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1588 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20II%20of%20Epirus | 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.
References
Sources
Connop Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. viii
Johann Gustav Droysen, Hellenismus
Benediktus Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten
Karl Julius Beloch, Griechische Geschichte vol. iii.
Buddhism in the ancient Mediterranean
Kings of Epirus
3rd-century BC Greek people
3rd-century BC monarchs in Europe
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Year of birth unknown
240s BC deaths |
1593 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20I%20of%20Scotland | 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 Scotland from 1107 to his death. 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:
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
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.
References
Sources
Further reading
Alexander I at the official website of the British monarchy
1070s births
1124 deaths
House of Dunkeld
12th-century Scottish monarchs
People from Dunfermline
Burials at Dunfermline Abbey
11th-century Scottish people
Gaelic monarchs in Scotland |
1594 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20II%20of%20Scotland | Alexander II of Scotland | Alexander II (Medieval Gaelic: ; Modern Gaelic: ; 24 August 1198 – 6 July 1249) was King of Scotland from 1214 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of York (1237) which defined the boundary between England and Scotland, virtually unchanged today.
Early life
Alexander was born at Haddington, East Lothian, the only son of the Scottish king William the Lion and Ermengarde de Beaumont. He was forced to spend time in England under the terms of the Treaty of Falaise, and (John of England knighted him at Clerkenwell Priory in 1213) before he returned home. He succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his father on 4 December 1214, being crowned at Scone on 6 December the same year.
King of Scots
In 1215, the year after his accession, the clans Meic Uilleim and MacHeths, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt, but loyalist forces speedily quelled the insurrection. In the same year, Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against King John of England, and led an army into the Kingdom of England in support of their cause. This action led to the sacking of Berwick-upon-Tweed as John's forces ravaged the north.
The Scottish forces reached the south coast of England at the port of Dover where in September 1216, Alexander paid homage for his lands in England to the pretender Louis VIII of France, chosen by the barons to replace John. After John died, the papacy and the English aristocracy changed their allegiance to John's nine-year-old son, Henry III, forcing the French and the Scots armies to return home. Peace between Henry, Louis and Alexander followed on 12 September 1217 with the Treaty of Kingston. Diplomacy further strengthened the reconciliation by the marriage of Alexander to Henry's sister Joan on 18 June or 25 June 1221.
In 1222 Jon Haraldsson, the last native Scandinavian to be Jarl of Orkney, was indirectly implicated in the burning of Adam of Melrose at his hall at Halkirk by local farmers when this part of Caithness was still part of the Kingdom of Norway. A contemporary chronicler, Boethius the Dane blamed Haraldsson for the bishop's death. After the jarl swore oaths to his own innocence, Alexander took the opportunity to assert his claims to the mainland part of the Orkney jarldom. He visited Caithness in person, and hanged the majority of the farmers, while mutilating the rest. His actions were applauded by Pope Honorius III, and a quarter of a century later, he was continuing to receive commendation from the Catholic Church, as in the reward of a bull from Pope Celestine IV.
During the same period, Alexander subjugated the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll (much smaller than the modern area by that name, it only comprised Craignish, Ardscotnish, Glassary, Glenary and Cowal; Lorn was a separate province, while Kintyre and Knapdale were part of Suðreyar). Royal forces crushed a revolt in Galloway in 1235 without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with success. Soon afterwards, a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The two kingdoms, however, settled this dispute by a compromise in 1237. This was the Treaty of York, which defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east).
Alexander's first wife, Joan, died in March 1238 in Essex. Alexander married his second wife, Marie de Coucy, the following year on 15 May 1239. Together they had one son, Alexander III, born in 1241.
A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace the next year at Newcastle.
Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which were still part of the Norwegian domain of Suðreyjar. He repeatedly attempted negotiations and purchase, but without success. Alexander set out to conquer these islands but died on the way in 1249. This dispute over the Western Isles, also known as the Hebrides, was not resolved until 1266 when Magnus VI of Norway ceded them to Scotland along with the Isle of Man.
The English chronicler Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora described Alexander as red-haired:
[King John] taunted King Alexander, and because he was red-headed, sent word to him, saying, 'so shall we hunt the red fox-cub from his lairs.
Death
Alexander attempted to persuade Ewen, the son of Duncan, Lord of Argyll (and King of the Isles), to sever his allegiance to Haakon IV of Norway. When Ewen rejected these attempts, Alexander sailed forth to compel him, but on the way he suffered a fever at the Isle of Kerrera in the Inner Hebrides. He died there in 1249 and was buried at Melrose Abbey.
The Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar records additional information, in that before attempting to invade the Isles, where Ewen held power, he was supposedly warned in a dream by St. Columba, St. Olaf and St. Magnus to desist. King Ewen of the Isles' status as Monarch had been confirmed by Haakon IV and was disputed by Alexander. The episode might be emblematic of a broader desire on the part of Alexander to bring the Kingdom of the Isles fully into the power of the Scottish Crown. In any case, when he finally decided to continue in his endeavour, despite the dream, and having been advised against it by his men, he died shortly afterwards. The incident was portrayed in the saga as divine punishment. His body was then transported back to the mainland.
He was succeeded by his son, the seven-year-old Alexander III of Scotland.
Family
Alexander II had two wives:
1. Joan of England (22 July 12104 March 1238), who was the eldest legitimate daughter and third child of John of England and Isabella of Angoulême. She and Alexander II married on 21 June 1221, at York Minster. Alexander was 23; Joan was 11. They had no children. Joan died in Essex in 1238, and was buried at Tarant Crawford Abbey in Dorset.
2. Marie de Coucy, who became mother of Alexander III of Scotland.
He also had an illegitimate daughter, Marjorie, who married Alan Durward.
Fictional portrayals
Alexander II has been depicted in historical novels:
Sword of State (1999) by Nigel Tranter. The novel depicts the friendship between Alexander II and Patrick II, Earl of Dunbar. "Their friendship withstands treachery, danger and rivalry".
Child of the Phoenix (1992) by Barbara Erskine.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. Day the Second: Third Story.
References
Sources
Further reading
Alexander II at the official website of the British monarchy
Worcester Annals
Rotuli Litterarum Patencium
Scottish Roman Catholics
House of Dunkeld
1198 births
1249 deaths
People from Haddington, East Lothian
13th-century Scottish monarchs
12th-century Scottish people
Burials at Melrose Abbey
Gaelic monarchs in Scotland |
1596 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20III%20of%20Scotland | Alexander III of Scotland | Alexander III (Medieval ; Modern Gaelic: ; 4 September 1241 – 19 March 1286) was King of Scots from 1249 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of Perth, by which Scotland acquired sovereignty over the Western Isles and the Isle of Man. His heir, Margaret, Maid of Norway, died before she could be crowned.
Life
Alexander was born at Roxburgh, the only son of Alexander II by his second wife Marie de Coucy. Alexander's father died on 6 July 1249 and he became king at the age of seven, inaugurated at Scone on 13 July 1249.
The years of his minority featured an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, Justiciar of Scotia. The former dominated the early years of Alexander's reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III of England seized the opportunity to demand homage from his son-in-law for the Scottish kingdom, but Alexander did not comply. In 1255, an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso led to Menteith and his party losing to Durward's party. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence, and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties.
On attaining his majority at the age of 21 in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which the death of his father thirteen years before had cut short. He laid a formal claim before King Haakon IV of Norway. Haakon rejected the claim, and in the following year responded with a formidable invasion. Sailing around the west coast of Scotland he halted off the Isle of Arran, and negotiations commenced. Alexander artfully prolonged the talks until the autumn storms began. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The Battle of Largs (October 1263) proved indecisive, but even so, Haakon's position was hopeless. Baffled, he turned homewards, but died in Orkney on 15 December 1263. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266 Haakon's successor concluded the Treaty of Perth by which he ceded the Isle of Man and the Western Isles to Scotland in return for a monetary payment. Norway retained Orkney and Shetland until 1469 when they became a dowry for James III's bride, Margaret of Denmark.
Death of Alexander III
Alexander had married Margaret, daughter of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, on 26 December 1251, when he was ten years old and she was eleven. She died in 1275, after they had had three children.
Margaret (28 February 1261 – 9 April 1283), who married King Eric II of Norway
Alexander, Prince of Scotland (21 January 1264 Jedburgh – 28 January 1284 Lindores Abbey); buried in Dunfermline Abbey
David (20 March 1272 – June 1281 Stirling Castle); buried in Dunfermline Abbey
According to the Lanercost Chronicle, Alexander did not spend his decade as a widower alone: "he used never to forbear on account of season nor storm, nor for perils of flood or rocky cliffs, but would visit none too creditably nuns or matrons, virgins or widows as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise."
Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all three of his children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his granddaughter Margaret, the "Maid of Norway". The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux on 1 November 1285.
Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife on 19 March 1286 because it was her birthday the next day. He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and overseeing a meeting with royal advisors. He was cautioned against making the journey to Fife because of weather conditions, but crossed the Forth from Dalmeny to Inverkeithing anyway. On arriving in Inverkeithing, he insisted on not stopping for the night, despite the pleas of the nobles accompanying him and one of the burgesses of the town, Alexander Le Saucier. Le Saucier (who was either linked to the King's kitchen or the master of the local saltpans) must have been known to the King, since his rather blunt warning to the King lacks the usual deference: "My lord, what are you doing out in such weather and darkness? How many times have I tried to persuade you that midnight travelling will do you no good?"
However, Alexander ignored the repeated warnings about travelling in a storm, and set off with his retinue and two local guides. The king became separated from his party near Kinghorn, and was found dead with a broken neck near the shore the following morning. It is assumed that his horse lost its footing in the dark. While some texts say that he fell off a cliff, there is none at the site where his body was found; however, there is a very steep rocky embankment, which "would have been fatal in the dark." After Alexander's death, his realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England. He was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.
As Alexander left no surviving children, the heir to the throne was his unborn child by Queen Yolande. When Yolande's pregnancy ended, probably with a miscarriage, Alexander's three-year-old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, became the heir. Margaret died, still uncrowned, on her way to Scotland in 1290. The inauguration of John Balliol as king on 30 November 1292 ended the six years of the Guardians of Scotland governing the land.
The death of Alexander and the subsequent period of instability in Scotland was lamented in an early Scots poem recorded by Andrew of Wyntoun in his Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.
In 1886, a monument to Alexander III was erected at the approximate location of his death in Kinghorn.
Fictional portrayals
Alexander III has been depicted in historical novels. They include:
The Thirsty Sword (1892) by Robert Leighton. The novel depicts the "Norse invasion of Scotland" (1262–1263, part of the Scottish–Norwegian War) and the Battle of Largs. It includes depictions of Alexander III and his opponent Haakon IV of Norway.
Alexander the Glorious (1965) by Jane Oliver. The novel covers the entire reign of Alexander III (1249–1286), "almost entirely from Alexander's viewpoint".
The Crown in Darkness (1988) by Paul C. Doherty. A crime fiction novel where Hugh Corbett investigates the "mysterious death" of Alexander III (1286). Alexander supposedly suffered a fatal fall from his horse. But there are suspicions of murder. The novel concludes that Alexander was indeed murdered "by a fanatical servant" of Edward I of England. The killer acting according to "Edward's secret desire to overwhelm and control Scotland". Doherty suggests that the personal relations of the two kings were strained by constant arguments, though this is not confirmed by historical sources.
Quest For A Maid (1988) by Frances Mary Hendry. The novel depicts the life of Meg, her power-hungry older sister Inge, Lady Marjorie, Countess of Carrick and their part in securing the succession of Lady Marjorie's son Robert the Bruce to the Scottish throne. It includes depictions of Alexander III's death as "falling off a cliff" with sorcery as the cause.
Insurrection (2010) by Robyn Young. This novel is the first of a series of novels primarily about the life and times of Robert the Bruce. However, it covers Alexander III and the circumstances surrounding his death in some detail.
Raphael Holinshed, in his oft-fanciful history of England in his Chronicles, stated that at Alexander III's wedding, a horrible monster, mostly skeleton but with raw flesh, appeared at the end of the procession and caused the wedding to be hurriedly concluded. This was, in tradition, an omen of death.
Crusader (1991) by Nigel Tranter. This novel follows the minority of Alexander III and his relationship with David de Lindsay. Tranter, who has written scores of historical novels spanning the range of Scotland's history, also wrote "Envoy Extraordinary" (1999) (about Patrick Earl of Dunbar) and "True Thomas" (1981) (about Thomas the Rhymer), both of which take place during the reign of Alexander III, and in which Alexander is a featured character.
Ancestry
Notes
Sources
Anderson, Alan Orr (ed.), Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500–1286, 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922), republished, Marjorie Anderson (ed.) (Stamford, 1991)
idem (ed.), Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers: AD 500–1286, (London, 1908), republished, Marjorie Anderson (ed.) (Stamford, 1969)
.
.
Scott, Robert McNair. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots, 1869
Further reading
Alexander III at the official website of the British monarchy
Alexander III at BBC History
|-
1241 births
1286 deaths
House of Dunkeld
Deaths by horse-riding accident in Scotland
Medieval child monarchs
13th-century Scottish monarchs
Burials at Dunfermline Abbey
Scottish people of the Wars of Scottish Independence
Gaelic monarchs in Scotland
Scottish Roman Catholics |
1597 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20of%20Greece%20%28disambiguation%29 | Alexander of Greece (disambiguation) | Alexander of Greece (1893–1920) was king of Greece from 1917 until his death.
Alexander of Greece may also refer to:
Alexander of Greece (rhetorician) ()
Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), ancient Greek king and general
See also
Alexander § People with the given name Alexander |
1599 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20of%20Aphrodisias | Alexander of Aphrodisias | Alexander of Aphrodisias (; 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" ().
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.
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 (), 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 () or predetermined by antecedents (). 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" (). 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.
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.
See also
Alexander's band - an optical phenomenon associated with rainbows
Free will in antiquity
Notes
Bibliography
Translations
M. Bergeron, Dufour (trans., comm.), 2009. De l’Âme. Textes & Commentaires. . Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2008. 416 p.
R. W. Sharples, 1990, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Ethical Problems. Duckworth.
W. E. Dooley, 1989, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 1. Duckworth.
W. E. Dooley, A. Madigan, 1992, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 2-3. Duckworth.
A. Madigan, 1993, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 4. Duckworth.
W. Dooley, 1993, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 5. Duckworth.
E. Lewis, 1996, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Meteorology 4. Duckworth.
E. Gannagé, 2005, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On Coming-to-Be and Perishing 2.2-5. Duckworth.
A. Towey, 2000, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On Sense Perception. Duckworth.
V. Caston, 2011, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On the Soul. Duckworth.
J. Barnes, S. Bobzien, K. Flannery, K. Ierodiakonou, 1991, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.1-7. Duckworth.
I. Mueller, J. Gould, 1999, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.8-13. Duckworth.
I. Mueller, J. Gould, 1999, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.14-22. Duckworth.
I. Mueller, 2006, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.23-31. Duckworth.
I. Mueller, 2006, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.32-46. Duckworth.
J. M. Van Ophuijsen, 2000, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Topics 1. Duckworth.
R. W. Sharples, 1983, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Fate. Duckworth.
R. W. Sharples, 1992, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Quaestiones 1.1-2.15. Duckworth.
R. W. Sharples, 1994, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Quaestiones 2.16-3.15. Duckworth.
R. W. Sharples, 2004, Alexander of Aphrodisias: Supplement to On the Soul. Duckworth.
Charles Genequand, 2001, Alexander of Aphrodisias: On the Cosmos. Brill.
Studies
Fazzo, Silvia. Aporia e sistema. La materia, la forma e il divino nelle Quaestiones di Alessandro di Afrodisia, Pisa: ETS, 2002.
Flannery, Kevin L. Ways into the Logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Leiden: Brill, 1995.
Gili, Luca. La sillogistica di Alessandro di Afrodisia. Sillogistica categorica e sillogistica modale nel commento agli "Analitici Primi" di Aristotele, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2011.
Kessler, Eckhart, Alexander of Aphrodisias and his Doctrine of the Soul. 1400 years of lasting significance, Leiden: Brill 2012
Moraux, Paul. Der Aristotelismus bei den Griechen, Von Andronikos bis Alexander von Aphrodisias, III: Alexander von Aphrodisias, Berlin: Walter Gruyter, 2001.
Rescher, Nicholas & Marmura, Michael E., The Refutation by Alexander of Aphrodisias of Galen's Treatise on the Theory of Motion, Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 1965.
Todd, Robert B., 'Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics. A Study of the "De Mixtione" with Preliminary Essays, Text, Translation and Commentary, Leiden: Brill, 1976.
External links
Alexander on Information Philosopher
Online Greek texts:
Scripta minora'', ed. Bruns
Aristotelian commentaries: Metaphysics, Prior Analytics I, Topics, De sensu and Meteorology, In Aristotelis Metaphysica commentaria , Miscellanea
2nd-century Greek philosophers
Commentators on Aristotle
Roman-era Peripatetic philosophers
Roman-era philosophers in Athens
Roman-era students in Athens
People from Aphrodisias |
1600 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severus%20Alexander | Severus Alexander | Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235), also known as Alexander Severus, was Roman emperor from 222 until 235. The last emperor from the Severan dynasty, he succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222, at the age of 13. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy.
Alexander was the heir to his cousin, the 18-year-old Emperor Elagabalus. The latter had been murdered along with his mother Julia Soaemias by his own guards, who, as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into the Tiber river. Alexander and his cousin were both grandsons of Julia Maesa, who was the sister of empress Julia Domna and had arranged for Elagabalus's acclamation as emperor by the Third Gallic Legion.
Alexander's 13-year reign was the longest reign of a sole emperor since Antoninus Pius. He was also the second youngest sole Roman emperor of a united empire, after Gordian III. Alexander's peacetime reign was prosperous. However, Rome was militarily confronted with the rising Sassanid Empire and growing incursions from the tribes of Germania. He managed to check the threat of the Sassanids. But when campaigning against Germanic tribes, Alexander attempted to bring peace by engaging in diplomacy and bribery. This alienated many in the Roman army, leading to a conspiracy that resulted in the assassination of Alexander, his mother Julia Avita Mamaea, and his advisors. After their deaths, the accession of Maximinus Thrax followed. Alexander's death marked the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century.
Early life
The future emperor Severus Alexander was born on 1 October 208 in Arca Caesarea, Phoenicia. Of his birth name, only two cognomina are known, from literary sources: Bassianus () according to the historian Cassius Dio, and Alexianus () according to Herodian. "Bassianus" was also borne by several family members, while "Alexianus" was probably later converted to Alexander.
The historian Cassius Dio thought Alexianus was the son of Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus, but Icks disputes this, saying the latter could not have married the emperor's mother before 212 and that Alexianus must have been fathered by his mother's first husband, who is of unknown name but of certain existence. The priest Marcus Julius Gessius Bassianus may have been his younger brother.
Emperor
Early reign
Severus Alexander became emperor when he was around 14 years old, making him the youngest emperor in Rome's history. Alexander's grandmother Maesa believed that he had more potential to rule and gain support from the Praetorian Guard than her other grandson, the increasingly unpopular emperor Elagabalus. Thus, to preserve her own position, she had Elagabalus adopt the young Alexander and then arranged for Elagabalus' assassination, securing the throne for Alexander. The Roman army hailed Alexander as emperor on 13 March 222, immediately conferring on him the titles of Pater Patriae and Pontifex maximus on the following day.
Throughout his life, Alexander relied heavily on guidance from his grandmother, Maesa, before her death in 224, and mother, Julia Mamaea. As a young, immature, and inexperienced adolescent, Alexander knew little about government, warcraft, or the role of ruling over an empire. In time, however, the army came to admire what Jasper Burns refers to as "his simple virtues and moderate behavior, so different from [Elagabalus]".
Domestic achievements
Under the influence of his mother, Alexander did much to improve the morals and condition of the people, and to enhance the dignity of the state. He employed noted jurists, such as Ulpian, to oversee the administration of justice. His advisers were men like the senator and historian Cassius Dio, and historical sources claimed that with the help of his family, he created a select board of 16 senators, although this claim is sometimes disputed. Some scholars have rejected Herodian's view that Alexander expanded senatorial powers. He also created a municipal council of 14 who assisted the urban prefect in administering the affairs of the 14 districts of Rome. Excessive luxury and extravagance at the imperial court were diminished, and he restored the Baths of Nero in 227 or 229; consequently, they are sometimes also known as the Baths of Alexander after him. He extended the imperial residence at the Horti Lamiani on the Esquiline Hill with elaborate buildings, and created the Nymphaeum of Alexander (known as the Trophies of Marius), which still stands in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. This was the great fountain he built at the end of the Aqua Claudia aqueduct.
Upon his accession he reduced the silver purity of the denarius from 46.5% to 43%the actual silver weight dropped from 1.41 grams to 1.30 grams; however, in 229 he revalued the denarius, increasing the silver purity and weight to 45% and 1.46 grams. The following year he decreased the amount of base metal in the denarius while adding more silver, raising the silver purity and weight again to 50.5% and 1.50 grams. Additionally, during his reign taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest.
In religious matters, Alexander preserved an open mind. According to the Historia Augusta, he wished to erect a temple to Jesus but was dissuaded by the pagan priests; however, this claim is unreliable as the Historia Augusta is considered untrustworthy by historians, containing significant amounts of information that is false and even invented, extending to when it was written and the number of authors it was written by. He allowed a synagogue to be built in Rome, and he gave as a gift to this synagogue a scroll of the Torah known as the Severus Scroll.
In legal matters, Alexander did much to aid the rights of his soldiers. He confirmed that soldiers could name anyone as heirs in their will, whereas civilians had strict restrictions over who could become heirs or receive a legacy. He also confirmed that soldiers could free their slaves in their wills, protected the rights of soldiers to their property when they were on campaign, and reasserted that a soldier's property acquired in or because of military service (his castrense peculium) could be claimed by no one else, not even the soldier's father.
Persian War
On the whole, Alexander's reign was prosperous until the rise of the Sassanids under Ardashir I. In 231 AD, Ardashir invaded the Roman provinces of the east, overrunning Mesopotamia and penetrating possibly as far as Syria and Cappadocia, forcing from the young Alexander a vigorous response. Of the war that followed there are various accounts. According to the most detailed authority, Herodian, the Roman armies suffered a number of humiliating setbacks and defeats, while according to the Historia Augusta as well as Alexander's own dispatch to the Roman Senate, he gained great victories. Making Antioch his base, he organized in 233 a three-fold invasion of the Sassanian Empire; at the head of the main body he himself advanced to recapture northern Mesopotamia, while another army invaded Media through the mountains of Armenia, and a third advanced from the south in the direction of Babylon. The northernmost army gained some success, fighting in mountainous territory favorable to the Roman infantry, but the southern army was surrounded and destroyed by Ardashir's skilful horse-archers, and Alexander himself retreated after an indecisive campaign, his army wracked by indiscipline and disease. Further losses were incurred by the retreating northern army in the inclement cold of Armenia as it retired into winter quarters, due to a failure through incompetence to establish adequate supply lines. Still, Mesopotamia was retaken, and Ardashir was not thereafter able to extend his conquests, though his son, Shapur, would obtain some success later in the century.
Although the Sassanids were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. In 232, there was a mutiny in the Syrian legion, which proclaimed Taurinus emperor. Alexander managed to suppress the uprising, and Taurinus drowned while attempting to flee across the Euphrates. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph in 233.
Military discipline
Alexander's reign was also characterized by a significant breakdown of military discipline. In 228, the Praetorian Guard murdered their prefect, Ulpian, in Alexander's presence. Alexander could not openly punish the ringleader of the riot, and instead removed him to a nominal post of honor in Egypt and then Crete, where he was "quietly put out of the way" sometime after the excitement had abated. The soldiers then fought a three-day battle against the populace of Rome, and this battle ended after several parts of the city were set on fire.
Dio was among those who gave a highly critical account of military discipline during the time, saying that the soldiers would rather just surrender to the enemy. Different reasons are given for this issue; Campbell points to ...the decline in the prestige of the Severan dynasty, the feeble nature of Alexander himself, who appeared to be no soldier and to be completely dominated by his mother's advice, and lack of real military success at a time during which the empire was coming under increasing pressure.
Herodian, on the other hand, was convinced that "the emperor's miserliness (partly the result of his mother's greed) and slowness to bestow donatives" were instrumental in the fall of military discipline under Alexander.
Germanic War
After the Persian war, Alexander returned to Antioch with Origen, one of the Fathers of the Christian Church. Alexander's mother, Julia Mamaea, asked for Origen to tutor Alexander in Christianity.
While Alexander was being educated in the Christian doctrines, the northern portion of his empire was being invaded by Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. A new and menacing enemy started to emerge directly after Alexander's success in the Persian war. In 234, the barbarians crossed the Rhine and Danube in hordes that caused alarm as far as Rome. The soldiers serving under Alexander, already demoralized after their costly war against the Persians, were further discontented with their emperor when their homes were destroyed by the barbarian invaders.
As word of the invasion spread, the emperor took the front line and went to battle against the Germanic invaders. The Romans prepared heavily for the war, building a fleet to carry the entire army across. However, at this point in Alexander's career, he still knew little about being a general. Because of this, he hoped the mere threat of his armies would be sufficient to persuade the hostile tribes to surrender. Severus enforced a strict military discipline in his men that sparked a rebellion among his legions. Due to incurring heavy losses against the Persians, and on the advice of his mother, Alexander attempted to buy the Germanic tribes off, so as to gain time.
It was this decision that resulted in the legionaries looking down upon Alexander. They considered him dishonorable and feared he was unfit to be Emperor. Under these circumstances the army swiftly looked to replace Alexander.
Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus was the next best option. He was a soldier from Thrace who had a golden reputation and was working hard to increase his military status. He was also a man with superior personal strength, who rose to his present position from a peasant background. With the Thracian's hailing came the end of the Severan Dynasty, and, with the growing animosity of Severus' army towards him, the path for his assassination was paved.
Assassination
Alexander was forced to face his German enemies in the early months of 235. By the time he and his mother arrived, the situation had settled, and so his mother convinced him that to avoid violence, trying to bribe the German army to surrender was the more sensible course of action. According to historians, it was this tactic combined with insubordination from his own men that destroyed his reputation and popularity. Alexander was thus assassinated together with his mother on 21 or 22 March, in a mutiny of the Legio XXII Primigenia at Moguntiacum (Mainz) while at a meeting with his generals. These assassinations secured the throne for Maximinus.
The Historia Augusta documents two theories that elaborate on Severus's assassination. The first claims that the disaffection of Mamaea was the main motive behind the homicide. However, Lampridius makes it clear that he is more supportive of an alternative theory, that Alexander was murdered in Sicilia (located in Britain).
This theory has it that, in an open tent after his lunch, Alexander was consulting with his insubordinate troops, who compared him to his cousin Elagabalus, the divisive and unpopular Emperor whose own assassination paved the way for Alexander's reign. A German servant entered the tent and initiated the call for Alexander's assassination, at which point many of the troops joined in the attack. Alexander's attendants fought against the other troops but could not hold off the combined might of those seeking the Emperor's assassination. Within minutes, Alexander was dead. His mother, Julia Mamaea, was in the same tent with Alexander and soon fell victim to the same group of assassins.
Alexander's body was buried together with the body of his mother, Julia Mamaea, in a mausoleum in Rome. The actual mausoleum, called , is the third largest in Rome after those of Hadrian and Augustus. It is still visible in Piazza dei Tribuni, in the Quadraro area in Rome, where it resembles a large earth mound. The large sarcophagus found inside the tomb in the 16th century, and which contained the emperor's remains, is in the Palazzo dei Conservatori Museum in Rome. According to some sources inside the same sarcophagus in 1582 a precious glass urn was found, the Portland Vase, currently on display at the British Museum in London.
Legacy
Alexander's death marked the end of the Severan dynasty. He was the last of the Syrian emperors and the first emperor to be overthrown by military discontent on a wide scale. After his death his economic policies were completely discarded, and the Roman currency was devalued; this signaled the beginning of the chaotic period known as the Crisis of the Third Century, which brought the empire to the brink of collapse.
Alexander's death at the hands of his troops can also be seen as the heralding of a new role for Roman emperors. Though they were not yet expected to personally fight in battle during Alexander's time, emperors were increasingly expected to display general competence in military affairs. Thus, Alexander's taking of his mother's advice to not get involved in battle, his dishonorable and unsoldierly methods of dealing with the Germanic threat, and the relative failure of his military campaign against the Persians were all deemed highly unacceptable by the soldiers. Indeed, Maximinus was able to overthrow Alexander by "harping on his own military excellence in contrast to that feeble coward". Yet by arrogating the power to dethrone their emperor, the legions paved the way for a half-century of widespread chaos and instability.
Alexander was deified after the death of Maximinus in 238.
Portland Vase
Perhaps his most tangible legacy was the emergence in the 16th century of the cameo glass Portland Vase (or "Barberini Vase"), dated to around the reign of Augustus. This was allegedly found at the mausoleum of the emperor and his family at Monte Del Grano. The discovery of the vase is described by Pietro Santi Bartoli. Pietro Bartoli indicates that the vase contained the ashes of Severus Alexander. However, this together with the interpretations of the scenes depicted are the source of countless theories and disputed 'facts'. The vase passed through the hands of Sir William Hamilton Ambassador to the Royal Court in Naples, and in 1784 was sold to the Duchess of Portland, and has subsequently been known as the Portland Vase. After an attack by a disturbed man in the British Museum in 1845 smashed it into many fragments, the vase has been reconstructed three times. In 1786 the Portland vase had been borrowed from the 3rd Duke of Portland and copied in black Jasperware pottery by Josiah Wedgwood for his firm Wedgwood. He appears to have added some drapery to cover nudity, but his replicas were useful in the reconstructions.
Personal life
According to the Historia Augusta, Alexander's "chief amusement consisted in having young dogs play with little pigs." Herodian portrays him as a mother's boy.
Family
Alexander's only known wife was Sallustia Orbiana, Augusta, whom he married in 225 when she was 16 years old. Their marriage was arranged by Alexander's mother, Mamaea. According to historian Herodian, however, as soon as Orbiana received the title of Augusta, Mamaea became increasingly jealous and resentful of Alexander's wife due to Mamaea's excessive desire of all regal female titles. Alexander divorced and exiled Orbiana in 227, after her father, Seius Sallustius, was executed after being accused of treason.
According to Historia Augusta, a late Roman work containing biographies of emperors and others, and considered by scholars to be a work of dubious historical reliability, Alexander was also at some point married to Sulpicia Memmia, a member of one of the most ancient Patrician families in Rome and a daughter to a man of consular rank; her grandfather's name was Catulus. She is mentioned as his wife only in this later text, thus the marriage has been questioned.
The ancient historian Zosimus claimed that Alexander was married three times. A man named Varius Macrinus may have been Alexander's father-in-law, but it is uncertain if he was the same man as Seius Sallustius, the father of Memmia or the father of an entirely unknown third wife.
Alexander is not known to have fathered any children.
Christianity
The Historia Augusta claims that Alexander prayed every morning in his private chapel. He was extremely tolerant of Jews and Christians alike. He continued all privileges towards Jews during his reign, and the Augustan History relates that Alexander placed images of Abraham and Jesus in his oratory, along with other Roman deities and classical figures.
Severan dynasty family tree
See also
Severan dynasty family tree
Sassanid campaign of Severus Alexander
Mesopotamian campaigns of Ardashir I
References
Citations
Bibliography
Ancient sources
Cassius Dio ( 230), Roman History, Book 80
Herodian ( 240), Roman History, Book 6
Aurelius Victor att. ( 400), Epitome de Caesaribus
Historia Augusta, Life of Severus Alexander
Zosimus ( 500), Historia Nova
Joannes Zonaras ( 1120), Compendium of History
Modern sources
Although a few phrases appear to be copied from this encyclopedia, all of them are attributed here to primary sources.
External links
Severus Alexander on NumisWiki
Coins of Severus Alexander
208 births
235 deaths
3rd-century people
3rd-century Roman emperors
3rd-century murdered monarchs
Ancient child monarchs
Ancient Roman adoptees
Aurelii
Crisis of the Third Century
Deified Roman emperors
Emesene dynasty
3rd-century Roman consuls
Murdered Roman emperors
People from Homs
People from Roman Syria
Severan dynasty
Roman emperors to suffer posthumous denigration or damnatio memoriae
Roman pharaohs
Damnatio memoriae |
1601 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander | Alexander | Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Aleksander, Aleksandr and Alekzandr. Related names and diminutives include Iskandar, Alec, Alek, Alex, Alexandre, Aleks, Aleksa, Alasdair, Sasha, and Sander; feminine forms include Alexandra, Alexandria, and Sasha.
Etymology
The name Alexander originates from the (; 'defending men' or 'protector of men'). It is a compound of the verb (; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun (, genitive: , ; meaning 'man'). It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line.
The earliest attested form of the name, is the Mycenaean Greek feminine anthroponym , , (/Alexandra/), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, alternatively called Alakasandu or Alaksandus, was a king of Wilusa who sealed a treaty with the Hittite king Muwatalli II ca. 1280 BC; this is generally assumed to have been a Greek called Alexandros.
The name was one of the epithets given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is usually taken to mean "one who comes to save warriors". In the Iliad, the character Paris is known also as Alexander. The name's popularity was spread throughout the Greek world by the military conquests of King Alexander III, commonly known as "Alexander the Great". Most later Alexanders in various countries were directly or indirectly named after him.
People known as Alexander
Alexander has been the name of many rulers, including kings of Macedon, of Scotland, emperors of Russia and popes.
Rulers of antiquity
Alexander (Alexandros of Ilion), more often known as Paris of Troy
Alexander of Corinth, 10th king of Corinth (816–791 BC)
Alexander I of Macedon
Alexander II of Macedon
Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great
Alexander IV of Macedon
Alexander V of Macedon
Alexander of Pherae despot of Pherae between 369 and 358 BC
Alexander I of Epirus king of Epirus about 342 BC
Alexander II of Epirus king of Epirus 272 BC
Alexander of Corinth, viceroy of Antigonus Gonatas and ruler of a rump state based on Corinth c. 250 BC
Alexander (satrap) (died 220 BC), satrap of Persis under Seleucid king Antiochus III
Alexander Balas, ruler of the Seleucid kingdom of Syria between 150 and 146 BC
Alexander Zabinas, ruler of part of the Seleucid kingdom of Syria based in Antioch between 128 and 123 BC
Alexander Jannaeus king of Judea, 103–76 BC
Alexander of Judaea, son of Aristobulus II, king of Judaea
Alexander Severus (208–235), Roman emperor
Julius Alexander, lived in the 2nd century, an Emesene nobleman
Domitius Alexander, Roman usurper who declared himself emperor in 308
Rulers of the Middle Ages
Alexander, Byzantine Emperor (912–913)
Alexander I of Scotland (c. 1078–1124)
Alexander II of Scotland (1198–1249)
Alexander Nevsky (1220–1263), Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Vladimir
Alexander III of Scotland (1241–1286)
Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia, Voivode of Wallachia (died 1364)
Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria, tsar of Bulgaria (beginnings of the 14th century – 1371)
Aleksandr Mikhailovich of Tver, Prince of Tver as Alexander I and Grand Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal as Alexander II (1301–1339)
Sikandar Khan Ghazi, Vizier of Sylhet (from 1303)
Aleksander (1338–before 1386), Prince of Podolia (son of Narymunt)
Sikandar Shah Miri, better known as Sikandar Butshikan ("Sikandar the Iconoclast"), sixth sultan of the Shah Miri dynasty of Kashmir (1353–1413)
Sikandar Shah, Sultan of Bengal (1358–1390)
Alexander II of Georgia (1483–1510)
Alexandru I Aldea, ruler of the principality of Wallachia (1431–1436)
Eskender, Emperor of Ethiopia (1472–1494)
Alexander Jagiellon (Alexander of Poland), King of Poland (1461–1506)
Nuruddin Sikandar Shah, Sultan of Bengal (1481)
Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, Voivode of Moldavia (1499–1568)
Sikandar Shah of Gujarat, ruler of Gujarat Sultanate (died 1526)
Sikandar Shah Suri, Sur dynasty, Shah of Delhi (died 1559)
Alexandru II Mircea, Voivode or Prince of Wallachia (1529–1577)
Modern rulers
Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825), emperor of Russia
Alexander II of Russia (1818–1881), emperor of Russia
Alexander III of Russia (1845–1894), emperor of Russia
Alexander Karađorđević, Prince of Serbia (1842–1858)
Alexander of Bulgaria (1857–1893), first prince of modern Bulgaria
Alexandru Ioan Cuza, first prince of unified Romania (1859–1866)
Alexander I Obrenović of Serbia (1876–1903), king of Serbia
Alexander, Prince of Lippe (1831–1905), prince of Lippe
Alexander I of Yugoslavia (1888–1934), first king of Yugoslavia
Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia (born 1945), head of the Yugoslav Royal Family
Zog I, also known as Skenderbeg III (1895–1961), king of Albanians
Alexander of Greece (1893–1920), king of Greece
Leka, Crown Prince of Albania (1939–2011), king of Albanians (throne pretender)
Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands (born 1967), eldest child of Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus
Other royalty
Alexander, Judean Prince, one of the sons of Herod the Great from his wife Mariamne
Alexander Helios, Ptolemaic prince, one of the sons of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony
Alexander, Judean Prince, son to the above Alexander and Cappadocian princess Glaphyra
Alexander (d. 1418), son of Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman
Prince Alexander John of Wales (1871), short-lived son of Edward VII
Prince Alexandre of Belgium (1942–2009)
Prince Alfred of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1874–1899)
Olav V of Norway (Prince Alexander of Denmark) (1903–1991)
Religious leaders
Pope Alexander I (pope 97–105)
Alexander of Apamea, 5th-century bishop of Apamea
Pope Alexander II (pope 1058–1061)
Pope Alexander III (pope 1159–1181)
Pope Alexander IV (pope 1243–1254)
Pope Alexander V ("Peter Philarges" c. 1339–1410)
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), Roman pope
Pope Alexander VII (1599–1667)
Pope Alexander VIII (pope 1689–1691)
Alexander of Constantinople, bishop of Constantinople (314–337)
St. Alexander of Alexandria, Coptic Pope, Patriarch of Alexandria between 313 and 328
Pope Alexander II of Alexandria, Coptic Pope (702–729)
Alexander of Lincoln, bishop of Lincoln
Alexander of Jerusalem
See also Saint Alexander, various saints with this name
Other people
Antiquity
Alexander (artists), the name of a number of artists of ancient Greece and Rome
Alexander of Lyncestis (died 330 BC), contemporary of Alexander the Great
Alexander (son of Polyperchon) (died 314 BC), regent of Macedonia
Alexander (Antigonid general), 3rd-century BC cavalry commander under Antigonus III Doson
Alexander of Athens, 3rd-century BC Athenian comic poet
Alexander Aetolus (), poet and member of the Alexandrian Pleiad
Alexander (son of Lysimachus) (), Macedonian royal
Alexander (grandson of Seleucus I Nicator) (), Greek Anatolian nobleman
Alexander (Aetolian general), briefly conquered Aegira in 220 BC
Alexander of Acarnania (died 191 BC), confidante of Antiochus III the Great
Alexander Isius (), Aetolian military commander
Alexander Lychnus, early 1st-century BC poet and historian
Alexander Philalethes, 1st century BC physician
Alexander Polyhistor, Greek scholar of the 1st century BC
Alexander of Myndus, ancient Greek writer on zoology and divination
Alexander of Aegae, peripatetic philosopher of the 1st century AD
Alexander of Cotiaeum, 2nd-century Greek grammarian and tutor of Marcus Aurelius
Alexander Numenius, 2nd-century Greek rhetorician
Alexander Peloplaton, 2nd-century Greek rhetorician
Alexander of Abonoteichus (), Greek religious leader and imposter
Alexander of Aphrodisias (), Greek commentator and philosopher
Alexander of Lycopolis, 4th-century author of an early Christian treatise against Manicheans
Alexander, a member of the Jerusalem Temple Sanhedrin mentioned in Acts 4:6
Middle Ages
Alexander of Hales, English theologian in the 13th century
Modern
Alexander (magician) (1880–1954), American stage magician specializing in mentalism
People with the given name
People with the given name Alexander or variants include:
Technoblade (1999–2022), American YouTuber, real name Alexander, surname not made public
Alexander Aigner (1909–1988), Austrian mathematician
Alexander Albon (born 1996), Thai-British racing driver
Aleksander Allila (1890–?), Finnish politician
Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov (1883–1946), Russian composer
Alexander Argov (1914–1995), Russian-born Israeli composer
Alexander Armah (born 1994), American football player
Alexander Armstrong (born 1970), British comedian and singer
Aleksandr Averbukh (born 1974), Israeli pole vaulter
Alex Baldock (born 1970), British businessman
Alec Baldwin (born 1958), American actor
Alexander Björk (born 1990), Swedish golfer
Alexander Borodin (1833–1887), Russian composer
Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), Scottish inventor of the first practical telephone
Aleksander Barkov (born 1995), Finnish ice hockey player
Alexander Calder (1898–1976), American sculptor best known for making mobiles
Aleksandr Davidovich (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Davidson (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Day (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Nicholas de Abrew Abeysinghe (1894–1963), Sri Lankan Sinhala politician
Alex DeBrincat (born 1997), American ice hockey player
Alexander Edmund de Silva Wijegooneratne Samaraweera Rajapakse (1866–1937), Sri Lankan Sinhala politician
Aleksandar Djordjevic (born 1967), Serbian basketball player
Alexander Dubček (1921–1992), leader of Czechoslovakia (1968–1969)
Alex Ebert (born 1978), American singer-songwriter
Alexander Lee (born 1988), also known as Alexander or Xander, South Korean singer, member of U-KISS
Alexander Exarch (1810–1891), Bulgarian revivalist, publicist and journalist, participant in the struggle for an independent Bulgarian Exarchate
Alex Ferguson (born 1941), Scottish football player and manager
Alexander Fleming (1881–1955), Scottish discoverer of penicillin
Alexander Zusia Friedman (1897–1943), Polish rabbi, educator, activist, and journalist
Aleksander Gabelic (born 1965), Swedish politician
Alex Galchenyuk (born 1994), American ice hockey player
Alexander Gardner (disambiguation), multiple people
Alexander Glazunov (1865–1936), Russian composer
Alexander Goldberg (born 1974), British rabbi, barrister, and human rights activist
Alexander Goldberg (chemical engineer), Israeli chemical engineer and President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Alexander Goldscheider (born 1950), Czech/British composer, producer and writer
Alexander Gomelsky (1928–2005), Russian head coach of USSR basketball national team for 30 years
Alexander Gordon (disambiguation), several people
Aleksandr Gordon (1931–2020), Russian-Soviet director, screenwriter and actor
Aleksandr Gorelik (1945–2012), Soviet figure skater
Alexander Gould (born 1994), American actor
Alexander Grothendieck (1928–2014), German-born French mathematician
Alexander Gustafsson (born 1987), Swedish mixed martial arts fighter
Alexander Haig (1924–2010), American general and politician
Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), first United States Secretary of the Treasury and one of the founding fathers of the United States
Alexander Hamilton Jr. (1786–1875), American attorney and son of Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton Jr. (1816–1889), son of James Alexander Hamilton and grandson of Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Held (born 1958), German actor
Alexander Henn, German anthropologist
Alexander Henry (1823–1883), mayor of Philadelphia
Alex Higgins (1949–2010), Northern Irish snooker player
Alexander Hollins (born 1996), American football player
Alexander Holtz (born 2002), Swedish ice hockey player
Alex Horne (born 1978), British comedian
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), Prussian naturalist and explorer
Alexander Ilečko (1937–2023), Slovak sculptor
Alex Jones (born 1974), American radio show host and conspiracy theorist
Aleksandr Kamshalov (1932–2019), Soviet politician
Alex Kapranos (born 1972), Scottish musician, author, songwriter and producer, front-man of Franz Ferdinand
Aleksandar Katai (born 1991), Serbian footballer
Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970) leader of Russian Provisional Government
Alexander Kerfoot (born 1994), Canadian ice hockey player
Alex Killorn (born 1989), Canadian ice hockey player
Alexander Klingspor (born 1977), Swedish painter and sculptor
Aleksandr Kogan (born 1985/86), Moldovan-born American psychologist and data scientist
Alexander Korda (1893–1956), Hungarian film director
Alexander Kucheryavenko (born 1987), Russian ice hockey player
Aleksander Kwaśniewski (born 1954), former President of Poland
Aleksander Lesser (1814–1884), Polish painter, illustrator, and art critic
Alexander Levinsky (1910–1990), Canadian ice hockey player
Alexander Ivanovich Levitov (1835–1877), Russian writer
Alexander Lévy (born 1990), French golfer
Alexandre Lippmann (1881–1960), French épée fencer
Alexander Ludwig (born 1992), Canadian actor
Alexander "Sandy" Lyle (born 1958), Scottish golfer
Alexander Lukashenko (born 1954), President of Belarus
Alex Manninger (born 1977), Austrian footballer
Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), Italian poet and novelist
Alexander "Ali" Marpet (born 1993), American football player
Aleksandr Marshal (born 1957), Russian singer, songwriter, and musician
Alexander Mattison (born 1998), American football player
Alexander McClure (1828–1909), American politician, editor and writer
Alexander Lyell McEwin (1897–1988), known as Lyell McEwin, Australian politician, Minister for Health
Alexander McQueen (1969–2010), British fashion designer and couturier
Alexander Michel Melki (born 1992), Swedish-Lebanese footballer
Alexander Mirsky (born 1964), Latvian politician
Alexander Francis Molamure (1888–1951), 1st Speaker of the State Council of Ceylon and 1st Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka
Alessandro Moreschi (1858–1922), Italian castrato singer
Aleksandr Nikolayev (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Nikolov (boxer) (born 1940), Bulgarian boxer
Alex Norén (born 1982), Swedish golfer
Alexander Nylander (born 1998), Swedish ice hockey player
Alexander O'Neal (born 1953), American singer
Alexander Ovechkin (born 1985), Russian hockey player
Alexander Patch (1889–1945), American general during World War II
Aleksandr Panayotov, Russian-Ukrainian singer and songwriter
Alexander Pechtold (born 1965), Dutch politician
Alexander Penn (1906–1972), Israeli poet
Alexander Perera Jayasuriya (1901–1980), Sri Lankan Sinhala MP and Cabinet Minister
Alexander Pichushkin (born 1974), prolific Russian serial killer
Alex Pietrangelo (born 1990), Canadian ice hockey player
Alexander Piorkowski (1904–1948), German Nazi SS concentration camp commandant executed for war crimes
Alexander Ponomarenko (born 1964), Russian billionaire businessman
Alexander Pope (1688–1744), English poet
Alexander Popov (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Ptushko (1900–1973), Russian film director
Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Russian writer
Alexander Radulov (born 1986), Russian ice hockey player
Alexander Ragoza (1858–1919), Russian general in World War I
Alexander Rendell (born 1990), Thai actor and singer
Alex Rodriguez (born 1975), Major League Baseball star, won 3 AL MVP awards, also known as A-Rod
Alexander Rou (1906–1973), Russian film director
Alexander Rowe (born 1992), Australian athlete
Alexander Rudolph ("Al McCoy"; 1894–1966), American boxer
Alexander Rybak (born 1986), Belarusian-born Norwegian artist and violinist
Alexander Salkind (1921–1997), French film producer
Alexander Scholz (born 1992), Danish footballer
Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915), Russian composer and pianist
Alexander Selkirk (1676–1721), Scottish privateer and Royal Navy officer
Alexander Semin (born 1984), Russian hockey player
Aleksander Serov (born 1954), Russian singer
Alexander Serov (1820–1871), Russian composer
Alexander Shatilov (born 1987), Uzbek-Israeli artistic gymnast
Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin (1925–2014), American chemist, psychopharmacologist, and author
Alexander Sieghart (born 1994), Thai footballer
Alexander Skarsgård (born 1976), Swedish actor
Alexander Stafford, British politician
Alexander Stavenitz (1901–1960), Russian Empire-born American visual artist and educator
Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800), Russian military leader, considered a national hero, Count of Rymnik, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Prince of Italy, and the last Generalissimo of the Russian Empire
Alexander McCall Smith (born 1948), Scottish writer
Alexander Solonik (1960–1997), Russian murder victim
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), Russian writer, Nobel laureate, Soviet dissident
Alexander Steen (born 1984), Swedish ice hockey player
Alexander Stubb (born 1968), Finnish politician, president of Finland 2024-2030
Alexandre Texier (born 1999), French ice hockey player
Alexander Thorburn (1836–1894), Canadian politician
Alexander Tikhonov (born 1947), Russian biathlete
Alex Turner (born 1986), British musician, songwriter and producer, front-man of Arctic Monkeys and The Last Shadow Puppets
Alexander Vainberg (born 1961), Russian politician
Lex van Dam (born 1968), Dutch trader and TV personality
Alexander Van der Bellen (born 1944), President of Austria
Alexander Varchenko (born 1949), Russian mathematician
Aleksander Veingold (born 1953), Estonian and Soviet chess player and coach
Aleksandr Vlasov (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Volkanovski (born 1988), UFC Fighter
Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), Italian physicist
Alexander Wennberg (born 1994), Swedish ice hockey player
Alexander Wilson (disambiguation), several people
Alexander Wijemanne, Sri Lankan Sinhala lawyer and politician
Alex Zanardi (born 1966), Italian racing driver and paracyclist
Aleksandar Zečević (born 1996), Serbian basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League
Oleksandr Zubov (born 1983), Ukrainian chess player and Grandmaster
Alexander Zverev (born 1997), German tennis player
In other languages
Afrikaans: Alexander
Albanian: Aleksandër
Albanian diminutive: Leka
Amharic: እስክንድር (Isikinidiri, Eskender)
Arabic: (Iskandar)
Armenian: Ալեքսանդր (Aleksandr)
Asturian: Alexandru, Xandru
Azerbaijani: İsgəndər/Исҝәндәр/ایسگندر, Aleksandr/Александр/آلئکساندر
Basque: Alesander
Belarusian: Аляксандр (Aliaksandr), Алесь (Ales)
Bengali: সিকান্দর (Sikandor)
Bulgarian: Александър (Aleksandŭr), Сашко (Sashko)
Catalan: Alexandre/Aleixandre
Chinese:
Historical:
Traditional: , Simplified: , Baxter-Sagart:
Traditional and Simplified: , Baxter Romanization: 'a lejH sanH
Contemporary: Traditional: , Simplified: , Pinyin: Yàlìshāndà, Jyutping: aa3 lik6 saan1 daai6, Wugniu: iá-liq-sé-da, BUC: Ā-lĭk-săng-dâi
Czech: Alexandr, Alexander
Danish: Aleksander, Alexander
Dutch: Alexander
Esperanto: Aleksandro
Estonian: Aleksander
English: Alexander
Finnish: Aleksanteri
French: Alexandre
Galician: Alexandre
Georgian: ალექსანდრე (Aleksandre)
German: Alexander
Greek
Mycenaean Greek: 𐀀𐀩𐀏𐀭𐀅𐀫 (Aléxandros)
Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros)
Koine Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros)
Modern Greek: Αλέξανδρος (Aléxandros)
Hawaiian: Alekanekelo
Hebrew: אלכסנדר (Aleksander)
Hindi: सिकंदर (Sikandar)
Hungarian: Sándor, Alexander, Elek
Icelandic: Alexander
Indonesian: Iskandar, Alexander
Irish: Alastar
Italian: Alessandro
Japanese: アレキサンダー (Arekisandā)
Korean: 알렉산더 (Alleksandeo)
Kazakh: Искандер (Iskander)
Kyrgyz: Искендер (Iskender)
Latin: Alexander
Latvian: Aleksandrs
Lithuanian: Aleksandras
Macedonian: Александар (Aleksandar), Сашко (Sashko, Saško)
Malay: Iskandar
Malayalam
Syriac Origin : ചാണ്ടി (t͡ʃaːɳʈI), ഇടിക്കുള (IʈIkkʊɭa)
Greek Origin : അലക്സിയോസ് (alaksIyos), അലക്സി (alaksI)
Anglican Origin : അലക്സാണ്ടര് (alaksa:ndar), അലക്സ് (alaks)
Mongolian: Александр (Alyeksandr)
Norwegian: Aleksander, Alexander
Pashto: سکندر (Sikandar)
Persian: (Aleksânder), (Eskandar)
Polish: Aleksander
Portuguese: Alexandre, Alexandro, Alessandro, Leandro
Punjabi: Sikandar
Romanian: Alexandru, Alex, Sandu
Russian: Александр (Aleksandr), Саша (Sasha)
Rusyn: Александер (Aleksander)
Sanskrit: अलक्षेन्द्र (Alakṣendra)
Scottish: Alasdair, Alastair, Alistair, Alister
Serbo-Croatian: Александар / Aleksandar
Slovak: Alexander
Slovene: Aleksander
Spanish: Alejandro
Swedish: Alexander
Tagalog: Alejandro
Turkish: İskender
Ukrainian: Олександр (Oleksandr, sometimes anglicized Olexander), Сашко (Sashko), Олесь (Oles), Олелько (Olelko)
Urdu: سکندر (Sikandar)
Valencian: Alecsandro, Aleksandro, Aleixandre, Alexandre
Vietnamese: Alexander, A Lịch San
Welsh: Alexander
Yiddish: אלעקסאנדער (Aleksander)
Variants and diminutives
Al
Ale
Alex
Alexey
Xander
Sasha/Sash
Alexsander
Alixander
See also
Alex (disambiguation)
Alexandra
Justice Alexander (disambiguation)
Alexander (surname)
Hera Alexandros, epithet of the Greek goddess Hera
References
Armenian masculine given names
Czech masculine given names
Danish masculine given names
Dutch masculine given names
English-language masculine given names
English masculine given names
German masculine given names
Irish masculine given names
Given names of Greek language origin
Masculine given names
Norwegian masculine given names
Russian masculine given names
Slavic masculine given names
Swedish masculine given names
Welsh masculine given names
Welsh given names |
1602 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20I | Alexander I | Alexander I may refer to:
Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon from 495–454 BC
Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus
Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas, ruler of the Seleucid Empire 150-145 BC
Pope Alexander I (died 115), early bishop of Rome
Pope Alexander I of Alexandria (died 320s), patriarch of Alexandria
Alexander I of Scotland ( – 1124), king of Scotland
Aleksandr Mikhailovich of Tver (1301–1339), prince of Tver as Alexander I
Alexander I of Georgia (1386–?), king of Georgia
Alexander I of Moldavia (died 1432), prince of Moldavia
Alexander I of Kakheti (1445–1511), king of Kakheti
Alexander Jagiellon (1461–1506), king of Poland
Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825), emperor of Russia
Alexander of Battenberg (1857–1893), prince of Bulgaria
Alexander I of Serbia (1876–1903), king of Serbia
Alexander I of Yugoslavia (1888–1934), king of Yugoslavia
Alexander of Greece (1893–1920), king of Greece
See also
King Alexander (disambiguation) |
1603 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20II | Alexander II | Alexander II may refer to:
Alexander II of Macedon, king of Macedon from 370 to 368 BC
Alexander II of Epirus (died 260 BC), king of Epirus in 272 BC
Alexander II Zabinas, king of the Greek Seleucid kingdom in 128–123 BC
Alexander (912–913), Eastern Roman emperor
Pope Alexander II of Alexandria, ruled in 702–729
Patriarch Alexander II of Alexandria
Pope Alexander II (died 1073), pope from 1061 to 1073
Alexander II of Scotland (1198–1249), king of Scots
Alexander II of Imereti (died 1510), king of Georgia and of Imereti
Alexander II of Kakheti (1527–1605), king of Kakheti
Alexander II Mircea
Alexander II of Russia (1818–1881), emperor of Russia
Alexander II of Yugoslavia (born 1945), crown prince of Serbia
See also
King Alexander (disambiguation) |
1604 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20III | Alexander III | Alexander III may refer to:
Alexander III of Macedon (356 BC – 323 BC), also known as Alexander the Great
Alexander (Byzantine emperor) (870–913), Byzantine emperor
Pope Alexander III (1100s–1181)
, grand duke of Vladimir (1328–1331), prince of Suzdal
Alexander III of Scotland (1241–1286), king of Scotland
Alexander III of Imereti (1609–1660), king of Imereti
Alexander III of Russia (1845–1894), emperor of Russia
, an arch bridge that spans the Seine in Paris
Russian battleship , Russian warship
Alexander III of Antioch (1869–1958), Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch
See also
King Alexander (disambiguation) |
1605 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20Aetolus | Alexander Aetolus | Alexander Aetolus (, Ἀléxandros ὁ Aἰtōlós) was a Greek poet and grammarian, the only known representative of Aetolian poetry.
Life
Alexander was the son of Satyrus (Σάτυρος) and Stratocleia (Στρατόκλεια), and was a native of Pleuron in Aetolia, although he spent the greater part of his life at Alexandria, where he was reckoned one of the seven tragic poets who constituted the Tragic Pleiad.
Alexander flourished about 280 BC, in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. He had an office in the Library of Alexandria, and was commissioned by Ptolemy to make a collection of all the tragedies and satyric dramas that were extant. He spent some time, together with Antagoras and Aratus, at the court of Antigonus II Gonatas.
Notwithstanding the distinction Alexander enjoyed as a tragic poet, he appears to have had greater merit as a writer of epic poems, elegies, epigrams, and cynaedi. Among his epic poems, we possess the titles and some fragments of three pieces: the Fisherman, Kirka or Krika, which, however, is designated by Athenaeus as doubtful, and Helena, Of his elegies, some beautiful fragments are still extant.<ref>Scholiast and Eustathius, ad Il. iii. 314</ref> His Cynaedi, or Ionic poems'' (), are mentioned by Strabo and Athenaeus. Some anapaestic verses in praise of Euripides are preserved in Gellius.
References
Sources
Further reading
J U Powell (ed), Collectanea Alexandrina: reliquiae minores poetarum graecorum aetatis ptolemaicae, 323–146 A.C. (1972)
Enrico Magnelli (ed), Alexandri Aetoli Testimonia et Fragmenta. Studi e Testi 15. (1999)
Ancient Aetolians
Ancient Greek dramatists and playwrights
Ancient Greek poets
Tragic poets
Ancient Greek epic poets
Ancient Greek epigrammatists
Ancient Greek elegiac poets
3rd-century BC Greek people
3rd-century BC poets
Ptolemaic court
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
Hellenistic poets |
1607 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20IV | Alexander IV | Alexander IV may refer to:
Pope Alexander IV (1199 or –1261)
Alexander IV of Macedon (323 BC–309 BC), son of Alexander the Great
Alexander IV of Imereti (died 1695), of the Bagrationi Dynasty, king of Imereti (western Georgia) |
1608 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20V | Alexander V | Alexander V may refer to:
Alexander V of Macedon (died 294 BCE)
Antipope Alexander V (–1410)
Alexander V of Imereti (–1752) |
1612 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrists | 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.
References
Attribution:
Christian philosophers |
1614 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis%20%28poet%29 | Alexis (poet) | Alexis (; 350s288 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 () 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.
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:
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
Augustus Meineke. Poetarum Graecorum comicorum fragmenta, (1855).
Theodor Kock. Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta, i. (1880).
Colin Austin and Rudolf Kassel. Poetae Comici Graeci. vol. 2.
Notes
References
Arnott, W. Geoffrey. Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
External links
3rd-century BC Greek writers
Ancient Greek centenarians
Ancient Greek dramatists and playwrights
Poets of Magna Graecia
Middle Comic poets
Men centenarians
Metics in Classical Athens
People from the Province of Cosenza
Italiotes
4th-century BC births
3rd-century BC deaths |
1620 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei%20Petrovich%2C%20Tsarevich%20of%20Russia | Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia | Grand Duke Alexei Petrovich of Russia (28 February 1690 – 26 June 1718) was a Russian Tsarevich. He was born in Moscow, the son of Tsar Peter I and his first wife, Eudoxia Lopukhina. Alexei despised his father and repeatedly thwarted Peter's plans to raise him as successor to the throne, to continue his policies. His brief defection to Austria scandalized the Russian government, leading to harsh reprisals against Alexei and his associates. Alexei died after interrogation under torture, and his younger half brother Peter Petrovich became the new heir apparent.
Childhood
The young Alexei was brought up by his mother, who fostered an atmosphere of disdain towards his father, the Tsar. Alexei's relations with his father suffered from the hatred between his father and his mother, as it was very difficult for him to feel affection for his mother's worst persecutor. From the ages of 6 to 9, Alexei was educated by his tutor Vyazemsky, but after the removal of his mother by Peter the Great to the , Alexei was confined to the care of educated foreigners, who taught him history, geography, mathematics and French.
Military career
In 1703, Alexei was ordered to follow the army to the field as a private in an artillery regiment. In 1704, he was present at the capture of Narva. At this period, the preceptors of the Tsarevich had the highest opinion of his ability. Alexei had strong leanings towards archaeology and ecclesiology. However, Peter had wished his son and heir to dedicate himself to the service of new Russia, and demanded from him unceasing labour in order to maintain Russia's new wealth and power. Painful relations between father and son, quite apart from the prior personal antipathies, were therefore inevitable. It was an additional misfortune for Alexei that his father should have been too busy to attend to him just as he was growing up from boyhood to manhood. He was left in the hands of reactionary boyars and priests, who encouraged him to hate his father and wish for the death of the Tsar.
In 1708, Peter sent Alexei to Smolensk to collect supplies and recruits, and after that to Moscow to fortify it against Charles XII of Sweden. At the end of 1709, Alexei went to Dresden for one year. There, he finished lessons in French, German, mathematics and fortification. After his education, Alexei married Princess Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, whose family was connected by marriage to many of the great families of Europe (for example, Charlotte's sister Elizabeth was married to Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy). He met with Princess Charlotte, both were pleased with each other and the marriage went forward. In theory, Alexei could have refused the marriage, and he had been encouraged by his father to at least meet his intended. "Why haven't you written to tell me what you thought about her?" wrote Peter in a letter dated 13 August 1710.
The marriage contract was signed in September. The wedding was celebrated at Torgau, Germany, on 14 October 1711 (O.S.). One of the terms of the marriage contract agreed to by Alexei was that while any forthcoming children were to be raised in the Orthodox faith, Charlotte herself was allowed to retain her Protestant faith, an agreement opposed by Alexei's followers.
As for the marriage itself, the first 6 months went well but quickly became a failure within the next 6 months. Alexei was drunk constantly and pronounced his bride "pock-marked" and "too thin". He insisted on separate apartments and ignored her in public.
Three weeks later, the bridegroom was hurried away by his father to Toruń to superintend the provisioning of the Russian troops in Poland. For the next twelve months Alexei was kept constantly on the move. His wife joined him at Toruń in December, but in April 1712 a peremptory ukase ordered him off to the army in Pomerania, and in the autumn of the same year he was forced to accompany his father on a tour of inspection through Finland.
He had two children with Charlotte:
Natalia Alexeievna Romanova (21 July 1714 – 3 December 1728)
Peter Alexeyevich Romanov (23 October 1715 – 30 January 1730)
Peter Alexeyevich would succeed as the Emperor Peter II in 1727. With his death in 1730, the direct male-line of the House of Romanov became extinct.
After the birth of Natalia in 1714, Alexei brought his long-time Finnish serf mistress Afrosinia to live in the palace. Some historians speculate that it was his conservative powerbase's disapproval of his foreign, non-Orthodox bride, more so than her appearance, that caused Alexei to spurn Charlotte. Another influence was Alexander Kikin, a high-placed official who had fallen out with the Tsar and had been deprived of his estates.
Flight
Immediately on his return from Finland, Alexei was dispatched by his father to Staraya Russa and Lake Ladoga to see to the building of new ships. This was the last commission entrusted to him, since Peter had not been satisfied with his son's performance and his lack of enthusiasm. When Peter asked Alexei to show his progress in mechanics and mathematics, the son responded by shooting himself in the right hand, and Peter took no more interest in him. Nevertheless, Peter made one last effort to reclaim his son. On 22 October 1715 (O.S.), Charlotte died, after giving birth to a son, the grand-duke Peter, the future Emperor Peter II. On the day of the funeral, Peter sent Alexei a stern letter, urging him to take interest in the affairs of the state. Peter threatened to cut him off if he did not acquiesce in his father's plans. Alexei wrote a pitiful reply to his father, offering to renounce the succession in favour of his infant son Peter. Peter would agree but on the condition that Alexei remove himself as a dynastic threat and become a monk.
While Alexei was pondering his options, on 26 August 1716 Peter wrote from abroad, urging him, if he desired to remain tsarevich, to join him and the army without delay. Rather than face this ordeal, Alexei fled to Vienna and placed himself under the protection of his brother-in-law, the emperor Charles VI, who sent him for safety first to the Tirolean fortress of Ehrenberg (near Reutte), and finally to the castle of Sant'Elmo at Naples. He was accompanied throughout his journey by Afrosinia. That the emperor sincerely sympathized with Alexei, and suspected Peter of harbouring murderous designs against his son, is plain from his confidential letter to George I of Great Britain, whom he consulted on this delicate affair. Peter felt insulted: the flight of the tsarevich to a foreign potentate was a reproach and a scandal, and he had to be recovered and brought back to Russia at all costs. This difficult task was accomplished by Count Peter Tolstoi, the most subtle and unscrupulous of Peter's servants.
Return
Alexei would only consent to return if his father swore that if he came back, he would not be punished and would be allowed to live quietly on his estates and marry Afrosinia.
On 31 January 1718, the tsarevich reached Moscow. Peter had already determined to institute an inquisition in order to understand the reasons for Alexei's flight. On 18 February a confession was extorted from Alexei which implicated most of his friends, and he then publicly renounced the succession to the throne in favour of the baby grand-duke Peter Alexeyevich.
A brutal reign of terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa Eudoxia was dragged from her monastery and publicly tried for alleged adultery. Friends of Alexei were impaled, broken on the wheel, or otherwise tortured to death. Alexei's servants were beheaded or had their tongues cut out. All this was done to terrorize the reactionaries and isolate the tsarevich.
In April 1718 fresh confessions were extorted from, and in regard to, Alexei. This included the words of Afrosinia, who had turned state's evidence. "I shall bring back the old people ...", Alexei is reported to have told her,
and choose myself new ones according to my will;
when I become sovereign I shall live in Moscow and leave Saint Petersburg simply as any other town; I won't launch any ships; I shall maintain troops only for defense, and won't make war on anyone; I shall be content with the old domains. In winter I shall live in Moscow, and in summer in Iaroslavl.
Despite this and other hearsay evidence, there was no direct evidence. The worst that could be brought against him was that he had wished his father's death. In the eyes of Peter, his son was now a self-convicted and dangerous traitor, whose life was forfeit. However, his father had sworn to pardon him and let him live in peace if he returned to Russia. The whole matter was solemnly submitted to a grand council of prelates, senators, ministers and other dignitaries on 13 June 1718 (O.S.). The clergy, for their part, declared that the Tsarevich Alexei
... had placed his Confidence in those who loved the ancient Customs, and that he had become acquainted with them by the Discourses they held, wherein they had constantly praised the ancient Manners, and spoke with Distaste of the Novelties his Father had introduced.
Declaring this to be a civil rather than an ecclesiastical matter, the clergy left the matter to the tsar's own decision.
At noon on 24 June (O.S.), the temporal dignitaries – the 126 members of both the Senate and magistrates that comprised the court – declared Alexei guilty and sentenced him to death. Still, Peter was so desperate to uncover any possible collusion that the examination by torture continued.
On 19 June (O.S.), the weak and ailing tsarevich received twenty-five strokes with the knout, and then, on 24 June (O.S.), he was subject to fifteen more. On 26 June (O.S.), Alexei died in the Peter and Paul fortress in Saint Petersburg, two days after the senate had condemned him to death for conspiring rebellion against his father, and for hoping for the cooperation of the common people and the armed intervention of his brother-in-law, Emperor Charles VI.
Ancestry
References
Attribution:
Further reading
Grey, Ian. "Peter the Great and the Tsarevich Alexei" History Today (Nov 1974), Vol. 24 Issue 11, pp 754–764, online.
Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978).
Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs 1613–1725 (London, 1905).
Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great, His Life and World (New York: Ballantine, 1981).
B.H. Sumner, Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia (London: 1950), pp 91–100.
Fredrick Charles Weber, The Present State of Russia (2 vols.), (1723; reprint, London: Frank Cass and Co, 1968).
Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998).
Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs 1613–1918 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016).
External links
1690 births
1718 deaths
Royalty from Moscow
House of Romanov
Heirs apparent who never acceded
Prisoners who died in Russian detention
Russian people who died in prison custody
17th-century Russian people
18th-century people from the Russian Empire
Tsareviches of Russia
Burials at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg
Sons of Russian emperors
Prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress |
1629 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August%2024 | August 24 |
Events
Pre-1600
367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father.
394 – The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is written.
410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.
1200 – King John of England, signer of the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoulême in Angoulême Cathedral.
1215 – Pope Innocent III issues a bull declaring Magna Carta invalid.
1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.
1482 – The town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army.
1516 – The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.
1561 – Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony.
1601–1900
1608 – The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.
1643 – A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile.
1662 – The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is legally enforced as the liturgy of the Church of England, precipitating the Great Ejection of Dissenter ministers from their benefices.
1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1690 – Job Charnock of the East India Company establishes a factory in Calcutta, an event formerly considered the founding of the city (in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city's foundation date is unknown).
1743 – The War of the Hats: The Swedish army surrenders to the Russians in Helsinki, ending the war and starting Lesser Wrath.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit.
1789 – The first naval battle of the Svensksund began in the Gulf of Finland.
1812 – Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.
1814 – British troops capture Washington, D.C. and set the Presidential Mansion, Capitol, Navy Yard and many other public buildings ablaze.
1815 – The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.
1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.
1820 – Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.
1821 – The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.
1870 – The Wolseley expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.
1898 – Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.
1901–present
1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
1911 – Manuel de Arriaga is elected and sworn in as the first President of Portugal.
1914 – World War I: German troops capture Namur.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Cer ends as the first Allied victory in the war.
1929 – Second day of two-day Hebron massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attacks on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, result in the death of 65–68 Jews; the remaining Jews are forced to flee the city.
1931 – Resignation of the United Kingdom's Second Labour Government. Formation of the UK National Government.
1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
1933 – The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C., after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane.
1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.
1938 – Kweilin incident: A Japanese warplane shoots down the Kweilin, a Chinese civilian airliner, killing 14. It is the first recorded instance of a civilian airliner being shot down.
1941 – The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of seven officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier is heavily damaged.
1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.
1949 – The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes into effect.
1950 – Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
1951 – United Air Lines Flight 615 crashes near Decoto, California, killing 50 people.
1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party.
1954 – Vice president João Café Filho takes office as president of Brazil, following the suicide of Getúlio Vargas.
1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm if he did not remove his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.
1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.
1970 – Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.
1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.
1989 – Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.
1989 – Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.
1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
1992 – Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Homestead, Florida as a Category 5 hurricane, causing up to $25 billion (1992 USD) in damages.
1995 – Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in North America.
1998 – First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.
2001 – Air Transat Flight 236 loses all engine power over the Atlantic Ocean, forcing the pilots to conduct an emergency landing in the Azores.
2004 – Ninety passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions are caused by suicide bombers from Chechnya.
2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
2008 – Sixty-five passengers are killed when Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895 crashes during an emergency landing at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
2008 – A Cessna 208 Caravan crashes in Cabañas, Zacapa, Guatemala, killing 11 people.
2010 – In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.
2010 – Henan Airlines Flight 8387 crashes at Yichun Lindu Airport in Yichun, Heilongjiang, China, killing 44 out of the 96 people on board.
2010 – Agni Air Flight 101 crashes near Shikharpur, Makwanpur, Nepal, killing all 14 people on board.
2012 – Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, is sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention.
2014 – A magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes the San Francisco Bay Area; it is the largest in that area since 1989.
2016 – An earthquake strikes Central Italy with a magnitude of 6.2, with aftershocks felt as far as Rome and Florence. Around 300 people are killed.
2016 – Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to Earth, is discovered by the European Southern Observatory.
2017 – The National Space Agency of Taiwan successfully launches the observation satellite Formosat-5 into space.
2020 – Erin O’Toole is elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
2023 – Japan officially begins discharging treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking international concerns and condemnation.
Births
Pre-1600
1016 – Fujiwara no Genshi, Japanese empress consort (d. 1039)
1113 – Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (d. 1151)
1198 – Alexander II of Scotland (d. 1249)
1358 – John I of Castile (d. 1390)
1393 – Arthur III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1458)
1423 – Thomas Rotherham, English cleric (d. 1500)
1498 – John, Hereditary Prince of Saxony (d. 1537)
1510 – Elisabeth of Brandenburg, Duchess of Brunswick-Calenberg-Göttingen (d. 1558)
1552 – Lavinia Fontana, Italian painter and educator (d. 1614)
1556 – Sophia Brahe, Danish horticulturalist and astronomer (d. 1643)
1561 – Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk (d. 1626)
1578 – John Taylor, English poet and author (d. 1653)
1591 – Robert Herrick, English poet and cleric (d. 1674)
1601–1900
1631 – Philip Henry, English minister (d. 1696)
1635 – Peder Griffenfeld, Danish lawyer and politician (d. 1699)
1684 – Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet, British politician (d. 1746)
1714 – Alaungpaya, Burmese king (d. 1760)
1758 – Duchess Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (d. 1794)
1759 – William Wilberforce, English philanthropist and politician (d. 1833)
1772 – William I of the Netherlands (d. 1840)
1787 – James Weddell, Belgian-English sailor, hunter, and explorer (d. 1834)
1824 – Antonio Stoppani, Italian geologist and scholar (d. 1891)
1837 – Théodore Dubois, French organist, composer, and educator (d. 1924)
1843 – Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Australian politician, 10th Premier of Queensland (d. 1905)
1845 – James Calhoun, American lieutenant (d. 1876)
1851 – Tom Kendall, Australian cricketer and journalist (d. 1924)
1852 – Agnes Marshall, English culinary entrepreneur, inventor, and celebrity chef (d. 1905)
1860 – David Bowman, Australian lawyer and politician (d. 1916)
1862 – Zonia Baber, American geographer and geologist (d. 1956)
1863 – Dragutin Lerman, Croatian explorer (d. 1918)
1865 – Ferdinand I of Romania (d. 1927)
1872 – Max Beerbohm, English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (d. 1956)
1884 – Earl Derr Biggers, American author and playwright (d. 1933)
1887 – Harry Hooper, American baseball player (d. 1974)
1888 – Valentine Baker, Welsh co-founder of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company (d. 1942)
1890 – Duke Kahanamoku, American swimmer, actor, and surfer (d. 1968)
1890 – Jean Rhys, Dominican-English novelist (d. 1979)
1893 – Haim Ernst Wertheimer, German-Israeli biochemist and academic (d. 1978)
1895 – Richard Cushing, American cardinal (d. 1970)
1897 – Fred Rose, American pianist, songwriter, and publisher (d. 1954)
1898 – Malcolm Cowley, American novelist, poet, literary critic (d. 1989)
1899 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator (d. 1986)
1899 – Albert Claude, Belgian biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1983)
1901–present
1901 – Preston Foster, American actor (d. 1970)
1902 – Fernand Braudel, French historian and academic (d. 1985)
1902 – Carlo Gambino, Italian-American mob boss (d. 1976)
1903 – Karl Hanke, German businessman and politician (d. 1945)
1904 – Ida Cook, English campaigner for Jewish refugees, and romantic novelist as Mary Burchell (d. 1986)
1905 – Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1974)
1905 – Siaka Stevens, Sierra Leonean police officer and politician, 1st President of Sierra Leone (d. 1988)
1907 – Bruno Giacometti, Swiss architect, designed the Hallenstadion (d. 2012)
1908 – Shivaram Rajguru, Indian activist (d. 1931)
1909 – Ronnie Grieveson, South African cricketer and soldier (d. 1998)
1913 – Charles Snead Houston, American physician and mountaineer (d. 2009)
1915 – Wynonie Harris, American singer and guitarist (d. 1969)
1915 – James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon), American psychologist and science fiction author (d. 1987)
1918 – Sikander Bakht, Indian field hockey player and politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs (d. 2004)
1919 – Tosia Altman, member of the Polish resistance in World War II (d. 1943)
1919 – J. Gordon Edwards, American entomologist, mountaineer, and DDT advocate (d. 2004)
1919 – Enrique Llanes, Mexican wrestler (d. 2004)
1920 – Alex Colville, Canadian painter and academic (d. 2013)
1921 – Eric Simms, English ornithologist and conservationist (d. 2009)
1922 – René Lévesque, Canadian journalist and politician, 23rd Premier of Quebec (d. 1987)
1922 – Howard Zinn, American historian, author, and activist (d. 2010)
1923 – Arthur Jensen, American psychologist and academic (d. 2012)
1924 – Alyn Ainsworth, English singer and conductor (d. 1990)
1924 – Louis Teicher, American pianist (d. 2008)
1926 – Nancy Spero, American painter and academic (d. 2009)
1927 – Anjali Devi, Indian actress and producer (d. 2014)
1927 – David Ireland, Australian author and playwright (d. 2022)
1927 – Harry Markowitz, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2023)
1929 – Betty Dodson, American author and educator (d. 2020)
1930 – Jackie Brenston, American singer-songwriter and saxophonist (d. 1979)
1930 – Roger McCluskey, American race car driver (d. 1993)
1932 – Robert D. Hales, American captain and religious leader (d. 2017)
1932 – Richard Meale, Australian pianist and composer (d. 2009)
1932 – Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, English cardinal (d. 2017)
1933 – Prince Rupert Loewenstein, Spanish-English banker and manager (d. 2014)
1934 – Kenny Baker, English actor (d. 2016)
1936 – A. S. Byatt, English novelist and poet (d. 2023)
1936 – Kenny Guinn, American banker and politician, 27th Governor of Nevada (d. 2010)
1936 – Arthur B. C. Walker Jr., American physicist and academic (d. 2001)
1937 – Moshood Abiola, Nigerian businessman and politician (d. 1998)
1937 – Susan Sheehan, Austrian-American journalist and author
1938 – David Freiberg, American singer and bass player
1938 – Mason Williams, American guitarist and composer
1940 – Madsen Pirie, British academic, President and co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute
1940 – Francine Lalonde, Canadian educator and politician (d. 2014)
1940 – Keith Savage, English rugby player
1941 – Alan M. Roberts, English academic, Professor of Zoology at the University of Bristol
1942 – Max Cleland, American captain and politician (d. 2021)
1942 – Jimmy Soul, American pop-soul singer (d. 1988)
1942 – Karen Uhlenbeck, American mathematician
1943 – John Cipollina, American rock guitarist (d. 1989)
1944 – Bill Goldsworthy, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (d. 1996)
1944 – Gregory Jarvis, American engineer, and astronaut (d. 1986)
1944 – Rocky Johnson, Canadian-American wrestler and trainer (d. 2020)
1945 – Ronee Blakley, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1945 – Molly Duncan, Scottish saxophonist (d. 2019)
1945 – Ken Hensley, English rock singer-songwriter and musician (d. 2020)
1945 – Marsha P. Johnson, American gay liberation activist and drag queen (d. 1992)
1945 – Vince McMahon, American wrestler, promoter, and entrepreneur; co-founded WWE
1947 – Anne Archer, American actress and producer
1947 – Paulo Coelho, Brazilian author and songwriter
1947 – Roger De Vlaeminck, Belgian cyclist and coach
1947 – Joe Manchin, American politician, 34th Governor of West Virginia
1947 – Vladimir Masorin, Russian admiral
1948 – Kim Sung-il, South Korean commander and pilot
1948 – Jean Michel Jarre, French pianist, composer, and producer
1948 – Sauli Niinistö, Finnish captain and politician, 12th President of Finland
1948 – Alexander McCall Smith, Rhodesian-Scottish author and educator
1949 – Stephen Paulus, American composer and educator (d. 2014)
1949 – Joe Regalbuto, American actor and director
1951 – Danny Joe Brown, American southern rock singer-songwriter and musician (d. 2005)
1951 – Orson Scott Card, American novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist, and columnist
1951 – Oscar Hijuelos, American author and academic (d. 2013)
1952 – Marion Bloem, Dutch author, director, and painter
1952 – Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jamaican dub poet
1953 – Sam Torrance, Scottish golfer and sportscaster
1954 – Alain Daigle, Canadian ice hockey player
1954 – Heini Otto, Dutch footballer, coach, and manager
1955 – Kevin Dunn, American actor
1955 – Mike Huckabee, American minister and politician, 44th Governor of Arkansas
1956 – Gerry Cooney, American boxer
1956 – Dick Lee, Singaporean singer-songwriter and playwright
1957 – Jeffrey Daniel, American singer-songwriter and dancer
1957 – Stephen Fry, English actor, journalist, producer, and screenwriter
1958 – Steve Guttenberg, American actor and producer
1959 – Meg Munn, English social worker and politician
1960 – Cal Ripken Jr., American baseball player and coach
1961 – Jared Harris, English actor
1962 – Craig Kilborn, American television host
1962 – Emile Roemer, Dutch educator and politician
1963 – John Bush, American singer-songwriter
1963 – Hideo Kojima, Japanese director, screenwriter and video game designer
1963 – Francis Pangilinan, Filipino lawyer and politician
1964 – Éric Bernard, French racing driver
1964 – Mark Cerny, American video game designer, programmer, producer and business executive
1964 – Salizhan Sharipov, Kyrgyzstani-Russian lieutenant, pilot, and astronaut
1965 – Marlee Matlin, American actress and producer
1965 – Reggie Miller, American basketball player and sportscaster
1965 – Brian Rajadurai, Sri Lankan-Canadian cricketer
1967 – Michael Thomas, English footballer
1968 – Benoît Brunet, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1968 – Shoichi Funaki, Japanese-American wrestler and sportscaster
1968 – Andreas Kisser, Brazilian guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1968 – Tim Salmon, American baseball player and sportscaster
1969 – Jans Koerts, Dutch cyclist
1970 – Rich Beem, American golfer
1970 – David Gregory, American journalist
1970 – Tugay Kerimoğlu, Turkish footballer and manager
1972 – Jean-Luc Brassard, Canadian skier and radio host
1972 – Ava DuVernay, American director and screenwriter
1972 – Todd Young, American politician
1973 – Andrew Brunette, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1973 – Dave Chappelle, American comedian, actor, producer and screenwriter
1973 – James D'Arcy, English actor
1973 – Inge de Bruijn, Dutch swimmer
1973 – Carmine Giovinazzo, American actor
1974 – Jennifer Lien, American actress
1975 – Roberto Colombo, Italian footballer
1975 – Mark de Vries, Surinamese-Dutch footballer
1976 – Simon Dennis, English rower and academic
1976 – Alex O'Loughlin, Australian actor, writer, director, and producer
1977 – Denílson de Oliveira Araújo, Brazilian footballer
1977 – Robert Enke, German footballer (d. 2009)
1977 – Per Gade, Danish footballer
1977 – John Green, American author and vlogger
1977 – Jürgen Macho, Austrian footballer
1978 – Derek Morris, Canadian ice hockey player
1979 – Vahur Afanasjev, Estonian author and poet
1979 – Orlando Engelaar, Dutch footballer
1979 – Michael Redd, American basketball player
1981 – Chad Michael Murray, American actor, model, and author
1982 – José Bosingwa, Portuguese footballer
1982 – Kim Källström, Swedish footballer
1983 – Brett Gardner, American baseball player
1983 – Marcel Goc, German ice hockey player
1983 – George Perris, Greek-French singer-songwriter and pianist
1984 – Erin Molan, Australian journalist and sportscaster
1984 – Charlie Villanueva, Dominican-American basketball player
1986 – Joseph Akpala, Nigerian footballer
1986 – Arian Foster, American football player, rapper, and actor
1987 – Anže Kopitar, Slovenian ice hockey player
1988 – Rupert Grint, English actor
1988 – Brad Hunt, Canadian ice hockey player
1988 – Manu Ma'u, New Zealand rugby league player
1988 – Maya Yoshida, Japanese footballer
1989 – Reynaldo, Brazilian footballer
1989 – Rocío Igarzábal, Argentinian actress and singer
1990 – Juan Pedro Lanzani, Argentinian actor and singer
1991 – Enrique Hernández, Puerto Rican baseball player
1991 – Wang Zhen, Chinese race walker
1992 – Jemerson, Brazilian footballer
1993 – Allen Robinson, American football player
1993 – Maryna Zanevska, Belgian tennis player
1995 – Noah Vonleh, American basketball player
1995 – Lady Amelia Windsor, member of the British royal family
1997 – Alan Walker, British-Norwegian DJ and record producer
1998 – Sofia Richie, American model and social media personality
2000 – Griffin Gluck, American actor
2001 – Mildred Maldonado, Mexican rhythmic gymnast
Deaths
Pre-1600
691 – Fu Youyi, official of the Tang Dynasty
842 – Saga, Japanese emperor (b. 786)
895 – Guthred, king of Northumbria
927 – Doulu Ge, chancellor of Later Tang
927 – Wei Yue, chancellor of Later Tang
942 – Liu, empress dowager of Later Jin
948 – Zhang Ye, Chinese general and chancellor
1042 – Michael V Kalaphates, Byzantine emperor (b. 1015)
1103 – Magnus Barefoot, Norwegian king (b. 1073)
1217 – Eustace the Monk, French pirate (b. 1170)
1313 – Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1275)
1372 – Casimir III, Duke of Pomerania (b. 1348)
1497 – Sophie of Pomerania, Duchess of Pomerania (b. 1435)
1507 – Cecily of York, English princess (b. 1469)
1540 – Parmigianino, Italian painter and etcher (b. 1503)
1542 – Gasparo Contarini, Italian cardinal (b. 1483)
1572 – Gaspard II de Coligny, French admiral (b. 1519)
1572 – Charles de Téligny, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1535)
1595 – Thomas Digges, English mathematician and astronomer (b. 1546)
1601–1900
1617 – Rose of Lima, Peruvian saint (b. 1586)
1647 – Nicholas Stone, English sculptor and architect (b. 1586)
1679 – Jean François Paul de Gondi, French cardinal and author (b. 1614)
1680 – Thomas Blood, Irish colonel (b. 1618)
1680 – Ferdinand Bol, Dutch painter and etcher (b. 1616)
1683 – John Owen, English theologian and academic (b. 1616)
1759 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet and soldier (b. 1715)
1770 – Thomas Chatterton, English poet and prodigy (b. 1752)
1779 – Cosmas of Aetolia, Greek monk and saint (b. 1714)
1798 – Thomas Alcock, English priest and author (b. 1709)
1804 – Peggy Shippen, American wife of Benedict Arnold and American Revolutionary War spy (b. 1760)
1818 – James Carr, American lawyer and politician (b. 1777)
1821 – John William Polidori, English writer and physician (b. 1795)
1832 – Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, French physicist and engineer (b. 1796)
1832 – Richard Weymouth, British Royal Navy commander (b. 1780/81)
1838 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet, critic, and politician (b. 1790)
1841 – Theodore Hook, English civil servant and composer (b. 1788)
1841 – John Ordronaux, French-American soldier (b. 1778)
1888 – Rudolf Clausius, German physicist and mathematician (b. 1822)
1895 – Albert F. Mummery, English mountaineer and author (b. 1855)
1901–present
1923 – Kate Douglas Wiggin, American author and educator (b. 1856)
1930 – Tom Norman, English businessman and showman (b. 1860)
1932 – Kate M. Gordon, American activist (b. 1861)
1939 – Frederick Carl Frieseke, American painter and educator (b. 1874)
1940 – Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, Polish-German technician and inventor, invented the Nipkow disk (b. 1860)
1943 – Antonio Alice, Argentinian painter and educator (b. 1886)
1943 – Ettore Muti Italian aviator, adventurer and politician (b. 1902)
1943 – Simone Weil, French philosopher and activist (b. 1909)
1946 – James Clark McReynolds, American lawyer and judge, 48th United States Attorney General (b. 1862)
1954 – Getúlio Vargas, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 14th President of Brazil (b. 1882)
1956 – Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese director and screenwriter (b. 1898)
1957 – Ronald Knox, English Catholic priest (b. 1888)
1958 – Paul Henry, Irish painter and educator (b. 1876)
1967 – Henry J. Kaiser, American businessman, founded Kaiser Shipyards and Kaiser Aluminum (b. 1882)
1974 – Alexander P. de Seversky, Russian-American pilot and businessman, co-founded Republic Aviation (b. 1894)
1977 – Buddy O'Connor, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1916)
1978 – Louis Prima, American singer-songwriter, trumpet player, and actor (b. 1910)
1979 – Hanna Reitsch, German soldier and pilot (b. 1912)
1980 – Yootha Joyce, English actress (b. 1927)
1982 – Félix-Antoine Savard, Canadian priest and author (b. 1896)
1983 – Kalevi Kotkas, Estonian-Finnish high jumper and discus thrower (b. 1913)
1983 – Scott Nearing, American economist, educator, and activist (b. 1883)
1985 – Paul Creston, American composer and educator (b. 1906)
1987 – Malcolm Kirk, English rugby player and wrestler (b. 1936)
1990 – Sergei Dovlatov, Russian-American journalist and author (b. 1941)
1990 – Gely Abdel Rahman, Sudanese-Egyptian poet and academic (b. 1931)
1991 – Bernard Castro, Italian-American inventor (b. 1904)
1992 – André Donner, Dutch academic and judge (b. 1918)
1997 – Luigi Villoresi, Italian racing driver (b. 1907)
1998 – E. G. Marshall, American actor (b. 1910)
1999 – Mary Jane Croft, American actress (b. 1916)
1999 – Alexandre Lagoya, Egyptian guitarist and composer (b. 1929)
2000 – Andy Hug, Swiss martial artist and kick-boxer (b. 1964)
2001 – Jane Greer, American actress (b. 1924)
2001 – Roman Matsov, Estonian violinist, pianist, and conductor (b. 1917)
2002 – Nikolay Guryanov, Russian priest and mystic (b. 1909)
2003 – Wilfred Thesiger, Ethiopian-English explorer and author (b. 1910)
2004 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-American psychiatrist and academic (b. 1926)
2006 – Rocco Petrone, American soldier and engineer (b. 1926)
2006 – Léopold Simoneau, Canadian tenor and educator (b. 1916)
2007 – Andrée Boucher, Canadian educator and politician, 39th Mayor of Quebec City (b. 1937)
2007 – Aaron Russo, American director and producer (b. 1943)
2010 – Satoshi Kon, Japanese director and screenwriter (b. 1963)
2011 – Seyhan Erözçelik, Turkish poet and author (b. 1962)
2011 – Mike Flanagan, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1951)
2012 – Dadullah, Pakistani Taliban leader (b. 1965)
2012 – Pauli Ellefsen, Faroese surveyor and politician, 6th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (b. 1936)
2012 – Steve Franken, American actor (b. 1932)
2012 – Félix Miélli Venerando, Brazilian footballer and manager (b. 1937)
2013 – Gerry Baker, American soccer player and manager (b. 1938)
2013 – Nílton de Sordi, Brazilian footballer and manager (b. 1931)
2013 – Julie Harris, American actress (b. 1925)
2013 – Muriel Siebert, American businesswoman and philanthropist (b. 1928)
2014 – Richard Attenborough, English actor, director, producer, and politician (b. 1923)
2014 – Antônio Ermírio de Moraes, Brazilian businessman (b. 1928)
2015 – Charlie Coffey, American football player and coach (b. 1934)
2015 – Joseph F. Traub, German-American computer scientist and academic (b. 1932)
2015 – Justin Wilson, English racing driver (b. 1978)
2016 – Walter Scheel, German politician, 4th President of Germany (b. 1919)
2017 – Jay Thomas, American actor, comedian, and radio talk show host (b. 1948)
2020 – Gail Sheehy, American author, journalist, and lecturer (b. 1936)
2021 – Charlie Watts, English musician (b. 1941)
2023 – Windham Rotunda, American professional wrestler, most commonly known as Bray Wyatt (b. 1987)
Holidays and observances
Christian feast day:
Abbán of Ireland
Aurea of Ostia
Bartholomew the Apostle (Roman Catholic, Anglican)
Jeanne-Antide Thouret
Maria Micaela Desmaisieres
Massa Candida (Martyrs of Utica)
Owen (Audoin)
August 24 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Flag Day (Liberia)
Independence Day or Den' Nezalezhnosti, celebrates the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union in 1991.
International Strange Music Day
National Waffle Day (United States)
Nostalgia Night (Uruguay)
Willka Raymi (Cusco, Peru)
References
External links
Days of the year
August |
1633 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope | Antipope | An antipope () is a person who claims to be Bishop of Rome and leader of the Catholic Church in opposition to the legitimately elected pope. Between the 3rd and mid-15th centuries, antipopes were supported by factions within the Church itself and secular rulers.
Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish which of two claimants should be called pope and which antipope, as in the case of Pope Leo VIII and Pope Benedict V.
History
Hippolytus of Rome (d. 235) is commonly considered to be the earliest antipope, as he headed a separate group within the Church in Rome against Pope Callixtus I. Hippolytus was reconciled to Callixtus's second successor, Pope Pontian, and both he and Pontian are honoured as saints by the Catholic Church with a shared feast day on 13 August. Whether two or more persons have been confused in this account of Hippolytus and whether Hippolytus actually declared himself to be the Bishop of Rome remains unclear, since no such claim by Hippolytus has been cited in the writings attributed to him.
Eusebius quotes from an unnamed earlier writer the story of Natalius, a 3rd-century priest who accepted the bishopric of the Adoptionists, a heretical group in Rome. Natalius soon repented and tearfully begged Pope Zephyrinus to receive him into communion.
Novatian (d. 258), another third-century figure, certainly claimed the See of Rome in opposition to Pope Cornelius, and if Natalius and Hippolytus were excluded because of the uncertainties concerning them, Novatian could then be said to be the first antipope.
The period in which antipopes were most numerous was during the struggles between the popes and the Holy Roman Emperors of the 11th and 12th centuries. The emperors frequently imposed their own nominees to further their own causes. The popes, likewise, sometimes sponsored rival imperial claimants (anti-kings) in Germany to overcome a particular emperor.
The Western Schism – which began in 1378, when the French cardinals, claiming that the election of Pope Urban VI was invalid, elected antipope Clement VII as a rival to the Roman Pope – led eventually to two competing lines of antipopes: the Avignon line as Clement VII moved back to Avignon, and the Pisan line. The Pisan line, which began in 1409, was named after the town of Pisa, Italy, where the (Pisan) council had elected antipope Alexander V as a third claimant. To end the schism, in May 1415, the Council of Constance deposed antipope John XXIII of the Pisan line. Pope Gregory XII of the Roman line resigned in July 1415. In 1417, the council also formally deposed antipope Benedict XIII of Avignon, but he adamantly refused to resign. Afterwards, Pope Martin V was elected and was accepted everywhere except in the small and rapidly diminishing area of influence of Benedict XIII.
List of historical antipopes
The following table gives the names of the antipopes included in the list of popes and antipopes in the Annuario Pontificio, with the addition of the names of Natalius (in spite of doubts about his historicity) and Antipope Clement VIII (whose following was insignificant).
An asterisk marks those who were included in the conventional numbering of later popes who took the same name. More commonly, the antipope is ignored in later papal regnal numbers; for example, there was an Antipope John XXIII, but the new Pope John elected in 1958 was also called John XXIII. For the additional confusion regarding popes named John, see Pope John numbering.
The list of popes and antipopes in the Annuario Pontificio attaches the following note to the name of Pope Leo VIII (963–965):
At this point, as again in the mid-11th century, we come across elections in which problems of harmonising historical criteria and those of theology and canon law make it impossible to decide clearly which side possessed the legitimacy whose factual existence guarantees the unbroken lawful succession of the successors of Saint Peter. The uncertainty that in some cases results has made it advisable to abandon the assignation of successive numbers in the list of the popes.
Thus, because of the obscurities about mid-11th-century canon law and the historical facts, the Annuario Pontificio lists Sylvester III as a pope, without thereby expressing a judgement on his legitimacy. The Catholic Encyclopedia places him in its List of Popes, but with the annotation: "Considered by some to be an antipope". Other sources classify him as an antipope.
As Celestine II resigned before being consecrated and enthroned in order to avoid a schism, Oxford's A Dictionary of Popes (2010) considers he "...is classified, unfairly, as an antipope", a position historian Salvador Miranda also shares.
Those with asterisks (*) were counted in subsequent papal numbering.
Quasi-cardinal-nephews
Many antipopes created cardinals, known as quasi-cardinals, and a few created cardinal-nephews, known as quasi-cardinal-nephews.
Modern minor claimants
Antipopes still exist today, but all are minor claimants, without the support of any Cardinal. Examples include Palmarians, Apostles of Infinite Love Antipopes, and an unknown number of many other Sedevacantist claimants.
Antipope of Alexandria
As the Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, has historically also held the title of pope, a person who, in opposition to someone who is generally accepted as a legitimate pope of Alexandria, claims to hold that position may also be considered an antipope. Coptic lector Max Michel became an antipope of Alexandria, calling himself Maximos I. His claim to the Alexandrine papacy was dismissed by both the Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III and Pope Theodore II of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Coptic pope of Alexandria and the Greek pope of Alexandria currently view one another, not as antipopes, but rather as successors to differing lines of apostolic succession that formed as a result of christological disputes in the fifth century.
In fiction
Antipopes have appeared as fictional characters. These may be either in historical fiction, as fictional portraits of well-known historical antipopes or as purely imaginary antipopes.
Jean Raspail's novel l'Anneau du pêcheur (the fisherman's ring), and Gérard Bavoux's Le Porteur de lumière (the light-bringer).
The fictional synth-pop artist Zladko Vladcik claims to be "The Anti-Pope" in one of his songs.
Dan Simmons's novels Endymion and The Rise of Endymion feature a Father Paul Duré who is the routinely murdered antipope Teilhard I. At the end of the last novel, it is mentioned that the person calling himself the pope of the Technocore loyal Catholics is recognized by very few even among those, and he is referred to as an antipope.
In the Girl Genius comics series, set in a gaslamp fantasy version of Europe thrown into chaos by mad science (among other things), there is a brief reference to the existence of seven popes—all of whom apparently ordered a particular text burned.
Ralph McInerny's novel The Red Hat features a schism between liberals and conservatives following the election of a conservative African Pope; the liberal faction elect an Italian cardinal who calls himself "Pius XIII".
In the video game Crusader Kings II by Swedish developer Paradox Interactive, Catholic rulers may appoint one of their bishops as an antipope. An emperor-tier ruler such as the Holy Roman Emperor may declare war on the Papal States to install their antipope as the "true" pope, thereby vassalizing the papacy.
In the video game Age of Empires II the third scenario in the game's Barbarossa campaign is called "Pope and Antipope" and is based on the Siege of Crema and the subsequent Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines.
In episode 3 of The Black Adder (set in the late 15th century), "The Archbishop", Baldrick remarks on selling counterfeit papal pardons, that one for the highest crimes requires the signatures of "both popes" (implying one pope and one antipope). At the end of the episode, the Mother Superior of the local convent informs Edmund that he has been excommunicated by "all three popes".
The Last Fisherman by Randy England features an anti-pope John XXIV elected in opposition to Pope Brendan I.
Bud McFarlane's Pierced by a Sword includes an anti-pope John XXIV who is elected when the assassination attempt on Pope Patrick (fictional successor to John Paul II) is believed to have succeeded. He commits suicide at the end of the book.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina features an antipope who leads the Churches of Darkness. This antipope reigns in the Vatican Necropolis beneath Rome.
In The New Pope, after the fictional Pius XIII is put in a coma, Pope Francis II is elected as a replacement. Francis II later dies and is replaced by John Paul III, the titular protagonist. Pius XIII later wakes up, creating a situation where both men have a claim on the Papacy.
See also
List of papal elections
Papal conclave
Papal selection before 1059
Sedevacantism
Pretender
References
External links and bibliography
Catholic Encyclopedia: "Antipope"
Encyclopædia Britannica: "Antipope"
The Pope Encyclopaedia: "Antipope"
Kelly, J.N.D, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, Oxford University Press, US (1986), .
Raspail, Jean, 'L'Anneau du pêcheur, Paris: Albin Michel, 1994. 403 pp. .
Bavoux, Gérard, Le Porteur de lumière, Paris: Pygmalion, 1996. 329 pp. .
Ecclesiastical titles
History of the papacy
Lists of Catholic popes |
1635 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov%20complexity | Kolmogorov complexity | In algorithmic information theory (a subfield of computer science and mathematics), the Kolmogorov complexity of an object, such as a piece of text, is the length of a shortest computer program (in a predetermined programming language) that produces the object as output. It is a measure of the computational resources needed to specify the object, and is also known as algorithmic complexity, Solomonoff–Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity, program-size complexity, descriptive complexity, or algorithmic entropy. It is named after Andrey Kolmogorov, who first published on the subject in 1963 and is a generalization of classical information theory.
The notion of Kolmogorov complexity can be used to state and prove impossibility results akin to Cantor's diagonal argument, Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and Turing's halting problem.
In particular, no program P computing a lower bound for each text's Kolmogorov complexity can return a value essentially larger than P's own length (see section ); hence no single program can compute the exact Kolmogorov complexity for infinitely many texts.
Definition
Intuition
Consider the following two strings of 32 lowercase letters and digits:
abababababababababababababababab , and
4c1j5b2p0cv4w1x8rx2y39umgw5q85s7
The first string has a short English-language description, namely "write ab 16 times", which consists of 17 characters. The second one has no obvious simple description (using the same character set) other than writing down the string itself, i.e., "write 4c1j5b2p0cv4w1x8rx2y39umgw5q85s7" which has 38 characters. Hence the operation of writing the first string can be said to have "less complexity" than writing the second.
More formally, the complexity of a string is the length of the shortest possible description of the string in some fixed universal description language (the sensitivity of complexity relative to the choice of description language is discussed below). It can be shown that the Kolmogorov complexity of any string cannot be more than a few bytes larger than the length of the string itself. Strings like the abab example above, whose Kolmogorov complexity is small relative to the string's size, are not considered to be complex.
The Kolmogorov complexity can be defined for any mathematical object, but for simplicity the scope of this article is restricted to strings. We must first specify a description language for strings. Such a description language can be based on any computer programming language, such as Lisp, Pascal, or Java. If P is a program which outputs a string x, then P is a description of x. The length of the description is just the length of P as a character string, multiplied by the number of bits in a character (e.g., 7 for ASCII).
We could, alternatively, choose an encoding for Turing machines, where an encoding is a function which associates to each Turing Machine M a bitstring <M>. If M is a Turing Machine which, on input w, outputs string x, then the concatenated string <M> w is a description of x. For theoretical analysis, this approach is more suited for constructing detailed formal proofs and is generally preferred in the research literature. In this article, an informal approach is discussed.
Any string s has at least one description. For example, the second string above is output by the pseudo-code:
function GenerateString2()
return "4c1j5b2p0cv4w1x8rx2y39umgw5q85s7"
whereas the first string is output by the (much shorter) pseudo-code:
function GenerateString1()
return "ab" × 16
If a description d(s) of a string s is of minimal length (i.e., using the fewest bits), it is called a minimal description of s, and the length of d(s) (i.e. the number of bits in the minimal description) is the Kolmogorov complexity of s, written K(s). Symbolically,
K(s) = |d(s)|.
The length of the shortest description will depend on the choice of description language; but the effect of changing languages is bounded (a result called the invariance theorem).
Plain Kolmogorov complexity C
There are two definitions of Kolmogorov complexity: plain and prefix-free. The plain complexity is the minimal description length of any program, and denoted while the prefix-free complexity is the minimal description length of any program encoded in a prefix-free code, and denoted . The plain complexity is more intuitive, but the prefix-free complexity is easier to study.
By default, all equations hold only up to an additive constant. For example, really means that , that is, .
Let be a computable function mapping finite binary strings to binary strings. It is a universal function if, and only if, for any computable , we can encode the function in a "program" , such that . We can think of as a program interpreter, which takes in an initial segment describing the program, followed by data that the program should process.
One problem with plain complexity is that , because intuitively speaking, there is no general way to tell where to divide an output string just by looking at the concatenated string. We can divide it by specifying the length of or , but that would take extra symbols. Indeed, for any there exists such that .
Typically, inequalities with plain complexity have a term like on one side, whereas the same inequalities with prefix-free complexity have only .
The main problem with plain complexity is that there is something extra sneaked into a program. A program not only represent for something with its code, but also represent its own length. In particular, a program may represent a binary number up to , simply by its own length. Stated in another way, it is as if we are using a termination symbol to denote where a word ends, and so we are not using 2 symbols, but 3. To fix this defect, we introduce the prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity.
Prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity K
A prefix-free code is a subset of such that given any two different words in the set, neither is a prefix of the other. The benefit of a prefix-free code is that we can build a machine that reads words from the code forward in one direction, and as soon as it reads the last symbol of the word, it knows that the word is finished, and does not need to backtrack or a termination symbol.
Define a prefix-free Turing machine to be a Turing machine that comes with a prefix-free code, such that the Turing machine can read any string from the code in one direction, and stop reading as soon as it reads the last symbol. Afterwards, it may compute on a work tape and write to a write tape, but it cannot move its read-head anymore.
This gives us the following formal way to describe K.
Fix a prefix-free universal Turing machine, with three tapes: a read tape infinite in one direction, a work tape infinite in two directions, and a write tape infinite in one direction.
The machine can read from the read tape in one direction only (no backtracking), and write to the write tape in one direction only. It can read and write the work tape in both directions.
The work tape and write tape start with all zeros. The read tape starts with an input prefix code, followed by all zeros.
Let be the prefix-free code on , used by the universal Turing machine.
Note that some universal Turing machines may not be programmable with prefix codes. We must pick only a prefix-free universal Turing machine.
The prefix-free complexity of a string is the shortest prefix code that makes the machine output :
Invariance theorem
Informal treatment
There are some description languages which are optimal, in the following sense: given any description of an object in a description language, said description may be used in the optimal description language with a constant overhead. The constant depends only on the languages involved, not on the description of the object, nor the object being described.
Here is an example of an optimal description language. A description will have two parts:
The first part describes another description language.
The second part is a description of the object in that language.
In more technical terms, the first part of a description is a computer program (specifically: a compiler for the object's language, written in the description language), with the second part being the input to that computer program which produces the object as output.
The invariance theorem follows: Given any description language L, the optimal description language is at least as efficient as L, with some constant overhead.
Proof: Any description D in L can be converted into a description in the optimal language by first describing L as a computer program P (part 1), and then using the original description D as input to that program (part 2). The
total length of this new description D′ is (approximately):
|D′ | = |P| + |D|
The length of P is a constant that doesn't depend on D. So, there is at most a constant overhead, regardless of the object described. Therefore, the optimal language is universal up to this additive constant.
A more formal treatment
Theorem: If K1 and K2 are the complexity functions relative to Turing complete description languages L1 and L2, then there is a constant c – which depends only on the languages L1 and L2 chosen – such that
∀s. −c ≤ K1(s) − K2(s) ≤ c.
Proof: By symmetry, it suffices to prove that there is some constant c such that for all strings s
K1(s) ≤ K2(s) + c.
Now, suppose there is a program in the language L1 which acts as an interpreter for L2:
function InterpretLanguage(string p)
where p is a program in L2. The interpreter is characterized by the following property:
Running InterpretLanguage on input p returns the result of running p.
Thus, if P is a program in L2 which is a minimal description of s, then InterpretLanguage(P) returns the string s. The length of this description of s is the sum of
The length of the program InterpretLanguage, which we can take to be the constant c.
The length of P which by definition is K2(s).
This proves the desired upper bound.
History and context
Algorithmic information theory is the area of computer science that studies Kolmogorov complexity and other complexity measures on strings (or other data structures).
The concept and theory of Kolmogorov Complexity is based on a crucial theorem first discovered by Ray Solomonoff, who published it in 1960, describing it in "A Preliminary Report on a General Theory of Inductive Inference" as part of his invention of algorithmic probability. He gave a more complete description in his 1964 publications, "A Formal Theory of Inductive Inference," Part 1 and Part 2 in Information and Control.
Andrey Kolmogorov later independently published this theorem in Problems Inform. Transmission in 1965. Gregory Chaitin also presents this theorem in J. ACM – Chaitin's paper was submitted October 1966 and revised in December 1968, and cites both Solomonoff's and Kolmogorov's papers.
The theorem says that, among algorithms that decode strings from their descriptions (codes), there exists an optimal one. This algorithm, for all strings, allows codes as short as allowed by any other algorithm up to an additive constant that depends on the algorithms, but not on the strings themselves. Solomonoff used this algorithm and the code lengths it allows to define a "universal probability" of a string on which inductive inference of the subsequent digits of the string can be based. Kolmogorov used this theorem to define several functions of strings, including complexity, randomness, and information.
When Kolmogorov became aware of Solomonoff's work, he acknowledged Solomonoff's priority. For several years, Solomonoff's work was better known in the Soviet Union than in the Western World. The general consensus in the scientific community, however, was to associate this type of complexity with Kolmogorov, who was concerned with randomness of a sequence, while Algorithmic Probability became associated with Solomonoff, who focused on prediction using his invention of the universal prior probability distribution. The broader area encompassing descriptional complexity and probability is often called Kolmogorov complexity. The computer scientist Ming Li considers this an example of the Matthew effect: "...to everyone who has, more will be given..."
There are several other variants of Kolmogorov complexity or algorithmic information. The most widely used one is based on self-delimiting programs, and is mainly due to Leonid Levin (1974).
An axiomatic approach to Kolmogorov complexity based on Blum axioms (Blum 1967) was introduced by Mark Burgin in the paper presented for publication by Andrey Kolmogorov.
Basic results
We write to be , where means some fixed way to code for a tuple of strings x and y.
Inequalities
We omit additive factors of . This section is based on.
Theorem.
Proof. Take any program for the universal Turing machine used to define plain complexity, and convert it to a prefix-free program by first coding the length of the program in binary, then convert the length to prefix-free coding. For example, suppose the program has length 9, then we can convert it as follows:where we double each digit, then add a termination code. The prefix-free universal Turing machine can then read in any program for the other machine as follows:The first part programs the machine to simulate the other machine, and is a constant overhead . The second part has length . The third part has length .
Theorem: There exists such that . More succinctly, . Similarly, , and .
Proof. For the plain complexity, just write a program that simply copies the input to the output. For the prefix-free complexity, we need to first describe the length of the string, before writing out the string itself.
Theorem. (extra information bounds, subadditivity)
Note that there is no way to compare and or or or . There are strings such that the whole string is easy to describe, but its substrings are very hard to describe.
Theorem. (symmetry of information) .
Proof. One side is simple. For the other side with , we need to use a counting argument (page 38 ).
Theorem. (information non-increase) For any computable function , we have .
Proof. Program the Turing machine to read two subsequent programs, one describing the function and one describing the string. Then run both programs on the work tape to produce , and write it out.
Uncomputability of Kolmogorov complexity
A naive attempt at a program to compute K
At first glance it might seem trivial to write a program which can compute K(s) for any s, such as the following:
function KolmogorovComplexity(string s)
for i = 1 to infinity:
for each string p of length exactly i
if isValidProgram(p) and evaluate(p) == s
return i
This program iterates through all possible programs (by iterating through all possible strings and only considering those which are valid programs), starting with the shortest. Each program is executed to find the result produced by that program, comparing it to the input s. If the result matches then the length of the program is returned.
However this will not work because some of the programs p tested will not terminate, e.g. if they contain infinite loops. There is no way to avoid all of these programs by testing them in some way before executing them due to the non-computability of the halting problem.
What is more, no program at all can compute the function K, be it ever so sophisticated. This is proven in the following.
Formal proof of uncomputability of K
Theorem: There exist strings of arbitrarily large Kolmogorov complexity. Formally: for each natural number n, there is a string s with K(s) ≥ n.
Proof: Otherwise all of the infinitely many possible finite strings could be generated by the finitely many programs with a complexity below n bits.
Theorem: K is not a computable function. In other words, there is no program which takes any string s as input and produces the integer K(s) as output.
The following proof by contradiction uses a simple Pascal-like language to denote programs; for sake of proof simplicity assume its description (i.e. an interpreter) to have a length of bits.
Assume for contradiction there is a program
function KolmogorovComplexity(string s)
which takes as input a string s and returns K(s). All programs are of finite length so, for sake of proof simplicity, assume it to be bits.
Now, consider the following program of length bits:
function GenerateComplexString()
for i = 1 to infinity:
for each string s of length exactly i
if KolmogorovComplexity(s) ≥ 8000000000
return s
Using KolmogorovComplexity as a subroutine, the program tries every string, starting with the shortest, until it returns a string with Kolmogorov complexity at least bits, i.e. a string that cannot be produced by any program shorter than bits. However, the overall length of the above program that produced s is only bits, which is a contradiction. (If the code of KolmogorovComplexity is shorter, the contradiction remains. If it is longer, the constant used in GenerateComplexString can always be changed appropriately.)
The above proof uses a contradiction similar to that of the Berry paradox: "The smallest positive integer that cannot be defined in fewer than twenty English words". It is also possible to show the non-computability of K by reduction from the non-computability of the halting problem H, since K and H are Turing-equivalent.
There is a corollary, humorously called the "full employment theorem" in the programming language community, stating that there is no perfect size-optimizing compiler.
Chain rule for Kolmogorov complexity
The chain rule for Kolmogorov complexity states that there exists a constant c such that for all X and Y:
K(X,Y) = K(X) + K(Y|X) + c*max(1,log(K(X,Y))).
It states that the shortest program that reproduces X and Y is no more than a logarithmic term larger than a program to reproduce X and a program to reproduce Y given X. Using this statement, one can define an analogue of mutual information for Kolmogorov complexity.
Compression
It is straightforward to compute upper bounds for K(s) – simply compress the string s with some method, implement the corresponding decompressor in the chosen language, concatenate the decompressor to the compressed string, and measure the length of the resulting string – concretely, the size of a self-extracting archive in the given language.
A string s is compressible by a number c if it has a description whose length does not exceed |s| − c bits. This is equivalent to saying that K(s) ≤ |s| − c. Otherwise, s is incompressible by c. A string incompressible by 1 is said to be simply incompressible – by the pigeonhole principle, which applies because every compressed string maps to only one uncompressed string, incompressible strings must exist, since there are 2n bit strings of length n, but only 2n − 1 shorter strings, that is, strings of length less than n, (i.e. with length 0, 1, ..., n − 1).
For the same reason, most strings are complex in the sense that they cannot be significantly compressed – their K(s) is not much smaller than |s|, the length of s in bits. To make this precise, fix a value of n. There are 2n bitstrings of length n. The uniform probability distribution on the space of these bitstrings assigns exactly equal weight 2−n to each string of length n.
Theorem: With the uniform probability distribution on the space of bitstrings of length n, the probability that a string is incompressible by c is at least 1 − 2−c+1 + 2−n.
To prove the theorem, note that the number of descriptions of length not exceeding n − c is given by the geometric series:
1 + 2 + 22 + ... + 2n − c = 2n−c+1 − 1.
There remain at least
2n − 2n−c+1 + 1
bitstrings of length n that are incompressible by c. To determine the probability, divide by 2n.
Chaitin's incompleteness theorem
By the above theorem (), most strings are complex in the sense that they cannot be described in any significantly "compressed" way. However, it turns out that the fact that a specific string is complex cannot be formally proven, if the complexity of the string is above a certain threshold. The precise formalization is as follows. First, fix a particular axiomatic system S for the natural numbers. The axiomatic system has to be powerful enough so that, to certain assertions A about complexity of strings, one can associate a formula FA in S. This association must have the following property:
If FA is provable from the axioms of S, then the corresponding assertion A must be true. This "formalization" can be achieved based on a Gödel numbering.
Theorem: There exists a constant L (which only depends on S and on the choice of description language) such that there does not exist a string s for which the statementK(s) ≥ L (as formalized in S)
can be proven within S.
Proof Idea: The proof of this result is modeled on a self-referential construction used in Berry's paradox. We firstly obtain a program which enumerates the proofs within S and we specify a procedure P which takes as an input an integer L and prints the strings x which are within proofs within S of the statement K(x) ≥ L. By then setting L to greater than the length of this procedure P, we have that the required length of a program to print x as stated in K(x) ≥ L as being at least L is then less than the amount L since the string x was printed by the procedure P. This is a contradiction. So it is not possible for the proof system S to prove K(x) ≥ L for L arbitrarily large, in particular, for L larger than the length of the procedure P, (which is finite).
Proof:
We can find an effective enumeration of all the formal proofs in S by some procedure
function NthProof(int n)
which takes as input n and outputs some proof. This function enumerates all proofs. Some of these are proofs for formulas we do not care about here, since every possible proof in the language of S is produced for some n. Some of these are complexity formulas of the form K(s) ≥ n where s and n are constants in the language of S. There is a procedure
function NthProofProvesComplexityFormula(int n)
which determines whether the nth proof actually proves a complexity formula K(s) ≥ L. The strings s, and the integer L in turn, are computable by procedure:
function StringNthProof(int n)
function ComplexityLowerBoundNthProof(int n)
Consider the following procedure:
function GenerateProvablyComplexString(int n)
for i = 1 to infinity:
if NthProofProvesComplexityFormula(i) and ComplexityLowerBoundNthProof(i) ≥ n return StringNthProof(i)
Given an n, this procedure tries every proof until it finds a string and a proof in the formal system S of the formula K(s) ≥ L for some L ≥ n; if no such proof exists, it loops forever.
Finally, consider the program consisting of all these procedure definitions, and a main call:
GenerateProvablyComplexString(n0)
where the constant n0 will be determined later on. The overall program length can be expressed as U+log2(n0), where U is some constant and log2(n0) represents the length of the integer value n0, under the reasonable assumption that it is encoded in binary digits. We will choose n0 to be greater than the program length, that is, such that n0 > U+log2(n0). This is clearly true for n0 sufficiently large, because the left hand side grows linearly in n0 whilst the right hand side grows logarithmically in n0 up to the fixed constant U.
Then no proof of the form "K(s)≥L" with L≥n0 can be obtained in S, as can be seen by an indirect argument:
If ComplexityLowerBoundNthProof(i) could return a value ≥n0, then the loop inside GenerateProvablyComplexString would eventually terminate, and that procedure would return a string s such that
This is a contradiction, Q.E.D.
As a consequence, the above program, with the chosen value of n0, must loop forever.
Similar ideas are used to prove the properties of Chaitin's constant.
Minimum message length
The minimum message length principle of statistical and inductive inference and machine learning was developed by C.S. Wallace and D.M. Boulton in 1968. MML is Bayesian (i.e. it incorporates prior beliefs) and information-theoretic. It has the desirable properties of statistical invariance (i.e. the inference transforms with a re-parametrisation, such as from polar coordinates to Cartesian coordinates), statistical consistency (i.e. even for very hard problems, MML will converge to any underlying model) and efficiency (i.e. the MML model will converge to any true underlying model about as quickly as is possible). C.S. Wallace and D.L. Dowe (1999) showed a formal connection between MML and algorithmic information theory (or Kolmogorov complexity).
Kolmogorov randomnessKolmogorov randomness defines a string (usually of bits) as being random if and only if every computer program that can produce that string is at least as long as the string itself. To make this precise, a universal computer (or universal Turing machine) must be specified, so that "program" means a program for this universal machine. A random string in this sense is "incompressible" in that it is impossible to "compress" the string into a program that is shorter than the string itself. For every universal computer, there is at least one algorithmically random string of each length. Whether a particular string is random, however, depends on the specific universal computer that is chosen. This is because a universal computer can have a particular string hard-coded in itself, and a program running on this universal computer can then simply refer to this hard-coded string using a short sequence of bits (i.e. much shorter than the string itself).
This definition can be extended to define a notion of randomness for infinite sequences from a finite alphabet. These algorithmically random sequences can be defined in three equivalent ways. One way uses an effective analogue of measure theory; another uses effective martingales. The third way defines an infinite sequence to be random if the prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity of its initial segments grows quickly enough — there must be a constant c such that the complexity of an initial segment of length n is always at least n−c. This definition, unlike the definition of randomness for a finite string, is not affected by which universal machine is used to define prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity.
Relation to entropy
For dynamical systems, entropy rate and algorithmic complexity of the trajectories are related by a theorem of Brudno, that the equality holds for almost all .
It can be shown that for the output of Markov information sources, Kolmogorov complexity is related to the entropy of the information source. More precisely, the Kolmogorov complexity of the output of a Markov information source, normalized by the length of the output, converges almost surely (as the length of the output goes to infinity) to the entropy of the source.
Theorem. (Theorem 14.2.5 ) The conditional Kolmogorov complexity of a binary string satisfieswhere is the binary entropy function (not to be confused with the entropy rate).
Halting problem
The Kolmogorov complexity function is equivalent to deciding the halting problem.
If we have a halting oracle, then the Kolmogorov complexity of a string can be computed by simply trying every halting program, in lexicographic order, until one of them outputs the string.
The other direction is much more involved. It shows that given a Kolmogorov complexity function, we can construct a function , such that for all large , where is . By modifying the function at lower values of we get an upper bound on , which solves the halting problem.
Consider this program , which takes input as , and uses .
List all strings of length .
For each such string , enumerate all (prefix-free) programs of length until one of them does output . Record its runtime .
Output the largest .
We prove by contradiction that for all large .
Let be a Busy Beaver of length . Consider this (prefix-free) program, which takes no input:
Run the program , and record its runtime length .
Generate all programs with length . Run every one of them for up to steps. Note the outputs of those that have halted.
Output the string with the lowest lexicographic order that has not been output by any of those.
Let the string output by the program be .
The program has length , where comes from the length of the Busy Beaver , comes from using the (prefix-free) Elias delta code for the number , and comes from the rest of the program. Therefore,for all big . Further, since there are only so many possible programs with length , we have by pigeonhole principle.
By assumption, , so every string of length has a minimal program with runtime . Thus, the string has a minimal program with runtime . Further, that program has length . This contradicts how was constructed.
Universal probability
Fix a universal Turing machine , the same one used to define the (prefix-free) Kolmogorov complexity. Define the (prefix-free) universal probability of a string to beIn other words, it is the probability that, given a uniformly random binary stream as input, the universal Turing machine would halt after reading a certain prefix of the stream, and output .
Note. does not mean that the input stream is , but that the universal Turing machine would halt at some point after reading the initial segment , without reading any further input, and that, when it halts, its has written to the output tape.
Theorem. (Theorem 14.11.1 )
Conditional versions
The conditional Kolmogorov complexity of two strings is, roughly speaking, defined as the Kolmogorov complexity of x given y as an auxiliary input to the procedure.
There is also a length-conditional complexity , which is the complexity of x given the length of x'' as known/input.
See also
Berry paradox
Code golf
Data compression
Descriptive complexity theory
Grammar induction
Inductive reasoning
Kolmogorov structure function
Levenshtein distance
Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference
Sample entropy
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
The Legacy of Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov
Chaitin's online publications
Solomonoff's IDSIA page
Generalizations of algorithmic information by J. Schmidhuber
Tromp's lambda calculus computer model offers a concrete definition of K()]
Universal AI based on Kolmogorov Complexity by M. Hutter:
David Dowe's Minimum Message Length (MML) and Occam's razor pages.
Computability theory
Descriptive complexity
Measures of complexity
Computational complexity theory |
1637 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymn%20to%20Proserpine | 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.
See also
“The Garden of Proserpine”, another poem by A. C. Swinburne
Poems and Ballads
References
External links
Full text at the University of Toronto Library
British poems
1866 poems
Victorian poetry
Proserpina
Poetry by Algernon Charles Swinburne |
1638 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Triumph%20of%20Time | 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.
See also
Poems and Ballads
Notes
External links
Complete text of the poem
Victorian Web article on the poem
British poems
1866 poems
Poetry by Algernon Charles Swinburne |
1642 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro%20Algardi | Alessandro Algardi | Alessandro Algardi (July 31, 1598 – June 10, 1654) was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome. In the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in Rome. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity.
Early years
Algardi was born in Bologna, where at a young age, he was apprenticed in the studio of Agostino Carracci. However, his aptitude for sculpture led him to work for Giulio Cesare Conventi (1577–1640), an artist of modest talents. His two earliest known works date back to this period: two statues of saints, made of chalk, in the Oratory of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna. By the age of twenty, Ferdinando I, Duke of Mantua, began commissioning works from him, and he was also employed by local jewelers for figurative designs. After a short residence in Venice, he went to Rome in 1625 with an introduction from the Duke of Mantua to the late pope's nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, who employed him for a time in the restoration of ancient statues.
Tomb of Pope Leo XI
Propelled by the Borghese and Barberini patronage, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his studio garnered most of the major Roman sculptural commissions. For nearly a decade, Algardi struggled for recognition. In Rome he was aided by friends that included Pietro da Cortona and his fellow Bolognese, Domenichino. His early Roman commissions included terracotta and some marble portrait busts, while he supported himself with small works like crucifixes. In the 1630s he worked on the tombs of the Mellini family in the Mellini Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo.
Algardi's first major commission came about in 1634, when Cardinal Ubaldini (Medici) contracted for a funeral monument for his great-uncle, Pope Leo XI, the third of the Medici popes, who had reigned for less than a month in 1605. The monument was started in 1640, and mostly completed by 1644. The arrangement mirrors the one designed by Bernini for the Tomb of Urban VIII (1628–47), with a central hieratic sculpture of the pope seated in full regalia and offering a hand of blessing, while at his feet, two allegorical female figures flank his sarcophagus. However, in Bernini's tomb, the vigorous upraised arm and posture of the pope is counterbalanced by an active drama below, wherein the figures of Charity and Justice are either distracted by putti or lost in contemplation, while skeletal Death actively writes the epitaph. Algardi's tomb is much less dynamic. The allegorical figures of Magnanimity and Liberality have an impassive, ethereal dignity. Some have identified the helmeted figure of Magnanimity with that of Athena and iconic images of Wisdom. Liberality resembles Duquesnoy's famous Santa Susanna, but rendered more elegant. The tomb is somberly monotone and lacks the polychromatic excitement that detracts from the elegiac mood of Urban VIII's tomb.
In 1635–38, Pietro Boncompagni commissioned from Algardi a colossal statue of Philip Neri with kneeling angels for Santa Maria in Vallicella, completed in 1640. Immediately after this, Algardi produced a sculptural group of the beheading of Saint Paul with two figures: a kneeling, resigned saint and the executioner poised to strike the sword-blow, for the church of San Paolo, Bologna. These works established his reputation, alongside two reliefs of The Martyrdom of St Paul and The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (a contemporary replica of the latter is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). Like Bernini's characteristic works, they often express the Baroque aesthetic of depicting dramatic attitudes and emotional expressions, yet Algardi's sculpture has a restraining sobriety in contrast to those of his rival.
Papal favour under Innocent X and Spanish commissions
With the death of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII in 1644 and the accession of the Pamphilj Pope Innocent X, the Barberini family and fell into disrepute, resulting in fewer commissions for Bernini. Algardi, on the other hand, was embraced by the new pope and the pope's nephew, Camillo Pamphilj. Algardi's portraits were highly prized, and their formal severity contrasts with Bernini's more vivacious expression. A large hieratic bronze of Innocent X by Algardi is now to be found in the Capitoline Museums.
Algardi was not renowned for his architectural abilities. Although he was in charge of the project for the papal villa, the Villa Pamphili, now Villa Doria Pamphili, outside the Porta San Pancrazio in Rome, he may have had professional guidance on the design of the casino from the architect/engineer Girolamo Rainaldi and help with supervising its construction from his assistant Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi. The casino was a showcase for the Pamphili collection of sculpture, ancient and contemporary, on which Algardi was well able to advise. In the villa grounds, Algardi and his studio executed sculpture-encrusted fountains and other garden features, where some of his free-standing sculpture and bas-reliefs remain.
In 1650 Algardi met Diego Velázquez, who obtained commissions for his work from Spain. As a consequence there are four chimney-pieces by Algardi in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, and in the gardens, the figures on the fountain of Neptune are also by him. The Augustinian monastery at Salamanca contains the tomb of the Count and Countess de Monterey, another work by Algardi.
Fuga d'Attila relief
Algardi's large, dramatic, high-relief marble panel of Pope Leo and Attila, created from 1646 to 1653, is commonly referred to as Fuga d'Attila or Flight of Attila. It was created for St Peter's Basilica, and it reinvigorated the use of such marble reliefs. There had been large marble reliefs used previously in Roman churches, but for most patrons, sculpted marble altarpieces were far too costly. In this relief, the two principal figures, the stern and courageous pope and the dismayed and frightened Attila, surge forward from the center into three dimensions. Only they two see the descending angelic warriors rallying to the pope's defense, while all others in the background reliefs, persist in performing their respective earthly duties.
The subject was apt for a papal state seeking to increase its power, since it depicts the historical legend wherein Saint Leo the Great, the first pope to receive the epithet, with supernatural aid, deterred the Huns from looting Rome. From a baroque standpoint, the incident is common theme: a moment of divine intervention in the affairs of man. Algardi's patron's message through the relief would be that all viewers should be sternly reminded of the papal capacity to invoke divine retribution against enemies.
In his later years Algardi controlled a large studio and amassed a great fortune. Algardi's classicizing manner was carried on by pupils, including Ercole Ferrata and Domenico Guidi, and Antonio Raggi initially trained with him. The latter two completed his design for an altarpiece of the Vision of Saint Nicholas at San Nicola da Tolentino, Rome, using two separate marble pieces linked together in one event and place, yet successfully separating the divine and earthly spheres. Other lesser known assistants from his studio include Francesco Barrata, Girolamo Lucenti, and Giuseppe Peroni.
Algardi died in Rome within a year of completing his famous relief, which was admired by contemporaries.
Critical assessment and legacy
Algardi was also known for his portraiture which shows an obsessive attention to details of psychologically revealing physiognomy in a sober but immediate naturalism, and minute attention to costume and draperies, such as in the busts of Laudivio Zacchia, Camillo Pamphilj, and of Muzio Frangipane and his two sons Lello and Roberto.
In temperament, his style was more akin to the classicized and restrained baroque of Duquesnoy than to the emotive works of other baroque artists. From an artistic point of view, he was most successful in portrait-statues and groups of children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely. His terracotta models, some of them finished works of art, were prized by collectors. An outstanding series of terracotta models is at the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
Gallery
Sources
Alessandro Algardi in the "History of Art"
Artnet Resource Library: Alessandro Algardi
Web Gallery of Art: Algardi, sculptures
Roderick Conway-Morris, "Casting light on a Baroque sculptor", International Herald Tribune, March 20, 1999: Review of exhibition "Algardi: The Other Face of the Baroque,", 1999
A landscape pen-and-ink drawing by Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, c 1650, to which Algardi has added figures of the Holy Family (Getty Museum)
Images of nearly all works
Roberto Piperno, "Three busts by Alessandro Algardi" Busts of members of the Frangipane family in S. Marcello al Corso
Works by Algardi in Europeana
Notes
References
1598 births
1654 deaths
Italian Baroque sculptors
Artists from Bologna
17th-century Italian sculptors
Italian male sculptors |
1643 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger%20of%20Li%C3%A8ge | 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 () 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.
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:
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
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.
De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio; given in Bernard Pez's Anecdota, vol. iv.
De Sacrificio Missae; given in the Collectio Scriptor. Vet. of Angelo Mai, vol. ix. p. 371.
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.
References
12th-century Roman Catholic priests
1055 births
1131 deaths
11th-century Roman Catholic priests
Clergy from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège
Clergy from Liège |
1647 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro%20Allori | Alessandro Allori | Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori (Florence, 31 May 153522 September 1607) was an Italian painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.
Biography
In 1540, after the death of his father, Allori was brought up and trained in art by a close friend, often referred to as his 'uncle', the mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino, whose name he sometimes assumed in his pictures. Allori supplemented this training with a study trip to Rome, between 1554 and 1560, and with anatomical research which included the dissection of human corpses, provided by the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
In the prime of his career, Allori headed one of the "two most important workshops in Florence in the second half of the 16th century" (the other being headed by Santi di Tito). He served as First Consul of the Accademia del Disegno in 1573, and was made head of the Arazzeria Medicea, Florence's state-owned tapestry workshop, in 1581. Allori also worked, under the guidance of Giorgio Vasari, among the team of artists who decorated the Studiolo of Francesco I. He contributed two painted panels, depicting a Banquet of Cleopatra and a landscape with figures diving for pearls.
S. J. Freedberg derides Allori as derivative, claiming he illustrates "the ideal of Maniera by which art (and style) are generated out of pre-existing art." The cold and polished appearance of his painted figures makes them resemble statues as much as living beings. The art historian Simona Lecchini Giovannoni is more positive, remarking that Allori lends life and immediacy to his paintings through his minute and realistic depictions of vegetal motifs (especially flowers), household articles, and textiles of all kinds; the "grandiose, introverted figures" are thus enabled to "approach the spectator, not with dialogue and sentiment, but through the tangible evidence of objects and details".
Among his collaborators was Giovanni Maria Butteri and his main pupil was Giovanni Bizzelli. Cristofano dell'Altissimo, Cesare Dandini, Aurelio Lomi, John Mosnier, Alessandro Pieroni, Giovanni Battista Vanni, and Monanni also were his pupils. He was the father of the painter Cristofano Allori (1577–1621).
In some ways, Allori is the last of the line of prominent Florentine painters, of generally undiluted Tuscan artistic heritage: Andrea del Sarto worked with Fra Bartolomeo (as well as Leonardo da Vinci), Pontormo briefly worked under Andrea, and trained Bronzino, who trained Allori. Subsequent generations in the city would be strongly influenced by the tide of Baroque styles pre-eminent in other parts of Italy.
Main works
Portrait of a Young Man (1561; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Altarpiece, 1575, Santa Maria Novella, now Prato)
Road to Calvary (1604, Rome)
Dead Christ and Angels, (Museum Fine Arts, Budapest)
Portrait of Piero de Médici, (São Paulo Art Museum, São Paulo)
Pearl Fishing (1570–72, Studiolo of Francesco I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
Susanna and the Elders (202 × 117 cm, Musée Magnin, Dijon)
Allegory of Human Life
The Miracle of St. Peter Walking on Water
Venus and Cupid, (Musée Fabre, Montpellier)
Additions to Andrea del Sarto's Tribute to Caesar (1582; Villa di Poggio a Caiano)
In 2006 the BBC foreign correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler returned an original Alessandro Allori painting to the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. He had been given it in Germany in 1952, but only recently realized its origin and that it must have been looted in the wake of World War II. The work is possibly a portrait of Eleonora (Dianora) di Toledo de' Medici, niece of Eleonora di Toledo, and measures 12 cm x 16 cm.
Gallery
References
Alessandro Allori in the "History of Art"
Painting in Italy 1500-1600, Freedberg, S.J. (Penguin History of Art, 2nd Edition, 1983).
External links
Alessandro Allori Paintings Gallery (Public Domain Paintings - www.art.onilm.com)
1535 births
1607 deaths
16th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
17th-century Italian painters
Painters from Florence
Italian Mannerist painters
Italian portrait painters |
1650 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe | Aloe | Aloe (; also written Aloë) is a genus containing over 650 species of flowering succulent plants. The most widely known species is Aloe vera, or "true aloe". It is called this because it is cultivated as the standard source for assorted pharmaceutical purposes. Other species, such as Aloe ferox, are also cultivated or harvested from the wild for similar applications.
The APG IV system (2016) places the genus in the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Asphodeloideae. Within the subfamily it may be placed in the tribe Aloeae. In the past, it has been assigned to the family Aloaceae (now included in the Asphodeloidae) or to a broadly circumscribed family Liliaceae (the lily family). The plant Agave americana, which is sometimes called "American aloe", belongs to the Asparagaceae, a different family.
The genus is native to tropical and southern Africa, Madagascar, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, and various islands in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius, Réunion, Comoros, etc.). A few species have also become naturalized in other regions (Mediterranean, India, Australia, North and South America, Hawaiian Islands, etc.).
Etymology
The genus name Aloe is derived from the Arabic word alloeh, meaning "bitter and shiny substance" or from Hebrew ahalim, plural of ahal.
Description
Most Aloe species have a rosette of large, thick, fleshy leaves. Aloe flowers are tubular, frequently yellow, orange, pink, or red, and are borne, densely clustered and pendant, at the apex of simple or branched, leafless stems. Many species of Aloe appear to be stemless, with the rosette growing directly at ground level; other varieties may have a branched or unbranched stem from which the fleshy leaves spring. They vary in color from grey to bright-green and are sometimes striped or mottled. Some aloes native to South Africa are tree-like (arborescent).
Systematics
The APG IV system (2016) places the genus in the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Asphodeloideae. In the past it has also been assigned to the families Liliaceae and Aloeaceae, as well as the family Asphodelaceae sensu stricto, before this was merged into the Asphodelaceae sensu lato.
The circumscription of the genus has varied widely. Many genera, such as Lomatophyllum, have been brought into synonymy. Species at one time placed in Aloe, such as Agave americana, have been moved to other genera. Molecular phylogenetic studies, particularly from 2010 onwards, suggested that as then circumscribed, Aloe was not monophyletic and should be divided into more tightly defined genera. In 2014, John Charles Manning and coworkers produced a phylogeny in which Aloe was divided into six genera: Aloidendron, Kumara, Aloiampelos, Aloe, Aristaloe and Gonialoe.
Species
Over 600 species are accepted in the genus Aloe, plus even more synonyms and unresolved species, subspecies, varieties, and hybrids. Some of the accepted species are:
Aloe aculeata Pole-Evans
Aloe africana Mill.
Aloe albida (Stapf) Reynolds
Aloe albiflora Guillaumin
Aloe arborescens Mill.
Aloe arenicola Reynolds
Aloe argenticauda Merxm. & Giess
Aloe bakeri Scott-Elliot
Aloe ballii Reynolds
Aloe ballyi Reynolds
Aloe brevifolia Mill.
Aloe broomii Schönland
Aloe buettneri A.Berger
Aloe camperi Schweinf.
Aloe capitata Baker
Aloe comosa Marloth & A.Berger
Aloe cooperi Baker
Aloe corallina Verd.
Aloe dewinteri Giess ex Borman & Hardy
Aloe erinacea D.S.Hardy
Aloe excelsa A.Berger
Aloe ferox Mill.
Aloe forbesii Balf.f.
Aloe helenae Danguy
Aloe hereroensis Engl.
Aloe inermis Forssk.
Aloe inyangensis Christian
Aloe jawiyon S.J.Christie, D.P.Hannon & Oakman ex A.G.Mill.
Aloe jucunda Reynolds
Aloe khamiesensis Pillans
Aloe kilifiensis Christian
Aloe maculata All.
Aloe marlothii A.Berger
Aloe mubendiensis Christian
Aloe namibensis Giess
Aloe nyeriensis Christian & I.Verd.
Aloe pearsonii Schönland
Aloe peglerae Schönland
Aloe perfoliata L.
Aloe perryi Baker
Aloe petricola Pole-Evans
Aloe polyphylla Pillans
Aloe rauhii Reynolds
Aloe reynoldsii Letty
Aloe scobinifolia Reynolds & Bally
Aloe sinkatana Reynolds
Aloe squarrosa Baker ex Balf.f.
Aloe striata Haw.
Aloe succotrina Lam.
Aloe suzannae Decary
Aloe thraskii Baker
Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f.
Aloe viridiflora Reynolds
Aloe wildii (Reynolds) Reynolds
In addition to the species and hybrids between species within the genus, several hybrids with other genera have been created in cultivation, such as between Aloe and Gasteria (× Gasteraloe), and between Aloe and Astroloba (×Aloloba).
Uses
Aloe species are frequently cultivated as ornamental plants both in gardens and in pots. Many aloe species are highly decorative and are valued by collectors of succulents. Aloe vera is used both internally and externally on humans as folk or alternative medicine. The Aloe species is known for its medicinal and cosmetic properties. Around 75% of Aloe species are used locally for medicinal uses. The plants can also be made into types of special soaps or used in other skin care products (see natural skin care).
Numerous cultivars with mixed or uncertain parentage are grown. Of these, Aloe 'Lizard Lips' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Aloe variegata has been planted on graves in the belief that this ensures eternal life.
Historical uses
Historical use of various aloe species is well documented. Documentation of the clinical effectiveness is available, although relatively limited.
Of the 500+ species, only a few were used traditionally as herbal medicines, Aloe vera again being the most commonly used species. Also included are A. perryi and A. ferox. The Ancient Greeks and Romans used Aloe vera to treat wounds. In the Middle Ages, the yellowish liquid found inside the leaves was favored as a purgative. Unprocessed aloe that contains aloin is generally used as a laxative, whereas processed juice does not usually contain significant aloin.
Some species, particularly Aloe vera, are used in alternative medicine and first aid. Both the translucent inner pulp and the resinous yellow aloin from wounding the aloe plant are used externally for skin discomforts. As an herbal medicine, Aloe vera juice is commonly used internally for digestive discomfort.
According to Cancer Research UK, a potentially deadly product called T-UP is made of concentrated aloe, and promoted as a cancer cure. They say "there is currently no evidence that aloe products can help to prevent or treat cancer in humans".
Aloin in OTC laxative products
On May 9, 2002, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule banning the use of aloin, the yellow sap of the aloe plant, for use as a laxative ingredient in over-the-counter drug products. Most aloe juices today do not contain significant aloin.
Chemical properties
According to W. A. Shenstone, two classes of aloins are recognized: (1) nataloins, which yield picric and oxalic acids with nitric acid, and do not give a red coloration with nitric acid; and (2) barbaloins, which yield aloetic acid (C7H2N3O5), chrysammic acid (C7H2N2O6), picric and oxalic acids with nitric acid, being reddened by the acid. This second group may be divided into a-barbaloins, obtained from Barbados Aloe, and reddened in the cold, and b-barbaloins, obtained from Aloe Socotrina and Zanzibar Aloe, reddened by ordinary nitric acid only when warmed or by fuming acid in the cold. Nataloin (2C17H13O7·H2O) forms bright-yellow scales, barbaloin (C17H18O7) prismatic crystals. Aloe species are used in essential oils as a safety measure to dilute the solution before they are applied to the skin.
Flavoring
Aloe perryi, A. barbadensis, A. ferox, and hybrids of this species with A. africana and A. spicata are listed as natural flavoring substances in the US government Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Aloe socotrina is said to be used in yellow Chartreuse.
Heraldic occurrence
Aloe rubrolutea occurs as a charge in heraldry, for example in the Civic Heraldry of Namibia.
Gallery
See also
List of Aloe species
List of ineffective cancer treatments
List of Southern African indigenous trees
References
Further reading
External links
Asphodelaceae genera
Laxatives
Cosmetics chemicals
Succulent plants |
1652 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alyattes | Alyattes | Alyattes (Lydian language: ; ; reigned c. 635-585 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 derives it, via a form with initial digamma (), itself originally from a Lydian (Lydian alphabet: ). The name meant "lion-ness" (i.e. the state of being a lion), and was composed of the Lydian term (), meaning "lion", to which was added an abstract suffix ().
Chronology
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' 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.
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
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
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.
Lyde of Lydia story
According to Tractatus de mulieribus (citing Xenophilos, who wrote the history of Lydia), Lyde was the wife and sister of Alyattes, 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
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
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 , 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.
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 (king) and (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.
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
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.
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
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.
References
Sources
*
Attribution:
This cites A. von Ölfers, "Über die lydischen Königsgräber bei Sardes," Abh. Berl. Ak., 1858.
External links
Alyattes of Lydia by Jona Lendering
585 BC deaths
Kings of Lydia
6th-century BC monarchs in Asia
7th-century BC monarchs in Asia
Year of birth unknown
Mermnad dynasty |
1653 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age%20of%20consent | Age of consent | The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is unable to legally claim that the sexual activity was consensual, and such sexual activity may be considered child sexual abuse or statutory rape. The person below the minimum age is considered the victim, and their sex partner the offender, although some jurisdictions provide exceptions through "Romeo and Juliet laws" if one or both participants are underage and are close in age.
The term age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes. Generally, a law will establish the age below which it is illegal to engage in sexual activity with that person. It has sometimes been used with other meanings, such as the age at which a person becomes competent to consent to marriage, but consent to sexual activity is the meaning now generally understood. It should not be confused with other laws regarding age minimums including, but not limited to, the age of majority, age of criminal responsibility, voting age, drinking age, and driving age.
Age of consent laws vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, though most jurisdictions set the age of consent in the range 14 to 18 (with the exceptions of Argentina, Niger and Western Sahara which set the age of consent for 13, Mexico which sets the age of consent between 12 and 18, and 14 Muslim states and the Vatican City that set the consent by marriage only). The laws may also vary by the type of sexual act, the gender of the participants or other considerations, such as involving a position of trust; some jurisdictions may also make allowances for minors engaged in sexual acts with each other, rather than a single age. Charges and penalties resulting from a breach of these laws may range from a misdemeanor, such as corruption of a minor, to what is popularly called statutory rape.
There are many "grey areas" in this area of law, some regarding unspecific and untried legislation, others brought about by debates regarding changing societal attitudes, and others due to conflicts between federal and state laws. These factors all make age of consent an often confusing subject and a topic of highly charged debates.
By continent
Africa
Ages of consent in Africa
Americas
Ages of consent in North America
Ages of consent in the United States
Ages of consent in South America
Asia
Ages of consent in Asia
Europe
Ages of consent in Europe
Oceania
Ages of consent in Oceania
History and social attitudes
Traditional attitudes
In traditional societies, the age of consent for a sexual union was a matter for the family to decide, or a tribal custom. In most cases, this coincided with signs of puberty, menstruation for a woman, and pubic hair for a man.
Reliable data for ages at marriage is scarce. In England, for example, the only reliable data in the early modern period comes from property records made after death. Not only were the records relatively rare, but not all bothered to record the participants' ages, and it seems that the more complete the records are, the more likely they are to reveal young marriages. Modern historians have sometimes shown reluctance to accept evidence of young ages of marriage, dismissing it as a 'misreading' by a later copier of the records.
In the 12th century, Gratian, the influential compiler of canon law in medieval Europe, accepted the age of puberty for marriage to be around twelve for girls and around fourteen for boys but acknowledged consent to be meaningful if both children were older than seven years of age. There were authorities that said that such consent for entering marriage could take place earlier. Marriage would then be valid as long as neither of the two parties annulled the marital agreement before reaching puberty, or if they had already consummated the marriage. Judges sometimes honored marriages based on mutual consent at ages younger than seven: in contrast to established canon, there are recorded marriages of two- and three-year-olds.
In China, 慶元條法事類 (Law Code of the Reign), published in 1202 which catelogued laws that came into effect from 1127 to 1195, introduced statutory rape in the following decree '諸強姦者,女十歲以下雖和也同,流三千里,配遠惡州;未成,配五百里;折傷者,絞。 Successful intercourse with girls younger than 10 is considered rape in all circumstances, punishable by exile 3000 li (miles) away into the uncivilized provinces; if the rape was unsuccessful, exile by 500 li; If injury occurs in process, death by hanging'.
From 1275 in England; as part of its provisions on rape, the Statute of Westminster 1275 made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age," whether with or without her consent. The phrase "within age" was later interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke (England, 17th century) as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was twelve years of age.
大明律·集解附例卷之二十五·刑律·犯姦, (Great Ming Code, 25th section, Criminal Code on Rape) came into effect from 1373, raised the age of consent to 12 by stating '十二歲以下幼女未有欲心故雖和同強論成姦者亦坐絞罪。 Girls younger than 12 lack rational sexual desires, therefore any intercourse with them is considered the same as rape and therefore punishable by death with hanging.'
The American colonies followed the English tradition, and the law was more of a guide. For example, Mary Hathaway (Virginia, 1689) was only nine when she was married to William Williams. Sir Edward Coke "made it clear that the marriage of girls under 12 was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was 9 even though her husband be only four years old."
In the 16th century, a small number of Italian and German states set the minimum age for sexual intercourse for girls, setting it at twelve years. Towards the end of the 18th century, other European countries also began to enact similar laws. The first French Constitution of 1791 established the minimum age at eleven years. Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons initially set the minimum age at ten to twelve years.
Age of consent laws were historically difficult to follow and enforce. Legal norms based on age were not, in general, common until the 19th century, because clear proof of exact age and precise date of birth were often unavailable.
In 18th century Australia it was thought that children were inherently sinful and vulnerable to sexual temptations. Punishment for "giving in" to these temptations was generally left to parents and was not seen as a government matter, except in the case of rape. Australian children had few rights and were legally considered the chattel of their parents. From the late 18th century, and especially in the 19th century, attitudes started to change. By the mid-19th century there was increased concern over child sexual abuse.
Reforms in the 19th and 20th century
A general shift in social and legal attitudes toward issues of sex occurred during the modern era. Attitudes on the appropriate age of permission for females to engage in sexual activity drifted toward adulthood. While ages from ten to thirteen years were typically regarded as acceptable ages for sexual consent in Western countries during the mid-19th century, by the end of the 19th century changing attitudes towards sexuality and childhood resulted in the raising of the age of consent.
English common law had traditionally set the age of consent within the range of ten to twelve years old, but the Offences Against the Person Act 1875 raised this to thirteen in Great Britain and Ireland. Early feminists of the Social Purity movement, such as Josephine Butler and others, instrumental in securing the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, began to turn towards the problem of child prostitution by the end of the 1870s. Sensational media revelations about the scourge of child prostitution in London in the 1880s then caused outrage among the respectable middle-classes, leading to pressure for the age of consent to be raised again.
The investigative journalist William Thomas Stead of the Pall Mall Gazette was pivotal in exposing the problem of child prostitution in the London underworld through a publicity stunt. In 1885 he "purchased" one victim, Eliza Armstrong, the thirteen-year-old daughter of a chimney sweep, for five pounds and took her to a brothel where she was drugged. He then published a series of four exposés entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, which shocked its readers with tales of child prostitution and the abduction, procurement, and sale of young English virgins to Continental "pleasure palaces". The "Maiden Tribute" was an instant sensation with the reading public, and Victorian society was thrown into an uproar about prostitution. Fearing riots on a national scale, the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, pleaded in vain with Stead to cease publication of the articles. A wide variety of reform groups held protest meetings and marched together to Hyde Park demanding that the age of consent be raised. The government was forced to propose the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen and clamped down on prostitution.
In the United States, as late as the 1880s most states set the minimum age at ten to twelve (in Delaware, it was seven in 1895). Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" articles, female reformers in the U.S. initiated their own campaign, which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least sixteen, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to eighteen. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to sixteen to eighteen years by 1920.
In France, Portugal, Denmark, the Swiss cantons and other countries, the minimum age was raised to between thirteen and sixteen years in the following decades. Though the original arguments for raising the age of consent were based on morality, since then the raison d'être of the laws has changed to child welfare and a so-called right to childhood or innocence.
In France, under the Napoleonic Code, the age of consent was set in 1832 at eleven, and was raised to thirteen in 1863. It was increased to fifteen in 1945. In the 1970s, a group of prominent French intellectuals advocated for the repeal of the age of consent laws, but did not succeed.
In Spain, it was set in 1822 at "puberty age", and changed to twelve in 1870, which was kept until 1999, when it became 13; and in 2015 it was raised to 16.
21st century
In the 21st century, concerns about child sex tourism and commercial sexual exploitation of children gained prominence, resulting in legislative changes in multiple jurisdictions, as well as the adoption of international laws.
The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Lanzarote, 25 October 2007), and the European Union's Directive 2011/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography were adopted.
The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography came into force in 2002.
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which came into force in 2003, prohibits commercial sexual exploitation of children.
The Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (which came into force in 2008) also deals with commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Several Western countries have raised their ages of consent in recent decades. These include Canada (in 2008—from 14 to 16); and in Europe, Iceland (in 2007—from 14 to 15), Lithuania (in 2010—from 14 to 16), Croatia (in 2013—from 14 to 15), Spain (in 2015—from 13 to 16), Romania (in 2020 from 15 to 16) and Estonia (in 2022—from 14 to 16).
The International Criminal Court Statute does not provide a specific age of consent in its rape/sexual violence statute, but makes reference to sexual acts committed against persons "incapable of giving genuine consent"; and the explicative footnote states, "It is understood that a person may be incapable of giving genuine consent if affected by natural, induced or age-related incapacity." (see note 51)
Law
Sexual relations with a person under the age of consent is a crime in most countries; Jurisdictions use a variety of terms for the offense, including child sexual abuse, statutory rape, illegal carnal knowledge, corruption of a minor, besides others.
The enforcement practices of age-of-consent laws vary depending on the social sensibilities of the particular culture (see above). Often, enforcement is not exercised to the letter of the law, with legal action being taken only when a sufficiently socially-unacceptable age gap exists between the two individuals, or if the perpetrator is in a position of power over the minor (e.g. a teacher, minister, or doctor). The sex of each participant can also influence perceptions of an individual's guilt and therefore enforcement.
Age
The threshold age for engaging in sexual activity varies between jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions have set a fixed age of consent. However, some jurisdictions permit sex with a person after the onset of their puberty, such as Yemen, but only in marriage. Ages can also vary based on the type of calendar used, such as the lunar calendar, how birth dates in leap years are handled, or even the method by which birth date is calculated.
Defenses and exceptions
The age of consent is a legal barrier to the minor's ability to consent and therefore obtaining consent is not in general a defense to having sexual relations with a person under the prescribed age, for example:
Reasonable belief that the victim is over the age of consent
In some jurisdictions it is a defense if the accused can show their reasonable belief that the victim was over the age of consent. However, where such a defense is provided, it normally applies only when the victim is close to the age of consent or the accused can show due diligence in determining the age of the victim (e.g. an underage person who used a fake identification document claiming to be of legal age).
Marriage
In various jurisdictions, age of consent laws do not apply if the parties are legally married to each other. Ruhollah Khomeini, First Supreme Leader of Iran, in Tahrir al-Wasilah apart from sexual penetration, which he said a girl must be at least 9 years old to do it; he considered other sexual pleasures to be unobjection, whether after 9 years old or before 9 years old, even if those sexual acts done with a suckling infant.
Close-in-age exemptions
Similar age
Some jurisdictions have laws explicitly allowing sexual acts with minors under the age of consent if their partner is close in age. In Canada, the age of consent is 16, but there are three close-in-age exemptions: sex with minors aged 14–15 is permitted if the partner is less than five years older, sex with minors aged 12–13 is permitted if the partner is less than two years older, and sex with minors aged 0–11 is permitted if the partner is 12 or 13 years of age, as long as the partner is not in a position of trust over the other minor.
Age under threshold
Another approach takes the form of a stipulation that sexual intercourse between a minor and an older partner is legal under the condition that the latter does not exceed a certain age. For example, the age of consent in the US state of Delaware is 18, but it is allowed for teenagers aged 16 and 17 to engage in sexual intercourse as long as the older partner is younger than 30. The law in Canada for sex between minors aged 0–11 with a partner younger than 14 also takes this form.
Similar maturity
Other countries state that the sexual conduct with the minor is not to be punished if the partners are of a similar age and development: for instance, the age of consent in Finland is 16, but the law states that the act will not be punished if "there is no great difference in the ages or the mental and physical maturity of the persons involved". In Slovenia, the age of consent is 15, but the activity is only deemed criminal if there is "a marked discrepancy between the maturity of the perpetrator and that of the victim".
Homosexual and heterosexual age discrepancies
Some jurisdictions, such as the Bahamas, UK overseas territory of the Cayman Islands, Chile, Paraguay and Suriname have a higher age of consent for same-sex sexual activity. However, such discrepancies are increasingly being challenged. Within Bermuda for example (since 1 November 2019 under section 177 of the Criminal Code Act 1907) the age of consent for vaginal and oral sex is 16, but for anal sex it is 18. In Canada, the United Kingdom and Western Australia, for example, the age of consent was formerly 21 for same-sex sexual activity between males (with no laws regarding lesbian sexual activities), while it was 16 for heterosexual sexual activity; this is no longer the case and the age of consent for all sexual activity is 16. In June 2019, the Canadian government repealed the section of the criminal code that set a higher age of consent for anal intercourse.
Gender-age differentials In some jurisdictions (such as Indonesia), there are different ages of consent for heterosexual sexual activity that are based on the gender of each person. In countries where there are gender-age differentials, the age of consent may be higher for girls—for example in Papua New Guinea, where the age of consent for heterosexual sex is 16 for girls and 14 for boys, or they may be higher for males, such as in Indonesia, where males must be 19 years old and females must be 16 years old. There are also numerous jurisdictions—such as Kuwait and the Palestinian Territories—in which marriage laws govern the gender-age differential. In these jurisdictions, it is illegal to have sexual intercourse outside of marriage, so the de facto age of consent is the marriageable age. In Kuwait, this means that boys must be at least 17 and girls at least 15 years old.
Position of authority/trust
In most jurisdictions where the age of consent is below 18 (such as England and Wales), in cases where a person aged 18 or older is in a position of trust over a person under 18, the age of consent usually rises to 18 or higher. Examples of such positions of trust include relationships between teachers and students. For example, in England and Wales the age of consent is 16, but if the person is a student of the older person it becomes 18.
Circumstances of the relationship
In several jurisdictions, it is illegal to engage in sexual activity with a person under a certain age under certain circumstances regarding the relationship in question, such as if it involves taking advantage of or corrupting the morals of the young person. For example, while the age of consent is 14 in Germany and 16 in Canada, it is illegal in both countries to engage in sexual activity with a person under 18 if the activity exploits the younger person. Another example is in Mexico, where there is a crime called "estupro" defined as sexual activity with a person over the age of consent but under a certain age limit (generally 18) in which consent of the younger person was obtained through seduction and/or deceit. In Pennsylvania, the age of consent is officially 16, but if the older partner is 18 or older, they may still be prosecuted for corruption of minors for their corruption or tending to corrupt the morals of the younger person.
Extraterritoriality
A growing number of countries have specific extraterritorial legislation that prosecutes their citizens in their homeland should they engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country with children. In 2008, ECPAT reported that 44 countries had extraterritorial child sex legislation. For example, PROTECT Act of 2003, a federal United States law bans sexual activity by its citizens with foreigners or with U.S. citizens from another state, if the partner is under 18 and the activity is illegal under the federal, state, or local law. This applies in cases where any of the partners travels into or out of the United States, or from one state into another, for the purpose of an illegal sexual encounter.
Other issues
Gender of participants
There is debate as to whether the gender of those involved should lead to different treatment of the sexual encounter, in law or in practice. Traditionally, age of consent laws regarding vaginal intercourse were often meant to protect the chastity of unmarried girls. Many feminists and social campaigners in the 1970s have objected to the social importance of virginity, and have also attempted to change the stereotypes of female passivity and male aggression; demanding that the law protect children from exploitation regardless of their gender, rather than dealing with concerns of chastity. This has led to gender-neutral laws in many jurisdictions. On the other hand, there is an opposing view which argues that the act of vaginal intercourse is an "unequal act" for males and females, due to issues such as pregnancy, increased risk of STDs, and risk of physical injury if the girl is too young and not physically ready. In the US, in Michael M. v. Superior Ct.450 U.S. 464 (1981) it was ruled that the double standard of offering more legal protection to girls is valid because "the Equal Protection Clause does not mean that the physiological differences between men and women must be disregarded".
Traditionally, many age of consent laws dealt primarily with men engaging in sexual acts with underage girls and boys (the latter acts often falling under sodomy and buggery laws). This means that in some legal systems, issues of women having sexual contact with underage partners were rarely acknowledged. For example, until 2000, in the UK, before the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, there was no statutory age of consent for lesbian sex. In New Zealand, before 2005, there were no age of consent laws dealing with women having sex with underage boys. Previously, in Fiji, male offenders of child sexual abuse could receive up to life imprisonment, whilst female offenders would receive up to seven years. Situations like these have been attributed to societal views on traditional gender roles, and to constructs of male sexuality and female sexuality; according to E Martellozzo, "[V]iewing females as perpetrators of sexual abuse goes against every stereotype that society has of women: women as mothers and caregivers and not as people who abuse and harm". Alissa Nutting argues that women are not acknowledged as perpetrators of sex crimes because society does not accept that women have an autonomous sexuality of their own.
Marriage and the age of consent
The age at which a person can be legally married can differ from the age of consent. In jurisdictions where the marriageable age is lower than the age of consent, those laws usually override the age of consent laws in the case of a married couple where one or both partners are below the age of consent. Some jurisdictions prohibit all sex outside of marriage irrespective of age, as in the case of Yemen.
Prostitution
In many countries, there are specific laws dealing with child prostitution.
Pornography and "jailbait" images
In some countries, states, or other jurisdictions, the age of consent may be lower than the age at which a person can appear in pornographic images and films. In many jurisdictions, the minimum age for participation and even viewing such material is 18. As such, in some jurisdictions, films and images showing individuals under the age of 18, but above the age of consent, that meet the legal definition of child pornography are prohibited despite the fact that the sexual acts depicted are legal to engage in otherwise under that jurisdiction's age of consent laws. In those cases, it is only the filming of the sex act that is the crime as the act itself would not be considered a sex crime. For example, in the United States under federal law it is a crime to film minors below 18 in sexual acts, even in states where the age of consent is below 18. In those states, charges such as child pornography can be used to prosecute someone having sex with a minor, who could not otherwise be prosecuted for statutory rape, provided they filmed or photographed the act.
Jailbait images can be differentiated from child pornography, as they do not feature minors before the onset of puberty, nor do they contain nudity. The images are, however, usually sexualized, often featuring tween or young teenagers in bikinis, skirts, underwear or lingerie. Whether or not these images are legal is debated. When questioned regarding their legality legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin stated he thought it was not illegal, though legal expert Sunny Hostin was more skeptical, describing jailbait images as "borderline" child pornography which may be illegal.
Health
The human immune system continues to develop after puberty. The age of exposure has an influence upon if the immune system can fend off infections in general, and this is also true in the case of some sexually transmitted diseases. For example, a risk factor for HPV strains causing genital warts is sexual debut at a young age; if this extends to the cancer causing strains, then sexual debut at a young age would potentially also increase risk of persistence of HPV infections that cause the very HPV induced cancers that are being diagnosed in spiking numbers of relatively young people.
Initiatives to change the age of consent
Age-of-consent reform refers to the efforts of some individuals or groups, for different reasons, to alter or abolish age-of-consent laws. These efforts advocate positions such as:
Introductions of close-in-age exceptions.
Reducing the age-of-consent for homosexual activity to match that of heterosexual activity.
A change in the way that age-of-consent laws are examined in court.
Either increases in the ages of consent or more severe penalties or both.
Either decreases in the ages of consent or less severe penalties or both.
Abolition of the age-of-consent laws either permanently or as a temporary, practical expedient.
See also
Adult film industry regulations
Age disparity in sexual relationships
Age of accountability
Age of candidacy
Age of Consent Act, 1891 (British India)
Age of consent reform (UK)
Age of consent by country
Age of criminal responsibility
Age of majority
Age of reason (canon law)
Child sexual abuse
Comprehensive sex education
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Emancipation of minors
Fitness to plead, law of England and Wales
French petition against age of consent laws
Gillick competence
Legal age
Mature minor doctrine
Minors and abortion
Sex-positive movement
Sodomy law
The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon
Youth
Youth suffrage
Youth rights
References
Further reading
Brewer, Holly. By Birth or Consent: Children, Law, & the Anglo-American Revolution in Authority ; Univ. of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, 2005)
Robertson, Stephen (University of Sydney). "Age of Consent Laws." In: Children & Youth in History, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City.—Includes links to primary sources.
Waites, Matthew (2005). The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship, (New York [United States] and Houndmills, Basingstoke [United Kingdom]: Palgrave Macmillan)
External links
(Some information may be out of date)
Adolescent sexuality
Age and society
Minimum ages
Sex laws
Sexuality and age
Statutory law |
1654 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alypius%20of%20Antioch | 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.
References
Sources
Todd, M., Roman Britain, Fontana, London 1985
Salway, P., Roman Britain, Oxford, 1986
Jews and Judaism in the Roman Empire
Ancient Romans in Britain
People from Antioch
Ancient Roman geographers
Roman governors of Britain
4th-century Romans
Late-Roman-era pagans
4th-century geographers |
1655 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalasuintha | Amalasuintha | Amalasuintha (495 – 30 April 535) was a ruler of the Ostrogothic Kingdom from 526 to 535. Initially serving as regent for her son Athalaric, she became queen after his premature death. Highly educated, Amalasuintha was praised by both Cassiodorus and Procopius for her wisdom and her ability to speak three languages (Greek, Gothic, and Latin). Her status as an independent female monarch, and obvious affinity for Roman culture, caused discontent among the Gothic nobles in her court, and she was deposed and killed after six months of sole rule.
Family
Amalasuintha was likely born in Ravenna in 495, the only child of Theodoric and his wife Audofleda, the sister of Clovis, King of the Franks. The union of Amalasuintha’s parents were of a political purpose, as many royal marriages were at the time. Theodoric married Audofleda about the year 493, after he had defeated the various Gothic kingdoms and sought an alliance with the Franks. Amalasuintha was born into the Amali dynasty on her father’s side, which dynasty comprised Goths of Germanic descent. Like her father, Amalasuintha was married out of political reasons to Eutharic, an Amali prince, to ensure a legitimate heir to the throne. They had two children together, Athalaric and Matasuntha. Eutharic died in 522, causing Theodoric some alarm, as his kingdom lacked an adult male heir to inherit the throne. As Amalasuintha's son Athalaric was only 10 years old at the time of Theodoric's death, Amalasuintha took control of the kingdom alongside her son as regent and, although accounts by Cassiodorus and Procopius refer to Athalaric as King, she effectively ruled on his behalf.
Rule
Regent
According to Procopius, the Goth aristocracy wanted Athalaric to be raised in the Gothic manner, but Amalasuintha wanted him to resemble the Roman princes. Amalasuintha had close ties to the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, which would have made her adherence to Roman learning and customs especially objectionable to her fellow Goths. The regency lasted until 534, when Athalaric died from what was most likely the combination of excessive drinking (a part of Gothic culture) and a disease, probably diabetes. In order to secure the power in the Amali name, Amalasuintha created the consortium regni that allowed her to continue to rule as queen while still presenting a public face that honored conservative Gothic tradition. She then appointed her older cousin Theodahad to rule as co-regent, in which Amalasuintha would play the male character and Theodahad would play the woman, as male and female monarchs sharing powers. Masculinity is the main characteristic attributed to Amalasuintha by Procopius and Cassiodorus, because she had a strong determination and temperament.
Her tremendous influence in her position as regent can be seen in a diptych of Rufius Gennadius Probus Orestes in which she appears alongside her son, Athalaric, in 530. Deeply imbued with the old Roman culture, she gave to her son's education a more refined and literary turn than suited her Goth subjects. Conscious of her unpopularity, she banished – and afterwards put to death – three Gothic nobles whom she suspected of conspiring against her rule. At the same time, she opened negotiations with Justinian, with the view of removing herself and the Gothic treasure to Constantinople.
Queen regnant
After Athalaric's death, Amalasuintha became queen and ruled alone for a short while before making her cousin Theodahad co-ruler with the intent of strengthening her position. Theodahad was a prominent leader of the Gothic military aristocracy that opposed her pro-Roman stances, and Amalasuintha believed this duumvirate might make supporters from her harshest critics. Instead Theodahad fostered the disaffection of the Goths, and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuintha was imprisoned on the island of Martana in Lake Bolsena, where on 30 April 535 she was murdered in her bath.
Death
The death of Amalasuintha gave Justinian I a reason to go to war with the Ostrogoths and attempt to take Italy. According to the Eastern Roman historian Procopius, Amalasuintha was thinking about handing over Italy to Justinian around the time of her death. Shortly after Amalasuintha's murder, Theodahad was replaced by Witigis, Amalasuintha's son-in-law. With the people's support, Witigis had Theodahad put to death.
Sources
The letters of Cassiodorus, chief minister and literary adviser of Amalasuintha, and the histories of Procopius and Jordanes, give us our chief information as to the character of Amalasuintha. Cassiodorus was a part of a greater pro-Roman party that desired to Romanize the traditional Ostrogothic kingship, further evidence of the pro-Roman circle that Amalasuintha surrounded herself with.
Legacy
The life of Amalasuintha was made the subject of a tragedy, the first play written by the young Carlo Goldoni and presented at Milan in 1733.
Romanian poet George Coșbuc wrote a poem entitled Regina Ostrogotilor (The Queen of the Ostrogoths) in which Amalasuintha (as Amalasunda) speaks to Theodahad (mentioned as Teodat in the poem) shortly before he kills her.
Asteroid 650 Amalasuntha is named in her honour.
Amalasuintha is portrayed by Honor Blackman in the 1968 film Kampf um Rom. Her character is suffocated to death in a locked bath house. References
Further reading
Craddock, Jonathan Paul. Amalasuintha: Ostrogothic Successor, A.D. 526–535. PhD diss. California State University, Long Beach, 1996.
Vitiello, Massimiliano. Amalasuintha: The Transformation of Queenship in the Post-Roman World''. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
Year of birth unknown
535 deaths
6th-century women monarchs
Ostrogothic queens consort
Ostrogothic kings
Amali dynasty
6th-century monarchs in Europe
6th-century murdered monarchs
6th-century Ostrogothic people
6th-century Italian women
6th-century Christians
6th-century scholars
Women scholars and academics
Scholars of Latin literature
Scholars of Greek language
Queens regnant in Europe
6th-century kings of Italy
6th-century women regents
6th-century regents |
1656 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalric%20of%20Bena | Amalric of Bena | Amalric of Bena (; ; died ) was a French theologian, philosopher and sect leader, after whom the Amalricians are named. Reformers such as Martin Luther considered him to be a proto-Protestant.
Biography
Amalric was born in the latter part of the 12th century at Bennes, a village between Ollé and Chauffours in the diocese of Chartres.
Amalric taught philosophy and theology at the University of Paris and enjoyed a great reputation as a subtle dialectician; his lectures developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large audience. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III, the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors.
His death was caused, it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been subjected.
In 1209, ten of his followers were burnt before the gates of Paris and Amalric's own body was exhumed and burnt and the ashes given to the winds. The doctrines of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Propositions
Amalric appears to have derived his philosophical system from a selective reading of Eriugena, whose expressions he developed in a one-sided and strongly pantheistic form.
Only three propositions can be attributed to him with certainty:
that God is all (omnia sunt deus) and thus all things are one because whatever is, is God (omnia unum, quia quidquid est, est Deus);
that every Christian is bound to believe that he is a member of the body of Christ, and that this belief is necessary for salvation;
that he who remains in love of God can commit no sin.
Because of the first proposition, God himself is thought to be invisible and only recognizable in his creation.
These three propositions were further developed by his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself in a threefold revelation, the first in the Biblical patriarch Abraham, marking the epoch of the Father; the second in Jesus Christ, who began the epoch of the Son; and the third in Amalric and his disciples, who inaugurated the era of the Holy Ghost.
Amalricians taught:
Hell is ignorance, therefore Hell is within all men, "like a bad tooth in a mouth";
God is identical with all that is, even evil belongs to God and proves God's omnipotence;
A man who knows that God works through everything cannot sin, because every human act is then the act of God;
A man who recognizes the truth that God works through everything is already in Heaven and this is the only resurrection. There is no other life; man's fulfillment is in this life alone.
Due to persecutions, this sect does not appear to have long survived the death of its founder. Not long after the burning of ten of their members (1210), the sect itself lost its importance, while some of the surviving Amalricians became Brethren of the Free Spirit.
According to Hosea Ballou, then Pierre Batiffol and George T. Knight (1914) Amalric believed that all people would eventually be saved and this was one of the counts upon which he was declared a heretic by Pope Innocent III.
See also
Brethren of the Free Spirit
References
Attribution:
This cites:
W. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1874, i. 167–173)
Hauréau, Histoire de la phil. scol. (Paris, 1872)
C. Schmidt, Histoire de l'Église d'Occident pendant le moyen âge (Paris, 1885)
Hefele, Conciliengeschichte (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1886)
Sources
Christoph Ulrich Hahn: Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, Vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 1850)
Arno Borst: Religiöse und geistige Bewegungen im Hochmittelalter, Propyläen Weltgeschichte, Ullstein 1963, Vol. 5, p. 537
Friedrich Heer Medieval World Europe 1100-1350
Capelle, G. C., Amaury de Bène, étude sur son panthéisme formel (Paris, 1932).
Russell, J. B., The Influence of Amalric of Bene in Thirteenth Century Pantheism (Berkeley, 1957).
1200s deaths
12th-century births
Medieval Christian universalists
12th-century Christian mystics
Christian universalist theologians
Roman Catholic mystics
Pantheists
Scholastic philosophers
12th-century French people
12th-century Christian theologians |
1658 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso%20II%20of%20Portugal | Afonso II of Portugal | Afonso II (; English: Alphonse; Archaic Portuguese: Affonso; Portuguese-Galician: Alfonso or Alphonso; Latin: Alphonsus; 23 April 118525 March 1223), nicknamed the Fat (o Gordo) or the Leper (o Gafo), was the third king of Portugal and 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.
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
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 12074 January 1248), king of Portugal;
Afonso III (5 May 121016 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.
Ancestry
See also
Timeline of Portuguese history (First Dynasty)
Portugal in the Middle Ages
Portugal in the Reconquista
Siege of Alcácer do Sal
References
Bibliography
Portuguese infantes
House of Burgundy-Portugal
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
1185 births
1223 deaths
People of the Reconquista
People from Coimbra
12th-century Portuguese people
13th-century Portuguese monarchs |
1659 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso%20III%20of%20Portugal | Afonso III of Portugal | Afonso III (; rare English alternatives: Alphonzo or Alphonse), or Affonso (Archaic Portuguese), Alfonso or Alphonso (Portuguese-Galician) or Alphonsus (Latin), the Boulonnais (Port. o Bolonhês), King of Portugal (5 May 121016 February 1279) was 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
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 1246, conflicts between his brother, the king, and the church became unbearable. In 1247, 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 in 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 Matilde 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
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 (1267) 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.
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.
See also
Timeline of Portuguese history (First Dynasty)
Portugal in the Middle Ages
Portugal in the Reconquista
References
Portuguese Roman Catholics
Portuguese infantes
House of Burgundy-Portugal
People of the Reconquista
1210 births
1279 deaths
People from Coimbra
13th-century Portuguese monarchs
Jure uxoris officeholders
Counts of Mortain
Counts of Aumale
Counts of Dammartin
Counts of Boulogne |
1660 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso%20IV%20of%20Portugal | Afonso IV of Portugal | Afonso IV (; 8 February 129128 May 1357), called the Brave (), 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
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 preferring 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
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.
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.
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 (131318 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 132018 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 I of Portugal, who later became king;
Isabel (21 December 132411 July 1326), buried at the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra;
John (23 September 132621 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.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Portuguese infantes
Portuguese Roman Catholics
House of Burgundy-Portugal
1291 births
1357 deaths
Nobility from Lisbon
People of the Reconquista
14th-century Portuguese monarchs |
1661 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso%20V%20of%20Portugal | Afonso V of Portugal | Afonso V () (15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was king of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Africa.
Early life
Afonso was born in Sintra, the second son of King Edward of Portugal by his wife Eleanor of Aragon. Following the death of his older brother, Infante João (1429–1433), Afonso acceded to the position of heir apparent and was made the first Prince of Portugal by his father, who sought to emulate the English Court's custom of a dynastic title that distinguished the heir apparent from the other children of the monarch. He was only six years old when he succeeded his father in 1438.
During his minority, Afonso was placed under the regency of his mother, Eleanor, in accordance with the will left by his late father. As both a foreigner and a woman, the queen was not a popular choice for regent. When the cortes met in late 1438, a law was passed requiring a joint regency consisting of Eleanor and Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, the younger brother of the late king. The dual regency was a failure and in 1439, the cortes named Pedro "protector and guardian" of the king and "ruler and defender" of the kingdom. Eleanor attempted to resist, but without support in Portugal she fled to Castile.
Pedro's main policies were concerned with restricting the political power of the great noble houses and expanding the powers of the crown. The country prospered under his rule, but not peacefully, as his laws interfered with the ambition of powerful nobles. The count of Barcelos, a personal enemy of the Duke of Coimbra (despite being half-brothers) eventually became the king's favourite uncle and began a constant struggle for power. In 1442, the king made the count his uncle Afonso the first Duke of Braganza. With this title and its lands, he became the most powerful man in Portugal and one of the richest men in Europe. To secure his position as regent, Pedro had Afonso marry his daughter, Isabella of Coimbra, in 1445.
But on 9 June 1448, when the king came of age, Pedro had to surrender his power to Afonso V. The years of conspiracy by the Duke of Braganza finally came to a head. On 15 September of the same year, Afonso V nullified all the laws and edicts approved under the regency. In the following year, led by what were later discovered to be false accusations, Afonso declared Pedro a rebel and defeated his army in the Battle of Alfarrobeira, in which his uncle (and father-in-law) was killed.
Invasion of Morocco
Afonso V then turned his attentions to North Africa. In the reign of his grandfather John I, Ceuta had been conquered and taken over from the king of Morocco, and now the new king wanted to expand the conquests. The king's army conquered Alcácer Ceguer in 1458 and Arzila in 1471. Tangiers, on the other hand, was won and lost several times between 1460 and 1464. These achievements granted the king the nickname of the African or Africano.
After the capture of Alcácer Ceguer in 1458, Afonso gave himself the title "king of Portugal and the Algarves", where the plural form of Algarve was meant to refer to both the original Kingdom of the Algarve in southern Portuguese as well as the new territories in Africa.
The king also supported the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean led by prince Henry the Navigator but after Henry's death in 1460, he did nothing to continue Henry's work. Administratively, Afonso V was a passive king. He chose not to pursue the revision of laws or development of commerce, preferring instead to preserve the legacy of his father Edward and grandfather John I. In 1469, King Afonso V of Portugal granted Fernão Gomes the monopoly of trade in the Gulf of Guinea.
In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which granted Afonso V the right to reduce "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. This was reaffirmed and extended in the Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455 (also by Nicholas V). These papal bulls came to be seen by some as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonialism.
Castile
When the campaigns in Africa were over, Afonso V found new grounds for battle in neighboring Castile. On 11 December 1474 King Henry IV of Castile died without a male heir, leaving just one daughter, Joanna. However, her paternity was questioned; it was rumored that his wife, Queen Joan of Portugal (Afonso's sister) had an affair with a nobleman named Beltrán de La Cueva. The death of Henry ignited a war of succession with one faction supporting Joanna and the other supporting Isabella, Henry's half-sister. Afonso V was persuaded to intervene on behalf of Joanna, his niece. He betrothed himself to her, proclaimed himself king of Castile and led troops into the kingdom. Because of their close blood-relationship, a formal marriage had to wait for papal dispensation.
On 12 May 1475 Afonso entered Castile with an army of 5,600 cavalry and 14,000 foot soldiers. In March 1476, after several skirmishes and much maneuvering, the 8, 000 men of Afonso and Prince João, faced a Castilian force of similar size in the battle of Toro. The Castilians were led by Isabella's husband, Prince Ferdinand II of Aragon, Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba. The fight was fierce and confusing but the result was a stalemate: While the forces of Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba won over their opponents led by the Portuguese King – who left the battlefield to take refuge in Castronuño, the troops commanded by Prince Joao defeated and persecuted the troops of the Castilian right wing, recovered the Portuguese royal standard, remaining ordered in the battlefield where they collected the fugitives of Afonso. Both sides claimed victory but Afonso's prospects for obtaining the Castilian crown were severely damaged.
After the battle, Afonso sailed to France hoping to obtain the assistance of King Louis XI in his fight against Castile. But finding himself deceived by the French monarch, he returned to Portugal in 1477. Disillusioned, he abdicated for a few days in November 1477 in favor of his son John II, then after returning to the throne, he retired to a monastery in Sintra, where he died in 1481.
Marriages and descendants
Afonso married firstly, in 1447, Isabella of Coimbra, with whom he had three children:
John, Prince of Portugal (29 January 1451).
Joan, Princess of Portugal (6 February 1452 – 12 May 1490): Known as Saint Joan of Portugal or Saint Joan Princess.
John II of Portugal (3 March 1455 – 25 October 1495): Succeeded his father as 13th King of Portugal.
After the death of his wife in 1455, he had at least one child out of wedlock with Maria Soares da Cunha, daughter of Afonso's major valet, Fernao de Sa Alcoforado:
Alvaro Soares da Cunha (1466-1557), Noble of the Royal House, Lord of the House of Quintas in Sao Vicente de Pinheiro, Porto and Chief Guard of Pestilence in Porto.
Ancestry
Notes
Bibliography
English
Downey, Kirstin: Isabella: the Warrior Queen, Anchor Books, New York, 2014
Miller, Townsend: The battle of Toro, 1476, in History Today, volume 14, 1964.
Non-English
Saul, António: Dom Afonso V, vol. 12 of Reis de Portugal, 2009, Temas e Debates-Actividades Editoriais,
1432 births
1481 deaths
15th-century Portuguese monarchs
House of Aviz
Knights of the Garter
People from Sintra
Portuguese exploration in the Age of Discovery
Portuguese infantes
Portuguese people of English descent
Princes of Portugal
Sons of kings |
1662 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso%20VI%20of%20Portugal | Afonso VI of Portugal | Afonso VI (; 21 August 164312 September 1683), known as "the Victorious" (), 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, the 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
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. 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
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 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, 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. 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.
Ancestry
References
Sources
Portuguese infantes
Dukes of Braganza
Child monarchs
1643 births
1683 deaths
Portuguese people with disabilities
Princes of Brazil
House of Braganza
17th-century Portuguese monarchs
Nobility from Lisbon
Royalty and nobility with disabilities
Burials at the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
Royal reburials |
1663 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonso%20I%20of%20Spain | Alphonso I of Spain | There has not been a monarch known as Alphonso or Alfonso I of Spain, the first king of that name of the unified Spain being Alfonso XII (1857–1885). Several precursor kingdoms have had an Alfonso I, including:
Alfonso I of Asturias (–757)
Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre (–1134), known as the Battler
Alfonso II of Aragon, also known as Alfons I, Count of Barcelona (1157–1196), called the Chaste or the Troubadour |
1664 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20II%20of%20Asturias | Alfonso II of Asturias | Alfonso II of Asturias (842), nicknamed the Chaste (), 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 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
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 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 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
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
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, profferred 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
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.
The Crónica Sebastianense records his death in 842, saying:
tras haber llevado por 52 años casta, sobria, inmaculada, piadosa y gloriosamente el gobierno del reino
[after having held for 52 years chastely, soberly, immaculately, piously, and gloriously the government of the realm]
References
8th-century births
842 deaths
Beni Alfons
8th-century Asturian monarchs
9th-century Asturian monarchs |
1669 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarasimha | Amarasimha | Amarasimha (IAST: , ) 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: ) (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.
References
Attribution:
External links
Amarakosha Sanskrit text
Indian Buddhists
Indian male poets
4th-century Indian poets
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
Sanskrit writers |
1679 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20the%20Battler | Alfonso the Battler | Alfonso I (7 September 1134), called the Battler or the Warrior (), was King of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. With his marriage to Urraca, queen regnant of Castile, León and Galicia, in 1109, he began to use, with some justification, the grandiose title Emperor of Spain, formerly employed by his father-in-law, Alfonso VI. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the Reconquista. He won his greatest military successes in the middle Ebro, where he conquered Zaragoza in 1118 and took Ejea, Tudela, Calatayud, Borja, Tarazona, Daroca, and Monreal del Campo. He died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the Muslims at the Battle of Fraga.
His nickname comes from the Aragonese version of the Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña (c. 1370), which says that "they called him lord Alfonso the battler because in Spain there wasn't as good a knight who won twenty-nine battles" (clamabanlo don Alfonso batallador porque en Espayna no ovo tan buen cavallero que veynte nueve batallas vençió).
Early life
His earliest years were passed in the monastery of Siresa, learning to read and write and to practice the military arts under the tutelage of Lope Garcés the Pilgrim, who was repaid for his services by his former charge with the county of Pedrola when Alfonso came to the throne.
During his brother's reign, he participated in the taking of Huesca (the Battle of Alcoraz, 1096), which became the largest city in the kingdom and the new capital. He also joined El Cid's expeditions in Valencia. His father gave him the lordships of Biel, Luna, Ardenes, and Bailo.
A series of deaths put Alfonso directly in line for the throne. His brother's children, Isabella and Peter (who married María Rodríguez, daughter of El Cid), died in 1103 and 1104 respectively.
Matrimonial conflicts
A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine battles against Christian or Moor), he was married (when well over 30 years and a habitual bachelor) in 1109 to the ambitious Queen Urraca of León, a passionate woman unsuited for a subordinate role. The marriage had been arranged by her father Alfonso VI of León in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravids, and to supply them with a capable military leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as queen regnant and had not learnt chastity in the polygamous household of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality of the age and came to open war, even placing Urraca under siege at Astorga in 1112. Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his opponents he won the Battle of Candespina and the Battle of Viadangos, but his only trustworthy supporters were his Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep Castile and León subjugated. The marriage of Alfonso and Urraca was declared null by the pope, as they were second cousins, in 1110, but he ignored the papal nuncio and clung to his liaison with Urraca until 1114. During his marriage, he had called himself "King and Emperor of Castile, Toledo, Aragón, Pamplona, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza" in recognition of his rights as Urraca's husband; of his inheritance of the lands of his father, including the kingdom of his great-uncle Gonzalo; and his prerogative to conquer Andalusia from the Muslims. He inserted the title of imperator on the basis that he had three kingdoms under his rule.
Alfonso's late marriage and his failure to remarry and produce the essential legitimate heir that should have been a dynastic linchpin of his aggressive territorial policies have been adduced as a lack of interest in women. Ibn al-Athir (1166–1234) describes Alfonso as a tireless soldier who would sleep in his armor without benefit of cover, whom when asked why he did not take his pleasure from women, responded that the man devoted to war needs the companionship of men not women.
Church relations
The king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost as violently as with his wife. As he defeated her, so he drove Archbishop Bernard into exile and replaced the abbot of Sahagún with his brother. He was finally compelled to give way in Castile and León to his stepson, Alfonso VII of Castile, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II brought about an arrangement between the old man and his young namesake.
In 1122 in Belchite, he founded a confraternity of knights to fight against the Almoravids. It was the start of the military orders in Aragon. Years later, he organised a branch of the Militia Christi of the Holy Land at Monreal del Campo.
Military expansion
Alfonso spent his first four years as king in near-constant war with the Muslims. In 1105, he conquered Ejea and Tauste and refortified Castellar and Juslibol. In 1106, he defeated Ahmad II al-Musta'in of Zaragoza at Valtierra. In 1107, he took Tamarite de Litera and San Esteban de Litera.
Then followed a period dominated by his relations with Castile and León through his wife, Urraca. He resumed his conquests in 1117 with Fitero, Corella, Cintruénigo, Murchante, Monteagudo, and Cascante.
In 1118, the Council of Toulouse declared a crusade to assist in the conquest of Zaragoza. Many Frenchmen consequently joined Alfonso at Ayerbe. They took Almudévar, Gurrea de Gállego, and Zuera, besieging Zaragoza itself by the end of May. The city fell on 18 December, and the forces of Alfonso occupied the Azuda, the government tower. The great palace of the city was given to the monks of Bernard. Promptly, the city was made Alfonso's capital. Two years later, in 1120, he defeated a Muslim army intent on reconquering his new capital at the Battle of Cutanda. He promulgated the fuero of tortum per tortum, facilitating taking the law into one's own hands, which among others reassumed the Muslim right to dwell in the city and their right to keep their properties and practice their religion under their own jurisdiction as long as they maintained tax payment and relocated to the suburbs.
In 1119, he retook Cervera, Tudejen, Castellón, Tarazona, Ágreda, Magallón, Borja, Alagón, Novillas, Mallén, Rueda, Épila and populated the region of Soria. He began the siege of Calatayud, but left to defeat the army at Cutanda trying to retake Zaragoza. When Calatayud fell, he took Bubierca, Alhama de Aragón, Ariza, and Daroca (1120). In 1123, he besieged and took Lleida, which was in the hands of the count of Barcelona. From the winter of 1124 to September 1125, he was on a risky expedition to Peña Cadiella deep in Andalusia.
In the great raid of 1125, he carried away a large part of the subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of France, he had rights as king of Navarre. From 1125 to 1126, he was on campaign against Granada, where he was trying to install a Christian prince, and Córdoba, where he got only as far as Motril. In 1127, he reconquered Longares, but simultaneously lost all his Castilian possessions to Alfonso VII. He confirmed a treaty with Castile the next year (1128) with the Peace of Támara, which fixed the boundaries of the two realms.
He conquered Molina de Aragón and populated Monzón in 1129, before besieging Valencia, which had fallen again upon the Cid's death.
He went north of the Pyrenées in October 1130 to protect the Val d'Aran. Early in 1131, he besieged Bayonne. It is said he ruled "from Belorado to Pallars and from Bayonne to Monreal."
At the siege of Bayonne in October 1131, three years before his death, he published a will leaving his kingdom to three autonomous religious orders based in Palestine and politically largely independent – the Knights Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, whose influences might have been expected to cancel one another out. The will has puzzled some historians, who have read it as an unusual gesture of extreme piety, though not out of line with his purported devotion for militant Christianity. Elena Lourie (1975) suggested instead that it was Alfonso's attempt to neutralize the papacy's interest in a disputed succession – Aragon had been a fief of the papacy since 1068 – and to fend off Urraca's son from her first marriage, Alfonso VII of Castile, for the papacy would be bound to press the terms of such a pious testament. Generous bequests to important churches and abbeys in Castile had the effect of making the noble churchmen there beneficiaries who would be encouraged by the will to act as a brake on Alfonso VII's ambitions to break it – and yet among the magnates witnessing the will in 1131 there was not a single cleric. In the event it was a will that his nobles refused to carry out – instead bringing his brother Ramiro from the monastery to assume royal powers – an eventuality that Lourie suggests was Alfonso's hidden intent.
His final campaigns were against Mequinenza (1133) and Fraga (1134), where García Ramírez, the future king of Navarre, and a mere 500 other knights fought with him. It fell on 17 July. He was dead by September. His tomb is in the monastery of San Pedro in Huesca.
Death
Succession
The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought. Alfonso's only brother, Ramiro, had been a Benedictine monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession. The step-son of the deceased king, Alfonso VII of León, as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of Sancho III of Navarre, put himself forward but garnered no local support. The nobility of Navarre aligned behind Pedro de Atarés, the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro. A convention was called at Borja in order to develop a consensus. Pedro de Atarés had so alienated his own partisans there with his perceived arrogance that they had abandoned him, yet at the same time were unwilling to accept Alfonso's younger brother Ramiro. The convention then broke up without ever arriving at a compromise, and the two regional factions proceeded to act independently.
The choice of the Navarrese lords fell on García Ramírez, Lord of Monzón, descendant of an illegitimate son of García Sánchez III and protégé of Alfonso VII to be their king. The Aragonese took Ramiro out of a monastery and made him king, marrying him without papal dispensation to Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine, then betrothing their newborn daughter to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, who was then named Ramiro's heir. "The result of the crisis produced by the result of Alfonso I's will was a major reorientation of the peninsula's kingdoms: the separation of Aragon and Navarre, the union of Aragon and Catalonia and – a moot point but stressed particularly by some Castilian historians – the affirmation of 'Castilian hegemony' in Spain" by the rendering of homage for Zaragoza by Alfonso's eventual heir, Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona.
Pseudo-Alfonso the Battler
Sometime during the reign of Alfonso II of Aragon, the Battler's grandnephew, a man came forward claiming to be Alfonso the Battler. The only contemporary references to this event are two letters of Alfonso II addressed to Louis VII of France; they were carried to Louis by Berengar, the Bishop of Lleida, but are not dated. According to the second of these, the pretender was then living in Louis's domains, meaning the Principality of Catalonia, which was ruled by Alfonso under Louis's suzerainty. This pretender was an old man (appropriately, since the Battler had died some decades earlier) and Alfonso II expressed confidence that Louis would arrest him at the earliest possible moment and bring him to justice. The first letter supplies sufficient information to date it approximately, since the Bishop sojourned at the court of Louis on his way to Rome. It is known from other sources that Berengar attended the Third Lateran Council in March 1179. The letters were probably written towards the end of 1178 or in January 1179 at the latest. According to an annalist source for the years 1089–1196, the pretender was received with honour and pomp in Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca, which the Battler had conquered, but after it was found out that he was false he was executed before the city of Barcelona in 1181. Modern historian Antonio Ubieto Arteta has hypothesised that the Aragonese lords of the tenancies of Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca – Pedro de Luesia, Loferrench de Luna, Pedro de Castillazuelo (lord of Calatayud), Pedro Cornel (lord of Murillo de Gállego), and the majordomo Jimeno de Artusilla, all of whom disappear between 1177 and 1181 in the documentation of their tenancies – supported, at least initially, the pretender. These lords also appear in the later legend of the Bell of Huesca, which has no historical basis, as the victims of Ramiro II (1136). Since, historically, they were not active in the 1130s, it is possible that the historically based legend of the pseudo-Alfonso had some influence on the genesis of the Bell of Huesca.
The earliest chronicle source for the imposture is Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, writing in the middle of the thirteenth century, who records that there were several legends then current about the death of Alfonso the Battler: some believed he perished in the battle of Fraga, some that his body had never been recovered, others that he was buried in the monastery of Montearagón, and still others that he had fled from Fraga in shame after his defeat and became a pilgrim as an act of penance. Some years later, Rodrigo writes, though he does not give a year, an impostor arose and was received by many as the Battler, though Alfonso II had him arrested and hanged. This is the earliest reference to the impostor's end. The legend was amplified in later years. According to the fourteenth-century Crónica de los Estados Peninsulares, the Battler went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he lived for many years. The Crónica de San Juan de la Peña also recounts the incident, but it depends entirely on Rodrigo and the Estados Peninsulares. It is not until the seventeenth-century historian Jerónimo Zurita penned his Anales de la Corona de Aragón that new details were added to the legend. Zurita dates the impostor's appearance to the death of Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona, who had been exercising power in Aragon, and the succession of the child Alfonso II in 1162. The death of the impostor, by hanging, must have occurred in 1163.
Competitors for succession
Notes
References
Sources
Ubieto Arteta, Antonio. "La aparición del falso Alfonso I el Batallador." Argensola, 38 (1958), 29–38.
1070s births
1134 deaths
12th-century Aragonese monarchs
12th-century Navarrese monarchs
Spanish Roman Catholics
12th-century Roman Catholics
Jure uxoris kings |
1680 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaryllis | Amaryllis | Amaryllis () is the only genus in the subtribe Amaryllidinae (tribe Amaryllideae). It is a small genus of flowering bulbs, with two species. The better known of the two, Amaryllis belladonna, is a native of the Western Cape region of South Africa, particularly the rocky southwest area between the Olifants River Valley and Knysna.
For many years there was confusion among botanists over the generic names Amaryllis and Hippeastrum, one result of which is that the common name 'amaryllis' is mainly used for cultivars of the genus Hippeastrum, widely sold in the winter months for their ability to bloom indoors.
Plants of the genus Amaryllis are known as belladonna lily, Jersey lily, naked lady, amarillo, Easter lily in Southern Australia or, in South Africa, March lily due to its propensity to flower around March. This is one of numerous genera with the common name 'lily' due to their flower shape and growth habit. However, they are only distantly related to the true lily, Lilium. In the Victorian language of flowers, amaryllis means "love, beauty, and determination", and can also represent hope and achievement.
Description
Amaryllis is a bulbous plant, with each bulb being in diameter. It has several strap-shaped, hysteranthous, green leaves with midrib, long and broad, arranged in two rows.
Each bulb produces one or two leafless, stout, persistent and erect stems tall, each of which bears at the top a cluster of two to twelve zygomorphic, funnel-shaped flowers without a tube. Each flower is in diameter with six spreading tepals (three outer sepals, three inner petals, with similar appearance to each other). The usual color is white with crimson veins, but pink or purple also occur naturally. Stamens are very shortly connate basally, declinate, unequal. Style is declinate, stigma is three-lobed. Ovules are approx. 8 per locule. Seeds are compressed-globose, white to pink. The number of chromosomes is 2n = 22.
Taxonomy
The single genus is in subtribe Amaryllidinae, in the tribe Amaryllideae. The taxonomy of the genus has been controversial. In 1753 Carl Linnaeus created the name Amaryllis belladonna, the type species of the genus Amaryllis. At the time both South African and South American plants were placed in the same genus; subsequently they were separated into two different genera. The key question is whether Linnaeus's type was a South African plant or a South American plant. If the latter, Amaryllis would be the correct name for the genus Hippeastrum, and a different name would have to be used for the genus discussed here. Alan W. Meerow et al. have briefly summarized the debate, which took place from 1938 onwards and involved botanists on both sides of the Atlantic. The outcome was a decision by the 14th International Botanical Congress in 1987 that Amaryllis should be a conserved name (i.e. correct regardless of priority) and ultimately based on a specimen of the South African Amaryllis belladonna from the Clifford Herbarium at the Natural History Museum in London.
Species
, Amaryllis had only two accepted species, both native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa:
Amaryllis belladonna – south-west Cape Provinces; introduced into many parts of the world, including California, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand
Amaryllis paradisicola – west Cape Provinces
Phylogeny
Amaryllidinae are placed within Amaryllideae as follow:
These are phylogenetically related as follows:
Etymology
The name Amaryllis is taken from a shepherdess in Virgil's pastoral Eclogues, (from the Greek .
Although the 1987 decision settled the question of the scientific name of the genus, the common name 'amaryllis' continues to be used differently. Bulbs sold as amaryllis and described as "ready to bloom for the holidays" belong to the allied genus Hippeastrum. The common name "naked lady" comes from the plant's pattern of flowering when the foliage has died down. This name is also used for other bulbs with a similar growth and flowering pattern; some of these have their own widely used and accepted common names, such as the resurrection lily (Lycoris squamigera).
Habitat
In areas of its native habitat with mountainous fynbos flowering tends to be suppressed until after bush fires as dense overhead vegetation prevents growth. In more open sandy areas of the Western Cape, the plant flowers annually. Plants tend to be very localized in dense concentrations due to the seeds' large size and heavy weight. Strong winds shake loose the seeds, which fall to ground and immediately start to germinate, aided by the first winter rains.
Ecology
The leaves are produced in the autumn or early spring in warm climates depending on the onset of rain and eventually die down by late spring. The bulb is then dormant until late summer. The plant is not frost-tolerant, nor does it do well in tropical environments since they require a dry resting period between leaf growth and flower spike production.
One or two leafless stems arise from the bulb in the dry ground in late summer (March in its native habitat and August in USDA zone 7).
The plant has a symbiotic relationship with carpenter bees. It is also visited by noctuid moths at night. The relative importance of these insects as pollinators has not yet been established; however, carpenter bees are thought to be the main pollinators of amaryllis on the Cape Peninsula. The plant's main parasite is the lily borer Brithys crini and/or Diaphone eumela.
Cultivation
Amaryllis belladonna was introduced into cultivation at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It reproduces slowly by either bulb division or seeds and has gradually naturalized from plantings in urban and suburban areas throughout the lower elevations and coastal areas in much of the West Coast of the US since these environments mimic their native South African habitat. Hardiness zones 6–8. It is also naturalized in Australia.
There is an Amaryllis belladonna hybrid which was bred in the 1800s in Australia. No one knows the exact species it was crossed with to produce color variations of white, cream, peach, magenta and nearly red hues. The hybrids were crossed back onto the original Amaryllis belladonna and with each other to produce naturally seed-bearing crosses that come in a very wide range of flower sizes, shapes, stem heights and intensities of pink. Pure white varieties with bright green stems were bred as well. The hybrids are quite distinct in that the many shades of pink also have stripes, veining, darkened edges, white centers and light yellow centers, also setting them apart from the original light pink. In addition, the hybrids often produce flowers in a fuller circle rather than the "side-facing" habit of the "old-fashioned" pink. The hybrids are able to adapt to year-round watering and fertilization but can also tolerate completely dry summer conditions if need be.
A. belladonna has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Amaryllis belladonna has been crossed in cultivation with Crinum moorei to produce a hybrid called × Amarcrinum, which has named cultivars. Hybrids said to be between Amaryllis belladonna and Brunsvigia josephinae have been called × Amarygia. Neither hybrid genus name is accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
See also
List of plants known as lily
References
External links
Amaryllis - informative article about Amaryllis
Further reading
Amaryllidoideae
Amaryllidaceae genera
Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces
Garden plants of Africa
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus |
1683 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20III%20of%20Aragon | Alfonso III of Aragon | Alfonso III (4 November 1265 – 18 June 1291), called the Liberal (el Liberal) and the Free (also "the Frank", from el Franc), was king of Aragon and Valencia, and count of Barcelona (as ) from 1285 until his death. He conquered the Kingdom of Majorca between his succession and 1287.
Life
Alfonso was the son of King Peter III of Aragon and Constance, daughter and heiress of King Manfred of Sicily.
Soon after assuming the throne, he conducted a campaign to reincorporate the Balearic Islands into the Crown of Aragon, which had been lost due to the division of the realm by his grandfather, James I of Aragon. Thus in 1285 he declared war on his uncle, James II of Majorca, and conquered both Majorca (1285) and Ibiza (1286), effectively reassuming suzerainty over the Kingdom of Majorca. He followed this with the conquest of Menorca – until then an autonomous Muslim state (Manûrqa) within the Kingdom of Majorca – on 17 January 1287, the anniversary of which now serves as Menorca's national holiday.
Alfonso initially sought to maintain Aragonese control over Sicily by supporting the claims of his brother James II to the island. However, he later retracted his support for his brother shortly before his death and instead tried to make peace with the Papal States and with France.
His reign was marred by a constitutional struggle with the Aragonese nobles, which eventually culminated in the articles of the Union of Aragon – the so-called "Magna Carta of Aragon", which devolved several key royal powers into the hands of lesser nobles. His inability to resist the demands of his nobles was to leave a heritage of disunity in Aragon and further dissent amongst the nobility, who increasingly saw little reason to respect the throne, and brought the Kingdom of Aragon close to anarchy.
During his lifetime a dynastic marriage with Eleanor, daughter of King Edward I of England, was arranged. However, Alfonso died before meeting his bride, at the age of 25 in 1291, and was buried in the Franciscan convent in Barcelona; since 1852 his remains have been buried in Barcelona Cathedral.
In culture
Dante Alighieri, in the Divine Comedy, recounts that he saw Alfonso's spirit seated outside the gates of Purgatory with the other monarchs whom Dante blamed for the chaotic political state of Europe during the 13th century.
References
Sources
1265 births
1291 deaths
13th-century Aragonese monarchs
People from Valencia
Counts of Barcelona
Valencian monarchs
House of Aragon
Burials at Barcelona Cathedral
People of the War of the Sicilian Vespers
Aragonese infantes
Sons of queens regnant |
1684 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20IV%20of%20Aragon | Alfonso IV of Aragon | Alfonso IV, called the Kind (also the Gentle or the Nice, ) (2 November 1299 – 24 January 1336) was King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona (as Alfons III) from 1327 to his death. His reign saw the incorporation of the County of Urgell, Duchy of Athens, and Duchy of Neopatria into the Crown of Aragon.
Biography
Alfonso was born in Naples, the second son of James II and Blanche of Anjou. In 1314, aged 14, he married Teresa d'Entença y Cabrera, heiress of Urgell, who was the same age as him. Teresa's granduncle Ermengol X of Urgell had died childless in La Llitera; before his death, he had agreed to make Alfonso his heir, on condition that Alfonso would marry Teresa, who was his nearest kin. Alfonso was at this time only the second son (and not the heir) of the king of Aragon. He and his father readily agreed to Ermengol's condition, and Alfonso married Teresa in 1314 in the Cathedral of Lerida. The teenage bridegroom is reputed to have been so liberal in the expenses during the wedding, that the local counsels imposed restrictions on how much he could spend. Alfonso and Teresa became the parents of seven children.
Alfonso became heir to the throne in December 1319 after his older brother James renounced his rights to become a monk. During the reign of his father, Alfonso was the procurator-general of the Crown, and in 1323–1324, he undertook the conquest of Sardinia.
Alfonso's father and first wife Teresa died within a few days of each other in 1327. Teresa died in childbirth on 20 October 1327, and James II died on 2 November 1327, whereupon Alfonso became king. In 1329, he began a long war with the Republic of Genoa. The city of Sassari had previously surrendered to Alfonso in 1323, but rebelled three more times; its possession was contested by Genoa, which led to the protracted war.
In February 1329, Alfonso married Eleanor of Castile (1308–1359), the sister of king Alfonso XI of Castile. Eleanor had been briefly married to Alfonso's elder brother James the monk. That marriage, which James had refused to consummate, had been annulled in 1319–20. Eleanor had thereafter retired to a convent (although she never took the veil) and had remained unmarried. By December the same year, the couple were rejoiced to become the parents of a son, Ferdinand, who was followed five years later by another son, John.
Eleanor earnestly sought to advance the interests of her own infant sons over those of her stepson, the Infante Peter, who was the heir-apparent. She convinced her husband to grant very large and significant territories to her sons. on 28 December 1329, Alfonso granted his new-born son Ferdinand the Marquisate of Tortosa and the cities of Albarracín, Orihuela, Callosa d'en Sarrià, Guardamar, Alicante, Monforte, Elda, La Mola, Novelda and Aspe. Eleanor's younger son John, who was born five years later, was also granted several lordships when he was only a toddler: Elche, Biel and Bolsa were all bestowed upon him. These territories would be controlled by Eleanor, who had also received the city of Huesca and some other villages and castles belonging to the Aragonese crown at the time of her wedding. Nor was this all. While all of the above grants had been made from among the possessions of the Aragonese crown, the King also sought to bestow estates located within the Kingdom of Valencia upon the toddler Ferdinand, but he was prevented from doing so. When the King granted Ferdinand the cities of Xàtiva, Alzira, Sagunto, Morella, Burriana and Castellón de la Plana, all located in the Kingdom of Valencia, the local subjects protested, and for this reason the King decided to revoked these patents. These grants of land diminished the territorial patrimony of the crown and mainly affected the Infante Peter, Alfonso's son by his first wife, who however was too young to make any significant protest. However, the issue agitated the court, created a climate of resentment and divided the nobility into two camps.
Alfonso died in January 1336, aged only 36. He was succeeded by Peter IV, his 16-year-old son from his first marriage.
Children
By Teresa d'Entença:
Alfonso (1315–1317)
Constance (1318–1346), married in 1336 to James III of Majorca.
Peter IV (1319–1387), successor.
James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347), also inherited Entença and Antillon.
Elizabeth (1323–1327).
Frederick (1325-died young).
Sancho (1327), lived only a few days.
By Eleanor of Castile:
Ferdinand (1329–1363), Marquis of Tortosa and Lord of Albarracín and Fraga; married Maria, Marchioness of Tortosa and was killed by order of his brother Peter IV.
John (1331–1358), Lord of Elche, Biel and Bolsa, married in 1355 to Isabel Núñez de Lara (daughter of Juan Núñez III de Lara) and was killed by order of his cousin Pedro of Castile.
Ancestors
Notes
Sources
Diccionario universal de historia y de geografía, p. 152. By Lucas Alamán, Manuel Orozco y Berra
External links
1299 births
1336 deaths
14th-century Aragonese monarchs
Nobility from Naples
Valencian monarchs
Counts of Barcelona
House of Aragon
Aragonese infantes |
1685 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amasis%20II | Amasis II | Amasis II ( ; ḤMS) or Ahmose II was a pharaoh (reigned 570526 BCE) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the successor of Apries at Sais. He was the last great ruler of Egypt before the Persian conquest.
Life
Most of our information about him is derived from Herodotus (2.161ff) and can only be imperfectly verified by monumental evidence. According to the Greek historian, he was of common origins. He was originally an officer in the Egyptian army. His birthplace was Siuph at Saïs. He took part in a general campaign of Pharaoh Psamtik II in 592 BC in Nubia.
A revolt which broke out among native Egyptian soldiers gave him his opportunity to seize the throne. These troops, returning home from a disastrous military expedition to Cyrene in Libya, suspected that they had been betrayed in order that Apries, the reigning king, might rule more absolutely by means of his Greek mercenaries; many Egyptians fully sympathized with them. General Amasis, sent to meet them and quell the revolt, was proclaimed king by the rebels instead, and Apries, who then had to rely entirely on his mercenaries, was defeated (though it is suggested that Apries had more native support than classical sources describe). Apries then fled to an "island" (possibly an elevated or isolated base of Apries within Egypt) and was killed while mounting a final insurrection against Amasis in 567 BCE with the aid of a shipped force (probably Greek and maybe Carian), while the Babylonians also invaded Egypt the same year. An inscription confirms the struggle between the native Egyptian and the foreign soldiery, and proves that Apries was killed and honourably buried in the fourth year of Amasis ( BCE). Amasis then married Khedebneithirbinet II, one of the daughters of his predecessor Apries, in order to legitimise his kingship.
Some information is known about the family origins of Amasis: his mother was a certain Tashereniset, as a bust of her, today located in the British Museum, shows. A stone block from Mehallet el-Kubra also establishes that his maternal grandmother—Tashereniset's mother—was a certain Tjenmutetj.
His court is relatively well known. The head of the gate guard Ahmose-sa-Neith appears on numerous monuments, including the location of his sarcophagus. He was referenced on monuments of the 30th Dynasty and apparently had a special significance in his time. Wahibre was 'Leader of the southern foreigners' and 'Head of the doors of foreigners', so he was the highest official for border security. Under Amasis the career of the doctor, Udjahorresnet, began, who was of particular importance to the Persians. Several "heads of the fleet" are known. Psamtek Meryneit and Pasherientaihet / Padineith are the only known viziers.
Herodotus describes how Amasis II would eventually cause a confrontation with the Persian armies. According to Herodotus, Amasis was asked by Cambyses II or Cyrus the Great for an Egyptian ophthalmologist on good terms. Amasis seems to have complied by forcing an Egyptian physician into mandatory labor, causing him to leave his family behind in Egypt and move to Persia in forced exile. In an attempt to exact revenge for this, the physician grew very close to Cambyses and suggested that Cambyses should ask Amasis for a daughter in marriage in order to solidify his bonds with the Egyptians. Cambyses complied and requested a daughter of Amasis for marriage.
Amasis, worrying that his daughter would be a concubine to the Persian king, refused to give up his offspring; Amasis also was not willing to take on the Persian empire, so he concocted a deception in which he forced the daughter of the ex-pharaoh Apries, whom Herodotus explicitly confirms to have been killed by Amasis, to go to Persia instead of his own offspring.
This daughter of Apries was none other than Nitetis, who was, as per Herodotus's account, "tall and beautiful." Nitetis naturally betrayed Amasis and upon being greeted by the Persian king explained Amasis's trickery and her true origins. This infuriated Cambyses and he vowed to take revenge for it. Amasis died before Cambyses reached him, but his heir and son Psamtik III was defeated by the Persians.
Herodotus also describes how, just like his predecessor, Amasis relied on Greek mercenaries and councilmen. One such figure was Phanes of Halicarnassus, who would later leave Amasis, for reasons that Herodotus does not clearly know, but suspects were personal between the two figures. Amasis sent one of his eunuchs to capture Phanes, but the eunuch was bested by the wise councilman and Phanes fled to Persia, meeting up with Cambyses and providing advice for his invasion of Egypt. Egypt was finally lost to the Persians during the battle of Pelusium in 525 BC.
Egypt's wealth
Amasis brought Egypt into closer contact with Greece than ever before. Herodotus relates that under his prudent administration, Egypt reached a new level of wealth; Amasis adorned the temples of Lower Egypt especially with splendid monolithic shrines and other monuments (his activity here is proved by existing remains). For example, a temple built by him was excavated at Tell Nebesha.
Amasis assigned the commercial colony of Naucratis on the Canopic branch of the Nile to the Greeks, and when the temple of Delphi was burnt, he contributed 1,000 talents to the rebuilding. He also married a Greek princess named Ladice daughter of King Battus III and made alliances with Polycrates of Samos and Croesus of Lydia. Montaigne cites the story by Herodotus that Ladice cured Amasis of his impotence by praying to Venus/Aphropdite.
Under Amasis, Egypt's agricultural based economy reached its zenith. Herodotus, who visited Egypt less than a century after Amasis II's death, writes that:
His kingdom consisted probably of Egypt only, as far as the First Cataract, but to this he added Cyprus, and his influence was great in Cyrene, Libya. In his fourth year ( BCE), Egypt was invaded by the Babylonians, under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar II. It is believed that Amasis managed to repel this invasion, forcing Nebuchadnezzar II to retire plans to conquer his kingdom. (However, some have suggested that Nebuchadnezzar came to defeat Apries, the combined forces of Amasis and Nebuchadnezzar managing to kill him, securing Amasis' throne, though as vassal king.) Amasis was later faced with another formidable enemy with the rise of Persia under Cyrus who ascended to the throne in 559 BCE; his final years were preoccupied by the threat of the impending Persian onslaught against Egypt. With great strategic skill, Cyrus had destroyed Lydia in 546 BCE and finally defeated the Babylonians in 538 BCE which left Amasis with no major Near Eastern allies to counter Persia's increasing military might. Amasis reacted by cultivating closer ties with the Greek states to counter the future Persian invasion into Egypt but died in 526 BCE shortly before the Persians attacked. The final assault instead fell upon his son Psamtik III, whom the Persians defeated in 525 BCE after he had reigned for only six months.
Tomb and desecration
Amasis II died in 526 BC. He was buried at the royal necropolis of Sais within the temple enclosure of Neith, and while his tomb has not been rediscovered, Herodotus describes it for us:
Herodotus also relates the desecration of Amasis' mummy when the Persian king Cambyses conquered Egypt and thus ended the 26th (Saite) Dynasty:
Later reputation
From the fifth century BCE, there is evidence of stories circulating about Amasis, in Egyptian sources (including a demotic papyrus of the third century BCE), Herodotus, Hellanikos, and Plutarch's Convivium Septem Sapientium. 'In those tales Amasis was presented as a non-conventional Pharaoh, behaving in ways unbecoming to a king but gifted with practical wisdom and cunning, a trickster on the throne or a kind of comic Egyptian Solomon'.
Gallery of images
References
Further reading
Leo Depuydt: Saite and Persian Egypt, 664 BC–332 BC (Dyns. 26–31, Psammetichus I to Alexander's Conquest of Egypt). In: Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, David A. Warburton (Hrsg.): Ancient Egyptian Chronology (= Handbook of Oriental studies. Section One. The Near and Middle East. Band 83). Brill, Leiden/Boston 2006, , S. 265–283 (Online).
6th-century BC Pharaohs
Pharaohs of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt
526 BC deaths
Kings of Egypt in Herodotus
Year of birth unknown
Philhellenes |
1686 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20V%20of%20Aragon | Alfonso V of Aragon | Alfonso the Magnanimous (Alfons el Magnànim in Catalan) (139627 June 1458) was King of Aragon and King of Sicily (as Alfonso V) and the ruler of the Crown of Aragon from 1416 and King of Naples (as Alfonso I) from 1442 until his death. He was involved with struggles to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples with Louis III of Anjou, Joanna II of Naples and their supporters, but ultimately failed and lost Naples in 1424. He recaptured it in 1442 and was crowned king of Naples. He had good relations with his vassal, Stjepan Kosača, and his ally, Skanderbeg, providing assistance in their struggles in the Balkans. He led diplomatic contacts with the Ethiopian Empire and was a prominent political figure of the early Renaissance, being a supporter of literature as well as commissioning several constructions for the Castel Nuovo.
Early life
Born at Medina del Campo, he was the son of Ferdinand of Trastámara and Eleanor of Alburquerque. Ferdinand was the brother of King Henry III of Castile, and Alfonso was betrothed to his uncle King Henry's daughter Maria in 1408. In 1412, Ferdinand was selected to succeed to the territories of the Crown of Aragon. Alfonso and Maria's marriage was celebrated in Valencia on 12 June 1415.
King Ferdinand died on 2 April 1416, and Alfonso succeeded him as king of Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca and count of Barcelona. He also claimed the island of Sardinia, though it was then in the possession of Genoa. Alfonso was also in possession of much of Corsica by the 1420s.
Alfonso's marriage with Maria was childless. His mistress Lucrezia d'Alagno served as a de facto queen at the Neapolitan court as well as an inspiring muse. With another mistress, , Alfonso had three children: Ferdinand (1423–1494), Maria (who married Leonello d'Este), and Eleanor (who married Mariano Marzano). With
the last mistress Ippolita, married de'Giudici, Alfonso had one daughther Colia (1430-1473/5) married in 1445 with Emanuele d'Appiano, Lord of Piombino, Count of Holy Roman Empire. The d'Appiano d'Aragona family received, in 1509 the title of Prince of Holy Roman Empire.
Alfonso was the object of diplomatic contacts from the Empire of Ethiopia. In 1428, he received a letter from Yeshaq I of Ethiopia, borne by two dignitaries, which proposed an alliance against the Muslims and would be sealed by a dual marriage that would require Alfonso's brother Peter to bring a group of artisans to Ethiopia where he would marry Yeshaq's daughter. In return, Alfonso sent a party of 13 craftsmen, all of whom perished on the way to Ethiopia. He later sent a letter to Yeshaq's successor Zara Yaqob in 1450, in which he wrote that he would be happy to send artisans to Ethiopia if their safe arrival could be guaranteed, but it probably never reached Zara Yaqob.
Struggle for Naples
In 1421 the childless Queen Joanna II of Naples adopted and named him as heir to the Kingdom of Naples, and Alfonso went to Naples. Here he hired the condottiero Braccio da Montone with the task of reducing the resistance of his rival claimant, Louis III of Anjou, and his forces led by Muzio Attendolo Sforza. With Pope Martin V supporting Sforza, Alfonso switched his religious allegiance to the Aragonese antipope Benedict XIII. When Sforza abandoned Louis' cause, Alfonso seemed to have all his problems solved; however, his relationship with Joanna suddenly worsened, and in May 1423 he had her lover, Gianni Caracciolo, a powerful figure in the Neapolitan court, arrested.
After an attempt to arrest the queen herself had failed, Joan called on Sforza who defeated the Aragonese militias near Castel Capuano in Naples. Alfonso fled to Castel Nuovo, but the help of a fleet of 22 galleys led by Giovanni da Cardona improved his situation. Sforza and Joanna ransomed Caracciolo and retreated to the fortress of Aversa. Here she repudiated her earlier adoption of Alfonso and, with the backing of Martin V, named Louis III as her heir instead.
The duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, joined the anti-Aragonese coalition. Alfonso requested support from Braccio da Montone, who was besieging Joanna's troops in L'Aquila, but had to set sail for Spain, where a war had broken out between his brothers and the Kingdom of Castile. On his way towards Barcelona, Alfonso sacked Marseille, a possession of Louis III.
In late 1423 the Genoese fleet of Filippo Maria Visconti moved in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, rapidly conquering Gaeta, Procida, Castellammare and Sorrento. Naples, which was held by Alfonso's brother, Pedro de Aragon, was besieged in 1424 by the Genoese ships and Joanna's troops, now led by Francesco Sforza, the son of Muzio Sforza (who had met his death at L'Aquila). The city fell in April 1424. Pedro, after a short resistance in Castel Nuovo, fled to Sicily in August. Joanna II and Louis III again took possession of the realm, although the true power was in the hands of Gianni Caracciolo.
An opportunity for Alfonso to reconquer Naples occurred in 1432, when Caracciolo was killed in a conspiracy. Alfonso tried to regain the favour of the queen, but failed, and had to wait for the death of both Louis (at Cosenza in 1434) and Joanna herself (February 1435). In her will, she bequeathed her realm to René of Anjou, Louis III's younger brother. This solution was opposed by the new pope, Eugene IV, who was the feudal overlord of the Kingdom of Naples. The Neapolitans having called in the French, Alfonso decided to intervene and, with the support of several barons of the kingdom, captured Capua and besieged the important sea fortress of Gaeta. His fleet of 25 galleys was met by the Genoese ships sent by Visconti, led by Biagio Assereto. In the Battle of Ponza that ensued, Alfonso was defeated and taken prisoner.
In Milan, Alfonso impressed his captor with his cultured demeanor and persuaded him to let him go by persuading that it was not in Milan's interest to prevent the victory of the Aragonese party in Naples. Helped by a Sicilian fleet, Alfonso recaptured Capua and set his base in Gaeta in February 1436. Meanwhile, papal troops had invaded the Neapolitan kingdom, but Alfonso bribed their commander, Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi, and their successes waned.
In the meantime, René had managed to reach Naples on 19 May 1438. Alfonso tried to besiege the city in the following September, but failed. His brother Pedro was killed during the battle. Castel Nuovo, where an Aragonese garrison resisted, fell to the Angevine mercenaries in August 1439. After the death of his condottiero Jacopo Caldora, however, René's fortune started to decline: Alfonso could easily capture Aversa, Salerno, Benevento, Manfredonia and Bitonto. René, whose possession included now only part of the Abruzzi and Naples, obtained 10,000 men from the pope, but the cardinal leading them signed a truce with Alfonso. Giovanni Sforza came with a reduced corps, as troops sent by Eugene IV had halted his father Francesco in the Marche.
Alfonso, provided with the most impressive artillery of the times, again besieged Naples. The siege began on 10 November 1441, ending on 2 June the following year. After the return of René to Provence, Alfonso easily reduced the remaining resistance and made his triumphal entrance in Naples on 26 February 1443, as the monarch of a pacified kingdom.
Alfonso then reunited under his dominion the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, divided since the Sicilian Vespers. After the personal union, he began to call himself Rex Utriusque Siciliae; this was then used by other kings and his successors who ruled over those territories.
Art and administration
Like many Renaissance rulers, Alfonso V was a patron of the arts. He founded the Academy of Naples under Giovanni Pontano, and for his entrance into the city in 1443 had a magnificent triumphal arch added to the main gate of Castel Nuovo. Alfonso V supplied the theme of Renaissance sculptures over the west entrance.
Alfonso was particularly attracted to classical literature. He reportedly brought copies of the works of Livy and Julius Caesar on his campaigns; the poet Antonio Beccadelli even claimed that Alfonso was cured of a disease by the reading of a few pages from Quintus Curtius Rufus' history of Alexander the Great. Although this reputed erudition attracted scholars to his court, Alfonso apparently enjoyed pitting them against each other in spectacles of bawdy Latin rhetoric.
After his conquest of Naples in 1442, Alfonso ruled primarily through his mercenaries and political lackeys. In his Italian kingdom, he maintained the former political and administrative institutions. His holdings in Spain were governed by his wife Maria.
A unified General Chancellorship for the whole Aragonese realm was set up in Naples, although the main functionaries were of Aragonese nationality. Apart from financial, administrative and artistic improvements, his other accomplishments in the Sicilian kingdom include the restoration of the aqueducts, the drainage of marshy areas, and the paving of streets.
Alfonso founded the first university of Sicily, the Siciliae Studium Generale.
Later life
Alfonso was also a powerful and faithful supporter of Skanderbeg, whom he decided to take under his protection as a vassal in 1451, shortly after the latter had scored his second victory against Murad II. In addition to financial assistance, he supplied the Albanian leader with troops, military equipment, and sanctuary for himself and his family if such a need should arise. This was because in 1448, while Skanderbeg was fighting off the Turkish invasions, three military columns, commanded by Demetrio Reres along with his sons Giorgio and Basilio, had been dispatched to help Alfonso V defeat the barons of Naples who had rebelled against him.
He also supported Bosnian duke, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, who turned to the king for help in his affairs in Bosnia. Alfonso made him "Knight of the Virgin", but did not provide any troops. On 15 February 1444, Stjepan signed a treaty with the king of Aragon and Naples, becoming his vassal in exchange for Alfonso's help against his enemies—Stephen Thomas and Ivaniš Pavlović (1441–1450) of the Pavlović noble family as well as the Republic of Venice. In the same treaty, Stjepan promised to pay Alfonso regular tribute instead of paying the Ottoman sultan as he had done until then.
Alfonso, by formally submitting his reign to the Papacy, obtained the consent of Pope Eugene IV that the Kingdom of Naples would go to his illegitimate son, Ferdinand. He died in Castel dell'Ovo in 1458, while he was planning the conquest of Genoa. At the time, Alfonso was at odds with Pope Callixtus III, who died shortly afterwards. Alfonso's Iberian possessions had been ruled for him by his brother, who succeeded him as John II of Aragon. Sicily and Sardinia were also inherited by John II.
Marriage and issue
Alfonso had been betrothed to Maria of Castile (1401–1458; sister of John II of Castile) in Valladolid in 1408; the marriage was celebrated in Valencia on 12 June 1415. They failed to produce children. Alfonso had been in love with a woman of noble family named Lucrezia d'Alagno, who served as a de facto queen at the Neapolitan court as well as an inspiring muse.
Genealogical records in the Old Occitan Chronicle of Montpellier in Le petit Thalamus de Montpellier indicate that Alphonso's relationship with his mistress, Giraldona Carlino (daughter of Enrique Carlino and his wife, Isabel), produced three children:
His successor in Naples, King Ferdinand I of Naples, (born 1423; reigned 1458–1494).
(1425–1449) (died 1449, aged around 15 or 16). She had married in 1444 Leonello d'Este, deceased 1450.
Leonora d'Aragona, who married c. 1443, Mariano Marzano, Duke of Squillace, Prince of Rossano. Her daughter Francesca married Leonardo III Tocco.
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
1396 births
1458 deaths
15th-century Aragonese monarchs
15th-century kings of Sicily
15th-century monarchs of Naples
People from Medina del Campo
House of Trastámara
Aragonese infantes
Monarchs of Naples
Monarchs of Majorca
Valencian monarchs
Patrons of literature
Knights of the Golden Fleece
Counts of Barcelona
Knights of the Garter
Knights of the Dragon
Burials at the Poblet Monastery
Patrons of the visual arts
Counts of Malta
Founders of universities |
1687 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amathus | Amathus | Amathus or Amathous () was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about west of Larnaca and east of Limassol. Its ancient cult sanctuary of Aphrodite was the second most important in Cyprus, her homeland, after Paphos.
Archaeological work has recently been continued at the site and many finds are exhibited in the Limassol Museum.
History
Pre-history and ancient era
The pre-history of Amathus survives in both myth and archaeology. No traces of human activity was detected in the site before the earliest Iron Age, BC, and no town is mentioned in the space between Kition and Kourion in the list of Cypriot cities from Medinet Habu.
The city's legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, who called the city after his mother Amathous. According to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb. According to Plutarch's source, Amathousians called the sacred grove where her shrine was situated the Wood of Aphrodite Ariadne. myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles, thus accounting for the fact that he was worshiped there.
It was said in antiquity that the people of Amathus were autochthonous, most likely Eteocyprian or "Pelasgian". Their non-Greek language is confirmed on the site by Eteocypriot inscriptions in the Cypriot syllabary which alone in the Aegean world survived the Bronze Age collapse and continued to be used down to the 4th century BC.
Amathus was built on the coastal cliffs with a natural harbour and flourished at an early date, soon requiring several cemeteries. Greeks from Euboea left their pottery at Amathus from the 10th century BC. During the post-Phoenician era of the 8th century BC, a palace was erected and a port was also constructed, which served the trade with the Greeks and the Levantines. A special burial ground for infants, a tophet served the culture of the Phoenicians. For the Hellenes, high on the cliff a temple was built, which became a worship site devoted to Aphrodite, in her particular local presence as Aphrodite Amathusia along with a bearded male Aphrodite called Aphroditos. The excavators discovered the final stage of the Temple of Aphrodite, also known as Aphrodisias, which dates approximately to the 1st century BC. According to the legend, it was where festive Adonia took place, in which athletes competed in hunting wild boars during sport competitions; they also competed in dancing and singing, all to the honour of Adonis.
The earliest remains hitherto found on the site are tombs of the early Iron Age period of Graeco-Phoenician influences (1000-600 BC). Amathus is sometimes identified with Qartiḫadasti (Phoenician "New-Town") in the Cypriote tribute-list of Esarhaddon of Assyria (668 BC) and some Phoenician inscriptions from the island, although others identify this Qartiḫadasti with Kition or a part of it. It certainly maintained strong Phoenician sympathies, for it was its refusal to join the philhellene league of Onesilos of Salamis which provoked the revolt of Cyprus from Achaemenid Persia in 500-494 BC, when Amathus was besieged unsuccessfully and avenged itself by the capture and execution of Onesilos. Herodotus reports
"Because he had besieged them, the Amathusians cut off Onesilos’ head and brought it to Amathous, where they hung it above the gates. As it hung there empty, a swarm of bees entered it and filled it with honeycomb. When they sought advice about this event, an oracle told them to take the head down and bury it, and to make annual sacrifice to Onesilos as a hero, saying that it would be better for them if they did this. The Amathusians did as they were told and still perform these rites in my day." (Histories 5.114)
Amathus was a rich and densely populated kingdom with a flourishing agriculture (grain and sheep) and copper mines situated very close to the northeast Kalavasos.
Hellenistic era
About 385-380 BC, the philhellene Evagoras of Salamis was similarly opposed by Amathus, allied with Citium and Soli; and even after Alexander the city resisted annexation, and was bound over to give hostages to Seleucus. Its political importance was now ended but its temple of Adonis and Aphrodite Amathusia remained famous in Roman times. The epithet Amathusia in Roman poetry often means little more than "Cypriote," but attesting to the fame of the city.
From the 4th century BC the pedestals of two sculptures donated by the last Basileus of Amathous, Androkles, representing his two sons, Orestheus and Andragoras, have survived. Their inscriptions are in both Eteocyprian and Greek languages.
The decline of Amathus is often measured by the Ptolemaic gifts to Argos, where Amathus donated only 40 drachmas in 170-160 BC, but Kition and Salamis gave 208, Kourion 172, and Paphos 100. However, this figure contradicts the archaeologic evidence of new buildings in this period including a balneion, a bath, a gymnasium, as well as fortifications of the Acropolis, including a new tower. The port of Paphos appears to have lost traffic compared to Amathus in the Ptolemaic period, an indication that Paphos, as the capital of the island, perhaps offered fewer drachmas than the other cities for different reasons, like Amathus.
Roman era
In the Roman era Amathus became the capital of one of the four administrative regions of Cyprus.
A Roman temple was built in the 1st century AD on top of the Hellenistic predecessor. The temple facilities remained so important in Roman times that 'Amathusia' was used as a synonym for 'Cypriot'.
Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Later, in the 4th century AD, Amasus became the see of a Christian bishop and continued to flourish until the Byzantine period. Of its bishops, Heliodorus was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and Alexander at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In the late 6th century, Saint Ioannis Eleimonas (John the Charitable), protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus and after 614 sent Theodorus, bishop of Amathus, to Jerusalem to ransom some slaves.
Today, Amathus is a see of the Church of Cyprus and is also listed (under the name "Amathus in Cypro", to distinguish it from "Amathus in Transjordan") as a titular see by the Catholic Church, which however, in line with the practice adopted after the Second Vatican Council, has made no appointments to the bishopric since the death of the last Latin titular bishop in 1984.
Anastasius Sinaita, the famous 7th-century prolific monk of Saint Catherine's Monastery, was born here. It is thought that he left Cyprus after the 649 Arab conquest of the island, setting out for the Holy Land, and eventually becoming a monk on Sinai.
Amathus declined and was already almost deserted when Richard Plantagenet won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The tombs were plundered and the stones from the beautiful edifices were brought to Limassol to be used for new constructions. Much later, in 1869, a great number of blocks of stone from Amathus were used for the construction of the Suez Canal. A ruined Byzantine church marks its site.
In modern times
A new settlement close to Amathus but further inland, Agios Tychonas, is named after the bishop Saint Tychon of Amathus. The site of the ruins is within the borders of this village, though the expansion of the Limassol tourist area has threatened the ruins: it is speculated that some of the hotels are on top of the Amathus necropolis.
The site and archaeology
The Swedish Cyprus Expedition
From April to may 1930 The Swedish Cyprus Expedition excavated a necropolis on both sides of Amathus'acropolis. Amathus was known and visited during the 18th century and 19th centuries by travelers and archaeologists. Earlier excavators, such as General Luigi Palma Di Cesnola, the first American consul in Cyprus, excavated the necropolis' large tombs situated north of the acropolis and the tombs in the necropolis west of the acropolis hill. Since he did not publish any plans or drawings John Lindros illustrated two of the tombs from the old excavations that were still possible to visit. The necropolis had partly been excavated by the English Expedition to Cyprus in 1893-94 and published in Excavations in Cyprus, London 1900. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition excavated around 25 tombs.
The tombs excavated are shaft tombs with a dromos, which are rather rare in Cyprus. Variations of the shaft tombs occur, mostly because of the various circumstances of space and economics as well as difficulties in cutting the rock. The archaeologist identified six different styles. It is the shape of the dromos that differs the most between the different styles. Tombs 1 and 2 differ from the others in the sense of construction and quality and might have been created for wealthier people, maybe royals. Tomb 3 is more reminiscent of the other graves found in Cyprus since it is a chamber tomb. Tomb no. 26 had a large tumulus and might have been related to other Hellenistic tumuli. It contained a stone pithos with an alabastron in which a burnt skeleton was found. Around the rim of the alabastron a wreath of gilded myrtle leaves was placed. The excavator thought it might have been a Ptolemaic official who died in Amathus and was buried according to a foreign burial custom.
Otherwise, the same burial customs were observed in most of the tombs. Many were reused multiple times, in which case the burial gifts were pushed into the corner of the tomb. Later, during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Amathus was once again used for burial. These burials did not damage or alternate the earlier tombs since they were usually somewhere in the upper layers. The tombs are dated from the Cypro-Geometric I to the Roman period.
Later Excavations
The city had vanished, except for fragments of wall and of a great stone urn on the acropolis, dating from the 6th century BC of which a similar vessel was taken to the Musée du Louvre in 1867. It is tall and weighs 14 tons. It was made from a single piece of stone and has four curved handles carved with bulls. In the 1870s, Luigi Palma di Cesnola excavated the necropolis of Amathus, as elsewhere in Cyprus, enriching the early collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; some objects went to the British Museum. More modern archaeological joint Cypriote-French excavations started in 1980 and still continue. The Acropolis, the Temple of Aphrodite, the agora, the city's walls, the basilica and the port have all been excavated.
Further archaeological objects found during the excavations are preserved at both the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia and the Limassol District Archaeological Museum.
In the agora there are marble columns decorated with spirals and a huge paved squares. On the coastal side of the city there is an Early Christian basilica with mosaic floors decorated with semi-precious stones. Further, near the terraced road leading to the Temple, situated on the top of the cliff, several houses built in a row dating to the Hellenistic period have been discovered. At the east and west extremes of the city the two acropoleis are situated where a number of tombs have been found, many of which are intact.
Two small sanctuaries, with terracotta votive offerings of Graeco-Phoenician age, lie not far off, but the location of the great shrines of Adonis and Aphrodite have not been identified (M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, i. ch.1).
Gallery
Notes
References
Richard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopaedia of Classical Sites, 1976: "Amathous, Cyprus"
Municipality of Limassol
External links
http://www.mcw.gov.cy/mcw/DA/DA.nsf/0/D20ED526826AB796C225719B00374A92?OpenDocument
Agias Tychonas: Amathus (English)
http://www.anastasiosofsinai.org/index.html (English)
StoryMap about Amathous (A. Cannavò, A. Rabot)
Cities in ancient Cyprus
Archaeological sites in Cyprus
Former populated places in Cyprus |
1688 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphons | Alphons | Alphons (Latinized Alphonsus, Adelphonsus, or Adefonsus) is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. In the later medieval period it became a standard name in the Hispanic and Portuguese royal families.
It is derived from a Gothic name, or a conflation of several Gothic names; from *Aþalfuns, composed of the elements aþal "noble" and funs "eager, brave, ready", and perhaps influenced by names such as *Alafuns, *Adefuns and *Hildefuns.
It is recorded as Adefonsus in the 9th and 10th century, and as Adelfonsus, Adelphonsus in the 10th to 11th. The reduced form Alfonso is recorded in the late 9th century, and the Portuguese form Afonso from the early 11th and Anfós in Catalan from the 12th century until the 15th.
Variants of the name include: Alonso (Spanish), Alfonso (Spanish and Italian), Alfons (Dutch, German, Catalan, Polish, Croatian and Scandinavian), Afonso (Portuguese and Galician), Alphonse, Alfonse (French and English), etc.
Middle Ages
Iberian royal families
Asturias/Leon/Castile/Spain
Alfonso I of Asturias (739–757)
Alfonso II of Asturias (791–842)
Alfonso III of León (866–910)
Alfonso Fróilaz (925–926)
Alfonso IV of León (925–931)
Alfonso V of León (999–1028)
Alfonso VI of León (1065–1109)
Alfonso VII of León (1126–1157)
Alfonso VIII of Castile (1158–1214)
Alfonso IX of León (1188–1230)
Alfonso X of Castile (1252–1284)
Alfonso XI of Castile (1312–1350)
Aragon & Naples
Alfonso I of Aragon (1104–1134), known as el Batallador (The Battler)
Alfonso II of Aragon (1162–1196)
Alfonso III of Aragon (1285–1291)
Alfonso IV of Aragon (1327–1336)
Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), also king of Naples and Sicily
Alfonso II of Naples (1448–1495)
Other
Alfonso Jordan (1103–1148)
Alphonse, Count of Poitiers (1220–1271)
Alfonso of Valladolid (c. 1270 – c. 1347), Jewish convert to Christianity, philosopher, and mathematician
Alphonso, Earl of Chester (1273–1284), first son of Edward I of England, named after his godfather Alfonso X of Castile; died in childhood
Juan Alfonso de Baena (c. 1375 – c. 1434), Castilian troubadour
Early modern period
Alphonse Daudet, French novelist and historian
Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai
Alphonse de Tonty, Baron de Paludy (c. 1659 – 1727)
Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597
Alfonso II, Count of Provence, second son of Alfonso II of Aragon
Alfonso III d'Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio (1628–44)
Alfonso of Castile, Prince of Asturias, figurehead of rebelling magnates against his brother King Henry IV of Castile
Alfonso of Hauteville, Prince of Capua
Alphonsus Liguori, Roman Catholic theologian (1696–1787)
Joseph-Alphonse Esménard (1770–1811)
Modern period
Iberian/Sicilian nobility
Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta (1841–1934), duke of Calabria and head of the royal house of the Two Sicilies
Alfonso XII of Spain (1857–1885) (ordinal numbering continues from the kings of Castile)
Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886–1931)
Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, claimant to the title of the head of House of Bourbon Two Sicilies
Alfonso of Spain, Prince of Asturias, heir-apparent of the throne of Spain 1907–31
Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1924–2003), Spanish playboy and businessman
Infante Alfonso of Spain, younger brother of former King Juan Carlos of Spain
Fadrique Alfonso of Castile, fifth illegitimate child of Alfonso XI of Castile
Alfons
Alfons Almi (1904–1991), Finnish opera singer and administrator
Alfons van Blaaderen (born 1963), Dutch physicist
Alfons Geleyns (1887–1914), Belgian private
Alfons Goppel (1905–1991), German politician
Alfons Gorbach (1898–1972), Austrian politician
Alfons Jēgers (1919–1999), Latvian football and hockey player
Alfons Karpiński (1875–1961), Polish painter
Alfons Rebane (1908–1976), Estonian military commander
Alfons Rissberger (born 1948), German author
Alphonse
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (1899–1947), Chicago gangster
Alfonso
Alfonso Cuarón, Mexican cinematographer
Alfonso Calderon (activist), Spanish born activist and advocate for gun control
Alfonso Calderón (poet), Chilean poet and writer
Alfonso Soriano, American baseball player
Alfonso Lizarazo, Colombian host and politician
Alfonso Mejia-Arias, Mexican musician, writer, social activist and politician of Roma origin (Gitano)
Alfonso Ribeiro, Caribbean-American actor and game show host.
Alfonso John Romero, American video-game designer, programmer, and developer
Alfonso Pérez, Spanish football (soccer) striker
Alfonso Oiterong, Palauan statesman, former Palau vice president 1981-1985
Alicia Alfonso (born 1963), Uruguayan actress
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist
José Alfonso Belloso y Sánchez (1873–1938), Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador
Miguel Alfonso Pérez Aracil, Spanish football (soccer) midfielder
Alfonse
Alfonse D'Amato (born 1937), United States Senator from New York
Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), Swiss-American politician
Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939), Czech artist
Alphonso
Alphonso Davies, Canadian soccer player born in Ghana, who grew up in Edmonton
As a surname
Alphonse, Alphonso, Alfonso is occasionally seen as a surname derived from the given name, the latter descending from Asturias and Cantabria.
Celestino Alfonso (1916–1944), Spanish republican and volunteer fighter in the French resistance during World War II
Roland Alphonso (1931–1998), Jamaican saxophonist
Kristian Alfonso (born 1963), Puerto Rican American soap opera actress
Michael Lee Alfonso (1965–2007), ring name "Mike Awesome", American professional wrestler
Equis Alfonso, known as X-Alfonso, Cuban hip-hop and afro-rock musician
Ozzie Alfonso, Cuban-American TV director and producer
Sadda Vidda Rajapakse Palanga Pathira Ambakumarage Ranjan Leo Sylvester Alphonsu, Sri Lankan Sinhala politician, actor, singer, writer
Pseudonym
Bill Alfonso, ring name of William Matthew Sierra, former professional wrestling referee & manager
Stage name
Alfons, the stage name of Emmanuel Peterfalvi, a French comedian
Fictional characters
Alphonso, protagonist in Alfonso und Estrella, an opera by Franz Schubert
Don Alfonso, character in Mozart's opera Così fan tutte
Alphonso MacKenzie, fictional character in the Marvel Universe
Alfie Atkins, known as Alfons Åberg in Swedish, character created by Gunilla Bergström from Sweden
Alfonzo Dominico Jones, a dog in the Australian television series SeaChange
Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, character in the comic strip Dick Tracy
Alphonse and Gaston, French duo in a comic strip created by Frederick Burr Opper
Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist
Alfons Heiderich from Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa
Alphonse Mephisto, fictional character in the animated television series South Park
Alphonso Ali, minor character in Bloom County
Monsieur Alfonse, character in the BBC sitcom Allo 'Allo! played by the actor Kenneth Connor
The name of a number of pets and the Patlabor of Noa Izumi from the anime Patlabor
Oren Pierre Alfonso from Kamen Rider Gaim
Alfonso "French" Sosa, a main character from The OA
See also
Afonso
Ildefonso (disambiguation)
References
Italian masculine given names
Masculine given names
Spanish masculine given names
Portuguese masculine given names |
1689 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20I | Alfonso I | Alfonso I may refer to:
Alfonso I of Asturias (739–757), king of Asturias
Afonso I of Portugal (1094–1185), king of Portugal
Alfonso I of Aragon (1104–1134), known as Alfonso the Battler, king of Aragon and Navarre
Alfonso I, Duke of Gandia (1332–1412)
Alfonso V of Aragon (1396–1458), king of Naples as Alfonso I
Afonso I of Kongo (1456–1543), first Christian king of the Kingdom of Kongo
Alfonso I Piccolomini (1468–1498), duke of Amalfi
Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (1476–1534)
Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886–1941), known to French Legitimists as "Alphonse I" |
1690 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amati | Amati | Amati (, ) 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 museum or private collections and are seldom played in public.
Family members
Andrea Amati
Andrea Amati (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
Andrea Amati was succeeded by his sons Antonio Amati (–1607) and Girolamo Amati (–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
Nicolò Amati
Nicolò Amati (3 December 159612 April 1684) was the son of Girolamo Amati. He was the most eminent 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)
The last maker of the family was Nicolò's son, Girolamo Amati, known as Hieronymus II (26 February 164921 February 1740). He improved the arching of his father's 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. , they are only occasionally played in public.
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.
Andrea Amati
Violin, 1564 (ex–French royal collection)
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)
Nicolò Amati
Double bass of 1631 played by Chi-chi Nwanoku
United States
Amati instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
Andrea Amati:
Violin,
Nicolò Amati:
Violin, 1669
Amati instruments at the National Music Museum (University of South Dakota):
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
Violin, 7/8-size, 1609
Violino piccolo, 1613
Nicolò Amati:
Violin, 1628
Violas
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.
Archivio della Liuteria Cremonese
Tarisio
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.
Fine Strings
National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota
National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota
Tarisio
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).
Tarisio
Tarisio
Held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford
Andrea Amati ca 1564
Ashmolean Museum Oxford
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.
Strings Magazine
Tarisio
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".
Christie's
Featured in .
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."
Tarisio
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.
Tarisio
Featured in .
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.
Tarisio
Featured in .
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
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."
Tarisio
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.
Tarisio
Held by the Cincinnati Art Museum ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Cincinnati Art Museum
The Medici, The Hamma ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Two-piece back.
Tarizio
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.
Royal Academy of Music London
Tarisio
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."
Tarisio
Ingles & Hayday
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.
The subject of the book The Girolamo Amati viola in the Galleria Estense, Treasures of Italian Violin Making Vol I, 2014
The ex Vieuxtemps
Nicolò Amati, date unknown
Tarisio
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
The Berkitz, The Romanov ca 1677
Nicolò Amati ca 1677
Tariso
The Strad Shop
The Strad Shop
The ex Waters ca 1703
Nicolò Amati ca 1703
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
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."
Tarisio
Other Amati violas in the Tarisio archive
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1592
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1607
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1611
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1616
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1628
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).
See also
Antonio Stradivari
Amati Quartet
Dom Nicolò Amati (1662–1752), Italian luthier not part of this family but who adopted this surname
Luthier
San Maurizio, Venice
Notes
References
Dilworth, John (1992). "The Violin and Bow-Origins and Development", in: The Cambridge Companion to the Violin, ed. Robin Stowell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–29.
External links
Andrea Amati: Violin, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Instruments of the Amati family on the online database MIMO, website mimo-international.com.
Amati instruments
Luthiers from Cremona
Italian families |
1691 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20II | Alfonso II | Alfonso II may refer to:
Alfonso II of Asturias (791–842)
Alfonso II of Aragon (1162–1196)
Alfonso II, Count of Provence (1174–1209)
Afonso II of Portugal (1185–1223), "the Fat"
Alfonso, Count of Poitou (1220–1271), jure uxoris Alfonso II, Count of Toulouse
Alfonso II, Duke of Gandia (–1422)
Alfonso II of Naples (1448–1495)
Alfonso II Piccolomini (1499–1559), Neapolitan nobleman and military leader
Alfonso II d'Este (1533–1597), duke of Ferrara
de:Liste der Herrscher namens Alfons#Alfons II. |
1692 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20III | Alfonso III | Alfonso III (Spanish) or Afonso III (Portuguese) may refer to:
Alfonso III of Asturias (866–910), surnamed "the Great"
Afonso III of Portugal (1210–1279)
Alfonso III of Aragon (1285–1291)
Alfonso III d'Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio (1628–1644)
Afonso III of Kongo (1666–1667) |
1694 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20IV | Alfonso IV | Alfonso IV may refer to:
Alfonso IV of León (924–931)
Afonso IV of Portugal (1291–1357)
Alfonso IV of Aragon (1327–1336)
Alfonso IV of Ribagorza (1332–1412)
Alfonso IV d'Este (1634–1662), Duke of Modena and Regg |
1695 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons | Amazons | In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: , singular ; in Latin , ) are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Heracles, the Argonautica and the Iliad. They were a group of female warriors and hunters who were known for their physical agility, strength, archery, riding skills, and the arts of combat. Their society was closed to men and they only raised their daughters and returned their sons to their fathers, with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce.
Courageous and fiercely independent, the Amazons, commanded by their queen, regularly undertook extensive military expeditions into the far corners of the world, from Scythia to Thrace, Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands, reaching as far as Arabia and Egypt. Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities like Ephesos, Cyme, Smyrna, Sinope, Myrina, Magnesia, Pygela, etc.
The texts of the original myths envisioned the homeland of the Amazons at the periphery of the then-known world. Various claims to the exact place ranged from provinces in Asia Minor (Lycia, Caria, etc.) to the steppes around the Black Sea, or even Libya (Libyan Amazon). However, authors most frequently referred to Pontus in northern Anatolia, on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the independent Amazon kingdom where the Amazon queen resided at her capital Themiscyra, on the banks of the Thermodon river.
Palaephatus, who himself might have been a fictional character, attempted to rationalize the Greek myths in his work On Unbelievable Tales. He suspected that the Amazons were probably men who were mistaken for women by their enemies because they wore clothing that reached their feet, tied up their hair in headbands, and shaved their beards. Probably the first in a long line of skeptics, he rejected any real basis for them, reasoning that because they did not exist during his time, most probably they did not exist in the past either.
Decades of archaeological discoveries of burial sites of female warriors, including royalty, in the Eurasian Steppes suggest that the horse cultures of the Scythian, Sarmatian and Hittite peoples likely inspired the Amazon myth. In 2019, a grave with multiple generations of female Scythian warriors, armed and in golden headdresses, was found near Russia's Voronezh.
Name
Etymology
The origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan- 'warriors', a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss (": 'to make war' in Persian"), where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- 'make'.
It may alternatively be a Greek word descended from 'manless, without husbands' (alpha privative combined with a derivation from *man- cognate with Proto-Balto-Slavic *mangjá-, found in Czech muž) has been proposed, an explanation deemed "unlikely" by Hjalmar Frisk. A further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah 'virility-killing' as source.
Among the ancient Greeks, the term Amazon was popularly folk etymologized as originating from the Greek , ('breastless'), from -a ('without') and , a variant of ('breast'), connected with an etiological tradition once claimed by Marcus Justinus who alleged that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out. There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although one is frequently covered. According to Philostratus Amazon babies were not fed just with the right breast. Author Adrienne Mayor suggests that the false etymology led to the myth.
Alternative terms
Herodotus used the terms Androktones () 'killers/slayers of men' or 'of husbands' and Androleteirai () 'destroyers of men, murderesses'. Amazons are called Antianeirai () 'equivalent to men' and Aeschylus used the term Styganor () 'those who loathe all men'.
In his work Prometheus Bound and in The Suppliants, Aeschylus referred to the Amazons as 'the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons' (). In the Hippolytus tragedy, Phaedra calls Hippolytus, 'the son of the horse-loving Amazon' (). In his Dionysiaca, Nonnus calls the Amazons of Dionysus Androphonus () 'men slaying'.
Herodotus stated that in the Scythian language, the Amazons were called Oiorpata, which he explained as being from oior 'man' and pata 'to slay'.
Historiography
The ancient Greeks never had any doubts that the Amazons were, or had been, real. Not the only people enchanted by warlike women of nomadic cultures, such exciting tales also come from ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China. Greek heroes of old had encounters with the queens of their martial society and fought them. However, their original home was not exactly known, thought to be in the obscure lands beyond the civilized world. As a result, for centuries scholars believed the Amazons to be purely imaginary, although
there were various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons in Greek historiography. Some authors preferred comparisons to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete. The most obvious historical candidates are Lycia and Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus. In his Histories (5th century BC) Herodotus claims that the Sauromatae (predecessors of the Sarmatians), who ruled the lands between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, arose from a union of Scythians and Amazons.
Herodotus also observed rather unusual customs among the Lycians of southwest Asia Minor. The Lycians obviously followed matrilineal rules of descent, virtue, and status. They named themselves along their maternal family line and a child's status was determined by the mother's reputation. This remarkably high esteem of women and legal regulations based on maternal lines, still in effect in the 5th century BC in the Lycian regions that Herodotus had traveled to, suggested to him the idea that these people were descendants of the mythical Amazons.
Modern historiography no longer relies exclusively on textual and artistic material, but also on the vast archaeological evidence of over a thousand nomad graves from steppe territories from the Black Sea all the way to Mongolia. Discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons (bows and arrows, quivers, and spears) prove that women warriors were not merely figments of imagination, but the product of the Scythian/Sarmatian horse-centered lifestyle.
Mythology
According to myth, Otrera, the first Amazon queen, is the offspring of a romance between Ares the god of war and the nymph Harmonia of the Akmonian Wood, and as such a demigoddess.
Early records refer to two events in which Amazons appeared prior to the Trojan War (before 1250 BC). Within the epic context, Bellerophon, Greek hero, and grandfather of the brothers and Trojan War veterans Glaukos and Sarpedon, faced Amazons during his stay in Lycia, when King Iobates sent Bellerophon to fight the Amazons, hoping they would kill him, yet Bellerophon slew them all. The youthful King Priam of Troy fought on the side of the Phrygians, who were attacked by Amazons at the Sangarios River.
Amazons in the Trojan War
There are Amazon characters in Homer's Trojan War epic poem, the Iliad, one of the oldest surviving texts in Europe (around 8th century BC).
The now lost epic Aethiopis (probably by Arctinus of Miletus, 6th century BC), like the Iliad and several other epics, is one of the works that in combination form the Trojan War Epic Cycle. In one of the few references to the text, an Amazon force under queen Penthesilea, who was of Thracian birth, came to join the ranks of the Trojans after Hector's death and initially put the Greeks under serious pressure. Only after the greatest effort and the help of the reinvigorated hero Achilles, the Greeks eventually triumphed. Penthesilea died fighting the mighty Achilles in single combat. Homer himself deemed the Amazon myths to be common knowledge all over Greece, which suggests that they had already been known for some time before him. He was also convinced that the Amazons lived not at its fringes, but somewhere in or around Lycia in Asia Minor - a place well within the Greek world.
Troy is mentioned in the Iliad as the place of Myrine's death. Later identified as an Amazon queen, according to Diodorus (1st century BC), the Amazons under her rule invaded the territories of the Atlantians, defeated the army of the Atlantian city of Cerne, and razed the city to the ground.
In Scythia
The Poet Bacchylides (6th century BC) and the historian Herodotus (5th century BC) located the Amazon homeland in Pontus at the southern shores of the Black Sea, and the capital Themiscyra at the banks of the Thermodon (modern Terme river), by the modern city of Terme. Herodotus also explains how it came to be that some Amazons would eventually be living in Scythia. A Greek fleet, sailing home upon defeating the Amazons in battle at the Thermodon river, included three ships crowded with Amazon prisoners. Once out at sea, the Amazon prisoners overwhelmed and killed the small crews of the prisoner ships and, despite not having even basic navigation skills, managed to escape and safely disembark at the Scythian shore. As soon as the Amazons had caught enough horses, they easily asserted themselves in the steppe in between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and, according to Herodotus, would eventually assimilate with the Scythians, whose descendants were the Sauromatae, the predecessors of the Sarmatians.
Amazon homeland
Strabo (1st century BC) visits and confirms the original homeland of the Amazons on the plains by the Thermodon river. However, long gone and not seen again during his lifetime, the Amazons had allegedly retreated into the mountains. Strabo, however, added that other authors, among them Metrodorus of Scepsis and Hypsicrates claim that after abandoning Themiscyra, the Amazons had chosen to resettle beyond the borders of the Gargareans, an all-male tribe native to the northern foothills of the Caucasian Mountains. The Amazons and Gargareans had for many generations met in secrecy once a year during two months in spring, in order to produce children. These encounters would take place in accordance with ancient tribal customs and collective offers of sacrifices. All females were retained by the Amazons themselves, and males were returned to the Gargareans. 5th century BC poet Magnes sings of the bravery of the Lydians in a cavalry-battle against the Amazons.
Heracles myth
Hippolyte was an Amazon queen killed by Heracles, who had set out to obtain the queen's magic belt in a task he was to accomplish as one of the Labours of Heracles. Although neither side had intended to resort to lethal combat, a misunderstanding led to the fight. In the course of this, Heracles killed the queen and several other Amazons. In awe of the strong hero, the Amazons eventually handed the belt to Heracles. In another version, Heracles does not kill the queen, but exchanges her kidnapped sister Melanippe for the belt.
Theseus myth
Queen Hippolyte was abducted by Theseus, who took her to Athens, where she was married to him and bore him a son, Hippolytus. In other versions, the kidnapped Amazon is called Antiope, the sister of Hippolyte. In revenge, the Amazons invaded Greece, plundered some cities along the coast of Attica, and besieged and occupied Athens. Hippolyte, who fought on the side of Athens, according to another account was killed during the final battle along with all of the Amazons.
Amazons and Dionysus
According to Plutarch, the god Dionysus and his companions fought Amazons at Ephesus. The Amazons fled to Samos and Dionysus pursued them and killed a great number of them at a site since called Panaema (blood-soaked field). The Christian author Eusebius writes that during the reign of Oxyntes, one of the mythical kings of Athens, the Amazons burned down the temple at Ephesus.
In another myth Dionysus unites with the Amazons to fight against Cronus and the Titans. Polyaenus writes that after Dionysus has subdued the Indians, he allies with them and the Amazons and takes them into his service, who serve him in his campaign against the Bactrians. Nonnus in his Dionysiaca reports about the Amazons of Dionysus, but states that they do not come from Thermodon.
Amazons and Alexander the Great
Amazons are also mentioned by biographers of Alexander the Great, who report of Queen Thalestris bearing him a child (a story in the Alexander Romance). However, other biographers of Alexander dispute the claim, including the highly regarded Plutarch. He noted a moment when Alexander's naval commander Onesicritus read an Amazon myth passage of his Alexander History to King Lysimachus of Thrace who had taken part in the original expedition. The king smiled at him and said: "And where was I, then?"
The Talmud recounts that Alexander wanted to conquer a "kingdom of women" but reconsidered when the women told him:
Roman and ancient Egyptian records
Virgil's characterization of the Volsci warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid borrows from the myths of the Amazons. Philostratus, in Heroica, writes that the Mysian women fought on horses alongside the men, just as the Amazons. The leader was Hiera, wife of Telephus. The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the Island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles were deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero so terrified the horses, that they threw off and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retreat. Virgil touches on the Amazons and their queen Penthesilea in his epic Aeneid (around 20 BC).
The biographer Suetonius had Julius Caesar remark in his De vita Caesarum that the Amazons once ruled a large part of Asia. Appian provides a vivid description of Themiscyra and its fortifications in his account of Lucius Licinius Lucullus' Siege of Themiscyra in 71 BC during the Third Mithridatic War.
An Amazon myth has been partly preserved in two badly fragmented versions around historical people in 7th century BC Egypt. The Egyptian prince Petechonsis and allied Assyrian troops undertook a joint campaign into the Land of Women, to the Middle East at the border to India. Petechonsis initially fought the Amazons, but soon fell in love with their queen Sarpot and eventually allied with her against an invading Indian army. This story is said to have originated in Egypt independently of Greek influences.
Amazon queens
Sources provide names of individual Amazons, that are referred to as queens of their people, even as the head of a dynasty. Without a male companion, they are portrayed in command of their female warriors. Among the most prominent Amazon queens were:
Otrera, daughter of the nymph Harmonia and god of war, Ares. She is the mother of Hippolyta, Antiope, Melanippe, and Penthesilea and the mythical founder of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
Hippolyta, daughter of Otrera and Ares. She is part of the Theseus and Heracles myths, in which Antiope is her sister. Alcippe, the only Amazon known to have sworn a chastity oath, belongs to her entourage.
Penthesilea, who kills her sister Hippolyte in a hunting accident, comes to the aid of the hard-pressed Trojans with her warriors, is defeated by Achilles, who mourns her.
Lampedo and Marpesia, queens of the Amazons mentioned by Justin
Myrina, who leads a military expedition in Libya, defeats the Atlanteans, forms an alliance with the ruler of Egypt, and conquers numerous cities and islands.
Thalestris, the last known Amazon queen. According to legend, she meets the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Her home is the Thermodon region, or, variably, the Gates of Alexander, south of the Caspian Sea.
Various authors and chroniclers
Quintus Smyrnaeus
Quintus Smyrnaeus, author of the Posthomerica lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea: "Clonie was there, Polemusa, Derinoe, Evandre, and Antandre, and Bremusa, Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe, Alcibie, Derimacheia, Antibrote, and Thermodosa glorying with the spear."
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus lists twelve Amazons who challenged and died fighting Heracles during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle: Aella, Philippis, Prothoe, Eriboea, Celaeno, Eurybia, Phoebe, Deianeira, Asteria, Marpe, Tecmessa, and Alcippe. After Alcippe's death, a group attack followed. Diodorus also mentions Melanippe, whom Heracles set free after accepting her girdle and Antiope as ransom.
Diodorus lists another group with Myrina as the queen who commanded the Amazons in a military expedition in Libya, as well as her sister Mytilene, after whom she named the city of the same name. Myrina also named three more cities after the Amazons who held the most important commands under her, Cyme, Pitane, and Priene.
Justin and Paulus Orosius
Both Justin in his Epitome of Trogus Pompeius and Paulus Orosius give an account of the Amazons, citing the same names. Queens Marpesia and Lampedo shared the power during an incursion in Europe and Asia, where they were slain. Marpesia's daughter Orithyia succeeded them and was greatly admired for her skill on war. She shared power with her sister Antiope, but she was engaged in war abroad when Heracles attacked. Two of Antiope's sisters were taken prisoner, Melanippe by Heracles and Hippolyta by Theseus. Heracles latter restored Melanippe to her sister after receiving the queen's arms in exchange, though, on other accounts she was killed by Telamon. They also mention Penthesilea's role in the Trojan War.
Hyginus
Another list of Amazons' names is found in Hyginus' Fabulae. Along with Hippolyta, Otrera, Antiope and Penthesilea, it attests the following names: Ocyale, Dioxippe, Iphinome, Xanthe, Hippothoe, Laomache, Glauce, Agave, Theseis, Clymene, Polydora.
Perhaps the most important is Queen Otrera, consort of Ares and mother by him of Hippolyta and Penthesilea. She is also known for building a temple to Artemis at Ephesus.
Valerius Flaccus
Another different set of names is found in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. He mentions Euryale, Harpe, Lyce, Menippe and Thoe. Of these Lyce also appears on a fragment, preserved in the Latin Anthology where she is said to have killed the hero Clonus of Moesia, son of Doryclus, with her javelin.
Late Antiquity, Middle Age and Renaissance literature
Stephanus of Byzantium (7th-century CE) provides numerous alternative lists of the Amazons, including for those who died in combat against Heracles, describing them as the most prominent of their people. Both Stephanus and Eustathius connect these Amazons with the placename Thibais, which they claim to have been derived from the Amazon Thiba's name. Several of Stephanus' Amazons served as eponyms for cities in Asia Minor, like Cyme and Smyrna or Amastris, who was believed to lend her name to the city previously known as Kromna, although in fact it was named after the historical Amastris. The city Anaea in Caria was named after an Amazon.
In his work Getica (on the origin and history of the Goths, ) Jordanes asserts that the Goths' ancestors, descendants of Magog, originally lived in Scythia, at the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and Don Rivers. When the Goths were abroad campaigning against Pharaoh Vesosis, their women, on their own successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring tribe. Emboldened, the women established their own army under Marpesia, crossed the Don and invaded eastward into Asia. Marpesia's sister Lampedo remained in Europe to guard the homeland. They procreated with men once a year. These women conquered Armenia, Syria and all of Asia Minor, even reaching Ionia and Aeolis, holding this vast territory for 100 years.
In Digenes Akritas, the twelfth century medieval epic of Basil, the Greco-Syrian knight of the Byzantine frontier, the hero battles and then commits adultery with the female warrior Maximo (killing her afterwards in one version of the epic), descended from some Amazons and taken by Alexander from the Brahmans.
John Tzetzes lists in Posthomerica twenty Amazons, who fell at Troy. This list is unique in its attestation for all the names but Antianeira, Andromache and Hippothoe. Other than these three, the remaining 17 Amazons were named as Toxophone, Toxoanassa, Gortyessa, Iodoce, Pharetre, Andro, Ioxeia, Oistrophe, Androdaixa, Aspidocharme, Enchesimargos, Cnemis, Thorece, Chalcaor, Eurylophe, Hecate, and Anchimache.
Famous medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book:
Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle-axe. This is probably related to the sagaris, an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes Aventinus.
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso contains a country of warrior women, ruled by Queen Orontea; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth, in that the women, abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful lovers, rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely reduced, to prevent them from regaining power. The Amazons and Queen Hippolyta are also referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in "The Knight's Tale".
Amazons continued to be subject of scholarly debate during the European Renaissance, and with the onset of the Age of Exploration, encounters were reported from ever more distant lands. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River, naming it after the , a tribe of warlike women he claimed to have encountered and fought on the Nhamundá River, a tributary of the Amazon. Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon (Amazônia in Portuguese, Amazonía in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh.
Amazons in art
Beginning around 550 BC. depictions of Amazons as daring fighters and equestrian warriors appeared on vases. After the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC the Amazon battle - Amazonomachy became popular motifs on pottery. By the sixth century BC, public and privately displayed artwork used the Amazon imagery for pediment reliefs, sarcophagi, mosaics, pottery, jewelry and even monumental sculptures, that adorned important buildings like the Parthenon in Athens. Amazon motifs remained popular until the Roman imperial period and into Late antiquity.
Apart from the artistic desire to express the passionate womanhood of the Amazons in contrast with the manhood of their enemies, some modern historians interpret the popularity of Amazon in art as indicators of societal trends, both positive and negative. Greek and Roman societies, however, utilized the Amazon mythology as a literary and artistic vehicle to unite against a commonly-held enemy. The metaphysical characteristics of Amazons were seen as personifications of both nature and religion. Roman authors like Virgil, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Pausanius advocated the greatness of the state, as Amazon myths served to discuss the creation of origin and identity for the Roman people. However, that changed over time. Amazons in Roman literature and art have many faces, such as the Trojan ally, the warrior goddess, the native Latin, the warmongering Celt, the proud Sarmatian, the hedonistic and passionate Thracian warrior queen, the subdued Asian city, and the worthy Roman foe.In Renaissance Europe, artists started to reevaluate and depict Amazons based on Christian ethics. Queen Elizabeth of England was associated with Amazon warrior qualities (the foremost ancient examples of feminism) during her reign and was indeed depicted as such. Though, as explained in Divina Virago by Winfried Schleiner, Celeste T. Wright has given a detailed account of the bad reputation Amazons had in the Renaissance. She notes that she has not found any Elizabethans comparing the Queen to an Amazon and suggests that they might have hesitated to do so because of the association of Amazons with enfranchisement of women, which was considered contemptible. Elizabeth was present at a tournament celebrating the marriage of the Earl of Warwick and Anne Russell at Westminster Palace on 11 November 1565 involving male riders dressed as Amazons. They accompanied the challengers carrying their heraldry. These riders wore crimson gowns, masks with long hair attached, and swords.
Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel depicted the Battle of the Amazons around 1598, a most dramatic baroque painting, followed by a painting of the Rococo period by Johann Georg Platzer, also titled Battle of the Amazons. In 19th-century European Romanticism German artist Anselm Feuerbach occupied himself with the Amazons as well. Of Faeurbach's painting, Gert Schiff wrote that: It engendered all the aspirations of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion in an idealized past.
Archaeology
Speculation that the idea of Amazons contains a core of reality is based on archaeological discoveries at kurgan burial sites in the steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia. The varied war weapons artifacts found in graves of numerous high-ranking Scythian and Sarmatian warrior women have led scholars to conclude that the Amazonian legend has been inspired by the real world: About 20% of the warrior graves on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle similar to how men dress. Armed women accounted for up to 25% of Sarmatian military burials. Russian archaeologist Vera Kovalevskaya asserts that when Scythian men were abroad fighting or hunting, women would have to be able to competently defend themselves, their animals, and their pastures.
In early 20th century Minoan archeology a theory regarding Amazon origins in Minoan civilization was raised in an essay by Lewis Richard Farnell and John Myres. According to Myres, the tradition interpreted in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan culture.
Modern legacy
The city of Samsun in modern-day Samsun Province, Turkey features an Amazon Village museum, to help bring attention to the legacy of the Amazons and to promote both academic interest and tourism. An annual Amazon Celebration Festival takes place in the Terme district.
During the Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani in 1826, in the battle of Diros the women of Mani defeated the Ottoman army and for this were given the name of 'The Amazons of Diros'.
From 1936 to 1939, annual propaganda events, called Night of the Amazons (Nacht der Amazonen) were performed in Nazi Germany at the Nymphenburg Palace Park in Munich. Announced as evening highlights of the International Horse Racing Week Munich-Riem, bare-breasted variety show girls of the SS-Cavalry, 2,500 participants and international guests performed at the open-air revue. These revues served to promote an allegedly emancipated female role and a cosmopolitan and foreigner-friendly Nazi regime.
In literature and media
Literature
Amazon Queen Hippolyta appears in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream and also in The Two Noble Kinsmen, which Shakespeare co-wrote with John Fletcher.
The Amazon queen Penthesilea, and her sexual frenzy, are at the center of the drama Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist in 1808.
Steven Pressfield's 2002 novel Last of the Amazons is a mythopoeia of Plutarch's texts, that surround Theseus' abduction of Queen Antiope and the Amazons' attack on Athens. An accurate and detailed portrayal of the Archaic Greek world, its life, people, weapons etc. dramatized as real as the sky.
William Moulton Marston, alongside his wife Elizabeth Holloway and their lover Olive Byrne, created their rendition of the mythical Amazons, whose members included the superheroine Wonder Woman, for DC Comics. Marston's Amazons are noteworthy for not just being physically superior to mortal men but also technologically superior, being able to create healing rays and undetectable jet planes that can be controlled through brain waves alone, although this element of Amazon society is applied inconsistently in appearances written after Marston's death.
In Rick Riordan's The Heroes of Olympus, the Amazons appear in The Son of Neptune and The Blood of Olympus. They are the founders and owners of the Amazon corporation.
In Philip Armstrong's historical-fantasy series, The Chronicles of Tupiluliuma, the Amazons appear as the Am'azzi.
In the Stieg Larsson novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, the Amazons appear as the transitional topics between sections of the book.
Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo created the fictional queen Calafia, who ruled over a kingdom of black women, living in the style of Amazons, on the mythical Island of California.
Amazon Gazonga is a short comic series created by the Waltrip brothers in 1995. The comic centres around on a young amazon named Gazonga living in the Amazon rainforest.
GastroPhobia is a webcomic by Daisy McGuire, about the adventures of an exiled Amazon warrior and her son living in Ancient Greece, roughly 3408 years ago.
Film and television
The Kazakhstani film studio "Kazakhfilm" released the film Томирис (Tomyris) in late 2019. She is portrayed by Almira Tursyn. Girls of her tribe in order to get permissions to marry, in the film, has to bring few enemies heads.
Franchises involving several Tarzan releases, that have featured Amazon tribes (Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle)
In the animated series The Mysterious Cities of Gold, a tribe of Amazons appeared in two episodes.
Frank Hart, portraying a misogynist, is kidnapped by Amazons in the 1980 film 9 to 5.
Amazons appear in the movies The Loves of Hercules (1960), Battle of the Amazons (1970), War Goddess (1973), Hundra (1983), Amazons (1986), Deathstalker II (1987), Ronal the Barbarian (2011), Hercules (2014) and DC Extended Universe films: Wonder Woman (2017), Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).
Amazons in television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Young Hercules, and Xena: Warrior Princess, The Legend of the Hidden City and Huntik: Secrets & Seekers and Supernatural.
Games
Amazons are featured in the following roleplay - and video games: Diablo, Heroes Unlimited, Aliens Unlimited, Amazon: Guardians of Eden, Flight of the Amazon Queen, A Total War Saga: Troy, Rome: Total War, Final Fantasy IV, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Legend of Zelda series and Yu-Gi-Oh games.
Military units
Russian general and statesman Grigory Potemkin, and then favourite of Catherine the Great created an Amazons Company in 1787. Wives and daughters of the soldiers of the Greek Battalion of Balaklava were enlisted and formed this unit.
The Mino, or Minon, (Our Mothers) were a late 19th to early 20th-century all-female official military regiment of the former Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin). Since the early 18th-century women contingents had already joined the army, usually during deployment, in order to inflate the army size. However, women proved themselves courageous and effective in active combat, and a regular unit was established. Western observers, who had allegedly perceived certain Amazon-like physical and mental qualities in these women, came up with the trivial epithet Dahomey Amazons.
Social and religious activism
During the period 1905–1913, members of the militant Suffragette movement were frequently referred to as "Amazons" in books and newspaper articles.
In Ukraine Katerina Tarnovska leads a group called the Asgarda which claims to be a new tribe of Amazons. Tarnovska believes that the Amazons are the direct ancestors of Ukrainian women, and she has created an all-female martial art for her group, based on another form of fighting called Combat Hopak, but with a special emphasis on self-defense.
Science
The Neptune trojans, asteroids 60° ahead or beyond Neptune on its orbit, are individually named after mythological Amazons.
See also
List of Amazons
Action heroine
Amazons (DC Comics)
Matriarchy
List of women warriors in folklore
Women in the military
Timeline of women in ancient warfare
Tomyris
Ares (father of amazons)
Shieldmaiden, female warrior in northern Europe
Onna-bugeisha, female warrior in Japanese nobility
Urduja, from Philippine mythology
List of female action heroes and villains
Women warriors in literature and culture
References
Sources
Primary
Secondary
Further reading
Adams, Maeve. "Amazons." The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies (2016): 1–4.
"AMAZONS Women of the Steppe and the Idea of the Female Warrior". In: Ball, Warwick. The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. pp. 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474488075-010
Dowden, Ken. “THE AMAZONS: DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONS”. In: Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 140, no. 2 (1997): 97–128. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41234269.
Fialko, Elena (2018). "Scythian Female Warriors in the South of Eastern Europe". In: Folia Praehistorica Posnaniensia 22 (lipiec), 29–47. https://doi.org/10.14746/fpp.2017.22.02.
Guliaev, V. I. (2003). "Amazons in the Scythia: New finds at the Middle Don, Southern Russia". In: World Archaeology, 35:1, 112–125. DOI: 10.1080/0043824032000078117
Hardwick, Lorna (1990). "Ancient Amazons - Heroes, Outsiders or Women?". In: Greece & Rome, 37, pp. 14–36. doi:10.1017/S0017383500029521
Liccardo, Salvatore. "Different Gentes, Same Amazons: The Myth of Women Warriors at the Service of Ethnic Discourse." Medieval History Journal 21.2 (2018): 222–250.
Mayor, Adrienne. The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. Princeton University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zvndm. online review
Maartel Bremer, Jan. "THE AMAZONS IN THE IMAGINATION OF THE GREEKS". In: Acta Antiqua 40, 1-4 (2000): 51–59. Accessed Jul 17, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1556/aant.40.2000.1-4.6
Toler, Pamela D. Women warriors: An unexpected history (Beacon Press, 2019).
von Rothmer, Dietrich, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford University Press, 1957)
Vovoura, Despoina. “Women Warriors(?) And the Amazon Myth: The Evidence of Female Burials with Weapons in the Black Sea Area”. In: The Greeks and Romans in the Black Sea and the Importance of the Pontic Region for the Graeco-Roman World (7th Century BC-5th Century AD): 20 Years On (1997-2017): Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities (Constanţa – 18–22 September 2017). Edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, Alexandru Avram, and James Hargrave. Archaeopress, 2021. pp. 118–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pdrqhw.22.
Wilde, Lyn Webster. On the trail of the women warriors: The Amazons in myth and history ( Macmillan, 2000).
Other languages
Bergmann, F. G. Les Amazones dans l'histoire et dans la fable (1853)
Klugmann, A. Die Amazonen in der attischen Literatur und Kunst (1875)
Krause, H. L. Die Amazonensage (1893)
Lacour, F. Les Amazones (1901)
Mordtmann, Andreas David. Die Amazonen (Hanover, 1862)
Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft
Roscher, W. H., Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
Santos, Theobaldo Miranda. Lendas e mitos do Brasil (Companhia Editora Nacional, 1979)
Stricker, W. Die Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte (1868)
External links
Wounded Amazon
Herodotus via Gutenberg
Straight Dope: Amazons
Amazon women in the Mongolian steppe
Amazon mtDNA found in Mongolia
The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Amazons)
Legendary tribes in Greco-Roman historiography
Mythology of Heracles
Children of Ares
Scythia
Single-gender worlds
Women of the Trojan war
Women warriors
Etymology of California
Deeds of Ares |
1696 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso%20V | Alfonso V | Alfonso V (Spanish), Afonso V (Portuguese), Alfons V (Catalan) or Alphonse V (French) may refer to:
Alfonso V of León (999–1028)
Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), The Magnanimous
Afonso V of Portugal (), The African
Afonso V of Kongo () |
1697 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris | Ambergris | Ambergris ( or ; ; ), 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. Dogs are attracted to the smell of ambergris and are sometimes used by ambergris searchers.
Etymology
The English word amber derives from the Arabic word (; ultimately from Middle Persian ambar, also ambergris), via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre. The word "amber", in its sense of "ambergris", was 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 theorized 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
Ambergris is found in lumps of various shapes and sizes, usually weighing from to 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 to a fatty, yellow resinous liquid; and at it is volatilised into a white vapor. It is soluble in ether, and in volatile and fixed oils.
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.
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. 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.
Countries where trade of ambergris is legal include:
United Kingdom
France
Switzerland
Maldives
References
Further reading
montalvoeascinciasdonossotempo.blogspot, accessed 21 August 2015
External links
Natural History Magazine Article (from 1933): Floating Gold – The Romance of Ambergris
Ambergris – A Pathfinder and Annotated Bibliography
On the chemistry and ethics of Ambergris
Pathologist finds €500,000 ‘floating gold’ in dead whale in Canary Islands
Perfume ingredients
Whale products
Animal glandular products
Natural products
Traditional medicine |
1698 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiorix | Ambiorix | Ambiorix (Gaulish "king of the surroundings", or "king-protector") ( 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 nineteenth 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 ('protector'; cf. Old Indic adhi-pá- 'protector, ruler, master, king').
Biography
Early history
In 57 BC 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 BC 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 BC in an uprising against the Roman forces under Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta.
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
When the Roman senate heard what had happened, 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. They do not appear in Roman records after this point.
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 September 5, 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.
In the French comic Asterix, in the album Asterix in Belgium, Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix and Vitalstatistix go to Belgium because they are angry with Caesar about his remark that the Belgians are the bravest of all the Gauls.
In popular culture
Ambiorix leads the Gallic civilization in the New Frontier season pass of the 4X video game Civilization VI.
References
Bibliography
Primary sources
Caesar, De Bello Gallico v. 26–51, vi. 29–43, viii. 24; Dio Cassius xl. 7-11; Florus iii. 10.
External links
Ambiorix
1st-century BC monarchs in Europe
Belgae
Celtic warriors
1st-century BC Gaulish tribal chiefs
Early Germanic warriors
Barbarian people of the Gallic Wars |
1701 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon%20River | Amazon River | The Amazon River (, ; , ) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the longest or second-longest river system in the world, a title which is disputed with the Nile.
The headwaters of the Apurímac River on Nevado Mismi had been considered for nearly a century the Amazon basin's most distant source until a 2014 study found it to be the headwaters of the Mantaro River on the Cordillera Rumi Cruz in Peru. The Mantaro and Apurímac rivers join, and with other tributaries form the Ucayali River, which in turn meets the Marañón River upstream of Iquitos, Peru, forming what countries other than Brazil consider to be the main stem of the Amazon. Brazilians call this section the Solimões River above its confluence with the Rio Negro forming what Brazilians call the Amazon at the Meeting of Waters () at Manaus, the largest city on the river.
The Amazon River has an average discharge of about —approximately per year, greater than the next seven largest independent rivers combined. Two of the top ten rivers by discharge are tributaries of the Amazon river. The Amazon represents 20% of the global riverine discharge into oceans. The Amazon basin is the largest drainage basin in the world, with an area of approximately . The portion of the river's drainage basin in Brazil alone is larger than any other river's basin. The Amazon enters Brazil with only one-fifth of the flow it finally discharges into the Atlantic Ocean, yet already has a greater flow at this point than the discharge of any other river.
Etymology
The Amazon was initially known by Europeans as the Marañón, and the Peruvian part of the river is still known by that name today. It later became known as Rio Amazonas in Spanish and Portuguese.
The name Rio Amazonas was reportedly given after native warriors attacked a 16th-century expedition by Francisco de Orellana. The warriors were led by women, reminding de Orellana of the Amazon warriors, a tribe of women warriors related to Iranian Scythians and Sarmatians mentioned in Greek mythology.
The word Amazon itself may be derived from the Iranian compound * ha-maz-an- "(one) fighting together" or ethnonym * ha-mazan- "warriors", a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss (": 'to make war' in Persian"), where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root * kar- "make" (from which Sanskrit karma is also derived).
Other scholars claim that the name is derived from the Tupi word amassona, meaning "boat destroyer".
History
Geological history
Recent geological studies suggest that for millions of years the Amazon River used to flow in the opposite direction - from east to west. Eventually the Andes Mountains formed, blocking its flow to the Pacific Ocean, and causing it to switch directions to its current mouth in the Atlantic Ocean.
Pre-Columbian era
During what many archaeologists called the formative stage, Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of South America's highland agrarian systems. The trade with Andean civilizations in the terrains of the headwaters in the Andes formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of higher-altitude civilizations like the Muisca and Incas. Early human settlements were typically based on low-lying hills or mounds.
Shell mounds were the earliest evidence of habitation; they represent piles of human refuse (waste) and are mainly dated between 7500 BC and 4000 BC. They are associated with ceramic age cultures; no preceramic shell mounds have been documented so far by archaeologists. Artificial earth platforms for entire villages are the second type of mounds. They are best represented by the Marajoara culture. Figurative mounds are the most recent types of occupation.
There is ample evidence that the areas surrounding the Amazon River were home to complex and large-scale indigenous societies, mainly chiefdoms who developed towns and cities. Archaeologists estimate that by the time the Spanish conquistador De Orellana traveled across the Amazon in 1541, more than 3 million indigenous people lived around the Amazon. These pre-Columbian settlements created highly developed civilizations. For instance, pre-Columbian indigenous people on the island of Marajó may have developed social stratification and supported a population of 100,000 people. To achieve this level of development, the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest altered the forest's ecology by selective cultivation and the use of fire. Scientists argue that by burning areas of the forest repeatedly, the indigenous people caused the soil to become richer in nutrients. This created dark soil areas known as terra preta de índio ("Indian dark earth"). Because of the terra preta, indigenous communities were able to make land fertile and thus sustainable for the large-scale agriculture needed to support their large populations and complex social structures. Further research has hypothesized that this practice began around 11,000 years ago. Some say that its effects on forest ecology and regional climate explain the otherwise inexplicable band of lower rainfall through the Amazon basin.
Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to James S. Olson, "The Munduruku expansion (in the 18th century) dislocated and displaced the Kawahíb, breaking the tribe down into much smaller groups ... [Munduruku] first came to the attention of Europeans in 1770 when they began a series of widespread attacks on Brazilian settlements along the Amazon River."
Arrival of Europeans
In March 1500, Spanish conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was the first documented European to sail up the Amazon River. Pinzón called the stream Río Santa María del Mar Dulce, later shortened to Mar Dulce, literally, sweet sea, because of its freshwater pushing out into the ocean. Another Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana, was the first European to travel from the origins of the upstream river basins, situated in the Andes, to the mouth of the river. In this journey, Orellana baptized some of the affluents of the Amazonas like Rio Negro, Napo and Jurua.
The name Amazonas is thought to be taken from the native warriors that attacked this expedition, mostly women, that reminded De Orellana of the mythical female Amazon warriors from the ancient Hellenic culture in Greece (see also Origin of the name).
Exploration
Gonzalo Pizarro set off in 1541 to explore east of Quito into the South American interior in search of El Dorado, the "city of gold" and La Canela, the "valley of cinnamon". He was accompanied by his second-in-command Francisco de Orellana. After , the Coca River joined the Napo River (at a point now known as Puerto Francisco de Orellana); the party stopped for a few weeks to build a boat just upriver from this confluence. They continued downriver through an uninhabited area, where they could not find food. Orellana offered and was ordered to follow the Napo River, then known as Río de la Canela ("Cinnamon River"), and return with food for the party. Based on intelligence received from a captive native chief named Delicola, they expected to find food within a few days downriver by ascending another river to the north.
De Orellana took about 57 men, the boat, and some canoes and left Pizarro's troops on 26 December 1541. However, De Orellana missed the confluence (probably with the Aguarico) where he was searching supplies for his men. By the time he and his men reached another village, many of them were sick from hunger and eating "noxious plants", and near death. Seven men died in that village. His men threatened to mutiny if the expedition turned back to attempt to rejoin Pizarro, the party being over 100 leagues downstream at this point. He accepted to change the purpose of the expedition to discover new lands in the name of the king of Spain, and the men built a larger boat in which to navigate downstream. After a journey of down the Napo River, they reached a further major confluence, at a point near modern Iquitos, and then followed the upper Amazon, now known as the Solimões, for a further to its confluence with the Rio Negro (near modern Manaus), which they reached on 3 June 1542.
Regarding the initial mission of finding cinnamon, Pizarro reported to the king that they had found cinnamon trees, but that they could not be profitably harvested. True cinnamon (Cinnamomum Verum) is not native to South America. Other related cinnamon-containing plants (of the family Lauraceae) are fairly common in that part of the Amazon and Pizarro probably saw some of these. The expedition reached the mouth of the Amazon on 24 August 1542, demonstrating the practical navigability of the Great River.
In 1560, another Spanish conquistador, Lope de Aguirre, may have made the second descent of the Amazon. Historians are uncertain whether the river he descended was the Amazon or the Orinoco River, which runs more or less parallel to the Amazon further north.
Portuguese explorer Pedro Teixeira was the first European to travel up the entire river. He arrived in Quito in 1637, and returned via the same route.
From 1648 to 1652, Portuguese Brazilian bandeirante António Raposo Tavares led an expedition from São Paulo overland to the mouth of the Amazon, investigating many of its tributaries, including the Rio Negro, and covering a distance of over .
In what is currently in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, several colonial and religious settlements were established along the banks of primary rivers and tributaries for trade, slaving, and evangelization among the indigenous peoples of the vast rainforest, such as the Urarina. In the late 1600s, Czech Jesuit Father Samuel Fritz, an apostle of the Omagus established some forty mission villages. Fritz proposed that the Marañón River must be the source of the Amazon, noting on his 1707 map that the Marañón "has its source on the southern shore of a lake that is called Lauricocha, near Huánuco." Fritz reasoned that the Marañón is the largest river branch one encounters when journeying upstream, and lies farther to the west than any other tributary of the Amazon. For most of the 18th–19th centuries and into the 20th century, the Marañón was generally considered the source of the Amazon.
Scientific exploration
Early scientific, zoological, and botanical exploration of the Amazon River and basin took place from the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century.
Charles Marie de La Condamine explored the river in 1743.
Alexander von Humboldt, 1799–1804
Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, 1817–1820
Georg von Langsdorff, 1826–1828
Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace, 1848–1859
Richard Spruce, 1849–1864
Post-colonial exploitation and settlement
The Cabanagem revolt (1835–1840) was directed against the white ruling class. It is estimated that from 30% to 40% of the population of Grão-Pará, estimated at 100,000 people, died.
The population of the Brazilian portion of the Amazon basin in 1850 was perhaps 300,000, of whom about 175,000 were Europeans and 25,000 were slaves. The Brazilian Amazon's principal commercial city, Pará (now Belém), had from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants, including slaves. The town of Manáos, now Manaus, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, had a population between 1,000 and 1,500. All the remaining villages, as far up as Tabatinga, on the Brazilian frontier of Peru, were relatively small.
On 6 September 1850, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil sanctioned a law authorizing steam navigation on the Amazon and gave the Viscount of Mauá (Irineu Evangelista de Sousa) the task of putting it into effect. He organised the "Companhia de Navegação e Comércio do Amazonas" in Rio de Janeiro in 1852; in the following year it commenced operations with four small steamers, the Monarca ('Monarch'), the Cametá, the Marajó and the Rio Negro.
At first, navigation was principally confined to the main river; and even in 1857 a modification of the government contract only obliged the company to a monthly service between Pará and Manaus, with steamers of 200 tons cargo capacity, a second line to make six round voyages a year between Manaus and Tabatinga, and a third, two trips a month between Pará and Cametá. This was the first step in opening up the vast interior.
The success of the venture called attention to the opportunities for economic exploitation of the Amazon, and a second company soon opened commerce on the Madeira, Purús, and Negro; a third established a line between Pará and Manaus, and a fourth found it profitable to navigate some of the smaller streams. In that same period, the Amazonas Company was increasing its fleet. Meanwhile, private individuals were building and running small steam craft of their own on the main river as well as on many of its tributaries.
On 31 July 1867, the government of Brazil, constantly pressed by the maritime powers and by the countries encircling the upper Amazon basin, especially Peru, decreed the opening of the Amazon to all countries, but they limited this to certain defined points: Tabatinga – on the Amazon; Cametá – on the Tocantins; Santarém – on the Tapajós; Borba – on the Madeira, and Manaus – on the Rio Negro. The Brazilian decree took effect on 7 September 1867.
Thanks in part to the mercantile development associated with steamboat navigation coupled with the internationally driven demand for natural rubber, the Peruvian city of Iquitos became a thriving, cosmopolitan center of commerce. Foreign companies settled in Iquitos, from where they controlled the extraction of rubber. In 1851 Iquitos had a population of 200, and by 1900 its population reached 20,000. In the 1860s, approximately 3,000 tons of rubber were being exported annually, and by 1911 annual exports had grown to 44,000 tons, representing 9.3% of Peru's exports. During the rubber boom it is estimated that diseases brought by immigrants, such as typhus and malaria, killed 40,000 native Amazonians.
The first direct foreign trade with Manaus commenced around 1874. Local trade along the river was carried on by the English successors to the Amazonas Company—the Amazon Steam Navigation Company—as well as numerous small steamboats, belonging to companies and firms engaged in the rubber trade, navigating the Negro, Madeira, Purús, and many other tributaries, such as the Marañón, to ports as distant as Nauta, Peru.
By the turn of the 20th century, the exports of the Amazon basin were India-rubber, cacao beans, Brazil nuts and a few other products of minor importance, such as pelts and exotic forest produce (resins, barks, woven hammocks, prized bird feathers, live animals) and extracted goods, such as lumber and gold.
20th-century development
Since colonial times, the Portuguese portion of the Amazon basin has remained a land largely undeveloped by agriculture and occupied by indigenous people who survived the arrival of European diseases.
Four centuries after the European discovery of the Amazon river, the total cultivated area in its basin was probably less than , excluding the limited and crudely cultivated areas among the mountains at its extreme headwaters. This situation changed dramatically during the 20th century.
Wary of foreign exploitation of the nation's resources, Brazilian governments in the 1940s set out to develop the interior, away from the seaboard where foreigners owned large tracts of land. The original architect of this expansion was president Getúlio Vargas, with the demand for rubber from the Allied forces in World War II providing funding for the drive.
In the 1960s, economic exploitation of the Amazon basin was seen as a way to fuel the "economic miracle" occurring at the time. This resulted in the development of "Operation Amazon", an economic development project that brought large-scale agriculture and ranching to Amazonia. This was done through a combination of credit and fiscal incentives.
However, in the 1970s the government took a new approach with the National Integration Program (PIN). A large-scale colonization program saw families from northeastern Brazil relocated to the "land without people" in the Amazon Basin. This was done in conjunction with infrastructure projects mainly the Trans-Amazonian Highway (Transamazônica).
The Trans-Amazonian Highway's three pioneering highways were completed within ten years but never fulfilled their promise. Large portions of the Trans-Amazonian and its accessory roads, such as BR-317 (Manaus-Porto Velho), are derelict and impassable in the rainy season. Small towns and villages are scattered across the forest, and because its vegetation is so dense, some remote areas are still unexplored.
Many settlements grew along the road from Brasília to Belém with the highway and National Integration Program, however, the program failed as the settlers were unequipped to live in the delicate rainforest ecosystem. This, although the government believed it could sustain millions, instead could sustain very few.
With a population of 1.9 million people in 2014, Manaus is the largest city on the Amazon. Manaus alone makes up approximately 50% of the population of the largest Brazilian state of Amazonas. The racial makeup of the city is 64% pardo (mulatto and mestizo) and 32% white.
Although the Amazon river remains undammed, around 412 dams are in operation in the Amazon's tributary rivers. Of these 412 dams, 151 are constructed over six of the main tributary rivers that drain into the Amazon. Since only 4% of the Amazon's hydropower potential has been developed in countries like Brazil, more damming projects are underway and hundreds more are planned. After witnessing the negative effects of environmental degradation, sedimentation, navigation and flood control caused by the Three Gorges Dam in the Yangtze River, scientists are worried that constructing more dams in the Amazon will harm its biodiversity in the same way by "blocking fish-spawning runs, reducing the flows of vital oil nutrients and clearing forests". Damming the Amazon River could potentially bring about the "end of free flowing rivers" and contribute to an "ecosystem collapse" that will cause major social and environmental problems.
Course
Origins
The most distant source of the Amazon was thought to be in the Apurímac river drainage for nearly a century. Such studies continued to be published even as recently as 1996, 2001, 2007, and 2008, where various authors identified the snowcapped Nevado Mismi peak, located roughly west of Lake Titicaca and southeast of Lima, as the most distant source of the river. From that point, Quebrada Carhuasanta emerges from Nevado Mismi, joins Quebrada Apacheta and soon forms Río Lloqueta which becomes Río Hornillos and eventually joins the Río Apurímac.
A 2014 study by Americans James Contos and Nicolas Tripcevich in Area, a peer-reviewed journal of the Royal Geographical Society, however, identifies the most distant source of the Amazon as actually being in the Río Mantaro drainage. A variety of methods were used to compare the lengths of the Mantaro river vs. the Apurímac river from their most distant source points to their confluence, showing the longer length of the Mantaro. Then distances from Lago Junín to several potential source points in the uppermost Mantaro river were measured, which enabled them to determine that the Cordillera Rumi Cruz was the most distant source of water in the Mantaro basin (and therefore in the entire Amazon basin). The most accurate measurement method was direct GPS measurement obtained by kayak descent of each of the rivers from their source points to their confluence (performed by Contos). Obtaining these measurements was difficult given the class IV–V nature of each of these rivers, especially in their lower "Abyss" sections. Ultimately, they determined that the most distant point in the Mantaro drainage is nearly 80 km farther upstream compared to Mt. Mismi in the Apurímac drainage, and thus the maximal length of the Amazon river is about 80 km longer than previously thought. Contos continued downstream to the ocean and finished the first complete descent of the Amazon river from its newly identified source (finishing November 2012), a journey repeated by two groups after the news spread.
After about , the Apurímac then joins Río Mantaro to form the Ene, which joins the Perene to form the Tambo, which joins the Urubamba River to form the Ucayali. After the confluence of Apurímac and Ucayali, the river leaves Andean terrain and is surrounded by floodplain. From this point to the confluence of the Ucayali and the Marañón, some , the forested banks are just above the water and are inundated long before the river attains its maximum flood stage. The low river banks are interrupted by only a few hills, and the river enters the enormous Amazon rainforest.
The Upper Amazon or Solimões
Although the Ucayali–Marañón confluence is the point at which most geographers place the beginning of the Amazon River proper, in Brazil the river is known at this point as the Solimões das Águas. The river systems and flood plains in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, whose waters drain into the Solimões and its tributaries, are called the "Upper Amazon".
The Amazon proper runs mostly through Brazil and Peru, and is part of the border between Colombia and Peru. It has a series of major tributaries in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, some of which flow into the Marañón and Ucayali, and others directly into the Amazon proper. These include rivers Putumayo, Caquetá, Vaupés, Guainía, Morona, Pastaza, Nucuray, Urituyacu, Chambira, Tigre, Nanay, Napo, and Huallaga.
At some points, the river divides into anabranches, or multiple channels, often very long, with inland and lateral channels, all connected by a complicated system of natural canals, cutting the low, flat igapó lands, which are never more than above low river, into many islands.
From the town of Canaria at the great bend of the Amazon to the Negro, vast areas of land are submerged at high water, above which only the upper part of the trees of the sombre forests appear. Near the mouth of the Rio Negro to Serpa, nearly opposite the river Madeira, the banks of the Amazon are low, until approaching Manaus, they rise to become rolling hills.
The Lower Amazon
The Lower Amazon begins where the darkly colored waters of the Rio Negro meets the sandy-colored Rio Solimões (the upper Amazon), and for over these waters run side by side without mixing. At Óbidos, a bluff above the river is backed by low hills. The lower Amazon seems to have once been a gulf of the Atlantic Ocean, the waters of which washed the cliffs near Óbidos.
Only about 10% of the Amazon's water enters downstream of Óbidos, very little of which is from the northern slope of the valley. The drainage area of the Amazon basin above Óbidos city is about , and, below, only about (around 20%), exclusive of the of the Tocantins basin. The Tocantins River enters the southern portion of the Amazon delta.
In the lower reaches of the river, the north bank consists of a series of steep, table-topped hills extending for about from opposite the mouth of the Xingu as far as Monte Alegre. These hills are cut down to a kind of terrace which lies between them and the river.
On the south bank, above the Xingu, a line of low bluffs bordering the floodplain extends nearly to Santarém in a series of gentle curves before they bend to the southwest, and, abutting upon the lower Tapajós, merge into the bluffs which form the terrace margin of the Tapajós river valley.
Mouth
Belém is the major city and port at the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean. The definition of where exactly the mouth of the Amazon is located, and how wide it is, is a matter of dispute, because of the area's peculiar geography. The Pará and the Amazon are connected by a series of river channels called furos near the town of Breves; between them lies Marajó, the world's largest combined river/sea island.
If the Pará river and the Marajó island ocean frontage are included, the Amazon estuary is some wide. In this case, the width of the mouth of the river is usually measured from Cabo Norte, the cape located straight east of Pracuúba in the Brazilian state of Amapá, to Ponta da Tijoca near the town of Curuçá, in the state of Pará.
A more conservative measurement excluding the Pará river estuary, from the mouth of the Araguari River to Ponta do Navio on the northern coast of Marajó, would still give the mouth of the Amazon a width of over . If only the river's main channel is considered, between the islands of Curuá (state of Amapá) and Jurupari (state of Pará), the width falls to about .
The plume generated by the river's discharge covers up to 1.3 million km2 and is responsible for muddy bottoms influencing a wide area of the tropical north Atlantic in terms of salinity, pH, light penetration, and sedimentation.
Lack of bridges
There are no bridges across the entire width of the river. This is not because the river would be too wide to bridge; for most of its length, engineers could build a bridge across the river easily. For most of its course, the river flows through the Amazon Rainforest, where there are very few roads and cities. Most of the time, the crossing can be done by a ferry. The Manaus Iranduba Bridge linking the cities of Manaus and Iranduba spans the Rio Negro, the second-largest tributary of the Amazon, just before their confluence.
Dispute regarding length
While debate as to whether the Amazon or the Nile is the world's longest river has gone on for many years, the historic consensus of geographic authorities has been to regard the Amazon as the second longest river in the world, with the Nile being the longest. However, the Amazon has been reported as being anywhere between and long. It is often said to be "at least" long. The Nile is reported to be anywhere from . Often it is said to be "about" long. There are several factors that can affect these measurements, such as the position of the geographical source and the mouth, the scale of measurement, and the length measuring techniques (for details see also List of rivers by length).
In July 2008, the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) published a news article on their webpage, claiming that the Amazon River was longer than the Nile. The Amazon's length was calculated as , taking the Apacheta Creek as its source. Using the same techniques, the length of the Nile was calculated as , which is longer than previous estimates but still shorter than the Amazon. The results were reached by measuring the Amazon downstream to the beginning of the tidal estuary of Canal do Sul and then, after a sharp turn back, following tidal canals surrounding the isle of Marajó and finally including the marine waters of the Río Pará bay in its entire length. According to an earlier article on the webpage of the National Geographic, the Amazon's length was calculated as by a Brazilian scientist. In June 2007, Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), told London's Telegraph Newspaper that it could be considered that the Amazon was the longest river in the world. However, according to the above sources, none of the two results was published, and questions were raised about the researchers' methodology. In 2009, a peer-reviewed article, was published, concluding that the Nile is longer than the Amazon by stating a length of for the Nile and for the Amazon, measured by using a combination of satellite image analysis and field investigations to the source regions.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the final length of the Amazon remains open to interpretation and continued debate.
Watershed
The Amazon basin, the largest in the world, covers about 40% of South America, an area of approximately . It drains from west to east, from Iquitos in Peru, across Brazil to the Atlantic. It gathers its waters from 5 degrees north latitude to 20 degrees south latitude. Its most remote sources are found on the inter-Andean plateau, just a short distance from the Pacific Ocean.
The Amazon River and its tributaries are characterised by extensive forested areas that become flooded every rainy season. Every year, the river rises more than , flooding the surrounding forests, known as várzea ("flooded forests"). The Amazon's flooded forests are the most extensive example of this habitat type in the world. In an average dry season, of land are water-covered, while in the wet season, the flooded area of the Amazon basin rises to .
The quantity of water released by the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean is enormous: up to in the rainy season, with an average of from 1973 to 1990. The Amazon is responsible for about 20% of the Earth's fresh water entering the ocean. The river pushes a vast plume of fresh water into the ocean. The plume is about long and between wide. The fresh water, being lighter, flows on top of the seawater, diluting the salinity and altering the colour of the ocean surface over an area up to in extent. For centuries ships have reported fresh water near the Amazon's mouth yet well out of sight of land in what otherwise seemed to be the open ocean.
The Atlantic has sufficient wave and tidal energy to carry most of the Amazon's sediments out to sea, thus the Amazon does not form a true delta. The great deltas of the world are all in relatively protected bodies of water, while the Amazon empties directly into the turbulent Atlantic.
There is a natural water union between the Amazon and the Orinoco basins, the so-called Casiquiare canal. The Casiquiare is a river distributary of the upper Orinoco, which flows southward into the Rio Negro, which in turn flows into the Amazon. The Casiquiare is the largest river on earth that links two major river systems, a so-called bifurcation.
Discharge
Average discharge at the estuary; Period from 2003 to 2015:
Average discharge at Óbidos gauge station; Period from 1969 to 2018:
Average discharge (Q - 173,000 m3/s) and sediment load (S - 754 x 106 ton/year) at Óbidos gauge station (period from 1996 to 2007)
Average, minimum and maximum discharge at Itacoatiara and Santarém (Lower Amazon). Period from 1998/01/01 to 2022/12/31 (Source: The Flood Observatory):
Flooding
Not all of the Amazon's tributaries flood at the same time of the year. Many branches begin flooding in November and might continue to rise until June. The rise of the Rio Negro starts in February or March and begins to recede in June. The Madeira River rises and falls two months earlier than most of the rest of the Amazon river.
The depth of the Amazon between Manacapuru and Óbidos has been calculated as between . At Manacapuru, the Amazon's water level is only about above mean sea level. More than half of the water in the Amazon downstream of Manacapuru is below sea level. In its lowermost section, the Amazon's depth averages , in some places as much as .
The main river is navigable for large ocean steamers to Manaus, upriver from the mouth. Smaller ocean vessels below 9000 tons and with less than draft can reach as far as Iquitos, Peru, from the sea. Smaller riverboats can reach higher, as far as Achual Point. Beyond that, small boats frequently ascend to the Pongo de Manseriche, just above Achual Point in Peru.
Annual flooding occurs in late northern latitude winter at high tide when the incoming waters of the Atlantic are funnelled into the Amazon delta. The resulting undular tidal bore is called the pororoca, with a leading wave that can be up to high and travel up to inland.
Geology
The Amazon River originated as a transcontinental river in the Miocene epoch between 11.8 million and 11.3 million years ago and took its present shape approximately 2.4 million years ago in the Early Pleistocene.
The proto-Amazon during the Cretaceous flowed west, as part of a proto-Amazon-Congo river system, from the interior of present-day Africa when the continents were connected, forming western Gondwana. 80 million years ago, the two continents split. Fifteen million years ago, the main tectonic uplift phase of the Andean chain started. This tectonic movement is caused by the subduction of the Nazca Plate underneath the South American Plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river and caused the Amazon Basin to become a vast inland sea. Gradually, this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater.
Eleven to ten million years ago, waters worked through the sandstone from the west and the Amazon began to flow eastward, leading to the emergence of the Amazon rainforest. During glacial periods, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake rapidly drained and became a river, which would eventually become the disputed world's longest, draining the most extensive area of rainforest on the planet.
Paralleling the Amazon River is a large aquifer, dubbed the Hamza River, the discovery of which was made public in August 2011.
Protected areas
Flora and fauna
Flora
Fauna
More than one-third of all known species in the world live in the Amazon rainforest. It is the richest tropical forest in the world in terms of biodiversity. In addition to thousands of species of fish, the river supports crabs, algae, and turtles.
Mammals
Along with the Orinoco, the Amazon is one of the main habitats of the boto, also known as the Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis). It is the largest species of river dolphin, and it can grow to lengths of up to . The colour of its skin changes with age; young animals are gray, but become pink and then white as they mature. The dolphins use echolocation to navigate and hunt in the river's tricky depths. The boto is the subject of a legend in Brazil about a dolphin that turns into a man and seduces maidens by the riverside.
The tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis), also a dolphin species, is found both in the rivers of the Amazon basin and in the coastal waters of South America. The Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis), also known as "seacow", is found in the northern Amazon River basin and its tributaries. It is a mammal and a herbivore. Its population is limited to freshwater habitats, and, unlike other manatees, it does not venture into saltwater. It is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Amazon and its tributaries are the main habitat of the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis). Sometimes known as the "river wolf," it is one of South America's top carnivores. Because of habitat destruction and hunting, its population has dramatically decreased. It is now listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which effectively bans international trade.
Reptiles
The Anaconda is found in shallow waters in the Amazon basin. One of the world's largest species of snake, the anaconda spends most of its time in the water with just its nostrils above the surface. Species of caimans, that are related to alligators and other crocodilians, also inhabit the Amazon as do varieties of turtles.
Birds
Fish
The Amazonian fish fauna is the centre of diversity for neotropical fishes, some of which are popular aquarium specimens like the neon tetra and the freshwater angelfish. More than 5,600 species were known , and approximately fifty new species are discovered each year. The arapaima, known in Brazil as the pirarucu, is a South American tropical freshwater fish, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world, with a length of up to . Another Amazonian freshwater fish is the arowana (or aruanã in Portuguese), such as the silver arowana (Osteoglossum bicirrhosum), which is a predator and very similar to the arapaima, but only reaches a length of . Also present in large numbers is the notorious piranha, an omnivorous fish that congregates in large schools and may attack livestock. There are approximately 30 to 60 species of piranha. The candirú, native to the Amazon River, is a species of parasitic fresh water catfish in the family Trichomycteridae, just one of more than 1200 species of catfish in the Amazon basin. Other catfish 'walk' overland on their ventral fins, while the kumakuma (Brachyplatystoma filamentosum), aka piraiba or "goliath catfish", can reach in length and in weight.
The electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) and more than 100 species of electric fishes (Gymnotiformes) inhabit the Amazon basin. River stingrays (Potamotrygonidae) are also known. The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) has been reported up the Amazon River at Iquitos in Peru.
Butterflies
Microbiota
Freshwater microbes are generally not very well known, even less so for a pristine ecosystem like the Amazon. Recently, metagenomics has provided answers to what kind of microbes inhabit the river. The most important microbes in the Amazon River are Actinomycetota, Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria and Thermoproteota.
Challenges
The Amazon River serves as a vital lifeline for more than 47 million people in its basin and faces a multitude of challenges that threaten both its ecosystem and the indigenous communities dependent on its resources. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Yanomami, a tribe of approximately 29,000, struggles to preserve their land, culture, and traditional way of life due to encroaching illegal gold miners, malnutrition, and malaria. Meanwhile, in 2022, the region's severe drought, has led to a devastating increase in water temperatures, reaching 39.1 degrees Celsius, causing the tragic demise of 125 Amazon river dolphins. This unfortunate event serves as a poignant marker of the deteriorating environmental conditions, indicating the increasing vulnerability of the river's ecosystem. In recent years, the Amazon River has experienced historically low water levels, the lowest in over a century. Brazil, the primary custodian of this invaluable natural resource, grapples with the challenges of mitigating the effects of this drought on communities and ecosystems, further emphasizing the urgency of sustainable environmental management and conservation efforts.
Major tributaries
The Amazon has over 1,100 tributaries, twelve of which are over long. Some of the more notable ones are:
Branco
Casiquiare canal
Caquetá
Huallaga
Putumayo (or Içá River)
Javary (or Yavarí)
Juruá
Madeira
Marañón
Morona
Nanay
Napo
Negro
Pastaza
Purús
Tambo
Tapajós
Tigre
Tocantins
Trombetas
Ucayali
Xingu
Yapura
List of major tributaries
The main river and tributaries are (sorted in order from the confluence of Ucayali and Marañón rivers to the mouth):
List by length
() – Amazon, South America
– Madeira, Bolivia/Brazil
– Purús, Peru/Brazil
– Japurá or Caquetá, Colombia/Brazil
– Tocantins, Brazil
– Araguaia, Brazil (tributary of Tocantins)
– Juruá, Peru/Brazil
– Rio Negro, Brazil/Venezuela/Colombia
– Tapajós, Brazil
– Xingu, Brazil
– Ucayali River, Peru
– Guaporé, Brazil/Bolivia (tributary of Madeira)
– Içá (Putumayo), Ecuador/Colombia/Peru
– Marañón, Peru
– Teles Pires, Brazil (tributary of Tapajós)
– Iriri, Brazil (tributary of Xingu)
– Juruena, Brazil (tributary of Tapajós)
– Madre de Dios, Peru/Bolivia (tributary of Madeira)
– Huallaga, Peru (tributary of Marañón)
List by inflow to the Amazon
See also
Amazon natural region, in Colombia
Peruvian Amazonia in Peru
Nile
Notes
References
Bibliography
Garfield, Seth. In search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States and the nature of a region (Duke University Press, 2013) online
Hecht, Susanna, et al. "The Amazon in motion: Changing politics, development strategies, peoples, landscapes, and livelihoods." Amazon Assessment Report 2021, Part II (2021): ch 14 pp 1-65. online, with long bibliography
Nugent, Stephen L. The rise and fall of the Amazon rubber industry: an historical anthropology (Routledge, 2017) online.
Schulze, Frederik, and Georg Fischer. "Brazilian history as global history." Bulletin of Latin American Research 38.4 (2019): 408–422. online
External links
Information on the Amazon from Extreme Science
A photographic journey up the Amazon River from its mouth to its source
Amazon Alive: Light & Shadow documentary film about the Amazon river
Amazon River Ecosystem
Research on the influence of the Amazon River on the Atlantic Ocean at the University of Southern California
Amazon basin
Amazon rainforest
Upper Amazon
Rivers of South America
International rivers of South America
Rivers of Colombia
Rivers of Peru
Colombia–Peru border
Rivers of Amapá
Rivers of Amazonas (Brazilian state)
Rivers of Loreto Region
Rivers of Pará |
1702 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred%20of%20Beverley | 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).
Works
References
Sources
12th-century English historians
Middle English literature
12th-century writers in Latin
People from Beverley |
1710 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April%2022 | April 22 |
Events
Pre-1600
1500 – Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Brazil (discovery of Brazil).
1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico.
1529 – Treaty of Zaragoza divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues () east of the Moluccas.
1601–1900
1809 – The second day of the Battle of Eckmühl: The Austrian army is defeated by the First French Empire army led by Napoleon and driven over the Danube in Regensburg.
1836 – Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston identify Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna among the captives of the battle when some of his fellow soldiers mistakenly give away his identity.
1864 – The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that permitted the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.
1876 – The first National League baseball game is played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia.
1889 – At noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Rush of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.
1898 – Spanish–American War: President William McKinley calls for 125,000 volunteers to join the National Guard and fight in Cuba, while Congress more than doubles regular Army forces to 65,000.
1901–present
1906 – The 1906 Intercalated Games open in Athens.
1915 – World War I: The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.
1930 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
1944 – The 1st Air Commando Group using Sikorsky R-4 helicopters stage the first use of helicopters in combat with combat search and rescue operations in the China Burma India Theater.
1944 – World War II: Operation Persecution is initiated: Allied forces land in the Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura) area of New Guinea.
1944 – World War II: In Greenland, the Allied Sledge Patrol attack the German Bassgeiger weather station.
1945 – World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. Five hundred twenty are killed and around eighty escape.
1945 – World War II: Sachsenhausen concentration camp is liberated by soldiers of the Red Army and Polish First Army.
1948 – Arab–Israeli War: The port city of Haifa is captured by Jewish forces.
1951 – Korean War: The Chinese People's Volunteer Army begin assaulting positions defended by the Royal Australian Regiment and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry at the Battle of Kapyong.
1954 – Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings begins.
1969 – British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston wins the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and completes the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.
1969 – The formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) is announced at a mass rally in Calcutta.
1970 – The first Earth Day is celebrated.
1974 – Pan Am Flight 812 crashes on approach to Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, killing all 107 people on board.
1977 – Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic.
1992 – A series of gas explosions rip through the streets in Guadalajara, Mexico, killing 206.
1993 – Eighteen-year-old Stephen Lawrence is murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall, Eltham.
2005 – Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologizes for Japan's war record.
2016 – The Paris Agreement is signed, an agreement to help fight global warming.
2020 – Four police officers are killed after being struck by a truck on the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne while speaking to a speeding driver, marking the largest loss of police lives in Victoria Police history.
Births
Pre-1600
1412 – Reinhard III, Count of Hanau (1451–1452) (d. 1452)
1444 – Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk (d. 1503)
1451 – Isabella I of Castile (d. 1504)
1518 – Antoine of Navarre (d. 1562)
1592 – Wilhelm Schickard, German astronomer and mathematician (d. 1635)
1601–1900
1610 – Pope Alexander VIII (d. 1691)
1658 – Giuseppe Torelli, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1709)
1690 – John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, English politician, Lord President of the Council (d. 1763)
1707 – Henry Fielding, English novelist and playwright (d. 1754)
1711 – Paul II Anton, Prince Esterházy, Austrian soldier (d. 1762)
1724 – Immanuel Kant, German anthropologist, philosopher, and academic (d. 1804)
1732 – John Johnson, English architect and surveyor (d. 1814)
1744 – James Sullivan, American lawyer and politician, 7th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1808)
1766 – Germaine de Staël, French author and political philosopher (d. 1817)
1812 – Solomon Caesar Malan, Swiss-English orientalist (d. 1894)
1816 – Charles-Denis Bourbaki, French general (d. 1897)
1830 – Emily Davies, British suffragist and educator, co-founder and an early Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge University (d. 1921)
1832 – Julius Sterling Morton, American journalist and politician, 3rd United States Secretary of Agriculture (d. 1902)
1844 – Lewis Powell, American soldier, attempted assassin of William H. Seward (d. 1865)
1852 – William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1912)
1854 – Henri La Fontaine, Belgian lawyer and author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)
1858 – Ethel Smyth, English composer (d. 1944)
1858 – Fritz Mayer van den Bergh, Belgian art collector and art historian (d. 1901)
1870 – Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary and founder of Soviet Russia (d. 1924)
1872 – Princess Margaret of Prussia (d. 1954)
1873 – Ellen Glasgow, American author (d. 1945)
1874 – Wu Peifu, Chinese warlord, politician, and marshal of the Beiyang Army (d. 1939)
1876 – Róbert Bárány, Austrian-Swedish otologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)
1876 – Georg Lurich, Estonian wrestler and strongman (d. 1920)
1879 – Bernhard Gregory, Estonian-German chess player (d. 1939)
1884 – Otto Rank, Austrian-American psychologist and academic (d. 1939)
1886 – Izidor Cankar, Slovenian historian, author, and diplomat (d. 1958)
1887 – Harald Bohr, Danish mathematician and footballer (d. 1951)
1889 – Richard Glücks, German SS officer (d. 1945)
1891 – Laura Gilpin, American photographer (d. 1979)
1891 – Vittorio Jano, Italian engineer (d. 1965)
1891 – Harold Jeffreys, English mathematician, geophysicist, and astronomer (d. 1989)
1891 – Nicola Sacco, Italian-American anarchist (d. 1927)
1892 – Vernon Johns, African-American minister and activist (d. 1965)
1899 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born novelist and critic (d. 1977)
1900 – Nellie Beer, British politician, Lord Mayor of Manchester (d. 1988)
1901–present
1904 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (d. 1967)
1905 – Robert Choquette, American-Canadian author, poet, and diplomat (d. 1991)
1906 – Eric Fenby, English composer and educator (d. 1997)
1906 – Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten (d. 1947)
1909 – Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italian neurologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2012)
1909 – Indro Montanelli, Italian journalist and historian (d. 2001)
1909 – Spyros Markezinis, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2000)
1910 – Norman Steenrod, American mathematician and academic (d. 1971)
1912 – Kathleen Ferrier, English operatic singer (d. 1953)
1912 – Kaneto Shindo, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1914 – Baldev Raj Chopra, Indian director and producer (d. 2008)
1914 – Jan de Hartog, Dutch-American author and playwright (d. 2002)
1914 – José Quiñones Gonzales, Peruvian soldier and pilot (d. 1941)
1914 – Michael Wittmann, German SS officer (d. 1944)
1916 – Hanfried Lenz, German mathematician and academic (d. 2013)
1916 – Yehudi Menuhin, American-Swiss violinist and conductor (d. 1999)
1917 – Yvette Chauviré, French ballerina (d. 2016)
1917 – Sidney Nolan, Australian painter (d. 1992)
1918 – William Jay Smith, American poet and academic (d. 2015)
1918 – Mickey Vernon, American baseball player and coach (d. 2008)
1919 – Donald J. Cram, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
1919 – Carl Lindner, Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2011)
1922 – Richard Diebenkorn, American soldier and painter (d. 1993)
1922 – Charles Mingus, American bassist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1979)
1922 – Wolf V. Vishniac, American microbiologist and academic (d. 1973)
1923 – Peter Kane Dufault, American soldier, pilot, and poet (d. 2013)
1923 – Bettie Page, American model and actress (d. 2008)
1923 – Aaron Spelling, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2006)
1924 – Nam Duck-woo, South Korean politician, 12th Prime Minister of South Korea (d. 2013)
1926 – Charlotte Rae, American actress and singer (d. 2018)
1926 – James Stirling, Scottish architect, designed the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and Seeley Historical Library (d. 1992)
1927 – Laurel Aitken, Cuban-Jamaican singer (d. 2005)
1928 – Estelle Harris, American actress and comedian (d. 2022)
1929 – Michael Atiyah, English-Lebanese mathematician and academic (d. 2019)
1929 – Robert Wade-Gery, English diplomat, British High Commissioner to India (d. 2015)
1930 – Enno Penno, Estonian politician, Prime Minister of Estonia in exile (d. 2016)
1931 – John Buchanan, Canadian lawyer and politician, 20th Premier of Nova Scotia (d. 2019)
1931 – Ronald Hynd, English dancer and choreographer
1933 – Anthony Llewellyn, Welsh-American chemist and astronaut (d. 2013)
1935 – Christopher Ball, English linguist and academic
1935 – Paul Chambers, African-American bassist and composer (d. 1969)
1935 – Bhama Srinivasan, Indian-American mathematician and academic
1936 – Glen Campbell, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2017)
1936 – Pierre Hétu, Canadian pianist and conductor (d. 1998)
1937 – Jack Nicholson, American actor and producer
1937 – Jack Nitzsche, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and conductor (d. 2000)
1938 – Alan Bond, English-Australian businessman (d. 2015)
1938 – Gani Fawehinmi, Nigerian lawyer and activist (d. 2009)
1938 – Issey Miyake, Japanese fashion designer (d. 2022)
1938 – Adam Raphael, English journalist and author
1939 – Mel Carter, American singer and actor
1939 – John Foley, English general and politician, Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey
1939 – Ray Guy, Canadian journalist and author (d. 2013)
1939 – Jason Miller, American actor and playwright (d. 2001)
1939 – Theodor Waigel, German lawyer and politician, German Federal Minister of Finance
1941 – Greville Howard, Baron Howard of Rising, English politician
1942 – Giorgio Agamben, Italian philosopher and academic
1942 – Mary Prior, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Bristol
1943 – Keith Crisco, American businessman and politician (d. 2014)
1943 – Janet Evanovich, American author
1943 – Louise Glück, American poet (d. 2023)
1943 – John Maples, Baron Maples, English lawyer and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence (d. 2012)
1943 – Scott W. Williams, American mathematician and professor
1944 – Steve Fossett, American businessman, pilot, and sailor (d. 2007)
1944 – Doug Jarrett, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2014)
1944 – Joshua Rifkin, American conductor and musicologist
1945 – Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Indian civil servant and politician, 22nd Governor of West Bengal
1945 – Demetrio Stratos, Greek-Egyptian singer-songwriter (d. 1979)
1946 – Steven L. Bennett, American captain and pilot, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1972)
1946 – Paul Davies, English physicist and author
1946 – Louise Harel, Canadian lawyer and politician
1946 – Archy Kirkwood, Baron Kirkwood of Kirkhope, Scottish lawyer and politician
1946 – Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, English economist and academic
1946 – John Waters, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1948 – John Pritchard, English bishop
1949 – Spencer Haywood, American basketball player
1950 – Peter Frampton, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1950 – Jancis Robinson, English journalist and critic
1951 – Aivars Kalējs, Latvian organist, composer, and pianist
1951 – Ana María Shua, Argentinian author and poet
1957 – Donald Tusk, Polish journalist and politician, 14th Prime Minister of Poland
1959 – Terry Francona, American baseball player and manager
1959 – Ryan Stiles, American-Canadian actor and comedian
1960 – Mart Laar, Estonian historian and politician, 9th Prime Minister of Estonia
1961 – Jeff Hostetler, American football player
1961 – Alo Mattiisen, Estonian composer (d. 1996)
1962 – Jeff Minter, British video game designer and programmer
1962 – Danièle Sauvageau, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1963 – Rosalind Gill, English sociologist and academic
1963 – Sean Lock, English comedian and actor (d. 2021)
1966 – Mickey Morandini, American baseball player and manager
1966 – Jeffrey Dean Morgan, American actor
1967 – David J. C. MacKay, English physicist, engineer, and academic (d. 2016)
1967 – Sherri Shepherd, American actress, comedian, and television personality
1970 – Regine Velasquez, Filipino singer and actress
1976 – Dan Cloutier, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1978 – Paul Malakwen Kosgei, Kenyan runner and coach
1979 – Zoltán Gera, Hungarian international footballer and manager
1979 – Daniel Johns, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1980 – Quincy Timberlake, Kenyan-Australian activist, engineer, and politician
1982 – Kaká, Brazilian footballer
1983 – Sam W. Heads, English-American entomologist and palaeontologist
1983 – Shkëlzen Shala, Albanian entrepreneur and veganism activist
1986 – Amber Heard, American actress
1986 – Marshawn Lynch, American football player
1987 – David Luiz, Brazilian footballer
1988 – Dee Strange-Gordon, American baseball player
1990 – Machine Gun Kelly, American rapper, singer, songwriter, actor
1990 – Kevin Kiermaier, American baseball player
1990 – Eve Muirhead, Scottish curler
1991 – Danni Wyatt, English cricketer
2011 – Violet McGraw, American actress
Deaths
Pre-1600
296 – Pope Caius
536 – Pope Agapetus I
591 – Peter III of Raqqa
613 – Saint Theodore of Sykeon
835 – Kūkai, Japanese Buddhist monk, founder of Esoteric (Shingon) Buddhism (b. 774)
846 – Wuzong, Chinese emperor (b. 814)
1208 – Philip of Poitou, Prince-Bishop of Durham
1322 – Francis of Fabriano, Italian writer (b. 1251)
1355 – Eleanor of Woodstock, countess regent of Guelders, eldest daughter of King Edward II of England (b. 1318)
1585 – Henry of Saxe-Lauenburg, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück and Paderborn (b. 1550)
1601–1900
1616 – Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (b. 1547)
1672 – Georg Stiernhielm, Swedish linguist and poet (b. 1598)
1699 – Hans Erasmus Aßmann, German poet (b. 1646)
1758 – Antoine de Jussieu, French botanist and physician (b. 1686)
1778 – James Hargreaves, British inventor (b. 1720)
1806 – Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, French admiral (b. 1763)
1821 – Gregory V of Constantinople, Greek patriarch and saint (b. 1746)
1833 – Richard Trevithick, English engineer and explorer (b. 1771)
1850 – Friedrich Robert Faehlmann, Estonian philologist and physician (b. 1798)
1854 – Nicolás Bravo, Mexican general and politician, 11th President of Mexico (b. 1786)
1871 – Martín Carrera, Mexican general and president (1855) (b. 1806)
1877 – James P. Kirkwood, Scottish-American engineer (b. 1807)
1892 – Édouard Lalo, French violinist and composer (b. 1823)
1893 – Chaim Aronson, Lithuanian businessman and author (b. 1825)
1894 – Kostas Krystallis, Greek author and poet (b. 1868)
1896 – Thomas Meik, English engineer, founded Halcrow Group (b. 1812)
1901–present
1908 – Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1836)
1925 – André Caplet, French composer and conductor (b. 1878)
1929 – Henry Lerolle, French painter and art collector (b. 1848)
1932 – Ferenc Oslay, Hungarian-Slovene historian and author (b. 1883)
1933 – Henry Royce, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited (b. 1863)
1945 – Wilhelm Cauer, German mathematician and academic (b. 1900)
1945 – Käthe Kollwitz, German painter and sculptor (b. 1867)
1950 – Charles Hamilton Houston, American lawyer and academic (b. 1895)
1951 – Horace Donisthorpe, English myrmecologist and coleopterist (b. 1870)
1978 – Will Geer, American actor (b. 1902)
1980 – Jane Froman, American actress and singer (b. 1907)
1980 – Fritz Strassmann, German chemist and physicist (b. 1902)
1983 – Earl Hines, American pianist and bandleader (b. 1903)
1984 – Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist (b. 1902)
1985 – Paul Hugh Emmett, American chemist and academic (b. 1900)
1985 – Jacques Ferron, Canadian physician and author (b. 1921)
1986 – Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian and author (b. 1907)
1987 – Erika Nõva, Estonian architect (b. 1905)
1988 – Grigori Kuzmin, Russian-Estonian astronomer and academic (b. 1917)
1988 – Irene Rich, American actress (b. 1891)
1989 – Emilio G. Segrè, Italian-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
1990 – Albert Salmi, American actor (b. 1928)
1994 – Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States (b. 1913)
1995 – Jane Kenyon, American poet and author (b. 1947)
1996 – Erma Bombeck, American journalist and author (b. 1927)
1996 – Jug McSpaden, American golfer and architect (b. 1908)
1999 – Munir Ahmad Khan, Pakistani nuclear engineer (b. 1926)
2003 – Felice Bryant, American songwriter (b. 1925)
2005 – Erika Fuchs, German translator (b. 1906)
2005 – Philip Morrison, American physicist and academic (b. 1915)
2005 – Eduardo Paolozzi, Scottish sculptor and artist (b. 1924)
2006 – Henriette Avram, American computer scientist and academic (b. 1919)
2006 – Alida Valli, Italian actress (b. 1921)
2007 – Juanita Millender-McDonald, American educator and politician (b. 1938)
2009 – Jack Cardiff, British cinematographer, director and photographer (b. 1914)
2010 – Richard Barrett, American lawyer and activist (b. 1943)
2012 – George Rathmann, American chemist, biologist, and businessman (b. 1927)
2013 – Richie Havens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1941)
2013 – Lalgudi Jayaraman, Indian violinist and composer (b. 1930)
2013 – Robert Suderburg, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1936)
2014 – Oswaldo Vigas, Venezuelan painter (b. 1926)
2015 – Dick Balharry, Scottish environmentalist and photographer (b. 1937)
2017 – Donna Leanne Williams, Australian writer, artist, and activist (b. 1963)
2020 – Shirley Knight, American actress (b. 1936)
2021 – Adrian Garrett, American professional baseball player (b. 1943)
2022 – Guy Lafleur, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1951)
2023 – Len Goodman, English ballroom dancer and television personality (b. 1944)
Holidays and observances
Christian feast day:
Acepsimas of Hnaita and companions (Catholic Church)
Arwald
Epipodius and Alexander
Hudson Stuck (Episcopal Church)
John Muir (Episcopal Church)
Opportuna of Montreuil
Pope Caius
Pope Soter
St Senorina
April 22 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Fighter Aviation Day (Brazil)
Discovery Day (Brazil)
Earth Day (International observance) and its related observance: International Mother Earth Day
Holocaust Remembrance Day (Serbia)
From 2018 onwards, a national day of commemoration for the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence (United Kingdom)
References
External links
BBC: On This Day
Historical Events on April 22
Days of the year
April |
1711 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August%2031 | August 31 |
Events
Pre-1600
1056 – After a sudden illness a few days previously, Byzantine Empress Theodora dies childless, thus ending the Macedonian dynasty.
1057 – Abdication of Byzantine Emperor Michael VI Bringas after just one year.
1218 – Al-Kamil becomes sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty.
1314 – King Haakon V of Norway moves the capital from Bergen to Oslo.
1420 – The 8.8–9.4 Caldera earthquake shakes Chile's Atacama Region causing tsunami in Chile, Hawaii, and Japan.
1422 – King Henry V of England dies of dysentery while in France. His son, Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of nine months.
1535 – Pope Paul III excommunicates English King Henry VIII from the church. He drew up a papal bull of excommunication which began Eius qui immobilis.
1601–1900
1776 – William Livingston, the first Governor of New Jersey, begins serving his first term.
1795 – War of the First Coalition: The British capture Trincomalee (present-day Sri Lanka) from the Dutch in order to keep it out of French hands.
1798 – Irish Rebellion: Irish rebels, with French assistance, establish the short-lived Republic of Connacht.
1813 – Peninsular War: Spanish troops repel a French attack in the Battle of San Marcial.
1864 – During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta.
1876 – Ottoman Sultan Murad V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid II.
1886 – The 7.0 Charleston earthquake affects southeastern South Carolina with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Sixty people killed with damage estimated at $5–6 million.
1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's confirmed victims.
1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his navigable balloon.
1901–present
1907 – Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Anglo-Russian Convention, by which the UK recognizes Russian preeminence in northern Persia, while Russia recognizes British preeminence in southeastern Persia and Afghanistan. Both powers pledge not to interfere in Tibet.
1918 – World War I: Start of the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin, a successful assault by the Australian Corps during the Hundred Days Offensive.
1920 – Polish–Soviet War: A decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.
1933 – The Integral Nationalist Group wins the 1933 Andorran parliamentary election, the first election in Andorra held with universal male suffrage.
1935 – In an attempt to stay out of the growing tensions concerning Germany and Japan, the United States passes the first of its Neutrality Acts.
1936 – Radio Prague, now the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic, goes on the air.
1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a false flag attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, thus starting World War II in Europe.
1940 – Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident is the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938.
1941 – World War II: Serbian paramilitary forces defeat Germans in the Battle of Loznica.
1943 – , the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.
1949 – The retreat of the Democratic Army of Greece into Albania after its defeat on Gramos mountain marks the end of the Greek Civil War.
1950 – TWA Flight 903 crashes near Itay El Barud, Egypt, killing all 55 aboard.
1957 – The Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
1959 – A parcel bomb sent by Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm, fails to kill King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
1962 – Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent.
1963 – Crown Colony of North Borneo (now Sabah) achieves self governance.
1972 – Aeroflot Flight 558 crashes in the Abzelilovsky District in Bashkortostan, Russia (then the Soviet Union), killing all 102 people aboard.
1986 – Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.
1986 – The Soviet passenger liner sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.
1987 – Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 aboard.
1988 – Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 crashes during takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, killing 14.
1988 – CAAC Flight 301 overshoots the runway at Kai Tak Airport and crashes into Kowloon Bay, killing seven people.
1991 – Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
1993 – Russia completes removing its troops from Lithuania.
1994 – Russia completes removing its troops from Estonia.
1996 – Saddam Hussein's troops seized Irbil after the Kurdish Masoud Barzani appealed for help to defeat his Kurdish rival PUK.
1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, her partner Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.
1999 – The first of a series of bombings in Moscow kills one person and wounds 40 others.
1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including two on the ground.
2002 – Typhoon Rusa, the most powerful typhoon to hit South Korea in 43 years, made landfall, killing at least 236 people.
2005 – The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 953 people.
2006 – Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream, stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.
2016 – Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is impeached and removed from office.
2019 – A sightseeing helicopter crashes in the mountains of Skoddevarre in Alta Municipality in Northern Norway killing all 6 occupants.
Births
Pre-1600
12 – Caligula, Roman emperor (d. 41)
161 – Commodus, Roman emperor (d. 192)
1018 – Jeongjong II, Korean ruler (d. 1046)
1168 – Zhang Zong, Chinese emperor (d. 1208)
1542 – Isabella de' Medici, Italian princess (d. 1576)
1569 – Jahangir, Mughal emperor (d. 1627)
1601–1900
1652 – Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Italian nobleman (d. 1708)
1663 – Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker (d. 1705)
1721 – George Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1775)
1741 – Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, French composer and educator (d. 1816)
1748 – Jean-Étienne Despréaux, French ballet dancer, choreographer, composer, and playwright (d. 1820)
1767 – Henry Joy McCracken, Irish businessman and activist, founded the Society of United Irishmen (d. 1798)
1775 – Agnes Bulmer, English poet and author (d. 1836)
1797 – Ramón Castilla, Peruvian military leader and politician, President of Peru (d. 1867)
1797 – Stephen Geary, English architect, inventor and entrepreneur (d. 1854)
1802 – Husein Gradaščević, Ottoman general (d. 1834)
1811 – Théophile Gautier, French poet and critic (d. 1872)
1821 – Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician and physicist (d. 1894)
1823 – Galusha A. Grow, American lawyer and politician, 28th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1907)
1834 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer and educator (d. 1886)
1842 – Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, American journalist, publisher, and activist (d. 1924)
1843 – Georg von Hertling, German academic and politician, 7th Chancellor of the German Empire (d. 1919)
1870 – Maria Montessori, Italian physician and educator (d. 1952)
1871 – James E. Ferguson, American banker and politician, 26th Governor of Texas (d. 1944)
1875 – Rosa Lemberg, Namibian-born Finnish American teacher, singer and choral conductor (d. 1959)
1878 – Frank Jarvis, American sprinter and lawyer (d. 1933)
1879 – Alma Mahler, Austrian-American composer and author (d. 1964)
1879 – Taishō, Emperor of Japan (d. 1926)
1880 – Wilhelmina, queen of the Netherlands (d. 1962)
1884 – George Sarton, Belgian-American historian of science (d. 1956)
1885 – DuBose Heyward, American author and playwright (d. 1940)
1890 – August Alle, Estonian poet and author (d. 1952)
1890 – Nätti-Jussi, Finnish lumberjack and forest laborer (d. 1964)
1893 – Lily Laskine, French harp player (d. 1988)
1894 – Albert Facey, Australian soldier and author (d. 1982)
1896 – Brian Edmund Baker, English Air Marshal (d. 1979)
1896 – Félix-Antoine Savard, Canadian priest and author (d. 1982)
1897 – Fredric March, American actor (d. 1975)
1900 – Gino Lucetti, Italian anarchist, attempted assassin of Benito Mussolini (d. 1943)
1901–present
1902 – Géza Révész, Hungarian general and politician, Hungarian Minister of Defence (d. 1977)
1903 – Arthur Godfrey, American radio and television host (d. 1983)
1903 – Vladimir Jankélévitch, French musicologist and philosopher (d. 1985)
1905 – Robert Bacher, American physicist and academic (d. 2004)
1905 – Sanford Meisner, American actor and educator (d. 1997)
1907 – Valter Biiber, Estonian footballer (d. 1977)
1907 – Augustus F. Hawkins, American lawyer and politician (d. 2007)
1907 – Ramon Magsaysay, Filipino captain, engineer, and politician, 7th President of the Philippines (d. 1957)
1907 – William Shawn, American journalist (d. 1992)
1907 – Altiero Spinelli, Italian theorist and politician (d. 1986)
1908 – William Saroyan, American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (d. 1981)
1909 – Ferenc Fejtő, Hungarian-French journalist and political scientist (d. 2008)
1911 – Edward Brongersma, Dutch journalist and politician (d. 1998)
1911 – Arsenio Rodríguez, Cuban-American tres player, composer, and bandleader (d. 1970)
1913 – Helen Levitt, American photographer and cinematographer (d. 2009)
1913 – Bernard Lovell, English physicist and astronomer (d. 2012)
1914 – Richard Basehart, American actor (d. 1984)
1915 – Pete Newell, American basketball player and coach (d. 2008)
1916 – Danny Litwhiler, American baseball player and coach (d. 2011)
1916 – Daniel Schorr, American journalist and author (d. 2010)
1916 – John S. Wold, American geologist and politician (d. 2017)
1918 – Alan Jay Lerner, American songwriter and composer (d. 1986)
1919 – Amrita Pritam, Indian poet and author (d. 2005)
1921 – Otis G. Pike, American judge and politician (d. 2014)
1921 – Raymond Williams, Welsh author and academic (d. 1988)
1924 – John Davidson, American physician and politician (d. 2012)
1924 – Buddy Hackett, American actor and singer (d. 2003)
1924 – Herbert Wise, Austrian-English director and producer (d. 2015)
1925 – Moran Campbell, English-Canadian physician and academic, invented the venturi mask (d. 2004)
1925 – Maurice Pialat, French actor and director (d. 2003)
1928 – James Coburn, American actor (d. 2002)
1928 – Jaime Sin, Filipino cardinal (d. 2005)
1930 – Big Tiny Little, American pianist (d. 2010)
1931 – Jean Béliveau, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2014)
1931 – Rolf Just Nilsen, Norwegian singer and actor (d. 1981)
1931 – Noble Willingham, American actor (d. 2004)
1932 – Allan Fotheringham, Canadian journalist (d. 2020)
1932 – Roy Castle, English dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter and musician (d. 1994)
1935 – Eldridge Cleaver, American activist and author (d. 1998)
1935 – Bryan Organ, English painter
1935 – Frank Robinson, American baseball player and manager (d. 2019)
1936 – Vladimir Orlov, Russian journalist and author (d. 2014)
1937 – Warren Berlinger, American actor (d. 2020)
1937 – Bobby Parker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
1938 – Martin Bell, English journalist and politician
1939 – Jerry Allison, American drummer and songwriter (d. 2022)
1940 – Robbie Basho, American guitarist, pianist, and composer (d. 1986)
1940 – Wilton Felder, American saxophonist and bass player (d. 2015)
1940 – Larry Hankin, American actor, director, and producer
1940 – Roger Newman, English-American actor and screenwriter (d. 2010)
1940 – Jack Thompson, Australian actor
1941 – William DeWitt, Jr., American businessman
1941 – Emmanuel Nunes, Portuguese-French composer and educator (d. 2012)
1942 – Isao Aoki, Japanese golfer
1943 – Leonid Ivashov, Russian general
1944 – Roger Dean, English illustrator and publisher
1944 – Liz Forgan, English journalist
1944 – Christine King, English historian and academic
1944 – Clive Lloyd, Guyanese cricketer
1945 – Van Morrison, Northern Irish singer-songwriter
1945 – Itzhak Perlman, Israeli-American violinist and conductor
1945 – Bob Welch, American singer and guitarist (d. 2012)
1946 – Ann Coffey, Scottish social worker and politician
1946 – Jerome Corsi, American conspiracy theorist and author
1946 – Tom Coughlin, American football player and coach
1947 – Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Italian businessman
1947 – Yumiko Ōshima, Japanese author and illustrator
1947 – Somchai Wongsawat, Thai lawyer and politician, 26th Prime Minister of Thailand
1948 – Harald Ertl, Austrian race car driver and journalist (d. 1982)
1948 – Lowell Ganz, American screenwriter and producer
1948 – Ken McMullen, English director, producer, and screenwriter
1948 – Holger Osieck, German footballer and manager
1948 – Rudolf Schenker, German guitarist and songwriter
1949 – Richard Gere, American actor and producer
1949 – Stephen McKinley Henderson, American actor
1949 – Hugh David Politzer, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1949 – Rick Roberts, American country-rock singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Grant Batty, New Zealand rugby player
1952 – Kim Kashkashian, American viola player and educator
1952 – Herbert Reul, German politician
1953 – Marcia Clark, American attorney and author
1953 – Miguel Ángel Guerra, Argentinian race car driver
1953 – György Károly, Hungarian poet and author (d. 2018)
1953 – Pavel Vinogradov, Russian astronaut and engineer
1954 – Julie Brown, American actress and screenwriter
1955 – Aleksander Krupa, Polish-American actor
1955 – Julie Maxton, Scottish lawyer and academic
1955 – Edwin Moses, American hurdler
1955 – Anthony Thistlethwaite, English saxophonist and bass player
1955 – Gary Webb, American journalist and author (d. 2004)
1956 – Mária Balážová, Slovak painter and illustrator
1956 – Kent Nilsson, Swedish ice hockey player
1956 – Masashi Tashiro, Japanese singer, actor, and director
1956 – Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwanese politician and the President of the Republic of China
1957 – Colm O'Rourke, Irish footballer and sportscaster
1957 – Gina Schock, American drummer
1957 – Glenn Tilbrook, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1958 – Serge Blanco, Venezuelan-French rugby player and businessman
1958 – Stephen Cottrell, English bishop
1959 – Ralph Krueger, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1959 – Jessica Upshaw, American lawyer and politician (d. 2013)
1960 – Vali Ionescu, Romanian long jumper
1960 – Chris Whitley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2005)
1960 – Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanese politician, 3rd Secretary-General of Hezbollah
1961 – Kieran Crowley, New Zealand rugby player
1961 – Magnus Ilmjärv, Estonian historian and author
1962 – Dee Bradley Baker, American voice actor
1963 – Reb Beach, American guitarist
1963 – Rituparno Ghosh, Indian actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1963 – Sonny Silooy, Dutch footballer and manager
1964 – Raymond P. Hammond, American poet and critic
1965 – Zsolt Borkai, Hungarian gymnast and politician
1965 – Susan Gritton, English soprano and actress
1966 – Lyuboslav Penev, Bulgarian footballer and manager
1967 – Gene Hoglan, American drummer
1967 – Anita Moen, Norwegian skier
1968 – Valdon Dowiyogo, Nauruan politician (d. 2016)
1968 – Hideo Nomo, Japanese baseball player
1968 – Jolene Watanabe, American tennis player (d. 2019)
1969 – Nathalie Bouvier, French skier
1969 – Jonathan LaPaglia, Australian actor and physician
1969 – Jeff Russo, American musician
1969 – Javagal Srinath, Indian cricketer and referee
1970 – Debbie Gibson, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1970 – Nikola Gruevski, Macedonian economist and politician, 6th Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia
1970 – Greg Mulholland, English politician
1970 – Queen Rania of Jordan
1970 – Arie van Lent, Dutch-German footballer and manager
1970 – Zack Ward, Canadian actor and producer
1971 – Kirstie Allsopp, British TV presenter
1971 – Pádraig Harrington, Irish golfer
1971 – Vadim Repin, Belgian-Russian violinist
1971 – Chris Tucker, American comedian and actor
1973 – Scott Niedermayer, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1974 – Andriy Medvedev, Ukrainian-Monégasque tennis player
1975 – Craig Cumming, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster
1975 – John Grahame, American ice hockey player and coach
1975 – Sara Ramirez, Mexican-American actor and musician
1976 – Vincent Delerm, French singer-songwriter and pianist
1976 – Shar Jackson, American actress and singer
1976 – Roque Júnior, Brazilian footballer and manager
1976 – Radek Martínek, Czech ice hockey player
1977 – Jeff Hardy, American wrestler and singer
1977 – Ian Harte, Irish footballer
1977 – Craig Nicholls, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1977 – Arzu Yanardağ, Turkish actress and model
1978 – Philippe Christanval, French footballer
1978 – Ido Pariente, Israeli mixed martial artist and trainer
1978 – Jennifer Ramírez Rivero, Venezuelan model
1978 – Craig Stapleton, Australian rugby league player
1978 – Sandis Valters, Latvian basketball player
1978 – Morten Qvenild, Norwegian pianist and composer
1979 – Clay Hensley, American baseball player
1979 – Mark Johnston, Canadian swimmer
1979 – Yara Martinez, Puerto Rican-American actress
1979 – Simon Neil, Scottish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1979 – Yuvan Shankar Raja, Indian Tamil singer-songwriter and producer
1979 – Ramón Santiago, Dominican baseball player
1979 – Mickie James, American wrestler
1980 – Joe Budden, American broadcaster and former rapper
1981 – Ahmad Al Harthy, Omani race car driver
1981 – Dwayne Peel, Welsh rugby player
1981 – Steve Saviano, American ice hockey player
1982 – Ian Crocker, American swimmer
1982 – Chris Duhon, American basketball player
1982 – Lien Huyghebaert, Belgian sprinter
1982 – Christopher Katongo, Zambian footballer
1982 – Josh Kroeger, American baseball player
1982 – Alexei Mikhnov, Ukrainian-Russian ice hockey player
1982 – Pepe Reina, Spanish footballer
1982 – Michele Rugolo, Italian race car driver
1982 – G. Willow Wilson, American journalist and author
1983 – Deniz Aydoğdu, German-Turkish footballer
1983 – Milan Biševac, Serbian footballer
1983 – Larry Fitzgerald, American football player
1984 – Matti Breschel, Danish cyclist
1984 – Ryan Kesler, American ice hockey player
1984 – Ted Ligety, American skier
1984 – Charl Schwartzel, South African golfer
1985 – Rolando, Portuguese footballer
1985 – Andrew Foster, Australian footballer
1985 – Mabel Matiz, Turkish singer
1985 – Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
1986 – Ryan Kelley, American actor
1986 – Blake Wheeler, American ice hockey player
1987 – Xavi Annunziata, Spanish footballer
1987 – Petros Kravaritis, Greek footballer
1987 – Ondřej Pavelec, Czech ice hockey player
1988 – Matt Adams, American baseball player
1988 – Trent Hodkinson, Australian rugby league player
1988 – David Ospina, Colombian footballer
1988 – Ember Moon, American wrestler
1989 – Dezmon Briscoe, American football player
1990 – Tadeja Majerič, Slovenian tennis player
1991 – António Félix da Costa, Portuguese race car driver
1991 – Cédric Soares, Portuguese footballer
1992 – Holly Earl, British actress
1992 – Tyler Randell, Australian rugby league player
1993 – Pablo Marí, Spanish football player
1993 – Ilnur Alshin, Russian football player
1993 – Anna Karnaukh, Russian water polo player
1994 – Alex Harris, Scottish footballer
1994 – Can Aktav, Turkish football player
1996 – Jalen Brunson, American basketball player
1998 – Jaylen Barron, American actress
2000 – Sauce Gardner, American football player
2001 – Amanda Anisimova, American tennis player
2004 – Jang Won-young, South Korean singer and model
Deaths
Pre-1600
318 – Liu Cong, emperor of the Xiongnu state
577 – John Scholasticus, Byzantine patriarch and saint
651 – Aidan of Lindisfarne, Irish bishop and saint
731 – Ōtomo no Tabito, Japanese poet (b. 665)
894 – Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ta'i, Muslim governor
1054 – Kunigunde of Altdorf, Frankish noblewoman (b. c. 1020)
1056 – Theodora, Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire (b. 981)
1115 – Turgot of Durham (b.c. 1050)
1158 – Sancho III of Castile (b. 1134)
1234 – Emperor Go-Horikawa of Japan (b. 1212)
1287 – Konrad von Würzburg, German poet
1324 – Henry II of Jerusalem (b. 1271)
1372 – Ralph de Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford, English soldier (b. 1301)
1422 – Henry V of England (b. 1386)
1450 – Isabella of Navarre, Countess of Armagnac (b. 1395)
1502 – Thomas Wode, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
1528 – Matthias Grünewald, German artist (b. 1470)
1601–1900
1645 – Francesco Bracciolini, Italian poet (b. 1566)
1654 – Ole Worm, Danish physician and historian (b. 1588)
1688 – John Bunyan, English preacher, theologian, and author (b. 1628)
1730 – Gottfried Finger, Czech-German viol player and composer (b. 1660)
1741 – Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, German academic and jurist (b. 1681)
1772 – William Borlase, English geologist and historian (b. 1695)
1795 – François-André Danican Philidor, French-English chess player and composer (b. 1726)
1799 – Nicolas-Henri Jardin, French architect and academic, designed the Bernstorff Palace and Marienlyst Castle (b. 1720)
1811 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French admiral and explorer (b. 1729)
1814 – Arthur Phillip, English admiral and politician, 1st Governor of New South Wales (b. 1738)
1817 – Sir John Duckworth, 1st Baronet, English admiral and politician, 39th Commodore Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1747)
1818 – Robert Calder, Scottish admiral (b. 1745)
1858 – Chief Oshkosh, Menominee chief (b. 1795)
1867 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet and critic (b. 1821)
1864 – Ferdinand Lassalle, Prussian-German jurist and philosopher (b. 1825)
1869 – Mary Ward, Irish astronomer and entomologist (b. 1827)
1884 – Robert Torrens, Irish-Australian politician, 3rd Premier of South Australia (b. 1814)
1901–present
1908 – Leslie Green, English architect (b. 1875)
1910 – Emīls Dārziņš, Latvian composer, conductor, and music critic (b. 1875)
1912 – Jean, duc Decazes, French sailor (b. 1864)
1920 – Wilhelm Wundt, German physician, psychologist, and philosopher (b. 1832)
1924 – Todor Aleksandrov, Bulgarian soldier (b. 1881)
1927 – Andranik, Armenian general (b. 1865)
1937 – Ruth Baldwin, British socialite (b. 1905)
1940 – Georges Gauthier, Canadian archbishop (b. 1871)
1940 – DeLancey W. Gill, American painter (b. 1859)
1941 – Thomas Bavin, New Zealand-Australian politician, 24th Premier of New South Wales (b. 1874)
1941 – Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet and author (b. 1892)
1945 – Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician (b. 1892)
1948 – Andrei Zhdanov, Russian civil servant and politician (b. 1896)
1951 – Paul Demel, Czech actor (b. 1903)
1952 – Henri Bourassa, Canadian publisher and politician (b. 1868)
1954 – Elsa Barker, American author and poet (b. 1869)
1963 – Georges Braque, French painter and sculptor (b. 1882)
1965 – E. E. Smith, American engineer and author (b. 1890)
1967 – Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian journalist and author (b. 1891)
1968 – John Hartle, English motorcycle racer (b. 1933)
1969 – Rocky Marciano, American boxer (b. 1923)
1973 – John Ford, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894)
1974 – William Pershing Benedict, American soldier and pilot (b. 1918)
1974 – Norman Kirk, New Zealand engineer and politician, 29th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1923)
1978 – John Wrathall, Rhodesian accountant and politician, 2nd President of Rhodesia (b. 1913)
1979 – Sally Rand, American actress and dancer (b. 1904)
1979 – Tiger Smith, English cricketer and coach (b. 1886)
1984 – Audrey Wagner, American baseball player, obstetrician, and gynecologist (b. 1927)
1985 – Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
1986 – Elizabeth Coatsworth, American author and poet (b. 1893)
1986 – Urho Kekkonen, Finnish journalist, lawyer, and politician, 8th President of Finland (b. 1900)
1986 – Henry Moore, English sculptor and illustrator (b. 1898)
1990 – Nathaniel Clifton, American basketball player and coach (b. 1922)
1991 – Cliff Lumsdon, Canadian swimmer and coach (b. 1931)
1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales (b. 1961)
1997 – Dodi Fayed, Egyptian film producer (b. 1955)
2000 – Lucille Fletcher, American screenwriter (b. 1912)
2000 – Dolores Moore, American baseball player and educator (b. 1932)
2002 – Lionel Hampton, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1908)
2002 – Farhad Mehrad, Persian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and pianist (b. 1944)
2002 – George Porter, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1920)
2005 – Joseph Rotblat, Polish-English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
2006 – Mohamed Abdelwahab, Egyptian footballer (b. 1983)
2006 – Tom Delaney, English race car driver and businessman (b. 1911)
2007 – Gay Brewer, American golfer (b. 1932)
2007 – Jean Jacques Paradis, Canadian general (b. 1928)
2007 – Sulev Vahtre, Estonian historian and academic (b. 1926)
2008 – Ken Campbell, English actor and screenwriter (b. 1941)
2008 – Ike Pappas, American journalist (b. 1933)
2008 – Victor Yates, New Zealand rugby player (b. 1939)
2010 – Laurent Fignon, French cyclist (b. 1960)
2011 – Wade Belak, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1976)
2012 – Max Bygraves, English actor (b. 1922)
2012 – Joe Lewis, American martial artist and actor (b. 1944)
2012 – Carlo Maria Martini, Italian cardinal (b. 1927)
2012 – Kashiram Rana, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1938)
2012 – John C. Shabaz, American judge and politician (b. 1931)
2012 – Sergey Sokolov, Russian commander and politician, 6th Minister of Defence for The Soviet Union (b. 1911)
2013 – Alan Carrington, English chemist and academic (b. 1934)
2013 – David Frost, English journalist and game show host (b. 1939)
2013 – Jimmy Greenhalgh, English footballer and manager (b. 1923)
2013 – Jan Camiel Willems, Belgian mathematician and theorist (b. 1939)
2014 – Bapu, Indian director and screenwriter (b. 1933)
2014 – Ștefan Andrei, Romanian politician, 87th Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1931)
2014 – Stan Goldberg, American illustrator (b. 1932)
2014 – Carol Vadnais, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1945)
2015 – Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, English politician, founded the National Motor Museum (b. 1926)
2015 – Tom Scott, American football player (b. 1930)
2018 – Carole Shelley, British-American actress (b. 1939)
2019 – Anthoine Hubert, French race car driver (b. 1996)
2019 – Alec Holowka, Canadian game developer (b. 1983)
2020 – Pranab Mukherjee, Former President of India (b. 1935)
2020 – Tom Seaver, American baseball player (b. 1944)
2021 – Mahal, Filipino comedian and actress (b. 1974)
2021 – Francesco Morini, Italian footballer (b. 1944)
2021 – Michael Constantine, Greek-American actor (b. 1927)
2021 – Geronimo, British alpaca (b. 2013)
Holidays and observances
Baloch-Pakhtun Unity Day (Balochs and Pashtuns, International observance)
Christian feast day:
Aidan of Lindisfarne
Aristides of Athens
Cuthburh
Dominguito del Val
Joseph of Arimathea
Nicodemus
Paulinus of Trier
Raymond Nonnatus
Wala of Corbie
Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria
August 31 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of Solidarity and Freedom (Poland)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Kyrgyzstan from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Malaya from the United Kingdom in 1957.
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Trinidad and Tobago from the United Kingdom in 1962.
Romanian Language Day (Romania, Moldova)
North Borneo Self-government Day (Sabah, Borneo)
References
External links
Days of the year
August |
1714 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autpert%20Ambrose | Autpert Ambrose | Autpert Ambrose (Ambroise) () (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 (); 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.
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.
References
Bibliography
Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, VI, 40, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica in usum scholarum, Hannoverae 1878, p. 231.
External links
730s births
784 deaths
Frankish Benedictines
Year of birth uncertain
8th-century Frankish writers
8th-century writers in Latin
Roman Catholic writers |
1716 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose%20Traversari | Ambrose Traversari | Ambrogio Traversari, also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli (138620 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.
See also
Traversari
The Baptism of Christ (Piero della Francesca)
References
Attribution
Further reading
External links
Letters – a few letters in the original Latin and a portrait of him from a manuscript he copied.
Contains short biography
1386 births
1439 deaths
People from Portico e San Benedetto
14th-century Christian saints
15th-century Christian saints
15th-century Italian Roman Catholic theologians
Camaldolese saints
Medieval Italian saints
Italian Benedictines
Benedictine saints
Benedictine scholars
Benedictine theologians
15th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests
Greek–Latin translators
15th-century Italian writers
Italian Renaissance humanists |
1717 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosians | 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: De virginibus, De viduis, De virginitate, De institutione virginis, De exhortatione virginitatis, and De lapsu virginis consecratae. 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
The first of these groups was formed in a wood outside Milan by three noble Milanese, Alexander Grivelli, Antonio Petrasancta, and Albert Besuzzi, who were joined by others, including some priests. In 1375 Pope Gregory XI gave them the Rule of St Augustine, with set of constitutions. As a canonically recognized order they took the name "Fratres Sancti Ambrosii ad Nemus" and adopted a habit consisting of a brown tunic, scapular, and hood. The brethren elected a superior with the title of prior who was then instituted by the Archbishop of Milan. The priests of the congregation undertook preaching and other tasks of the ministry but were not allowed to accept charge parishes. In the liturgy they followed the Ambrosian Rite. Various monasteries were founded on these lines, but without any formal bond between them. In 1441 Pope Eugene IV merged them into one congregation called "Congregatio Sancti Ambrosii ad Nemus", made the original house the main seat, and laid down a system of government whereby a general chapter met every three years, elected the priors who stayed in office till the next chapter. There was a rector, or superior general, who was assisted by two "visitors".
Saint Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, successfully reformed their discipline, grown lax, in 1579. In 1589 Pope Sixtus V united to the Congregation of St Ambrose the monasteries of a group known as the "Brothers of the Apostles of the Poor Life" (or "Apostolini" or "Brothers of St. Barnabas"), whose houses were 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, divided its houses into four provinces, two of them, St Clement's and St Pancras's, being in Rome. 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.
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.
See also
St. Ambrose University
References
Anabaptism
Baptism
Premillennialism |
1718 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosiaster | 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 384AD. 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.
Biography
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. Alexander Souter has established that the same author wrote the Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testament, which had long been attributed to Saint 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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' "view of Predestination he seems to have taken from Ambrosiaster. His doctrine with regard to Original Sin appears to have come from the same source". However, Augustine also made use of Ambrosiaster's commentaries.
Notes
Bibliography
Bussières, Marie-Pierre. Ambrosiaster. Contre les Païens. Sur le destin. Texte, traduction et commentaire. Paris, Éditions du Cerfs (Sources chrétiennes 512), 2007.
Moreschini, Claudio, and Enrico Norelli. 2005 "Ambrosiaster," in Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers. vol. 2, p. 296-98.
Mundle, Wilhelm. 1919. Die Exegese der paulinischen Briefe im Kommentar des Ambrosiaster.
Queis, Dietrich Traugott von, and Augustine. 1972. Ambrosiaster: Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti. Quaestio 115: De fato. Basel.
Souter, Alexander. 1905. A study of Ambrosiaster. Cambridge [Eng.]: The University Press.
Souter, Alexander. 1927. The earliest Latin commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul; a study. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
External links
The Latin text of Ambrosiaster's Pauline commentary is included (though attributed to Ambrose) in Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. 17, pp. 48–536. This can be found on Google Books or at Documenta Catholica Omnia.
The Latin text of Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti is included in Patrologia Latina, vol. 35, available at Documenta Catholica Omnia.
4th-century Christian texts
4th-century Christian clergy
4th-century Romans
4th-century Christian theologians
4th-century writers in Latin |
1719 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosius%20Aurelianus | Ambrosius Aurelianus | Ambrosius Aurelianus (; Anglicised as Ambrose Aurelian and called Aurelius Ambrosius in the Historia Regum Britanniae and elsewhere) was a war leader of the Romano-British who won an important battle against the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century, according to Gildas. He also appeared independently in the legends of the Britons, beginning with the 9th-century Historia Brittonum. Eventually, he was transformed by Geoffrey of Monmouth into the uncle of King Arthur, the brother of Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, as a ruler who precedes and predeceases them both. He also appears as a young prophet who meets the tyrant Vortigern; in this guise, he was later transformed into the wizard Merlin.
According to Gildas
Ambrosius Aurelianus is one of the few people whom Gildas identifies by name in his sermon De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, and the only one named from the 5th century. De Excidio is considered the oldest extant British document about the so-called Arthurian period of Sub-Roman Britain. Following the destructive assault of the Saxons, the survivors gather together under the leadership of Ambrosius, who is described as:
Ambrosius was possibly of high birth and very likely a Christian: Gildas says that he won his battles "with God's help". Ambrosius's parents were slain by the Saxons and he was among the few survivors of their initial invasion.
According to Gildas, Ambrosius organised the survivors into an armed force and achieved the first military victory over the Saxon invaders. However, this victory was not decisive: "Sometimes the Saxons and sometimes the citizens [meaning the Romano-British inhabitants] were victorious." Due to Gildas's description of him, Ambrosius is one of the figures called the Last of the Romans.
Scholarship questions
Two points in Gildas's description have attracted much scholarly commentary. The first is what Gildas meant by saying Ambrosius' family "had worn the purple". Roman emperors and male Patricians wore clothes with a purple band to denote their class so the reference to purple may be to an aristocratic heritage. Roman military tribunes (tribuni militum), senior officers in Roman legions, wore a similar purple band so the reference may be to a family background of military leadership. The tradition was old, as the togas and pallia of already ancient senators and tribunes were trimmed with the purple band. In the church, "the purple" is a euphemism for blood and therefore "wearing the purple" may be a reference to martyrdom or a bishop's robe. In addition, in the later Roman Empire both Roman consuls and governors of consular rank also wore clothes with a purple fringe. The Notitia Dignitatum, a Roman catalogue of official posts, lists four or five provincial governors in Roman Britain and two of them were of consular rank. One was the governor of Maxima Caesariensis and the other that of Valentia. The parent who wore the purple may well have been one of these governors, whose names were not recorded.
It has been suggested by historian Alex Woolf that Ambrosius may have been related to the 5th-century Romano-British usurpers Marcus or Gratian – Woolf expresses a preference based on nomenclature for Marcus. Frank D. Reno, an Arthurian scholar, has instead argued that the name "Aurelianus" indicates the descent of Ambrosius from the Illyrian Roman emperor Aurelian (reigned 270–275). Aurelian's military campaigns included the conquest of the Gallic Empire. N. J. Higham suggests that Ambrosius may have been distantly related to imperial families of the late Roman Empire, such as the Theodosian dynasty. Branches of this particular dynasty were known to be active in western Roman provinces like Hispania.
Mike Ashley instead focuses on the name "Ambrosius" and its possible connection to Saint Ambrosius, a fourth-century Bishop of Milan, who also served as consular governor in areas of Roman Italy. The father of the Bishop is sometimes claimed to be a fourth century Praetorian prefect of Gaul named Aurelius Ambrosius, whose areas included Britain, though some modern scholars doubt that Saint Ambrosius was related to this man (instead identifying his father with an official named Uranius mentioned in an extract from the Theodosian Code). Ashley suggests that Ambrosius Aurelianus was related to the two Aurelii Ambrosii. Tim Venning points out that the name "Aurelianus" could be the result of a Roman adoption. When a boy was adopted into a new gens (clan), he received the family names of his new family but was often additionally called by a cognomen indicating his descent from his original family. The additional cognomen often had the form "-anus". When Gaius Octavius from gens Octavia was adopted by his uncle Gaius Julius Caesar, he was often distinguished from his adoptive father by the addition "Octavianus". In this case, Ambrosius may have been a member of gens Aurelia who was adopted by another gens/family.
The second question is the meaning of the word avita: Gildas could have meant "ancestors", or intended it to mean more specifically "grandfather" – thus indicating Ambrosius lived about a generation before the Battle of Badon. Lack of information prevents sure answers to these questions.
Gildas's motives
N. J. Higham wrote a book on Gildas and the literary tropes that he used. He has suggested that Gildas may have had considerable motive for drawing attention to Ambrosius. He was not attempting to write a historical biography of the man, according to Higham, but setting him as an example to his contemporaries. It was essential to the philosophy of Gildas that Briton leaders who achieved victory over the barbarians were only able to do so because of divine aid. And only those who had superior Christian virtues were deserving of this aid. Ambrosius Aurelianus was apparently known for at least one such victory over the barbarians. To fit him into his worldview, Gildas was almost required to feature the former warrior as a man of exceptional virtues and obedience to God. He was made to fit Gildas's version of a model leader.
Higham also suggests that the Roman lineage of Ambrosius was highlighted for a reason. Gildas was apparently intentionally connecting him with the legitimate authority and military virtues of the Romans. He was also contrasting him with the subsequent Briton rulers whose reigns lacked in such legitimacy.
Identifying historical figures
Gildas is a primary source for the Battle of Badon, yet he never mentions the names of the combatants. Therefore, we cannot know if Ambrosius Aurelianus or his successors took part in the battle. The names of the Saxon leaders in the battle are also not recorded.
The identities of Ambrosius's descendants are unknown, since Gildas never identifies them by name. It is safe to assume that they were Gildas's contemporaries and known to the author. Higham suggests that they were prominent figures of the time. Their lineage and identities were probably sufficiently familiar to his intended audience that they did not have to be named. The work portrays Ambrosius's descendants as inferior to their ancestor as part of his criticism on rulers of his time, according to Higham. Those criticised were likely aware that the vitriol was intended for them, but probably would not challenge a work offering such a glowing report of their illustrious ancestor.
Mike Ashley suggests that the descendants of Ambrosius could include other people named by Gildas. He favours the inclusion in this category of one Aurelius Caninus ("Aurelius the dog-like"), whom Gildas accuses of parricide, fornication, adultery, and warmongering. His name "Aurelius" suggests Romano-British descent. The insulting nickname "Caninus" was probably invented by Gildas himself, who similarly insults other contemporary rulers. Due to the name used by Gildas, there are theories that this ruler was actually named Conan/Cynan/Kenan. Some identify him with Cynan Garwyn, a 6th-century King of Powys, though it is uncertain if he was a contemporary of Gildas or lived one or two generations following him. Another theory is that this ruler did not reign in Britain but in Brittany. Caninus, in this view, might be Conomor ("Great Dog"). Conomor is considered a likelier contemporary of Gildas. Conomor was likely from Domnonée, an area of Brittany controlled by British immigrants from Dumnonia. He might be remembered in British legend as Mark of Cornwall.
Gildas primarily features the Saxons as barbarian raiders; their invasions involved a slow and difficult process of military conquest. By AD 500, possibly the time described by Gildas, Anglo-Saxons controlled the Isle of Wight, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and coastal areas of Northumberland and Yorkshire. The rest of the former Roman Britain was still under the control of the local Britons or remnants of the Roman provincial administration. Gildas also mentions depopulation of cities and this probably reflects historical facts. Londinium, once a major city, was completely abandoned during the 5th century.
According to Bede
Bede follows Gildas's account of Ambrosius in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, but in his Chronica Majora he dates Ambrosius's victory to the reign of the Emperor Zeno (474–491).
Bede's treatment of the 5th century history of Great Britain is not particularly valuable as a source. Until about the year 418, Bede could choose between several historical sources and often followed the writings of Orosius. Following the end of Orosius's history, Bede apparently lacked other available sources and relied extensively on Gildas. Entries from this period tend to be close paraphrases of Gildas's account with mostly stylistic changes. Bede's account of Ambrosius Aurelianus has been translated as following:
Bede does not mention the descendants of Ambrosius Aurelianus, nor their supposed degeneracy.
According to Nennius
The Historia Brittonum, attributed to Nennius, preserves several snippets of lore about Ambrosius. Despite the traditional attribution, the authorship of the work and the period of its writing are open questions for modern historians. There are several extant manuscript versions of the work, varying in details. The most important ones have been dated to between the 9th and the 11th century. Some modern scholars think it unlikely that the work was composed by a single writer or compiler, suggesting that it may have taken centuries to reach its final form, though this theory is not conclusive.
In Chapter 31, we are told that Vortigern ruled in fear of Ambrosius. This is the first mention of Ambrosius in the work. According to Frank D. Reno, this would indicate that Ambrosius's influence was formidable, since Vortigern considered him more of a threat than northern invaders and attempts to restore Roman rule in Britain. The chapter relates events following the end of Roman rule in Britain and preceding Vortigern's alliance with the Saxons.
The most significant appearance of Ambrosius is the story about Ambrosius, Vortigern, and the two dragons beneath Dinas Emrys, "Fortress of Ambrosius" in Chapters 40–42. In this account, Ambrosius is still an adolescent but has supernatural powers. He intimidates Vortigern and the royal magicians. When it is revealed that Ambrosius is the son of a Roman consul, Vortigern is convinced to cede to the younger man the castle of Dinas Emrys and all the kingdoms in the western part of Britain. Vortigern then retreats to the north, in an area called Gwynessi. This story was later retold with more detail by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his fictionalised Historia Regum Britanniae, conflating the personage of Ambrosius with the Welsh tradition of Myrddin the visionary, known for oracular utterances that foretold the coming victories of the native Celtic inhabitants of Britain over the Saxons and the Normans. Geoffrey also introduces him into the Historia under the name Aurelius Ambrosius as one of three sons of Constantine III, along with Constans and Uther Pendragon.
In Chapter 48, Ambrosius Aurelianus is described as "king among all the kings of the British nation". The chapter records that Pascent, the son of Vortigern, was granted rule over the regions of Buellt and Gwrtheyrnion by Ambrosius. Finally, in Chapter 66, various events are dated from a Battle of Guoloph (often identified with Wallop, ESE of Amesbury near Salisbury), which is said to have been between Ambrosius and Vitolinus. The author dates this battle as taking place 12 years from the reign of Vortigern.
It is not clear how these various traditions about Ambrosius relate to each other, or whether they come from the same tradition; it is very possible that these references are to different men with the same name. Frank D. Reno points out that the works call all these men "Ambrosius"/"Emrys". The cognomen "Aurelianus" is never used. The Historia Brittonum dates the battle of Guoloph to "the twelfth year of Vortigern", by which the year 437 seems to be meant. This is perhaps a generation before the battle that Gildas may imply was commanded by Ambrosius Aurelianus.
The text never identifies who Ambrosius's father is, just gives his title as a Roman consul. When an adolescent Ambrosius speaks of his father, there is no suggestion that this father is deceased. The boy is not identified as an orphan. The exact age of Ambrosius is not given in his one encounter with Vortigern. Frank D. Reno suggests that he might be as young as 13 years old, barely a teenager.
It is impossible to know to what degree Ambrosius actually wielded political power, and over what area. Ambrosius and Vortigern are shown as being in conflict in the Historia Brittonum, and some historians have suspected that this preserves a historical core of the existence of two parties in opposition to one another, one headed by Ambrosius and the other by Vortigern. J. N. L. Myres built upon this suspicion and speculated that belief in Pelagianism reflected an actively provincial outlook in Britain and that Vortigern represented the Pelagian party, while Ambrosius led the Catholic one. Subsequent historians accepted Myres's speculation as fact, creating a narrative of events in 5th century Britain with various degrees of elaborate detail. Yet a simpler alternative interpretation of the conflict between these two figures is that the Historia Brittonum is preserving traditions hostile to the purported descendants of Vortigern, who at this time were a ruling house in Powys. This interpretation is supported by the negative character of all of the stories retold about Vortigern in the Historia Brittonum, which include his alleged practice of incest.
The identity of Ambrosius's last mentioned enemy, Vitalinus, is somewhat obscure. Various manuscripts of the Historia and translations also render his name as "Guitolin," "Guitolini," and "Guitholini." He is mentioned in chapter 49 as one of four sons of Gloiu and co-founder of the city of Gloucester. No other background information is given. There are theories that Gloiu is also the father of Vortigern, but the genealogy is obscure and no supporting primary text can be found. There have been further attempts to identify Vitalinus with a pro-Vortigern or anti-Roman faction in Britain, opposed to the rise of the Romano-British Ambrosius. However, this is rendered problematic since Vitalinus seems to also have a Romano-British name. The traditional view of pro-Roman and pro-Briton factions active in this period might oversimplify a more complex situation.
According to William of Malmesbury
Ambrosius appears briefly in the Gesta Regum Anglorum ("Deeds of the Kings of the English") by William of Malmesbury. Despite its name, the work attempted to reconstruct British history in general by drawing together the varying accounts of Gildas, Bede, Nennius, and various chroniclers. The work features Ambrosius as the apparent employer of Arthur. The relevant passage has been translated as follows:
William swiftly shifts attention from Ambrosius to Arthur, and proceeds to narrate Arthur's supposed victory in the Battle of Badon. The narrative is probably the first to connect Ambrosius and Arthur. William had to reconcile the accounts of Gildas and Bede who implied that Ambrosius was connected to the battle, and that of Nennius which clearly stated that it was Arthur who was connected to the battle. He solved the apparent discrepancy by connecting both of them to it. Ambrosius as the king of the Britons and Arthur as his most prominent general and true victor of the battle.
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth
Ambrosius Aurelianus appears in later pseudo-chronicle tradition beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae with the slightly garbled name Aurelius Ambrosius, now presented as son of a King Constantine. King Constantine's eldest son Constans is murdered at Vortigern's instigation, and the two remaining sons (Ambrosius and Uther, still very young) are quickly hustled into exile in Brittany. (This does not fit with Gildas' account, in which Ambrosius' family perished in the turmoil of the Saxon uprisings.) Later, the two brothers return from exile with a large army when Vortigern's power has faded. They destroy Vortigern and become friends with Merlin. They go on to defeat the Saxon leader Hengist in two battles at Maisbeli (probably Ballifield, near Sheffield) and Cunengeburg. Hengist is executed and Ambrosius becomes king of Britain. However, he is poisoned by his enemies, and Uther succeeds him. The text identifies the poisoner as Eopa.
Judgements vary wildly of the value of Geoffrey as both a historian and a literary storyteller. He has been praised for giving us detailed information about an otherwise obscure period and possibly preserving information from lost sources, and condemned for an excessive use of artistic licence and possibly inventing stories wholecloth.
According to Frank D. Reno, whenever Geoffrey uses extant sources, the details in the text tend to be accurate. Assuming that he was also using sources lost to us, it may be difficult to decide which details are truthful. Reno suggests that "individual judgements" have to be made about various elements of his narrative.
Geoffrey changed the word "Aurelianus" to "Aurelius", which is the name of a Roman gens. Geoffrey retains the story of Emrys and the dragons from Nennius, but identifies the figure with Merlin. Merlin is Geoffrey's version of a historical figure known as Myrddin Wyllt. Myrddin is only mentioned once in the Annales Cambriae, at an entry dated to 573. The name of Merlin is given in Latin as Ambrosius Merlinus. "Merlinus" may have been intended as the agnomen of a Roman or Romano-British individual like Ambrosius.
Elements of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the traditional warrior king, are used by Geoffrey for other characters. Ambrosius' supposed supernatural powers are passed to Merlin. Geoffrey's Aurelius Ambrosius rises to the throne but dies early, passing the throne to a previously unknown brother called Uther Pendragon. The role of warrior king is shared by Uther and his son Arthur.
Geoffrey also uses the character Gloiu, father of Vitalinus/Vitolinus, derived from Nennius. He names this character as a son of Claudius and appointed by his father as Duke of the Welsh. His predecessor as Duke is called Arvirargus. Assuming that Claudius and Arvirargus are supposed to be contemporaries, then this Claudius is the Roman emperor Claudius I (reigned 41–54). It seems unlikely that Claudius would have living grandsons in the 5th century, four centuries following his death. Reno suggests that Claudius II (reigned 268–270) would be a more likely "Claudius" to have living descendants in the 5th century.
Geoffrey for the first time gives a genealogy of Ambrosius. He is supposedly a paternal nephew of Aldroenus, King of Brittany, son of Constantine and an unnamed Briton noblewoman, adoptive grandson (on his mother's side) of Guthelinus/Vitalinus, Bishop of London, younger brother of Constans and older brother of Uther Pendragon. Ambrosius and Uther are supposedly raised by their adoptive maternal grandfather Guthelinus/Vitalinus. It is not explicitly covered in Geoffrey's narrative, but this genealogy makes Constantine and his children descendants of Conan Meriadoc, legendary founder of the line of Kings of Brittany. Conan is also featured in the Historia Regum Britanniae, where he is appointed king by Roman emperor Magnus Maximus (reigned 383–388).
Constantine's reign is placed by Geoffrey as following the Groans of the Britons mentioned by Gildas. Constantine is reported killed by a Pict and his reign is followed by a brief succession crisis. Candidates for the throne included all three sons of Constantine, but there were problems for their eventual rise to the throne. Constans was a monk, and Ambrosius and Uther were underage and still in their cradle. The crisis is resolved when Vortigern places Constans on the throne, and then serves as his chief adviser and power behind the throne. When Constans is killed by the Picts serving as bodyguards of Vortigern, Vortigern feigns anguish and has the killers executed. Ambrosius is still underage and Vortigern rises to the throne.
The chronology offered by Geoffrey for the early life of Ambrosius contradicts Gildas and Nennius, and is also internally inconsistent. The Groans of the Britons involves an appeal by the Britons to Roman consul "Agitius". This person has been identified with Flavius Aetius (d. 454), magister militum ("master of soldiers") of the Western Roman Empire and consul of the year 446. The Groans are generally dated to the 440s and 450s, preceding the death of Aetius. If Geoffrey's Constantine rose to the throne immediately following the Groans, this would place his reign in this period. Geoffrey gives a 10-year reign for Constantine and his marriage lasts just as long. However the eldest son Constans is clearly older than 10 years by the time his father dies. He is already an adult candidate of the throne and has had time to follow a monastic career. Even assuming there is a time gap between the death of Constantine and the adulthood of Constans, his younger brothers
have not aged at all in the narrative.
Geoffrey's narrative has an underage Ambrosius, if not a literal infant, in the 460s. Accounts deriving from Gildas and Nennius place Ambrosius in the prime of his life in the same decade. Most telling is that Geoffrey has Vortigern rising to the throne in the 460s. Nennius places the rise of Vortigern in the year 425, and Vortigern is entirely absent in chronologies of the 460s. Suggesting that he was deceased by that time.
Geoffrey's narrative includes as a major character Hengist, as leader of the Saxons. He is featured as the father of Queen Rowena and father-in-law of Vortigern. Other Saxon characters in the narrative tend to receive less attention by the writer, but their names tend to correspond to Anglo-Saxons known from other sources. Henginst's supposed son Octa is apparently Octa of Kent, a 6th-century ruler variously connected to Hengist as a son or descendant. The other son, Ebissa, is more difficult to identify. He might correspond to kinsmen of Hengist variously identified as "Ossa", "Oisc", and "Aesc". A minor Saxon character called "Cherdic" is probably Cerdic of Wessex, though elsewhere Geoffrey calls the same king "Cheldric". He actually may appear under three different names in the narrative, since Geoffrey elsewhere calls the interpreter of Hengist "Ceretic", a variant of the same name.
Geoffrey, in the last chapters featuring Vortigern, has the king served by magicians. This detail derives from Nennius, though Nennius was talking about Vortigern's "wise men". They may not have been magic users but advisers. Vortigern's encounter with Emrys/Merlin takes place in this part of the narrative. Merlin warns Vortigern that Ambrosius and Uther have already sailed for Britain and are soon to arrive, apparently to claim his throne. Ambrosius soon arrives at the head of the army and is crowned king. He besieges Vortigern at the castle of "Genoreu", which is identified with Nennius' Cair Guorthigirn ("Fort Vortigern") and the hillfort at Little Doward. Ambrosius burns the castle down and Vortigern dies with it.
Having killed Vortigern, Ambrosius next turns his attention to Hengist. Despite the fact that no earlier military actions of Ambrosius are recorded, the Saxons have already heard of his bravery and battle prowess. They immediately retreat beyond the Humber. Hengist soon amasses a massive army to face Ambrosius. His army counts 200,000 men and Ambrosius' only 10,000 men. He marches south and the first battle between the two armies takes place in Maisbeli, where Ambrosius emerges the victor. It is unclear what location Geoffrey had in mind. Maisbeli translates to "the field of Beli", and could be related to the Beli Mawr of Welsh legend and/or the Celtic god Belenus. Alternatively it could be a field where the Beltane festival was celebrated. Geoffrey could derive the name from a similar-sounding toponym. For example, Meicen of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North"), traditionally identified with Hatfield.
Following his defeat, Hengist retreats towards Cunungeburg. Geoffrey probably had in mind Conisbrough, not far from Hatfield. Ambrosius leads his army against the new position of the Saxons. The second battle is more evenly fought, and Hengist has a chance to achieve victory. However, Ambrosius receives reinforcements from Brittany and the tide of the battle turns in favour of the Britons. Hengist himself is captured by his old enemy Eldol, Consul of Gloucester and decapitated. Soon after the battle, the surviving Saxon leaders Octa and Eosa submit themselves to Ambrosius' rule. He pardons them and grants them an area near Scotland. The area is not named, but Geoffrey could be basing this on Bernicia, a real Anglo-Saxon kingdom covering areas in the modern borders of Scotland and England.
Geoffrey closely connects the deaths of Vortigern and Hengist, which are elsewhere poorly recorded. Vortigern historically died in the 450s, and various dates for the death of Hengist have been proposed, between the 450s and the 480s. Octa of Kent, the supposed son and heir of Hengist, was still alive in the 6th century and seems to belong to a later historical era than his father. The ruling family of the Kingdom of Kent were called the Oiscingas, a term identifying them as descendants of Oisc of Kent, not of Hengist. In effect, none of them was likely a literal son of Hengist and their relation to Hengist may have been a later invention. Geoffrey did not invent the connection, but his sources here were likely legendary in nature.
Following his victories and the end of the wars, Ambrosius organises the burial of killed nobles at Kaercaradduc. Geoffrey identifies this otherwise unknown location with Caer-Caradog (Salisbury). Ambrosius wants a permanent memorial for the slain and assigns the task to Merlin. The result is the so-called Giants' Ring. Its location in the vicinity of Salisbury has led to its identification with Stonehenge, though Geoffrey never uses that term. Stonehenge is closer to Amesbury than Salisbury. The ring formation of the monument could equally apply to Avebury, the largest stone circle in Europe.
In other texts
In Welsh legend and texts, Ambrosius appears as Emrys Wledig (Emperor Ambrose). The term "Wledig" is a title used by senior royal and military commanders who have achieved notable success. It is mostly used for famous figures such as Cunedda, though a few obscure figures have been given the title. For example, the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus is known as "Macsen Wledig" when he appears in Welsh folklore.
In Robert de Boron's Merlin he is called simply Pendragon and his younger brother is named Uter, which he changes to Uterpendragon after the death of the elder sibling. This is probably a confusion that entered oral tradition from Wace's Roman de Brut. Wace usually only refers to li roi ("the king") without naming him, and someone has taken an early mention of Uther's epithet Pendragon as the name of his brother.
Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall (1602) drew on an earlier French writer, Nicholas Gille, who mentions Moigne, brother of Aurelius and Uther, who was duke of Cornwall, and "gouerner of the Realme" under Emperor Honorius.
Possible identification with other figures
Riothamus
Léon Fleuriot has suggested Ambrosius is identical to Riothamus, a Brythonic leader who fought a major battle against the Goths in France around the year 470. Fleuriot argues that Ambrosius led the Britons in the battle, in which he was defeated and forced to retreat to Burgundy. Fleuriot proposed that he then returned to Britain to continue the war against the Saxons.
Place-name evidence
It has been suggested that the place-name Amesbury in Wiltshire might preserve the name of Ambrosius, and that perhaps Amesbury was the seat of his power base in the later fifth century. Scholars such as Shimon Applebaum have found a number of place names through the Midland dialect regions of Britain that incorporate the ambre- element; examples include Ombersley in Worcestershire, Ambrosden in Oxfordshire, Amberley in Herefordshire, Amberley in Gloucestershire, and Amberley in West Sussex. These scholars have claimed that this element represents an Old English word amor, the name of a woodland bird. However, Amesbury in Wiltshire is in a different dialect region and does not easily fit into the pattern of the Midland dialect place names.
Modern fictional treatments
The novel Coalescent by Stephen Baxter depicts Aurelianus as a general to Artorius, Briton and basis for the legend of King Arthur. In Baxter's novel, Aurelianus is a minor character who interacts with the book's main Roman-era protagonist, Regina, founder of a (literally) underground matriarchal society. In the text, he is credited with winning the battle of Mount Badon.
In Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Aurelianus is depicted as the ageing High King of Britain, a "too-ambitious" son of a Western Roman Emperor. His sister's son is Uther Pendragon, but Uther is described as not having any Roman blood. Aurelianus is unable to gather the leadership of the native Celts, who refuse to follow any but their own race.
In Alfred Duggan's Conscience of the King, a historical novel about Cerdic, founder of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, Ambrosius Aurelianus is a Romano-British general who rose independently to military power, forming alliances with various British kings and setting out to drive the invading Saxons from Britain. Cerdic, who is of both Germanic and British descent and raised as a Roman citizen, served in his army as a young man. In the novel Ambrosius is a separate character from Arthur, or Artorius, who appears much later as a foe of Cerdic.
In Stephen R. Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle, Aurelianus (most often referred to as "Aurelius") figures prominently, along with his brother Uther, in the second book of the series, Merlin. He is poisoned soon after becoming High King of Britain, and Uther succeeds him. Lawhead alters the standard Arthurian story somewhat, in that he has Aurelius marry Igraine and become the true father of King Arthur (Uther does marry his brother's widow, though).
In Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Last Legion, Aurelianus (here called "Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius") is a major character and is shown as one of the last loyal Romans, going to enormous lengths for his boy emperor Romulus Augustus, whose power has been wrested by the barbarian Odoacer. In this story, Romulus Augustus marries Igraine, and King Arthur is their son, and the sword of Julius Caesar becomes the legendary Excalibur in Britain. In the 2007 film version of the novel, he is played by Colin Firth and his name becomes "Aurelianus Caius Antonius". In both he is called "Aurelius" for short.
Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave follows Geoffrey of Monmouth in calling him Aurelius Ambrosius and portrays him as the father of Merlin, the elder brother of Uther (hence uncle of Arthur), an initiate of Mithras, and generally admired by everyone except the Saxons. Much of the book is set at his court in Brittany or during the campaign to retake his throne from Vortigern. Later books in the series show that Merlin's attitude toward Arthur is influenced by his belief that Arthur is a reincarnation of Ambrosius, who is seen through Merlin's eyes as a model of good kingship.
In Rosemary Sutcliff's The Lantern Bearers Prince Ambrosius Aurelianus of Arfon fights the Saxons by training his British army with Roman techniques and making effective use of cavalry. By the end of the novel, the elite cavalry wing is led by his nephew, a dashing young warrior prince named Artos, whom Sutcliff postulates to be the real Arthur. In the sequel Sword at Sunset, Artos eventually succeeds an ailing Ambrosius as High King after he deliberately gets himself killed while hunting.
In Parke Godwin's Firelord, Ambrosius is the elderly tribune of the diminished, dispirited and politically fractured Legio VI Victrix garrisoning Hadrian's Wall. Near his death, he names Artorius Pendragon (Arthur) as his successor, encourages him to convert the legion to alae (heavy cavalry) and allows the legionnaires to renounce their loyalty to Rome and take personal oaths of fealty to Artorius in order to help unify Brittania politically and to create a military force with the ability to quickly redeploy to meet differing threats.
In Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles, Ambrosius Aurelianus is the half-brother of Caius Merlyn Britannicus (Merlin) and helps him lead the people of Camulod (Camelot).
In Henry Treece's The Great Captains, Ambrosius is the aged and blind Count of Britain who is deposed by the Celt Artos the Bear after the latter takes his sword of command Caliburn and plunges it into a tree stump, daring him to pull it out.
In Stargate SG-1, Ambrosius and Arthur are one and the same. Merlin was an Ancient fleeing from Atlantis who later Ascends, then comes back in order to build the Sangraal, or Holy Grail, to defeat the Ori. Daniel Jackson also comments that it would mean that Ambrosius was 74 at the Battle of Mount Badon.
Ambrosius (voiced by Owen Teale) is a major character in the 2020 Audible Original drama Albion: The Legend of Arthur, in which he is depicted as the uncle of Arthur and having a son named Cunan.
References
Sources
5th-century births
5th-century monarchs in Europe
5th-century Western Romans
Arthurian characters
Legendary British kings
Date of death unknown
Historical figures as candidates of King Arthur
Last of the Romans
Merlin
Mythological kings
Sub-Roman Britons
Sub-Roman monarchs
Welsh mythology |
1724 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonius%20Saccas | Ammonius Saccas | Ammonius Saccas (; ; 175 AD243 AD) was a Hellenistic Platonist self-taught philosopher from Alexandria, generally regarded as the precursor of Neoplatonism and/or one of its founders. He is mainly known as the teacher of Plotinus, whom he taught from 232 to 243. He was undoubtedly the most significant influence on Plotinus in his development of Neoplatonism, although little is known about his own philosophical views. Later Christian writers stated that Ammonius was a Christian, but it is now generally assumed that there was a different Ammonius of Alexandria who wrote biblical texts.
Life
The origins and meaning of Ammonius' cognomen, "Sakkas", are disputed. Many scholars have interpreted it as indicating he was a porter in his youth, a view supported in antiquity by Byzantine bishop Theodoret. Others have asserted that this is a misreading of "Sakkas" for "sakkophoros" (porter). Some others have connected the cognomen with the "Śākyas", an ancient ruling clan of India, claiming that Ammonius Saccas was of Indian origin. This view has both been subsequently contested and supported by more recent scholarship. Some scholars supporting Ammonius' Indian origin have also contended that this ancestry is consistent with the passion of his foremost student Plotinus for India, and helps to explain the philosophical similarities between Vedanta and neoplatonism, which many scholars attribute to Indian influence. On the other hand, scholars contesting his Indian origins point out that Ammonius was from the Brucheion quarter of Alexandria, which was the royal quarter of the city inhabited mostly by Greeks, and that the name "Ammonius" was common to many Greeks, with a number of scholars and historians supporting a Greek origin for Ammonius. However, his name is theophoric to the deity Amun, indicating possible Egyptian origin.
Most details of Ammonius' life come from the fragments left from Porphyry's writings. The most famous pupil of Ammonius Saccas was Plotinus, who studied under Ammonius for eleven years. According to Porphyry, in 232, at the age of 28, Plotinus went to Alexandria to study philosophy:
In his twenty-eighth year he [Plotinus] felt the impulse to study philosophy and was recommended to the teachers in Alexandria who then had the highest reputation; but he came away from their lectures so depressed and full of sadness that he told his trouble to one of his friends. The friend, understanding the desire of his heart, sent him to Ammonius, whom he had not so far tried. He went and heard him, and said to his friend, "This is the man I was looking for." From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians.
According to Porphyry, the parents of Ammonius were Christians, but upon learning Greek philosophy, Ammonius rejected his parents' religion for paganism. This conversion is contested by the Christian writers Jerome and Eusebius, who state that Ammonius remained a Christian throughout his lifetime:
[Porphyry] plainly utters a falsehood (for what will not an opposer of Christians do?) when he says that ... Ammonius fell from a life of piety into heathen customs. ... Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and unadulterated to the end of his life. His works yet extant show this, as he is celebrated among many for the writings which he has left.
However, we are told by Longinus that Ammonius wrote nothing, and if Ammonius was the principal influence on Plotinus, then it is unlikely that Ammonius would have been a Christian. One way to explain much of the confusion concerning Ammonius is to assume that there were two people called Ammonius: Ammonius Saccas who taught Plotinus, and an Ammonius the Christian who wrote biblical texts. Another explanation might be that there was only one Ammonius but that Origen, who found the Neo-Platonist views of his teacher essential to his own beliefs about the essential nature of Christianity, chose to suppress Ammonius' choice of Paganism over Christianity. The insistence of Eusebius, Origen's pupil, and Jerome, all of whom were recognized Fathers of the Christian Church, that Ammonius Saccas had not rejected his Christian roots would be easier for Christians to accept than the assertion of Porphyry, who was a Pagan, that Ammonius had chosen Paganism over Christianity.
To add to the confusion, it seems that Ammonius had two pupils called Origen: Origen the Christian, and Origen the Pagan. It is quite possible that Ammonius Saccas taught both Origens. And since there were two Origens who were accepted as contemporaries it was easy for later Christians to accept that there were two individuals named Ammonius, one a Christian and one a Pagan. Among Ammonius' other pupils there were Herennius and Cassius Longinus.
Philosophy
Hierocles, writing in the 5th century, states that Ammonius' fundamental doctrine was that Plato and Aristotle were in full agreement with each other:
He was the first who had a godly zeal for the truth in philosophy and despised the views of the majority, which were a disgrace to philosophy. He apprehended well the views of each of the two philosophers [Plato and Aristotle] and brought them under one and the same nous and transmitted philosophy without conflicts to all of his disciples, and especially to the best of those acquainted with him, Plotinus, Origen, and their successors.
According to Nemesius, a bishop and neoplatonist c. 400, Ammonius held that the soul was immaterial.
Little is known about Ammonius's role in the development of neoplatonism. Porphyry seems to suggest that Ammonius was instrumental in helping Plotinus think about philosophy in new ways:
But he [Plotinus] did not just speak straight out of these books but took a distinctive personal line in his consideration, and brought the mind of Ammonius' to bear on the investigation in hand.
Two of Ammonius's students – Origen the Pagan, and Longinus – seem to have held philosophical positions which were closer to middle Platonism than neoplatonism, which perhaps suggests that Ammonius's doctrines were also closer to those of middle Platonism than the neoplatonism developed by Plotinus (see the Enneads), but Plotinus does not seem to have thought that he was departing in any significant way from that of his master.
Like Porphyry (The Life of Plotinus, 3, 24–29), also Nemesius refers of Ammonius Saccas as the teacher or the master of Plotinus (Nemesius, Nature of Man, 2.103).
See also
Theodidaktos
Ancient Greece–Ancient India relations
Notes
References
Armstrong, A., (1967), The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, pp. 196–200.
Karamanolis, G., (2006), Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?: Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry, Oxford University Press, pp. 191–215.
Reale, G., (1990), A History of Ancient Philosophy IV: The Schools of the Imperial Age, SUNY Press, pp. 297–303.
External links
Porphyry, Against the Christians (2004). Fragments.
The Reaction to the Bible in Paganism
Origen of Alexandria – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
175 births
242 deaths
2nd-century Egyptian people
2nd-century Greek philosophers
2nd-century Romans
3rd-century Egyptian people
3rd-century Greek philosophers
3rd-century Romans
Ancient Greek metaphysicians
Ancient Greek philosophers of mind
Middle Platonists
Philosophers in ancient Alexandria
Roman-era Alexandrians |
1727 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipolis | Amphipolis | 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 Amfipoli, 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 km 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 became quickly 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.
Macedonian rule
The city itself kept its independence until the reign of king Philip II () 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
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 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
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 ; 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
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.
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
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 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 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 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
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.
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 (), 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.
See also
Archaeological Museum of Amphipolis
List of ancient Greek cities
References
External links
Official site about Amphipolis
Livius.org: Amphipolis
The tomb of Amphipolis
Populated places in Serres (regional unit)
Amphipolis (municipality)
437 BC
5th-century BC establishments
8th-century disestablishments in the Byzantine Empire
Ancient Amphipolis
Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Central Macedonia
Archaeological sites in Macedonia (Greece)
Athenian colonies
Former populated places in Greece
Populated places established in the 5th century BC
Populated places disestablished in the 8th century
Populated places in ancient Macedonia
Populated places in ancient Thrace
Roman towns and cities in Greece
Populated places of the Byzantine Empire |
1729 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyntas%20I%20of%20Macedon | Amyntas I of Macedon | Amyntas I () 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. According to Herodotus, Amyntas was the sixth king of Macedonia. He had two children with an unnamed spouse: Alexander I and Gygaea.
Reign
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
(1) Amyntas I ()
(2) Alexander I ()
(3) Perdiccas II ()
(4) Archelaus ()
(5) Orestes ()
Argaeus II ()
Pausanias
unnamed daughter Derdas of Elimea
unnamed daughter Amyntas II
(6) Aeropus II ()
(8) Pausanias ()
unnamed son
Menelaus
(7) Amyntas II ()
(11) Ptolemy of Aloros ()
Amyntas
Arrhidaeus
(9) Amyntas III ()
From whom Philip II and Alexander III is descended.
Philip
Amyntas
Agerrus
Alcetas
Alexander
Agelaus
Arepyros
Stratonice Seuthes I
Gygaea Bubares
Amyntas
See also
Ancient Macedonians
List of ancient Macedonians
References
Notes
References
Bibliography
Primary sources
Secondary sources
6th-century BC births
498 BC deaths
6th-century BC Macedonian monarchs
5th-century BC Macedonian monarchs
Argead kings of Macedonia
Achaemenid Macedon
Vassals of the Achaemenid Empire
Iolcus |
1730 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyntas%20III%20of%20Macedon | Amyntas III of Macedon | Amyntas III () 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
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 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.
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.
See also
Treaties between Amyntas III and the Chalcidians
Amyntaio
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Coins of Amyntas III
Atheno-Macedonian Alliance-Translation of Epigraphy
370 BC deaths
4th-century BC Macedonian monarchs
Argead kings of Macedonia
Old Macedonian kingdom
Year of birth missing |
1732 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacharsis | Anacharsis | Anacharsis (; ) was a Scythian prince and philosopher of uncertain historicity who lived in the 6th century BC.
Life
Anacharsis was the brother of the Scythian king Saulius, and both of them were the sons of the previous Scythian king, Gnurus.
Few concrete details are known about the life of the historical Anacharsis. He is known to have travelled to Greece, where he possibly became influenced by Greek culture.
Anacharsis was later killed by his brother Saulius for having sacrificed to the Scythian ancestral Snake-Legged Goddess at her shrine in the country of Hylaea by performing an orgiastic and shamanistic ritual at night during which he wore images on his dress and played drums.
The ancient Greek author, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, claimed that Anacharsis had been killed because he had renounced Scythian customs and adopted Greek ones, although this claim was likely invented by Herodotus himself. The religious rituals practised by Anacharsis instead corresponded more closely to those of the transvestite Anarya priesthood of the Scythians.
Legacy
An amphora found in the western at Pontic Olbia where was located the temple of Apollo Iētros () recorded the dedication of "paternal honey" to this god by a Scythian named Anaperrēs (), who may have been the son of Anacharsis.
The nephew of Anacharsis, Idanthyrsus, who was the son and successor of Saulius, would later become famous among the Greeks in his own right for having resisted the Persian invasion of Scythia in 513 BC.
In Graeco-Roman philosophy
Later Graeco-Roman tradition transformed Anacharsis into a legendary figure as a kind of "noble savage" who represented "Barbarian wisdom," due to which the ancient Greeks included him as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Consequently, Anacharsis became a popular figure in Greek literature, and many legends arose about him, including claims that he had been a friend of Solon.
The ancient Greek historian, Ephorus of Cyme, later used this image of Anacharsis to create an idealised image of the Scythians.
Eventually, Anacharsis completely became an ideal "man of nature" or "noble savage" figure in Greek literature, as well as favourite figure of the Cynics, who ascribed to him a 3rd century BC work titled the .
Due to the transformation of Anacharsis into a favourite character of Greek philosophers, nearly all of the ancient writings concerning him are about Greek literature, which makes the information regarding the historical Anacharsis himself difficult to assess.
References
Sources
External links
Jean Jacques Barthelemy's The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece (French)
6th-century BC Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek murder victims
Immigrants to Archaic Athens
Presocratic philosophers
Scythian people
Seven Sages of Greece
6th-century BC Iranian people
Ancient Iranian philosophers |
1734 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anah | Anah | Anah or Ana (, ), 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 in cuneiform texts from the Old Babylonian period, A-na-at of the land Suhum by the scribes of Tukulti-Ninurta 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 () to Isidore Charax and Anatha to Ammianus Marcellinus; early Arabic writers described it variously as ʾĀna or (as if plural) ʾĀnāt.
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.
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
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.
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 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 () 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.
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 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 . About of precipitation falls annually.
Notes
References
Attribution:
External links
Populated places in Al Anbar Governorate
Populated places on the Euphrates River
District capitals of Iraq
First Babylonian Empire
Anat |
1735 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80nanda | Ānanda | Ānanda (Pali and Sanskrit: आनन्द; 5th4th 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 (; , 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 (, 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 (, 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 (). 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 (), when he requested the Buddha on behalf of the latter's foster-mother Mahāpajāpati Gotamī (, 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 (, 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 (, Śāṇakavāsī) and Majjhantika (, 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 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 (आनन्द) 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 cityhence the name.
Accounts
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 (, Sanskrit: ) 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
Ānanda was born in the same time period as the Buddha (formerly Prince Siddhattha), which scholars place at 5th4th centuries BCE. Tradition says that Ānanda was the first cousin of the Buddha, his father being the brother of Suddhodana (), the Buddha's father. In the Pāli and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions, his father was Amitodana (), but the Mahāvastu states that his father was Śuklodanaboth 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 (), 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 (). He was ordained by the Buddha himself, together with many other princes of the Buddha's clan (, ), 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 (), and less from the brahmin (priest) caste. He therefore ordered that any khattiya who had a brother follow the Buddha as a monk, or had 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 deathin 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 ) 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 () 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 () and lived there, taking a vow of silence. This led him to gain the epithet Videhamuni (), meaning 'the silent wise one from Videha'. When Ānanda did become ordained, his father had him ordain in Kapilavatthu in the Nigrodhārāma monastery () with much ceremony, Ānanda's preceptor (; Sanskrit: ) 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 (), an attainment preceding that of enlightenment. Ānanda later expressed his debt to Puṇṇa. Another important figure in the life of Ānanda was Sāriputta (), 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" (), i.e. someone who originated from the Vajji confederacy. According to later texts, an enlightened monk also called Vajjiputta () 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.
Attending to the Buddha
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. 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 (; ) 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.
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, () and other people from the ruling class. Once Ānanda taught a number of King Udena ()'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 (). 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
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 ) 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 Śūraṃgamasūtra, 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.
Establishing the nun's order
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 (). They had walked , 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.
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 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'", 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.
The Buddha's death
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 () ridiculed Ānanda. However, the Buddha reprimanded Udāyī in response, saying that Ānanda would certainly be enlightened in this life.
The Pāli Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta related the last year-long trip the Buddha took with Ānanda from Rājagaha () to the small town of Kusinārā () before the Buddha died there. Before reaching Kusinārā, the Buddha spent the retreat during the monsoon (, ) in Veḷugāma (), 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 to exercise. 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 () 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 insighta final reproach. The Buddha added that, of all the five hundred monks that are surrounding him now, even the "latest" or "most backward" () 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 (), 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 (), 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".
The First 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 () 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 (, ) 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" (, ), which according to most Buddhist traditions, were Ānanda's words, indicating that he, as the person reporting the text (), 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.
Charges
During the same council, Ānanda was charged for an offense by members of the saṅgha for having enabled women to join the monastic order. Besides this, he was charged for having forgotten to request the Buddha to specify which offenses of monastic discipline could be disregarded; for having stepped on the Buddha's robe; for having allowed women to honor the Buddha's body after his death, which was not properly dressed, and during which his body was sullied by their tears; and for having failed to ask the Buddha to continue to live on. Ānanda did not acknowledge these as offenses, but he conceded to do a formal confession anyway, "... in faith of the opinion of the venerable elder monks"Ānanda wanted to prevent disruption in the saṅgha. With regard to having women ordained, Ānanda answered that he had done this with great effort, because Mahāpajāpati was the Buddha's foster-mother who had long provided for him. With regard to not requesting the Buddha to continue to live, many textual traditions have Ānanda respond by saying he was distracted by Māra, though one early Chinese text has Ānanda reply he did not request the Buddha to prolong his life, for fear that this would interfere with the next Buddha Maitreya's ministry.
According to the Pāli tradition, the charges were laid after Ānanda had become enlightened and done all the recitations; but the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition has it that the charges were laid before Ānanda became enlightened and started the recitations. In this version, when Ānanda heard that he was banned from the council, he objected that he had not done anything that went against the teaching and discipline of the Buddha. Mahākassapa then listed seven charges to counter Ānanda's objection. The charges were similar to the five given in Pāli. Other textual traditions list slightly different charges, amounting to a combined total of eleven charges, some of which are only mentioned in one or two textual traditions. Considering that an enlightened disciple was seen to have overcome all faults, it seems more likely that the charges were laid before Ānanda's attainment than after.
Indologists von Hinüber and Jean Przyluski argue that the account of Ānanda being charged with offenses during the council indicate tensions between competing early Buddhist schools, i.e. schools that emphasized the discourses (, ) and schools that emphasized monastic discipline. These differences have affected the scriptures of each tradition: e.g. the Pāli and Mahīśāsaka textual traditions portray a Mahākassapa that is more critical of Ānanda than that the Sarvāstivāda tradition depicts him, reflecting a preference for discipline above discourse on the part of the former traditions, and a preference for discourse for the latter. Another example is the recitations during the First Council. The Pāli texts state that Upāli, the person who was responsible for the recitation of the monastic discipline, recited Ānanda does: again, monastic discipline above discourse. Analyzing six recensions of different textual traditions of the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta extensively, Bareau distinguished two layers in the text, an older and a newer one, the former belonging to the compilers that emphasized discourse, the latter to the ones that emphasized discipline; the former emphasizing the figure of Ānanda, the latter Mahākassapa. He further argued that the passage on Māra obstructing the Buddha was inserted in the fourth century BCE, and that Ānanda was blamed for Māra's doing by inserting the passage of Ānanda's forgetfulness in the third century BCE. The passage in which the Buddha was ill and reminded Ānanda to be his own refuge, on the other hand, Bareau regarded as very ancient, pre-dating the passages blaming Māra and Ānanda. In conclusion, Bareau, Przyluski and Horner argued that the offenses Ānanda were charged with were a later interpolation. Findly disagrees, however, because the account in the texts of monastic discipline fits in with the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta and with Ānanda's character as generally depicted in the texts.
Historicity
Tradition states that the First Council lasted for seven months. Scholars doubt, however, whether the entire canon was really recited during the First Council, because the early texts contain different accounts on important subjects such as meditation. It may be, though, that early versions were recited of what is now known as the Vinaya-piṭaka and Sutta-piṭaka. Nevertheless, many scholars, from the late 19th century onward, have considered the historicity of the First Council improbable. Some scholars, such as orientalists Louis de La Vallée-Poussin and D.P. Minayeff, thought there must have been assemblies after the Buddha's death, but considered only the main characters and some events before or after the First Council historical. Other scholars, such as Bareau and Indologist Hermann Oldenberg, considered it likely that the account of the First Council was written after the Second Council, and based on that of the Second, since there were not any major problems to solve after the Buddha's death, or any other need to organize the First Council. Much material in the accounts, and even more so in the more developed later accounts, deal with Ānanda as the unsullied intermediary who passes on the legitimate teaching of the Buddha. On the other hand, archaeologist Louis Finot, Indologist E. E. Obermiller and to some extent Indologist Nalinaksha Dutt thought the account of the First Council was authentic, because of the correspondences between the Pāli texts and the Sanskrit traditions. Indologist Richard Gombrich, following Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali's arguments, states that "it makes good sense to believe ... that large parts of the Pali Canon do preserve for us the Buddha-vacana, 'the Buddha's words', transmitted to us via his disciple Ānanda and the First Council".
Role and character
Ānanda was recognized as one of the most important disciples of the Buddha. In the lists of the disciples given in the Aṅguttara Nikāya and Saṃyutta Nikāya, each of the disciples is declared to be foremost in some quality. Ānanda is mentioned more often than any other disciple: he is named foremost in conduct, in attention to others, in power of memory, in erudition and in resoluteness. Ānanda was the subject of a sermon of praise delivered by the Buddha just before the Buddha's death, as described in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta: it is a sermon about a man who is kindly, unselfish, popular, and thoughtful toward others. In the texts he is depicted as compassionate in his relations with lay people, a compassion he learnt from the Buddha. The Buddha relays that both monastics and lay people were pleased to see Ānanda, and were pleased to hear him recite and teach the Buddha's teaching. Moreover, Ānanda was known for his organizational skills, assisting the Buddha with secretary-like duties. In many ways, Ānanda did not only serve the personal needs of the Buddha, but also the needs of the still young, growing institute of the saṅgha.
Moreover, because of his ability to remember the many teachings of the Buddha, he is described as foremost in "having heard much" (, Sanskrit: , ). Ānanda was known for his exceptional memory, which is essential in helping him to remember the Buddha's teachings. He also taught other disciples to memorize Buddhist doctrine. For these reasons, Ānanda became known as the "Treasurer of the Dhamma" (, Sanskrit: ), Dhamma (Sanskrit: ) referring to the doctrine of the Buddha. Being the person who had accompanied the Buddha throughout a great part of his life, Ānanda was in many ways the living memory of the Buddha, without which the saṅgha would be much worse off. Besides his memory skills, Ānanda also stood out in that, as the Buddha's cousin, he dared to ask the Buddha direct questions. For example, after the death of Mahāvira and the depicted subsequent conflicts among the Jain community, Ānanda asked the Buddha how such problems could be prevented after the Buddha's death. However, Findly argues that Ānanda's duty to memorize the Buddha's teachings accurately and without distortion, was "both a gift and a burden". Ānanda was able to remember many discourses verbatim, but this also went hand-in-hand with a habit of not reflecting on those teachings, being afraid that reflection might distort the teachings as he heard them. At multiple occasions, Ānanda was warned by other disciples that he should spend less time on conversing to lay people, and more time on his own practice. Even though Ānanda regularly practiced meditation for long hours, he was less experienced in meditative concentration than other leading disciples. Thus, judgment of Ānanda's character depends on whether one judges his accomplishments as a monk or his accomplishments as an attendant, and person memorizing the discourses.
From a literary and didactic point of view, Ānanda often functioned as a kind of foil in the texts, being an unenlightened disciple attending to an enlightened Buddha. Because the run-of the-mill person could identify with Ānanda, the Buddha could through Ānanda convey his teachings to the mass easily. Ānanda's character was in many ways a contradiction to that of the Buddha: being unenlightened and someone who made mistakes. At the same time, however, he was completely devoted to service to the Buddha. The Buddha is depicted in the early texts as both a father and a teacher to Ānanda, stern but compassionate. Ānanda was very fond of and attached to the Buddha, willing to give his life for him. He mourned the deaths of both the Buddha and Sāriputta, with whom he enjoyed a close friendship: in both cases Ānanda was very shocked. Ānanda's faith in the Buddha, however, constituted more of a faith in a person, especially the Buddha's person, as opposed to faith in the Buddha's teaching. This is a pattern which comes back in the accounts which lead to the offenses Ānanda was charged with during the First Council. Moreover, Ānanda's weaknesses described in the texts were that he was sometimes slow-witted and lacked mindfulness, which became noticeable because of his role as attendant to the Buddha: this involved minor matters like deportment, but also more important matters, such as ordaining a man with no future as a pupil, or disturbing the Buddha at the wrong time. For example, one time Mahākassapa chastised Ānanda in strong words, criticizing the fact that Ānanda was travelling with a large following of young monks who appeared untrained and who had built up a bad reputation. In another episode described in a Sarvāstivāda text, Ānanda is the only disciple who was willing to teach psychic powers to Devadatta, who later would use these in an attempt to destroy the Buddha. According to a Mahīśāsaka text, however, when Devadatta had turned against the Buddha, Ānanda was not persuaded by him, and voted against him in a formal meeting. Ānanda's late spiritual growth is much discussed in Buddhist texts, and the general conclusion is that Ānanda was slower than other disciples due to his worldly attachments and his attachment to the person of the Buddha, both of which were rooted in his mediating work between the Buddha and the lay communities.
Passing on the teaching
After the Buddha's death, some sources say Ānanda stayed mostly in the West of India, in the area of Kosambī (), where he taught most of his pupils. Other sources say he stayed in the monastery at Veḷuvana (). Several pupils of Ānanda became well-known in their own right. According to post-canonical Sanskrit sources such as the Divyavadāna and the Aśokavadāna, before the Buddha's death, the Buddha confided to Ānanda that the latter's student Majjhantika () would travel to Udyāna, Kashmir, to bring the teaching of the Buddha there. Mahākassapa made a prediction that later would come true that another of Ānanda's future pupils, Sāṇavāsī (), would make many gifts to the saṅgha at Mathurā, during a feast held from profits of successful business. After this event, Ānanda would successfully persuade Sāṇavāsī to become ordained and be his pupil. Ānanda later persuaded Sāṇavāsī by pointing out that the latter had now made many material gifts, but had not given "the gift of the Dhamma". When asked for explanation, Ānanda replied that Sāṇavāsī would give the gift of Dhamma by becoming ordained as a monk, which was reason enough for Sāṇavāsī to make the decision to get ordained.
Death and relics
Though no Early Buddhist Text provides a date for Ānanda's death, according to the Chinese pilgrim monk Faxian (337422 CE), Ānanda went on to live 120 years. Following the later timeline, however, Ānanda may have lived to 7585 years. Buddhist studies scholar L. S. Cousins dated Ānanda's death twenty years after the Buddha's.
Ānanda was teaching till the end of his life. According to Mūlasarvāstivāda sources, Ānanda heard a young monk recite a verse incorrectly, and advised him. When the monk reported this to his teacher, the latter objected that "Ānanda has grown old and his memory is impaired ..." This prompted Ānanda to attain final Nirvana. He passed on the "custody of the [Buddha's] doctrine" to his pupil Sāṇavāsī and left for the river Ganges. However, according to Pāli sources, when Ānanda was about to die, he decided to spend his final moments in Vesālī instead, and traveled to the river Rohīni. The Mūlasarvāstivāda version expands and says that before reaching the river, he met with a seer called Majjhantika (following the prediction earlier) and five hundred of his followers, who converted to Buddhism. Some sources add that Ānanda passed the Buddha's message on to him. When Ānanda was crossing the river, he was followed by King Ajātasattu (), who wanted to witness his death and was interested in his remains as relics. Ānanda had once promised Ajāsattu that he would let him know when he would die, and accordingly, Ānanda had informed him. On the other side of the river, however, a group of Licchavis from Vesālī awaited him for the same reason. In the Pāli, there were also two parties interested, but the two parties were the Sākiyan and the Koliyan clans instead. Ānanda realized that his death on either side of the river could anger one of the parties involved. Through a supernatural accomplishment, he therefore surged into the air to levitate and meditate in mid-air, making his body go up in fire, with his relics landing on both banks of the river, or in some versions of the account, splitting in four parts. In this way, Ānanda had pleased all the parties involved. In some other versions of the account, including the Mūlasarvāstivāda version, his death took place on a barge in the middle of the river, however, instead of in mid-air. The remains were divided in two, following the wishes of Ānanda.
Majjhantika later successfully carried out the mission following the Buddha's prediction. The latter's pupil Upagupta was described to be the teacher of King Aśoka (3rd century BCE). Together with four or five other pupils of Ānanda, Sāṇavāsī and Majjhantika formed the majority of the Second Council, with Majjhantika being Ānanda's last pupil. Post-canonical Pāli sources add that Sāṇavāsī had a leading role in the Third Buddhist Council as well. Although little is historically certain, Cousins thought it likely at least one of the leading figures on the Second Council was a pupil of Ānanda, as nearly all the textual traditions mention a connection with Ānanda.
Ajāsattu is said to have built a stūpa on top of the Ānanda's relics, at the river Rohīni, or according to some sources, the Ganges; the Licchavis had also built a stūpa at their side of the river. The Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang (60264 CE) later visited stūpas on both sides of the river Rohīni. Faxian also reported having visited stūpas dedicated to Ānanda at the river Rohīni, but also in Mathurā. Moreover, according to the Mūlasarvāstivāda version of the Saṃyukta Āgama, King Aśoka visited and made the most lavish offerings he ever made to a stūpa: He explained to his ministers that he did this because "[t]he body of the Tathāgata is the body of dharma(s), pure in nature. He [Ānanda] was able to retain it/them all; for this reason the offerings [to him] surpass [all others]"body of dharma here referred to the Buddha's teachings as a whole.
In Early Buddhist Texts, Ānanda had reached final Nirvana and would no longer be reborn. But, in contrast with the early texts, according to the Mahāyāna Lotus Sūtra, Ānanda would be born as a Buddha in the future. He would accomplish this slower than the present Buddha, Gotama Buddha, had accomplished this, because Ānanda aspired to becoming a Buddha by applying "great learning". Because of this long trajectory and great efforts, however, his enlightenment would be extraordinary and with great splendor.
Legacy
Ānanda is depicted as an eloquent speaker, who often taught about the self and about meditation. There are numerous Buddhist texts attributed to Ānanda, including the Atthakanāgara Sutta, about meditation methods to attain Nirvana; a version of the Bhaddekaratta Sutta (, ), about living in the present moment; the Sekha Sutta, about the higher training of a disciple of the Buddha; the Subha Suttanta, about the practices the Buddha inspired others to follow. In the Gopaka-Mogallānasutta, a conversation took place between Ānanda, the brahmin Gopaka-Mogallāna and the minister Vassakara, the latter being the highest official of the Magadha region. During this conversation, which occurred shortly after the Buddha's death, Vassakara asked whether it was decided yet who would succeed the Buddha. Ānanda replied that no such successor had been appointed, but that the Buddhist community took the Buddha's teaching and discipline as a refuge instead. Furthermore, the saṅgha did not have the Buddha as a master anymore, but they would honor those monks who were virtuous and trustworthy. Besides these suttas, a section of the Theragāthā is attributed to Ānanda. Even in the texts attributed to the Buddha himself, Ānanda is sometimes depicted giving a name to a particular text, or suggesting a simile to the Buddha to use in his teachings.
In East Asian Buddhism, Ānanda is considered one of the ten principal disciples. In many Indian Sanskrit and East Asian texts, Ānanda is considered the second patriarch of the lineage which transmitted the teaching of the Buddha, with Mahākassapa being the first and Majjhantika or Saṇavāsī being the third. There is an account dating back from the Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions which states that before Mahākassapa died, he bestowed the Buddha's teaching on Ānanda as a formal passing on of authority, telling Ānanda to pass the teaching on to Ānanda's pupil Saṇavāsī. Later, just before Ānanda died, he did as Mahākassapa had told him to. Buddhist studies scholars Akira Hirakawa and Bibhuti Baruah have expressed skepticism about the teacherstudent relationship between Mahākassapa and Ānanda, arguing that there was discord between the two, as indicated in the early texts. Regardless, it is clear from the texts that a relationship of transmission of teachings is meant, as opposed to an upajjhāyastudent relationship in a lineage of ordination: no source indicates Mahākassapa was Ānanda's upajjhāya. In Mahāyāna iconography, Ānanda is often depicted flanking the Buddha at the right side, together with Mahākassapa at the left. In Theravāda iconography, however, Ānanda is usually not depicted in this manner, and the motif of transmission of the Dhamma through a list of patriarchs is not found in Pāli sources.
Because Ānanda was instrumental in founding the bhikkhunī community, he has been honored by bhikkhunīs for this throughout Buddhist history. The earliest traces of this can be found in the writings of Faxian and Xuan Zang, who reported that bhikkhunīs made offerings to a stūpa in Ānanda's honor during celebrations and observance days. On a similar note, in 5th6th-century China and 10th-century Japan, Buddhist texts were composed recommending women to uphold the semi-monastic eight precepts in honor and gratitude of Ānanda. In Japan, this was done through the format of a penance ritual called keka (). By the 13th century, in Japan a cult-like interest for Ānanda had developed in a number of convents, in which images and stūpas were used and ceremonies were held in his honor. Presently, opinion among scholars is divided as to whether Ānanda's cult among bhikkhunīs was an expression of their dependence on male monastic tradition, or the opposite, an expression of their legitimacy and independence.
Pāli Vinaya texts attribute the design of the Buddhist monk's robe to Ānanda. As Buddhism prospered, more laypeople started to donate expensive cloth for robes, which put the monks at risk for theft. To decrease its commercial value, monks therefore cut up the cloth offered, before they sew a robe from it. The Buddha asked Ānanda to think of a model for a Buddhist robe, made from small pieces of cloth. Ānanda designed a standard robe model, based on the rice fields of Magadha, which were divided in sections by banks of earth. Another tradition that is connected to Ānanda is paritta recitation. Theravāda Buddhists explain that the custom of sprinkling water during paritta chanting originates in Ānanda's visit to Vesālī, when he recited the Ratana Sutta and sprinkled water from his alms bowl. A third tradition sometimes attributed to Ānanda is the use of Bodhi trees in Buddhism. It is described in the text Kāliṅgabodhi Jātaka that Ānanda planted a Bodhi tree as a symbol of the Buddha's enlightenment, to give people the chance to pay their respects to the Buddha. This tree and shrine came to be known as the Ānanda Bodhi Tree, said to have grown from a seed from the original Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha is depicted to have attained enlightenment. Many of this type of Bodhi Tree shrines in Southeast Asia were erected following this example. Presently, the Ānanda Bodhi Tree is sometimes identified with a tree at the ruins of Jetavana, Sāvatthi, based on the records of Faxian.
In art
Between 1856 and 1858 Richard Wagner wrote a draft for an opera libretto based on the legend about Ānanda and the low-caste girl Prakṛti. He left only a fragmentary prose sketch of a work to be called Die Sieger, but the topic inspired his later opera Parsifal. Furthermore, the draft was used by composer Jonathan Harvey in his 2007 opera Wagner Dream. In Wagner's version of the legend, which he based on orientalist Eugène Burnouf's translations, the magical spell of Prakṛti's mother does not work on Ānanda, and Prakṛti turns to the Buddha to explain her desires for Ānanda. The Buddha replies that a union between Prakṛti and Ānanda is possible, but Prakṛti must agree to the Buddha's conditions. Prakṛti agrees, and it is revealed that the Buddha means something else than she does: he asks Prakṛti to ordain as a bhikkhunī, and live the celibate life as a kind of sister to Ānanda. At first, Prakṛti weeps in dismay, but after the Buddha explains that her current situation is a result of karma from her previous life, she understands and rejoices in the life of a bhikkhunī. Apart from the spiritual themes, Wagner also addresses the faults of the caste system by having the Buddha criticize it.
Drawing from Schopenhauer's philosophy, Wagner contrasts desire-driven salvation and true spiritual salvation: by seeking deliverance through the person she loves, Prakṛti only affirms her will to live (), which is blocking her from attaining deliverance. By being ordained as a bhikkhunī she strives for her spiritual salvation instead. Thus, the early Buddhist account of Mahāpajāpati's ordination is replaced by that of Prakṛti. According to Wagner, by allowing Prakṛti to become ordained, the Buddha also completes his own aim in life: "[H]e regards his existence in the world, whose aim was to benefit all beings, as completed, since he had become able to offer deliverancewithout mediationalso to woman."
The same legend of Ānanda and Prakṛti was made into a short prose play by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, called Chandalika. Chandalika deals with the themes of spiritual conflict, caste and social equality, and contains a strong critique of Indian society. Just like in the traditional account, Prakṛti falls in love with Ānanda, after he gives her self-esteem by accepting a gift of water from her. Prakṛti's mother casts a spell to enchant Ānanda. In Tagore's play, however, Prakṛti later regrets what she has done and has the spell revoked.
Notes
Citations
References
External links
Talk about Ānanda given by Singaporean Buddhist teacher Sylvia Bay, in 2008
Ānanda: Guardian of the Dhamma by Hellmuth Hecker, accounts from the Pāli Canon, archived from the original on 26 September 2018
Foremost disciples of Gautama Buddha
Family of Gautama Buddha
Arhats
Year of birth unknown
Buddhist councils
5th-century BC Buddhist monks
Buddhist patriarchs |
1737 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaxagoras | Anaxagoras | Anaxagoras (; , Anaxagóras, "lord of the assembly"; 500 – 428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, Anaxagoras came to Athens. In later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus.
Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras introduced the concept of Nous (Cosmic Mind) as an ordering force. He also gave several novel scientific accounts of natural phenomena, including the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere. He deduced a correct explanation for eclipses and described the Sun as a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese, and also attempted to explain rainbows and meteors.
Biography
Anaxagoras was born in the town of Clazomenae in the early 5th century BCE, where he may have been born into an aristocratic family. He arrived at Athens, either shortly after the Persian war (in which he may have fought on the Persian side), or at some point when he was a bit older, around 456 BCE. While at Athens, he became close with the Athenian statesman Pericles. According to Diogenes, Laërtius and Plutarch, in later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus; the charges may have been political, owing to his association with Pericles, if they were not fabricated by later ancient biographers. According to Laërtius, Pericles spoke in defense of Anaxagoras at his trial, . Even so, Anaxagoras was forced to retire from Athens to Lampsacus in Troad (433). He died there around the year 428. Citizens of Lampsacus erected an altar to Mind and Truth in his memory and observed the anniversary of his death for many years. They placed over his grave the following inscription: Here Anaxagoras, who in his quest of truth scaled heaven itself, is laid to rest.
Philosophy
Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras described the world as a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients, where material variation was never caused by an absolute presence of a particular ingredient, but rather by its relative preponderance over the other ingredients; in his words, "each one is... most manifestly those things of which there are the most in it". He introduced the concept of nous (cosmic mind) as an ordering force, which moved and separated the original mixture, which was homogeneous or nearly so.
Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens. According to Anaxagoras, all things have existed in some way from the beginning, but originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined throughout the universe. All things existed in this mass but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There was an infinite number of homogeneous parts () as well as heterogeneous ones.
The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike, and the summation of the whole into totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason (). Mind is no less unlimited than the chaotic mass, but it stood pure and independent, a thing of finer texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and power, is especially seen ruling all life forms. Its first appearance, and the only manifestation of it which Anaxagoras describes, is Motion. It gave distinctness and reality to the aggregates of like parts.
Decrease and growth represent a new aggregation () and disruption (). However, the original intermixture of things is never wholly overcome. Each thing contains parts of other things or heterogeneous elements, and is what it is only on account of the preponderance of certain homogeneous parts which constitute its character. Out of this process arise the things we see in this world.
Astronomy
Plutarch says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall to earth."
His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall of meteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order, and to the prediction of the impact of meteorites. According to Pliny, he was credited with predicting the fall of the meteorite in 467. He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones. He thought that the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it, and that disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes. He introduced the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.
He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the Sun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnese; he also said that the Moon had mountains, and he believed that it was inhabited. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the Earth and ignited by rapid rotation. His theories about eclipses, the Sun, and Moon may well have been based on observations of the eclipse of 463 BCE, which was visible in Greece.
Anaxagoras was one of the first to assert that the moon reflected sunlight and did not produce light by itself; a statement translated as “the sun induces the moon with brightness” was found in his writings.
Mathematics
According to Plutarch in his work On exile, Anaxagoras is the first Greek to attempt the problem of squaring the circle, a problem he worked on while in prison.
Legacy
Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this have survived, through preservation in the work of Simplicius of Cilicia in the 6th century AD.
Anaxagoras' book was reportedly available for a drachma in the Athenian marketplace. It was certainly known to Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, based on the contents of their surviving plays, and possibly to Aeschylus as well, based on the testimony of Seneca. However, although Anaxagoras almost certainly lived in Athens during the lifetime of Socrates (born 470 BCE), there is no evidence that they ever met. In the Phaedo, Plato portrays Socrates saying of Anaxagoras as a young man: 'I eagerly acquired his books and read them as quickly as I could'. However, Socrates goes on to describe his later disillusionment with his philosophy. Anaxagoras is also mentioned by Socrates during his trial in Plato's Apology.
He is also mentioned in Seneca's Natural Questions (Book 4B, originally Book 3: On Clouds, Hail, Snow). It reads: "Why should I too allow myself the same liberty as Anaxagoras allowed himself?"
The Roman author Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition; Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have"—a sentence described by Valerius as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom".
Dante Alighieri places Anaxagoras in the First Circle of Hell (Limbo) in his Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto IV, line 137).
Chapter 5 in Book II of De Docta Ignorantia (1440) by Nicholas of Cusa is dedicated to the truth of the sentence "Each thing is in each thing" which he attributes to Anaxagoras.
Anaxagoras appears as a character in the second Act of Faust, Part II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Friedrich Nietzsche also frequently mentions Anaxagoras in the later chapters of his book entitled Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. He speaks fondly of Anaxagoras's nous, and defends the idea by claiming philosophers had "failed to recognize the meaning of Anaxagoras' [nous]..." and believed that it was "perfectly sufficient for his in·sight to have found a motion which is capable of
creating visible order in a thoroughly mixed chaos, by means of a simple continuous action." Nietzsche believes it is essential to understand Anaxagoras's nous as a sort of act of free will, not determined by any previous action before.
See also
Anaxagoras (crater) on the Moon
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
References
Ancient testimony
In the Diels-Kranz numbering for testimony and fragments of Pre-Socratic philosophy, Anaxagoras is catalogued as number 59.
The most recent edition of this catalogue is
Biography
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Writings
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Translations of the fragments
Sider, David (ed.), The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
Kirk G. S.; Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (1983) The Presocratic Philosophers: a critical history with a selection of texts (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ; originally authored by Kirk and Raven and published in 1957
Sources
Burnet J. (1892). Early Greek Philosophy A. & C. Black, London, , and subsequent editions, 2003 edition published by Kessinger, Whitefish, Montana,
Further reading
Bakalis Nikolaos (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, BC.,
Barnes J. (1979). The Presocratic Philosophers, Routledge, London, , and editions of 1982, 1996 and 2006
Gershenson, Daniel E. and Greenberg, Daniel A. (1964) Anaxagoras and the birth of physics, Blaisdell Publishing Co., New York,
Graham, Daniel W. (1999). "Empedocles and Anaxagoras: Responses to Parmenides" Chapter 8 of Long, A. A. (1999) The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 159–180,
Taylor, C. C. W. (ed.) (1997). Routledge History of Philosophy: From the Beginning to Plato, Vol. I, pp. 192–225,
Teodorsson, Sven-Tage (1982). Anaxagoras' Theory of Matter. Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Göteborg, Sweden,
Torrijos-Castrillejo, David (2014) Anaxágoras y su recepción en Aristóteles. Romae: EDUSC,
Zeller, A. (1881). A History of Greek Philosophy: From the Earliest Period to the Time of Socrates, Vol. II, translated by S. F. Alleyne, pp. 321–394
External links
Anaxagoras entry by Michael Patzia in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Translation and Commentary from John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy.
500s BC births
420s BC deaths
5th-century BC Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek mathematicians
Ancient Greek physicists
Ancient Greeks from the Achaemenid Empire
Ancient Greek philosophers of mind
Ancient Greek metaphysicians
Metic philosophers in Classical Athens
Military personnel of the Achaemenid Empire
Natural philosophers
People from Clazomenae
Philosophers of ancient Ionia
Pluralist philosophers
5th-century BC mathematicians
Greek exiles
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege |
1738 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaxarchus | Anaxarchus | Anaxarchus (; ; c. 380 – c. 320 BC) was a Greek philosopher of the school of Democritus. Together with Pyrrho, he accompanied Alexander the Great into Asia. The reports of his philosophical views suggest that he was a forerunner of the Greek skeptics.
Life
Anaxarchus was born at Abdera in Thrace. He was the companion and friend of Alexander the Great in his Asiatic campaigns. His relationship with Alexander, however, was ambiguous, owing to contradictory sources. Some paint Anarxchus as a flatterer, among them Plutarch, who tells a story that at Bactra, in 327 BC in a debate with Callisthenes, Anaxarchus advised all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime. In contrast, others paint Anaxarchus as scathingly ironic towards the monarch. According to Diogenes Laertius, in response to Alexander's claim to have been the son of Zeus-Ammon, Anaxarchus pointed to his bleeding wound and remarked, "See the blood of a mortal, not ichor, such as flows from the veins of the immortal gods."
When Alexander was trying to show that he was divine so that the Greeks and Macedonians would perform proskynesis to him, Anaxarchus said that Alexander could "more justly be considered a god than Dionysus or Heracles" (Arrian, 104)
Diogenes Laertius says that Anaxarchus earned the enmity of Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, with an inappropriate joke against tyrants in a banquet in Tyre in 331 BC. Later, when Anaxarchus was forced to land in Cyprus against his will, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. The philosopher endured this torture with fortitude, taunting the king with, "just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus". When Nicocreon threatened to cut out his tongue, Anaxarchus himself bit it out and spat it in his face.
Philosophy
Very little is known about his philosophical views. It is thought that he represents a link between the atomism of Democritus, and the skepticism of his own apprentice Pyrrho. He also shares ethical traits with the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools.
Anaxarchus is said to have studied under Diogenes of Smyrna, who in turn studied under Metrodorus of Chios, who used to declare that he knew nothing, not even the fact that he knew nothing. According to Sextus Empiricus, Anaxarchus "compared existing things to a scene-painting and supposed them to resemble the impressions experienced in sleep or madness." It was under the influence of Anaxarchus that Pyrrho is said to have adopted "a most noble philosophy, . . . taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement." Anaxarchus is said to have praised Pyrrho's "indifference and sang-froid." He is said to have possessed "fortitude and contentment in life," which earned him the epithet eudaimonikos ("fortunate").
His skepticism seems to have been pragmatical, postulating that against the uncertainty of existence, the only viable stance is to pursue happiness or eudaimonia, for which it is necessary to cultivate indifference or adiaphora. According to him, the effort to differentiate truth from falseness through the senses is both useless and detrimental to happiness.
He wrote a work named About the Monarchs. In it, he spouses that knowledge is useless without the ability to know when to speak and what to say in every occasion.
Plutarch reports that he told Alexander the Great that there was an infinite number of worlds, causing the latter to become dejected because he had not yet conquered even one.
References
External links
4th-century BC Greek philosophers
Abderites
Ancient Greek atomist philosophers
Ancient Thracian Greeks
Hellenistic-era philosophers
Philosophers and tutors of Alexander the Great
Ancient Skeptic philosophers |
1740 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancyra%20%28planthopper%29 | Ancyra (planthopper) | Ancyra is a small genus of planthoppers of the family Eurybrachidae and the only genus in the tribe Ancyrini. Species in this genus occur in southeast Asia.
Description
Members of the genus are well known for having a pair of prolonged filaments at the tips of the forewings that arise near a pair of small glossy spots; this creates the impression of a pair of antennae, with corresponding "eyes" (a remarkable case of automimicry). The "false head" effect is further reinforced by the bugs' habit of walking backwards when it detects movement nearby, so as to misdirect predators to strike at its rear, rather than at its actual head.
Taxonomy
The genus Ancyra was first named in 1845 by Scottish zoologist Adam White. It is the only genus of the tribe Ancyrini (subfamily Platybrachinae, family Eurybrachidae). The type species is Ancyra appendiculata, the species name meaning bearing appendages.
Species
, lists the following seven species in the genus Ancyra:
Ancyra annamensis – Vietnam
Ancyra appendiculata – Myanmar
Ancyra histrionica – Cambodia, Myanmar
Ancyra luangana
Ancyra nigrifrons – Malaysia
Ancyra vicina – Vietnam
Ancyra xiengana
References
Fauna of Southeast Asia
Eurybrachidae
Auchenorrhyncha genera |
1742 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasius%20I | Anastasius I | Anastasius I or Anastasios I may refer to:
Anastasius I Dicorus (–518), Roman emperor
Anastasius I of Antioch (died 599), Patriarch of Antioch
Pope Anastasius I (died 401), pope of Rome |
1743 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasius%20II | Anastasius II | Anastasius II or Anastasios II may refer to:
Pope Anastasius II (died 498), pope
Anastasius II of Antioch (550–609), patriarch of Antioch
Anastasius II of Jerusalem, patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 705–706
Anastasios II (died 719), Byzantine emperor |
1746 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximenes%20of%20Lampsacus | Anaximenes of Lampsacus | Anaximenes of Lampsacus (; ; 320 BC) was a Greek rhetorician and historian. He was one of the teachers of Alexander the Great and accompanied him on his campaigns.
Family
His father was named Aristocles (). His nephew (son of his sister), was also named Anaximenes and was a historian.
Rhetorical works
Anaximenes was a pupil of Diogenes the Cynic and Zoilus and, like his teacher, wrote a work on Homer. As a rhetorician, he was a determined opponent of Isocrates and his school. He is generally regarded as the author of the Rhetoric to Alexander, an Art of Rhetoric included in the traditional corpus of Aristotle's works. Quintilian seems to refer to this work under Anaximenes' name in Institutio Oratoria 3.4.9, as the Italian Renaissance philologist Piero Vettori first recognized. This attribution has, however, been disputed by some scholars.
The hypothesis to Isocrates' Helen mentions that Anaximenes, too, had written a Helen, "though it is more a defense speech (apologia) than an encomium," and concludes that he was "the man who has written about Helen" to whom Isocrates refers (Isoc. Helen 14). Jebb entertained the possibility that this work survives in the form of the Encomium of Helen ascribed to Gorgias: "It appears not improbable that Anaximenes may have been the real author of the work ascribed to Gorgias."
According to Pausanias (6.18.6), Anaximenes was "the first who practised the art of speaking extemporaneously." He also worked as a logographer, having written the speech prosecuting Phryne according to Diodorus Periegetes (quoted by Athenaeus XIII.591e). The "ethical" fragments preserved in Stobaeus' Florilegium may represent "some philosophical book."
According to Suda, no rhetor before Anaximenes had invented improvised speeches.
Historical works
Anaximenes wrote a history of Greece in twelve books, stretching from the gods' origins to the death of Epaminondas at the Battle of Mantinea (Hellenica, ), and a history of Philip of Macedon (Philippica). He was a favorite of Alexander the Great, whom he accompanied in his Persian campaigns, and wrote a third historical work on Alexander (however, Pausanias 6.18.6 expresses doubt about his authorship of an epic poem on Alexander). He was one of the eight exemplary historiographers included in the Alexandrian canon.
Didymus reports that the work transmitted as speech 11 of Demosthenes (Against the Letter of Philip) could be found in almost identical form in Book 7 of Anaximenes' Philippica, and many scholars regard the work as a historiographic composition by Anaximenes. The Letter of Philip (speech 12) to which speech 11 seems to respond may also be by Anaximenes, or it may be an authentic letter by Philip, perhaps written with the aid of his advisers. The more ambitious theory of Wilhelm Nitsche, which assigned to Anaximenes a larger part of the Demosthenic corpus (speeches 10-13 and 25, letters 1–4, proems), can be rejected.
Anaximenes was hostile to Theopompus, whom he sought to discredit with a libelous parody, Trikaranos, published in Theopompus' style and under his name, attacking Athens, Sparta, and Thebes.
Pausanias wrote: "He imitated the style of Theopompus with perfect accuracy, inscribed his name upon the book and sent it round to the cities. Though Anaximenes was the author of the treatise, hatred of Theopompus grew throughout the length of Greece."
Plutarch criticizes Anaximenes, together with Theopompus and Ephorus, for the "rhetorical effects and grand periods" these historians implausibly gave to men in the midst of urgent battlefield circumstances (Praecepta gerendae reipublicae 803b).
Saving Lampsacus
The people of Lampsacus were pro-Persian, or were suspected of doing so and Alexander was furiously angry, and threatened to do them massive harm. They sent Anaximenes to intercede for them. Alexander knew why he had come, and swore by the gods that he would do the opposite of what he would ask, so Anaximenes said, 'Please do this for me, your majesty: enslave the women and children of Lampsacus, burn their temples, and raze the city to the ground.' Alexander had no way round this clever trick, and since he was bound by his oath he reluctantly pardoned the people of Lampsacus.
Statue at Olympia
The people of Lampsacus dedicated a statue of him at Olympia, Greece.
Editions and translations
Art of Rhetoric
edited by Immanuel Bekker, Oxford 1837 (online)
Anaximenis ars rhetorica, L. Spengel (ed.), Leipzig, Vergsbureau, 1847.
Rhetores Graeci, L. Spengel (ed.), Lipsiae, sumptibus et typis B. G. Teubneri, 1853, vol. 1 pp. 169-242.
edited by Manfred Fuhrmann, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig, 1966, 2nd ed. 2000,
edited by Pierre Chiron, Collection Budé, with French translation, Paris, 2002,
anonymous translation, London, 1686 (online)
translated by E.S. Forster, Oxford, 1924 (online, beginning on p. 231)
Fragments
Karl Müller, appendix to 1846 Didot edition of Arrian, Anabasis et Indica (online)
Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 72, with commentary in German
Ludwig Radermacher, Artium Scriptores, Vienna, 1951, pp. 200–202 (rhetorical fragments only, adding Philodemus' Rhetorica, which accounts for three of the nine fragments printed)
Notes
References
Ancient Greek rhetoricians
People from Lampsacus
380s BC births
320 BC deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
4th-century BC historians
4th-century BC writers
4th-century BC poets
Historians who accompanied Alexander the Great
Historians from Hellenistic Anatolia
Philosophers and tutors of Alexander the Great
4th-century BC Greek philosophers |
1747 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasius | Anastasius | Anastasius (Latinized) or Anastasios () is a masculine given name of Greek origin derived from the Greek word (anastasis) meaning "resurrection". Its female form is Anastasia (). A diminutive form of Anastasios is Tassos ().
People
Byzantine emperors
Anastasius I Dicorus, reign 491–518
Anastasios II (died 719), reign 713–715
Popes of Rome
Pope Anastasius I, papacy 399–401
Pope Anastasius II, papacy 496–498
Pope Anastasius III, papacy 911–913
Pope Anastasius IV, papacy 1153–1154
Other Christian saints and clergy
Saint Anastasius, martyr under Nero
Saint Anastasius the Fuller (died 304), martyr and patron saint of fullers and weavers
( 263–11 May 305)
Pope Anastasius of Alexandria, Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria 605–616
Anastasius of Antioch (disambiguation), multiple people
Anastasius (Graeco-Roman jurist) (fl. 6th century)
Saint Anastasius of Persia (died 628), Persian martyr
Saint Anastasius of Pavia (died 680), bishop of Pavia
Anastasius of Armenia, successor of Nerses III the Builder as Catholicos of Armenia from 661 to 667
Saint Anastasius Sinaita (fl. 7th century), theologian, Father of the Eastern Orthodox Church, monk, priest, and abbot of the monastery at Mt. Sinai
Anastasius (abbot of Euthymius) (fl. 8th century)
Anastasius Bibliothecarius ( 810–878), librarian of the Church of Rome, scholar and statesman, sometimes identified as an Antipope
Astrik or Saint Anastasius of Pannonhalma, ambassador of Stephen I of Hungary
Anastasius of Suppentonia (died 570), abbot
Patriarch Anastasius of Constantinople, Patriarch of Constantinople 730–754
Anastasius, Cardinal-priest of the title of San Clemente, c. 1102–1125
Anastasius Germonius (1551–1627), Archbishop of Tarantaise and canon lawyer
Anastasius the Melodist (Hymnographer), believed to be a name of three or more melodists, one of whom is believed to have been a contemporary of Rhomanos
Anastasios (born 1929), Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and All Albania
Politicians and military
Anastasios Balkos (1916–1995), Greek politician
Anastasios Charalambis (1862–1949), Greek officer and interim Prime Minister of Greece
Anastasios Dalipis (1896–1949), Greek Army officer and politician
Anastasios Karatasos (1764–1830), Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence
Anastasios Londos (1791–1856), Greek politician and senator
Anastasios Nerantzis (1944–2021), Greek politician
Anastasios Papaligouras (born 1948), Greek politician
Anastasios Papoulas (1857–1935), Greek general
Anastasios Peponis (1924–2011), Greek politician
Anastasios Polyzoidis (1802–1873), Greek politician and judicial official
Anastasios Tsamados (1774–1825), Greek admiral of the Greek War of Independence
Sports
Anastasios Bountouris (born 1955), Greek Olympic medalist in sailing
Anastasios Dimitriadis (born 1997), Greek footballer
Anastasios Lagos (born 1992) Greek footballer
Anastasios Metaxas (1862–1937), Greek architect
Anastasios Orlandos (1887–1979), Greek archeologist and architect
Anastasios Rousakis (born 1985), Greek footballer
Anastasios Schizas (born 1977), Greek water polo player
Anastasios Triantafyllou (born 1987), Greek weightlifter
Pseudonym
Anton Alexander Graf von Auersperg (1806–1876), Austrian poet who wrote under the pseudonym of Anastasius Grün
Other
Anastasius, a 19th-century novel by Thomas Hope
See also
Anastasia
Anastasio
Anastacio (name)
Given names of Greek language origin
Greek masculine given names
Masculine given names |
1748 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximenes%20of%20Miletus | Anaximenes of Miletus | Anaximenes of Miletus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greek, Pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). He was the last of the three philosophers of the Milesian School, after Thales and Anaximander. These three are regarded by historians as the first philosophers of the Western world. Anaximenes is known for his belief that air is the arche, or the basic element of the universe from which all things are created. Little is known of Anaximenes' life and work, as all of his original texts are lost. Historians and philosophers have reconstructed information about Anaximenes by interpreting texts about him by later writers. All three Milesian philosophers were monists who believed in a single foundational source of everything: Anaximenes believed it to be air, while Thales and Anaximander believed it to be water and an undefined infinity, respectively. It is generally accepted that Anaximenes was instructed by Anaximander, and many of their philosophical ideas are similar. While Anaximenes was the preeminent Milesian philosopher in Ancient Greece, he is often given lower importance than the others in the modern day.
Anaximenes held that air could change into other forms through either rarefaction or condensation. Condensation would make the air denser, turning it into wind, clouds, water, earth, and finally stone. Rarefaction would make the air less dense as it eventually becomes fire. Anaximenes also developed a model of the Earth, describing it as a flat disc floating atop the air while the Sun and stars are also flat and float alongside it. He described the Sun as revolving around the Earth, causing it to be obscured by higher lands during the night. As one of the Milesian philosophers, Anaximenes was one of the earliest figures to develop science. He influenced many of the Pre-Socratic philosophers that succeeded him, such as Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, and Xenophanes. He also provided early examples of concepts such as natural science, physical change, and scientific writing.
Biography
Anaximenes was born . Surviving information about the life of Anaximenes is limited, and it comes primarily from what was preserved by Ancient Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle and Theophrastus. According to Theophrastus, Anaximenes was the son of Eurystratus, an associate of the philosopher Anaximander, and lived in Miletus. Anaximenes is recorded as becoming a student of Anaximander. Anaximenes was likely also taught Homeric epics, Greek mythology, and Orphism, which may have influenced his philosophy through their portrayal of the classical elements. It is considered likely that he and the other Milesian philosophers were wealthy, allowing them to dedicate time to philosophy.
Anaximenes' apparent instructor, Anaximander, was a Milesian philosopher who proposed that apeiron, an undefined and boundless infinity, is the origin of all things. Anaximenes and Anaximander were two of the three Milesian philosophers, along with Thales. These were all philosophers from Miletus who were the first of the Ionian School. As the earliest known figures to have developed theories regarding the material origin of the world without a divine explanation, they are regarded as the first philosophers in the Western world. According to Diogenes Laertius, Anaximenes lived approximately from 585 to 524 BC. Anaximenes is only known to have written one full text, which may have been a response to Anaximander's text On Nature. It was described by Theophrastus as having a "simple and economical Ionic style". Anaximenes died .
Philosophy
Air as the arche
What is known about Anaximenes' philosophy is what was preserved by later philosophers, particularly Aristotle and Theophrastus. According to their writings, each philosopher of the Milesian School was a material monist who sought to discover the arche (), or the one, underlying basis of all things. This is generally understood in the context of a substance, though scholars have argued that this may be anachronistic by imposing the Aristotelian notion of substance theory on earlier philosophy. Anaximenes argued that the arche is air. He described several basic elements that he considered to be manifestations of air, sorting them from least dense to most dense: fire, air, wind, clouds, water, earth, and stones. Philosophers have concluded that Anaximenes seems to have based his conclusions on naturally observable phenomena in the water cycle: the processes of rarefaction and condensation. He proposed that each substance is created by condensation to increase the density of air or by rarefaction to decrease it. The rarefaction process described by Anaximenes is often compared to felting.
Temperature was of particular importance to Anaximenes' philosophy, and he developed an early concept of the connection between temperature and density. He believed that expanded air was thinner and therefore hotter while compressed air was thicker and therefore colder—although modern science has found the opposite to be true. He derived this belief from the fact that one's breath is warm when the mouth is wide while it is cold when the air is compressed through the lips.
Anaximenes further applied his concept of air as the arche to other questions. He believed in the physis, or natural world, rather than the theo, or divine world. Anaximenes considered air to be divine in a sense, but he did not associate it with deities or personification. He presented air as the first cause that propelled living systems, giving no indication that air itself was caused by anything. Anaximenes also likened the soul to air, describing it as something that is driven by breath and wills humans to act as they do. These beliefs draw a connection between the soul and the physical world, as they suggest that they are made of the same material, air. From this, Anaximenes suggested that everything, whether it be an individual soul or the entire world, operates under the same principles in which things are held together and guided by the air. In Ancient Greek, the words for wind and for soul shared a common origin.
Anaximenes' philosophy was centered on a theory of change through ongoing cycles, defined by the movement of air. These cycles consisted of opposite forces interacting with and superseding one another. This is most prominently indicated in the weather and the seasons, which alternate between hot and cold, dry and wet, or light and dark. Anaximenes did not believe that any substance could be created or destroyed, only that it could be changed from one form to another. From this belief, he proposed a model in which the qualitative traits of a substance are determined by quantitative factors.
Cosmology and weather
Anaximenes believed that the universe was initially made entirely of air and that liquids and solids were then produced from it through condensation. He also used air to explain the nature of the Earth and the surrounding celestial bodies. He believed in a flat Earth that emerged as one of the first things to be condensed from air. This Earth is supported by the pressure of air underneath it to keep it afloat.
Anaximenes considered celestial objects to be those which had separated from the Earth. The philosophers who recorded Anaximenes' ideas disagree as to how he theorized this happened. He may have described them as evaporating or rarifying into fire. He is said to have compared the movement of the Earth, Sun, and stars to leaves floating in the wind, though he is also described as likening the stars to nails embedded in the sky. Some scholars have suggested that Anaximenes may have believed both models by distinguishing between planets and stars, which would make him the first person to do so. While the Sun is described as being a flame, Anaximenes thought it was not composed of rarefied air like the stars, but rather of Earth. According to Pseudo-Plutarch, Anaximenes thought that its burning comes not from its composition, but rather from its rapid motion.
Anaximenes rejected the commonplace idea that the Sun went underneath the Earth, instead saying that it rotated around the Earth. Hippolytus likened it to a hat spinning around a person's head. It's unknown whether this analogy was of Hippolytus's own creation or if it was part of Anaximenes' explanation. This model of the sun's movement has been interpreted in various ways by subsequent philosophers.
Anaximenes also described the causes of other natural phenomena. Like Anaximander, he believed that thunder and lightning occurred when wind emerged after being trapped in a cloud. Earthquakes, he asserted, were the result of alternating drying and wetting of the earth, causing it to undergo a cycle of splitting and swelling. He was the first philosopher to attempt a scientific explanation of rainbows, and the only one to do so until Aristotle. He described them as a reflection of sunlight off of clouds, and he theorized that the various colors were caused by an interaction of light and darkness.
Milesian context
Anaximenes' views have been interpreted as reconciling those of his two predecessors, Thales and Anaximander. Air as the arche is a limitless concept, which resembled Anaximander's theory that the arche was the abstract infinite that he called apeiron (, lit. 'unlimited, 'boundless'). At the same time, air as the arche was a defined substance, which resembled the theory of Thales that the arche was water. Anaximenes adopted a similar design of a flat Earth as Thales. Both proposed that the Earth was flat and that it rested on the substance they believed made up all things; Thales described a disc on water, while Anaximenes described a disc on air. His cosmology also did not diverge significantly from the ideas of Anaximander, only changing it so that it reflected his variety of monism.
Anaximenes's philosophy was founded upon that of Anaximander, but tradition holds that he was also critical of his instructor in some areas. Anaximenes also maintained that there must be an empirical explanation for why substances change from one form to another.
Anaximenes and Anaximander were similar in that they are not known to have justified why or how changes in physical things take place the way that they do. Anaximander instead invoked metaphors of justice and retribution to describe change, and he made direct appeals to deities and the divine in support of his beliefs. Anaximenes deviated from Anaximander in both of these ideas.
Legacy and study
Influence on science and philosophy
Anaximenes was the last of the Milesian philosophers, as Miletus was destroyed by attacking Persian forces in 494 BC. Little of his life is known relative to the other Milesian philosophers, Thales and Anaximander. These three philosophers together began what eventually became science in the Western world. In ancient Greece, the ideas of Anaximenes were well regarded in philosophy, popularized by various philosophers such as Diogenes of Apollonia, and had a greater presence than the ideas of his predecessors. The other Milesian philosophers have since overshadowed him in the study of philosophy. Anaximenes was the first philosopher to give an explanation for substances changing from one state to another through a physical process. He may also have been the first philosopher to write in descriptive prose rather than verse, developing a prototype of scientific writing. Only fragments of Anaximenes' writings have been preserved directly, and it is unknown how much these fragments have diverged from the original texts as they were recorded by subsequent authors. Further details of Anaximenes' life and philosophical views are obscure, as none of his work has been preserved, and he is only known through fragments and interpretations of him made by later writers and polemicists. The Anaximenes crater on the Moon is named in his honor.
Early medical practice developed ideas similar to Anaximenes, proposing that air was the basis of health in that it both provides life and carries disease. Anaximenes' conception of air has been likened to the atoms and subatomic particles that make up all substances through their quantitative organization. It has also been compared to the breath of life produced by God in the Old Testament. His understanding of physical properties as quantitative differences that applied at individual and universal scales became foundational ideas in the development of natural science. He was the first philosopher to analogize his philosophy in practical terms, comparing the functions of the world to behaviors that can be observed in common activities. In this manner, he was also the first to liken the function of the individual to that of the world. In this case, likening the breath that defines humans to the air that defines the world. His belief that the same properties governed the world at a human scale and a universal scale was eventually proven by Isaac Newton.
Subsequent interpretation
Some of Anaximenes' writings are referenced during the Hellenistic period, but no record of those documents currently exists. Philosophers such as Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Diogenes of Apollonia were all directly influenced by the work of Anaximenes. Diogenes of Apollonia adapted Anaximenes' ideas to the philosophy of Stoicism. The ideas ridiculed in the Aristophanes play The Clouds originated from the ideas of Anaximander and Anaximenes. Philosophers such as Xenophanes later adopted Anaximenes' model of cosmology. Xenophanes' theory that the arche is earth and water has also been interpreted as a response to Anaximenes.
Plato referenced the concept of air as the cause of thought in the Phaedo, rejecting it with the argument that one's physical state does not determine their fate. In the Timaeus, Plato favorably mentions Anaximenes' theory of matter and its seven states from stone to fire. Aristotle was critical of the ideas of Anaximenes. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle characterized Anaximenes and his predecessors as monists, those who believe that all things are composed of a single substance. This description came to be widely accepted in philosophy. Practitioners of Aristotelian philosophy further considered Anaximenes to be a founder of naturalism. After Aristotle, Theophrastus continued the doxography of the Milesian philosophers and other Ionians. He described Anaximenes as a natural philosopher. Other ancient philosophers who analyzed the work of Anaximenes include Simplicius, Aetius, Hippolytus, and Plutarch.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said that Anaximenes was the first philosopher to transfer the ideas of natural philosophy into the philosophy of consciousness. Werner Heisenberg said that the philosophy of Anaximenes caused a setback in scientific understanding, as it moved analysis away from physical properties themselves. Karl Popper suggested that Anaximenes and Anaximander developed a philosophy of rationalist critique, allowing criticism of one's teacher, that was not revived until the Renaissance.
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
External links
Anaximenes at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Anaximenes of Miletus Life and Work – Fragments and Testimonies by Giannis Stamatellos
6th-century BC Greek philosophers
Ancient Milesians
Philosophers of ancient Ionia
Presocratic philosophers |
1749 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancus%20Marcius | Ancus Marcius | Ancus Marcius () was the legendary fourth king of Rome, who traditionally reigned 24 years. Upon the death of the previous king, Tullus Hostilius, the Roman Senate appointed an interrex, who in turn called a session of the assembly of the people who elected the new king. Ancus is said to have ruled by waging war as Romulus did, while also promoting peace and religion as Numa Pompilius did.
Ancus Marcius was believed by many Romans to have been the namesake of the Marcii, a plebeian family.
Background
Ancus was the son of Marcius (himself the son of Rome's first pontifex maximus Numa Marcius) and Pompilia (daughter of Numa Pompilius). Ancus Marcius was thus the grandson of Numa and therefore a Sabine. According to Festus, Marcius was surnamed Ancus because of his crooked arm (ancus signifying "bent" in Latin).
First acts as King
According to Livy, Ancus's first act as king was to order the Pontifex Maximus to copy the text concerning the performance of public ceremonies of religion from the commentaries of Numa Pompilius to be displayed to the public on wooden tablets, so that the rites of religion should no longer be neglected or improperly performed. When Tullus was king, he repealed the Numa-created religious edicts that had been in place before.
War
According to Livy, the accession of Ancus emboldened the Latin League, who assumed that the new king would follow the pious pursuit of peace adopted by his grandfather, Numa Pompilius. The Latins accordingly made an incursion on Roman lands, and gave a contemptuous reply to a Roman embassy seeking restitution for the damage. Ancus responded by declaring war on the Latins. Livy says that this event was notable as the first time that the Romans declared war by means of the rites of the fetials.
Ancus Marcius marched from Rome with a newly levied army and took the Latin town of Politorium (situated near the town of Lanuvium) by storm. Its residents were removed to settle on the Aventine Hill in Rome as new citizens, following the Roman traditions from wars with the Sabines and Albans. When the other Latins subsequently occupied the empty town of Politorium, Ancus took the town again and demolished it. The Latin villages of Tellenae and Ficana were also sacked and demolished.
The war then focused on the Latin town of Medullia. The town had a strong garrison and was well fortified. Several engagements took place outside the town and the Romans were eventually victorious. Ancus returned to Rome with a large amount of loot. More Latins were brought to Rome as citizens and were settled at the foot of the Aventine near the Palatine Hill, by the temple of Murcia.
Ancus Marcius incorporated the Janiculum into the city, fortifying it with a wall and connecting it with the city by a wooden bridge across the Tiber, the Pons Sublicius. To protect the bridge from enemy attacks, Ancus had the end that was facing the Janiculum fortified. Ancus also took over Fidenea to expand Rome's influence across the Tiber.
On the land side of the city he constructed the Fossa Quiritium, a ditch fortification. He also built Rome's first prison, the Mamertine prison.
He then extended the Roman territory, founding the port of Ostia, establishing salt-works around the port, and taking the Silva Maesia, an area of coastal forest north of the Tiber, from the Veientes.
He expanded the temple of Jupiter Feretrius to reflect these territorial successes.
According to a reconstruction of the Fasti Triumphales, Ancus Marcius celebrated at least one triumph, over the Sabines and Veientes.
Death and successor
Ancus Marcius is reported to have died of natural causes after a rule of 24 years. He had two sons, one of which would likely take the throne. A member of Ancus' court, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, ensured that Ancus' sons would be out of Rome so he could put together an election where he would gain the support of the Roman people.
Ancus Marcius was succeeded by his friend Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, who was ultimately assassinated by the sons of Ancus Marcius. Later, during the Republic and the Empire, the prominent gens Marcia claimed descent from Ancus Marcius.
References
670s BC births
617 BC deaths
7th-century BC Romans
7th-century BC monarchs
Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid
Kings of Rome
Ancus
Year of birth unknown |
1751 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20Anderson%20%28mathematician%29 | Alexander Anderson (mathematician) | Alexander Anderson ( in Aberdeen – in Paris) was a Scottish mathematician.
Life
He was born in Aberdeen, possibly in 1582, according to a print which suggests he was aged 35 in 1617. It is unknown where he was educated, but it is likely that he initially studied writing and philosophy (the "belles lettres") in his home city of Aberdeen.
He then went to the continent, and was a professor of mathematics in Paris by the start of the seventeenth century. There he published or edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various geometric and algebraic tracts. He described himself as having "more wisdom than riches" in the dedication of Vindiciae Archimedis (1616).
He was first cousin of David Anderson of Finshaugh, a celebrated mathematician, and David Anderson's daughter was the mother of mathematician James Gregory.
Work
He was selected by the executors of François Viète to revise and edit Viète's manuscript works. Viète died in 1603, and it is unclear if Anderson knew him, but his eminence was sufficient to attract the attention of the dead man's executors. Anderson corrected and expanded upon Viète's manuscripts, which extended known geometry to the new algebra, which used general symbols to represent quantities.
Publications
The known works of Anderson amount to six thin quarto volumes, and as the last of them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown. He wrote other works that have since been lost. From his last work it appears he wrote another piece, "A Treatise on the Mensuration of Solids," and copies of two other works, Ex. Math. and Stereometria Triangulorum Sphæricorum, were in the possession of Sir Alexander Hume until the after the middle of the seventeenth century.
1612: Supplementum Apollonii Redivivi
1615: Ad Angularum Sectionem Analytica Theoremata F. Vieta
1615: Pro Zetetico Apolloniani
1615: Francisci Vietae Fontenaeensis
1616: Vindiciae Archimedis
1619: Alexandri Andersoni Exercitationum Mathematicarum Decas Prima
See also
Marin Getaldić
Denis Henrion
Frans van Schooten
References
Attribution:
Further reading
1580s births
1620 deaths
People from Aberdeen
Algebraists
British geometers
17th-century Scottish people
Scottish scholars and academics
Academic staff of the University of Paris
17th-century Scottish mathematicians |
1752 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andocides | Andocides | Andocides (; , Andokides; ) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BC.
Life
Andocides was the son of Leogoras, and was born in Athens around 440 BC. He belonged to the ancient Eupatrid family of the Kerykes, who traced their lineage up to Odysseus and the god Hermes.
During his youth, Andocides seems to have been employed on various occasions as ambassador to Thessaly, Macedonia, Molossia, Thesprotia, Italy, and Sicily. Although he was frequently attacked for his political opinions, he maintained his ground until, in 415 BC, he became involved in the charge brought against Alcibiades for having profaned the mysteries and mutilated the Herms on the eve of the departure of the Athenian expedition against Sicily. It appeared particularly likely that Andocides was an accomplice in the latter of these crimes, which was believed to be a preliminary step towards overthrowing the democratic constitution, since the Herm standing close to his house in the phyle Aegeis was among the very few which had not been injured.
Andocides was accordingly seized and thrown into prison, but after some time recovered his freedom by a promise that he would become an informer and reveal the names of the real perpetrators of the crime; and on the suggestion of one Charmides or Timaeus, he mentioned four, all of whom were put to death. He is also said to have denounced his own father on the charge of profaning the mysteries, but to have rescued him again in the hour of danger - a charge he strenuously denied. But as Andocides was unable to clear himself from the charge, he was deprived of his rights as a citizen, and left Athens.
Andocides traveled about in various parts of Greece, and was chiefly engaged in commercial enterprise and in forming connections with powerful people. The means he employed to gain the friendship of powerful men were sometimes of the most disreputable kind; among which a service he rendered to a prince in Cyprus is mentioned in particular.
In 411 BC, Andocides returned to Athens on the establishment of the oligarchic government of the Four Hundred, hoping that a certain service he had rendered the Athenian ships at Samos would secure him a welcome reception. But no sooner were the oligarchs informed of the return of Andocides, than their leader Peisander had him seized, and accused him of having supported the party opposed to them at Samos. During his trial, Andocides, who perceived the exasperation prevailing against him, leaped to the altar which stood in the court, and there assumed the attitude of a supplicant. This saved his life, but he was imprisoned. Soon afterwards, however, he was set free, or escaped from prison.
Andocides then went to Cyprus, where for a time he enjoyed the friendship of Evagoras; but, by some circumstance or other, he exasperated his friend, and was consigned to prison. Here again he escaped, and after the restoration of democracy in Athens and the abolition of the Four Hundred, he ventured once more to return to Athens; but as he was still suffering under a sentence of civil disenfranchisement, he endeavored by means of bribes to persuade the prytaneis to allow him to attend the assembly of the people. The latter, however, expelled him from the city. It was on this occasion, in 411 BC, that Andocides delivered the speech still extant "On his return", on which he petitioned for permission to reside at Athens, but in vain. In his third exile, Andocides went to reside in Elis, and during the time of his absence from his native city, his house there was occupied by Cleophon, the leading demagogue.
Andocides remained in exile until after the overthrow of the tyranny of the Thirty by Thrasybulus, when the general amnesty then proclaimed made him hope that its benefit would be extended to him also. He himself says that he returned to Athens from Cyprus, where he claimed to have great influence and considerable property. Because of the general amnesty, he was allowed to remain at Athens, enjoyed peace for the next three years, and soon recovered an influential position. According to Lysias, it was scarcely ten days after his return that he brought an accusation against Archippus or Aristippus, which, however, he dropped on receiving a sum of money. During this period Andocides became a member of the boule, in which he appears to have possessed a great influence, as well as in the popular assembly. He was gymnasiarch at the Hephaestaea, was sent as architheorus to the Isthmian Games and Olympic Games, and was even entrusted with the office of keeper of the sacred treasury.
But in 400 BC, Callias II, supported by Cephisius, Agyrrhius, Meletus, and Epichares, urged the necessity of preventing Andocides from attending the assembly, as he had never been formally freed from the civil disenfranchisement. Callias II also charged him with violating the laws respecting the temple at Eleusis. The orator pleaded his case in the oration still extant "on the Mysteries" (περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων), in which he argued that he had not been involved in the profanation of the mysteries or the mutilation of the herms, that he had not violated the laws of the temple at Eleusis, that anyway he had received his citizenship back as a result of the amnesty, and that Callias was really motivated by a private dispute with Andocides over inheritance. He was acquitted. After this, he again enjoyed peace until 394 BC, when he was sent as ambassador to Sparta regarding the peace to be concluded in consequence of Conon's victory off Cnidus. On his return, he was accused of illegal conduct during his embassy. The speech "On the peace with the Lacedaemonians" (περὶ τῆς πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους εἰρήνης), which is still extant, refers to this affair. It was delivered in 393 BC (though some scholars place it in 391 BC). Andocides was found guilty, and sent into exile for the fourth time. He never returned afterwards, and seems to have died soon after this blow.
Andocides appears to have fathered no children, since he is described at the age of 70 as being childless, although the scholiast on Aristophanes mentions Antiphon as a son of Andocides. The large fortune which he had inherited from his father, or acquired in his commercial undertakings, was greatly diminished in the latter years of his life.
Oratory
As an orator, Andocides does not appear to have been held in very high esteem by the ancients, as he is seldom mentioned, though Valerius Theon is said to have written a commentary on his orations. We do not hear of his having been trained in any of the sophistical schools of the time, and he had probably developed his talents in the practical school of the popular assembly. Hence his orations have no mannerism in them, and are really, as Plutarch says, simple and free from all rhetorical pomp and ornament.
Sometimes, however, his style is diffuse, and becomes tedious and obscure. The best among his orations is that "on the Mysteries"; but, for the history of the time, all are of the highest importance.
Besides the three orations already mentioned, which are undoubtedly genuine, there is a fourth against Alcibiades (κατὰ Ἀλκιβιάδου), said to have been delivered by Andocides during the ostracism of 415 BC; but it is probably spurious, though it appears to contain genuine historical matter. Some scholars ascribed it to Phaeax, who took part in the ostracism, according to Plutarch. But it is more likely that it is a rhetorical exercise from the early fourth century BC, since formal speeches were not delivered during ostracisms and the accusation or defence of Alcibiades was a standing rhetorical theme. Besides these four orations we possess only a few fragments and some very vague allusions to other orations.
List of extant speeches
On the Mysteries ( "De Mysteriis"). Andocides' defense against the charge of impiety in the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the mutilation of the Hermae.
On His Return ( "De Reditu"). Andocides' plea for his return and removal of civil disabilities.
On the Peace with Sparta ( "De Pace"). An argument for peace with Sparta.
Against Alcibiades ( "Contra Alcibiadem"). Generally considered spurious.
Notes
Attribution
External links
Speeches at the Perseus Project
Attic orators
5th-century BC Athenians
4th-century BC Athenians
Ancient Greeks accused of sacrilege
Athenians of the Peloponnesian War
440s BC births
370s BC deaths |
1754 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea%20Andreani | Andrea Andreani | Andrea Andreani (1540–1623) was an Italian engraver on wood, who was among the first printmakers in Italy to use chiaroscuro, which required multiple colours.
Andreani was born and generally active in Mantua about 1540 (Brulliot says 1560) and died at Rome in 1623. His engravings are scarce and valuable, and are chiefly copies of Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, Parmigianino and Titian. The most remarkable of his works are Mercury and Ignorance, the Deluge, Pharaoh's Host Drowned in the Red Sea (after Titian), the Triumph of Caesar (after Mantegna), and Christ retiring from the judgment-seat of Pilate after a relief by Giambologna. He was active 1584–1610 in Florence.
Andreani's work is held in several museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Ackland Art Museum, the Clark Art Institute, the Harvard Art Museums, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, the Cooper Hewitt, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the British Museum.
References
Sources
"Andrea Andreani" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th Edition, Vol. II, p. 20.
Getty ULAN entry.
Further reading
artnet
1540 births
1623 deaths
Artists from Mantua
16th-century Italian artists
17th-century Italian artists
Italian engravers
16th-century engravers
17th-century engravers |
1755 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew%20II%20of%20Hungary | Andrew II of Hungary | Andrew II (, , , ; 117721 September 1235), also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1205 and 1235. He ruled the Principality of Halych from 1188 until 1189/1190, and again between 1208/1209 and 1210. He was the younger son of Béla III of Hungary, who entrusted him with the administration of the newly conquered Principality of Halych in 1188. Andrew's rule was unpopular, and the boyars (or noblemen) expelled him. Béla III willed property and money to Andrew, obliging him to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. Instead, Andrew forced his elder brother, King Emeric of Hungary, to cede Croatia and Dalmatia as an appanage to him in 1197. The following year, Andrew occupied Hum.
Despite the fact that Andrew did not stop conspiring against Emeric, the dying king made Andrew guardian of his son, Ladislaus III, in 1204. After the premature death of Ladislaus, Andrew ascended the throne in 1205. According to historian László Kontler, "[i]t was amidst the socio-political turmoil during [Andrew's] reign that the relations, arrangements, institutional framework and social categories that arose under Stephen I, started to disintegrate in the higher echelons of society" in Hungary. Andrew introduced a new grants policy, the so-called "new institutions", giving away money and royal estates to his partisans despite the loss of royal revenues. He was the first Hungarian monarch to adopt the title of "King of Halych and Lodomeria". He waged at least a dozen wars to seize the two Rus' principalities, but was repelled by the local boyars and neighboring princes. He participated in the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217–1218, but the crusade was a failure.
When the servientes regis, or "royal servants", rose up, Andrew was forced to issue the Golden Bull of 1222, confirming their privileges. This led to the rise of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary. His Diploma Andreanum of 1224 listed the liberties of the Transylvanian Saxon community. The employment of Jews and Muslims to administer the royal revenues led him into conflict with the Holy See and the Hungarian prelates. Andrew pledged to respect the privileges of the clergymen and to dismiss his non-Christian officials in 1233, but he never fulfilled the latter promise.
Andrew's first wife, Gertrude of Merania, was murdered in 1213 because her blatant favoritism towards her German kinsmen and courtiers stirred up discontent among the native lords. The veneration of their daughter, Elizabeth of Hungary, was confirmed by the Holy See during Andrew's lifetime. After Andrew's death, his sons, Béla and Coloman, accused his third wife, Beatrice d'Este, of adultery and never considered her son, Stephen, to be a legitimate son of Andrew.
Early life
Childhood and youth ( 1177–1197)
Andrew was the second son of King Béla III and Béla's first wife, Agnes of Antioch. The year of Andrew's birth is not known, but modern historians agree that he was born around 1177, considering that Margaret, who was born in 1175 or 1176, was his elder sister, which, however, is far from certain. Andrew was first mentioned in connection to his father's invasion of the Principality of Halych in 1188. That year, Béla III invaded Halych upon the request of its former prince, Vladimir II Yaroslavich, who had been expelled by his subjects. Béla forced the new prince, Roman Mstislavich, to flee. After conquering Halych, he granted it to Andrew. Béla also captured Vladimir Yaroslavich and imprisoned him in Hungary.
After Béla's withdrawal from Halych, Roman Mstislavich returned with the assistance of Rurik Rostislavich, Prince of Belgorod Kievsky. They tried to expel Andrew and his Hungarian retinue, but the Hungarians routed the united forces of Mstislavich and Rostislavich. A group of local boyars offered the throne to Rostislav Ivanovich, a distant cousin of the imprisoned Vladimir Yaroslavich. Béla III sent reinforcements to Halych, enabling Andrew's troops to repel the attacks. Andrew's nominal reign remained unpopular in Halych, because the Hungarian soldiers insulted local women and did not respect Orthodox churches. Consequently, the local boyars allied themselves with their former prince, Vladimir Yaroslavich, who had escaped from captivity and returned to Halych. Duke Casimir II of Poland also supported Vladimir Yaroslavich, and they expelled Andrew and his retinue from the principality in August 1189 or 1190. Andrew returned to Hungary after his defeat.
He did not receive a separate duchy from his father, who only gave him some fortresses, estates and money. According to historian Attila Zsoldos, these landholdings laid in Slavonia. On his deathbed, Béla III, who had pledged to lead a crusade to the Holy Land, ordered Andrew to fulfill his vow. Andrew's father died on 23 April 1196, and Andrew's older brother, Emeric, succeeded him.
Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia (1197–1204)
Andrew used the funds that he inherited from his father to recruit supporters among the Hungarian lords. It is plausible he demanded from his brother to install him as Duke of Slavonia, which became increasingly the title of heir to the throne by the second half of the 12th century. Andrew also formed an alliance with Duke Leopold VI of Austria, and they plotted against Emeric. Their united troops routed the royal army at Mački, Slavonia, in December 1197. Under duress, King Emeric gave Croatia and Dalmatia to Andrew as an appanage, as most historians believe. In contrast, historian György Szabados claims that Emeric never acknowledged Andrew's dominion in Croatia and Dalmatia and that Andrew used the title of duke without his brother's approval. In practice, Andrew administered Croatia and Dalmatia as an independent monarch. He minted coins, granted land and confirmed privileges. In accordance with the agreement, Varaždin and Bodrog counties also belonged to his suzerainty. He cooperated with the Frankopans, Babonići, and other local lords. Some of the prominent barons also supported his aspirations, including their uncle comes Andrew and Macarius Monoszló. The Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre settled in the province during his rule. Taking advantage of Miroslav of Hum's death, Andrew invaded Hum and occupied at least the land between the Cetina and Neretva rivers sometime before May 1198. He styled himself, "By the grace of God, Duke of Zadar and of all Dalmatia, Croatia and Hum" in his charters.
Pope Innocent III urged Andrew to lead a crusade to the Holy Land, but Andrew hatched a new conspiracy against Emeric with the help of John, Abbot of Pannonhalma, Boleslaus, Bishop of Vác, and many other prelates and lords. For instance, incumbent Palatine Mog also betrayed Emeric and swore allegiance to the Duke. The Pope threatened Andrew with excommunication if he failed to fulfill his father's vow, but Andrew did not yield. The conspiracy was uncovered on 10 March 1199, when King Emeric seized letters written by Andrew's partisans to Bishop Boleslaus. That summer, royal troops routed Andrew's army in the valley of Rád near Lake Balaton, and Andrew fled to Austria. During Andrew's exile, Emeric appointed his own partisans to administer Slavonia, Croatia and Dalmatia. A papal legate mediated a reconciliation between Andrew and Emeric, who allowed Andrew to return to Croatia and Dalmatia in 1200. Andrew married Gertrude of Merania sometime between 1200 and 1203; her father, Berthold, Duke of Merania, owned extensive domains in the Holy Roman Empire along the borders of Andrew's duchy, in what is now Slovenia.
When Emeric's son, Ladislaus, was born around 1200, Andrew's hopes to succeed his brother as king were shattered. Pope Innocent confirmed the child's position as heir to the crown, declaring that Andrew's future sons would only inherit Andrew's duchy. Andrew planned a new rebellion against his brother, but King Emeric captured him without resistance near Varaždin in October 1203. In contrast, historian Attila Zsoldos considers it was the king who turned against his brother's province with an army initially convened for a crusade.
Andrew was first imprisoned in the fort of Gornji Kneginec, then in Esztergom. Alexander of the Hont-Pázmány clan freed him in early 1204. It is uncertain whether Andrew was freed by his partisans or his release took place with Emeric's consent. Having fallen ill, King Emeric had his son, Ladislaus, crowned king on 26 August. As Pope Innocent already ordered Archbishop Ugrin Csák to perform the coronation in April, it is plausible that the king decided on Andrew's release, therefore, the coronation was not vitally urgent. Andrew reconciled with his dying brother, who entrusted him with "the guardianship of his son and the administration of the entire kingdom until the ward should reach the age of majority", according to the nearly contemporaneous Thomas the Archdeacon.
Nephew's guardian (1204–1205)
King Emeric died on 30 November 1204. Andrew governed the kingdom as Ladislaus's regent, but subsequently he counted his regnal years from the time of his brother's death, showing that he already regarded himself as the lawful monarch during Ladislaus III's reign. Pope Innocent told Andrew that he should remain loyal to Ladislaus, also instructing him to fulfill his vow to lead a crusade, to secure the incomes of Emeric's widow and Ladislaus III's mother, Constance of Aragon, and to keep royal property intact. The pope's letters suggest that serious tensions burdened the relationship between Andrew and Constance after Emeric's death.
Instead, Andrew seized the money that Emeric had deposited for Ladislaus in Pilis Abbey. He also confiscated a significant portion of private wealth from Constance, who deposited it in the Stephanites' convent in Esztergom prior to that, in addition to the denial of her dower. Queen Constance fled from Hungary, taking her son and the Holy Crown to Austria. According to the Annals of Admont, "some bishops and nobles" escorted them, breaking through the blockade that Andrew erected along the Austrian border. Andrew prepared for a war against Leopold VI of Austria, but Ladislaus suddenly died in Vienna on 7 May 1205. Andrew sent Bishop Peter of Győr to Austria, who successfully recovered the Holy Crown.
Reign
"New institutions" and campaigns in Halych (1205–1217)
John, Archbishop of Kalocsa, crowned Andrew king in Székesfehérvár on 29 May 1205. Andrew introduced a new policy for royal grants, which he called "new institutions" in one of his charters. He distributed large portions of the royal domainroyal castles and all estates attached to themas inheritable grants to his supporters, declaring that "the best measure of a royal grant is its being immeasurable." His "new institutions" altered the relations between the monarchs and the Hungarian lords. During the previous two centuries, a lord's status primarily depended on the income he received for his services to the monarch; after the introduction of the "new institutions", their inheritable estates yielded sufficient revenues. This policy also diminished the funds upon which the authority of the ispáns, or heads, of the countieswho were appointed by the monarchshad been based.
During his reign, Andrew was intensely interested in the internal affairs of his former principality of Halych. He launched his first campaign to recapture Halych in 1205 or 1206. Upon the boyars' request, he intervened against Vsevolod Svyatoslavich, Prince of Chernigov, and his allies on behalf of Daniel Romanovich, the child-prince of Halych, and Lodomeria. Svyatoslavich and his allies were forced to withdraw. Andrew adopted the title of "King of Galicia and Lodomeria", demonstrating his claim to suzerainty in the two principalities.
After Andrew returned to Hungary, Vsevolod Svyatoslavich's distant cousin, Vladimir Igorevich, seized both Halych and Lodomeria, expelling Daniel Romanovich and his mother. They fled to Leszek I of Poland, who suggested that they visit Andrew. However, Vladimir Igorevich "sent many gifts" to both Andrew and Leszek, dissuading "them from attacking him" on behalf of Romanovich, according to the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle. Vladimir Igorevich's rebellious brother, Roman Igorevich, soon came to Hungary, seeking Andrew's assistance. Roman returned to Halych and expelled Vladimir Igorevich with the help of Hungarian auxiliary troops.
Andrew confirmed the liberties of two Dalmatian townsSplit and Omišand issued a new charter listing the privileges of the archbishops of Split in 1207. Taking advantage of a conflict between Roman Igorevich and his boyars, Andrew sent troops to Halych under the command of Benedict, son of Korlát. Benedict captured Roman Igorevich and occupied the principality in 1208 or 1209. Instead of appointing a new prince, Andrew made Benedict governor of Halych. Benedict "tortured boyars and was addicted to lechery", according to the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle. The boyars offered the throne to Mstislav Mstislavich, Prince of Novgorod, if he could overthrow Benedict. Mstislav Mstislavich invaded Halych, but he could not defeat Benedict.
Queen Gertrude's two brothers, Ekbert of Bamberg, Bishop of Bamberg, and Henry II, Margrave of Istria, fled to Hungary in 1208 after they were accused of participating in the murder of Philip, King of the Germans. Andrew granted large domains to Bishop Ekbert in the Szepesség region (now Spiš, Slovakia). Gertrude's youngest brother, Berthold, had been Archbishop of Kalocsa since 1206; he was made Ban of Croatia and Dalmatia in 1209. Andrew's generosity towards his wife's German relatives and courtiers discontented the local lords. According to historian Gyula Kristó, the anonymous author of The Deeds of the Hungarians referred to the Germans from the Holy Roman Empire when he sarcastically mentioned that " the Romans graze on the goods of Hungary." In 1209, Zadar, which had been lost to the Venetians, was liberated by one of Andrew's Dalmatian vassals, Domald of Sidraga, but the Venetians recaptured the town a year later.
Roman Igorevich reconciled with his brother, Vladimir Igorevich, in early 1209 or 1210. Their united forces vanquished Benedict's army, expelling the Hungarians from Halych. Vladimir Igorevich sent one of his sons, Vsevolod Vladimirovich, "bearing gifts to the king in Hungary" to appease Andrew, according to the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle. A group of discontented Hungarian lords offered the crown to Andrew's cousins, the sons of Andrew's uncle, Géza; they lived in "Greek land" (the Byzantine Empire). However, the cousins' envoys were captured in Split in 1210. In the early 1210s, Andrew sent "an army of Saxons, Vlachs, Székelys and Pechenegs" commanded by Joachim, Count of Hermannstadt, (now Sibiu, Romania) to assist Boril of Bulgaria's fight against three rebellious Cuman chieftains. Around the same time, Hungarian troops occupied Belgrade and Barancs (now Braničevo, Serbia), which had been lost to Bulgaria under Emeric. Andrew's army defeated the Cumans at Vidin. Andrew granted the Barcaság (now Țara Bârsei, Romania) to the Teutonic Knights. The Knights were to defend the easternmost regions of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Cumans and encourage their conversion to Catholicism.
A group of boyars, who were alarmed by the despotic acts of Vladimir Igorevich, asked Andrew to restore Daniel Romanovich as ruler of Halych in 1210 or 1211. Andrew and his alliesLeszek I of Poland and at least five Rus' princessent their armies to Halych and restored Daniel Romanovich. Local boyars expelled Daniel Romanovich's mother in 1212. She persuaded Andrew to personally lead his army to Halych. He captured Volodislav Kormilchich, the most influential boyar, and took him to Hungary. After Andrew withdrew from Halych, the boyars again offered the throne to Mstislav Mstislavich, who expelled Daniel Romanovich and his mother from the principality. Andrew departed for a new campaign against Halych in summer 1213. During his absence, Hungarian lords who were aggrieved at Queen Gertrude's favoritism towards her German entourage captured and murdered her and many of her courtiers in the Pilis Hills on 28 September. When he heard of her murder, Andrew returned to Hungary and ordered the execution of the murderer, Peter, son of Töre. However, Peter's accomplices, including Palatine Bánk Bár-Kalán, did not receive severe punishments. A group of Hungarian lords, whom Andrew called "perverts" in one of his letters, was plotting to dethrone Andrew and crown his eldest son, the eight-year-old Béla, but they failed to dethrone him and could only force Andrew to consent to Béla's coronation in 1214.
Andrew and Leszek of Poland signed a treaty of alliance, which obliged Andrew's second son, Coloman, to marry Leszek of Poland's daughter, Salomea. Andrew and Leszek jointly invaded Halych in 1214, and Coloman was made prince. He agreed to cede Przemyśl to Leszek of Poland. The following year, Andrew returned to Halych and captured Przemyśl. Leszek of Poland soon reconciled with Mstislav Mstislavich; they jointly invaded Halych and forced Coloman to flee to Hungary. A new officer of state, the treasurer, was responsible for the administration of the royal chamber from around 1214 onwards. However, royal revenues had significantly diminished. Upon the advice of the treasurer, Denis, son of Ampud, Andrew imposed new taxes and farmed out royal income from minting, salt trade and custom duties. The yearly exchange of coins also produced more revenue for the royal chamber. However, these measures provoked discontent in Hungary.
Andrew signed a new treaty of alliance with Leszek of Poland in the summer of 1216. Leszek and Andrew's son, Coloman, invaded Halych and expelled Mstislav Mstislavich and Daniel Romanovich, after which Coloman was restored. That same year, Andrew met Stephen Nemanjić, Grand Prince of Serbia, in Ravno (now Ćuprija, Serbia). He persuaded Stephen Nemanjić to negotiate with Henry, Latin Emperor of Constantinople, who was the uncle of Andrew's second wife, Yolanda de Courtenay. Stephen Nemanjić was crowned king of Serbia in 1217. Andrew planned to invade Serbia, but Stephen Nemanjić's brother, Sava, dissuaded him, according to both versions of the Life of Sava.
Andrew's crusade (1217–1218)
In July 1216, the newly elected Pope Honorius III once again called upon Andrew to fulfill his father's vow to lead a crusade. Andrew, who had postponed the crusade at least three times (in 1201, 1209 and 1213), finally agreed. Steven Runciman, Tibor Almási and other modern historians say that Andrew hoped that his decision would increase his likelihood of being elected as Latin Emperor of Constantinople, because his wife's uncle, Emperor Henry, had died in June. According to a letter written by Pope Honorius in 1217, envoys from the Latin Empire had actually informed Andrew that they planned to elect either him or his father-in-law, Peter of Courtenay, as emperor. Nonetheless, the barons of the Latin Empire elected Peter of Courtenay in the summer of 1216.
Andrew sold and mortgaged royal estates to finance his campaign, which became part of the Fifth Crusade. He renounced his claim to Zadar in favor of the Republic of Venice so that he could secure shipping for his army. He entrusted Hungary to Archbishop John of Esztergom, and entrusted Croatia and Dalmatia to Pontius de Cruce, the Templar prior of Vrana. In July 1217, Andrew departed from Zagreb, accompanied by Dukes Leopold VI of Austria and Otto I of Merania. His army was so largeat least 10,000 mounted soldiers and uncountable infantrymenthat most of it stayed behind when Andrew and his men embarked in Split two months later. The ships transported them to Acre, where they landed in October.
The leaders of the crusade included John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, Leopold of Austria, the Grand Masters of the Hospitallers, the Templars and the Teutonic Knights. They held a war council in Acre, with Andrew leading the meeting. In early November, the Crusaders launched a campaign for the Jordan River, forcing Al-Adil I, Sultan of Egypt, to withdraw without fighting; the crusaders then pillaged Beisan. After the crusaders returned to Acre, Andrew did not participate in any other military actions. Instead, he collected relics, including a water jug allegedly used at the marriage at Cana, the heads of Saint Stephen and Margaret the Virgin, the right hands of the Apostles Thomas and Bartholomew and a part of Aaron's rod. If Thomas the Archdeacon's report of certain "evil and audacious men" in Acre who "treacherously passed him a poisoned drink" is reliable, Andrew's inactivity was because of illness.
Andrew decided to return home at the very beginning of 1218, even though Raoul of Merencourt, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, threatened him with excommunication. Andrew first visited Tripoli and participated in the marriage of Bohemond IV of Antioch and Melisende of Lusignan on 10 January. From Tripoli, he travelled to Cilicia, where he and Leo I of Armenia betrothed Andrew's youngest son, Andrew, and Leo's daughter, Isabella. Andrew proceeded through the Seldjuk Sultanate of Rum before arriving in Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey). His cousins (the sons of his uncle, Géza) attacked him when he was in Nicaea. He arranged the marriage of his oldest son, Béla, to Maria Laskarina, a daughter of Emperor Theodore I Laskaris. When he arrived in Bulgaria, Andrew was detained until he "gave full surety that his daughter would be united in marriage" to Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria, according to Thomas the Archdeacon. Andrew returned to Hungary in late 1218. Andrew's "crusade had achieved nothing and brought him no honor", according to historian Thomas Van Cleve. Oliver of Paderborn, James of Vitry and other 13th-century authors blamed Andrew for the failure of the crusade. Stephen Donnachie says that "...from examining Honorius’s registers and the diplomatic communications between Andrew and the papal curia, Andrew’s genuine commitment to the crusade should not be doubted nor his extensive preparations for the campaign dismissed, even if he did ultimately bungle his opportunity."
Golden Bull (1218–1222)
When he returned to Hungary, Andrew complained to Pope Honorius that his kingdom was "in a miserable and destroyed state, deprived of all of its revenues." A group of barons had even expelled Archbishop John from Hungary. Andrew was in massive debt because of his crusade, which forced him to impose extraordinarily high taxes and debase coinage. In 1218 or 1219, Mstislav Mstislavich invaded Halych and captured Andrew's son, Coloman. Andrew compromised with Mstislavich. Coloman was released, and Andrew's youngest son and namesake was betrothed to Mstislavich's daughter. In 1220, a group of lords persuaded Andrew to make his eldest son, Béla, the duke of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia.
Andrew employed Jews and Muslims to administer royal revenues, which caused a discord between Andrew and the Holy See starting in the early 1220s. Pope Honorius urged Andrew and Queen Yolanda to prohibit Muslims from employing Christians. Andrew confirmed the privileges of clergymen, including their exemption from taxes and their right to be exclusively judged by church courts, but also prohibited the consecration of udvornici, castle folk and other serfs in early 1222. However, a new conflict emerged between Andrew and the Holy See after he persuaded Béla to separate from his wife, Maria Laskarina. An "immense crowd" approached Andrew around April 1222, demanding "grave and unjust things", according to a letter of Pope Honorius. Actually, the royal servantswho were landowners directly subject to the monarch's power and obliged to fight in the royal armyassembled, forcing Andrew to dismiss Julius Kán and his other officials. Andrew was also forced to issue a royal charter, the Golden Bull of 1222. The charter summarized the liberties of the royal servants, including their exemption from taxes and the jurisdiction of the ispáns. The last clause of the Golden Bull authorized "the bishops as well as the other barons and nobles of the realm, singularly and in common" to resist the monarch if he did not honor the provisions of the charter. The Golden Bull clearly distinguished the royal servants from the king's other subjects, which led to the rise of the Hungarian nobility. The Golden Bull is commonly compared with England's Magna Carta – a similar charter which was sealed a few years earlier in 1215. A significant difference between them is that, in England, the settlement strengthened the position of all the royal subjects but, in Hungary, the aristocracy came to dominate both the crown and the lower orders.
Conflicts with son and the Church (1222–1234)
Andrew discharged Palatine Theodore Csanád and restored Julius Kán in the second half of 1222. The following year, Pope Honorius urged Andrew to launch a new crusade. If the report of the Continuatio Claustroneuburgensis is reliable, Andrew took the cross to show that he intended to launch a new crusade, but no other sources mention this event. Andrew planned to arrange a new marriage for his eldest son, Béla, but Pope Honorius mediated a reconciliation between Béla and his wife in the autumn of 1223. This angered Andrew, and Béla fled to Austria. He returned in 1224 after the bishops persuaded Andrew to forgive him.
In his Diploma Andreanum of 1224, Andrew confirmed the privileges of the "Saxons" who inhabited the region of Hermannstadt in southern Transylvania (now Sibiu, Romania). The following year, he launched a campaign against the Teutonic Knights, who had attempted to eliminate his suzerainty. The Knights were forced to leave Barcaság and the neighboring lands. Andrew's envoys and Leopold VI of Austria signed a treaty on 6 June, which ended the armed conflicts along the Hungarian-Austrian border. As part of the treaty, Leopold VI paid an indemnification for the damages that his troops had caused in Hungary. Andrew made his oldest son, Béla, Duke of Transylvania. Béla's former duchy was given to Andrew's second son, Coloman, in 1226. Duke Béla started expanding his suzerainty over the Cumans, who inhabited the lands east of the Carpathian Mountains. Andrew launched a campaign against Mstislav Mstislavich in 1226 because the latter refused to grant Halych to Andrew's youngest son despite a previous compromise. Andrew besieged and captured Przemyśl, Terebovl, and other fortresses in Halych. However, his troops were routed at Kremenets and Zvenigorod, forcing him to withdraw. Despite his victories, Mstislavich ceded Halych to Andrew's son in early 1227.
In 1228, Andrew authorized his son, Béla, to revise his previous land grants. Pope Honorius also supported Béla's efforts. Béla confiscated the domains of two noblemen, Simon Kacsics and Bánk Bár-Kalán, who had taken part in the conspiracy to murder Queen Gertrude. In 1229, upon Béla's proposal, Andrew confirmed the privileges of the Cuman chieftains who had subjected themselves to Béla. Robert, Archbishop of Esztergom, made a complaint about Andrew to the Holy See, because Andrew continued to employ Jews and Muslims. Pope Gregory IX authorized the archbishop to perform acts of religious censure to persuade Andrew to dismiss his non-Christian officials. Under duress, Andrew issued a new Golden Bull in 1231, which confirmed that Muslims were banned from employment, and empowered the Archbishop of Esztergom to excommunicate the king if he failed to honor the provisions of the new Golden Bull. In the second half of the year, Andrew invaded Halych and restored his youngest son, Andrew, to the throne.
Archbishop Robert excommunicated Palatine Denis and put Hungary under an interdict on 25 February 1232, because the employment of Jews and Muslims continued despite the Golden Bull of 1231. Since the archbishop accused the Muslims of persuading Andrew to seize church property, Andrew restored properties to the archbishop, who soon suspended the interdict. Upon Andrew's demand, Pope Gregory sent Cardinal Giacomo di Pecorari as his legate to Hungary and promised that nobody would be excommunicated without the pope's special authorization. Although Andrew departed for Halych to support his youngest son in a fight against Daniel Romanivich, he continued his negotiations with the papal legate. On 20 August 1233, in the forests of Bereg, he vowed that he would not employ Jews and Muslims to administrate royal revenues, and would pay 10,000 marks as compensation for usurped Church revenues. Andrew repeated his oath in Esztergom in September.
Andrew and Frederick II, Duke of Austria, signed a peace treaty in late 1233. Andrew, who had been widowed, married the 23-year-old Beatrice D'Este on 14 May 1234, even though his sons were sharply opposed to his third marriage. John, Bishop of Bosnia, put Hungary under a new interdict in the first half of 1234, because Andrew had not dismissed his non-Christian officials despite his oath of Bereg. Andrew and Archbishop Robert of Esztergom protested against the bishop's act at the Holy See.
Last years (1234–1235)
Danilo Romanovich laid siege to Halych, and Andrew's youngest son died during the siege in the autumn of 1234. However, Andrew stormed Austria in the summer of 1235, forcing Duke Frederick to pay an indemnification for damages that his troops had caused while raiding Hungary. Upon Andrew's demand, Pope Gregory declared on 31 August that Andrew and his sons could only be excommunicated by the authorization of the Holy See. Andrew died on 21 September, and was buried in Egres Abbey.
Family
Andrew's first wife, Gertrude of Merania, was born around 1185, according to historian Gyula Kristó. Their first child, Mary, was born in 1203 or 1204. She became the wife of Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria. Andrew's eldest son, Béla, was born in 1206. He later succeeded his father as king. Béla's younger sister, Elisabeth, was born in 1207. She married Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia. She died in 1231 and was canonized during Andrew's life. Andrew's second son, Coloman, was born in 1208. His third son, Andrew, was born around 1210. Coloman and Andrew each ruled the Principality of Halych for a short period.
Two years after his first wife was murdered, Andrew married Yolanda de Courtenay, who was born around 1198. Their only child, Yolanda, was born around 1219 and married James I of Aragon. Andrew's third wife, Beatrice D'Este, was about twenty-three when they married in 1234. She gave birth to a son, Stephen, after Andrew's death. However, Andrew's two older sons, Béla and Coloman, accused her of adultery and considered her child to be a bastard. Her grandson, Andrew, became the last monarch of the House of Árpád.
Notes
References
Sources
Primary sources
Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (Edited, Translated and Annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); Anonymus and Master Roger; CEU Press; .
Archdeacon Thomas of Split: History of the Bishops of Salona and Split (Latin text by Olga Perić, edited, translated and annotated by Damir Karbić, Mirjana Matijević Sokol and James Ross Sweeney) (2006). CEU Press. .
The Hypatian Codex II: The Galician-Volynian Chronicle (An annotated translation by George A. Perfecky) (1973). Wilhelm Fink Verlag. LCCN 72-79463.
Secondary sources
1170s births
1235 deaths
Kings of Hungary
Kings of Croatia
13th-century monarchs in Europe
House of Árpád
Christians of the Fifth Crusade
Burials at Oradea Cathedral, Crişana
12th-century Hungarian people
13th-century Hungarian people
Princes of Halych
Hungarian monarchs |
1756 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%20Enquiry%20Concerning%20Human%20Understanding | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work.
The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained.
This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber." The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.
Content
The argument of the Enquiry proceeds by a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another. After expounding his epistemology, Hume explains how to apply his principles to specific topics.
1. Of the different species of philosophy
In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a whole. For Hume, philosophy can be split into two general parts: natural philosophy and the philosophy of human nature (or, as he calls it, "moral philosophy"). The latter investigates both actions and thoughts. He emphasizes in this section, by way of warning, that philosophers with nuanced thoughts will likely be cast aside in favor of those whose conclusions more intuitively match popular opinion. However, he insists, precision helps art and craft of all kinds, including the craft of philosophy.
2. Of the origin of ideas
Next, Hume discusses the distinction between impressions and ideas. By "impressions", he means sensations, while by "ideas", he means memories and imaginings. According to Hume, the difference between the two is that ideas are less vivacious than impressions. For example, the idea of the taste of an orange is far inferior to the impression (or sensation) of actually eating one. Writing within the tradition of empiricism, he argues that impressions are the source of all ideas.
Hume accepts that ideas may be either the product of mere sensation or of the imagination working in conjunction with sensation. According to Hume, the creative faculty makes use of (at least) four mental operations that produce imaginings out of sense-impressions. These operations are compounding (or the addition of one idea onto another, such as a horn on a horse to create a unicorn); transposing (or the substitution of one part of a thing with the part from another, such as with the body of a man upon a horse to make a centaur); augmenting (as with the case of a giant, whose size has been augmented); and diminishing (as with Lilliputians, whose size has been diminished). (Hume 1974:317) In a later chapter, he also mentions the operations of mixing, separating, and dividing. (Hume 1974:340)
However, Hume admits that there is one objection to his account: the problem of "The Missing Shade of Blue". In this thought-experiment, he asks us to imagine a man who has experienced every shade of blue except for one (see Fig. 1). He predicts that this man will be able to divine the color of this particular shade of blue, despite the fact that he has never experienced it. This seems to pose a serious problem for the empirical account, though Hume brushes it aside as an exceptional case by stating that one may experience a novel idea that itself is derived from combinations of previous impressions. (Hume 1974:319)
3. Of the association of ideas
In this chapter, Hume discusses how thoughts tend to come in sequences, as in trains of thought. He explains that there are at least three kinds of associations between ideas: resemblance, contiguity in space-time, and cause-and-effect. He argues that there must be some universal principle that must account for the various sorts of connections that exist between ideas. However, he does not immediately show what this principle might be. (Hume 1974:320-321)
4. Sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding (in two parts)
In the first part, Hume discusses how the objects of inquiry are either "relations of ideas" or "matters of fact", which is roughly the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. The former, he tells the reader, are proved by demonstration, while the latter are given through experience. (Hume 1974:322) In explaining how matters of fact are entirely a product of experience, he dismisses the notion that they may be arrived at through a priori reasoning. For Hume, every effect only follows its cause arbitrarily—they are entirely distinct from one another. (Hume 1974:324)
In part two, Hume inquires into how anyone can justifiably believe that experience yields any conclusions about the world:
"When it is asked, What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, experience. But if we still carry on our sifting humor, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and explication." (Hume 1974:328)
He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration (since "it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change") nor experience (since that would be a circular argument). (Hume 1974:330-332) Here he is describing what would become known as the problem of induction.
5. Sceptical solution of these doubts (in two parts)
According to Hume, we assume that experience tells us something about the world because of habit or custom, which human nature forces us to take seriously. This is also, presumably, the "principle" that organizes the connections between ideas. Indeed, one of the many famous passages of the Enquiry is on the topic of the incorrigibility of human custom. In Section XII, Of the academical or sceptical philosophy, Hume will argue,
"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals." (Hume 1974:425)
In the second part, he provides an account of beliefs. He explains that the difference between belief and fiction is that the former produces a certain feeling of confidence which the latter doesn't. (Hume 1974:340)
6. Of probability
This short chapter begins with the notions of probability and chance. For him, "probability" means a higher chance of occurring, and brings about a higher degree of subjective expectation in the viewer. By "chance", he means all those particular comprehensible events which the viewer considers possible in accord with the viewer's experience. However, further experience takes these equal chances, and forces the imagination to observe that certain chances arise more frequently than others. These gentle forces upon the imagination cause the viewer to have strong beliefs in outcomes. This effect may be understood as another case of custom or habit taking past experience and using it to predict the future. (Hume 1974:346-348)
7. Of the idea of necessary connection (in two parts)
By "necessary connection", Hume means the power or force which necessarily ties one idea to another. He rejects the notion that any sensible qualities are necessarily conjoined, since that would mean we could know something prior to experience. Unlike his predecessors, Berkeley and Locke, Hume rejects the idea that volitions or impulses of the will may be inferred to necessarily connect to the actions they produce by way of some sense of the power of the will. He reasons that, 1. if we knew the nature of this power, then the mind-body divide would seem totally unmysterious to us; 2. if we had immediate knowledge of this mysterious power, then we would be able to intuitively explain why it is that we can control some parts of our bodies (e.g., our hands or tongues), and not others (e.g., the liver or heart); 3. we have no immediate knowledge of the powers which allow an impulse of volition to create an action (e.g., of the "muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits" which are the immediate cause of an action). (Hume 1974:353-354) He produces like arguments against the notion that we have knowledge of these powers as they affect the mind alone. (Hume 1974:355-356) He also argues in brief against the idea that causes are mere occasions of the will of some god(s), a view associated with the philosopher Nicolas Malebranche. (Hume 1974:356-359)
Having dispensed with these alternative explanations, he identifies the source of our knowledge of necessary connections as arising out of observation of constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances. In this way, people know of necessity through rigorous custom or habit, and not from any immediate knowledge of the powers of the will. (Hume 1974:361)
8. Of liberty and necessity (in two parts)
Here Hume tackles the problem of how liberty may be reconciled with metaphysical necessity (otherwise known as a compatibilist formulation of free will). Hume believes that all disputes on the subject have been merely verbal arguments—that is to say, arguments which are based on a lack of prior agreement on definitions. He first shows that it is clear that most events are deterministic, but human actions are more controversial. However, he thinks that these too occur out of necessity since an outside observer can see the same regularity that he would in a purely physical system. To show the compatibility of necessity and liberty, Hume defines liberty as the ability to act on the basis of one's will e.g. the capacity to will one's actions but not to will one's will. He then shows (quite briefly) how determinism and free will are compatible notions, and have no bad consequences on ethics or moral life.
9. Of the reason of animals
Hume insists that the conclusions of the Enquiry will be very powerful if they can be shown to apply to animals and not just humans. He believed that animals were able to infer the relation between cause and effect in the same way that humans do: through learned expectations. (Hume 1974:384) He also notes that this "inferential" ability that animals have is not through reason, but custom alone. Hume concludes that there is an innate faculty of instincts which both beasts and humans share, namely, the ability to reason experimentally (through custom). Nevertheless, he admits, humans and animals differ in mental faculties in a number of ways, including: differences in memory and attention, inferential abilities, ability to make deductions in a long chain, ability to grasp ideas more or less clearly, the human capacity to worry about conflating unrelated circumstances, a sagely prudence which arrests generalizations, a capacity for a greater inner library of analogies to reason with, an ability to detach oneself and scrap one's own biases, and an ability to converse through language (and thus gain from the experience of others' testimonies). (Hume 1974:385, footnote 17.)
10. Of miracles (in two parts)
The next topic which Hume strives to give treatment is that of the reliability of human testimony, and of the role that testimony plays a part in epistemology. This was not an idle concern for Hume. Depending on its outcome, the entire treatment would give the epistemologist a degree of certitude in the treatment of miracles.
True to his empirical thesis, Hume tells the reader that, though testimony does have some force, it is never quite as powerful as the direct evidence of the senses. That said, he provides some reasons why we may have a basis for trust in the testimony of persons: because a) human memory can be relatively tenacious; and b) because people are inclined to tell the truth, and ashamed of telling falsities. Needless to say, these reasons are only to be trusted to the extent that they conform to experience. (Hume 1974:389)
And there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of human testimony, also based on experience. If a) testimonies conflict one another, b) there are a small number of witnesses, c) the speaker has no integrity, d) the speaker is overly hesitant or bold, or e) the speaker is known to have motives for lying, then the epistemologist has reason to be skeptical of the speaker's claims. (Hume 1974:390)
There is one final criterion that Hume thinks gives us warrant to doubt any given testimony, and that is f) if the propositions being communicated are miraculous. Hume understands a miracle to be any event which contradicts the laws of nature. He argues that the laws of nature have an overwhelming body of evidence behind them, and are so well demonstrated to everyone's experience, that any deviation from those laws necessarily flies in the face of all evidence. (Hume 1974:391-392)
Moreover, he stresses that talk of the miraculous has no surface validity, for four reasons. First, he explains that in all of history there has never been a miracle which was attested to by a wide body of disinterested experts. Second, he notes that human beings delight in a sense of wonder, and this provides a villain with an opportunity to manipulate others. Third, he thinks that those who hold onto the miraculous have tended towards barbarism. Finally, since testimonies tend to conflict with one another when it comes to the miraculous—that is, one man's religious miracle may be contradicted by another man's miracle—any testimony relating to the fantastic is self-denunciating. (Hume 1974:393-398)
Still, Hume takes care to warn that historians are generally to be trusted with confidence, so long as their reports on facts are extensive and uniform. However, he seems to suggest that historians are as fallible at interpreting the facts as the rest of humanity. Thus, if every historian were to claim that there was a solar eclipse in the year 1600, then though we might at first naively regard that as in violation of natural laws, we'd come to accept it as a fact. But if every historian were to assert that Queen Elizabeth was observed walking around happy and healthy after her funeral, and then interpreted that to mean that they had risen from the dead, then we'd have reason to appeal to natural laws in order to dispute their interpretation. (Hume 1974:400-402)
11. Of a particular providence and of a future state
Hume continues his application of epistemology to theology by an extended discussion on heaven and hell. The brunt of this chapter allegedly narrates the opinions, not of Hume, but of one of Hume's anonymous friends, who again presents them in an imagined speech by the philosopher Epicurus. His friend argues that, though it is possible to trace a cause from an effect, it is not possible to infer unseen effects from a cause thus traced. The friend insists, then, that even though we might postulate that there is a first cause behind all things—God—we can't infer anything about the afterlife, because we don't know anything of the afterlife from experience, and we can't infer it from the existence of God. (Hume 1974:408)
Hume offers his friend an objection: if we see an unfinished building, then can't we infer that it has been created by humans with certain intentions, and that it will be finished in the future? His friend concurs, but indicates that there is a relevant disanalogy that we can't pretend to know the contents of the mind of God, while we can know the designs of other humans. Hume seems essentially persuaded by his friend's reasoning. (Hume 1974:412-414)
12. Of the academical or skeptical philosophy (in three parts)
The first section of the last chapter is well organized as an outline of various skeptical arguments. The treatment includes the arguments of atheism, Cartesian skepticism, "light" skepticism, and rationalist critiques of empiricism. Hume shows that even light skepticism leads to crushing doubts about the world which - while they ultimately are philosophically justifiable - may only be combated through the non-philosophical adherence to custom or habit. He ends the section with his own reservations towards Cartesian and Lockean epistemologies.
In the second section he returns to the topic of hard skepticism by sharply denouncing it.
"For here is the chief and most confounding objection to excessive skepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it; while it remains in its full force and vigor. We need only ask such a skeptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer... a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail." (Hume 1974:426)
He concludes the volume by setting out the limits of knowledge once and for all. "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."
Critiques and rejoinders
The criteria Hume lists in his examination of the validity of human testimony are roughly upheld in modern social psychology, under the rubric of the communication-persuasion paradigm. Supporting literature includes: the work of social impact theory, which discusses persuasion in part through the number of persons engaging in influence; as well as studies made on the relative influence of communicator credibility in different kinds of persuasion; and examinations of the trustworthiness of the speaker.
The "custom" view of learning can in many ways be likened to associationist psychology. This point of view has been subject to severe criticism in the research of the 20th century. Still, testing on the subject has been somewhat divided. Testing on certain animals like cats have concluded that they do not possess any faculty which allow their minds to grasp an insight into cause and effect. However, it has been shown that some animals, like chimpanzees, were able to generate creative plans of action to achieve their goals, and thus would seem to have a causal insight which transcends mere custom.
References
External links
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Mirrored at eBooks@Adelaide
A version of this work, slightly edited for easier reading
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding The Enquiry hosted at infidels.org
1748 non-fiction books
Books by David Hume
Epistemology literature |
1758 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9%20de%20Longjumeau | André de Longjumeau | André de Longjumeau (also known as Andrew of Longjumeau in English) was a French diplomat and Dominican missionary and one of the most active Occidental diplomats in the East in the 13th century. He led two embassies to the Mongols: the first carried letters from Pope Innocent IV and the second bore gifts and letters from Louis IX of France to Güyük Khan. Well acquainted with the Middle East, he spoke Arabic and "Chaldean" (thought to be either Syriac or Persian).
Mission for the holy Crown of Thorns
André's first mission to the East was when he was asked by the French king Louis IX to go to Constantinople to obtain the crown of thorns that had been sold to him by the Latin emperor Baldwin II in 1238, who was anxious to obtain support for his empire. André was accompanied on this mission by a Dominican friar, brother Jacques.
Papal mission to the Mongols (1245–1247)
André of Longjumeau led one of four missions dispatched to the Mongols by Pope Innocent IV. He left Lyon in the spring of 1245 for the Levant.
He visited Muslim principalities in Syria and representatives of the Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox Church in Seljuk Persia, finally delivering the papal correspondence to a Mongol general near Tabriz. In Tabriz, André de Longjumeau met with a monk from the Far East named Simeon Rabban Ata, who had been put in charge by the Khan of protecting Christians in the Middle East.
Second mission to the Mongols (1249–1251)
At the Mongol camp near Kars, André had met a certain David, who in December 1248 appeared at the court of King Louis IX of France, who was preparing his armies in the allied Kingdom of Cyprus. André, who was now with the French King, interpreted David’s words as a real or pretended offer of alliance from the Mongol general Eljigidei, and a proposal of a joint attack on Ayyubid Syria. In reply to this, the French sovereign dispatched André as his ambassador to Güyük Khan. Longjumeau went with his brother Jacques (also a Dominican) and several others – John Goderiche, John of Carcassonne, Herbert "Le Sommelier", Gerbert of Sens, Robert (a clerk), a certain William, and an unnamed clerk of Poissy.
The party set out on 16 February 1249, with letters from King Louis and the papal legate, and lavish presents, including a chapel tent lined with scarlet cloth and embroidered with sacred pictures. From Cyprus they went to the port of Antioch in Syria, and thence traveled for a year to the Khan's court, going ten leagues (55.56 kilometers) per day. Their route led them through Persia, along the southern and eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, and certainly through Taraz, north-east of Tashkent.
Upon arrival at the supreme Mongol court – either that on the Emil River (near Lake Alakol and the present Russo-Chinese frontier in the Altai Mountains), or more probably at or near Karakorum itself, southwest of Lake Baikal – André found Güyük Khan dead, poisoned, as the envoy supposed, by Batu Khan's agents. The regent Oghul Qaimish, Güyük Khan's widow (the "Camus" of William of Rubruck), seems to have received him with presents and a dismissive letter for Louis IX. It is certain that before the friar had left "Tartary", Möngke, Güyük's successor, had been elected khagan.
André's report to his sovereign, whom he rejoined in 1251 at Caesarea Palaestina, appears to have been a mixture of history and fable; the latter affects his narrative of the Mongols' rise to greatness, and the struggles of their leader Genghis Khan with the mythical Prester John, and in the supposed location of the Mongols' homeland, close to the prison of Gog and Magog. On the other hand, the envoy's account of Mongol customs is fairly accurate, and his statements about Mongol Christianity and its prosperity, though perhaps exaggerated (e.g. as to the 800 chapels on wheels in the nomadic host) are likely factual.
Mounds of bones marked his road, witnesses of devastations that other historians record in detail. He found Christian prisoners from Germany in the heart of "Tartary" at Taraz and was compelled to observe the ceremony of passing between two fires, as a bringer of gifts to a dead Genghis Khan, gifts which were treated by the Mongols as evidence of submission. This insulting behavior, and the language of the letter with which André reappeared, marked the mission a failure: King Louis, says Jean de Joinville, "se repenti fort" ("felt very sorry").
Death
The date and location of André's death is unknown.
We only know of André through references in other writers: see especially William of Rubruck's in Recueil de voyages, iv. (Paris, 1839), pp. 261, 265, 279, 296, 310, 353, 363, 370; Joinville, ed. Francisque Michel (1858, etc.), pp. 142, etc.; Jean Pierre Sarrasin, in same vol., pp. 254–235; William of Nangis in Recueil des historiens des Gaules, xx. 359–367; Rémusat, Mémoires sur les relations politiques des princes chrétiens… avec les… Mongols (1822, etc.), p. 52.
See also
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine
Lawrence of Portugal
Ascelin of Lombardy
Simon of Saint-Quentin
Chronology of European exploration of Asia
Franco-Mongol alliance
Notes
References
13th-century explorers
French Dominicans
Roman Catholic missionaries in Mongolia
Diplomats of the Holy See
Holy See–Mongolia relations
Medieval French diplomats
France–Mongolia relations
French explorers
Explorers of Asia
13th-century births
13th-century deaths
Ambassadors to the Mongol Empire
French Roman Catholic missionaries
Dominican missionaries
French expatriates in Mongolia
13th-century diplomats
Christians of the Sixth Crusade |
1759 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriscus | Andriscus | Andriscus (, Andrískos; 154/153 BC – 146 BC), also often referenced as Pseudo-Philip, was a Greek pretender who became the last independent king of Macedon in 149 BC as Philip VI (, Philipos), based on his claim of being Philip, a now-obscure son of the last legitimate Macedonian king, Perseus. His reign lasted just one year and was toppled by the Roman Republic during the Fourth Macedonian War.
Ancient sources generally agree that he was originally a fuller from Adramyttium in Aeolis in western Anatolia. Around 153 BC, his ancestry was supposedly revealed to him, upon which he travelled to the court of his claimed uncle, the Seleucid monarch Demetrius I Soter, to request assistance in claiming his throne. Demetrius refused and had him sent to Rome, where he was judged harmless and exiled to a city in Italy; he managed to escape, and after gathering support, primarily from Thrace, he launched an invasion of Macedon, defeating Rome's clients and establishing his rule as king. The Romans naturally reacted militarily, triggering war; after some initial successes, Andriscus was defeated and captured by the praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, who subdued Macedon once again.
He was imprisoned for two years before being paraded in Metellus' triumph in 146 BC, after which he was executed. In the aftermath of his revolt, the Romans established the Roman province of Macedonia, ending Macedonian independence and establishing a permanent presence in the region.
Origins and early life
Details of his origins are vague and sometimes conflicting, though it is generally believed that he was a fuller from Adramyttium in Aeolis in western Anatolia. His exact date of birth is unknown, though according to his own story, he was "of maturity" when he made his claims of royalty in 154 BC, and had been raised by a Cretan in Adramyttium.
By his own claims, he was educated at Adramyttium until adolescence, until the Cretan died, after which he was raised with his foster mother. Upon reaching maturity, his mother (or foster mother, according to his claim) gave him a sealed parchment that was supposedly written by Perseus himself, along with the knowledge of the location of two hidden treasures, at Amphipolis and Thessalonica; he would later use these to advance his claims. Ancient sources are unanimous in calling him an impostor and dismiss the story as false; Niese suggests that there is a possibility of his claims being true, but generally agrees that he was a pretender; his main advantage in his claims was his close resemblance to Perseus.
Around 154/153 BC, he left Pergamon for Syria, where he declared his claim to be the illegitimate son of Perseus by a concubine. According to his own account, it was due to his mother (or foster mother) urging him to leave Pergamon to avoid the wrath of the pro-Roman Eumenes II.
Claiming the throne
In Syria
He first staked his claim in Syria. Livy and Cassius Dio write that he simply went from Pergamon to Syria and directly staked his claim before the Seleucid monarch, Demetrius I Soter. Diodorus Siculus offers a different account. According to him, Andriscus was already a mercenary in Demetrius' army. Due to his resemblance to the former Macedonian king, his comrades started jokingly calling him "son of Perseus"; these jokes soon began becoming serious suspicions, and at one point, Andriscus himself decided to seize the opportunity and claimed that he was indeed the son of Perseus. Niese attempts to reconcile both accounts, suggesting that he might have travelled to Syria and then enlisted as a mercenary before staking his claim.
He appealed to the king to help him win back his "ancestral" throne, and found great popular support among the Seleucid populace, to the extent that there were riots in the capital, Antioch. Large segments of the Seleucid population were of Macedonian descent, nurturing strong anti-Roman sentiment since the Roman conquest of Macedon in the Third Macedonian War; they were eager to help the claimant. They proceeded to such an extent that there were even calls for deposing the king if he did not help the pretender. Unmoved, or perhaps frightened, Demetrius had Andriscus arrested and sent to Rome.
In Rome
In Rome, he was brought before the Senate, where Dio writes that he stood "in general contempt" due to what was perceived to be his ordinary nature and transparently false claim. The Romans believed his claim to be fake, because the real Philip had died at Alba Fucens two years after his father Perseus. Considering him harmless, they simply exiled him to an Italian city, but he managed to escape; fleeing Italy, he went to the Greek world, to the city of Miletus.
Gaining support
In Miletus, he tried to advance his claims further, attracting significant attention and sympathy. When the leaders of Miletus learned about this, they arrested him and sought advice from visiting Roman envoys on what to do with him; the envoys were contemptuous of the pretender and told the Miletans he was safe to release. He continued his travels through Ionia, meeting former acquaintances of Perseus and gaining an audience with Kallipa, a former concubine of Perseus who was now married to Athenaios, brother of the Pergamene king Attalus II Philadelphus. Being a Macedonian by birth, and due to her former connections to the Antigonids, she accepted his claim and agreed to help him, giving him money and slaves, and probably recommending that he travel to Thrace, where he would find a following.
He was also received favourably in Byzantium. He finally arrived in Thrace, where he met Teres III, who had married the granddaughter of Perseus and was the son of Cotys IV, who had once been an ally of Perseus. Teres and the other Thracian chieftains, especially a certain Barsabas, received him enthusiastically; he held a coronation ceremony at Teres' court, was given a few hundred Thracian troops, and set off on his campaign.
Conquest of Macedon
His first attempt to invade was unsuccessful, and he initially did not inspire much enthusiasm among the Macedonians; this made the Romans complacent about the pretender. However, he soon managed to encounter a force of Rome's Macedonian client republics, defeating them in Odomantice; he then invaded Macedon proper, defeating Rome's clients on the banks of the Strymon river. Amidst popular acclaim, he crowned himself king at the old Macedonian capital of Pella in 150/149 BC.
Popular support
Although the Macedonians' initial attitude had been lukewarm, his successes won him popularity and widespread support in Macedon. Anti-Roman sentiment was common in Macedon; the populace was obliging in overthrowing the old regime. Support for Andriscus was not uniform — there was significantly more hesitation among the gentry and upper classes, and somewhat more enthusiasm among the lower classes — but the popular mood was largely in his favour. His claims were bolstered by his correct prediction of the locations of two treasures, which he claimed were specified in the "sealed writing" that had been handed to his caretakers by Perseus, and had later been given to him. Even if there were apprehensions about the veracity of his claim, Niese notes that "one liked to believe what one wished; the re-establishment of Macedonia enabled liberation from the burden of Roman rule. The longer these burdens had been borne, the happier they [the Macedonians] were at the prospect of Macedonia under a king restored from the old lineage."
However, it has also been suggested that the extent of his support may not have been as widespread as often believed, and that a significant amount of the Macedonian populace remained pro-republican and pro-Roman. The relative lack of reprisals towards Macedon after his defeat, as compared to the destructions of Corinth and Carthage in the same period, has been suggested as evidence for this theory.
Reign
Military campaigns
Andriscus' reign was defined to a significant degree by his military campaigns, due to his being in a constant state of war with Rome. After his conquest of the Kingdom, he enlarged the army and began campaigns to conquer Thessaly, a key part of the realm of the old Antigonids. Initial resistance to him were from ad hoc forces of Roman allies in Greece, a few Roman units and legates in the region and some resistance from the remnants of Rome's client republics in Macedon, some elements of which seem to have survived for some time into his reign. Soon, however, the Romans sent a legion under the praetor Publius Juventius Thalna to defeat the pretender.
Thalna, however, appears to have underestimated Andriscus' strength, not taking into account the fact that the king's army had grown dramatically since his enthronement. Andriscus attacked and fought him at an unspecified location in Thessaly (Dio gives it as "near the borders of Macedon"); details of the engagement are scarce, but Thalna was killed and his forces almost annihilated. It was the worst defeat Rome would suffer at the hands of the Macedonians; Florus remarks on the irony of how "they that were invincible against real kings, were defeated by this imaginary and pretended king". The victory greatly increased the king's prestige; he obtained an alliance with Carthage, and his domestic popularity was increased dramatically, allowing him to stamp out republican resistance and conquer Thessaly.
Foreign policy
At first, Andriscus attempted to negotiate his position with Rome, but when it became clear that they would not recognize his throne, he embarked on a strongly anti-Roman policy, He continued to cultivate his relations with his Thracian allies, to whom he owed his throne; they would continue to provide significant forces for him during his reign.
Foreign interest in relations with him increased dramatically after his victory over Thalna; as mentioned before, Carthage, which was under attack from Rome in the Third Punic War, allied itself to him and promised him money and ships, though these could not be sent before his ultimate defeat. Significant sympathy, possibly cultivated to a degree by him, arose in Greece; however, the Achaean League remained pro-Roman and continued to resist and fight him. King Attalus II Philadelphus of Pergamon remained staunchly pro-Roman; the Pergamenes were terrified of the prospect of a revived and strong Macedonia on their doorstep.
Domestic policy
Domestically, Andriscus implemented a strongly anti-Roman and anti-Republican policy. Ancient historians interpreted this as his cruelty and tyranny; it has been suggested that these were simply manifestations of his anti-Roman policy and his persecutions of his opponents, including pro-Roman republicans.
At the same time, it is also possible that he was indeed tyrannical. His persecutions increased significantly after his victory over Thalna, costing him significant popularity; this would have dire consequences for him later.
Coinage
The extent and nature of Andriscus' coinage is a matter of debate. It has been suggested that many of his coins were overstrikes of previous Antigonid, republican and Roman coinage. He issued a very small amount of silver drachmae, on which he pictured himself as a Hellenistic king, and added Herakles on the reverse. Only three coins of Andriscus are known, two of which are overstruck, one on a drachm of the Thessalian League, the other on a Roman denarius. It is therefore possible that he also used the denarii he seized as booty after his victory against Thalna to mint his own coins. The coins are also of poor quality, due to the short duration of his reign, the need to reuse old dies and the need to quickly produce wartime coinage.
Some non-royal coinage has also been discovered and dated to the period of his reign, possibly struck by the remnants of the pro-Roman republics. It has also been suggested that the king was more liberal than implied by the sources, and allowed some degree of independent coinage.
Downfall and death
Thalna's defeat shook Roman prestige in the East, and made the Senate realize the full significance of the revolt. They organized a full consular army of two legions under praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus, to defeat Andriscus and check, if not quell, his uprising. Arriving in Greece in 148 BC, Metellus marched along the Thessalian coast in a combined land and sea advance, while the allied Pergamene fleet threatened the coastal district of northern Macedonia. To protect himself against both offensives, Andriscus took up a defensive position with his main army at Pydna, where Metellus engaged him in battle. In the ensuing Battle of Pydna, Andrisus was decisively defeated. His harsh persecutions during his reign now showed their consequences; this single battle was enough to make him lose control of Macedon, as the people submitted to Metellus. He was forced to flee to Thrace, his original base of support, and began organizing a new army; however, Metellus pursued him swiftly and routed his forces before he could prepare them. Andriscus then fled to the Thracian princeling Byzes; however, Metellus managed to persuade the latter into becoming a Roman ally and handing Andriscus over as a prisoner, ending his reign.
He remained a prisoner over the next two years, while Metellus subdued any remaining Macedonian resistance, organized Macedon as a province and settled the Achaean War of 146 BC. When Metellus returned to Rome in 146 BC, he received the agnomen Macedonicus for his victory and was granted a triumph. Andriscus was brought in chains and paraded in the triumph, and later executed — the last king to reign over Macedon.
Assessment and legacy
Ancient sources are extremely hostile, not only to the origins and claims, but also of the character of Andriscus — Diodorus calls him "shot through with cruelty, greed and every base quality"; Dio and Livy call him "a man of the lowest kind". They also describe him as cruel and tyrannical; accusations of tyranny probably reflect his harsh persecutions of pro-Roman and pro-republican elements in Macedon. At the same time, it is possible that he was indeed tyrannical, especially after his victory over Thalna, and perpetrated acts of terrorism and repression against his subjects.
His main legacy was that in the aftermath of his revolt, the Romans understood the strength of anti-Roman feeling that had arisen in Macedon, and realized that the old administration could not be sustained — a thorough reorganization was necessary. Another reason why reorganization was necessary was that Andriscus' persecutions had killed many pro-Roman republicans and thoroughly disrupted the old administrative structure; it would be difficult to re-establish it. Therefore, the Senate made Macedon a Roman province, with Metellus as its first governor.
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Primary sources
Velleius Paterculus, Roman history, Book I
Florus, Epitome, Book 1;
Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Periochae 46-50 and 51-55
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Book 32
Polybius, The Histories, Book 37
Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 21
Secondary sources
Attribution
2nd-century BC Macedonian monarchs
Ancient Anatolian Greeks
2nd-century BC Greek people
Pretenders of Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
Impostor pretenders |
1763 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronicus%20of%20Cyrrhus | Andronicus of Cyrrhus | Andronicus of Cyrrhus or Andronicus Cyrrhestes (Latin; , Andrónikos Kyrrhēstēs; ) was a Hellenized Macedonian astronomer best known for designing the Tower of the Winds in Roman Athens.
Life
Little is known about the life of Andronicus, although his father is recorded as Hermias. It is usually assumed that he came from the Cyrrhus in Macedonia rather than the one in Syria.
Work
Andronicus is usually credited with the construction of the Tower of the Winds in the Roman forum at Athens around a considerable portion of which still exists. It is octagonal, with figures of the eight principal winds (Anemoi) carved on the appropriate side. Originally, a bronze figure of Triton was placed on the summit that was turned round by the wind so that the rod in his hand pointed to the correct wind direction, an idea replicated with subsequent wind vanes. The interior housed a large clepsydra and there were multiple sundials on the exterior, so that it functioned as a kind of early clocktower.
He also built a multifaced sundial for the Temple of Poseidon on the island of Tinos.
References
Citations
Bibliography
.
External links
Tenos island - Epigraphical Database - IG XII,5 891
Ancient Greek astronomers
Ancient Macedonian scientists
Ancient Macedonians in Athens
Roman-era Macedonians
2nd-century BC births
1st-century BC deaths
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
2nd-century BC astronomers |
1765 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronicus | Andronicus | Andronicus or Andronikos () is a classical Greek name. The name has the sense of "male victor, warrior". Its female counterpart is Andronikè (Ἀνδρονίκη). Notable bearers of the name include:
People
Andronicus of Olynthus, Greek general under Demetrius in the 4th century BC
Livius Andronicus (), Greco-Roman dramatist and epic poet who introduced drama to the Romans and produced the first formal play in Latin
Andronicus ben Meshullam, Jewish scholar of the 2nd century BC
Andronicus of Pergamum, 2nd-century BC diplomat
Andronicus of Macedonia, Macedonian governor of Ephesus in 2nd century BC
Andronicus of Cyrrhus (fl. ), Greek astronomer
Andronicus of Rhodes (fl. ), Greek philosopher
Andronicus of Pannonia (Saint Andronicus), Christian apostle of the seventy mentioned in Romans 16:7
Andronicus (physician), Greek physician of the 2nd century
Andronicus (poet), Greek writer of the 4th century
Saint Andronicus, 4th-century Christian martyr
Andronicus of Alexandria, soldier, martyr, saint and companion of Faustus, Abibus and Dionysius of Alexandria
Coptic Pope Andronicus of Alexandria (reigned 616–622)
Andronikos I Komnenos (–1185), Byzantine emperor
Andronikos II Palaiologos (1258–1332)
Andronikos III Palaiologos (1297–1341)
Andronikos IV Palaiologos (1348–1385)
Andronikos V Palaiologos (), co-emperor with his father, John VII Palaiologos
Andronikos Palaiologos (son of Manuel II) (1403–1429), Byzantine prince and governor
Andronikos I of Trebizond (), emperor of Trebizond
Andronikos II of Trebizond ()
Andronikos III of Trebizond ()
Andronicus of Veszprém, 13th-century Hungarian cleric
Andronikos Euphorbenos (), Byzantine aristocrat and military commander
Andronikos Kakoullis (born 2001), Cypriot footballer
Fictional characters
Titus Andronicus, a play by William Shakespeare, possibly inspired by one of the above-listed emperors
Andronicus, or the Unfortunate Politician, a 1646 satire by Thomas Fuller
See also
Andronikos Komnenos (disambiguation)
Andronikos Palaiologos (disambiguation) |
1767 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammianus%20Marcellinus | Ammianus Marcellinus | Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicised as Ammian (Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born , died 400), was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). Written in Latin and known as the Res gestae, his work chronicled the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive.
Biography
Ammianus was born in the East Mediterranean, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia, around 330, into a noble family of Greek origin. Since he calls himself Graecus ( Greek), he was most likely born in a Greek-speaking area of the empire. His native language is unknown but he likely knew Greek as well as Latin. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378.
Ammianus served as an officer in the army of the emperors Constantius II and Julian. He served in Gaul (Julian) and in the east (twice for Constantius, once under Julian). He professes to have been "a former soldier and a Greek" (miles quondam et graecus), and his enrollment among the elite protectores domestici (household guards) shows that he was of middle class or higher birth. Consensus is that Ammianus probably came from a curial family, but it is also possible that he was the son of a comes Orientis of the same family name. He entered the army at an early age, when Constantius II was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and magister militum. Ammianus campaigned in the East twice under Ursicinus.
He travelled with Ursicinus to Italy in an expedition against Silvanus, an officer who had proclaimed himself emperor in Gaul. Ursicinus ended the threat by having Silvanus assassinated, then stayed in the region to help install Julian as Caesar of Gaul, Spain and Britain. Ammianus probably met Julian for the first time while serving on Ursicinus' staff in Gaul.
In 359, Constantius sent Ursicinus back to the east to help in the defence against a Persian invasion led by king Shapur II himself. Ammianus returned with his commander to the East and again served Ursicinus as a staff officer. Ursicinus, although he was the more experienced commander, was placed under the command of Sabinianus, the Magister Peditum of the east. The two did not get along, resulting in a lack of cooperation between the Limitanei (border regiments) of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene under Ursicinus' command and the comitatus (field army) of Sabinianus. While on a mission near Nisibis, Ammianus spotted a Persian patrol which was about to try and capture Ursicinus, and warned his commander in time. In an attempt to locate the Persian Royal Army, Ursicinus sent Ammianus to Jovinianus, the semi-independent governor of Corduene, and a friend of Ursicinus. Ammianus successfully located the Persian main body and reported his findings to Ursicinus.
After his mission in Corduene, Ammianus left the headquarters at Amida in the retinue of Ursinicus, who was on a mission to make sure the bridges across the Euphrates were demolished. They were attacked by the Persian vanguard, who had made a night march in an attempt to catch the Romans at Amida unprepared. After a protracted cavalry battle, the Romans were scattered; Ursicinus evaded capture and fled to Melitene, while Ammianus made a difficult journey back to Amida with a wounded comrade. The Persians besieged and eventually sacked Amida, and Ammianus barely escaped with his life.
When Ursicinus was dismissed from his military post by Constantius, Ammianus too seems to have retired from the military; however, reevaluation of his participation in Julian's Persian campaign has led modern scholarship to suggest that he continued his service but did not for some reason include the period in his history.
He accompanied Julian, for whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the Alamanni and the Sassanids.
After Julian's death, Ammianus accompanied the retreat of the new emperor, Jovian, as far as Antioch.
He was residing in Antioch in 372 when a certain Theodorus was thought to have been identified the successor to the emperor Valens by divination.
Speaking as an alleged eyewitness, Marcellinus recounts how Theodorus and several others were made to confess their deceit through the use of torture, and cruelly punished.
He eventually settled in Rome and began the Res gestae. The precise year of his death is unknown, but scholarly consensus places it somewhere between 392 and 400 at the latest.
Modern scholarship generally describes Ammianus as a pagan who was tolerant of Christianity. Marcellinus writes of Christianity as being a "plain and simple" religion that demands only what is just and mild, and when he condemns the actions of Christians, he does not do so on the basis of their Christianity as such. His lifetime was marked by lengthy outbreaks of sectarian and dogmatic strife within the new state-backed faith, often with violent consequences (especially the Arian controversy) and these conflicts sometimes appeared unworthy to him, though it was territory where he could not risk going very far in criticism, due to the growing and volatile political connections between the church and imperial power.
Ammianus was not blind to the faults of Christians or of pagans and was especially critical of them; he commented that "no wild beasts are so hostile to men as Christian sects in general are to one another" and he condemns the emperor Julian for excessive attachment to (pagan) sacrifice, and for his edict effectively barring Christians from teaching posts.
Work
While living in Rome in the 380s, Ammianus wrote a Latin history of the Roman empire from the accession of Nerva (96) to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople (378), in effect writing a continuation of the history of Tacitus. At 22.16.12 he praises the Serapeum of Alexandria in Egypt as the glory of the empire, so his work was presumably completed before the destruction of that building in 391.
The Res gestae (Rerum gestarum libri XXXI) was originally composed of thirty-one books, but the first thirteen have been lost. The surviving eighteen books, covering the period from 353 to 378, constitute the foundation of modern understanding of the history of the fourth century Roman Empire. They are lauded as a clear, comprehensive, and generally impartial account of events by a contemporary; like many ancient historians, however, Ammianus was in fact not impartial, although he expresses an intention to be so, and had strong moral and religious prejudices. Although criticised as lacking literary merit by his early biographers, he was in fact quite skilled in rhetoric, which significantly has brought the veracity of some of the Res gestae into question.
His work has suffered substantially from manuscript transmission. Aside from the loss of the first thirteen books, the remaining eighteen are in many places corrupt and lacunose. The sole surviving manuscript from which almost every other is derived is a ninth-century Carolingian text, Vatican lat. 1873 (V), produced in Fulda from an insular exemplar. The only independent textual source for Ammianus lies in Fragmenta Marbugensia (M), another ninth-century Frankish codex which was taken apart to provide covers for account-books during the fifteenth century. Only six leaves of M survive; however, before this manuscript was dismantled the Abbot of Hersfeld lent the manuscript to Sigismund Gelenius, who used it in preparing the text of the second Froben edition (G). The dates and relationship of V and M were long disputed until 1936 when R. P. Robinson demonstrated persuasively that V was copied from M. As L. D. Reynolds summarizes, "M is thus a fragment of the archetype; symptoms of an insular pre-archetype are evident."
His handling from his earliest printers was little better. The editio princeps was printed in 1474 in Rome by Georg Sachsel and Bartholomaeus Golsch, which broke off at the end of Book 26. The next edition (Bologna, 1517) suffered from its editor's conjectures upon the poor text of the 1474 edition; the 1474 edition was pirated for the first Froben edition (Basle, 1518). It was not until 1533 that the last five books of Ammianus' history were put into print by Silvanus Otmar and edited by Mariangelus Accursius. The first modern edition was produced by C.U. Clark (Berlin, 1910–1913). The first English translations were by Philemon Holland in 1609, and later by C.D. Yonge in 1862.
Reception
Edward Gibbon judged Ammianus "an accurate and faithful guide, who composed the history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary." But he also condemned Ammianus for lack of literary flair: "The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy." Austrian historian Ernst Stein praised Ammianus as "the greatest literary genius that the world produced between Tacitus and Dante".
According to Kimberly Kagan, his accounts of battles emphasize the experience of the soldiers but at the cost of ignoring the bigger picture. As a result, it is difficult for the reader to understand why the battles he describes had the outcome they did.
Ammianus' work contains a detailed description of the earthquake and tsunami of 365 in Alexandria, which devastated the metropolis and the shores of the eastern Mediterranean on 21 July 365. His report describes accurately the characteristic sequence of earthquake, retreat of the sea, and sudden incoming giant wave.
Notes
Citations
Sources
Editions and translations
Studies
Further reading
External links
Works by Ammianus Marcellinus at Perseus Digital Library
Ammianus Marcellinus on-line project
Ammianus Marcellinus' works in Latin at the Latin Library
Ammianus Marcellinus' works in English at the Tertullian Project with introduction on the manuscripts
Bibliography for Ammianus Marcellinus at Bibliographia Latina Selecta compiled by M.G.M. van der Poel
330 births
390s deaths
4th-century births
4th-century Greek people
4th-century historians
4th-century writers in Latin
4th-century Romans
Ancient Greeks in Rome
Ancient Roman equites
Imperial Roman soldiers
Late-Roman-era pagans
Latin historians
People from Roman Syria
People of the Roman–Sasanian Wars
Roman-era Greeks
Year of death unknown |
1770 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo%2013 | Apollo 13 | Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) ruptured two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system. The crew, supported by backup systems on the lunar module (LM), instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella.
A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the contents of both of the SM's oxygen tanks to space. Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating electric power, the SM's propulsion and life support systems could not operate. The CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing canceled, mission controllers worked to bring the crew home alive.
Although the LM was designed to support two men on the lunar surface for two days, Mission Control in Houston improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days. The crew experienced great hardship, caused by limited power, a chilly and wet cabin and a shortage of potable water. There was a critical need to adapt the CM's cartridges for the carbon dioxide scrubber system to work in the LM; the crew and mission controllers were successful in improvising a solution. The astronauts' peril briefly renewed public interest in the Apollo program; tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on television.
An investigative review board found fault with preflight testing of the oxygen tank and Teflon being placed inside it. The board recommended changes, including minimizing the use of potentially combustible items inside the tank; this was done for Apollo 14. The story of Apollo 13 has been dramatized several times, most notably in the 1995 film Apollo 13 based on Lost Moon, the 1994 memoir co-authored by Lovell – and an episode of the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.
Background
In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade, with a safe return to Earth. NASA worked towards this goal incrementally, sending astronauts into space during Project Mercury and Project Gemini, leading up to the Apollo program. The goal was achieved with Apollo 11, which landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface while Michael Collins orbited the Moon in Command Module Columbia. The mission returned to Earth on July 24, 1969, fulfilling Kennedy's challenge.
NASA had contracted for fifteen Saturn V rockets to achieve the goal; at the time no one knew how many missions this would require. Since success was obtained in 1969 with the sixth SaturnV on Apollo 11, nine rockets remained available for a hoped-for total of ten landings. After the excitement of Apollo 11, the general public grew apathetic towards the space program and Congress continued to cut NASA's budget; Apollo 20 was canceled. Despite the successful lunar landing, the missions were considered so risky that astronauts could not afford life insurance to provide for their families if they died in space.
Even before the first U.S. astronaut entered space in 1961, planning for a centralized facility to communicate with the spacecraft and monitor its performance had begun, for the most part the brainchild of Christopher C. Kraft Jr., who became NASA's first flight director. During John Glenn's Mercury Friendship 7 flight in February 1962 (the first crewed orbital flight by the U.S.), one of Kraft's decisions was overruled by NASA managers. He was vindicated by post-mission analysis and implemented a rule that, during the mission, the flight director's word was absolute – to overrule him, NASA would have to fire him on the spot. Flight directors during Apollo had a one-sentence job description, "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success."
In 1965, Houston's Mission Control Center opened, in part designed by Kraft and now named for him. In Mission Control, each flight controller, in addition to monitoring telemetry from the spacecraft, was in communication via voice loop to specialists in a Staff Support Room (or "back room"), who focused on specific spacecraft systems.
Apollo 13 was to be the second H mission, meant to demonstrate precision lunar landings and explore specific sites on the Moon. With Kennedy's goal accomplished by Apollo 11, and Apollo 12 demonstrating that the astronauts could perform a precision landing, mission planners were able to focus on more than just landing safely and having astronauts minimally trained in geology gather lunar samples to take home to Earth. There was a greater role for science on Apollo 13, especially for geology, something emphasized by the mission's motto, Ex luna, scientia (From the Moon, knowledge).
Astronauts and key Mission Control personnel
Apollo 13's mission commander, Jim Lovell, was 42 years old at the time of the spaceflight. He was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and had been a naval aviator and test pilot before being selected for the second group of astronauts in 1962; he flew with Frank Borman in Gemini 7 in 1965 and Buzz Aldrin in Gemini 12 the following year before flying in Apollo 8 in 1968, the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon. At the time of Apollo 13, Lovell was the NASA astronaut with the most time in space, with 572 hours over the three missions.
Jack Swigert, the command module pilot (CMP), was 38 years old and held a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in aerospace science; he had served in the Air Force and in state Air National Guards and was an engineering test pilot before being selected for the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. Fred Haise, the lunar module pilot (LMP), was 35 years old. He held a B.S. in aeronautical engineering, had been a Marine Corps fighter pilot, and was a civilian research pilot for NASA when he was selected as a Group5 astronaut.
According to the standard Apollo crew rotation, the prime crew for Apollo 13 would have been the backup crew for Apollo 10, with Mercury and Gemini veteran Gordon Cooper in command, Donn F. Eisele as CMP and Edgar Mitchell as LMP. Deke Slayton, NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, never intended to rotate Cooper and Eisele to a prime crew assignment, as both were out of favorCooper for his lax attitude towards training, and Eisele for incidents aboard Apollo7 and an extramarital affair. He assigned them to the backup crew because no other veteran astronauts were available. Slayton's original choices for Apollo 13 were Alan Shepard as commander, Stuart Roosa as CMP, and Mitchell as LMP. However, management felt Shepard needed more training time, as he had only recently resumed active status after surgery for an inner ear disorder and had not flown since 1961. Thus, Lovell's crew (himself, Haise and Ken Mattingly), having all backed up Apollo 11 and being slated for Apollo 14, was swapped with Shepard's.
Swigert was originally CMP of Apollo 13's backup crew, with John Young as commander and Charles Duke as lunar module pilot. Seven days before launch, Duke contracted rubella from a friend of his son. This exposed both the prime and backup crews, who trained together. Of the five, only Mattingly was not immune through prior exposure. Normally, if any member of the prime crew had to be grounded, the remaining crew would be replaced as well, and the backup crew substituted, but Duke's illness ruled this out, so two days before launch, Mattingly was replaced by Swigert. Mattingly never developed rubella and later flew on Apollo 16.
For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts, known as the support crew, was designated in addition to the prime and backup crews used on projects Mercury and Gemini. Slayton created the support crews because James McDivitt, who would command Apollo 9, believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across the US, meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. Support crew members were to assist as directed by the mission commander. Usually low in seniority, they assembled the mission's rules, flight plan, and checklists, and kept them updated; for Apollo 13, they were Vance D. Brand, Jack Lousma and either William Pogue or Joseph Kerwin.
For Apollo 13, flight directors were Gene Kranz, White team (the lead flight director); Glynn Lunney, Black team; Milton Windler, Maroon team and Gerry Griffin, Gold team. The CAPCOMs (the person in Mission Control, during the Apollo program an astronaut, who was responsible for voice communications with the crew) for Apollo 13 were Kerwin, Brand, Lousma, Young and Mattingly.
Mission insignia and call signs
The Apollo 13 mission insignia depicts the Greek god of the Sun, Apollo, with three horses pulling his chariot across the face of the Moon, and the Earth seen in the distance. This is meant to symbolize the Apollo flights bringing the light of knowledge to all people. The mission motto, Ex luna, scientia ("From the Moon, knowledge"), appears. In choosing it, Lovell adapted the motto of his alma mater, the Naval Academy, Ex scientia, tridens ("From knowledge, sea power").
On the patch, the mission number appeared in Roman numerals as Apollo XIII. It did not have to be modified after Swigert replaced Mattingly, as it is one of only two Apollo mission insigniathe other being Apollo 11not to include the names of the crew. It was designed by artist Lumen Martin Winter, who based it on a mural he had painted for the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. The mural was later purchased by actor Tom Hanks, who portrayed Lovell in the movie Apollo 13, and it is now in the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Illinois.
The mission's motto was in Lovell's mind when he chose the call sign Aquarius for the lunar module, taken from Aquarius, the bringer of water. Some in the media erroneously reported that the call sign was taken from a song by that name from the musical Hair. The command module's call sign, Odyssey, was chosen not only for its Homeric association but to refer to the recent movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on a short story by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. In his book, Lovell indicated he chose the name Odyssey because he liked the word and its definition: a long voyage with many changes of fortune.
Space vehicle
The Saturn V rocket used to carry Apollo 13 to the Moon was numbered SA-508, and was almost identical to those used on Apollo8 through 12. Including the spacecraft, the rocket weighed in at . The S-IC first stage's engines were rated to generate less total thrust than Apollo 12's, though they remained within specifications. To keep its liquid hydrogen propellent cold, the S-II second stage's cryogenic tanks were insulated; on earlier Apollo missions this came in the form of panels that were affixed, but beginning with Apollo 13, insulation was sprayed onto the exterior of the tanks. Extra propellant was carried as a test, since future J missions to the Moon would require more propellant for their heavier payloads. This made the vehicle the heaviest yet flown by NASA, and Apollo 13 was visibly slower to clear the launch tower than earlier missions.
The Apollo 13 spacecraft consisted of Command Module 109 and Service Module 109 (together CSM-109), called Odyssey, and Lunar Module7 (LM-7), called Aquarius. Also considered part of the spacecraft was the launch escape system, which would propel the command module (CM) to safety in the event of a problem during liftoff, and the Spacecraft–LM Adapter, numbered as SLA-16, which housed the lunar module (LM) during the first hours of the mission.
The LM stages, CM and service module (SM) were received at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in June 1969; the portions of the Saturn V were received in June and July. Thereafter, testing and assembly proceeded, culminating with the rollout of the launch vehicle, with the spacecraft atop it, on December 15, 1969. Apollo 13 was originally scheduled for launch on March 12, 1970; in January of that year, NASA announced the mission would be postponed until April 11, both to allow more time for planning and to spread the Apollo missions over a longer period of time. The plan was to have two Apollo flights per year and was in response to budgetary constraints that had recently seen the cancellation of Apollo 20.
Training and preparation
The Apollo 13 prime crew undertook over 1,000 hours of mission-specific training, more than five hours for every hour of the mission's ten-day planned duration. Each member of the prime crew spent over 400 hours in simulators of the CM and (for Lovell and Haise) of the LM at KSC and at Houston, some of which involved the flight controllers at Mission Control. Flight controllers participated in many simulations of problems with the spacecraft in flight, which taught them how to react in an emergency. Specialized simulators at other locations were also used by the crew members.
The astronauts of Apollo 11 had minimal time for geology training, with only six months between crew assignment and launch; higher priorities took much of their time. Apollo 12 saw more such training, including practice in the field, using a CAPCOM and a simulated backroom of scientists, to whom the astronauts had to describe what they saw. Scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt saw that there was limited enthusiasm for geology field trips. Believing an inspirational teacher was needed, Schmitt arranged for Lovell and Haise to meet his old professor, Caltech's Lee Silver. The two astronauts, and backups Young and Duke, went on a field trip with Silver at their own time and expense. At the end of their week together, Lovell made Silver their geology mentor, who would be extensively involved in the geology planning for Apollo 13. Farouk El-Baz oversaw the training of Mattingly and his backup, Swigert, which involved describing and photographing simulated lunar landmarks from airplanes. El-Baz had all three prime crew astronauts describe geologic features they saw during their flights between Houston and KSC; Mattingly's enthusiasm caused other astronauts, such as Apollo 14's CMP, Roosa, to seek out El-Baz as a teacher.
Concerned about how close Apollo 11's LM, Eagle, had come to running out of propellant during its lunar descent, mission planners decided that beginning with Apollo 13, the CSM would bring the LM to the low orbit from which the landing attempt would commence. This was a change from Apollo 11 and 12, on which the LM made the burn to bring it to the lower orbit. The change was part of an effort to increase the amount of hover time available to the astronauts as the missions headed into rougher terrain.
The plan was to devote the first of the two four-hour lunar surface extravehicular activities (EVAs) to setting up the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) group of scientific instruments; during the second, Lovell and Haise would investigate Cone crater, near the planned landing site. The two astronauts wore their spacesuits for some 20 walk-throughs of EVA procedures, including sample gathering and use of tools and other equipment. They flew in the "Vomit Comet" in simulated microgravity or lunar gravity, including practice in donning and doffing spacesuits. To prepare for the descent to the Moon's surface, Lovell flew the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) after receiving helicopter training. Despite the crashes of one LLTV and one similar Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) prior to Apollo 13, mission commanders considered flying them invaluable experience and so prevailed on reluctant NASA management to retain them.
Experiments and scientific objectives
Apollo 13's designated landing site was near Fra Mauro crater; the Fra Mauro formation was believed to contain much material spattered by the impact that had filled the Imbrium basin early in the Moon's history. Dating it would provide information not only about the Moon, but about the Earth's early history. Such material was likely to be available at Cone crater, a site where an impact was believed to have drilled deep into the lunar regolith.
Apollo 11 had left a seismometer on the Moon, but the solar-powered unit did not survive its first two-week-long lunar night. The Apollo 12 astronauts also left one as part of its ALSEP, which was nuclear-powered. Apollo 13 also carried a seismometer (known as the Passive Seismic Experiment, or PSE), similar to Apollo 12's, as part of its ALSEP, to be left on the Moon by the astronauts. That seismometer was to be calibrated by the impact, after jettison, of the ascent stage of Apollo 13's LM, an object of known mass and velocity impacting at a known location.
Other ALSEP experiments on Apollo 13 included a Heat Flow Experiment (HFE), which would involve drilling two holes deep. This was Haise's responsibility; he was also to drill a third hole of that depth for a core sample. A Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLEE) measured the protons and electrons of solar origin reaching the Moon. The package also included a Lunar Atmosphere Detector (LAD) and a Dust Detector, to measure the accumulation of debris. The Heat Flow Experiment and the CPLEE were flown for the first time on Apollo 13; the other experiments had been flown before.
To power the ALSEP, the SNAP-27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was flown. Developed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, SNAP-27 was first flown on Apollo 12. The fuel capsule contained about of plutonium oxide. The cask placed around the capsule for transport to the Moon was built with heat shields of graphite and of beryllium, and with structural parts of titanium and of Inconel materials. Thus, it was built to withstand the heat of reentry into the Earth's atmosphere rather than pollute the air with plutonium in the event of an aborted mission.
A United States flag was also taken, to be erected on the Moon's surface. For Apollo 11 and 12, the flag had been placed in a heat-resistant tube on the front landing leg; it was moved for Apollo 13 to the Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) in the LM descent stage. The structure to fly the flag on the airless Moon was improved from Apollo 12's.
For the first time, red stripes were placed on the helmet, arms and legs of the commander's A7L spacesuit. This was done as, after Apollo 11, those reviewing the images taken had trouble distinguishing Armstrong from Aldrin, but the change was approved too late for Apollo 12. New drink bags that attached inside the helmets and were to be sipped from as the astronauts walked on the Moon were demonstrated by Haise during Apollo 13's final television broadcast before the accident.
Apollo 13's primary mission objectives were to: "Perform selenological inspection, survey, and sampling of materials in a preselected region of the Fra Mauro Formation. Deploy and activate an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. Develop man's capability to work in the lunar environment. Obtain photographs of candidate exploration sites." The astronauts were also to accomplish other photographic objectives, including of the Gegenschein from lunar orbit, and of the Moon itself on the journey back to Earth. Some of this photography was to be performed by Swigert as Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon. Swigert was also to take photographs of the Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system. Apollo 13 had twelve cameras on board, including those for television and moving pictures. The crew was also to downlink bistatic radar observations of the Moon. None of these was attempted because of the accident.
Flight of Apollo 13
Launch and translunar injection
The mission was launched at the planned time, 2:13:00 pm EST (19:13:00 UTC) on April 11. An anomaly occurred when the second-stage, center (inboard) engine shut down about two minutes early. This was caused by severe pogo oscillations. Starting with Apollo 10, the vehicle's guidance system was designed to shut the engine down in response to chamber pressure excursions. Pogo oscillations had occurred on Titan rockets (used during the Gemini program) and on previous Apollo missions, but on Apollo 13 they were amplified by an interaction with turbopump cavitation. A fix to prevent pogo was ready for the mission, but schedule pressure did not permit the hardware's integration into the Apollo 13 vehicle. A post-flight investigation revealed the engine was one cycle away from catastrophic failure. The four outboard engines and the S-IVB third stage burned longer to compensate, and the vehicle achieved very close to the planned circular parking orbit, followed by a translunar injection (TLI) about two hours later, setting the mission on course for the Moon.
After TLI, Swigert performed the separation and transposition maneuvers before docking the CSM Odyssey to the LM Aquarius, and the spacecraft pulled away from the third stage. Ground controllers then sent the third stage on a course to impact the Moon in range of the Apollo 12 seismometer, which it did just over three days into the mission.
The crew settled in for the three-day trip to Fra Mauro. At 30:40:50 into the mission, with the TV camera running, the crew performed a burn to place Apollo 13 on a hybrid trajectory. The departure from a free-return trajectory meant that if no further burns were performed, Apollo 13 would miss Earth on its return trajectory, rather than intercept it, as with a free return. A free return trajectory could only reach sites near the lunar equator; a hybrid trajectory, which could be started at any point after TLI, allowed sites with higher latitudes, such as Fra Mauro, to be reached. Communications were enlivened when Swigert realized that in the last-minute rush, he had omitted to file his federal income tax return (due April 15), and amid laughter from mission controllers, asked how he could get an extension. He was found to be entitled to a 60-day extension for being out of the country at the deadline.
Entry into the LM to test its systems had been scheduled for 58:00:00; when the crew awoke on the third day of the mission, they were informed it had been moved up three hours and was later moved up again by another hour. A television broadcast was scheduled for 55:00:00; Lovell, acting as emcee, showed the audience the interiors of Odyssey and Aquarius. The audience was limited since none of the television networks were carrying the broadcast, forcing Marilyn Lovell (Jim Lovell's wife) to go to the VIP room at Mission Control if she wanted to watch her husband and his crewmates.
Accident
About six and a half minutes after the TV broadcastapproaching 56:00:00Apollo 13 was about from Earth. Haise was completing the shutdown of the LM after testing its systems while Lovell stowed the TV camera. Jack Lousma, the CAPCOM, sent minor instructions to Swigert, including changing the attitude of the craft to facilitate photography of Comet Bennett.
The pressure sensor in one of the SM's oxygen tanks had earlier appeared to be malfunctioning, so Sy Liebergot (the EECOM, in charge of monitoring the CSM's electrical system) requested that the stirring fans in the tanks be activated. Normally this was done once daily; a stir would destratify the contents of the tanks, making the pressure readings more accurate. The Flight Director, Kranz, had Liebergot wait a few minutes for the crew to settle down after the telecast, then Lousma relayed the request to Swigert, who activated the switches controlling the fans, and after a few seconds turned them off again.
Ninety-five seconds after Swigert activated those switches, the astronauts heard a "pretty large bang", accompanied by fluctuations in electrical power and the firing of the attitude control thrusters. Communications and telemetry to Earth were lost for 1.8 seconds, until the system automatically corrected by switching the high-gain S-band antenna, used for translunar communications, from narrow-beam to wide-beam mode. The accident happened at 55:54:53 (03:08 UTC on April 14, 10:08 PM EST, April 13). Swigert reported 26 seconds later, "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here," echoed at 55:55:42 by Lovell, "Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a Main B Bus undervolt." William Fenner was the guidance officer (GUIDO) who was the first to report a problem in the control room to Kranz.
Lovell's initial thought on hearing the noise was that Haise had activated the LM's cabin-repressurization valve, which also produced a bang (Haise enjoyed doing so to startle his crewmates), but Lovell could see that Haise had no idea what had happened. Swigert initially thought that a meteoroid might have struck the LM, but he and Lovell quickly realized there was no leak. The "Main Bus B undervolt" meant that there was insufficient voltage produced by the SM's three fuel cells (fueled by hydrogen and oxygen piped from their respective tanks) to the second of the SM's two electric power distribution systems. Almost everything in the CSM required power. Although the bus momentarily returned to normal status, soon both buses A and B were short on voltage. Haise checked the status of the fuel cells and found that two of them were dead. Mission rules forbade entering lunar orbit unless all fuel cells were operational.
In the minutes after the accident, there were several unusual readings, showing that tank2 was empty and tank1's pressure slowly falling, that the computer on the spacecraft had reset and that the high-gain antenna was not working. Liebergot initially missed the worrying signs from tank2 following the stir, as he was focusing on tank1, believing that its reading would be a good guide to what was present in tank2, as did controllers supporting him in the "back room". When Kranz questioned Liebergot on this, he initially responded that there might be false readings due to an instrumentation problem; he was often teased about that in the years to come. Lovell, looking out the window, reported "a gas of some sort" venting into space, making it clear that there was a serious problem.
Since the fuel cells needed oxygen to operate, when Oxygen Tank1 ran dry, the remaining fuel cell would shut down, meaning the CSM's only significant sources of power and oxygen would be the CM's batteries and its oxygen "surge tank". These would be needed for the final hours of the mission, but the remaining fuel cell, already starved for oxygen, was drawing from the surge tank. Kranz ordered the surge tank isolated, saving its oxygen, but this meant that the remaining fuel cell would die within two hours, as the oxygen in tank1 was consumed or leaked away. The volume surrounding the spacecraft was filled with myriad small bits of debris from the accident, complicating any efforts to use the stars for navigation. The mission's goal became simply getting the astronauts back to Earth alive.
Looping around the Moon
The lunar module had charged batteries and full oxygen tanks for use on the lunar surface, so Kranz directed that the astronauts power up the LM and use it as a "lifeboat"a scenario anticipated but considered unlikely. Procedures for using the LM in this way had been developed by LM flight controllers after a training simulation for Apollo 10 in which the LM was needed for survival, but could not be powered up in time. Had Apollo 13's accident occurred on the return voyage, with the LM already jettisoned, the astronauts would have died, as they would have following an explosion in lunar orbit, including one while Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon.
A key decision was the choice of return path. A "direct abort" would use the SM's main engine (the Service Propulsion System or SPS) to return before reaching the Moon. However, the accident could have damaged the SPS, and the fuel cells would have to last at least another hour to meet its power requirements, so Kranz instead decided on a longer route: the spacecraft would swing around the Moon before heading back to Earth. Apollo 13 was on the hybrid trajectory which was to take it to Fra Mauro; it now needed to be brought back to a free return. The LM's Descent Propulsion System (DPS), although not as powerful as the SPS, could do this, but new software for Mission Control's computers needed to be written by technicians as it had never been contemplated that the CSM/LM spacecraft would have to be maneuvered from the LM. As the CM was being shut down, Lovell copied down its guidance system's orientation information and performed hand calculations to transfer it to the LM's guidance system, which had been turned off; at his request Mission Control checked his figures. At 61:29:43.49 the DPS burn of 34.23 seconds took Apollo 13 back to a free return trajectory.
The change would get Apollo 13 back to Earth in about four days' timethough with splashdown in the Indian Ocean, where NASA had few recovery forces. Jerry Bostick and other Flight Dynamics Officers (FIDOs) were anxious both to shorten the travel time and to move splashdown to the Pacific Ocean, where the main recovery forces were located. One option would shave 36 hours off the return time, but required jettisoning the SM; this would expose the CM's heat shield to space during the return journey, something for which it had not been designed. The FIDOs also proposed other solutions. After a meeting involving NASA officials and engineers, the senior individual present, Manned Spaceflight Center director Robert R. Gilruth, decided on a burn using the DPS, that would save 12 hours and land Apollo 13 in the Pacific. This "PC+2" burn would take place two hours after pericynthion, the closest approach to the Moon. At pericynthion, Apollo 13 set the record (per the Guinness Book of World Records), which still stands, for the furthest distance from Earth by a crewed spacecraft: from Earth at 7:21 pm EST, April 14 (00:21:00 UTC April 15).
While preparing for the burn, the crew was told that the S-IVB had impacted the Moon as planned, leading Lovell to quip, "Well, at least something worked on this flight." Kranz's White team of mission controllers, who had spent most of their time supporting other teams and developing the procedures urgently needed to get the astronauts home, took their consoles for the PC+2 procedure. Normally, the accuracy of such a burn could be assured by checking the alignment Lovell had transferred to the LM's computer against the position of one of the stars astronauts used for navigation, but the light glinting off the many pieces of debris accompanying the spacecraft made that impractical. The astronauts accordingly used the one star available whose position could not be obscuredthe Sun. Houston also informed them that the Moon would be centered in the commander's window of the LM as they made the burn, which was almost perfectless than 0.3 meters (1 foot) per second off. The burn, at 79:27:38.95, lasted four minutes and 23 seconds. The crew then shut down most LM systems to conserve consumables.
Return to Earth
The LM carried enough oxygen, but that still left the problem of removing carbon dioxide, which was absorbed by canisters of lithium hydroxide pellets.
The LM's stock of canisters, meant to accommodate two astronauts for 45 hours on the Moon, was not enough to support three astronauts for the return journey to Earth. The CM had enough canisters, but they were of a different shape and size to the LM's, hence unable to be used in the LM's equipment. Engineers on the ground devised a way to bridge the gap, using plastic covers ripped from procedure manuals, duct tape, and other items available on the spacecraft. NASA engineers referred to the improvised device as "the mailbox". The procedure for building the device was read to the crew by CAPCOM Joseph Kerwin over the course of an hour, and was built by Swigert and Haise; carbon dioxide levels began dropping immediately. Lovell later described this improvisation as "a fine example of cooperation between ground and space".
The CSM's electricity came from fuel cells that produced water as a byproduct, but the LM was powered by silver-zinc batteries which did not, so both electrical power and water (needed for equipment cooling as well as drinking) would be critical. LM power consumption was reduced to the lowest level possible; Swigert was able to fill some drinking bags with water from the CM's water tap, but even assuming rationing of personal consumption, Haise initially calculated they would run out of water for cooling about five hours before reentry. This seemed acceptable because the systems of Apollo 11's LM, once jettisoned in lunar orbit, had continued to operate for seven to eight hours even with the water cut off. In the end, Apollo 13 returned to Earth with of water remaining. The crew's ration was 0.2 liters (6.8 fl oz) of water per person per day; the three astronauts lost a total of among them, and Haise developed a urinary tract infection. This infection was probably caused by the reduced water intake, but microgravity and effects of cosmic radiation might have impaired his immune system's reaction to the pathogen.
Inside the darkened spacecraft, the temperature dropped as low as . Lovell considered having the crew don their spacesuits, but decided this would be too hot. Instead, Lovell and Haise wore their lunar EVA boots and Swigert put on an extra coverall. All three astronauts were cold, especially Swigert, who had got his feet wet while filling the water bags and had no lunar overshoes (since he had not been scheduled to walk on the Moon). As they had been told not to discharge their urine to space to avoid disturbing the trajectory, they had to store it in bags. Water condensed on the walls, though any condensation that may have been behind equipment panels caused no problems, partly because of the extensive electrical insulation improvements instituted after the Apollo 1 fire. Despite all this, the crew voiced few complaints.
Flight controller John Aaron, along with Mattingly and several engineers and designers, devised a procedure for powering up the command module from full shutdownsomething never intended to be done in flight, much less under Apollo 13's severe power and time constraints. The astronauts implemented the procedure without apparent difficulty: Kranz later credited all three astronauts having been test pilots, accustomed to having to work in critical situations with their lives on the line, for their survival.
Recognizing that the cold conditions combined with insufficient rest would hinder the time critical startup of the command module prior to reentry, at 133 hours into flight Mission Control gave Lovell the okay to fully power up the LM to raise the cabin temperature, which included restarting the LM's guidance computer. Having the LM's computer running enabled Lovell to perform a navigational sighting and calibrate the LM's Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). With the lunar module's computer aware of its location and orientation, the command module's computer was later calibrated in a reverse of the normal procedures used to set up the LM, shaving steps from the restart process and increasing the accuracy of the PGNCS-controlled reentry.
Reentry and splashdown
Despite the accuracy of the transearth injection, the spacecraft slowly drifted off course, necessitating a correction. As the LM's guidance system had been shut down following the PC+2 burn, the crew was told to use the line between night and day on the Earth to guide them, a technique used on NASA's Earth-orbit missions but never on the way back from the Moon. This DPS burn, at 105:18:42 for 14 seconds, brought the projected entry flight path angle back within safe limits. Nevertheless, yet another burn was needed at 137:40:13, using the LM's reaction control system (RCS) thrusters, for 21.5 seconds. The SM was jettisoned less than half an hour later, allowing the crew to see the damage for the first time, and photograph it. They reported that an entire panel was missing from the SM's exterior, the fuel cells above the oxygen tank shelf were tilted, that the high-gain antenna was damaged, and there was a considerable amount of debris elsewhere. Haise could see possible damage to the SM's engine bell, validating Kranz's decision not to use the SPS.
The last problem to be solved was how to separate the lunar module a safe distance away from the command module just before reentry. The normal procedure, in lunar orbit, was to release the LM and then use the service module's RCS to pull the CSM away, but by this point, the SM had already been released. Grumman, manufacturer of the LM, assigned a team of University of Toronto engineers, led by senior scientist Bernard Etkin, to solve the problem of how much air pressure to use to push the modules apart. The astronauts applied the solution, which was successful. The LM reentered Earth's atmosphere and was destroyed, the remaining pieces falling in the deep ocean. Apollo 13's final midcourse correction had addressed the concerns of the Atomic Energy Commission, which wanted the cask containing the plutonium oxide intended for the SNAP-27 RTG to land in a safe place. The impact point was over the Tonga Trench in the Pacific, one of its deepest points, and the cask sank to the bottom. Later helicopter surveys found no radioactive leakage.
Ionization of the air around the command module during reentry would typically cause a four-minute communications blackout. Apollo 13's shallow reentry path lengthened this to six minutes, longer than had been expected; controllers feared that the CM's heat shield had failed. Odyssey regained radio contact and splashed down safely in the South Pacific Ocean, , southeast of American Samoa and from the recovery ship, USS Iwo Jima. Although fatigued, the crew was in good condition except for Haise, who had developed a serious urinary tract infection because of insufficient water intake. The crew stayed overnight on the ship and flew to Pago Pago, American Samoa, the next day. They flew to Hawaii, where President Richard Nixon awarded them the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. They stayed overnight, and then were flown back to Houston.
En route to Honolulu, President Nixon stopped at Houston to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team. He originally planned to give the award to NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine, but Paine recommended the mission operations team.
Public and media reaction
Worldwide interest in the Apollo program was reawakened by the incident; television coverage was seen by millions. Four Soviet ships headed toward the landing area to assist if needed, and other nations offered assistance should the craft have to splash down elsewhere. President Nixon canceled appointments, phoned the astronauts' families, and drove to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Apollo's tracking and communications were coordinated.
The rescue received more public attention than any spaceflight to that point, other than the first Moon landing on Apollo 11. There were worldwide headlines, and people surrounded television sets to get the latest developments, offered by networks who interrupted their regular programming for bulletins. Pope Paul VI led a congregation of 10,000 people in praying for the astronauts' safe return; ten times that number offered prayers at a religious festival in India. The United States Senate on April 14 passed a resolution urging businesses to pause at 9:00pm local time that evening to allow for employee prayer.
An estimated 40million Americans watched Apollo13's splashdown, carried live on all three networks, with another 30million watching some portion of the 6½ hour telecast. Even more outside the U.S. watched. Jack Gould of The New York Times stated that Apollo13, "which came so close to tragic disaster, in all probability united the world in mutual concern more fully than another successful landing on the Moon would have".
Investigation and response
Review board
Immediately upon the crew's return, NASA Administrator Paine and Deputy Administrator George Low appointed a review board to investigate the accident. Chaired by NASA Langley Research Center Director Edgar M. Cortright and including Neil Armstrong and six others, the board sent its final report to Paine on June 15.
It found that the failure began in the service module's number2 oxygen tank. Damaged Teflon insulation on the wires to the stirring fan inside Oxygen Tank2 allowed the wires to short circuit and ignite this insulation. The resulting fire increased the pressure inside the tank until the tank dome failed, filling the fuel cell bay (SM Sector4) with rapidly expanding gaseous oxygen and combustion products. The pressure rise was sufficient to pop the rivets holding the aluminum exterior panel covering Sector4 and blow it out, exposing the sector to space and snuffing out the fire. The detached panel hit the nearby high-gain antenna, disabling the narrow-beam communication mode and interrupting communication with Earth for 1.8 seconds while the system automatically switched to the backup wide-beam mode. The sectors of the SM were not airtight from each other, and had there been time for the entire SM to become as pressurized as Sector4, the force on the CM's heat shield would have separated the two modules. The report questioned the use of Teflon and other materials shown to be flammable in supercritical oxygen, such as aluminum, within the tank. The board found no evidence pointing to any other theory of the accident.
Mechanical shock forced the oxygen valves closed on the number1 and number3 fuel cells, putting them out of commission. The sudden failure of Oxygen Tank2 compromised Oxygen Tank1, causing its contents to leak out, possibly through a damaged line or valve, over the next 130 minutes, entirely depleting the SM's oxygen supply. With both SM oxygen tanks emptying, and with other damage to the SM, the mission had to be aborted. The board praised the response to the emergency: "The imperfection in Apollo 13 constituted a near disaster, averted only by outstanding performance on the part of the crew and the ground control team which supported them."
Oxygen Tank 2 was manufactured by the Beech Aircraft Company of Boulder, Colorado, as subcontractor to North American Rockwell (NAR) of Downey, California, prime contractor for the CSM. It contained two thermostatic switches, originally designed for the command module's 28-volt DC power, but which could fail if subjected to the 65 volts used during ground testing at KSC. Under the original 1962 specifications, the switches would be rated for 28 volts, but revised specifications issued in 1965 called for 65 volts to allow for quicker tank pressurization at KSC. Nonetheless, the switches Beech used were not rated for 65 volts.
At NAR's facility, Oxygen Tank 2 had been originally installed in an oxygen shelf placed in the Apollo 10 service module, SM-106, but which was removed to fix a potential electromagnetic interference problem and another shelf substituted. During removal, the shelf was accidentally dropped at least , because a retaining bolt had not been removed. The probability of damage from this was low, but it is possible that the fill line assembly was loose and made worse by the fall. After some retesting (which did not include filling the tank with liquid oxygen), in November 1968 the shelf was re-installed in SM-109, intended for Apollo 13, which was shipped to KSC in June 1969.
The Countdown Demonstration Test took place with SM-109 in its place near the top of the Saturn V and began on March 16, 1970. During the test, the cryogenic tanks were filled, but Oxygen Tank 2 could not be emptied through the normal drain line, and a report was written documenting the problem. After discussion among NASA and the contractors, attempts to empty the tank resumed on March 27. When it would not empty normally, the heaters in the tank were turned on to boil off the oxygen. The thermostatic switches were designed to prevent the heaters from raising the temperature higher than , but they failed under the 65-volt power supply applied. Temperatures on the heater tube within the tank may have reached , most likely damaging the Teflon insulation. The temperature gauge was not designed to read higher than , so the technician monitoring the procedure detected nothing unusual. This heating had been approved by Lovell and Mattingly of the prime crew, as well as by NASA managers and engineers. Replacement of the tank would have delayed the mission by at least a month. The tank was filled with liquid oxygen again before launch; once electric power was connected, it was in a hazardous condition. The board found that Swigert's activation of the Oxygen Tank2 fan at the request of Mission Control caused an electric arc that set the tank on fire.
The board conducted a test of an oxygen tank rigged with hot-wire ignitors that caused a rapid rise in temperature within the tank, after which it failed, producing telemetry similar to that seen with the Apollo 13 Oxygen Tank 2. Tests with panels similar to the one that was seen to be missing on SM Sector4 caused separation of the panel in the test apparatus.
Changes in response
For Apollo 14 and subsequent missions, the oxygen tank was redesigned, the thermostats being upgraded to handle the proper voltage. The heaters were retained since they were necessary to maintain oxygen pressure. The stirring fans, with their unsealed motors, were removed, which meant the oxygen quantity gauge was no longer accurate. This required adding a third tank so that no tank would go below half full. The third tank was placed in Bay1 of the SM, on the side opposite the other two, and was given an isolation valve that could isolate it from the fuel cells and from the other two oxygen tanks in an emergency and allow it to feed the CM's environmental system only. The quantity probe was upgraded from aluminum to stainless steel.
All electrical wiring in Bay4 was sheathed in stainless steel. The fuel cell oxygen supply valves were redesigned to isolate the Teflon-coated wiring from the oxygen. The spacecraft and Mission Control monitoring systems were modified to give more immediate and visible warnings of anomalies. An emergency supply of of water was stored in the CM, and an emergency battery, identical to those that powered the LM's descent stage, was placed in the SM. The LM was modified to make transfer of power from the LM to the CM easier.
Aftermath
On February 5, 1971, Apollo 14's LM, Antares, landed on the Moon with astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell aboard, near Fra Mauro, the site Apollo 13 had been intended to explore. Haise served as CAPCOM during the descent to the Moon, and during the second EVA, during which Shepard and Mitchell explored near Cone crater.
None of the Apollo 13 astronauts flew in space again. Lovell retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, entering the private sector. Swigert was to have flown on the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (the first joint mission with the Soviet Union) but was removed as part of the fallout from the Apollo 15 postal covers incident. He took a leave of absence from NASA in 1973 and left the agency to enter politics, being elected to the House of Representatives in 1982, but died of cancer before he could be sworn in. Haise was slated to have been the commander of the canceled Apollo 19 mission, and flew the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests before retiring from NASA in 1979.
Several experiments were completed during Apollo 13, even though the mission did not land on the Moon. One involved the launch vehicle's S-IVB (the Saturn V's third stage), which on prior missions had been sent into solar orbit once detached. The seismometer left by Apollo 12 had detected frequent impacts of small objects onto the Moon, but larger impacts would yield more information about the Moon's crust, so it was decided that, beginning with Apollo 13, the S-IVB would be crashed into the Moon. The impact occurred at 77:56:40 into the mission and produced enough energy that the gain on the seismometer, from the impact, had to be reduced. An experiment to measure the amount of atmospheric electrical phenomena during the ascent to orbitadded after Apollo 12 was struck by lightningreturned data indicating a heightened risk during marginal weather. A series of photographs of Earth, taken to test whether cloud height could be determined from synchronous satellites, achieved the desired results.
As a joke, Grumman issued an invoice to North American Rockwell, prime contractor for the CSM, for "towing" the CSM most of the way to the Moon and back. Line items included 400001 miles at $1 each (plus $4 for the first mile); $536.05 for battery charging; oxygen; and four nights at $8 per night for an "additional guest in room" (Swigert). After a 20% "commercial discount", and a 2% discount for timely payment, the final total was $312,421.24. North American declined payment, noting that it had ferried three previous Grumman LMs to the Moon without compensation.
The CM was disassembled for testing and parts remained in storage for years; some were used for a trainer for the Skylab Rescue Mission. That trainer was subsequently displayed at the Kentucky Science Center. Max Ary of the Cosmosphere made it a project to restore Odyssey; it is on display there, in Hutchinson, Kansas.
Apollo 13 was called a "successful failure" by Lovell. Mike Massimino, a Space Shuttle astronaut, stated that Apollo 13 "showed teamwork, camaraderie and what NASA was really made of". The response to the accident has been repeatedly called "NASA's finest hour"; it is still viewed that way. Author Colin Burgess wrote, "the life-or-death flight of Apollo 13 dramatically evinced the colossal risks inherent in manned spaceflight. Then, with the crew safely back on Earth, public apathy set in once again."
William R. Compton, in his book about the Apollo Program, said of Apollo 13, "Only a heroic effort of real-time improvisation by mission operations teams saved the crew." Rick Houston and Milt Heflin, in their history of Mission Control, stated, "Apollo 13 proved mission control could bring those space voyagers back home again when their lives were on the line." Former NASA chief historian Roger D. Launius wrote, "More than any other incident in the history of spaceflight, recovery from this accident solidified the world's belief in NASA's capabilities". Nevertheless, the accident convinced some officials, such as Manned Spaceflight Center director Gilruth, that if NASA kept sending astronauts on Apollo missions, some would inevitably be killed, and they called for as quick an end as possible to the program. Nixon's advisers recommended canceling the remaining lunar missions, saying that a disaster in space would cost him political capital. Budget cuts made such a decision easier, and during the pause after Apollo 13, two missions were canceled, meaning that the program ended with Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Popular culture, media and 50th anniversary
The 1974 movie Houston, We've Got a Problem, while set around the Apollo 13 incident, is a fictional drama about the crises faced by ground personnel when the emergency disrupts their work schedules and places further stress on their lives. Lovell publicly complained about the movie, saying it was "fictitious and in poor taste".
"Houston... We've Got a Problem" was the title of an episode of the BBC documentary series A Life At Stake, broadcast in March 1978. This was an accurate, if simplified, reconstruction of the events. In 1994, during the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11, PBS released a 90-minute documentary titled Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back.
Following the flight, the crew planned to write a book, but they all left NASA without starting it. After Lovell retired in 1991, he was approached by journalist Jeffrey Kluger about writing a non-fiction account of the mission. Swigert died in 1982 and Haise was no longer interested in such a project. The resultant book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, was published in 1994.
The next year, in 1995, a film adaptation of the book, Apollo 13, was released, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Lovell, Bill Paxton as Haise, Kevin Bacon as Swigert, Gary Sinise as Mattingly, Ed Harris as Kranz, and Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Lovell. James Lovell, Kranz, and other principals have stated that this film depicted the events of the mission with reasonable accuracy, given that some dramatic license was taken. For example, the film changes the tense of Lovell's famous follow-up to Swigert's original words from, "Houston, we've had a problem" to "Houston, we have a problem". The film also invented the phrase "Failure is not an option", uttered by Harris as Kranz in the film; the phrase became so closely associated with Kranz that he used it for the title of his 2000 autobiography. The film won two of the nine Academy Awards it was nominated for, Best Film Editing and Best Sound.
In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, co-produced by Hanks and Howard, the mission is dramatized in the episode "We Interrupt This Program". Rather than showing the incident from the crew's perspective as in the Apollo 13 feature film, it is instead presented from an Earth-bound perspective of television reporters competing for coverage of the event.
In 2020, the BBC World Service began airing 13 Minutes to the Moon, radio programs which draw on NASA audio from the mission, as well as archival and recent interviews with participants. Episodes began airing for Season 2 starting on March 8, 2020, with episode 1, "Time bomb: Apollo 13", explaining the launch and the explosion. Episode 2 details Mission Control's denial and disbelief of the accident, with other episodes covering other aspects of the mission. The seventh and final episode was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In "Delay to Episode 7", the BBC explained that the presenter of the series, medical doctor Kevin Fong, had been called into service.
In advance of the 50th anniversary of the mission in 2020, an Apollo in Real Time site for the mission went online, allowing viewers to follow along as the mission unfolds, view photographs and video, and listen to audio of conversations between Houston and the astronauts as well as between mission controllers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA did not hold any in-person events during April 2020 for the flight's 50th anniversary, but premiered a new documentary, Apollo 13: Home Safe on April 10, 2020. A number of events were rescheduled for later in 2020.
Gallery
Notes
References
Sources
External links
NASA reports
All NASA mission transcripts
"Apollo 13 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription" (PDF) NASA, April 1970
Multimedia
Fred Haise
Jim Lovell
Jack Swigert
Apollo program missions
Spacecraft launched by Saturn rockets
Articles containing video clips
Crewed missions to the Moon |
1773 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo%207 | Apollo 7 | Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that had killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test on January 27, 1967. The Apollo7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with command module pilot Donn F. Eisele and lunar module pilot R. Walter Cunningham (so designated even though Apollo7 did not carry a Lunar Module).
The three astronauts were originally designated for the second crewed Apollo flight, and then as backups for Apollo1. After the Apollo1 fire, crewed flights were suspended while the cause of the accident was investigated and improvements made to the spacecraft and safety procedures, and uncrewed test flights made. Determined to prevent a repetition of the fire, the crew spent long periods monitoring the construction of their Apollo command and service modules (CSM). Training continued over much of the pause that followed the Apollo1 disaster.
Apollo 7 was launched on October 11, 1968, from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean eleven days later. Extensive testing of the CSM took place, and also the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft. Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later. In part because of these tensions, none of the crew flew in space again, though Schirra had already announced he would retire from NASA after the flight. Apollo7 fulfilled Apollo1's mission of testing the CSM in low Earth orbit, and was a significant step towards NASA's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon.
Background and personnel
Schirra, one of the original "Mercury Seven" astronauts, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1945. He flew Mercury-Atlas 8 in 1962, the fifth crewed flight of Project Mercury and the third to reach orbit, and in 1965 was the command pilot for Gemini 6A. He was a 45-year-old captain in the Navy at the time of Apollo7. Eisele graduated from the Naval Academy in 1952 with a B.S. in aeronautics. He elected to be commissioned in the Air Force, and was a 38-year-old major at the time of Apollo7. Cunningham joined the U.S. Navy in 1951, began flight training the following year, and served in a Marine flight squadron from 1953 to 1956, and was a civilian, aged 36, serving in the Marine Corps reserves with a rank of major, at the time of Apollo7. He received degrees in physics from UCLA, a B.A. in 1960 and an M.A. in 1961. Both Eisele and Cunningham were selected as part of the third group of astronauts in 1963.
Eisele was originally slotted for a position on Gus Grissom's Apollo 1 crew along with Ed White, but days prior to the official announcement on March 25, 1966, Eisele sustained a shoulder injury that would require surgery. Instead, Roger Chaffee was given the position and Eisele was reassigned to Schirra's crew.
Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham were first named as an Apollo crew on September 29, 1966. They were to fly a second Earth orbital test of the Apollo Command Module (CM). Although delighted as a rookie to be assigned to a prime crew without having served as a backup, Cunningham was troubled by the fact that a second Earth orbital test flight, dubbed Apollo2, seemed unnecessary if Apollo1 was successful. He learned later that Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton, another of the Mercury Seven who had been grounded for medical reasons and supervised the astronauts, planned, with Schirra's support, to command the mission if he gained medical clearance. When this was not forthcoming, Schirra remained in command of the crew, and in November 1966, Apollo2 was cancelled and Schirra's crew assigned as backup to Grissom's. Thomas P. Stafford—assigned at that point as the backup commander of the second orbital test—stated that the cancellation followed Schirra and his crew submitting a list of demands to NASA management (Schirra wanted the mission to include a lunar module and a CM capable of docking with it), and that the assignment as backups left Schirra complaining that Slayton and Chief Astronaut Alan Shepard had destroyed his career.
On January 27, 1967, Grissom's crew was conducting a launch-pad test for their planned February 21 mission, when a fire broke out in the cabin, killing all three men. A complete safety review of the Apollo program followed. Soon after the fire, Slayton asked Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham to fly the first mission after the pause. Apollo 7 would use the BlockII spacecraft designed for the lunar missions, as opposed to the Block I CSM used for Apollo 1, which was intended only to be used for the early Earth-orbit missions, as it lacked the capability of docking with a lunar module. The CM and astronauts' spacesuits had been extensively redesigned, to reduce any chance of a repeat of the accident which killed the first crew. Schirra's crew would test the life support, propulsion, guidance and control systems during this "open-ended" mission (meaning it would be extended as it passed each test). The duration was limited to 11 days, reduced from the original 14-day limit for Apollo1.
The backup crew consisted of Stafford as commander, John W. Young as command module pilot, and Eugene A. Cernan as lunar module pilot. They became the prime crew of Apollo 10. Ronald E. Evans, John L. 'Jack' Swigert, and Edward G. Givens were assigned to the support crew for the mission. Givens died in a car accident on June 6, 1967, and William R. Pogue was assigned as his replacement. Evans was involved in hardware testing at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Swigert was the launch capsule communicator (CAPCOM) and worked on the mission's operational aspects. Pogue spent time modifying procedures. The support crew also filled in when the primary and backup crews were unavailable.
CAPCOMs, the person in Mission Control responsible for communicating with the spacecraft (then always an astronaut) were Evans, Pogue, Stafford, Swigert, Young and Cernan. Flight directors were Glynn Lunney, Gene Kranz and Gerry Griffin.
Preparation
According to Cunningham, Schirra originally had limited interest in making a third spaceflight, beginning to focus on his post-NASA career. Flying the first mission after the fire changed things: "Wally Schirra was being pictured as the man chosen to rescue the manned space program. And that was a task worthy of Wally's interest." Eisele noted, "coming on the heels of the fire, we knew the fate and future of the entire manned space program—not to mention our own skins—was riding on the success or failure of Apollo7."
Given the circumstances of the fire, the crew initially had little confidence in the staff at North American Aviation's plant at Downey, California, who built the Apollo command modules, and they were determined to follow their craft every step of the way through construction and testing. This interfered with training, but the simulators of the CM were not yet ready, and they knew it would be a long time until they launched. They spent long periods at Downey. Simulators were constructed at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center and at KSC in Florida. Once these were available for use, the crew had difficulty finding enough time to do everything, even with the help of the backup and support crews; the crew often worked 12 or 14 hours per day. After the CM was completed and shipped to KSC, the focus of the crew's training shifted to Florida, though they went to Houston for planning and technical meetings. Rather than return to their Houston homes for the weekend, they often had to remain at KSC in order to participate in training or spacecraft testing. According to former astronaut Tom Jones in a 2018 article, Schirra, "with indisputable evidence of the risks his crew would be taking, now had immense leverage with management at NASA and North American, and he used it. In conference rooms or on the spacecraft assembly line, Schirra got his way."
The Apollo 7 crew spent five hours in training for every hour they could expect to remain aboard if the mission went its full eleven days. In addition, they attended technical briefings and pilots' meetings, and studied on their own. They undertook launch pad evacuation training, water egress training to exit the vehicle after splashdown, and learned to use firefighting equipment. They trained on the Apollo Guidance Computer at MIT. Each crew member spent 160 hours in CM simulations, in some of which Mission Control in Houston participated live. The "plugs out" test—the test that had killed the Apollo1 crew—was conducted with the prime crew in the spacecraft, but with the hatch open. One reason the Apollo1 crew had died was because it was impossible to open the inward-opening hatch before the fire raced through the cabin; this was changed for Apollo7.
Command modules similar to that used on Apollo7 were subjected to tests in the run-up to the mission. A three-astronaut crew (Joseph P. Kerwin, Vance D. Brand and Joe H. Engle) was inside a CM that was placed in a vacuum chamber at the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston for eight days in June 1968 to test spacecraft systems. Another crew (James Lovell, Stuart Roosa and Charles M. Duke) spent 48 hours at sea aboard a CM lowered into the Gulf of Mexico from a naval vessel in April 1968, to test how systems would respond to seawater. Further tests were conducted the following month in a tank at Houston. Fires were set aboard a boilerplate CM using various atmospheric compositions and pressures. The results led to the decision to use 60 percent oxygen and 40 percent nitrogen within the CM at launch, which would be replaced with a lower pressure of pure oxygen within four hours, as providing adequate fire protection. Other boilerplate spacecraft were subjected to drops to test parachutes, and to simulate the likely damage if a CM came down on land. All results were satisfactory.
During the run-up to the mission, the Soviets sent uncrewed probes Zond 4 and Zond 5 (Zond 5 carried two tortoises) around the Moon, seeming to foreshadow a circumlunar crewed mission. NASA's Lunar Module (LM) was suffering delays, and Apollo Program Spacecraft Manager George Low proposed that if Apollo7 was a success, that Apollo 8 go to lunar orbit without a LM. The acceptance of Low's proposal raised the stakes for Apollo7. According to Stafford, Schirra "clearly felt the full weight of the program riding on a successful mission and as a result became more openly critical and more sarcastic."
Throughout the Mercury and Gemini programs, McDonnell Aircraft engineer Guenter Wendt led the spacecraft launch pad teams, with ultimate responsibility for condition of the spacecraft at launch. He earned the astronauts' respect and admiration, including Schirra's. However, the spacecraft contractor had changed from McDonnell (Mercury and Gemini) to North American (Apollo), so Wendt was not the pad leader for Apollo1. So adamant was Schirra in his desire to have Wendt back as pad leader for his Apollo flight, that he got his boss Slayton to persuade North American management to hire Wendt away from McDonnell, and Schirra personally lobbied North American's launch operations manager to change Wendt's shift from midnight to day so he could be pad leader for Apollo7. Wendt remained as pad leader for the entire Apollo program. When he departed the spacecraft area as the pad was evacuated prior to launch, after Cunningham said, "I think Guenter's going", Eisele responded "Yes, I think Guenter went."
Hardware
Spacecraft
The Apollo 7 spacecraft included Command and Service Module 101 (CSM-101) the first BlockII CSM to be flown. The BlockII craft had the capability of docking with a LM, though none was flown on Apollo7. The spacecraft also included the launch escape system and a spacecraft-lunar module adapter (SLA, numbered as SLA-5), though the latter included no LM and instead provided a mating structure between the SM and the S-IVB's Instrument Unit, with a structural stiffener substituted for the LM. The launch escape system was jettisoned after S-IVB ignition, while the SLA was left behind on the spent S-IVB when the CSM separated from it in orbit.
Following the Apollo 1 fire, the BlockII CSM was extensively redesigned—more than 1,800 changes were recommended, of which 1,300 were implemented for Apollo7. Prominent among these was the new aluminum and fiberglass outward-opening hatch, which the crew could open in seven seconds from within, and the pad crew in ten seconds from outside. Other changes included replacement of aluminum tubing in the high-pressure oxygen system with stainless steel, replacement of flammable materials with non-flammable (including changing plastic switches for metal ones) and, for crew protection in the event of a fire, an emergency oxygen system to shield them from toxic fumes, as well as firefighting equipment.
After the Gemini 3 craft was dubbed Molly Brown by Grissom, NASA forbade naming spacecraft. Despite this prohibition, Schirra wanted to name his ship "Phoenix," but NASA refused him permission. The first CM to be given a call sign other than the mission designation would be that of Apollo 9, which carried a LM that would separate from it and then re-dock, necessitating distinct call signs for the two vehicles.
Launch vehicle
Since it flew in low Earth orbit and did not include a LM, Apollo7 was launched with the Saturn IB booster rather than the much larger and more powerful Saturn V. That Saturn IB was designated SA-205, and was the fifth Saturn IB to be flown—the earlier ones did not carry crews into space. It differed from its predecessors in that stronger propellant lines to the augmented spark igniter in the J-2 engines had been installed, so as to prevent a repetition of the early shutdown that had occurred on the uncrewed Apollo 6 flight; postflight analysis had shown that the propellant lines to the J-2 engines, also used in the Saturn V tested on Apollo6, had leaked.
The Saturn IB was a two-stage rocket, with the second stage an S-IVB similar to the third stage of the Saturn V, the rocket used by all later Apollo missions. The Saturn IB was used after the close of the Apollo Program to bring crews in Apollo CSMs to Skylab, and for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project.
Apollo 7 was the only crewed Apollo mission to launch from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station's Launch Complex 34. All subsequent Apollo and Skylab spacecraft flights (including Apollo–Soyuz) were launched from Launch Complex 39 at the nearby Kennedy Space Center. Launch Complex 34 was declared redundant and decommissioned in 1969, making Apollo7 the last human spaceflight mission to launch from the Cape Air Force Station in the 20th century.
Mission highlights
The main purposes of the Apollo7 flight were to show that the Block II CM would be habitable and reliable over the length of time required for a lunar mission, to show that the service propulsion system (SPS, the spacecraft's main engine) and the CM's guidance systems could perform a rendezvous in orbit, and later make a precision reentry and splashdown. In addition, there were a number of specific objectives, including evaluating the communications systems and the accuracy of onboard systems such as the propellant tank gauges. Many of the activities aimed at gathering these data were scheduled for early in the mission, so that if the mission was terminated prematurely, they would already have been completed, allowing for fixes to be made prior to the next Apollo flight.
Launch and testing
Apollo 7, the first crewed American space flight in 22 months, launched from Launch Complex 34 at 11:02:45am EDT (15:02:45UTC) on Friday, October 11, 1968.
During the countdown, the wind was blowing in from the east. Launching under these weather conditions was in violation of safety rules, since in the event of a launch vehicle malfunction and abort, the CM might be blown back over land instead of making the usual water landing. Apollo7 was equipped with the old Apollo1-style crew couches, which provided less protection than later ones. Schirra later related that he felt the launch should have been scrubbed, but managers waived the rule and he yielded under pressure.
Liftoff proceeded flawlessly; the Saturn IB performed well on its first crewed launch and there were no significant anomalies during the boost phase. The astronauts described it as very smooth. The ascent made the 45-year-old Schirra the oldest person to that point to enter space, and, as it proved, the only astronaut to fly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.
Within the first three hours of flight, the astronauts performed two actions which simulated what would be required on a lunar mission. First, they maneuvered the craft with the S-IVB still attached, as would be required for the burn that would take lunar missions to the Moon. Then, after separation from the S-IVB, Schirra turned the CSM around and approached a docking target painted on the S-IVB, simulating the docking maneuver with the lunar module on Moon-bound missions prior to extracting the combined craft.
After station keeping with the S-IVB for 20 minutes, Schirra let it drift away, putting between the CSM and it in preparation for the following day's rendezvous attempt.
The astronauts also enjoyed a hot lunch, the first hot meal prepared on an American spacecraft. Schirra had brought instant coffee along over the opposition of NASA doctors, who argued it added nothing nutritionally. Five hours after launch, he reported having, and enjoying, his first plastic bag full of coffee.
The purpose of the rendezvous was to demonstrate the CSM's ability to match orbits with and rescue a LM after an aborted lunar landing attempt, or following liftoff from the lunar surface. This was to occur on the second day; but by the end of the first, Schirra had reported he had a cold, and, despite Slayton coming on the loop to argue in favor, declined Mission Control's request that the crew power up and test the onboard television camera prior to the rendezvous, citing the cold, that the crew had not eaten, and that there was already a very full schedule.
The rendezvous was complicated by the fact that the Apollo7 spacecraft lacked a rendezvous radar, something the Moon-bound missions would have. The SPS, the engine that would be needed to send later Apollo CSMs into and out of lunar orbit, had been fired only on a test stand. Although the astronauts were confident it would work, they were concerned it might fire in an unexpected manner, necessitating an early end to the mission. The burns would be computed from the ground but the final work in maneuvering up to the S-IVB would require Eisele to use the telescope and sextant to compute the final burns, with Schirra applying the ship's reaction control system (RCS) thrusters. Eisele was startled by the violent jolt caused by activating the SPS. The thrust caused Schirra to yell, "Yabba dabba doo!" in reference to The Flintstones cartoon. Schirra eased the craft close to the S-IVB, which was tumbling out of control, successfully completing the rendezvous.
The first television broadcast took place on October 14. It began with a view of a card reading "From the Lovely Apollo Room high atop everything", recalling tag lines used by band leaders on 1930s radio broadcasts. Cunningham served as camera operator with Eisele as emcee. During the seven-minute broadcast, the crew showed off the spacecraft and gave the audience views of the southern United States. Before the close, Schirra held another sign, "Keep those cards and letters coming in folks", another old-time radio tag line that had been used recently by Dean Martin. This was the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft (Gordon Cooper had transmitted slow scan television pictures from Faith7 in 1963, but the pictures were of poor quality and were never broadcast). According to Jones, "these apparently amiable astronauts delivered to NASA a solid public relations coup." Daily television broadcasts of about 10 minutes each followed, during which the crew held up more signs and educated their audience about spaceflight; after the return to Earth, they were awarded a special Emmy for the telecasts.
Later on October 14, the craft's onboard radar receiver was able to lock onto a ground-based transmitter, again showing a CSM in lunar orbit could keep contact with a LM returning from the Moon's surface. Throughout the remainder of the mission, the crew continued to run tests on the CSM, including of the propulsion, navigation, environmental, electrical and thermal control systems. All checked out well; according to authors Francis French and Colin Burgess, "The redesigned Apollo spacecraft was better than anyone had dared to hope." Eisele found that navigation was not as easy as anticipated; he found it difficult to use Earth's horizon in sighting stars due to the fuzziness of the atmosphere, and water dumps made it difficult to discern which glistening points were stars and which ice particles. By the end of the mission, the SPS engine had been fired eight times without any problems.
One difficulty that was encountered was with the sleep schedule, which called for one crew member to remain awake at all times; Eisele was to remain awake while the others slept, and sleep during part of the time the others were awake. This did not work well, as it was hard for crew members to work without making a disturbance. Cunningham later remembered waking up to find Eisele dozing.
Conflict and splashdown
Schirra was angered by NASA managers allowing the launch to proceed despite the winds, saying "The mission pushed us to the wall in terms of risk." Jones said, "This prelaunch dispute was the prelude to a tug of war over command decisions for the rest of the mission." Lack of sleep and Schirra's cold probably contributed to the conflict between the astronauts and Mission Control that surfaced from time to time during the flight.
The testing of the television resulted in a disagreement between the crew and Houston. Schirra stated at the time, "You've added two burns to this flight schedule, and you've added a urine water dump; and we have a new vehicle up here, and I can tell you at this point, TV will be delayed without any further discussion until after the rendezvous." Schirra later wrote, "we'd resist anything that interfered with our main mission objectives. On this particular Saturday morning a TV program clearly interfered." Eisele agreed in his memoirs, "We were preoccupied with preparations for that critical exercise and didn't want to divert our attention with what seemed to be trivialities at the time.... Evidently the earth people felt differently; there was a real stink about the hotheaded, recalcitrant Apollo7 crew who wouldn't take orders." French and Burgess wrote, "When this point is considered objectively—that in a front-loaded mission the rendezvous, alignment, and engine tests should be done before television shows—it is hard to argue with him [Schirra]." Although Slayton gave in to Schirra, the commander's attitude surprised flight controllers.
On Day 8, after being asked to follow a new procedure passed up from the ground that caused the computer to freeze, Eisele radioed, "We didn't get the results that you were after. We didn't get a damn thing, in fact... you bet your ass... as far as we're concerned, somebody down there screwed up royally when he laid that one on us." Schirra later stated his belief that this was the one main occasion when Eisele upset Mission Control. The next day saw more conflict, with Schirra telling Mission Control after having to make repeated firings of the RCS system to keep the spacecraft stable during a test, "I wish you would find out the idiot's name who thought up this test. I want to find out, and I want to talk to him personally when I get back down." Eisele joined in, "While you are at it, find out who dreamed up 'P22 horizon test'; that is a beauty also."
A further source of tension between Mission Control and the crew was that Schirra repeatedly expressed the view that the reentry should be conducted with their helmets off. He perceived a risk that their eardrums might burst due to the sinus pressure from their colds, and they wanted to be able to pinch their noses and blow to equalize the pressure as it increased during reentry. This would have been impossible wearing the helmets. Over several days, Schirra refused advice from the ground that the helmets should be worn, stating it was his prerogative as commander to decide this, though Slayton warned him he would have to answer for it after the flight. Schirra stated in 1994, "In this case I had a cold, and I'd had enough discussion with the ground, and I didn't have much more time to talk about whether we would put the helmet on or off. I said, essentially, I'm on board, I'm commanding. They could wear all the black armbands they wanted if I was lost or if I lost my hearing. But I had the responsibility for getting through the mission." No helmets were worn during the entry. Director of Flight Operations Christopher C. Kraft demanded an explanation for what he believed was Schirra's insubordination from the CAPCOM, Stafford. Kraft later said, "Schirra was exercising his commander’s right to have the last word, and that was that."
Apollo 7 splashed down without incident at 11:11:48 UTC on October 22, 1968, SSW of Bermuda and north of the recovery ship USS Essex. The mission's duration was 10days, 20hours, 9minutes and 3seconds.
Assessment and aftermath
After the mission, NASA awarded Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham its Exceptional Service Medal in recognition of their success. On November 2, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson held a ceremony at the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, Texas, to present the astronauts with the medals. He also presented NASA's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, to recently retired NASA administrator James E. Webb, for his "outstanding leadership of America's space program" since the beginning of Apollo. Johnson also invited the crew to the White House, and they went there in December 1968.
Despite the difficulties between the crew and Mission Control, the mission successfully met its objectives to verify the Apollo command and service module's flightworthiness, allowing Apollo8's flight to the Moon to proceed just two months later. John T. McQuiston wrote in The New York Times after Eisele's death in 1987 that Apollo7's success brought renewed confidence to NASA's space program. According to Jones, "Three weeks after the Apollo7 crew returned, NASA administrator Thomas Paine green-lighted Apollo8 to launch in late December and orbit the Moon. Apollo7 had delivered NASA from its trial by fire—it was the first small step down a path that would lead another crew, nine months later, to the Sea of Tranquility."
General Sam Phillips, the Apollo Program Manager, said at the time, "Apollo7 goes into my book as a perfect mission. We accomplished 101 percent of our objectives." Kraft wrote, "Schirra and his crew did it all—or at least all of it that counted... [T]hey proved to everyone's satisfaction that the SPS engine was one of the most reliable we'd ever sent into space. They operated the Command and Service Modules with true professionalism." Eisele wrote, "We were insolent, high-handed, and Machiavellian at times. Call it paranoia, call it smart—it got the job done. We had a great flight."
Kranz stated in 1998, "we all look back now with a longer perspective. Schirra really wasn't on us as bad as it seemed at the time.... Bottom line was, even with a grumpy commander, we got the job done as a team."
None of the Apollo 7 crew members flew in space again. According to Jim Lovell, "Apollo7 was a very successful flight—they did an excellent job—but it was a very contentious flight. They all teed off the ground people quite considerably, and I think that kind of put a stop on future flights [for them]." Schirra had announced, before the flight, his retirement from NASA and the Navy, effective July 1, 1969. The other two crew members had their spaceflight careers stunted by their involvement in Apollo7; by some accounts, Kraft told Slayton he was unwilling to work in future with any member of the crew. Cunningham heard the rumors that Kraft had said this and confronted him in early 1969; Kraft denied making the statement "but his reaction wasn't exactly outraged innocence." Eisele's career may also have been affected by becoming the first active astronaut to divorce, followed by a quick remarriage, and an indifferent performance as backup CMP for Apollo10. He resigned from the Astronaut Office in 1970 though he remained with NASA at the Langley Research Center in Virginia until 1972, when he was eligible for retirement. Cunningham was made the leader of the Astronaut Office's Skylab division. He related that he was informally offered command of the first Skylab crew, but when this instead went to Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad, with Cunningham offered the position of backup commander, he resigned as an astronaut in 1971.
Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham were the only crew, of all the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz missions, who had not been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal immediately following their missions (though Schirra had received the medal twice before, for his Mercury and Gemini missions). Therefore, NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin decided to belatedly award the medals to the crew in October 2008, "[f]or exemplary performance in meeting all the Apollo7 mission objectives and more on the first crewed Apollo mission, paving the way for the first flight to the Moon on Apollo8 and the first crewed lunar landing on Apollo11." Only Cunningham was still alive at the time as Eisele had died in 1987 and Schirra in 2007. Eisele's widow accepted his medal, and Apollo 8 crew member Bill Anders accepted Schirra's. Other Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Alan Bean, were present at the award ceremony. Kraft, who had been in conflict with the crew during the mission, sent a conciliatory video message of congratulations, saying: "We gave you a hard time once but you certainly survived that and have done extremely well since... I am frankly, very proud to call you a friend."
Mission insignia
The insignia for the flight shows a command and service module with its SPS engine firing, the trail from that fire encircling a globe and extending past the edges of the patch symbolizing the Earth-orbital nature of the mission. The Roman numeralVII appears in the South Pacific Ocean and the crew's names appear on a wide black arc at the bottom. The patch was designed by Allen Stevens of Rockwell International.
Spacecraft location
In January 1969, the Apollo7 command module was displayed on a NASA float in the inauguration parade of President Richard M. Nixon, as were the Apollo7 astronauts. After being transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1970, the spacecraft was loaned to the National Museum of Science and Technology, in Ottawa, Ontario. It was returned to the United States in 2004. Currently, the Apollo7 CM is on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field in Dallas, Texas.
Depiction in media
On November 6, 1968, comedian Bob Hope broadcast one of his variety television specials from NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston to honor the Apollo7 crew. Barbara Eden, star of the popular comedy series I Dream of Jeannie, which featured fictional astronauts among its regular characters, appeared with Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham.
Schirra parlayed the head cold he contracted during Apollo7 into a television advertising contract as a spokesman for Actifed, an over-the-counter version of the medicine he took in space.
The Apollo 7 mission is dramatized in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon episode "We Have Cleared the Tower", with Mark Harmon as Schirra, John Mese as Eisele, Fredric Lehne as Cunningham and Nick Searcy as Slayton.
Gallery
See also
List of Apollo missions
Timeline of longest spaceflights
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
Master catalog entry at NASA/NSSDC\
The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology NASA, NASA SP-4009
"Apollo Program Summary Report" (PDF), NASA, JSC-09423, April 1975
Apollo 7
1968 in the United States
Apollo 07
Human spaceflights
Spacecraft launched in 1968
Spacecraft which reentered in 1968
October 1968 events
Spacecraft launched by Saturn rockets
Wally Schirra
Saturn IB |
1774 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo%209 | Apollo 9 | Apollo 9 (March 313, 1969) was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program. Flown in low Earth orbit, it was the second crewed Apollo mission that the United States launched via a Saturn V rocket, and was the first flight of the full Apollo spacecraft: the command and service module (CSM) with the Lunar Module (LM). The mission was flown to qualify the LM for lunar orbit operations in preparation for the first Moon landing by demonstrating its descent and ascent propulsion systems, showing that its crew could fly it independently, then rendezvous and dock with the CSM again, as would be required for the first crewed lunar landing. Other objectives of the flight included firing the LM descent engine to propel the spacecraft stack as a backup mode (as would be required on the Apollo 13 mission), and use of the portable life support system backpack outside the LM cabin.
The three-man crew consisted of Commander James McDivitt, Command Module Pilot David Scott, and Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart. During the ten-day mission, they tested systems and procedures critical to landing on the Moon, including the LM engines, backpack life support systems, navigation systems and docking maneuvers.
After launching on March 3, 1969, the crew performed the first crewed flight of a lunar module, the first docking and extraction of the same, one two-person spacewalk (EVA), and the second docking of two crewed spacecraft—two months after the Soviets performed a spacewalk crew transfer between and . The mission concluded on March 13 and was a complete success. It proved the LM worthy of crewed spaceflight, setting the stage for the dress rehearsal for the lunar landing, Apollo 10, before the ultimate goal, landing on the Moon.
Mission background
In April 1966, McDivitt, Scott, and Schweickart were selected by Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton as the second Apollo crew. Their initial job was as backup to the first Apollo crew to be chosen, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, for the first crewed Earth orbital test flight of the block I command and service module, designated AS-204. Delays in the block I CSM development pushed AS-204 into 1967. The revised plan had the McDivitt crew scheduled for the second crewed CSM, which was to rendezvous in Earth orbit with an uncrewed LM, launched separately. The third crewed mission, to be commanded by Frank Borman, was to be the first launch of a SaturnV with a crew.
On January 27, 1967, Grissom's crew was conducting a launch-pad test for their planned February 21 mission, which they named Apollo 1, when a fire broke out in the cabin, killing all three men. A complete safety review of the Apollo program followed. During this time Apollo 5 took place, an uncrewed launch to test the first lunar module (LM-1).
Under the new schedule, the first Apollo crewed mission to go into space would be Apollo 7, planned for October 1968. This mission, which was to test the block II command module, did not include a lunar module. In 1967, NASA had adopted a series of lettered missions leading up to the crewed lunar landing, the "G mission", completion of one being a prerequisite to the next. Apollo7 would be the "Cmission", but the "Dmission" required testing of the crewed lunar module, which was running behind schedule and endangering John F. Kennedy's goal of Americans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s. McDivitt's crew had been announced by NASA in November 1967 as prime crew for the Dmission, lengthy testing of the command and lunar modules in Earth orbit.
Seeking to keep Kennedy's goal on schedule, in August 1968, Apollo Program Manager George M. Low proposed that if Apollo7 in October went well, Apollo8 would go to lunar orbit without a LM. Until then, Apollo8 was the Dmission with Apollo9 the "E mission", testing in medium Earth orbit. After NASA approved sending Apollo8 to the Moon, while making Apollo9 the Dmission, Slayton offered McDivitt the opportunity to stay with Apollo8 and thus go to lunar orbit. McDivitt turned it down on behalf of his crew, preferring to stay with the Dmission, now Apollo9.
Apollo7 went well, and the crews were switched. The crew swap also affected who would be the first astronauts to land on the Moon, for when the crews for Apollo8 and9 were swapped, so were the backup crews. Since the rule of thumb was for backup crews to fly as prime crew three missions later, this put Neil Armstrong's crew (Borman's backup) in position to make the first landing attempt on Apollo 11 instead of Pete Conrad's crew, who made the second landing on Apollo 12.
Framework
Crew and key Mission Control personnel
McDivitt was in the Air Force; selected as a member of the second group of astronauts in 1962, he was command pilot of Gemini 4 (1965). Scott, also Air Force, was selected in the third astronaut group in 1963 and flew alongside Neil Armstrong in Gemini 8, on which the first spacecraft docking was performed. Schweickart, a civilian who had served in the Air Force and Massachusetts Air National Guard, was selected as a Group3 astronaut but was not assigned to a Gemini mission and had no spaceflight experience.
The backup crew consisted of Pete Conrad as commander, Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon Jr., and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean. This crew flew as prime on Apollo 12 in November 1969. The support crew for Apollo9 consisted of Stuart A. Roosa, Jack R. Lousma, Edgar D. Mitchell and Alfred M. Worden. Lousma was not an original member of the Apollo9 support crew, but was assigned after Fred W. Haise Jr. was moved to the position of backup lunar module pilot on Apollo 8—several astronauts were shifted in the wake of Michael Collins being removed from the Apollo8 prime crew because of treatment for bone spurs.
The flight directors were Gene Kranz, first shift, Gerry Griffin, second shift and Pete Frank, third shift. Capsule communicators were Conrad, Gordon, Bean, Worden, Roosa and Ronald Evans.
Mission insignia
The circular patch shows a drawing of a Saturn V rocket with the letters USA on it. To its right, an Apollo CSM is shown next to a LM, with the CSM's nose pointed at the "front door" of the LM rather than at its top docking port. The CSM is trailing rocket fire in a circle. The crew's names are along the top edge of the circle, with APOLLO IX at the bottom. The "D" in McDivitt's name is filled with red to mark that this was the "Dmission" in the alphabetic sequence of Apollo missions. The patch was designed by Allen Stevens of Rockwell International.
Planning and training
Apollo 9's main purpose was to qualify the LM for crewed lunar flight, demonstrating, among other things, that it could perform the maneuvers in space that would be needed for a lunar landing, including docking with the CSM. Colin Burgess and Francis French, in their book about the Apollo Program, deemed McDivitt's crew among the best trained ever—they had worked together since January 1966, at first as backups for Apollo 1, and they always had the assignment of being the first to fly the LM. Flight Director Gene Kranz deemed the Apollo9 crew the best prepared for their mission, and felt Scott was an extremely knowledgeable CMP. Crew members underwent some 1,800 hours of mission-specific training, about seven hours for every hour they would spend in flight. Their training even started on the day before the Apollo1 fire, in the very first Block II spacecraft in which they were originally intended to fly. They took part in the vehicle checkouts for the CSM at North American Rockwell's facility in Downey, California, and for the LM at Grumman's plant in Bethpage, New York. They also participated in testing of the modules at the launch site.
Among the types of the training which the crew underwent were simulations of zero-G, both underwater and in the Vomit Comet. During these exercises, they practiced for the planned extravehicular activities (EVAs). They traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for training on the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) at MIT. The crew studied the sky at the Morehead Planetarium and at the Griffith Planetarium, especially focusing on the 37 stars used by the AGC. They each spent more than 300 hours in the CM and LM simulators at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and at Houston, some involving live participation by Mission Control. Additional time was spent in simulators in other locations.
The first mission to use the CSM, the LM and a SaturnV, Apollo9 allowed the launch preparations team at KSC its first opportunity to simulate the launch of a lunar landing mission. The LM arrived from Grumman in June 1968 and was subjected to extensive testing including in the altitude chamber, simulating space conditions. As this occurred, other technicians assembled the SaturnV inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The CM and SM arrived in October, but even the experienced KSC team from North American had trouble joining them together. When the lander was done with the altitude chamber, the CSM took its place, letting the LM be available for installation of equipment such as rendezvous radar and antennas. There were no lengthy delays, and on January 3, 1969, the launch vehicle was taken out of the VAB and moved to Launch Complex 39A by crawler. Flight readiness reviews for the CM, the LM, and the SaturnV were held and passed in the following weeks.
Hardware
Launch vehicle
The Saturn V (AS-504) used on Apollo9 was the fourth to be flown, the second to carry astronauts to space, and the first to bear a lunar module. Although similar in configuration to the SaturnV used on Apollo 8, several changes were made. The inner core of the F-1 engine chamber in the first (S-IC) stage was removed, thus saving weight and allowing for a slight increase in specific impulse. Weight was also saved by replacing the skins of the liquid oxygen tanks with lighter ones, and by providing lighter versions of other components. Efficiency was increased in the S-II second stage with uprated J-2 engines, and through a closed-loop propellant utilization system rather than Apollo 8's open-loop system. Of the weight reduction in the second stage, about half came from a 16 percent reduction in the thickness of the tank side walls.
Spacecraft, equipment and call signs
Apollo9 used CSM-104, the third Block II CSM to be flown with astronauts aboard. Apollo 8, lacking a lunar module, did not have docking equipment; Apollo9 flew the probe-and-drogue assembly used for docking along with other equipment added near the forward hatch of the CM; this allowed for rigid docking of the two craft, and for internal transfer between CM and LM. Had the switch in missions between Apollo8 and9 not occurred, the Earth-orbit mission would have flown CSM-103, which flew on Apollo 8.
The Earth-orbit mission was originally supposed to use LM-2 as its lunar module, but the crew found numerous flaws in it, many associated with it being the first flight-ready lunar module off Grumman's production line. The delay occasioned by the switch in missions allowed LM-3 to be available, a machine the crew found far superior. Neither LM-2 nor LM-3 could have been sent to the Moon as both were too heavy; Grumman's weight reduction program for the LMs only became fully effective with LM-5, designated for Apollo 11. Small cracks in LM-3's aluminum alloy structure due to stresses such as the insertion of a rivet proved an ongoing issue; Grumman's engineers continued working to fix them until the LM had to be mounted on the SaturnV in December 1968, where it was housed inside the Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter, numbered as SLA-11A. LM-2 never flew in space and is in the National Air and Space Museum.
The Apollo astronauts were provided with early versions of the Sony Walkman, portable cassette recorders intended to allow them to make observations during the mission. The Apollo9 crew was the first to be allowed to bring music mixtapes, one each, that could be played in that device. McDivitt and Scott preferred easy listening and country music; Schweickart's cassette tape of classical music went missing until the ninth day of the ten-day mission, when it was presented to him by Scott.
After the Gemini 3 craft was dubbed Molly Brown by Grissom, NASA forbade naming spacecraft. The fact that during the Apollo9 mission, the CSM and LM would separate and need different call signs caused the Apollo9 astronauts to push for a change. In simulations, they began to refer to the CSM as "Gumdrop", a name inspired by the CM's appearance while in the blue protective wrapping in which it was transported from the manufacturer, and the LM as "Spider", inspired by the LM's appearance with landing legs deployed. Personnel in NASA public relations thought the names were too informal, but the call signs ultimately gained official sanction. NASA required more formal call signs for future missions, starting with Apollo 11.
Life Support System backpack
The Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) backpack flew for the first time on Apollo9, used by Schweickart during his EVA. This included the Portable Life Support System (PLSS), providing oxygen to the astronaut and water for the Liquid Cooling Garment (LCG), which helped prevent overheating during extravehicular activity. Also present was the Oxygen Purge System (OPS), the "bedroll" atop the backpack, which could provide oxygen for up to roughly an hour if the PLSS failed. A more advanced version of the EMU was used for the lunar landing on Apollo 11.
During his stand-up EVA, Scott did not wear a PLSS, but was connected to the CM's life support systems through an umbilical, utilizing a Pressure Control Valve (PCV). This device had been created in 1967 to allow for stand-up EVAs from the hatches of the LM or CM, or for brief ventures outside. It was later used by Scott for his lunar surface stand-up EVA on Apollo 15, and for the deep-space EVAs by the command module pilots of the final three Apollo flights.
Mission highlights
First through fifth days (March 3–7)
Originally scheduled to launch on February 28, 1969, the liftoff of Apollo9 was postponed because all three astronauts had colds, and NASA did not want to risk that the mission might be affected. Around-the-clock labor shifts were required to keep the spacecraft in readiness; the delay cost $500,000. The rocket launched from KSC at 11:00:00 EST (16:00:00 GMT) on March 3. This was well within the launch window, which would have remained open for another three and a quarter hours. Present in the firing control room was Vice President Spiro Agnew on behalf of the new Nixon administration.
McDivitt reported a smooth ride during the launch, although there was some vibration and the astronauts were surprised to be pushed forward when the Saturn V's first stage stopped firing, before its second stage took over, when they were pushed back into their couches. Each of the first two stages slightly underperformed; a deficiency made up, more or less, by the S-IVB third stage. Once the third stage cut out at 00:11:04.7 into the mission, Apollo9 had entered a parking orbit of .
The crew began their first major orbital task with the separation of the CSM from the S-IVB at 02:41:16 into the mission, seeking to turn around and then dock with the LM, which was on the end of the S-IVB, after which the combined spacecraft would separate from the rocket. If it was not possible to make such a docking, the lunar landing could not take place. It was Scott's responsibility to fly the CSM, which he did to a successful docking, as the probe-and-drogue docking assembly worked properly. After McDivitt and Schweickart inspected the tunnel connecting the CM and LM, the assembled spacecraft separated from the S-IVB. The next task was to demonstrate that two docked spacecraft could be maneuvered by one engine. The five-second burn took place at 05:59.01.1 into the mission, accomplished with the SM's Service Propulsion System (SPS), after which Scott excitedly reported the LM was still in place. Thereafter, the S-IVB was fired again, and the stage was sent into solar orbit.
From 09:00:00 to 19:30:00, a sleep period was scheduled. The astronauts slept well, but complained of being woken by non-English transmissions. Scott theorized that they were possibly in Chinese. The highlight of the second day in orbit (March 4) was three SPS burns. The initial burn, at 22:12:04.1, lasted 110 seconds, and including swiveling or "gimbaling" the engine to test whether the autopilot could dampen the induced oscillations, which it did within five seconds. Two more SPS burns followed, lightening the SM's fuel load. The spacecraft and engine passed every test, sometimes proving more robust than expected. The performance of the CSM in remaining stable while the engine was being gimbaled would in 1972 help cause McDivitt, by then manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program, to approve the continuation of Apollo 16 when its CSM was experiencing an unstable gimbal after separation from its LM in lunar orbit.
The flight plan for the third day in space was to have the commander and lunar module pilot enter the LM to check out its systems and use its descent engine to move the entire spacecraft. The descent engine was the backup to the SPS; the ability to use it in this manner would prove critical on Apollo 13. The flight plan was thrown into question when Schweickart, suffering from space adaptation sickness, vomited, while McDivitt felt queasy as well. They had been avoiding sudden physical motions, but the contortion-like maneuvers to don their space suits for the LM checkout caused them to feel ill. The experience would teach the doctors enough about the sickness to have the astronauts avoid it on the lunar landings, but at the time Schweickart feared his vomiting might endanger Kennedy's goal. They were well enough to continue with the day's plan, and entered the LM, thus transferring between vehicles for the first time in the US space program, and making the first ever transfer without needing to spacewalk, as Soviet cosmonauts had. The hatches were then closed, though the modules remained docked, showing that Spider communications and life support systems would work in isolation from those of Gumdrop. On command, the landing legs sprang into the position they would assume for landing on the Moon.
In the LM, Schweickart vomited again, causing McDivitt to request a private channel to the doctors in Houston. The first episode had not been reported to the ground because of its brief nature, and when the media learned what had happened to Schweickart, there were "repercussions and a spate of unfriendly stories". They finished the LM checkout, including the successful firing of the descent engine, and returned to Scott in Gumdrop. The burn lasted 367 seconds and simulated the throttle pattern to be used during the landing on the Moon. After they returned, a fifth firing of the SPS was made, designed to circularize Apollo9's orbit in preparation for the rendezvous. This took place at 54:26:12.3, raising the craft's orbit to .
The fourth day's program (March 6) was for Schweickart to exit the hatch on the LM and make his way along the outside of the spacecraft to the CM's hatch, where Scott would stand by to assist, demonstrating that this could be done in the event of an emergency. Schweickart was to wear the life support backpack, or PLSS, to be worn on the lunar surface EVAs. This was the only EVA scheduled before the lunar landing, and thus the only opportunity to test the PLSS in space. McDivitt initially canceled the EVA due to Schweickart's condition, but with the lunar module pilot feeling better, decided to allow him to exit the LM, and once he was there, to move around the LM's exterior using handholds. Scott stood in the CM's hatch; both men photographed each other and retrieved experiments from the exterior of their vehicles. Schweickart found moving around easier than it had been in simulations; both he and Scott were confident that Schweickart could have completed the exterior transfer if called upon to do so, but considered it unnecessary. During the EVA, Schweickart used the call sign "Red Rover", a nod to the color of his hair.
On March 7, the fifth day, came "the key event of the entire mission: the separation and rendezvous of the lunar module and the command module". The lunar module lacked the capability to return the astronauts to Earth; this was the first time space travelers had flown in a vehicle that could not take them home. McDivitt and Schweickart entered the LM early, having obtained permission to do so without wearing their helmets and gloves, making it easier to set up the LM. When Scott in Gumdrop pushed the button to release the LM, it initially hung on the latches at the end of the docking probe, but he hit the button again and Spider was released. After spending about 45 minutes near Gumdrop, Spider went into a slightly higher orbit, meaning that over time, the two craft would separate, with Gumdrop ahead. Over the next hours, McDivitt fired the LM's descent engine at several throttle settings; by the end of the day the LM was thoroughly test-flown. At a distance of , Spider fired to lower its orbit and thus begin to catch up with Gumdrop, a process that would take over two hours, and the descent stage was jettisoned.
The approach and rendezvous were conducted as near as possible to what was planned for the lunar missions. To demonstrate that rendezvous could be performed by either craft, Spider was the active party during the maneuver. McDivitt brought Spider close to Gumdrop, then maneuvered the LM to show each side to Scott, allowing him to inspect for any damage. Then, McDivitt docked the craft. Due to glare from the Sun, he had trouble doing this and Scott guided him in. During the later missions, the job of docking the two spacecraft in lunar orbit would fall to the command module pilot. After McDivitt and Schweickart returned to Gumdrop, Spider was jettisoned, its engine fired to fuel depletion remotely by Mission Control as part of further testing of the engine, simulating an ascent stage's climb from the lunar surface. This raised Spider to an orbit with apogee of over . The only major lunar module system not fully tested was the landing radar, as this could not be done in Earth orbit.
Sixth through eleventh days (March 8–13)
Apollo 9 was to remain in space for about ten days to check how the CSM would perform over the period of time required for a lunar mission. Most major events had been scheduled for the first days so that they would be accomplished if the flight needed to be ended early. The remaining days in orbit were to be conducted at a more leisurely pace. With the main goals of the mission accomplished, the hatch window was used for special photography of Earth, using four identical Hasselblad cameras, coupled together and using film sensitive to different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such photography allowed different features of the Earth's surface to appear, for example, tracking of water pollution as it exits mouths of rivers into the sea, and the highlighting of agricultural areas using infrared. The camera system was a prototype, and would pave the way for the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, predecessor to the Landsat series. The photography was successful, as the ample time in orbit meant the crew could wait to allow cloud cover to pass, and would inform Skylab's mission planning.
Scott used a sextant to track landmarks on the Earth, and turned the instrument to the skies to observe the planet Jupiter, practicing navigation techniques that were to be used on later missions. The crew was able to track the Pegasus 3 satellite (launched in 1965) as well as the ascent stage of Spider. The sixth burn of the SPS engine took place on the sixth day, though it was postponed one orbit as the reaction control system (RCS) thruster burn needed to settle the reactants in their tanks was not properly programmed. The SPS burn lowered the perigee of Apollo9's orbit, allowing for improved RCS thruster deorbit capability as a backup to the SPS.
Considerable testing of the CSM took place, but this was principally Scott's responsibility, allowing McDivitt and Schweickart leisure to observe the Earth; they alerted Scott if anything particularly noteworthy was upcoming, letting him leave his work for a moment to look at Earth too. The seventh burn of the SPS system took place on the eighth day, March 10; its purpose was again to aid RCS deorbit capability, as well as extending Gumdrop orbital lifetime. It shifted the apogee of the orbit to the Southern Hemisphere, allowing for a longer free-fall time to entry when Apollo9 returned to Earth. The burn was extended to allow for testing of the propellent gaging system, which had been behaving anomalously during earlier SPS burns. Once it was accomplished, Apollo9's RCS thrusters could have returned it to Earth and still allowed it to land in the primary recovery zone had the SPS engine failed. The eighth and final SPS burn, to return the vehicle to Earth, was accomplished on March 13, less than an hour after the ten-day mark of the mission, after which the service module was jettisoned. The landing was delayed one orbit because of unfavorable weather in the primary landing zone some ESE of Bermuda. Instead, Apollo9 splashed down east of the Bahamas, about from the recovery carrier, the USS Guadalcanal, after a mission lasting 10 days, 1hour, 54 seconds. Apollo9 was the last spacecraft to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean for a half century, until the Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission in 2019, and last crewed splashdown in the Atlantic until Inspiration4 in 2021.
Hardware disposition
The Apollo9 Command Module Gumdrop (1969-018A) is on display at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Gumdrop was formerly displayed at the Michigan Space and Science Center, Jackson, Michigan, until April 2004, when the center closed. The service module, jettisoned shortly after the deorbit burn, reentered the atmosphere and disintegrated.
The ascent stage of LM-3 Spider (1969-018C) reentered on October 23, 1981. The descent stage of LM-3 Spider (1969-018D) reentered on March 22, 1969, landing in the Indian Ocean near North Africa.
The S-IVB (1969-018B) was sent into solar orbit, with initial aphelion of , perihelion of and orbital period of 245 days. It remains in solar orbit .
Appraisal and aftermath
As NASA Associate Administrator George Mueller put it, "Apollo9 was as successful a flight as any of us could ever wish for, as well as being as successful as any of us have ever seen." Gene Kranz called Apollo9 "sheer exhilaration". Apollo Program Director Samuel C. Phillips stated, "in every way, it has exceeded even our most optimistic expectations." Apollo11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stood in Mission Control as Spider and Gumdrop docked after their separate flights, and with the docking, according to Andrew Chaikin, "Apollo9 had fulfilled all its major objectives. At that moment, Aldrin knew Apollo10 would also succeed, and that he and Armstrong would attempt to land on the Moon. On March 24, NASA made it official."
Although he might have been offered command of an Apollo lunar landing mission, McDivitt chose to leave the Astronaut Corps after Apollo9, becoming manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program later in 1969. Scott was soon given another spaceflight assignment as backup commander of Apollo 12, and then was made mission commander of Apollo 15, landing on the Moon in 1971. Schweickart volunteered for medical investigation of his spacesickness, but was unable to shake its stigma, and was never again assigned to a prime crew. He took a leave of absence from NASA in 1977 that eventually became permanent. Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, stated that when it came to understanding spacesickness, Schweickart "paid the price for them all".
Following the success of Apollo 9, NASA did not conduct the "E mission" (further testing in medium Earth orbit), and even considered skipping the "F mission", the dress rehearsal for the lunar landing, going straight to the landing attempt. As the spacecraft designated for the first landing attempt were still being assembled, this was not done. NASA officials also felt that given the past difficulties with the LM, there was a need for a further test flight before the actual landing attempt, and that orbiting the Moon would give them the opportunity to study mass concentrations there, which had affected Apollo8's orbit. According to French and Burgess in their study of the Apollo program, "Apollo9's success had ensured that the next Apollo mission would go back to the moon."
See also
List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
NASA reports
"Apollo 9 flight plan AS-504/CSM-104/LM-3 Final Report" (PDF) by J. V. Rivers, NASA, February 1969
"Apollo Program Summary Report" (PDF), NASA, JSC-09423, April 1975
Multimedia
Apollo 9: Three To Make Ready Official NASA documentary film (1969)
Apollo 9 16mm onboard film part 1, part 2 raw footage taken from Apollo 9
Apollo 9: The Space Duet of Spider & Gumdrop Official NASA documentary film (1969),
Apollo 9 images at NASA'S Kennedy Space Center
Extravehicular activity
Human spaceflights
Apollo 09
1969 in the United States
Spacecraft launched in 1969
Spacecraft which reentered in 1969
March 1969 events
Spacecraft launched by Saturn rockets
James McDivitt
David Scott
Rusty Schweickart |
1779 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred | Alfred | Alfred may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Alfred J. Kwak, Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series
Alfred (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne
Alfred (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák
"Alfred (Interlude)" and "Alfred (Outro)", songs by Eminem from the 2020 album Music to Be Murdered By
Business and organisations
Alfred, a radio station in Shaftesbury, England
Alfred Music, an American music publisher
Alfred University, New York, U.S.
The Alfred Hospital, a hospital in Melbourne, Australia
People
Alfred (name) includes a list of people and fictional characters called Alfred
Alfred the Great (848/49 – 899), or Alfred I, a king of the West Saxons and of the Anglo-Saxons
Places
Antarctica
Mount Alfred (Antarctica)
Australia
Alfredtown, New South Wales
County of Alfred, South Australia
Canada
Alfred and Plantagenet, Ontario
Alfred, Ontario, a community in Alfred and Plantagenet
Alfred Island, Nunavut
Mount Alfred, British Columbia
United States
Alfred, Maine, a New England town
Alfred (CDP), Maine, the main village in the town
Alfred, New York, a town
Alfred (village), New York, within the town of Alfred
Alfred, North Dakota
Alfred, Texas
Lake Alfred, Florida
Other uses
HMS Alfred, the name of several ships of the Royal Navy
USS Alfred, launched in 1774 as Black Prince
Alfred (software), an application launcher for macOS
ALFRED (nuclear reactor), lead-cooled fast reactor demonstrator
Allele Frequency Net Database, an electronic database of genetic alleles
See also
Alfredo (disambiguation)
HMS King Alfred
HMS Royal Alfred (1864) |
1786 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic%20numerals | Arabic numerals | The ten Arabic numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation using the numerals, as well as the use of a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with other systems such as Roman numerals. However, the symbols are also used to write numbers in other bases such as octal, as well as for writing non-numerical information such as trademarks or license plate identifiers.
They are also called Western Arabic numerals, Ghubār numerals, Hindu–Arabic numerals, Western digits, Latin digits, or European digits. The Oxford English Dictionary differentiates them with the fully capitalized Arabic Numerals to refer to the Eastern digits. The term numbers or numerals or digits often implies only these symbols, however this can only be inferred from context.
Europeans first learned of Arabic numerals about the 10th century, though their spread was a gradual process. Two centuries later, in the Algerian city of Béjaïa, the Italian scholar Fibonacci encountered the numerals; his 13th century work Liber Abaci was crucial in making them known throughout Europe. Until the evolution of the printing press in the 15th century, use of Arabic numerals in Europe was mainly confined to Northern Italy. European trade, books, and colonialism subsequently helped popularize the adoption of Arabic numerals around the world. The numerals have found worldwide use significantly beyond the contemporary spread of the Latin alphabet, and have become common in the writing systems where other numeral systems existed previously, such as Chinese and Japanese numerals.
History
Origin
Positional decimal notation including a zero symbol was developed in India, using symbols visually distinct from those that would eventually enter into international use. As the concept spread, the sets of symbols used in different regions diverged over time.
The immediate ancestors of the digits now commonly called "Arabic numerals" were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabic speakers of Spain and North Africa, with digits at the time in wide use from Libya to Morocco. In the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, the Arabs were using the Eastern Arabic numerals or "Mashriki" numerals: ٠, ١, ٢, ٣, ٤, ٥, ٦, ٧, ٨, ٩.
Al-Nasawi wrote in the early 11th century that mathematicians had not agreed on the form of the numerals, but most of them had agreed to train themselves with the forms now known as Eastern Arabic numerals. The oldest specimens of the written numerals available are from Egypt and date to 873–874 AD. They show three forms of the numeral "2" and two forms of the numeral "3", and these variations indicate the divergence between what later became known as the Eastern Arabic numerals and the Western Arabic numerals. The Western Arabic numerals came to be used in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus from the 10th century onward. Some amount of consistency in the Western Arabic numeral forms endured from the 10th century, found in a Latin manuscript of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae from 976 and the Gerbertian abacus, into the 12th and 13th centuries, in early manuscripts of translations from the city of Toledo.
Calculations were originally performed using a dust board (takht, Latin: tabula), which involved writing symbols with a stylus and erasing them. The use of the dust board appears to have introduced a divergence in terminology as well: whereas the Hindu reckoning was called ḥisāb al-hindī in the east, it was called ḥisāb al-ghubār in the west (literally, "calculation with dust"). The numerals themselves were referred to in the west as ashkāl al‐ghubār ("dust figures") or qalam al-ghubår ("dust letters"). Al-Uqlidisi later invented a system of calculations with ink and paper "without board and erasing" (bi-ghayr takht wa-lā maḥw bal bi-dawāt wa-qirṭās).
A popular myth claims that the symbols were designed to indicate their numeric value through the number of angles they contained, but there is no contemporary evidence of this, and the myth is difficult to reconcile with any digits past 4.
Adoption and spread
The first mentions of the numerals from 1 to 9 in the West are found in the 976 Codex Vigilanus, an illuminated collection of various historical documents covering a period from antiquity to the 10th century in Hispania. Other texts show that numbers from 1 to 9 were occasionally supplemented by a placeholder known as sipos, represented as a circle or wheel, reminiscent of the eventual symbol for zero. The Arabic term for zero is sifr (), transliterated into Latin as cifra, and the origin of the English word cipher.
From the 980s, Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II) used his position to spread knowledge of the numerals in Europe. Gerbert studied in Barcelona in his youth. He was known to have requested mathematical treatises concerning the astrolabe from Lupitus of Barcelona after he had returned to France.
The reception of Arabic numerals in the West was gradual and lukewarm, as other numeral systems circulated in addition to the older Roman numbers. As a discipline, the first to adopt Arabic numerals as part of their own writings were astronomers and astrologists, evidenced from manuscripts surviving from mid-12th-century Bavaria. Reinher of Paderborn (1140–1190) used the numerals in his calendrical tables to calculate the dates of Easter more easily in his text Compotus emendatus.
Italy
Leonardo Fibonacci was a Pisan mathematician who had studied in the Pisan trading colony of Bugia, in what is now Algeria, and he endeavored to promote the numeral system in Europe with his 1202 book Liber Abaci:
When my father, who had been appointed by his country as public notary in the customs at Bugia acting for the Pisan merchants going there, was in charge, he summoned me to him while I was still a child, and having an eye to usefulness and future convenience, desired me to stay there and receive instruction in the school of accounting. There, when I had been introduced to the art of the Indians' nine symbols through remarkable teaching, knowledge of the art very soon pleased me above all else and I came to understand it.
The Liber Abaci introduced the huge advantages of a positional numeric system, and was widely influential. As Fibonacci used the symbols from Béjaïa for the digits, these symbols were also introduced in the same instruction, ultimately leading to their widespread adoption.
Fibonacci's introduction coincided with Europe's commercial revolution of the 12th and 13th centuries, centered in Italy. Positional notation could be used for quicker and more complex mathematical operations (such as currency conversion) than Roman and other numeric systems could. They could also handle larger numbers, did not require a separate reckoning tool, and allowed the user to check a calculation without repeating the entire procedure. Although positional notation opened possibilities that were hampered by previous systems, late medieval Italian merchants did not stop using Roman numerals (or other reckoning tools). Rather, Arabic numerals became an additional tool that could be used alongside others.
Europe
By the late 14th century, only a few texts using Arabic numerals appeared outside of Italy. This suggests that the use of Arabic numerals in commercial practice, and the significant advantage they conferred, remained a virtual Italian monopoly until the late 15th century. This may in part have been due to language barriers: although Fibonacci's Liber Abaci was written in Latin, the Italian abacus traditions was predominantly written in Italian vernaculars that circulated in the private collections of abacus schools or individuals. It was likely difficult for non-Italian merchant bankers to access comprehensive information.
The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the printing press, and they became widely known during the 15th century. Their use grew steadily in other centers of finance and trade such as Lyon. Early evidence of their use in Britain includes: an equal hour horary quadrant from 1396, in England, a 1445 inscription on the tower of Heathfield Church, Sussex; a 1448 inscription on a wooden lych-gate of Bray Church, Berkshire; and a 1487 inscription on the belfry door at Piddletrenthide church, Dorset; and in Scotland a 1470 inscription on the tomb of the first Earl of Huntly in Elgin Cathedral. In central Europe, the King of Hungary Ladislaus the Posthumous, started the use of Arabic numerals, which appear for the first time in a royal document of 1456.
By the mid-16th century, they were in common use in most of Europe. Roman numerals remained in use mostly for the notation of Anno Domini (“A.D.”) years, and for numbers on clock faces. Other digits (such as Eastern Arabic) were virtually unknown.
Russia
Prior to the introduction of Arabic numerals, Cyrillic numerals, derived from the Cyrillic alphabet, were used by South and East Slavs. The system was used in Russia as late as the early 18th century, although it was formally replaced in official use by Peter the Great in 1699. Reasons for Peter's switch from the alphanumerical system are believed to go beyond a surface-level desire to imitate the West. Historian Peter Brown makes arguments for sociological, militaristic, and pedagogical reasons for the change. At a broad, societal level, Russian merchants, soldiers, and officials increasingly came into contact with counterparts from the West and became familiar with the communal use of Arabic numerals. Peter also covertly travelled throughout Northern Europe from 1697 to 1698 during his Grand Embassy and was likely informally exposed to Western mathematics during this time. The Cyrillic system was found to be inferior for calculating practical kinematic values, such as the trajectories and parabolic flight patterns of artillery. With its use, it was difficult to keep pace with Arabic numerals in the growing field of ballistics, whereas Western mathematicians such as John Napier had been publishing on the topic since 1614.
China
The Chinese Shang dynasty numerals from the 14th century B.C. predates the Indian Brahmi numerals by over 1000 years and shows substantial similarity to the Brahmi numerals. Similar to the modern Arabic numerals, the Shang dynasty numeral system was also decimal based and positional.
While positional Chinese numeral systems such as the counting rod system and Suzhou numerals had been in use prior to the introduction of modern Arabic numerals, the externally-developed system was eventually introduced to medieval China by the Hui people. In the early 17th century, European-style Arabic numerals were introduced by Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits.
Encoding
The ten Arabic numerals are encoded in virtually every character set designed for electric, radio, and digital communication, such as Morse code. They are encoded in ASCII (and therefore in Unicode encodings) at positions 0x30 to 0x39. Masking all but the four least-significant binary digits gives the value of the decimal digit, a design decision facilitating the digitization of text onto early computers. EBCDIC used a different offset, but also possessed the aforementioned masking property.
Comparison with other digits
See also
Arabic numeral variations
Regional variations in modern handwritten Arabic numerals
Seven-segment display
Text figures
Citations
General and cited sources
Further reading
External links
Lam Lay Yong, "Development of Hindu Arabic and Traditional Chinese Arithmetic", Chinese Science 13 (1996): 35–54.
"Counting Systems and Numerals", Historyworld. Retrieved 11 December 2005.
The Evolution of Numbers. 16 April 2005.
O'Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson, Indian numerals . November 2000.
History of the numerals
Arabic numerals
Hindu–Arabic numerals
Numeral & Numbers' history and curiosities
Gerbert d'Aurillac's early use of Hindu–Arabic numerals at Convergence
Numerals |
1788 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABM | ABM | ABM or Abm may refer to:
Companies
ABM Industries, a US facility management provider
ABM Intelligence, a UK software company
Advantage Business Media, a US digital marketing and information services company
Associated British Maltsters, acquired by Dalgety plc
Computing
Advanced Bit Manipulation, an instruction set extension for x86
Agent-based model, a computational model for simulating autonomous agents
Asynchronous Balanced Mode, an HDLC communication mode
Military
Air Battle Manager, US Air Force rated officer position
Anti-ballistic missile
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 1972 arms control treaty between the US and USSR
Organizations
Abahlali baseMjondolo, movement of South African shack dwellers
Anglican Board of Mission - Australia, the national mission agency of the Anglican Church of Australia
Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an Egyptian jihadist group
Other uses
Abanyom language of Nigeria, ISO 639-3 code
ABM (video game), 1980 video game
Account-based marketing, strategic approach to business marketing
Activity-based management, method of identifying and evaluating activities that a business performs
Agaricus blazei Murill, a species of mushroom
Automated banking machine, Canadian term for automated teller machine
IATA airport code for Northern Peninsula Airport, in Queensland, Australia
Atmospheric Black Metal |
1789 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuleius | Apuleius | Apuleius (, ; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He was born in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day M'Daourouch, Algeria. He studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near Oea (modern Tripoli, Libya). This is known as the Apologia.
His most famous work is his bawdy picaresque novel the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass. It is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It relates the adventures of its protagonist, Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into a donkey. Lucius goes through various adventures before he is turned back into a human being by the goddess Isis.
Life
Apuleius was born in Madauros, a colonia in Numidia on the North African coast bordering Gaetulia, and he described himself as "half-Numidian half-Gaetulian." Madaurus was the same colonia where Augustine of Hippo later received part of his early education, and, though located well away from the Romanized coast, is today the site of some pristine Roman ruins. As to his first name, no praenomen is given in any ancient source; late-medieval manuscripts began the tradition of calling him Lucius from the name of the hero of his novel. Details regarding his life come mostly from his defense speech (Apology) and his work Florida, which consists of snippets taken from some of his best speeches.
His father was a municipal magistrate (duumvir) who bequeathed at his death the sum of nearly two million sesterces to his two sons. Apuleius studied with a master at Carthage (where he later settled) and later at Athens, where he studied Platonist philosophy among other subjects. He subsequently went to Rome to study Latin rhetoric and, most likely, to speak in the law courts for a time before returning to his native North Africa. He also travelled extensively in Asia Minor and Egypt, studying philosophy and religion, burning up his inheritance while doing so.
Apuleius was an initiate in several Greco-Roman mysteries, including the Dionysian Mysteries. He was a priest of Asclepius and, according to Augustine, sacerdos provinciae Africae (i.e., priest of the province of Carthage).
Not long after his return home he set out upon a new journey to Alexandria. On his way there he was taken ill at the town of Oea (modern-day Tripoli) and was hospitably received into the house of Sicinius Pontianus, with whom he had been friends when he had studied in Athens. The mother of Pontianus, Pudentilla, was a very rich widow. With her son's consent – indeed encouragement – Apuleius agreed to marry her. Meanwhile, Pontianus himself married the daughter of one Herennius Rufinus; he, indignant that Pudentilla's wealth should pass out of the family, instigated his son-in-law, together with a younger brother, Sicinius Pudens, a mere boy, and their paternal uncle, Sicinius Aemilianus, to join him in impeaching Apuleius upon the charge that he had gained the affections of Pudentilla by charms and magic spells. The case was heard at Sabratha, near Tripoli, c. 158 AD, before Claudius Maximus, proconsul of Africa. The accusation itself seems to have been ridiculous, and the spirited and triumphant defence spoken by Apuleius is still extant. This is known as the Apologia (A Discourse on Magic).
Apuleius accused an extravagant personal enemy of turning his house into a brothel and prostituting his own wife.
Of his subsequent career, we know little. Judging from the many works of which he was author, he must have devoted himself diligently to literature. He occasionally gave speeches in public to great reception; he had the charge of exhibiting gladiatorial shows and wild beast events in the province, and statues were erected in his honour by the senate of Carthage and of other senates.
The date, place and circumstances of Apuleius' death are not known. There is no record of his activities after 170, a fact which has led some people to believe that he must have died about then (say in 171), although other scholars feel that he may still have been alive in 180 or even 190.
Works
The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass (Asinus Aureus) or Metamorphoses is the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety. It is an imaginative, irreverent, and amusing work that relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, who introduces himself as related to the famous philosophers Plutarch and Sextus of Chaeronea. Lucius experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into an ass. In this guise, he hears and sees many unusual things, until escaping from his predicament in a rather unexpected way. Within this frame story are found many digressions, the longest among them being the well-known tale of Cupid and Psyche. This story is a rare instance of a fairy tale preserved in an ancient literary text.
The Metamorphoses ends with the (once again human) hero, Lucius, eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis; he abstains from forbidden foods, bathes, and purifies himself. He is introduced to the Navigium Isidis. Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him, and further secrets are revealed before he goes through the process of initiation, which involves a trial by the elements on a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in Rome, and eventually is initiated into the pastophoroi – a group of priests that serves Isis and Osiris.
The Apologia
Apologia (Apulei Platonici pro Se de Magia) is the version of the defence presented in Sabratha, in 158–159, before the proconsul Claudius Maximus, by Apuleius accused of the crime of magic. Between the traditional exordium and peroratio, the argumentation is divided into three sections:
Refutation of the accusations levelled against his private life. He demonstrates that by marrying Pudentilla he had no interested motive and that he carries it away, intellectually and morally, on his opponents.
Attempt to prove that his so-called "magical operations" were in fact indispensable scientific experiments for an imitator of Aristotle and Hippocrates, or the religious acts of a Roman Platonist.
A recount of the events that have occurred in Oea since his arrival and pulverize the arguments against him.
The main interest of the Apology is historical, as it offers substantial information about its author, magic and life in Africa in the second century.
Other works
His other works are:
Florida. A compilation of twenty-three extracts from his various speeches and lectures.
De Platone et dogmate eius (On Plato and his Doctrine). An outline in two books of Plato's physics and ethics, preceded by a life of Plato
(On the God of Socrates). A work on the existence and nature of daemons, the intermediaries between gods and humans. This treatise was attacked by Augustine of Hippo. It contains a passage comparing gods and kings which is the first recorded occurrence of the proverb "familiarity breeds contempt":
On the Universe. This Latin translation of Pseudo-Aristotle's work De Mundo is probably by Apuleius.
Apuleius wrote many other works which have not survived. He wrote works of poetry and fiction, as well as technical treatises on politics, dendrology, agriculture, medicine, natural history, astronomy, music, and arithmetic, and he translated Plato's Phaedo.
Spurious works
Extant works wrongly attributed to Apuleius include:
Peri Hermeneias (On interpretation). A brief Latin version of a guide to Aristotelian logic.
Asclepius. A Latin paraphrase of a lost Greek dialogue (The perfect discourse) featuring Asclepius and Hermes Trismegistus.
Herbarium Apuleii Platonici by Pseudo-Apuleius.
Apuleian Sphere
The Apuleian Sphere described in Petosiris to Nechepso, also known as "Columcille's Circle" or "Petosiris' Circle", is a magical prognosticating device for predicting the survival of a patient.
See also
Boethius
Square of opposition
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Works by Apuleius at Perseus Digital Library
L. Apuleii Opera Omnia, Lipsia, sumtibus C. Cnoblochii, 1842, pars I (the Metamorphoses) and pars II (Florida, De Deo Socratis, De Dogmate Platonis, De Mundo Libri, Asclepius, Apologia et Fragmenta), in a critical edition with explanatory notes
The works of Apuleius, London, George Bell and sons, 1878 (English translation)
Apuleius (123–180 CE) the Famous Berber writer
Apulei Opera (Latin texts of all the surviving works of Apuleius) at The Latin Library
English translation of Florida by H. E. Butler
English translation of the Apologia by H. E. Butler
English translation of the God of Socrates by Thomas Taylor
Apuleius – Apologia: Seminar (Latin text of the Apologia with H. E. Butler's English translation and an English crib with discussion and commentary)
Apology as Prosecution: The Trial of Apuleius
Apuleius' works: text, concordances and frequency list
Ongoing website for "Apuleius and Africa" conference
Apuleius and Africa Bibliography
The Spectacles of Apuleius: a digital humanities project
Free public domain audiobook version of ''Apuleius on the Doctrines of Plato translated by George Burges
2nd-century Berber people
124 births
170 deaths
2nd-century clergy
2nd-century writers
2nd-century philosophers
2nd-century Romans
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Ancient Roman rhetoricians
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Silver Age Latin writers |
1797 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre | Acre | The acre ( ) is a unit of land area used in the British imperial and the United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m2, or about 40% of a hectare. Based upon the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The acre is sometimes abbreviated ac but is usually spelled out as the word "acre".
Traditionally, in the Middle Ages, an acre was conceived of as the area of land that could be ploughed by one man using a team of eight oxen in one day.
The acre is still a statutory measure in the United States. Both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but they differ by only four parts per million (see below). The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.
The acre is used in many established and former Commonwealth of Nations countries by custom. In a few, it continues as a statute measure, although not since 2010 in the UK, and not for decades in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In many places where it is not a statute measure, it is still lawful to "use for trade" if given as supplementary information and is not used for land registration.
Description
One acre equals (0.0015625) square mile, 4,840 square yards, 43,560 square feet, or about (see below). While all modern variants of the acre contain 4,840 square yards, there are alternative definitions of a yard, so the exact size of an acre depends upon the particular yard on which it is based. Originally, an acre was understood as a strip of land sized at forty perches (660 ft, or 1 furlong) long and four perches (66 ft) wide; this may have also been understood as an approximation of the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plough in one day (a furlong being "a furrow long"). A square enclosing one acre is approximately 69.57 yards, or 208 feet 9 inches (), on a side. As a unit of measure, an acre has no prescribed shape; any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre.
US survey acres
In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, the United States and five countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. The US authorities decided that, while the refined definition would apply nationally in all other respects, the US survey foot (and thus the survey acre) would continue 'until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust [it]'. By inference, an "international acre" may be calculated as exactly square metres but it does not have a basis in any international agreement.
Both the international acre and the US survey acre contain of a square mile or 4,840 square yards, but alternative definitions of a yard are used (see survey foot and survey yard), so the exact size of an acre depends upon the yard upon which it is based. The US survey acre is about 4,046.872 square metres; its exact value ( m2) is based on an inch defined by 1 metre = 39.37 inches exactly, as established by the Mendenhall Order of 1893. Surveyors in the United States use both international and survey feet, and consequently, both varieties of acre.
Since the difference between the US survey acre and international acre (0.016 square metres, 160 square centimetres or 24.8 square inches), is only about a quarter of the size of an A4 sheet or US letter, it is usually not important which one is being discussed. Areas are seldom measured with sufficient accuracy for the different definitions to be detectable.
In October 2019, the US National Geodetic Survey and the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced their joint intent to end the "temporary" continuance of the US survey foot, mile, and acre units (as permitted by their 1959 decision, above), with effect from the end of 2022.
Spanish acre
The Puerto Rican cuerda () is sometimes called the "Spanish acre" in the continental United States.
Use
The acre is commonly used in many current and former Commonwealth countries by custom, and in a few it continues as a statute measure. These include Antigua and Barbuda, American Samoa, The Bahamas, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Grenada, Ghana, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Jamaica, Montserrat, Samoa, Saint Lucia, St. Helena, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, the United Kingdom, the United States and the US Virgin Islands.
Republic of Ireland
In the Republic of Ireland, the hectare is legally used under European units of measurement directives; however, the acre is still widely used, especially in agriculture. (This is the standard statute acre, the same as used in the UK, not the old Irish acre which was of a different size.)
Indian subcontinent
In the Republic of India, residential plots are measured in square feet or square metre, while agricultural land is measured in acres. In Sri Lanka, the division of an acre into 160 perches or 4 roods is common.
In Pakistan, residential plots are measured in (20 = 1 = 500 sq yards) and open/agriculture land measurement is in acres (8 = 1 acre or 4 = 1 acre) and (25 acres = 1 = 200 ), and .
United Kingdom
Its use as a primary unit for trade in the United Kingdom ceased to be permitted from 1 October 1995, due to the 1994 amendment of the Weights and Measures Act, where it was replaced by the hectare though its use as a supplementary unit continues to be permitted indefinitely. This was with the exemption of Land registration, which records the sale and possession of land, in 2010 HM Land Registry ended its exemption. The measure is still used to communicate with the public, and informally (non-contract) by the farming and property industries.
Equivalence to other units of area
1 international acre is equal to the following metric units:
0.40468564224 hectare (A square with 100 m sides has an area of 1 hectare.)
4,046.8564224 square metres (or a square with approximately 63.61 m sides)
1 United States survey acre is equal to:
0.404687261 hectare
4,046.87261 square metres (1 square kilometre is equal to 247.105 acres)
1 acre (both variants) is equal to the following customary units:
66 feet × 660 feet (43,560 square feet)
10 square chains (1 chain = 66 feet = 22 yards = 4 rods = 100 links)
1 acre is approximately 208.71 feet × 208.71 feet (a square)
4,840 square yards
43,560 square feet
160 perches. A perch is equal to a square rod (1 square rod is 0.00625 acre)
4 roods
A furlong by a chain (furlong 220 yards, chain 22 yards)
40 rods by 4 rods, 160 rods2 (historically fencing was often sold in 40 rod lengths)
(0.0015625) square mile (1 square mile is equal to 640 acres)
Perhaps the easiest way for US residents to envision an acre is as a rectangle measuring 88 yards by 55 yards ( of 880 yards by of 880 yards), about the size of a standard American football field. To be more exact, one acre is 90.75% of a 100-yd-long by 53.33-yd-wide American football field (without the end zone). The full field, including the end zones, covers about .
For residents of other countries, the acre might be envisioned as rather more than half of a football pitch.
Historical origin
The word acre is derived from Old English originally meaning "open field", cognate with west coast Norwegian , Icelandic , Swedish , German , Dutch , Latin , Sanskrit , and Greek (). In English, an obsolete variant spelling was aker.
According to the Act on the Composition of Yards and Perches, dating from around 1300, an acre is "40 perches [rods] in length and four in breadth", meaning 220 yards by 22 yards. As detailed in the box on the right, an acre was roughly the amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day.
Before the enactment of the metric system, many countries in Europe used their own official acres. In France, the traditional unit of area was the arpent carré, a measure based on the Roman system of land measurement.
The was used only in Normandy (and neighbouring places outside its traditional borders), but its value varied greatly across Normandy, ranging from 3,632 to 9,725 square metres, with 8,172 square metres being the most frequent value. But inside the same of Normandy, for instance in pays de Caux, the farmers (still in the 20th century) made the difference between the (68 ares, 66 centiares) and the (56 to 65 ca). The Normandy was usually divided in 4 (roods) and 160 square , like the English acre.
The Normandy was equal to 1.6 , the unit of area more commonly used in Northern France outside of Normandy. In Canada, the Paris used in Quebec before the metric system was adopted is sometimes called "French acre" in English, even though the Paris and the Normandy were two very different units of area in ancient France (the Paris became the unit of area of French Canada, whereas the Normandy was never used in French Canada).
In Germany, the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe the traditional unit of area was . Like the acre, the morgen was a unit of ploughland, representing a strip that could be ploughed by one man and an ox or horse in a morning. There were many variants of the morgen, differing between the different German territories, ranging from . It was also used in Old Prussia, in the Balkans, Norway, and Denmark, where it was equal to about .
Statutory values for the acre were enacted in England, and subsequently the United Kingdom, by acts of:
Edward I
Edward III
Henry VIII
George IV
Queen Victoria – the British Weights and Measures Act of 1878 defined it as containing 4,840 square yards.
Historically, the size of farms and landed estates in the United Kingdom was usually expressed in acres (or acres, roods, and perches), even if the number of acres was so large that it might conveniently have been expressed in square miles. For example, a certain landowner might have been said to own 32,000 acres of land, not 50 square miles of land.
The acre is related to the square mile, with 640 acres making up one square mile. One mile is 5280 feet (1760 yards). In western Canada and the western United States, divisions of land area were typically based on the square mile, and fractions thereof. If the square mile is divided into quarters, each quarter has a side length of mile (880 yards) and is square mile in area, or 160 acres. These subunits would typically then again be divided into quarters, with each side being mile long, and being of a square mile in area, or 40 acres. In the United States, farmland was typically divided as such, and the phrase "the back 40" would refer to the 40-acre parcel to the back of the farm. Most of the Canadian Prairie Provinces and the US Midwest are on square-mile grids for surveying purposes.
Legacy units
Customary acre – The customary acre was roughly similar to the Imperial acre, but it was subject to considerable local variation similar to the variation in carucates, virgates, bovates, nooks, and farundels. These may have been multiples of the customary acre, rather than the statute acre.
Builder's acre = an even or , used in US real-estate development to simplify the math and for marketing. It is nearly 10% smaller than a survey acre, and the discrepancy has led to lawsuits alleging misrepresentation.
Scottish acre = 1.3 Imperial acres (5,080 m2, an obsolete Scottish measurement)
Irish acre =
Cheshire acre =
Stremma or Greek acre ≈ 10,000 square Greek feet, but now set at exactly 1,000 square metres (a similar unit was the zeugarion)
Dunam or Turkish acre ≈ 1,600 square Turkish paces, but now set at exactly 1,000 square metres (a similar unit was the çift)
Actus quadratus or Roman acre ≈ 14,400 square Roman feet (about 1,260 square metres)
God's Acre – a synonym for a churchyard.
Long acre the grass strip on either side of a road that may be used for illicit grazing.
Town acre was a term used in early 19th century in the planning of towns on a grid plan, such as Adelaide, South Australia and Wellington, New Plymouth and Nelson in New Zealand. The land was divided into plots of an Imperial acre, and these became known as town acres.
See also
Acre-foot – used in US to measure a large water volume
Anthropic units
Conversion of units
French arpent – used in Louisiana to measure length and area
Jugerum
a Morgen ("morning") of land is normally of a Tagwerk ("day work") of ploughing with an ox
Public Land Survey System
Quarter acre
Section (United States land surveying)
Spanish customary units
Notes
References
External links
The Units of Measurement Regulations 1995 (United Kingdom)
Customary units of measurement in the United States
Imperial units
Surveying
Units of area |
1799 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATP | ATP | ATP may refer to:
Science, technology and biology
Adenosine triphosphate, an organic chemical used for driving biological processes
ATPase, any enzyme that makes use of adenosine triphosphate
Advanced Technology Program, US government program
Anti-tachycardia pacing, process similar to a pacemaker
Alberta Taciuk process, for extracting oil from shale, etc.
Automated theorem proving, method of proving mathematical theorems by computer programs
Companies and organizations
Association of Tennis Professionals, men's professional tennis governing body
ATP Tour
American Technical Publishers, employee-owned publishing company
Armenia Tree Project, non-profit organization
Association for Transpersonal Psychology
ATP architects engineers, architecture- and engineering office for integrated design
ATP Oil and Gas, defunct US energy company
Entertainment, arts and media
Adenosine Tri-Phosphate (band), Japanese alternative rock/pop band
All Tomorrow's Parties (festival), UK organisation
ATP Recordings, record label
Alberta Theatre Projects, professional, not-for-profit, Canadian theatre company
Associated Talking Pictures, former name of Ealing Studios, a television and film production company
Transport
British Aerospace ATP, airliner
Airline transport pilot license
ATP Flight School, US
ATP (treaty), UN treaty that establishes standards for the international transport of perishable food
Aitape Airport, Papua New Guinea, IATA code
Anti-trespass panels, meant to deter pedestrians from walking on or adjacent to train tracks
Automatic train protection, system installed in trains to prevent collisions through driver error
Automatic Train Protection (United Kingdom), method of beacon based railway cab signalling
Economics
Available-to-promise, responding to customer order enquiries
, a Danish pension
, a Swedish pension
Other uses
Around-the-post, a term used in the game of pickleball |