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Esther

(Encyclopedia)Esther ĕsˈtər [key], book of the Bible. It is the tale of the beautiful Jewish woman Esther [Heb.,= Hadassah], who is chosen as queen by the Persian King Ahasuerus (Xerxes I or II) after he has rep...

Bactria

(Encyclopedia)Bactria băkˈtrēə [key], ancient Greek kingdom in central Asia. Its capital was Bactra, present-day Balkh in N Afghanistan. Before the Greek conquest, the region was an eastern province of the Pers...

Achilles

(Encyclopedia)Achilles əkĭlˈēz [key], in Greek mythology, foremost Greek hero of the Trojan War, son of Peleus and Thetis. He was a formidable warrior, possessing fierce and uncontrollable anger. Thetis, knowin...

apple of discord

(Encyclopedia)apple of discord: see Paris, in Greek mythology. ...

Aristophanes

(Encyclopedia)Aristophanes ărˌĭstŏfˈənēz [key], c.448 b.c.–c.388 b.c., Greek playwright, Athenian comic poet, greatest of the ancient writers of comedy. His plays, the only full extant samples of the Greek...

Callimachus, fl. c.280–45 b.c., Hellenistic Greek poet and critic

(Encyclopedia)Callimachus, fl. c.280–45 b.c., Hellenistic Greek poet and critic, b. Cyrene. Educated at Athens, he taught before obtaining work in the Alexandrian library. There he drew up a catalog, with such co...

Ionia

(Encyclopedia)Ionia īōˈnēə [key], ancient region of Asia Minor. It occupied a narrow coastal strip on the E Mediterranean (in present-day W Turkey) as well as the neighboring Aegean Islands, which now mainly b...

Persian Wars

(Encyclopedia)Persian Wars, 500 b.c.–449 b.c., series of conflicts fought between Greek states and the Persian Empire. The writings of Herodotus, who was born c.484 b.c., are the great source of knowledge of the ...

Thrace

(Encyclopedia)Thrace thrās [key], region, 3,310 sq mi (8,575 sq km), SE Europe, occupying the southeastern tip of the Balkan Peninsula and comprising NE Greece, S Bulgaria, and European Turkey. Its boundaries have...

Kelvin temperature scale

(Encyclopedia)Kelvin temperature scale, a temperature scale having an absolute zero below which temperatures do not exist. Absolute zero, or 0K, is the temperature at which molecular energy is a minimum, and it c...