to investigate the nature of holdings and to recover whatever had been illegally taken from the crown. This issue was in response to the church\'s rein over Portuguese land as they supported Afonso\'s fight in the civil war with Sancho II. These included examination of local noble titles and rights, including investigation of properties, lands and incomes against royal charters that had been issued.
Other reforms included the always delicate matters with the pope. In order to get the independence of Portugal recognized by Rome, his grandfather, Afonso I, had to legislate an enormous number of privileges to the Church. These eventually created a state within the state. With Portugal\'s position as a country firmly established, Afonso II endeavoured to weaken the power of the clergy and to apply a portion of the enormous revenues of the Catholic Church to purposes of national utility. These actions led to a serious diplomatic conflict between the pope and Portugal. After being excommunicated for his audacities by Pope Honorius III, Afonso II promised to make amends to the church, but he died in Coimbra on 25 March 1223 before making any serious attempts to do so.
King Afonso was buried originally at the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra where his body remained for nearly ten years. His remains were transferred subsequently to Alcobaça Monastery, as he had stipulated in his will. He and his wife, Queen Urraca, were buried at its Royal Pantheon.
## Marriage and descendants {#marriage_and_descendants}
In 1206, he married Urraca, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of England. The couple were both descendants of King Alfonso VI of León. The offspring of this marriage were:
- Sancho II (8 September 1207`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}4 January 1248), king of Portugal;
- Afonso III (5 May 1210`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}16 February 1279), king of Portugal;
- Eleanor (1211--1231), queen of Denmark
- Ferdinand (1218--1246), lord of Serpa
Out of wedlock, he had two illegitimate sons:
- João Afonso (d. 9 October 1234), buried in the Alcobaça monastery;
- Pedro Afonso (d. after 1249), who accompanied his brother King Afonso in the conquest of Faro in 1249. He had an illegitimate daughter named Constança Peres
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# Afonso III of Portugal
**Afonso III** (*italic = no*; 5 May 1210`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}16 February 1279), called **the Boulonnais** (Port. *o Bolonhês*), was King of Portugal and the first to use the title *King of Portugal and the Algarve*, from 1249. He was the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal and his wife, Urraca of Castile; he succeeded his brother, King Sancho II of Portugal, who died on 4 January 1248.
## Early life {#early_life}
Afonso was born in Coimbra. As the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal, he was not expected to inherit the throne, which was destined to go to his elder brother Sancho.
He lived mostly in France, where he married Countess Matilda II of Boulogne in 1238, thereby becoming count of Boulogne, Mortain, Aumale and Dammartin-en-Goële *jure uxoris*.
## Reign
In 1245, conflicts between his brother, the king, and the church became unbearable. Pope Innocent IV ordered Sancho II to be removed from the throne and to be replaced by the Count of Boulogne. Afonso did not refuse the papal order and consequently marched to Portugal. Since Sancho was not a popular king the order was not hard to enforce, and he fled into exile to Toledo, Castile, where he died on 4 January 1248. Until his brother\'s death and his own eventual coronation, Afonso retained and used the title of *Visitador, Curador e Defensor do Reino* (Overseer, Curator and Defender of the Kingdom).
In order to ascend the throne Afonso abdicated his rights to the county of Boulogne in 1248. In 1253, he divorced Matilda in order to marry Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán.
Determined not to make the same mistakes as his brother, Afonso III paid special attention to what the middle class, composed of merchants and small land owners, had to say. In 1254, in the city of Leiria, he held the first session of the *Cortes*, a general assembly comprising the nobility, the middle class and representatives of all municipalities. He also made laws intended to restrain the upper classes from abusing the least favored part of the population. Remembered as a notable administrator, Afonso III founded several towns, granted the title of city to many others and reorganized public administration.
Afonso showed extraordinary vision for the time. Progressive measures taken during his kingship include: representatives of the commons, besides the nobility and clergy, were involved in governance; the end of preventive arrests such that henceforward all arrests had to be first presented to a judge to determine the detention measure; and fiscal innovation, such as negotiating extraordinary taxes with the mercantile classes and direct taxation of the Church, rather than debasement of the coinage. These may have led to his excommunication by the Holy See and possibly precipitated his death, and his son Denis\'s premature rise to the throne at only 18 years old.
Secure on the throne, Afonso III then proceeded to make war with the Muslim communities that still thrived in the south. In his reign the Algarve became part of the kingdom, following the capture of Faro.
### Final years and death {#final_years_and_death}
Following his success against the Moors, Afonso III had to deal with a political situation concerning the country\'s borders with Castile. The neighbouring kingdom considered that the newly acquired lands of the Algarve should be Castilian, not Portuguese, which led to a series of wars between the two kingdoms. Finally, in 1267, the Treaty of Badajoz was signed in Badajoz, determining that the southern border between Castile and Portugal should be the River Guadiana, as it is today.
Afonso died in Alcobaça, Coimbra or Lisbon, aged 68.
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# Afonso III of Portugal
## Marriages and descendants {#marriages_and_descendants}
Afonso\'s first wife was Matilda II, Countess of Boulogne, daughter of Renaud, Count of Dammartin, and Ida, Countess of Boulogne. They had no surviving children. He divorced Matilda in 1253 and, in the same year, married Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán.
Name Birth Death Notes
---------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ ------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**By Matilda II of Boulogne** (c. 1202--1262; married in 1238)
**By Beatrice of Castile** (1242--1303; married in 1253)
Blanche 25 February 1259 17 April 1321 Lady of Las Huelgas
Denis 9 October 1261 7 January 1325 Succeeded him as Denis, 6th King of Portugal. Married Infanta Elizabeth of Aragon.
Afonso 8 February 1263 2 November 1312 Lord of Portalegre. Married Infanta Violante Manuel (daughter of Manuel of Castile).
Sancha 2 February 1264
Maria 1265
Vicente 1268 1268
Fernando 1269 1269
**By Madragana (Mor Afonso)** (c. lk=no-?)
Martim Afonso Chichorro a\. 1313 Natural son; Married to Inês Lourenço de Valadares.
Urraca Afonso ? Natural daughter. Married twice: 1st to Pedro Anes de Riba Vizela, 2nd to João Mendes de Briteiros.
**By Maria Peres de Enxara** (?-?)
Afonso Dinis a\. 1310 Natural son; Married to D. Maria Pais Ribeira, Lady of the House of Sousa.
**By Elvira Esteves** (?-?)
Leonor Afonso (nun) ? 1259 Natural daughter; Nun in the Monastery of Santa Clara of Santarém.
**Other natural offspring**
Fernando Afonso ? ? Natural son; Knight of the Order of the hospital.
Gil Afonso 1250 31 December 1346 Natural son; Knight of the Order of the hospital.
Rodrigo Afonso 1258 about 12 May 1272 Natural son; Prior of the city of Santarém.
Leonor Afonso 1291 Natural daughter. Married twice: 1st to D. Estevão Anes de Sousa (without issue), 2nd to D. Gonçalo Garcia de Sousa, Count of Neiva (without issue).
Urraca Afonso (nun) 1250 4 November 1281 Natural daughter; Nun in the Monastery of Lorvão
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# Afonso IV of Portugal
**Afonso IV** (*italic = no*; 8 February 1291`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}28 May 1357), called **the Brave** (*links=no*), was King of Portugal from 1325 until his death in 1357. He was the only legitimate son of King Denis of Portugal and Elizabeth of Aragon.
## Early life {#early_life}
Afonso, born in Lisbon, was the rightful heir to the Portuguese throne. However, he was not Denis\' favourite son, even nearly beginning conflict against him. Instead, the old king preferred his illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches. The notorious rivalry between the half-brothers led to civil war several times. On 7 January 1325, Afonso IV\'s father died and he became king, whereupon he exiled his rival, Afonso Sanches, to Castile, and stripped him of all the lands and fiefdom given by their father. From Castile, Afonso Sanches orchestrated a series of attempts to usurp the crown. After a few failed attempts at invasion, the brothers signed a peace treaty, arranged by Afonso IV\'s mother, Elizabeth.
In 1309, Afonso married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile and María de Molina. The first-born of this union was a daughter, Maria of Portugal.
## King of Portugal and Algarve {#king_of_portugal_and_algarve}
In 1325 Alfonso XI of Castile entered a child-marriage with Constanza Manuel of Castile, the daughter of one of his regents. Two years later, he had the marriage annulled so he could marry Afonso\'s daughter, Maria of Portugal. Maria became Queen of Castile in 1328 upon her marriage to Alfonso XI, who soon became involved publicly with a mistress. Constanza was imprisoned in a castle in Toro while her father, Don Juan Manuel, waged war against Alfonso XI until 1329. Eventually, the two reached a peaceful accord after mediation by Juan del Campo, Bishop of Oviedo; this secured Constanza\'s release from prison.
The public humiliation of his daughter led Afonso IV to have his son and heir, Peter I of Portugal, marry the no less aggrieved Castilian *infanta*, Constanza. Afonso subsequently started a war against Castile, peace arriving four years later, through the intervention of the *infanta* Maria herself. A year after the peace treaty was signed in Seville, Portuguese troops played an important role in defeating the Moors at the Battle of Río Salado in October 1340.
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# Afonso IV of Portugal
## Later life {#later_life}
Political intrigue marked the last part of Afonso IV\'s reign, although Castille was torn by civil war after Alfonso XI died. Henry of Trastámara challenged the new King Peter of Castile, who sent many Castilian nobles into exile in Portugal. Afonso\'s son Peter fell in love with his new wife\'s lady-in-waiting, Inês de Castro. Inês was the daughter of an important noble family from Galicia, with links (albeit illegitimate) to both the royal houses of Castile and Portugal. Her brothers were aligned with the Trastamara faction, and became favorites of Peter, much to the dismay of others at the Portuguese court, who considered them Castilian upstarts. When Constanza died weeks after giving birth to their third child, Peter began living openly with Inês, recognized all her children as his and refused to marry anyone other than Inês herself. His father refused to go to war again against Castile, hoping the heir apparent\'s infatuation would end, and tried to arrange another dynastic marriage for him.
The situation became worse as the years passed and the aging Afonso lost control over his court. His grandson and Peter\'s only legitimate son, Ferdinand I of Portugal, was a sickly child, while Inês\' illegitimate children thrived. Worried about his legitimate grandson\'s life, and the growing power of Castile within Portugal\'s borders, Afonso ordered Inês de Castro first imprisoned in his mother\'s old convent in Coimbra, and then murdered in 1355. He expected his son to give in and marry a princess, but Peter became enraged upon learning of his wife\'s decapitation in front of their young children. Peter put himself at the head of an army and devastated the country between the Douro and the Minho rivers before he was reconciled to his father in early 1357. Afonso died almost immediately after, in Lisbon in May.
Afonso IV\'s nickname *the Brave* alludes to his martial exploits. However, his most important accomplishments were the relative peace enjoyed by the country during his long reign and the support he gave to the Portuguese Navy. Afonso granted public funding to raise a proper commercial fleet and ordered the first Portuguese maritime explorations. The conflict with Pedro, and the explorations he initiated, eventually became the foundation of the Portuguese national epic, *Os Lusíadas* by Luís de Camões.
The dramatic circumstances of the relationship between father, son and Inês was used as the basis for the plot of more than twenty operas and ballets. The story with its tragic dénouement is immortalized in several plays and poems in Portuguese, such as *Os Lusíadas* by Luís de Camões (canto iii, stanzas 118--135), and in Spanish, including *Nise lastimosa* and *Nise laureada* (1577) by Jerónimo Bermúdez, *Reinar despues de morir* by Luis Vélez de Guevara, as well as a play by French playwright Henry de Montherlant called *La Reine morte* (*The Dead Queen*). Mary Russell Mitford also wrote a drama based on the story entitled *Inez de Castro*. *Inês de Castro* is a novel by Maria Pilar Queralt del Hierro in Spanish and Portuguese.
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# Afonso IV of Portugal
## Marriage and descendants {#marriage_and_descendants}
On 12 September 1309, Afonso married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of Sancho IV of Castile, and María de Molina, and had four sons and three daughters. Afonso broke the tradition of previous kings and did not have any children out of wedlock.
- Maria of Portugal, Queen of Castile (1313`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}18 January 1357), was the wife of Alfonso XI of Castile, and mother of the future King Peter of Castile. Due to the affair of her husband with his mistress Eleanor de Guzmán \"it was an unfortunate union from the start, contributing to dampening the relations of both kingdoms\";
- Afonso (1315--1317), died in his infancy. Buried at the disappeared Convento das Donas of the Dominican Order in Santarém;
- Denis (born 12 February 1317), died a few months after his birth, and was buried in Alcobaça Monastery;
- Peter I of Portugal (8 April 1320`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}18 January 1367), the first surviving male offspring, he succeeded his father. When his wife Constanza died in 1345, Beatrice took care of the education of the two orphans, the *infantes* Maria and Ferdinand, who later reigned as King Ferdinand I of Portugal;
- Isabel (21 December 1324`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}11 July 1326), buried at the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra;
- John (23 September 1326`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}21 June 1327), buried at the Monastery of São Dinis de Odivelas;
- Eleanor of Portugal, Queen of Aragon (1328--1348), born in the same year as her sister Maria\'s wedding, she married King Peter IV of Aragon in November 1347 and died a year after her marriage, succumbing to the Black Death
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# Afonso VI of Portugal
*Dom* **Afonso VI** (`{{IPA|pt|ɐˈfõsu}}`{=mediawiki}; 21 August 1643`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}12 September 1683), known as \"**the Victorious**\" (*o Vitorioso*), was the second king of Portugal of the House of Braganza from 1656 until his death. He was initially under the regency of his mother, Luisa de Guzmán, until 1662, when he removed her to a convent and took power with the help of his favourite, D. Luís de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor.
Afonso\'s reign saw the end of the Restoration War (1640--68) and Spain\'s recognition of Portugal\'s independence. He also negotiated a French alliance through his marriage. In 1668, his brother Pedro II conspired to have him declared incapable of ruling, and took supreme *de facto* power as regent, although nominally Afonso was still sovereign. Queen Maria Francisca, Afonso\'s wife, received an annulment and subsequently married Pedro. Afonso spent the rest of his life and reign practically a prisoner.
## Early life {#early_life}
Afonso was the second of three sons born to King John IV and Queen Luisa. At the age of three, he experienced an illness that resulted in paralysis on the right side of his body. The condition was believed to have also affected his intellectual abilities.`{{sfb|Davidson|1908|p=14}}`{=mediawiki} His father created him 10th Duke of Braganza.
After the death of his eldest brother Teodósio, Prince of Brazil in 1653, Afonso became the heir apparent to the throne of the kingdom. He also received the crown-princely title 2nd Prince of Brazil.
## Reign
thumb\|right\|upright 1.30\|*Portrait of Infante D. Afonso with a Black page*, by José de Avelar Rebelo, 1653 He succeeded his father, John IV, in 1656 at the age of thirteen. His mother, Luisa de Guzmán, was named regent in his father\'s will.
Luisa\'s regency continued even after Afonso came of age because he was considered mentally unfit for governing. In addition to lacking intellect, the king exhibited wild and disruptive behavior. In 1662, after Afonso terrorized Lisbon at night alongside his favorites, Luisa and her council responded by banishing some of the king\'s companions that were associated with the raids. Angered, Afonso took power with the help of Castelo Melhor and Luisa\'s regency came to an end. She subsequently retired to a convent, where she died in 1666.
Afonso appointed Castelo Melhor as his private secretary (*escrivão da puridade*). He proved to be a competent minister. His astute military organization and sensible general appointments resulted in decisive military victories over the Spanish at Elvas (14 January 1659), Ameixial (8 June 1663) and Montes Claros (17 June 1665), culminating in the final Spanish recognition of sovereignty of Portugal\'s new ruling dynasty, the House of Braganza, on 13 February 1668 in the Treaty of Lisbon.
### Colonial affairs {#colonial_affairs}
Colonial affairs saw the Dutch conquest of Jaffna, Portugal\'s last colony in Portuguese Ceylon (1658), and the cession of Bombay and Tangier to England (23 June 1661) as dowry for Afonso\'s sister, Infanta Catherine of Braganza, who had married King Charles II of England.
### Marriage
Melhor successfully arranged for Afonso to marry Maria Francisca of Savoy, a relative of the Duke of Savoy, in 1666, but the marriage was short-lived. Maria Francisca filed for an annulment in 1667 based on the impotence of the king. The church granted her the annulment, and she married Afonso\'s brother, Peter II, Duke of Beja.
## Downfall
Also in 1667, Pedro managed to gain enough support to force Afonso to relinquish control of the government to him, and he became prince regent in 1668. While Pedro never formally usurped the throne, Afonso was king in name only for the rest of his life.`{{sfb|Davidson|1908|p=236}}`{=mediawiki} For seven years after Peter\'s coup, Afonso was kept on the island of Terceira in the Azores. His health broken by this captivity, he was eventually permitted to return to the Portuguese mainland, but he remained powerless and kept under guard. At Sintra he died in 1683.
The room where he was imprisoned is preserved at Sintra National Palace
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# Alfonso II of Asturias
**Alfonso II** of Asturias (c. 760`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}842), nicknamed **the Chaste** (*el Casto*), was the king of Asturias during two different periods: first in the year 783 and later from 791 until his death in 842. Upon his death, Nepotian, a family member of undetermined relation, attempted to usurp the crown in place of the future Ramiro I.
During his reign, which covered a span of 51 years, Alfonso discovered the supposed tomb of St. James the Great (called *Santiago* in Spanish) in the town of Compostela, which later became known as the city of Santiago de Compostela. He was the son of Fruela I and Munia, a Basque woman captured and brought back to Asturias by the former following a military campaign.
## Early life {#early_life}
He was born in Oviedo in 759 or 760. He was put under the guardianship of his aunt Adosinda after his father\'s death, but one tradition relates his being put in the Monastery of San Xulián de Samos. He was the governor of the palace during the reign of Adosinda\'s husband Silo. On Silo\'s death, he was elected king by Adosinda\'s allies, but the magnates raised his uncle Mauregatus to the throne instead. Alfonso fled to Álava where he found shelter with his maternal relatives. Mauregatus was succeeded by Bermudo I, Alfonso\'s cousin, who abdicated after his defeat at the Battle of the Burbia River.
## Alfonso proclaimed king {#alfonso_proclaimed_king}
Alfonso was subsequently elected king on 14 September 791. Poets of a later generation invented the story of the secret marriage between his sister Ximena and Sancho, count of Saldana, and the feats of their son Bernardo del Carpio. Bernardo is the hero of a **\[\[cantar de gesta\]\]** written to please the anarchical spirit of the nobles.
Alfonso moved the capital from Pravia, where Silo had located it, to Oviedo, the city of his father\'s founding and his birth. There he constructed churches and a palace. He built the churches of San Tirso, where he is buried, and of San Julián de los Prados (aka Santullano), high above overlooking the nascent city.
## Andalusian raids into Asturias {#andalusian_raids_into_asturias}
On accession to the throne, Hisham I, son of Abd al-Rahman I, commenced a string of military campaigns in the eastern Pyrenees and to the north-west. In 794, a raid spearheaded by Abd al-Karim dealt a major military blow to Alfonso II on the eastern fringes of the Kingdom of Asturias (Cantabria and Castile). The Asturian king asked for the assistance of the Basque Frankish vassal Belasco, master of Álava and bordering regions at the time. Abd al-Karim advanced deeper west into Asturias and pillaged the region, while his brother Abd al-Malik ventured into the western Asturian lands.
## Relations with Charlemagne and the Papacy {#relations_with_charlemagne_and_the_papacy}
Under pressure from his enemies, Alfonso II reached out to Charlemagne, sending delegations to Toulouse and Aix-la-Chapelle in 796, 797, and 798. These diplomatic efforts, proffered by Froia and later Basiliscus, may have aimed to strengthen his legitimacy and the Asturian government against ongoing internal unrest------*viz.*, troubles in Galicia------and external attacks of the Ibn Mugait brothers, the generals Abd al-Karim and Abd al-Malik.
Alfonso was acknowledged as a king by Charlemagne and the Pope, and Asturias as a kingdom for the first time in the Royal Frankish Annals. The king showed an interest in the Frankish cult of Saint Martin of Tours, and he encouraged Carolingian Church influence in Asturias.
Alfonso\'s envoys to Charlemagne\'s courts may have also dealt with the adoptionist controversy, which had brought Bermudo\'s kingdom into Charlemagne\'s view. It seems that Carolingian support did much to spur his raid into Andalusian territory up to Lisbon, which was captured and sacked by his troops in 798.
## Later events {#later_events}
Also, during Alfonso\'s reign, the alleged resting place of St. James was revealed. Tradition relates that in 814, the body of Saint James was discovered in Compostela and that Alfonso was the first pilgrim to the shrine at Libredón.
In 825, he defeated Saracen forces at Narón (near Ferrol) and also in year 825 Anceo (in the hills equidistant from Pontevedra and Vigo), and, thanks to these victories, the \"repopulation\" of parts of Galicia, León, and Castile was started--- with charters confirming the possession of the territories
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# Amarasimha
**Amarasimha** (IAST: **`{{IAST|Amara-siṃha}}`{=mediawiki}**, c. CE 375) was a Sanskrit grammarian and poet from ancient India, of whose personal history hardly anything is known. He is said to have been \"one of the nine gems that adorned the throne of Vikramaditya,\" and according to the evidence of Xuanzang, this is the Chandragupta Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) who flourished about CE 375. Other sources describe him as belonging to the period of Vikramaditya of 7th century. Most of Amarasiṃha\'s works were lost, with the exception of the celebrated *Amara-Kosha* (IAST: *`{{IAST|Amarakośa}}`{=mediawiki}*) (*Treasury of Amara*). The first reliable mention of the *Amarakosha* is in the Amoghavritti of Shakatayana composed during the reign of Amoghavarsha (814-867 CE)
The *Amarakosha* is a lexicon of Sanskrit words in three books, and hence is sometimes called the *Trikāṇḍī* or the \"Tripartite\". It is also known as \"Namalinganushasana\". The *Amarakosha* contains 10,000 words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in metre, to aid the memory.
The first chapter of the *Kosha* was printed at Rome in Tamil character in 1798. An edition of the entire work, with English notes and an index by Henry Thomas Colebrooke appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanskrit text was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by ALA Loiseleur-Deslongchamps was published at Paris in 1839. B. L. Rice compiled the text in Kannada script with meanings in English and Kannada in 1927
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# Amati
thumb\|upright=0.85\|This Andrea Amati violin, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, may have been part of a set made for the marriage of Philip II of Spain to Elisabeth of Valois in 1559, which would make it one of the earliest known violins in existence
**Amati** (`{{IPAc-en|ə|ˈ|m|ɑː|t|i}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{IPA|it|aˈmaːti|lang}}`{=mediawiki}) is the last name of a family of Italian violin makers who lived at Cremona from about 1538 to 1740. Their importance is considered equal to those of the Bergonzi, Guarneri, and Stradivari families. Today, violins created by Nicolò Amati are valued at around \$600,000. Because of their age and rarity, Amati instruments are mostly kept in a museum or private collections and are seldom played in public.
## Family members {#family_members}
### Andrea Amati {#andrea_amati}
**Andrea Amati** (c. 1505`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}20 December 1577) designed and created the violin, viola and cello known as the \"violin family\". Based in Cremona, Italy, he standardized the basic form, shape, size, materials and method of construction. Makers from nearby Brescia experimented, such as Gasparo da Salò, Micheli, Zanetto and Pellegrino, but it was Andrea Amati who gave the modern violin family their definitive profile.
A claim that Andrea Amati received the first order for a violin from Lorenzo de\' Medici in 1555 is invalid as Lorenzo de\' Medici died in 1492. A number of Andrea Amati\'s instruments survived for some time, dating between 1538 (Amati made the first Cello called \"The King\" in 1538) and 1574. The largest number of these are from 1560, a set for an entire orchestra of 38 ordered by Catherine de Médicis the regent queen of France and bore hand painted royal French decorations in gold including the motto and coat of arms of her son Charles IX of France. Of these 38 instruments ordered, Amati created violins of two sizes, violas of two sizes and large-sized cellos. They were in use until the French revolution of 1789 and only 14 of these instruments survived. His work is marked by selection of the finest materials, great elegance in execution, soft clear amber, soft translucent varnish, and an in depth use of acoustic and geometrical principles in design.
### Antonio and Girolamo Amati {#antonio_and_girolamo_amati}
Andrea Amati was succeeded by his sons Antonio Amati (c. 1537--1607) and Girolamo Amati (c. 1551--1630). \"The Brothers Amati\", as they were known, implemented far-reaching innovations in design, including the perfection of the shape of the f-holes. They are also thought to have pioneered the modern alto format of viola, in contrast to older tenor violas, but the widespread belief that they were the first ones to do so `{{citation needed span|is incorrect given that [[Gasparo da Salo]] (1542–1609) made violas ranging from altos of 39 cm to tenors of 44.7 cm.|reason=This is completely unsupported boldface claim, with nothing in it excluding either Amati brother from having made a viola prior to whatever date is implied de Salo began.|date=November 2022}}`{=mediawiki}`{{when|When is de Salo credited with making his first, and when is either Amati brother credited with theirs?|date=November 2022}}`{=mediawiki}
### Nicolò Amati {#nicolò_amati}
**Nicolò Amati** (3 December 1596`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}12 April 1684) was the son of Girolamo Amati. Often considered the most eminent violin maker of the family, he improved the model adopted by the rest of the Amatis and produced instruments capable of yielding greater power of tone. His pattern was unusually small, but he also made a wider model now known as the \"Grand Amati\", which have become his most sought-after violins.
Of his pupils, the most famous were Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, the first of the Guarneri family of violin makers. (There is much controversy regarding the apprenticeship of Antonio Stradivari. While the label on Stradivari\'s first known violin states that he was a pupil of Amati, the validity of his statement is questioned.
### Girolamo Amati (Hieronymus II) {#girolamo_amati_hieronymus_ii}
The last maker of the family was Nicolò\'s son, Girolamo Amati, known as **Hieronymus II** (26 February 1649`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}21 February 1740). He improved the arching of his father\'s instruments.
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# Amati
## Extant Amati instruments {#extant_amati_instruments}
Amati instruments include some of the oldest extant examples of the violin family, dating to as far back as the mid-16th century. `{{citation needed span|For reasons of conservation|date=November 2022}}`{=mediawiki}, they are only occasionally played in public.`{{why|reason=This holds no water for any Amati violin made after the oldest Stradivarius being played – at least.|date=November 2022}}`{=mediawiki}
### United Kingdom {#united_kingdom}
Instruments in the UK include Andrea Amati violins from the set delivered to Charles IX of France in 1564.
- Amati instruments at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.[1](https://web.archive.org/web/20160424053632/http://www.amati.com/magazine/107-instrument-articles/feature/)
- Andrea Amati
- [Violin, 1564 (ex--French royal collection)](http://www.ashmoleanprints.com/image/1056126/andrea-amati-violin-charles-ix-1564) `{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191104004832/https://www.ashmoleanprints.com/image/1056126/andrea-amati-violin-charles-ix-1564 |date=4 November 2019 }}`{=mediawiki}
- Viola
- Amati instruments at the Royal Academy of Music Museum, London
- Amati instrument at the Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle
- Andrea Amati
- [Violin, 1564 (ex French royal collection)](http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/objects/amati-violin) `{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426134001/http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/objects/amati-violin |date=26 April 2016 }}`{=mediawiki}
- Nicolò Amati
- Double bass of 1631 played by Chi-chi Nwanoku
### United States {#united_states}
- Amati instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
- Andrea Amati:
- [Violin, c. 1560](http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/eustn/ho_1999.26.htm)
- Nicolò Amati:
- [Violin, 1669](http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/strd/ho_1974.229.htm)
```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
- Amati instruments at the National Music Museum (University of South Dakota) [2](http://www.usd.edu/smm/):
- Andrea Amati:
- \"The King\", circa 1545, the world\'s oldest extant cello
- Viola, 1560
- Violin, 1560
- Violin, 1574
- Girolamo Amati:
- Double bass, 1680
- [Violin, 1604](http://www.usd.edu/smm/Violins/Amati3423/3423AmatiViolin.html)
- [Violin, 7/8-size, 1609](http://www.usd.edu/smm/Violins/Amati3364/HAmatiViolin.html)
- [Violino piccolo, 1613](http://www.usd.edu/smm/Violins/AmatiViolinoPiccolo/3361ViolinoPiccolo.html)
- Nicolò Amati:
- [Violin, 1628](http://www.usd.edu/smm/Violins/AmatiNicolo/3356NAmatiViolin.html)
### Violas
#### The Stanley Solomon Tenore ca 1536 {#the_stanley_solomon_tenore_ca_1536}
Andrea Amati ca 1536
Originally a tenor viola, the front is of pine of slightly wavy grain of medium width. The back is one-piece of maple, slab-cut, slightly flamed but with evident circular decorations. The little scroll is later, but it matches the instrument. The varnish is golden brown.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
43.2 20.6 13.7 24.5
: Measurements (cm)
[Archivio della Liuteria Cremonese](http://www.archiviodellaliuteriacremonese.it/en/strumenti/viola-tenore-ridotta.aspx?f=457893)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=42943)
#### The Witten, The IX Charles, The ex Collis ca 1560 {#the_witten_the_ix_charles_the_ex_collis_ca_1560}
Andrea Amati ca 1560
This rare viola is one of the best preserved of Andrea Amati\'s decorated instruments. It features gilt paintings of fleurs-de-lis and trefoils on its back, surrounding the monogram identified by Italian scholar Renato Meucci to be that of Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême. The Latin motto painted in gilt around the monogram, as well as around the ribs, is identical to that found on the Museum\'s Amati violin made at about the same time and may relate to the court of King Philip II of Spain. The loss of some of the mottoes\' text, as well as other decorative elements painted on the back, clearly reveals that this instrument was reduced in both length and width from its original, large tenor dimensions.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
40.6 18.5 13.1 23.9
: Measurements (cm)
[Fine Strings](https://finestrings.ca/andrea-amati-ix-charles-viola/)
[National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota](http://collections.nmmusd.org/Violas/Amati3370/3370AmatiViola.html)
[National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota](https://national-music-museum.myshopify.com/products/nmm-3370-viola-by-andrea-amati-cremona-ca-1560)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=40043)
#### From the Charles IX Set ca 1564 {#from_the_charles_ix_set_ca_1564}
Andrea Amati ca 1564
Large tenor viola with Charles IX decoration. Two-piece back of small-figured maple, bearing the royal insignia and motto. Top of pine of varying grain. Original scroll. Golden-brown varnish. Label not original: \"Andrea Amadi in Cremona M. D. L. xxiiij.\" (1574).
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
46.9 22.5 15.1 26.9
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=40099)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/cozio-carteggio/andrea-amati-part-2/)
#### Held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford {#held_at_the_ashmolean_museum_oxford}
Andrea Amati ca 1564
[Ashmolean Museum Oxford](https://collections.ashmolean.org/collection/search/per_page/25/offset/0/sort_by/relevance/object/90227)
#### The ex Wahl ca 1568 {#the_ex_wahl_ca_1568}
Andrea Amati ca 1568
Two-piece back with an ebony inlay of \"Chinese-knot\" design. Scroll not original. Label not original, dated 1568.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
42.7 21 14 25.1
: Measurements (cm)
[Strings Magazine](https://stringsmagazine.com/violist-daniel-avshalomov-on-his-1568-amati-that-sends-a-rich-dark-tone-to-the-back-of-the-hall/)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=41183)
#### The ex Herrmann ca 1620 {#the_ex_herrmann_ca_1620}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Northern Italian viola attributed to Andrea Amati. Made, in our opinion, circa 1620 by a member of the Amati school. The head by another maker. The back is from one piece of slab cut maple with faint irregular flames. The sides are from slab cut maple similar to the back. The scroll is from quarter cut maple with faint narrow flames. The top is from two pieces of spruce with medium and narrow grain. The dimensions are somewhat reduced. The varnish has a golden brown color. Labelled \"ANDREAS AMATIUS CREMONA 1567\".
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
40.9 18.6 13.4 23.2
: Measurements (cm)
[Christie\'s](https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4160097)
Featured in `{{harvnb|Riley|1980}}`{=mediawiki}.
#### The Violetta ca 1570 {#the_violetta_ca_1570}
Andrea Amati ca 1570
Two-piece back. The painted decoration is the coat of arms of the Spanish crown. Top with two small wings in the lower bouts. Scroll not original. Labeled \"Niccolaus & Antonius Fratres Amati, Cremonem Fes\...1649.\"
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
39.5 19 13.3 23.4
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=40634)
#### The Trampler ca 1580 {#the_trampler_ca_1580}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1580--90
This instrument was cut down in size around 1800 from an original length of about 47 cm. The ribs are painted with the inscription: \"Non AEtesin Homine sed Virtus Consideramus\".
Although the instrument comes with a certificate from Simone F. Sacconi attributing it to the Brothers Amati circa 1620, both Charles Beare and Jacques Francais believe it to be a work of Andrea Amati, possibly completed by the Brothers Amati, in which case its date would be closer to 1580.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
44.4 21.6 15.2 27.6
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=44668)
Featured in `{{harvnb|Riley|1980}}`{=mediawiki}.
#### The Henry IV ca 1590 {#the_henry_iv_ca_1590}
Girolamo Amati ca 1590
One-piece back, covered with a painting of the armorial bearings of Henry IV supported on each side by an angel. Top of spruce with an open and well-defined grain. Scroll: of faint narrow curl. Ribs of wood similar to back, inscribed in gilt letters \"Dvo Proteci Tvnvs\". Red-brown varnish.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
42.2 20 12.9 24.3
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=44670)
Featured in `{{harvnb|Riley|1980}}`{=mediawiki}.
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# Amati
## Extant Amati instruments {#extant_amati_instruments}
### Violas
#### The Crocfisso, The Medecia ca 1594 {#the_crocfisso_the_medecia_ca_1594}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati, ca 1594
Commissioned for the Medici family, known as the \'Viola Medicea\' or the \'Viola del Crocifisso\' after the crucifix decoration on its back.
[The Strad](https://www.thestrad.com/brothers-amati-viola-is-returned-to-italian-soloist-after-legal-tussle-over-ownership/1231.article)
#### The Stauffer ca 1615 {#the_stauffer_ca_1615}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1615
One-piece back of medium curl sloping from left to right. Top of distinct grain, broadening slightly towards the flanks. Scroll of wood similar to back. Ribs of wood similar to back. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled \"Antonius & Hieronymus Fr. Amati Cremonen. Andreæ fil. F 1615.\"
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
41.1 19.6 12.9 24.6
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=42170)
#### The Zukerman, The Kashkashian ca 1617 {#the_zukerman_the_kashkashian_ca_1617}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1617
Two-piece back. Dendrochronology report by Peter Ratcliff dates the youngest ring of bass and treble sides as 1613.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
40.6 20.2 14.1 25.5
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=43485)
#### Held by the Cincinnati Art Museum ca 1619 {#held_by_the_cincinnati_art_museum_ca_1619}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
41.7 19.6 13.1 24.3
: Measurements (cm)
[Cincinnati Art Museum](https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/explore-the-collection?id=11598179)
#### The Medici, The Hamma ca 1619 {#the_medici_the_hamma_ca_1619}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Two-piece back.
[Tarizio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=48779)
#### Held by the Royal Academy of Music London ca 1620 {#held_by_the_royal_academy_of_music_london_ca_1620}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
One of the few surviving tenors which has not been reduced in size for modern playing. The head is particularly beautiful and well proportioned. The cheeks are flat, in the style of a cello head, although not so wide as to obstruct the player\'s left hand. The long and elegant pegbox tapers to a wide throat beneath the perfectly carved scroll. The volutes are hollowed and gather depth from the second through to the narrow final turn. The figured quarter-sawn maple used for the back and sides of the instrument is of a type commonly used by the Amatis. The continuous slope of the flame across the centre joint (achieved by reversing one half of the back before jointing), rather than the mirror-image pattern most commonly seen, is also a feature of their work. The front is of straight and even close-grained spruce.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
45.0 21.3 14.4 26.1
: Measurements (cm)
[Royal Academy of Music London](https://collections.ram.ac.uk/IMU/#/details/ecatalogue/881)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=43027)
#### The ex Wittgenstein ca 1620 {#the_ex_wittgenstein_ca_1620}
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Two-piece back; the wax seal below the button depicts a woman\'s head. Top of narrow grain, widening towards the flanks. Scroll of wood similar to back. Ribs of wood similar to back. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled \"Antonio & Hieronimus Fr. Amati / Cremonen Andrea F 1620.\"
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
43.0 19.6 13.1 24.3
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=69403)
[Ingles & Hayday](https://ingleshayday.com/notable-sales-instrument/a-viola-by-antonio-girolamo-amati/)
#### Held in the Galleria Estense Modena ca 1625 {#held_in_the_galleria_estense_modena_ca_1625}
Girolamo Amati ca 1625
Labelled \"Antonius, & Hieronymus, Fr. Amati Cremonen. Andrae fil. F.1620\" (not original).
Back of maple. Top of spruce with a pronounced, rather wide grain. Ribs of the same maple as the back.
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
40.9 19.5 12.7 24.3
: Measurements (cm)
The subject of the book [The Girolamo Amati viola in the Galleria Estense, Treasures of Italian Violin Making Vol I, 2014](https://www.janroehrmann.de/violin-book-girolamo-amati-viola)
#### The ex Vieuxtemps {#the_ex_vieuxtemps}
Nicolò Amati, date unknown
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=44088)
Nicolo Amati ca 1663
Two-piece spruce top of medium width grain widening to the edges, two-piece back of quarter sawn maple with faint flame of narrow width mostly horizontal, ribs and scroll of similar maple, and varnish of an orange-brown color over a golden ground. There is an original printed label inside the instrument reads \"Nicolaus Amatus Cremonen. Hieronymi Fil. ac Antonij Nepos Fecit. 1663\"
[National Museum of American History](https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_833906)
#### The Berkitz, The Romanov ca 1677 {#the_berkitz_the_romanov_ca_1677}
Nicolò Amati ca 1677
[Tariso](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=49362)
[The Strad Shop](https://www.thestradshop.com/store/thestrad/nicolo-amati-romanov-viola-1677-poster/)
[The Strad Shop](https://www.thestrad.com/for-subscribers/a-massive-achievement-the-1677-romanov-nicol%c3%b2-amati-viola/9676.article)
#### The ex Waters ca 1703 {#the_ex_waters_ca_1703}
Nicolò Amati ca 1703
[Toronto Symphony Orchestra](https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2020/05/21/musical-moment-listen-to-the-tsos-principal-violist-perform-the-prelude-from-js-bachs-cello-suite-no-2-on-his-300-year-old-viola.html)
[Toronto Symphony Orchestra](https://atmaclassique.com/en/artiste/teng-li/)
#### The ex Francais 1708 {#the_ex_francais_1708}
Girolamo Amati II ca 1708
Two-piece back of small curl. Top of pine of well-defined and rather open grain. Scroll of less pronounced curl. Ribs of less pronounced curl. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled \"Hieronymus Amatus Cremonen Nicolai figlius fecit 1708.\"
Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts
---------------- ------------ -------------- -------------
43.9 21.9 13.8 25.7
: Measurements (cm)
[Tarisio](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=44226)
#### Other Amati violas in the Tarisio archive {#other_amati_violas_in_the_tarisio_archive}
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1592](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=40101)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1607](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=40070)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1611](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=45396)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1616](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=1106)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=49068)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=48291)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=42132)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=43027)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=40871)
- [Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1628](https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/property/?ID=43353)
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# Amati
## In popular culture {#in_popular_culture}
- Patrick O\'Brian\'s fictional British sea captain Jack Aubrey is described as owning a \"fiddle far above his station, an Amati no less\", in *The Surgeon\'s Mate.* In the *Wine-Dark Sea*, book fifteen of the series, Stephen Maturin now has a Girolamo Amati and Aubrey a Guarneri.
- In Satyajit Ray\'s short story *Bosepukure Khoonkharapi*, the fictional detective Feluda deduces that a character was murdered because he owned an Amati
violin.
- In the manga and anime series *Gunslinger Girl*, Henrietta carries an Amati violin case. It contains a Fabrique Nationale P90 when on a mission, otherwise it contains a real violin.
- On the radio show, *Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar*, the January 1956 episode \"The Ricardo Amerigo Matter\" centered on a stolen Amati violin.
- In the 2022 Cormac McCarthy novels, *The Passenger* and *Stella Maris*, Alicia Western purchases an Amati violin for more than \$200,000 while she is in her mid- to late teens, paying in cash from money she inherited. In *Stella Maris*, she relates this to her psychiatrist while in a psychiatric hospital, describing the details of the purchase and some history of the Amati instruments. McCarthy, C., *The Passenger* and *Stella Maris*, New York: Knopf (2022)
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# Ambergris
thumb\|upright=1.3\|Ambergris in dried form
**Ambergris** (`{{IPAc-en|ˈ|æ|m|b|ər|g|r|iː|s|}}`{=mediawiki} or `{{IPAc-en|ˈ|æ|m|b|ər|g|r|ɪ|s|}}`{=mediawiki}; *ambra grisea*; *ambre gris*), ***ambergrease***, or **grey amber** is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of isopropyl alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.
Ambergris has been highly valued by perfume makers as a fixative that allows the scent to last much longer, although it has been mostly replaced by synthetic ambroxide. It is sometimes used in cooking.
Dogs are attracted to the smell of ambergris and are sometimes used by ambergris searchers.
## Etymology
The English word *amber* derives from Middle Persian ʾmbl, traveling via Arabic *ʿanbar* (*rtl=yes*), Middle Latin *ambar,* and Middle French *ambre* to be adopted in Middle English in the 14th century.
The word \"ambergris\" comes from the Old French *ambre gris* or \"grey amber\". The addition of \"grey\" came about when, in the Romance languages, the sense of the word \"amber\" was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin), as white or yellow amber (*ambre jaune*), from as early as the late 13th century. This fossilized resin subsequently became the dominant (and now exclusive) sense of \"amber\", leaving \"ambergris\" as the word for the whale secretion.
The archaic alternate spelling \"ambergrease\" arose as an eggcorn from the phonetic pronunciation of \"ambergris,\" encouraged by the substance\'s waxy texture.
## Formation
Ambergris is formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of the sperm whale, and can be found floating on the sea or washed up on coastlines. It is sometimes found in the abdomens of dead sperm whales. Because the beaks of giant squids have been discovered within lumps of ambergris, scientists have hypothesized that the substance is produced by the whale\'s gastrointestinal tract to ease the passage of hard, sharp objects that it may have eaten.
Ambergris is passed like fecal matter. It is speculated that an ambergris mass too large to be passed through the intestines is expelled via the mouth, but this remains under debate. Another theory states that an ambergris mass is formed when the colon of a whale is enlarged by a blockage from intestinal worms and cephalopod parts resulting in the death of the whale and the mass being excreted into the sea. Ambergris takes years to form. Christopher Kemp, the author of *Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris*, says that it is only produced by sperm whales, and only by an estimated one percent of them. Ambergris is rare; once expelled by a whale, it often floats for years before making landfall. The slim chances of finding ambergris and the legal ambiguity involved led perfume makers away from ambergris, and led chemists on a quest to find viable alternatives.
Ambergris is found primarily in the Atlantic Ocean and on the coasts of South Africa; Brazil; Madagascar; the East Indies; The Maldives; China; Japan; India; Australia; New Zealand; and the Molucca Islands. Most commercially collected ambergris comes from the Bahamas in the Atlantic, particularly New Providence. In 2021, fishermen found a 127 kg (280-pound) piece of ambergris off the coast of Yemen, valued at US\$1.5 million. Fossilised ambergris from 1.75 million years ago has also been found.
## Physical properties {#physical_properties}
Ambergris is found in lumps of various shapes and sizes, usually weighing from 15 g to 50 kg or more. When initially expelled by or removed from the whale, the fatty precursor of ambergris is pale white in color (sometimes streaked with black), soft, with a strong fecal smell. Following months to years of photodegradation and oxidation in the ocean, this precursor gradually hardens, developing a dark grey or black color, a crusty and waxy texture, and a peculiar odor that is at once sweet, earthy, marine, and animalic. Its scent has been generally described as a vastly richer and smoother version of isopropanol without its stinging harshness. In this developed condition, ambergris has a specific gravity ranging from 0.780 to 0.926 (meaning it floats in water). It melts at about 62 C to a fatty, yellow resinous liquid; and at 100 C it is volatilised into a white vapor. It is soluble in ether, and in volatile and fixed oils.
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# Ambergris
## Chemical properties {#chemical_properties}
Ambergris is relatively nonreactive to acid. White crystals of a terpenoid known as ambrein, discovered by Leopold Ružička and Fernand Lardon in 1946, can be separated from ambergris by heating raw ambergris in alcohol, then allowing the resulting solution to cool. Breakdown of the relatively scentless ambrein through oxidation produces ambroxide and ambrinol, the main odor components of ambergris.
<File:Ambrein.svg%7CAmbrein> <File:Ambrox.svg%7CAmbroxide> <File:Ambrinol.svg%7CAmbrinol>
Ambroxide is now produced synthetically and used extensively in the perfume industry.
## Applications
Ambergris has been mostly known for its use in creating perfume and fragrance much like musk. Perfumes based on ambergris still exist. Ambergris has historically been used in food and drink. A serving of eggs and ambergris was reportedly King Charles II of England\'s favorite dish. A recipe for Rum Shrub liqueur from the mid 19th century called for a thread of ambergris to be added to rum, almonds, cloves, cassia, and the peel of oranges in making a cocktail from *The English and Australian Cookery Book*. It has been used as a flavoring agent in Turkish coffee and in hot chocolate in 18th century Europe. The substance is considered an aphrodisiac in some cultures.
Ancient Egyptians burned ambergris as incense, while in modern Egypt ambergris is used for scenting cigarettes. `{{anchor|Chinese }}`{=mediawiki}The ancient Chinese called the substance \"dragon\'s spittle fragrance\". During the Black Death in Europe, people believed that carrying a ball of ambergris could help prevent them from contracting plague. This was because the fragrance covered the smell of the air which was believed to be a cause of plague.
During the Middle Ages, Europeans used ambergris as a medication for headaches, colds, epilepsy, and other ailments.
## Legality
From the 18th to the mid-19th century, the whaling industry prospered. By some reports, nearly 50,000 whales, including sperm whales, were killed each year. Throughout the 19th century, \"millions of whales were killed for their oil, whalebone, and ambergris\" to fuel profits, and they soon became endangered as a species as a result. Due to studies showing that the whale populations were being threatened, the International Whaling Commission instituted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. Although ambergris is not harvested from whales, many countries also ban the trade of ambergris as part of the more general ban on the hunting and exploitation of whales.
Urine, faeces, and ambergris (that has been naturally excreted by a sperm whale) are waste products not considered parts or derivatives of a CITES species and are therefore not covered by the provisions of the convention.
Countries where ambergris trade is illegal include:
- Australia -- Under federal law, the export and import of ambergris for commercial purposes is banned by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The various states and territories have additional laws regarding ambergris.
- United States -- The possession and trade of ambergris is prohibited by the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
- India -- Sale or possession is illegal under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972
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# Ambiorix
**Ambiorix** (Gaulish \"king of the surroundings\", or \"king-protector\") (`{{floruit}}`{=mediawiki} 54--53 BC) was, together with Cativolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of north-eastern Gaul (Gallia Belgica), where modern Belgium is located. In the 19th century, Ambiorix became a Belgian national hero because of his resistance against Julius Caesar, as written in Caesar\'s *Commentarii de Bello Gallico*.
## Name
It is generally accepted that *Ambiorix* is a Gaulish personal name formed with the prefix *ambio-* attached to *rix* (\'king\'), but the meaning of the first element is debated. Some scholars translate *Ambiorix* as the \'king of the surroundings\' or \'king of the enclosure\', by interpreting *ambio-* as a thematized form of *ambi-* (\'around, on both sides\') meaning \'surroundings\' or else \'enclosure\' (cf. Old Irish *imbe* \'enclosure\'). Alternatively, Fredrik Otto Lindeman renders *Ambiorix* as the \'protector-king\', by deriving *ambio-* from the Proto-Indo-European compound *\*h₂mbhí-péh₂* (\'protector\'; cf. Old Indic *adhi-pá-* \'protector, ruler, master, king\').
## Biography
### Early history {#early_history}
In 57 BCE, Julius Caesar conquered parts of Gaul and also Belgica (Belgium, modern-day Northern France, Luxembourg, part of present-day Netherlands below the Rhine River; and the north-western portion of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). There were several tribes in the country who fought against each other frequently. The Eburones were ruled by Ambiorix and Catuvolcus. In 54 BCE, Caesar\'s troops urgently needed more food, and so the local tribes were forced to give up part of their harvest, which had not been good that year. Understandably, the starving Eburones were reluctant to do so and Caesar ordered that camps be built near the Eburones\' villages. Each centurion was ordered to make sure the food supplies were delivered to the Roman soldiers. This created resentment among the Eburones.
Although Julius Caesar had freed him from paying tribute to the Atuatuci, Ambiorix joined Catuvolcus in the winter of 54 BCE in an uprising against the Roman forces under Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta.
### Resisting the Romans {#resisting_the_romans}
Because a drought had disrupted his grain supply, Caesar was forced to winter his legions among the rebellious Belgic tribes. Roman troops led by Sabinus and Cotta were wintering among the Eburones when they were attacked by them, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Ambiorix deceived the Romans, telling them the attack was made without his consent, and further advised them to flee as a large Germanic force was preparing to cross the Rhine. Trusting Ambiorix, Sabinus and Cotta\'s troops left the next morning. A short distance from their camp, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Eburones and massacred.
Elsewhere, another Roman force under Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of the orator Marcus, were wintering amongst the Nervii. Leading a coalition of rebellious Belgic tribes, Ambiorix surrounded Cicero\'s camp. After a long while, a Roman messenger was finally able to slip through the Belgic lines and get word of the uprising to Caesar. Mobilizing his legions, Caesar immediately marched to Cicero\'s aid. As they approached the besieged Roman camp, the Belgae moved to engage Caesar\'s troops. Vastly outnumbered, Caesar ordered his troops to appear confused and frightened, and they successfully lured the Belgae to attack them on ground favourable to the Romans. Caesar\'s forces launched a fierce counterattack, and soon put the Belgae to flight. Later, Caesar\'s troops entered Cicero\'s camp to find most of the men wounded.
Meanwhile, Indutiomarus, a leader of the Treveri, began to harass Labienus\'s camp daily, eventually provoking Labienus to send out his cavalry with specific orders to kill Indutiomarus. They did so, and routed the remnants of Indutiomarus\'s army. Caesar personally remained in Gaul for the remainder of winter due to the renewed Gallic threat.
### Caesar\'s revenge {#caesars_revenge}
When the Roman Senate became aware of the latest events, Caesar swore to destroy all the Belgic tribes. Ambiorix had killed fifteen cohorts. A Belgic attack on Cicero, then stationed with a legion in the territory of the Nervii, failed due to the timely appearance of Caesar. The Roman campaigns against the Belgae took a few years, but eventually the tribes were slaughtered or driven out and their fields burned. The Eburones disappeared from history after this genocidal event. According to the writer Florus, Ambiorix and his men succeeded in escaping across the Rhine and vanished from history.
## Legacy
Caesar wrote about Ambiorix in his commentary about his battles against the Gauls, *De Bello Gallico*. In this text he also famously wrote: \"Of these \[three regions\], the Belgae are the bravest.\" (\"\... *Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae* \...\").
Ambiorix remained a relatively obscure figure until the nineteenth century. The independence of Belgium in 1830 spurred a search for national heroes. In Caesar\'s *De Bello Gallico*, Ambiorix and his deeds were rediscovered. In 1841, the Belgian poet Joannes Nolet de Brauwere Van Steeland wrote a lyrical epic about Ambiorix. Furthermore, on 5 September 1866 a statue of Ambiorix was erected on the main market square in Tongeren, Belgium, referred to by Caesar as Atuatuca, i.e. Atuatuca Tungrorum.
Today, Ambiorix is one of the most famous characters in Belgian history. Many companies, bars and friteries have named themselves after him, and in many Belgian comics such as Suske en Wiske and Jommeke he plays a guest role. There was also a short-lived comic called *Ambionix*, which featured a scientist teleporting a Belgic chief, loosely based on Ambiorix, to modern-day Belgium
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# Alfred of Beverley
**Alfred of Beverley** was an English chronicler, and sacrist of the collegiate church of St John the Evangelist and St John of Beverley wrote a history of Britain and England in nine chapters (c. 1148- c.1151) from its supposed foundation by the Trojan Brutus, down to the death of Henry I in 1135. Alfred\'s chief sources, in addition to Bede\'s *Historia Ecclesiastica de Gentis Anglorum ,* are Geoffrey of Monmouth\'s *Historia Regum Britanniae,* Henry of Huntingdon\'s *Historia Anglorum, The Chronicle of John of Worcester,* and the *Historia Regum*, attributed to Symeon of Durham.
## Biography
Alfred of Beverley, was a priest of Beverley, and is described in the preface to his book as \"treasurer of the church of Beverley\" and \"Master Alfred, sacrist of the church of Beverley\".
Alfred of Beverley speaks of himself as contemporary with the removal of the Flemings from the north of England to Ross in Herefordshire in 1112, and writes that he compiled his chronicle \"when the church was silent, owing to the number of persons excommunicated under the decree of the council of London\", an apparent reference to the council held at Mid-Lent, 1143. His attention, by his own account, was first drawn to history by the publication (before 1139) of Geoffrey of Monmouth\'s Historia Regum Britanniae, and he looked forward to following up the chronicle which bears his name, and which largely depends on Geoffrey\'s work, with a collection of excerpts from the credible portions of the Historia Regum Britanniae, but no trace of such a work is extant.
Alfred of Beverley\'s chronicle is entitled *Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales sive Historia de gestis Regum Britanniæ libris ix. ad annum 1129*. It is largely devoted to the fabulous history of Britain, and is mainly borrowed from Bede, Henry of Huntingdon, and Symeon of Durham, when Geoffrey of Monmouth is not laid under contribution. Alfred quotes occasionally from Suetonius, Orosius, and Nennius, and names many Roman authors whom he had consulted in vain for references to Britain. The chronicle is of no real use to the historical student, since it adds no new fact to the information to be found in well-known earlier authorities.
According to Sidney Lee (1885) the best manuscript of Alfred\'s *Annales* was among the Hengwrt MSS. belonging to W. W. E. Wynne, Esq., of Peniarth, Merionethshire, and had not been printed. Hearne printed the 'Annales' in 1716 from an inferior Bodleian MS. (Rawl. B. 200)
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# August 31
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# Autpert Ambrose
**Autpert Ambrose (Ambroise)** (*\'\'\'Ambrosius Autpertus\'\'\'*) (ca. 730 -- 784) was a Frankish Benedictine monk. An abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno in South Italy in the time of Desiderius, king of the Lombards, Autpert wrote a considerable number of works on the Bible and religious subjects generally. Among these are commentaries on the Apocalypse, on the Psalms, and on the Song of Songs; a life of the founders of the monastery of San Vincenzo (*Vita Paldonis, Tasonis et Tatonis*); and a *Conflictus vitiorum et virtutum* (Combat between the Virtues and the Vices). Jean Mabillon calls him \"sanctissimus\" because of his great virtue and the Bollandists gave him the title \"saint\". His cultus has been approved.
## Biography
Autpert Ambrose was born in Gaul, probably Provence, at the beginning of the eighth century. He moved to Italy and entered the Benedictine monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, near Benevento, in Southern Italy, where he received his intellectual and spiritual formation and was ordained a priest sometime before 761. He became abbot on 4 October 777. In 774 Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards, but had not subjugated the Duchy of Benevento: Autpert\'s election aggravated the disputes between French and Lombard monks, and on 28 December 778 he was forced to leave the monastery to the Lombard Poto and flee to Spoleto. Summoned to Rome by Charlemagne to resolve the conflict, he died on the way, perhaps murdered, in 784. Information about his life is available primarily from the fragmentary *Chronicon Vulturnense* written by a monk named John, and from brief autobiographical references in some of his own writings. The same chronicle places him in the court of Charlemagne. This is apparently an error due to the confusion of Autpert with a certain Aspertus or Asbertus, who was chancellor of Prince Arnolfus from 888 to 892.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI gave a homily about him in Saint Peter\'s square. In this homily, Autpert\'s death date is given as 784 (older scholarship had given a date between 778 and 779).
## Works
Autpert\'s most famous work is his lengthy *Expositio in Apocalypsin* which is dependent upon a variety of patristic authors whom Autpert explicitly acknowledges, including Jerome, Victorinus, Ticonius, Augustine of Hippo, Primasius of Hadrumetum, and Gregory the Great. In fact, this commentary is one of the sources for a partial reconstruction of the lost Apocalypse commentary of the Donatist Ticonius. It is prefaced by a letter to Pope Stephen III in which Autpert defends himself from his detractors. His *Vita sanctorum patrum Paldonis, Tatonis et Tasonis* is an account of the three founders of the monastery at Volturno who through their pious lives offer an example of the imitation of Christ. His *Libellus de conflictu vitiorum atque virtutum* emphasizes monastic themes such as fear of God, obedience, and fidelity. Other works include *Oratio contra septem vitia*, *Sermo de cupiditate*, *Sermo in purificatione sanctae Mariae*, *Homilia de transfiguratione Domini*, and *Sermo de adsumptione sanctae Mariae*. Several additional sermons, known to have existed, have not survived. His extant sermons are marked by a strong mystical imprint. His commentaries on Leviticus, the Song of Songs, and the Psalms, mentioned in the *Chronicon Vulturnese*, are also not extant. Whether or not Autpert is the author of the hymn *Ave maris stella* is debated. The reason for this possible attribution is that Mary plays a significant theological role in both his sermons and Apocalypse commentary. She is not only a figure of the Church but also its most excellent member. As mother of Christ, she is also mother of the elect.
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# Autpert Ambrose
## *Expositio in Apocalypsin* {#expositio_in_apocalypsin}
Autpert\'s masterpiece is considered his *Expositio in Apocalypsin*, a lengthy commentary on the Book of Revelation. Autpert refers to various early Christian writers in order to give his commentary authority. In addition, he uses the writers to correct heresy where he believed it to exist. Although he is very careful not to depart from the tradition of the Church or from orthodox teaching, his work is no mere string of patristic quotations. Throughout his Apocalypse commentary Christ is mystically identified with the Church, so much so that the Church actually begins with the birth of Christ. In addition, there is only one Church in heaven and on earth, not two. To those knowing the truth there is manifest one and the same Church, neither divided nor separated, which reigns with Christ in heaven, encompassing those members who have completed their struggle, and which reigns with Christ on earth, encompassing those members who continue in battle. The first resurrection (cf. Rev. 20:5b--6a), which implies a second, refers to the reign of Christ for a thousand years and the reign of the just with him. The second resurrection refers not to the resurrection of the flesh from dust but rather to the life of the soul rising from the abandonment of sin. The second death (cf. Rev. 20:6b) is eternal damnation. Gog and Magog (cf. Rev. 20:8) refer to the nations all over the earth which are agents of the devil persecuting the Church. The book of life (cf. Rev. 20:12) is the Old and New Testament, whose contemplation brings the elect to the light of day and the love of neighbour. The city of God continuously grows in number through the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and at the end of the present age the Last Judgment of God will come through his son Jesus Christ
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# Ambrose Traversari
**Ambrogio Traversari**, also referred to as **Ambrose of Camaldoli** (1386`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}20 October 1439), was an Italian monk and theologian who was a prime supporter of the papal cause in the 15th century. He is honored as a saint by the Camaldolese Order.
## Biography
Traversari was born near Forlì, in the village of Portico di Romagna in 1386. At the age of 14 he entered the Camaldolese Order in the Monastery of St. Mary of the Angels in Florence, and soon acquired a reputation as a leading theologian and Hellenist. In his study of Greek literature his master was Emmanuel Chrysoloras. Traversari worked primarily as a scholar until he became prior general of the Order in 1431.
Traversari emerged as a leading advocate of papal primacy. This attitude he showed clearly when he attended the Council of Basel as legate of Pope Eugene IV and defended the primacy of the pope, calling upon the council not to \"rend asunder Christ\'s seamless robe\". He was next sent by Eugene to the Emperor Sigismund to ask his aid in the pope\'s efforts to end this council, which for five years had been encroaching on papal prerogatives. Eugene transferred the council from Basel to Ferrara on 18 September 1437.
So strong was Traversari\'s hostility to some of the delegates that he described Basel as a western Babylon. He likewise supported the pope at Ferrara and Florence, and worked hard in the attempt to reconcile the Eastern and Western Churches. But in this council, and later, in that of Florence, Traversari, by his efforts and charity toward some indigent Greek bishops, greatly helped to bring about a union of the two Churches, the decree for which, 6 July 1439, he was called on to prepare a draft.
Ambrose Traversari died soon after. His feastday is celebrated by the Camaldolese Order on 20 November.
## Character
According to the author of his biography in the eleventh edition of the *Encyclopædia Britannica*: \"Ambrose is interesting as typical of the new humanism which was growing up within the church. Thus while among his own colleagues he seemed merely a hypocritical and arrogant priest, in his relations with his brother humanists, such as Cosimo de\' Medici, he appeared as the student of classical antiquities and especially of Greek theological authors\".
## Works
His works include a treatise on the Holy Eucharist, one on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, many lives of saints, as well as a history of his term as prior general of the Camaldolese. He also translated from Greek into Latin a life of John Chrysostom (Venice, 1533); the *Spiritual Wisdom* of John Moschus; *The Ladder of Divine Ascent* of John Climacus (Venice, 1531), P.G., LXXXVIII. Between 1424 and 1433 he worked on the translation of the *Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers* by Diogenes Laërtius, which came to be widely circulated in manuscript form. He also translated four books against the errors of the Greeks, by Manuel Kalekas, Patriarch of Constantinople, a Dominican friar (Ingolstadt, 1608), P.G., CLII, col. 13-661, a work known only through Ambrose\'s translation.
He also translated many homilies of John Chrysostom; the writings of Dionysius Areopagita (1436); Basil of Caesarea\'s treatise on virginity; thirty-nine discourses of Ephrem the Syrian, and many other works of the Fathers and writers of the Greek Church. Jean Mabillon\'s *Letters and Orations of St. Ambrose of Camaldoli* was published in Florence in 1759.
Selected works:
- *Hodoeporicon*, diary of a journey visiting the monasteries of Italy
- *Epistolarium*, correspondence
- translations of
- Palladius, *Life of Chrysostom*
- Ephraem Syrus, *Nineteen Sermons of Ephraem Syrus*
- Basil of Caesarea, *On Virginity*
- Diogenes Laërtius, *Vitae philosophorum* (*Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers*)
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (1436)
A number of his manuscripts remain in the library of Saint Mark in Venice
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# Ambrosians
**Ambrosians** are members of one of the religious brotherhoods which at various times since the 14th century have sprung up in and around Milan, Italy. In the 16th century, a sect of Anabaptist Ambrosians was founded.
## Orders
Only the oldest of the Catholic Ambrosians, the *Fratres S. Ambrosii ad Nemus*, had anything more than a very local significance. This order is known from a bull of Pope Gregory XI addressed to the monks of the church of St Ambrose outside Milan.
Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, certainly did not found religious orders, though he took an interest in the monastic life and watched over its beginnings in his diocese, providing for the needs of a monastery outside the walls of Milan, as Saint Augustine recounts in his *Confessions*. Ambrose also made successful efforts to improve the moral life of women in the Milan of his time by promoting the permanent institution of Virgins, as also of widows. His exhortations and other interventions have survived in various writings:
-
-
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-
-
-
Ambrose was the only Father of the Church to leave behind so many writings on the subject and his attentions naturally enough led to the formation of communities which later became formal monasteries of women.
It is against this background that two religious orders or congregations---one of men and one of women, when founded in the Milan area during the 13th and 15th centuries---took Saint Ambrose as their patron and hence adopted his name.
### Order of St Ambrose {#order_of_st_ambrose}
The first of the groups to adopt the name of St Ambrose was formed in a cave in a wood (Latin nemus, a term later used in their name) outside Milan by three rich Milanese nobles, Alessandro Crivelli, Antonio Petrasancta, and Alberto Besozzo, who were joined by numerous others, including lay hermits and priests and came over time to adopt a cenobitic form of life. Their chosen initial locality was associated traditionally with St Ambrose. In 1375 Pope Gregory XI approved them as an order with the obligation of following the Rule of St Augustine, and celebration the liturgy according to the Ambrosian Rite. Initially the various houses founded were quasi autonomous and had no formal bond between them. Subsequently Pope Eugene IV, in a bull of 4 October 1441, formed them into an order on the mendicant model, with the name \"Fratres Sancti Ambrosii ad Nemus\" The brethren were ruled by a rector general, elected by a general chapter meeting every three years, and assisted in his duties by two \"visitors\". Upon election the rector general was instituted by the Archbishop of Milan. The friars wore a habit consisting of a brown tunic, scapular, and hood. The priests of the congregation undertook preaching and other tasks of the ministry but were not allowed to accept the charge of parishes. The original house adjacent to the then Milanese church of San Primo was constituted as the order\'s main seat. There was another important house at Parabiago, a town located to the North West of Milan, and outside the Milan diocese only two other houses existed, both in Rome: San Clemente and San Pancrazio.
In 1579 Saint Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, successfully reformed their discipline, which had grown lax. In 1589 Pope Sixtus V united to the Congregation of St Ambrose the houses of a group known as the \"Brothers of the Apostles of the Poor Life\" (or \"Apostolini\" or \"Brothers of St. Barnabas\"), whose houses were located in the province of Genoa and in the March of Ancona. This was an order that had been founded by Giovanni Scarpa at the end of the 15th century. The union was confirmed by Pope Paul V in 1606, at which time the congregation added the name of St. Barnabas to its title, adopted new constitutions and divided its houses into four provinces. Two of these, were in effect the two communities in Rome already mentioned, San Clemente and San Pancrazio.
Published works have survived from the pen of Ascanio Tasca and Michele Mulozzani, each of whom was superior-general, and of Zaccaria Visconti, Francesco-Maria Guazzi and Paolo Fabulotti. Although various Ambrosians were given the title of Blessed in recognition of their holiness: Antonio Gonzaga of Mantua, Filippo of Fermo, and Gerardo of Monza, the order was eventually dissolved by Pope Innocent X in 1650.
### Nuns
The Nuns of St Ambrose (Ambrosian Sisters) wore a habit of the same colour as the Brothers of St Ambrose, conformed to their constitutions, and followed the Ambrosian Rite, but were independent in government. Pope Sixtus IV gave the nuns canonical status in 1474. Their one monastery was on the top of Monte Varese, near Lago Maggiore, on the spot where their foundress, the Blessed Catarina Morigia (or Catherine of Palanza), had first led a solitary life. Other early nuns were the Blessed Juliana of Puriselli, Benedetta Bimia, and Lucia Alciata. The nuns were esteemed by St Charles Borromeo.
Another group of cloistered \"Nuns of St Ambrose\", also called the Annunciatae (Italian: *Annunziate*) of Lombardy or \"Sisters of St Marcellina\", were founded in 1408 by three young women of Pavia, Dorothea Morosini, Eleonora Contarini, and Veronica Duodi. Their houses, scattered throughout Lombardy and Venetia, were united into a congregation by St Pius V, under the Rule of St Augustine with a mother-house, residence of the prioress general, at Pavia. One of the nuns in this group was Saint Catharine Fieschi Adorno, who died on September 14, 1510.
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# Ambrosians
## Orders
### Oblates of St. Ambrose and of St. Charles {#oblates_of_st._ambrose_and_of_st._charles}
In some sense also \"Ambrosians\" are the members of a diocesan religious society founded by St Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan. All priests or destined to become priests, they took a simple vow of obedience to their bishop. The model for this was a society that already existed at Brescia, under the name of \"Priests of Peace\". In August 1578 the new society was inaugurated, being entrusted with the church of the Holy Sepulchre and given the name of \"Oblates of St. Ambrose.\" They later received the approbation of Gregory XIII. St Charles died in 1584. These Oblates were dispersed by Napoleon I in 1810, while another group called the Oblates of Our Lady of Rho escaped this fate. In 1848 they were reorganized and given the name of \"Oblates of St. Charles\" and reassigned the house of the Holy Sepulchre. In the course of the 19th century similar groups were founded in a number of countries, including the \"Oblates of St Charles\", established in London by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman
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# Ambrosiaster
**Ambrosiaster** or **Pseudo-Ambrose** is the name given to the unknown author of a commentary on the epistles of Saint Paul, written some time between 366 and 384 AD. The name \"Ambrosiaster\" in Latin means \"would-be Ambrose\". Various conjectures have been made as to Ambrosiaster\'s true identity, and several other works have been attributed to the same author, with varying degrees of certainty.
## Identity
Pseudo-Ambrose was the name given by Erasmus to refer to the author of a volume containing the first complete Latin commentary on the Pauline epistles.
Attempts to identify Ambrosiaster with known authors has continued, but with no success. Because Augustine cites Ambrosiaster\'s commentary on Romans 5:12 under the name of \"Hilary\", many critics have attempted to identify Ambroasiaster with one of the many writers named \"Hilary\" active in the period. In 1899, Germain Morin suggested that the writer was Isaac, a converted Jew and writer of a tract on the Trinity and Incarnation, who was exiled to Spain in 378--380 and then relapsed to Judaism. Morin afterwards abandoned this theory of the authorship in favour of Decimus Hilarianus Hilarius, proconsul of Africa in 377. Alternatively, Paolo Angelo Ballerini attempted to sustain the traditional attribution of the work to Ambrose, in his complete edition of that Father\'s work. This is extremely problematic, though, since it would require Ambrose to have written the book before he became a bishop, and then added to it in later years, incorporating later remarks of Hilary of Poitiers on Romans. No identifications, therefore, have acquired lasting popularity with scholars, and Ambrosiaster\'s identity remains a mystery.
Internal evidence from the documents has been taken to suggest that the author was active in Rome during the period of Pope Damasus, and, almost certainly, a member of the clergy.
## Works
### Commentary on Paul {#commentary_on_paul}
The *Commentary on Thirteen Pauline Letters* is considered valuable as evidence of the state of the Latin text of Paul\'s epistles before the appearance of the Vulgate of Jerome, and as an example of Pauline interpretation prior to Augustine of Hippo. It was traditionally ascribed to Ambrose, but in 1527, Erasmus threw doubt on the accuracy of this ascription, and the anonymous author came to be known as \"Ambrosiaster\". It was once thought that Erasmus coined this name; however, René Hoven, in 1969, showed that this was incorrect, and that credit should actually be given to the Maurists. Later scholars have followed Hoven in this assessment, although it has also been suggested that the name originated with Franciscus Lucas Brugensis.
### Other works {#other_works}
Several other works which now survive only as fragments have been attributed to this same author. These include a commentary on Matthew 24, and discussions on the parable of the leaven, the denial of Peter, and Jesus\'s arrest. In 1905, Alexander Souter established that Ambrosiaster was also the author of the *Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti,* a lengthy collection of exegetical and polemical tractates which manuscripts have traditionally ascribed to Augustine.
Other works ascribed to the same author, less definitely, are the *Lex Dei sive Mosaicarum et Romanorum legum collatio*, *De bello judaico*, and the fragmentary *Contra Arianos* sometimes ascribed to the pseudo-Hilary and the *sermo 246* of pseudo-Augustine. They mention Simon Magus.
## Influence
Many scholars argue that Ambrosiaster\'s works were essentially Pelagian, although this is disputed. Pelagius cited him extensively. For example, Alfred Smith argued that Pelagius got his views on predestination and original sin from Ambrosiaster. However, Augustine also made use of Ambrosiaster\'s commentaries
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# Ammonius Hermiae
**Ammonius Hermiae** (`{{IPAc-en|ə|ˈ|m|oʊ|n|i|ə|s}}`{=mediawiki}; *Ammonius, son of Hermias*; c. 440 -- between 517 and 526) was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria in the eastern Roman empire during Late Antiquity. A Neoplatonist, he was the son of the philosophers Hermias and Aedesia, the brother of Heliodorus of Alexandria and the grandson of Syrianus. Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Roman Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, having obtained a public chair in the 470s.
According to Olympiodorus of Thebes\'s *Commentaries* on Plato\'s *Gorgias* and *Phaedo* texts, Ammonius gave lectures on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry of Tyre, and wrote commentaries on Aristotelian works and three lost commentaries on Platonic texts. He is also the author of a text on the astrolabe published in the *Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum*, and lectured on astronomy and geometry. Ammonius taught numerous Neoplatonists, including Damascius, Olympiodorus of Thebes, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Asclepius of Tralles. Also among his pupils were the physician Gessius of Petra and the ecclesiastical historian Zacharias Rhetor, who became the bishop of Mytilene.
As part of the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, the Alexandrian school was investigated by the Roman imperial authorities; Ammonius made a compromise with the Patriarch of Alexandria, Peter III, voluntarily limiting his teaching in return for keeping his own position. This alienated a number of his colleagues and pupils, including Damascius, who nonetheless called him \"the greatest commentator who ever lived\" in his own *Life of Isidore of Alexandria*.
## Life
Ammonius\' father Hermias died when he was a child, and his mother Aedesia raised him and his brother Heliodorus in Alexandria. When they reached adulthood, Aedesia accompanied her sons to Athens where they studied under Proclus. Eventually, they returned to Alexandria where Ammonius, as head of the Neoplatonist school in the city, lectured on Plato and Aristotle for the rest of his life. According to Damascius, during the persecution of the pagans at Alexandria in the late 480s, Ammonius made concessions to the Christian authorities so that he could continue his lectures. Damascius, who scolds Ammonius for the agreement that he made, does not say what the concessions were, but they may have involved limitations on the doctrines he could teach or promote. He was still teaching in 515; Olympiodorus heard him lecture on Plato\'s *Gorgias* in that year. He was also an accomplished astronomer; he lectured on Ptolemy and is known to have written a treatise on the astrolabe.
## Writings
Of his reputedly numerous writings, only his commentary on Aristotle\'s *De Interpretatione* survives intact. A commentary on Porphyry\'s *Isagoge* may also be his, but it is somewhat corrupt and contains later interpolations.
In *De Interpretatione*, Ammonius contends that divine foreknowledge makes void the contingent. Like Boethius in his second *Commentary* and in *The Consolation of Philosophy,* this argument maintains the effectiveness of prayer. Ammonius cites Iamblichus, who said \"knowledge is intermediate between the knower and the known, since it is the activity of the knower concerning the known.\"
In addition, there are some notes of Ammonius\' lectures written by various students which also survive:
- On Aristotle\'s *Categories* (anonymous writer)
- On Aristotle\'s *Prior Analytics I* (anonymous writer)
- On Aristotle\'s *Metaphysics 1--7* (written by Asclepius)
- On Nicomachus\' *Introduction to Arithmetic* (written by Asclepius)
- On Aristotle\'s *Prior Analytics* (written by John Philoponus)
- On Aristotle\'s *Posterior Analytics* (written by John Philoponus)
- On Aristotle\'s *On Generation and Corruption* (written by John Philoponus)
- On Aristotle\'s *On the Soul* (written by John Philoponus)
There is Greek-language work called *Life of Aristotle*, which is usually ascribed to Ammonius, but \"is more probable that it is the work of Joannes Philoponus, the pupil of Ammonius, to whom it is ascribed in some MSS.\"
## English translations {#english_translations}
- *Ammonius: On Aristotle Categories*, translated by S. M. Cohen and G. B. Matthews. London and Ithaca 1992.
- *Ammonius: On Aristotle\'s On Interpretation 1--8*, translated by D. Blank. London and Ithaca 1996.
- *Ammonius: On Aristotle\'s On Interpretation 9, with Boethius: On Aristotle\'s On Interpretation 9*, translated by D. Blank (Ammonius) and N. Kretzmann (Boethius). London and Ithaca 1998
- *John Philoponus: On Aristotle On Coming-to-be and Perishing 1.1--5*, translated by C. J. F. Williams. London and Ithaca 1999
- *John Philoponus: On Aristotle On Coming-to-be and Perishing 1.6--2.4*, translated by C. J. F. Williams. London and Ithaca 1999.
- *John Philoponus: On Aristotle On the Soul 2.1--6*, translated by W. Charlton. London and Ithaca 2005
- *John Philoponus: On Aristotle On the Soul 2.7--12*, translated by W. Charlton. London and Ithaca 2005
- *John Philoponus: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.1--8*, translated by W. Charlton. London and Ithaca 2000
- *John Philoponus: On Aristotle On the Intellect (de Anima 3.4--8)*, translated by W. Charlton. London and Ithaca 1991
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# Book of Amos
The **Book of Amos**is the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Christian Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh and the second in the Greek Septuagint. The Book of Amos has nine chapters. According to the Bible, Amos was an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, and was active c. 750 BC during the reign of Jeroboam II (788--747 BC) of Samaria (Northern Israel), while Uzziah was King of Judah. Amos is said to have lived in the kingdom of Judah but preached in the northern Kingdom of Israel where themes of social justice, God\'s omnipotence, and divine judgment became staples of prophecy. In recent years, scholars have grown more skeptical of The Book of Amos' presentation of Amos' biography and background. It is known for its distinct "sinister tone and violent portrayal of God."
## Structure
According to Michael D. Coogan, the Book of Amos can be structured as follows:
- Oracles against the nations (1:3--2:6)
- Oracle concerning prophecy (3:3--8)
- Addresses to groups in Israel
- Women of Samaria (4:1--3)
- Rich people in Samaria (6:1--7)
- Rich people in Jerusalem (8:4--8)
- Five visions of God\'s judgment on Israel, interrupted by a confrontation between Amos and his listeners at Bethel (7:10--17):
- Locusts (7:1--3)
- Fire (7:4--6)
- A plumb line (7:7--9)
- A basket of fruit (8:1--3)
- God besides the altar (9:1--8a)
- Epilogue (9:8b--15)
## Summary
The book opens with a historical note about the prophet, then a short oracle announcing Yahweh\'s judgment (repeated in the Book of Joel). The prophet denounces the crimes committed by the gentile (non-Jewish) nations, and tells Israel that even they have sinned and are guilty of the same crimes, and reports five symbolic visions prophesying the destruction of Israel. Included in this, with no apparent order, are an oracle on the nature of prophecy, snippets of hymns, oracles of woe, a third-person prose narrative concerning the prophet, and an oracle promising restoration of the House of David, which had not yet fallen in the lifetime of Amos.
## Composition
Amos prophesied during the reigns of Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Judah; this places him in the first half of the 8th century BC. According to the book\'s superscription (Amos 1:1) he was from Tekoa, a town in Judah south of Jerusalem, but his prophetic mission was in the northern kingdom. He is called a \"shepherd\" and a \"dresser of sycamore trees\", but the book\'s literary qualities suggest a man of education rather than a poor farmer.
Scholars have long recognized that Amos utilized an ancient hymn within his prophecy, verses of which are found at 4:13, 5:8--9, 8:8, and 9:5--6. This hymn is best understood as praising Yahweh for his judgment, demonstrated in his destructive power, rather than praise for creation. Scholarship has also identified \'Sumerian City Lament\' (SCL) motifs within Amos and particularly the hymn, offering the possibility that Amos used SCL as a literary template for his prophecy of Jerusalem\'s destruction. The Amos hymn has also been discussed in terms of a \"covenant curse\" which was used to warn Israel of the consequences of breaking the covenant, and in particular a \"Flood covenant-curse\" motif, first identified by D.R. Hillers. Recent scholarship has shown Amos\'s hymn is an ancient narrative text, has identified a new verse at 7.4; and has compared the hymn to the Genesis Flood account and Job 9:5--10.
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# Book of Amos
## Themes
The central idea of the book of Amos is that God puts his people on the same level as the surrounding nations -- God expects the same purity of them all. As it is with all nations that rise up against the kingdom of God, even Israel and Judah will not be exempt from the judgment of God because of their idolatry and unjust ways. The nation that represents Yahweh must be made pure of anything or anyone that profanes the name of God; his name must be exalted.
Amos is the first prophet to use the term \"the Day of the Lord\". This phrase becomes important within future prophetic and apocalyptic literature. For the people of Israel \"The Day of the Lord\" is the day when God will fight against his and their enemies, and it will be a day of victory for Israel. However, Amos and other prophets include Israel as an enemy of God, as Israel is guilty of injustice toward the innocent, poor, and young women. To Amos \"The Day of the Lord\" will be a day of doom.
Other major ideas proposed in the book of Amos include justice and concern for the disadvantaged, and that Yahweh is God of all nations (not just Israel), and is likewise the judge of all nations, and is also a God of moral righteousness. Also that Yahweh created all people, and the idea that Israel\'s covenant with God did not exempt them from accountability for sin; as well as that God elected and liberated Israel so that he would be known throughout the world. And that if God destroys the unjust, a remnant will remain, and that God is free to judge whether to redeem Israel
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# Amphipolis
**Amphipolis** (*translit=Amfipoli*; *translit=Amphipolis*) was an important ancient Greek polis (city), and later a Roman city, whose large remains can still be seen. It gave its name to the modern municipality of Amphipoli, in the Serres regional unit of northern Greece.
Amphipolis was originally a colony of ancient Athenians and was the site of the battle between the Spartans and Athenians in 422 BC. It was later the place where Alexander the Great prepared for campaigns leading to his invasion of Asia in 335 BC. Alexander\'s three finest admirals, Nearchus, Androsthenes and Laomedon, resided in Amphipolis. After Alexander\'s death, his wife Roxana and their son Alexander IV were imprisoned and murdered there in 311 BC.
Excavations in and around the city have revealed important buildings, ancient walls and tombs. The finds are displayed at the archaeological museum of Amphipolis. At the nearby vast Kasta burial mound, an ancient Macedonian tomb has recently been revealed. The Lion of Amphipolis monument nearby is a popular destination for visitors.
It was located within the region of Edonis.
## History
### Origins
Throughout the 5th century BC, Athens sought to consolidate its control over Thrace, which was strategically important because of its raw materials (the gold and silver of the Pangaion hills and the dense forests that provided timber for naval construction), and the sea routes vital for Athens\' supply of grain from Scythia. A first unsuccessful attempt at colonisation was in 497 BC by the Milesian Tyrant Histiaeus. After the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the Athenian general Kimon managed to occupy Eion a few kilometres south on the coast in 476 BC, and turned it into a military base and commercial port. The Athenians founded a first colony at *Ennea-Hodoi* ('Nine Ways') in 465 BC, but the first ten thousand colonists were massacred by the Thracians. A second attempt took place in 437 BC on the same site under general Hagnon which was successful. The city and its first impressive and elaborately built walls of 7.5 km length date from this time. The new Athenian colony quickly became of considerable size and wealth.
The new settlement took the name of Amphipolis (literally, \"around the city\"), a name which is the subject of much debate about its etymology. Thucydides claims the name comes from the fact that the Strymon River flows \"around the city\" on two sides; however a note in the *Suda* (also given in the lexicon of Photius) offers a different explanation apparently given by Marsyas, son of Periander: that a large proportion of the population lived \"around the city\". However, a more probable explanation is the one given by Julius Pollux: that the name indicates the vicinity of an isthmus.
Amphipolis quickly became the main power base of the Athenians in Thrace and, consequently, a target of choice for their Spartan adversaries. In 424 BC during the Peloponnesian War the Spartan general Brasidas captured Amphipolis.
Two years later in 422 BC, a new Athenian force under the general Cleon failed once more during the Battle of Amphipolis at which both Kleon and Brasidas lost their lives. Brasidas survived long enough to hear of the defeat of the Athenians and was buried at Amphipolis with impressive pomp. From then on he was regarded as the founder of the city and honoured with yearly games and sacrifices.
The Athenian population remained very much in the minority in the city and hence Amphipolis remained an independent city and an ally of the Athenians, rather than a colony or member of the Athens-led Delian League. It entered a new phase of prosperity as a cosmopolitan centre.
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# Amphipolis
## History
### Macedonian rule {#macedonian_rule}
The city itself kept its independence until the reign of king Philip II (`{{reign|359|336 BC}}`{=mediawiki}) despite several Athenian attacks, notably because of the government of Callistratus of Aphidnae. In 357 BC, Philip succeeded where the Athenians had failed and conquered the city, thereby removing the obstacle which Amphipolis presented to Macedonian control over Thrace. According to the historian Theopompus, this conquest came to be the object of a secret accord between Athens and Philip II, who would return the city in exchange for the fortified town of Pydna, but the Macedonian king betrayed the accord, refusing to cede Amphipolis and laying siege to Pydna as well.
The city was not immediately incorporated into the Macedonian kingdom, and for some time preserved its institutions and a certain degree of autonomy. The border of Macedonia was not moved further east; however, Philip sent a number of Macedonian governors to Amphipolis, and in many respects the city was effectively \"Macedonianized\". Nomenclature, the calendar and the currency (the gold stater, created by Philip to capitalise on the gold reserves of the Pangaion hills, replaced the Amphipolitan drachma) were all replaced by Macedonian equivalents. In the reign of Alexander the Great, Amphipolis was an important naval base, and the birthplace of three of the most famous Macedonian admirals: Nearchus, Androsthenes and Laomedon, whose burial place is most likely marked by the famous lion of Amphipolis.
The importance of the city in this period is shown by Alexander the Great\'s decision that it was one of the six cities at which large luxurious temples costing 1,500 talents were built. Alexander prepared for campaigns here against Thrace in 335 BC and his army and fleet assembled near the port before the invasion of Asia. The port was also used as naval base during his campaigns in Asia. After Alexander\'s death, his wife Roxana and their young son Alexander IV were exiled by Cassander and later murdered here.
Throughout Macedonian sovereignty Amphipolis was a strong fortress of great strategic and economic importance, as shown by inscriptions. Amphipolis became one of the main stops on the Macedonian royal road (as testified by a border stone found between Philippi and Amphipolis giving the distance to the latter), and later on the *Via Egnatia*, the principal Roman road which crossed the southern Balkans. Apart from the ramparts of the lower town, the gymnasium and a set of well-preserved frescoes from a wealthy villa are the only artifacts from this period that remain visible. Though little is known of the layout of the town, modern knowledge of its institutions is in considerably better shape thanks to a rich epigraphic documentation, including a military ordinance of Philip V and an ephebarchic law from the gymnasium.
### Conquest by the Romans {#conquest_by_the_romans}
After the final victory of Rome over Macedonia in the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC, Amphipolis became the capital of one of the four mini-republics, or *merides*, which were created by the Romans out of the kingdom of the Antigonids which succeeded Alexander\'s empire in Macedon. These *merides* were gradually incorporated into the Roman client state, and later province, of Thracia. According to the *Acts of the Apostles*, the apostles Paul and Silas passed through Amphipolis in the early AD 50s, on their journey between Philippi and Thessalonica; where hence they proselytized to the Greeks, including `{{Wikt-lang|ang|aporetic}}`{=mediawiki} Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
In the 1st c. BC the city was badly damaged in the Thracian revolt against Roman rule.
### Revival in Late Antiquity {#revival_in_late_antiquity}
During the period of Late Antiquity, Amphipolis benefited from the increasing economic prosperity of Macedonia, as is evidenced by the large number of Christian churches that were built. Significantly however, these churches were built within a restricted area of the town, sheltered by the walls of the acropolis. This has been taken as evidence that the large fortified perimeter of the ancient town was no longer defendable, and that the population of the city had considerably diminished.
Nevertheless, the number, size and quality of the churches constructed between the 5th and 6th centuries are impressive. Four basilicas adorned with rich mosaic floors and elaborate architectural sculptures (such as the ram-headed column capitals -- see picture) have been excavated, as well as a church with a hexagonal central plan which evokes that of the basilica of St Vitalis in Ravenna. It is difficult to find reasons for such municipal extravagance in such a small town. One possible explanation provided by the historian André Boulanger is that an increasing 'willingness' on the part of the wealthy upper classes in the late Roman period to spend money on local gentrification projects (which he terms *euergetism*, from the Greek verb *εὐεργετέω*; meaning \'I do good\') was exploited by the local church to its advantage, which led to a mass gentrification of the urban centre and of the agricultural riches of the city\'s territory. Amphipolis was also a diocese under the metropolitan see of Thessalonica -- the Bishop of Amphipolis is first mentioned in 533. The bishopric is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.
### Final decline of the city {#final_decline_of_the_city}
The Slavic invasions of the late 6th century gradually encroached on the back-country Amphipolitan lifestyle and led to the decline of the town, during which period its inhabitants retreated to the area around the acropolis. The ramparts were maintained to a certain extent, thanks to materials plundered from the monuments of the lower city, and the large unused cisterns of the upper city were occupied by small houses and the workshops of artisans. Around the middle of the 7th century, a further reduction of the inhabited area of the city was followed by an increase in the fortification of the town, with the construction of a new rampart with pentagonal towers cutting through the middle of the remaining monuments. The acropolis, the Roman baths, and especially the episcopal basilica were crossed by this wall.
The city was probably abandoned in the eighth century, as the last bishop was attested at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Its inhabitants probably moved to the neighbouring site of ancient Eion, port of Amphipolis, which had been rebuilt and refortified in the Byzantine period under the name "Chrysopolis". This small port continued to enjoy some prosperity, before being abandoned during the Ottoman period. The last recorded sign of activity in the region of Amphipolis was the construction of a fortified tower to the north in 1367 by the *megas primikerios* John and the *stratopedarches* Alexios to protect the land that they had given to the monastery of Pantokrator on Mount Athos.
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# Amphipolis
## Archaeology
The site was discovered and described by many travellers and archaeologists during the 19th century, including E. Cousinéry (1831) (engraver), Leon Heuzey (1861), and P. Perdrizet (1894--1899). However, excavations did not truly begin until after the Second World War. The Greek Archaeological Society under D. Lazaridis excavated in 1972 and 1985, uncovering a necropolis, the city wall (see photograph), the basilicas, and the acropolis. Further excavations have since uncovered the river bridge, the gymnasium, Greek and Roman villas and numerous tombs etc.
Parts of the lion monument and tombs were discovered during World War I by Bulgarian and British troops whilst digging trenches in the area. In 1934, M. Feyel, of the École française d\'Athènes (EfA), led an epigraphical mission to the site and uncovered further remains of the lion monument (a reconstruction was given in the *Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique*, a publication of the EfA which is available on line).
The silver ossuary containing the cremated remains of Brasidas and a gold crown (see image) was found in a tomb in pride of place under the Agora.
### The Tomb of Amphipolis {#the_tomb_of_amphipolis}
In 2012 Greek archaeologists unearthed a large tomb within the Kasta Hill, the biggest burial mound in Greece, northeast of Amphipolis. The large size and quality of the tumulus indicates the prominence of the burials made there, and its dating and the connections of the city with Alexander the Great suggest important occupants. The perimeter wall of the tumulus is 497 m long, and is made of limestone covered with marble.
The tomb comprises three chambers separated by walls. There are two sphinxes just outside the entrance to the tomb. Two of the columns supporting the roof in the first section are in the form of Caryatids, in the 4th century BC style. The excavation revealed a pebble mosaic directly behind the Caryatids and in front of the Macedonian marble door leading to the \"third\" chamber. The mosaic shows the allegory of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, but the persons depicted are Philip and Olympias of Macedon. Hades\' chariot is drawn by two white horses and led to the underworld by Hermes. The mosaic verifies the Macedonian character of the tomb. As the head of one of the sphinxes was found inside the tomb behind the broken door, it is clear that there were intruders, probably in antiquity.
Fragments of bones from 5 individuals were found in the cist tomb, the most complete of which is a 60+ year old woman in the deepest layer. Dr. Katerina Peristeri, the archaeologist heading the excavation of the tomb, dates the tomb to the late 4th century BC, the period after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). One theory is that the tomb was built for the mother of Alexander the Great, Olympias.
Restoration of the tomb is due for completion in 2023 in the course of which building materials of the grave site which were later used by the Romans elsewhere will be rebuilt in their original location.
### The city walls {#the_city_walls}
The original 7.5 km long walls are generally visible, particularly the northern section which is preserved to a height of 7.5m. 5 preserved gates can be seen and notably the gate in front of the wooden bridge.
In early Christian times another, inner, wall was built around the acropolis.
### The ancient wooden bridge of Amphipolis {#the_ancient_wooden_bridge_of_amphipolis}
The ancient bridge that crossed the river Strymon was mentioned by Thucydides, was strategic as it controlled access between Macedonia and the Chalkidike in the west to Thrace in the east, and was important for the economy and trade. It was therefore incorporated into the city walls.
It was discovered in 1977 and is a unique find for Greek antiquity. The hundreds of wooden piles have been carbon-dated and show the vast life of the bridge with some piles dating from 760 BC, and others used till about 1800 AD.
### The Gymnasium {#the_gymnasium}
This was a major public building for the military and gymnastic training of youth as well as for their artistic and intellectual education. It was built in the 4th c. BC and includes a palaestra, the rectangular court surrounded by colonnades with adjoining rooms for many athletic functions. The covered stoa or xystos for indoor training in inclement weather is a long portico 75m long and 7m wide to allow 6 runners to compete simultaneously. There was also a parallel outdoor track, *paradromida*, for training in good weather and a system of cisterns for water supply.
During the Macedonian era it became a major institution.
The stone stela bearing the rules of the gymnasium was found in the north wing, detailing the duties and powers of the master and the education of the athletes.
After it was destroyed in the 1st c. BC in the Thracian rebellion against Roman rule, it was rebuilt in Augustus\'s time in the 1st c. AD along with the rest of the city.
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# Amphipolis
## Amphipolitans
- Demetrius of Amphipolis, student of Plato
- Zoilus (400--320 BC), grammarian, cynic philosopher
- Pamphilus (painter), head of Sicyonian school and teacher of Apelles
- Aetion, sculptor
- Philippus of Amphipolis, historian
- Nearchus, admiral
- Erigyius, general
- Damasias of Amphipolis 320 BC Stadion Olympics
- Hermagoras of Amphipolis (c. 225 BC), stoic philosopher, follower of Persaeus
- Apollodorus of Amphipolis, appointed joint military governor of Babylon and the other satrapies as far as Cilicia by Alexander the Great
- Xena -- In the television series *Xena: Warrior Princess*, Amphipolis is the main character\'s home village
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# Amram
In the Book of Exodus, **Amram** (`{{IPAc-en|ˈ|æ|m|r|æ|m}}`{=mediawiki}; `{{Hebrew Name|עַמְרָם|‘Amram|ʻAmrām|"Exalted people"{{\}}`{=mediawiki}\"The people are exalted\"}}) is the husband of Jochebed and father of Aaron, Moses and Miriam.
## In the Holy Scriptures {#in_the_holy_scriptures}
In addition to being married to Jochebed, Amram is also described in the Bible as having been related to Jochebed prior to the marriage, although the exact relationship is uncertain; some Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Septuagint state that Jochebed was Amram\'s father\'s cousin, and others state that Amram was Jochebed\'s cousin, but the Masoretic Text states that she was his father\'s sister. He is praised for his faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Textual scholars attribute the biblical genealogy to the Book of Generations, a hypothetically reconstructed document theorized to originate from a similar religiopolitical group and date to the priestly source. According to critical scholars, the Torah\'s genealogy for Levi\'s descendants, is actually an aetiological myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among the Levites -- the Gershonites, Kohathites, Merarites, and Aaronids; Aaron -- the eponymous ancestor of the Aaronids -- could not be portrayed as a brother to Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, as the narrative about the birth of Moses (brother of Aaron), which textual scholars attribute to the earlier Elohist source, mentions only that *both* his parents were Levites (without identifying their names). Critical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers both matrilineal and patrilineal descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses.
## Family tree {#family_tree}
## In rabbinical and apocryphal literature {#in_rabbinical_and_apocryphal_literature}
In the Apocryphal *Testament of Levi*, it is stated that Amram was born as a grandson of Levi when Levi was 64 years old. The Exodus Rabbah argues that when the Pharaoh instructed midwives to throw male children into the Nile, Amram divorced Jochebed, who was three months pregnant with Moses at the time, arguing that there was no justification for the Israelite men to father children if they were just to be killed; however, the text goes on to state that Miriam, his daughter, chided him for his lack of care for his wife\'s feelings, persuading him to recant and marry Jochebed again. According to the Talmud, Amram promulgated the laws of marriage and divorce amongst the Jews in Egypt; the Talmud also argues that Amram had extreme longevity, which he used to ensure that doctrines were preserved through several generations.
Despite the legend of his divorce and remarriage, Amram was also held to have been entirely sinless throughout his life and was rewarded for this by his corpse remaining without any signs of decay. The other three ancient Israelites who died without sin, being Benjamin, Jesse and Chileab.
According to the Book of Jubilees, Amram was among the Israelites who took the bones of Jacob\'s sons (excluding those of Joseph) to Canaan for burial in the cave of Machpelah. Most of the Israelites then returned to Egypt but some remained in Canaan. Those who remained included Amram, who only returned somewhere up to forty years later.
One of the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q544, Manuscript B) is written from Amram\'s point of view, and hence has been dubbed the *Visions of Amram*. The document is dated to the 2nd century BC and, in the form of a vision, briefly discusses dualism and the Watchers: `{{Blockquote|I saw Watchers in my vision, the dream-vision. Two men were fighting over me...holding a great contest over me. I asked them, 'Who are you, that you are thus empowered over me?' They answered, 'We have been empowered and rule over all mankind.' They said to me, 'Which of us do you choose to rule you?' I raised my eyes and looked. One of them was terrifying in his appearance, like a serpent, his cloak, many-colored yet very dark....And I looked again, and in his appearance, his visage like a [[Viperidae|viper]]....I replied to him, 'This Watcher, who is he?' He answered, 'This Watcher...his three names are [[Belial]] and Prince of Darkness and King of Evil.' I said (to the other Watcher), 'My lord, what dominion (have you?)' He answered, 'You saw (the viper), and he is empowered over all Darkness, while I (am empowered over all Light.)...My three names are [[Michael (archangel)|Michael]], Prince of Light and King of Righteousness.<ref>translation by Prof
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# Amyntas I of Macedon
**Amyntas I** (*Ἀμύντας*) was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from at least 512/511 until his death in 498/497 BC. Although there were a number of rulers before him, Amyntas is the first king of Macedonia for which we have any reliable historical information. During Amyntas\' reign, Macedonia became a vassal state of the Achaemenid Empire in 510 BC.
## Background
Amyntas was a member of the Argead dynasty and the son of King Alcetas.`{{snf|Herodotus|loc=[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book=8:chapter=139:section=1 8.139.1]}}`{=mediawiki} According to Herodotus, Amyntas was the sixth king of Macedonia. He had two children with an unnamed spouse:`{{snf|Carney|2000|p=250}}`{=mediawiki} Alexander I and Gygaea.`{{snf|Carney|2000|p=16}}`{=mediawiki}
## Reign
### Relationship with the Persian Empire {#relationship_with_the_persian_empire}
In 513 BC, Persian forces led by Darius I crossed the Bosporus in a successful expedition against the Scythians, securing a frontier on the Danube in the process. Darius then returned to Sardis in Asia Minor and ordered his cousin Megabazus to conquer the rest of Thrace. Megabazus marched westward into the Strymon Basin in 512 or 511 BC, subjugating a number of tribes along the way, including the Paeonions, whom he had deported to Asia. Amyntas may have taken advantage of this power vacuum by crossing the Axios River and seizing their former territory around Amphaxitis.
In keeping with Persian practice, Megabazus dispatched seven envoys around 510 BC to meet Amyntas, most likely at the palace in Aegae, to demand \"earth and water.\" Although the exact meaning of this request remains unclear, it appears that Amyntas met Megabazus\' demands and invited the envoys to a feast. The Persians, according to Herodotus, requested the company of women after dinner, which Amyntas agreed to despite Macedonian customs. The women, identified as \"concubines and wedded wives,\" sat across the table at first, but moved next to the envoys at their insistence. Flushed with wine, they began to fondle the women, but Amyntas remained silent out of fear of Persian power.`{{snf|Herodotus|loc=[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D18%3Asection%3D1 5.18]}}`{=mediawiki}
Alexander, enraged by their actions, asked his father to leave and let him handle the situation. Amyntas advised caution, but eventually left, and Alexander sent the women away as well, assuring his guests that they were only washing themselves. In their place, \"beardless men\" disguised as women and armed with daggers returned to the party and murdered all seven envoys. The Persians began looking for the missing embassy, but Alexander covered it up by marrying his sister Gygaea to the general Bubares and paying him a large bribe.`{{snf|Herodotus|loc=[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D20%3Asection%3D1 5.20]}}`{=mediawiki}
Modern historians are generally skeptical of the veracity of this story. It could have been fabricated by Herodotus to illustrate Alexander\'s cunning personality, or he could have simply repeated what he heard while visiting Macedonia. Furthermore, Amyntas, no matter how weak or foolish, is unlikely to have entrusted such a delicate diplomatic situation to his young son. Gygaea\'s marriage to Bubares is recognized as historical; Amyntas most likely arranged it himself or Alexander handled it after his father\'s death.`{{snf|Carney|2000|p=16}}`{=mediawiki}
Historian Eugene Borza argued that by rejecting the murder of the Persian ambassadors, there is no longer any evidence that Macedonia was a vassal-state during Amyntas\' reign. In accordance with this argument, Mardonius, not Megabazus, would actually subjugate the Macedonians in 492 BC. Nicholas Hammond, on the other hand, asserted that Macedonia remained a loyal subject as part of the satrapy of Skudra until the Persian defeat at Platea in 479 BC.
### Amyntas and Athens {#amyntas_and_athens}
Amyntas was the first Macedonian ruler to have diplomatic relations with other states. In particular, he entered into an alliance with Hippias of Athens, and when Hippias was driven out of Athens he offered him the territory of Anthemus on the Thermaic Gulf with the object of taking advantage of the feuds between the Greeks. Hippias refused the offer and also rejected the offer of Iolcus, as Amyntas probably did not control Anthemus at that time, but was merely suggesting a plan of joint occupation to Hippias.
## Family tree {#family_tree}
Modern historians disagree on a number of details concerning the genealogy of the Argead dynasty. Robin Lane Fox, for example, refutes Nicholas Hammond\'s claim that Ptolemy of Aloros was Amyntas II\'s son, arguing that Ptolemy was neither his son nor an Argead. Consequently, the chart below does not account for every chronological, genealogical, and dynastic complexity. Instead, it represents one common reconstruction of the early Argeads advanced by historians such as Hammond, Elizabeth D. Carney, and Joseph Roisman.`{{snf|Carney|2000|p=250}}`{=mediawiki}
- **(1)** Amyntas I (`{{nowrap|{{reign|{{circa|513}}|497 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- **(2)** Alexander I (`{{nowrap|{{reign|497|454 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- **(3)** Perdiccas II (`{{nowrap|{{reign|454|413/2 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- **(4)** Archelaus (`{{nowrap|{{reign|413/2|400/399 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- **(5)** Orestes (`{{nowrap|{{reign|400/399|398/7 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- *Argaeus II* (`{{nowrap|{{reign|388/7|387/6 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- *Pausanias*
- unnamed daughter Derdas of Elimea
- unnamed daughter Amyntas II
- **(6)** Aeropus II (`{{nowrap|{{reign|398/7|394/3 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- **(8)** Pausanias (`{{nowrap|{{reign|394/3|393/2 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- unnamed son
- Menelaus
- **(7)** Amyntas II (`{{nowrap|{{reign|single=394/3 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- **(11)** *Ptolemy of Aloros* (`{{nowrap|{{reign|368|365 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- Amyntas
- Arrhidaeus
- **(9)** Amyntas III (`{{nowrap|{{reign|393/2|370 BC}}}}`{=mediawiki})
- *From whom Philip II and Alexander III is descended
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# Amyntas III of Macedon
**Amyntas III** (*Ἀμύντας*) was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from 393/2 to 388/7 BC and again from 387/6 to 370 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty through his father Arrhidaeus, a son of Amyntas, one of the sons of Alexander I. His most famous son is Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.
## Family
Polygamy was used by Macedonian kings both before and after Amyntas to secure marriage alliances and produce enough heirs to offset losses from intra-dynastic conflict. Consequently, Amyntas took two wives: Eurydice and Gygaea. He first married Eurydice, daughter of Sirras and maternal granddaughter of the Lynkestian king Arrhabaeus, probably in a Macedonian effort to strengthen the alliance with both the Illyrians and Lynkestians or to detach the Lynkestians from their historical alliance with the Illyrians, after the Macedonian defeat by Illyrians or an Illyrian-Lynkestian invasion in 393 BC. Through Eurydice, Amyntas had three sons, all of whom became kings of Macedonia one after the other, and a daughter: Alexander II, Perdiccas III, Philip II, and Eurynoe.
The Roman historian Justin relates several, possibly apocryphal, stories about Eurydice and Eurynoe. He claims that Eurynoe prevented her mother and her lover (unnamed, but likely Ptolemy of Aloros) from assassinating Amyntas late in his reign by revealing the plan to her father. However, Eurynoe is not referred to by name in any other source and, moreover, is unlikely to have known the details of this supposedly secret plot. According to Justin, Amyntas spared Eurydice because they shared children, but that she would later help murder Alexander and Perdiccas in order to place Ptolemy on the throne. Alexander was in fact killed by friends of Ptolemy at a festival in 368 BC, but the extent to which Eurydice knew of or participated in this plot is opaque. Perdiccas, on the other hand, assassinated Ptolemy in 365 BC only to be killed in battle by the Illyrians in 359 BC.
Amyntas most likely married Gygaea soon after marrying Eurydice, because Gygaea\'s children made no attempt to claim the throne before the 350s BC, implying that they were younger than Eurydice\'s children. Additionally, both Diodorus and Justin call Alexander II the eldest son of Amyntas. Through Gygaea, Amyntas had three more sons: Archelaus, Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus. Unlike Eurydice\'s children, none of Gygaea\'s sons ascended to the throne and were all killed by their half-brother Philip II.
Amyntas also adopted the Athenian general Iphicrates around 386 BC in recognition of his military services and marital ties with the Thracian king, Cotys I.
## Lineage and accession {#lineage_and_accession}
Amyntas became king at a troubled time for Macedonia and the Argead dynasty. The unexpected death of his great-grandfather King Alexander I in 454 BC triggered a dynastic crisis between his five sons: Perdiccas II, Menelaus, Philip, Alcetas, and Amyntas\' grandfather, Amyntas. Perdiccas would eventually emerge victorious, extinguishing the line of Philip. The elder Amyntas evidently retired to his lands at some point in the conflict and took no part in the exercise of power. Archelaus, Perdiccas\' son, ascended to the throne around 413 BC and allegedly murdered Alcetas and his son, thus eliminating that family branch as well. However, Archelaus would himself be killed, possibly murdered, in 400 or 399 BC by his lover Craterus. His death prompted another succession crisis, resulting in five kings ruling in less than seven years, with nearly all ending violently. As Diodorus tells us, the younger Amyntas seized the throne at this point in 393/2 BC after assassinating the previous king Pausanias. Following his accession, Macedonia experienced no major internal political problems for the entirety of Amyntas\' reign.
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# Amyntas III of Macedon
## King of Macedon {#king_of_macedon}
Shortly after he became king in 393 or 392, he was driven out by the Illyrians, but in the following year, with the aid of the Thessalians, he recovered his kingdom. Medius, head of the house of the Aleuadae of Larissa, is believed to have provided aid to Amyntas in recovering his throne. The mutual relationship between the Argeadae and the Aleuadae dates to the time of Archelaus.
To shore up his country against the threat of the Illyrians, Amyntas established an alliance with the Chalcidian League led by Olynthus. In exchange for this support, Amyntas granted them rights to Macedonian timber, which was sent back to Athens to help fortify their fleet. With money flowing into Olynthus from these exports, their power grew. In response, Amyntas sought additional allies. He established connections with Kotys, chief of the Odrysians. Kotys had already married his daughter to the Athenian general Iphicrates. Prevented from marrying into Kotys\' family, Amyntas soon adopted Iphicrates as his son.
After the King\'s Peace of 387 BC, Sparta was anxious to re-establish its presence in northern Greece. In 385 BC, Bardylis and his Illyrians attacked Epirus instigated and aided by Dionysius I of Syracuse, in an attempt to restore the Molossian king Alcetas I of Epirus to the throne. When Amyntas sought Spartan aid against the growing threat of Olynthus, the Spartans eagerly responded. That Olynthus was backed by Athens and Thebes, rivals to Sparta for the control of Greece, provided them with an additional incentive to break up this growing power in the north. Amyntas thus concluded a treaty with the Spartans, who assisted him in a war against Olynthus. First Spartan-Macedonian forces suffered two defeats but in 379 BC they managed to destroy Olynthus. He also entered into a league with Jason of Pherae, and assiduously cultivated the friendship of Athens. In 371 BC at a Panhellenic congress of the Lacedaemonian allies, he voted in support of the Athenians\' claim and joined other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis.
With Olynthus defeated, Amyntas was now able to conclude a treaty with Athens and keep the timber revenues for himself. Amyntas shipped the timber to the house of the Athenian Timotheus, in Piraeus.
Amyntas died aged 50, leaving his throne to his eldest son, Alexander II
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# Anah
**Anah** or **Ana** (*ʿĀna*, *ܐܢܐ*), formerly also known as **Anna**, is an Iraqi town on the Euphrates approximately midway between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Persian Gulf. Anah lies from west to east on the right bank along a bend of the river just before it turns south towards Hīt.
## Name
The town was called **^(d)^Ha-na-at`{{sup|KI}}`{=mediawiki}** in cuneiform texts from the Old Babylonian period, **A-na-at** of the land Suhum by the scribes of Tukulti-Ninurta `{{c.|lk=no|885}}`{=mediawiki} BC, and **An-at** by the scribes of Assur-nasir-pal II in 879 BC. The name has been connected with the widely worshipped war goddess Anat. It was known as **Anathō** (*Άναθω*)`{{what?|date=February 2024}}`{=mediawiki} to Isidore Charax and **Anatha** to Ammianus Marcellinus; early Arabic writers described it variously as **ʾĀna** or (as if plural) **ʾĀnāt**.`{{what?|date=February 2024}}`{=mediawiki}
## History
### Antiquity
The earliest references to Anah are probably found in letters of the period of Zimri-Lim of Mari.
Under Hammurapi of Babylon the town was under Babylonian control, being included in the governorate of Sūḫu. Later, the town was under Assyrian rule.
At the beginning of the 8th century BC, Šamaš-rēša-uṣur and his son Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur succeeded in creating an independent political entity, and called themselves \"governors of Sūḫu and Mari\". The land of Sūḫu occupied a quite extensive region on the Middle Euphrates, approximately from the area near Falluja in the southeast to the area of Ḫindanu (modern Tell Jabiriyah, near Al-Qa\'im) in the northwest. Important evidence for this period was recovered during English and Iraqi salvage excavation campaigns at Sur Jurʿeh and on the island of ʿAna (Anah) in the early 1980s.
Xenophon recorded that the army of Cyrus the Younger resupplied during a campaign in 401 BC at \"Charmande\" near the end of a 90-parasang march between Korsote and Pylae, which likely intends Anah.`{{fact|date=February 2024}}`{=mediawiki}
Anatha was the site where the Roman emperor Julian first met opposition in his AD 363 expedition against the Sassanid Empire. He got possession of the place and relocated its inhabitants.
### Middle Ages {#middle_ages}
In 657, during the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Ali\'s lieutenants Ziyad and Shureih were refused passage across the Euphrates at Anah. Later, in 1058, Anah was the place of exile of the caliph Qaim when al-Basasiri was in power. In the 14th century, Anah was the seat of the catholicos who served as primate over the Persian Christians. Throughout early Islamic rule, it was a prosperous trade town, well known for its date palms and gardens; in the 14th century, Mustafi wrote of the fame of its palm groves. Medieval Arab poets celebrated Anah\'s wine; Between the 14th and 17th centuries, Anah served as a headquarters for a host of regional Arab tribes.
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# Anah
## History
### Ottoman rule {#ottoman_rule}
Starting around 1535, the town served as the de facto capital of the Abu Rish bedouin emirs, whom the Ottomans appointed as governors of several **sancak**s (provinces) as well as *çöl beyis* or \"desert emirs\". In 1574, Leonhart Rauwolff found the town divided into two parts, the Turkish \"so surrounded by the river that you cannot go into it but by boats\" and the larger Arab section along one of the banks. In 1610, Texeira said Anah lay on both banks of the river, with which Pietro Della Valle agreed. In that year, Della Valle found the Scot George Strachan resident at Anah, working as the physician to the emir and studying Arabic; he also found some \"sun worshippers\" (actually Alawites) still living there. Della Valle and Texeira called Anah the principal Arab town on the Euphrates, controlling a major route west from Baghdad and territory reaching Palmyra.
About 1750, the Ottomans installed a rudimentary administration to run Anah and its district. After roughly a century, a more organized local government was put in place, whereby Anah became the center of a kaza belonging to the Baghdad Vilayet.
At the beginning of the 19th century, G.A. Olivier found only 25 men in service of the local prince, with residents fleeing daily to escape from bedouin attacks against which he offered no protection. He described the city as a single long street of five or six miles along a narrow strip of land between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. W. F. Ainsworth, chronicling the British Euphrates expedition, reported that in 1835 the Arabs inhabited the northwest part of the town, the Christians the center, and the Jews the southeast. The same year, the steamer *Tigris* went down in a storm just above Anah, near where Julian\'s force had suffered from a similar storm.
By the mid-19th century, the houses were separated from one another by fruit gardens, which also filled the riverine islands near the town. The most easterly island contained a ruined castle, while the ruins of ancient Anatho extended a further two miles along the left bank. It marked the boundary between the olive (north) and date (south) growing regions in the area. With the positioning of Turkish troops in the town around 1890, the locals no longer had to pay blackmail (**huwwa**) to the bedouins. Through the early 20th century, coarse cotton cloth was the only manufacture. In 1909 Anah had an estimated population of 15,000 and 2,000 houses. Most of the inhabitants were Sunni Muslim Arabs, though a small Jewish community lived on the town\'s southern edge.
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# Anah
## History
### Kingdom of Iraq {#kingdom_of_iraq}
In 1918, the town was captured by British forces and by 1921, became incorporated into the Kingdom of Iraq. It remained an administrative center of a qadaa, part of the larger Ramadi-based liwa of Dulaym. Anah\'s *qadaa* also included the subdistricts of Hīt, al-Qa\'im and Jubba. The townspeople\'s long feud with the inhabitants of Rawa was settled diplomatically by 1921. Its territory to the west was dominated by the subtribes of Anizzah, while to the east the Jarba branch of the Shammar held sway.
Most of Anah\'s building were located among a dense belt of date palms and was \"reckoned as healthy and picturesque\", according to historian S. H. Longrigg. The date palms were irrigated by water wheels. There were also more scattered dwelling in the mid-stream islands of the Euphrates near the town center. The women of the town were well known for their beauty and the weaving of cotton and wool textiles. The men, many of whom were compelled to emigrate to lack of living space, were largely engaged as boatmen and transporters of water to Baghdad. The town had relatively high educational standards, with eight schools built there by 1946.
F. R. Chesney reported about 1800 houses, two mosques, and 16 waterwheels. One minaret is particularly old. Northedge reported the locals commonly attributed it to the 11th century but opined that it was more likely from about a century after that. It rose from one of the islands and belonged to the local mosque. Dr. Muayad Said described it as an octagonal body \"enhanced by alcoves, some of which are blind\" and noted earlier conservation work undertaken in 1935, 1963 and 1964. When the valley was flooded by the Haditha Dam in 1984/85, the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities cut it into sections and removed it to the new Anah, where it was re-erected to a height of 28 m at the end of the 1980s.
ISIS captured the town in 2014. On September 19, 2017, an offensive to retake the town from ISIS control began. After two days of fighting the town was recaptured by the Iraqi army.
## Climate
Anah has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification *BWh*). Most rain falls in the winter. The average annual temperature in Anah is 20.7 °C. About 127 mm of precipitation falls annually
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# Ānanda
**Ānanda** (Pali and Sanskrit: आनंद; 5th`{{en dash}}`{=mediawiki}4th century BCE) was the primary attendant of the Buddha and one of his ten principal disciples. Among the Buddha\'s many disciples, Ānanda stood out for having the best memory. Most of the texts of the early Buddhist *Sutta-Piṭaka* (*सुत्त पिटक*; *सूत्र-पिटक*, *Sūtra-Piṭaka*) are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha\'s teachings during the First Buddhist Council. For that reason, he is known as the **Treasurer of the Dhamma**, with *Dhamma* (*धर्म*, *dharma*) referring to the Buddha\'s teaching. In Early Buddhist Texts, Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha. Although the early texts do not agree on many parts of Ānanda\'s early life, they do agree that Ānanda was ordained as a monk and that Puṇṇa Mantānīputta (*पूर्ण मैत्रायणीपुत्र*, Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra) became his teacher. Twenty years in the Buddha\'s ministry, Ānanda became the attendant of the Buddha, when the Buddha selected him for this task. Ānanda performed his duties with great devotion and care, and acted as an intermediary between the Buddha and the laypeople, as well as the *saṅgha* (*lit=monastic community*). He accompanied the Buddha for the rest of his life, acting not only as an assistant, but also a secretary and a mouthpiece.
Scholars are skeptical about the historicity of many events in Ānanda\'s life, especially the First Council, and consensus about this has yet to be established. A traditional account can be drawn from early texts, commentaries, and post-canonical chronicles. Ānanda had an important role in establishing the order of *bhikkhunīs* (*lit=female mendicant*), when he requested the Buddha on behalf of the latter\'s foster-mother Mahāpajāpati Gotamī (*महाप्रजापती गौतमी*, *Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī*) to allow her to be ordained. Ānanda also accompanied the Buddha in the last year of his life, and therefore was witness to many tenets and principles that the Buddha conveyed before his death, including the well-known principle that the Buddhist community should take his teaching and discipline as their refuge, and that he would not appoint a new leader. The final period of the Buddha\'s life also shows that Ānanda was very much attached to the Buddha\'s person, and he saw the Buddha\'s passing with great sorrow.
Shortly after the Buddha\'s death, the First Council was convened, and Ānanda managed to attain enlightenment just before the council started, which was a requirement. He had a historical role during the council as the living memory of the Buddha, reciting many of the Buddha\'s discourses and checking them for accuracy. During the same council, however, he was chastised by Mahākassapa (*महाकाश्यप*, *Mahākāśyapa*) and the rest of the *saṅgha* for allowing women to be ordained and failing to understand or respect the Buddha at several crucial moments. Ānanda continued to teach until the end of his life, passing on his spiritual heritage to his pupils Sāṇavāsī (*शाणकवासी*, *Śāṇakavāsī*) and Majjhantika (*मध्यान्तिक*, *Madhyāntika*), among others, who later assumed leading roles in the Second and Third Councils. Ānanda died 20 years after the Buddha, and *stūpas* (monuments) were erected at the river where he died.
Ānanda is one of the most loved figures in Buddhism. He was widely known for his memory, erudition and compassion, and was often praised by the Buddha for these matters. He functioned as a foil to the Buddha, however, in that he still had worldly attachments and was not yet enlightened, as opposed to the Buddha. In the Sanskrit textual traditions, Ānanda is considered the patriarch of the Dhamma who stood in a spiritual lineage, receiving the teaching from Mahākassapa and passing them on to his own pupils. Ānanda has been honored by *bhikkhunīs* since early medieval times for his merits in establishing the nun\'s order. In recent times, the composer Richard Wagner and Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore were inspired by stories about Ānanda in their work.
## Name
The word *ānanda* (आनंद) means \'bliss, joy\' in Pāli and in Sanskrit. Pāli commentaries explain that when Ānanda was born, his relatives were joyous about this. Texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, however, state that since Ānanda was born on the day of the Buddha\'s enlightenment, there was great rejoicing in the city`{{em dash}}`{=mediawiki}hence the name.
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# Ānanda
## Accounts
### Previous lives {#previous_lives}
According to the texts, in a previous life, Ānanda made an aspiration to become a Buddha\'s attendant. He made this aspiration in the time of a previous Buddha called Padumuttara, many eons (*link=no*, Sanskrit: `{{Transliteration|sa|kalpa}}`{=mediawiki}) before the present age. He met the attendant of Padumuttara Buddha and aspired to be like him in a future life. After having done many good deeds, he made his resolution known to the Padumuttara Buddha, who confirmed that his wish will come true in a future life. After having been born and reborn throughout many lifetimes, and doing many good deeds, he was born as Ānanda in the time of the current Buddha Gotama.
### Early life {#early_life}
Ānanda was born in the same time period as the Buddha (formerly Prince Siddhattha), which scholars place at 5th`{{en dash}}`{=mediawiki}4th centuries BCE. Tradition says that Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha, his father being the brother of Suddhodana (*link=no*), the Buddha\'s father. In the Pāli and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions, his father was Amitodana (*link=no*), but the *Mahāvastu* states that his father was Śuklodana`{{em dash}}`{=mediawiki}both are brothers of Suddhodana. The Mahāvastu also mentions that Ānanda\'s mother\'s name was Mṛgī (Sanskrit; lit. \'little deer\'; Pāli is unknown). The Pāli tradition has it that Ānanda was born on the same day as Prince Siddhatta (*link=no*), but texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda and subsequent Mahāyāna traditions state Ānanda was born at the same time the Buddha attained enlightenment (when Prince Siddhattha was 35 years old), and was therefore much younger than the Buddha. The latter tradition is corroborated by several instances in the Early Buddhist Texts, in which Ānanda appears younger than the Buddha, such as the passage in which the Buddha explained to Ānanda how old age was affecting him in body and mind. It is also corroborated by a verse in the Pāli text called *Theragāthā*, in which Ānanda stated he was a \"learner\" for 25 years, after which he attended to the Buddha for another 25 years.Following the Pāli, Mahīśasaka and Dharmaguptaka textual traditions, Ānanda became a monk in the second year of the Buddha\'s ministry, during the Buddha\'s visit to Kapilavatthu (*link=no*). He was ordained by the Buddha himself, together with many other princes of the Buddha\'s clan (*link=no*, *link=no*), in the mango grove called Anupiya, part of Malla territory. According to a text from the Mahāsaṅghika tradition, King Suddhodana wanted the Buddha to have more followers of the *khattiya* caste (*lit=warrior-noble, member of the ruling class*), and less from the brahmin (priest) caste. He therefore ordered that any *khattiya* who had a brother to follow the Buddha as a monk, or have his brother do so. Ānanda used this opportunity, and asked his brother Devadatta to stay at home, so that he could leave for the monkhood. The later timeline from the Mūlasarvāstivāda texts and the Pāli *Theragāthā*, however, have Ānanda ordain much later, about twenty-five years before the Buddha\'s death`{{em dash}}`{=mediawiki}in other words, twenty years in the Buddha\'s ministry. Some Sanskrit sources have him ordain even later. The Mūlasarvāstivāda texts on monastic discipline (Pāli and *link=no*) relate that soothsayers predicted Ānanda would be the Buddha\'s attendant. In order to prevent Ānanda from leaving the palace to ordain, his father brought him to Vesālī (*link=no*) during the Buddha\'s visit to Kapilavatthu, but later the Buddha met and taught Ānanda nonetheless. On a similar note, the Mahāvastu relates, however, that Mṛgī was initially opposed to Ānanda joining the holy life, because his brother Devadatta had already ordained and left the palace. Ānanda responded to his mother\'s resistance by moving to Videha (*link=no*) and lived there, taking a vow of silence. This led him to gain the epithet Videhamuni (*link=no*), meaning \'the silent wise one from Videha\'. When Ānanda did become ordained, his father had him ordain in Kapilavatthu in the Nigrodhārāma monastery (*link=no*) with much ceremony, Ānanda\'s preceptor (*link=no*; Sanskrit: `{{Transliteration|sa|upādhyāya}}`{=mediawiki}) being a certain Daśabāla Kāśyapa.
According to the Pāli tradition, Ānanda\'s first teachers were Belaṭṭhasīsa and Puṇṇa Mantānīputta. It was Puṇṇa\'s teaching that led Ānanda to attain the stage of *sotāpanna* (*link=no*), an attainment preceding that of enlightenment. Ānanda later expressed his debt to Puṇṇa. Another important figure in the life of Ānanda was Sāriputta (*link=no*), one of the Buddha\'s main disciples. Sāriputta often taught Ānanda about the finer points of Buddhist doctrine; they were in the habit of sharing things with one another, and their relationship is described as a good friendship. In some Mūlasarvāstivāda texts, an attendant of Ānanda is also mentioned who helped motivate Ānanda when he was banned from the First Buddhist Council. He was a \"Vajjiputta\" (*link=no*), i.e. someone who originated from the Vajji confederacy. According to later texts, an enlightened monk also called Vajjiputta (*link=no*) had an important role in Ānanda\'s life. He listened to a teaching of Ānanda and realized that Ānanda was not enlightened yet. Vajjiputta encouraged Ānanda to talk less to laypeople and deepen his meditation practice by retreating in the forest, advice that very much affected Ānanda.
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# Ānanda
## Accounts
### Attending to the Buddha {#attending_to_the_buddha}
left\|thumb \|18th-century Burmese sculpture of Ānanda \|alt=Wooden sculpture of monk sitting in a mermaid pose, reclining \|upright
In the first twenty years of the Buddha\'s ministry, the Buddha had several personal attendants. However, after these twenty years, when the Buddha was aged 55, the Buddha announced that he had need for a permanent attendant. The Buddha had been growing older, and his previous attendants had not done their job very well. Initially, several of the Buddha\'s foremost disciples responded to his request, but the Buddha did not accept them. All the while Ānanda remained quiet. When he was asked why, he said that the Buddha would know best whom to choose, upon which the Buddha responded by choosing Ānanda.`{{refn|group=note |According to the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, Ānanda was born at the same time the Buddha became enlightened, and was therefore younger than the other leading disciples. The reason that the other disciples were not chosen may be because they were too old for the task.<ref name="Mohr" />}}`{=mediawiki} Ānanda agreed to take on the position, on the condition that he did not receive any material benefits from the Buddha. Accepting such benefits would open him up to criticism that he chose the position because of ulterior motives. He also requested that the Buddha allow him to accept invitations on his behalf, allow him to ask questions about his doctrine, and repeat any teaching that the Buddha had taught in Ānanda\'s absence. These requests would help people trust Ānanda and show that the Buddha was sympathetic to his attendant. Furthermore, Ānanda considered these the real advantages of being an attendant, which is why he requested them.
The Buddha agreed to Ānanda\'s conditions, and Ānanda became the Buddha\'s attendant, accompanying the Buddha on most of his wanderings. Ānanda took care of the Buddha\'s daily practical needs, by doing things such as bringing water and cleaning the Buddha\'s dwelling place. He is depicted as observant and devoted, even guarding the dwelling place at night. Ānanda takes the part of interlocutor in many of the recorded dialogues. He tended the Buddha for a total of 25 years, a duty which entailed much work. His relationship with the Buddha is depicted as warm and trusting: when the Buddha grew ill, Ānanda had a sympathetic illness; when the Buddha grew older, Ānanda kept taking care of him with devotion.
Ānanda sometimes literally risked his life for his teacher. At one time, the rebellious monk Devadatta tried to kill the Buddha by having a drunk and wild elephant released in the Buddha\'s presence. Ānanda stepped in front of the Buddha to protect him. When the Buddha told him to move, he refused, although normally he always obeyed the Buddha. Through a supernatural accomplishment (*link=no*; *link=no*) the Buddha then moved Ānanda aside and subdued the elephant, by touching it and speaking to it with loving-kindness.
Ānanda often acted as an intermediary and secretary, passing on messages from the Buddha, informing the Buddha of news, invitations, or the needs of lay people, and advising lay people who wanted to provide gifts to the *saṅgha*. At one time, Mahāpajāpatī, the Buddha\'s foster-mother, requested to offer robes for personal use for the Buddha. She said that even though she had raised the Buddha in his youth, she never gave anything in person to the young prince; she now wished to do so. The Buddha initially insisted that she give the robe to the community as a whole rather than to be attached to his person. However, Ānanda interceded and mediated, suggesting that the Buddha had better accept the robe. Eventually the Buddha did, but not without pointing out to Ānanda that good deeds like giving should always be done for the sake of the action itself, not for the sake of the person. thumb \|Sculpture of Ānanda from Wat Khao Rup Chang, Songkhla, Thailand \|alt=Sculpture of a monk with East Asian traits, holding an alms bowl. \|upright The texts say that the Buddha sometimes asked Ānanda to substitute for him as teacher, and was often praised by the Buddha for his teachings. Ānanda was often given important teaching roles, such as regularly teaching Queen Mallikā, Queen Sāmāvatī, (*link=no*) and other people from the ruling class. Once Ānanda taught a number of King Udena (*link=no*)\'s concubines. They were so impressed by Ānanda\'s teaching, that they gave him five hundred robes, which Ānanda accepted. Having heard about this, King Udena criticized Ānanda for being greedy; Ānanda responded by explaining how every single robe was carefully used, reused and recycled by the monastic community, prompting the king to offer another five hundred robes. Ānanda also had a role in the Buddha\'s visit to Vesālī. In this story, the Buddha taught the well-known text *Ratana Sutta* to Ānanda, which Ānanda then recited in Vesālī, ridding the city from illness, drought and evil spirits in the process. Another well-known passage in which the Buddha taught Ānanda is the passage about spiritual friendship (*link=no*). In this passage, Ānanda stated that spiritual friendship is half of the holy life; the Buddha corrected Ānanda, stating that such friendship is the entire holy life. In summary, Ānanda worked as an assistant, intermediary and a mouthpiece, helping the Buddha in many ways, and learning his teachings in the process.
#### Resisting temptations {#resisting_temptations}
Ānanda was attractive in appearance. A Pāli account related that a *bhikkhunī* (nun) became enamored with Ānanda, and pretended to be ill to have Ānanda visit her. When she realized the error of her ways, she confessed her mistakes to Ānanda. Other accounts relate that a low-caste woman called Prakṛti (also known in China as `{{zh|t=[[:zh:摩登伽女|摩登伽女]]|p=Módēngqiénǚ|labels=no}}`{=mediawiki}) fell in love with Ānanda, and persuaded her mother Mātaṅgī to use a black magic spell to enchant him. This succeeded, and Ānanda was lured into her house, but came to his senses and called upon the help of the Buddha. The Buddha then taught Prakṛti to reflect on the repulsive qualities of the human body, and eventually Prakṛti was ordained as a *bhikkhunī*, giving up her attachment for Ānanda. In an East Asian version of the story in the *Śūraṃgama sūtra*, the Buddha sent Mañjuśrī to help Ānanda, who used recitation to counter the magic charm. The Buddha then continued by teaching Ānanda and other listeners about the Buddha nature.
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# Ānanda
## Accounts
### Establishing the nun\'s order {#establishing_the_nuns_order}
`{{See also|Bhikkhuni#History}}`{=mediawiki} In the role of mediator between the Buddha and the lay communities, Ānanda sometimes made suggestions to the Buddha for amendments in the monastic discipline. Most importantly, the early texts attribute the inclusion of women in the early *saṅgha* (monastic order) to Ānanda. Fifteen years after the Buddha\'s enlightenment, his foster mother Mahāpajāpatī came to see him to ask him to be ordained as the first Buddhist *bhikkhunī*. Initially, the Buddha refused this. Five years later, Mahāpajāpatī came to request the Buddha again, this time with a following of other Sākiya women, including the Buddha\'s former wife Yasodharā (*link=no*). They had walked 500 km, looked dirty, tired and depressed, and Ānanda felt pity for them. Ānanda therefore confirmed with the Buddha whether women could become enlightened as well. Although the Buddha conceded this, he did not allow the Sākiya women to be ordained yet. Ānanda then discussed with the Buddha how Mahāpajāpatī took care of him during his childhood, after the death of his real mother. Ānanda also mentioned that previous Buddhas had also ordained *bhikkhunīs*. In the end, the Buddha allowed the Sākiya women to be ordained, being the start of the *bhikkhunī* order. Ānanda had Mahāpajāpati ordained by her acceptance of a set of rules, set by the Buddha. These came to be known as the *garudhamma*, and they describe the subordinate relation of the *bhikkhunī* community to that of the *bhikkhus* or monks. Scholar of Asian religions Reiko Ohnuma argues that the debt the Buddha had toward his foster-mother Mahāpajāpati may have been the main reason for his concessions with regard to the establishment of a *bhikkhunī* order.
Many scholars interpret this account to mean that the Buddha was reluctant in allowing women to be ordained, and that Ānanda successfully persuaded the Buddha to change his mind. For example, Indologist and translator I.B. Horner wrote that \"this is the only instance of his \[the Buddha\] being over-persuaded in argument\". However, some scholars interpret the Buddha\'s initial refusal rather as a test of resolve, following a widespread pattern in the Pāli Canon and in monastic procedure of repeating a request three times before final acceptance. Some also argue that the Buddha was believed by Buddhists to be omniscient, and therefore is unlikely to have been depicted as changing his mind. Other scholars argue that other passages in the texts indicate the Buddha intended all along to establish a *bhikkhunī* order. Regardless, during the acceptance of women into the monastic order, the Buddha told Ānanda that the Buddha\'s Dispensation would last shorter because of this. At the time, the Buddhist monastic order consisted of wandering celibate males, without many monastic institutions. Allowing women to join the Buddhist celibate life might have led to dissension, as well as temptation between the sexes. The *garudhamma*, however, were meant to fix these problems, and prevent the dispensation from being curtailed.upright\|thumb \|The early texts attribute the inclusion of women in the early monastic order to Ānanda. \|alt=Taiwanese nun\|left
There are some chronological discrepancies in the traditional account of the setting up of the *bhikkhunī* order. According to the Pāli and Mahīśasaka textual traditions, the *bhikkhunī* order was set up five years after the Buddha\'s enlightenment, but, according to most textual traditions, Ānanda only became attendant twenty years after the Buddha\'s enlightenment. Furthermore, Mahāpajāpati was the Buddha\'s foster mother, and must therefore have been considerably older than him. However, after the *bhikkhunī* order was established, Mahāpajāpati still had many audiences with the Buddha, as reported in Pāli and Chinese Early Buddhist Texts. Because of this and other reasons, it could be inferred that establishment of the *bhikkhunī* order actually took place *early* in the Buddha\'s ministry. If this is the case, Ānanda\'s role in establishing the order becomes less likely. Some scholars therefore interpret the names in the account, such as *Ānanda* and *Mahāpajāpati*, as symbols, representing groups rather than specific individuals.
According to the texts, Ānanda\'s role in founding the *bhikkhunī* order made him popular with the *bhikkhunī* community. Ānanda often taught *bhikkhunīs*, often encouraged women to ordain, and when he was criticized by the monk Mahākassapa, several *bhikkhunīs* tried to defend him. According to Indologist Oskar von Hinüber, Ānanda\'s pro-*bhikkhunī* attitude may well be the reason why there was frequent discussion between Ānanda and Mahākassapa, eventually leading Mahākasapa to charge Ānanda with several offenses during the First Buddhist Council. Von Hinüber further argues that the establishment of the *bhikkhunī* order may have well been initiated by Ānanda `{{em|after}}`{=mediawiki} the Buddha\'s death, and the introduction of Mahāpajāpati as the person requesting to do so is merely a literary device to connect the ordination of women with the person of the Buddha, through his foster mother. Von Hinüber concludes this based on several patterns in the early texts, including the apparent distance between the Buddha and the *bhikkhunī* order, and the frequent discussions and differences of opinion that take place between Ānanda and Mahākassapa. Some scholars have seen merits in von Hinüber\'s argument with regard to the pro- and anti-factions, but as of 2017, no definitive evidence has been found for the theory of establishment of the *bhikkhuni* order after the Buddha\'s death. Buddhist studies scholar Bhikkhu Anālayo has responded to most of von Hinuber\'s arguments, writing: \"Besides requiring too many assumptions, this hypothesis conflicts with nearly \'all the evidence preserved in the texts together\'\",`{{refn |group=note |Anālayo cites von Hinüber with this phrase.}}`{=mediawiki} arguing that it was monastic discipline that created a distance between the Buddha and the *bhikkhunīs*, and even so, there were many places in the early texts where the Buddha did address *bhikkhunīs* directly.
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# Ānanda
## Accounts
### The Buddha\'s death {#the_buddhas_death}
thumb \|upright \|Sculpture at Vulture Peak, Rajgir, India, depicting the Buddha consoling Ānanda \|alt=Sculpture of the Buddha holding hand on head monk at the right side of the Buddha, the latter monk smiling Despite his long association with and close proximity to the Buddha, the texts describe that Ānanda had not become enlightened yet. Because of that, a fellow monk Udāyī (*link=no*) ridiculed Ānanda. However, the Buddha reprimanded Udāyī in response, saying that Ānanda would certainly be enlightened in this life.`{{refn |group=note |[[Anguttara Nikaya|AN]] 3.80}}`{=mediawiki}
The Pāli *Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta* related the last year-long trip the Buddha took with Ānanda from Rājagaha (*Rājagṛha*) to the small town of Kusinārā (*link=no*) before the Buddha died there. Before reaching Kusinārā, the Buddha spent the retreat during the monsoon (*link=no*, *link=no*) in Veḷugāma (*Veṇugrāmaka*), getting out of the Vesālī area which suffered from famine. Here, the eighty-year old Buddha expressed his wish to speak to the *saṅgha* once more. The Buddha had grown seriously ill in Vesālī, much to the concern of some of his disciples. Ānanda understood that the Buddha wished to leave final instructions before his death. The Buddha stated, however, that he had already taught everything needed, without withholding anything secret as a teacher with a \"closed fist\" would. He also impressed upon Ānanda that he did not think the *saṅgha* should be reliant too much on a leader, not even himself. He then continued with the well-known statement to take his teaching as a refuge, and oneself as a refuge, without relying on any other refuge, also after he would be gone. Bareau argued that this is one of the most ancient parts of the text, found in slight variation in five early textual traditions:
The same text contains an account in which the Buddha, at numerous occasions, gave a hint that he could prolong his life to a full eon through a supernatural accomplishment, but this was a power that he would have to be `{{em|asked}}`{=mediawiki} to exercise.`{{refn |group=note |There was some debate between the [[early Buddhist schools]] as to what ''eon'' means in this context, some schools arguing it meant a full human lifespan, others that an enlightened being was capable of producing a "new life-span by the sole power of his meditation".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jaini |first=P. S. |year=1958 |title=Buddha's Prolongation of Life |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume=21 |issue=3 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X0006016X |pages=547{{en dash}}8, 550|s2cid=170582903 }}</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Ānanda was distracted, however, and did not take the hint. Later, Ānanda did make the request, but the Buddha replied that it was already too late, as he would die soon. Māra, the Buddhist personification of evil, had visited the Buddha, and the Buddha had decided to die in three months. When Ānanda heard this, he wept. The Buddha consoled him, however, pointing out that Ānanda had been a great attendant, being sensitive to the needs of different people. If he was earnest in his efforts, he would attain enlightenment soon. He then pointed out to Ānanda that all conditioned things are impermanent: all people must die. In the final days of the Buddha\'s life, the Buddha traveled to Kusinārā. The Buddha had Ānanda prepare a place for lying down between two sal trees, the same type of tree under which the mother of the Buddha gave birth. The Buddha then had Ānanda invite the Malla clan from Kusinārā to pay their final respects. Having returned, Ānanda asked the Buddha what should be done with his body after his death, and he replied that it should be cremated, giving detailed instructions on how this should be done. Since the Buddha prohibited Ānanda from being involved himself, but rather had him instruct the Mallas to perform the rituals, these instructions have by many scholars been interpreted as a prohibition that monastics should not be involved in funerals or worship of *stūpas* (structures with relics). Buddhist studies scholar Gregory Schopen has pointed out, however, that this prohibition only held for Ānanda, and only with regard to the Buddha\'s funeral ceremony. It has also been shown that the instructions on the funeral are quite late in origin, in both composition and insertion into the text, and are not found in parallel texts, apart from the *Mahāparinibbāna Sutta*. Ānanda then continued by asking how devotees should honor the Buddha after his death. The Buddha responded by listing four important places in his life that people could pay their respects to, which later became the four main places of Buddhist pilgrimage. Before the Buddha died, Ānanda recommended the Buddha to move to a more meaningful city instead, but the Buddha pointed out that the town was once a great capital. Ānanda then asked who will be next teacher after the Buddha would be gone, but the Buddha replied that his teaching and discipline would be the teacher instead. This meant that decisions should be made by reaching consensus within the *saṅgha*, and more generally, that now the time had come for the Buddhist monastics and devotees to take the Buddhist texts as authority, now that the Buddha was dying.
The Buddha gave several instructions before his death, including a directive that his former charioteer Channa (*link=no*) be shunned by his fellow monks, to humble his pride. In his final moments, the Buddha asked if anyone had any questions they wished to pose to him, as a final chance to allay any doubts. When no-one responded, Ānanda expressed joy that all of the Buddha\'s disciples present had attained a level beyond doubts about the Buddha\'s teaching. However, the Buddha pointed out that Ānanda spoke out of faith and not out of meditative insight`{{em dash}}`{=mediawiki}a final reproach. The Buddha added that, of all the five hundred monks that are surrounding him now, even the \"latest\" or \"most backward\" (*link=no*) had attained the initial stage of *sotapanna*. Meant as an encouragement, the Buddha was referring to Ānanda. During the Buddha\'s *final Nirvana*, Anuruddha was able to use his meditative powers to understand which stages the Buddha underwent before attaining final Nirvana. However, Ānanda was unable to do so, indicating his lesser spiritual maturity. After the Buddha\'s death, Ānanda recited several verses, expressing a sense of urgency (*link=no*), deeply moved by the events and their bearing: \"Terrible was the quaking, men\'s hair stood on end, / When the all-accomplished Buddha passed away.\"
Shortly after the council, Ānanda brought the message with regard to the Buddha\'s directive to Channa personally. Channa was humbled and changed his ways, attained enlightenment, and the penalty was withdrawn by the *saṅgha*. Ānanda traveled to Sāvatthī (*link=no*), where he was met with a sad populace, who he consoled with teachings on impermanence. After that, Ānanda went to the quarters of the Buddha and went through the motions of the routine he formerly performed when the Buddha was still alive, such as preparing water and cleaning the quarters. He then saluted and talked to the quarters as though the Buddha was still there. The Pāli commentaries state that Ānanda did this out of devotion, but also because he was \"not yet free from the passions\".
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# Ānanda
## Accounts
### The First Council {#the_first_council}
thumb \|upright=1 \|According to Buddhist texts, the First Buddhist Council was held in Rājagaha. \|alt=Stupa, located at present-day Rajgir, at that time called Rajagaha *Main article: First Buddhist Council*
#### Ban
According to the texts, the First Buddhist Council was held in Rājagaha. In the first *vassa* after the Buddha had died, the presiding monk Mahākassapa (*link=no*) called upon Ānanda to recite the discourses he had heard, as a representative on this council. There was a rule issued that only enlightened disciples (*arahants*) were allowed to attend the council, to prevent mental afflictions from clouding the disciples\' memories. Ānanda had, however, not attained enlightenment yet, in contrast with the rest of the council, consisting of 499 *arahants*. Mahākassapa therefore did not allow Ānanda to attend yet. Although he knew that Ānanda\'s presence in the council was required, he did not want to be biased by allowing an exception to the rule. The Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition adds that Mahākassapa initially allowed Ānanda to join as a sort of servant assisting during the council, but then was forced to remove him when the disciple Anuruddha saw that Ānanda was not yet enlightened.
Ānanda felt humiliated, but was prompted to focus his efforts to reach enlightenment before the council started. The Mūlasarvāstivāda texts add that he felt motivated when he remembered the Buddha\'s words that he should be his own refuge, and when he was consoled and advised by Anuruddha and Vajjiputta, the latter being his attendant. On the night before the event, he tried hard to attain enlightenment. After a while, Ānanda took a break and decided to lie down for a rest. He then attained enlightenment right there, right then, halfway between standing and lying down. Thus, Ānanda was known as the disciple who attained awakening \"in none of the four traditional poses\" (walking, standing, sitting, or lying down). The next morning, to prove his enlightenment, Ānanda performed a supernatural accomplishment by diving into the earth and appearing on his seat at the council (or, according to some sources, by flying through the air). Scholars such as Buddhologist André Bareau and scholar of religion Ellison Banks Findly have been skeptical about many details in this account, including the number of participants on the council, and the account of Ānanda\'s enlightenment just before the council. Regardless, today, the story of Ānanda\'s struggle on the evening before the council is still told among Buddhists as a piece of advice in the practice of meditation: neither to give up, nor to interpret the practice too rigidly.
#### Recitations
The First Council began when Ānanda was consulted to recite the discourses and to determine which were authentic and which were not. Mahākassapa asked of each discourse that Ānanda listed where, when, and to whom it was given, and at the end of this, the assembly agreed that Ānanda\'s memories and recitations were correct, after which the discourse collection (*link=no*, *link=no*) was considered finalized and closed. Ānanda therefore played a crucial role in this council, and texts claim he remembered 84,000 teaching topics, among which 82,000 taught by the Buddha and another 2,000 taught by disciples. Many early Buddhist discourses started with the words \"Thus have I heard\" (*link=no*, *link=no*), which according to most Buddhist traditions, were Ānanda\'s words, indicating that he, as the person reporting the text (*link=no*), had first-hand experience and did not add anything to it. Thus, the discourses Ānanda remembered later became the collection of discourses of the Canon, and according to the Haimavāta, Dharmaguptaka and Sarvāstivāda textual traditions (and implicitly, post-canonical Pāli chronicles), the collection of Abhidhamma (*Abhidhamma Piṭaka*) as well. Scholar of religion Ronald Davidson notes, however, that this is not preceded by any account of Ānanda learning Abhidhamma. According to some later Mahāyāna accounts, Ānanda also assisted in reciting Mahāyāna texts, held in a different place in Rājagaha, but in the same time period. The Pāli commentaries state that after the council, when the tasks for recitation and memorizing the texts were divided, Ānanda and his pupils were given the task to remember the Dīgha Nikāya.
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