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Byzantium

(Encyclopedia)Byzantium bīzănˈshēəm, –shəm, –tēəm [key], ancient city of Thrace, on the site of the present-day İstanbul, Turkey. Founded by Greeks from Megara in 667 b.c., it early rose to importance ...

Bowdler, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Bowdler, Thomas boudˈlər, bōdˈ– [key], 1754–1825, English editor. He is best known for his Family Shakespeare (10 vol., 1818), an expurgated edition for family reading that, although attacked ...

Barletta

(Encyclopedia)Barletta bärlĕtˈtä [key], city, Apulia, S Italy, on the Adriatic Sea. It is a seaport and a ...

Serapis

(Encyclopedia)Serapis säräˈpĭs [key], Egyptian god whose devotees united the worship of the Apis bull and the god Osiris. His cult, which originated at Memphis, rose to its greatest significance at Alexandria d...

Gibbon, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Gibbon, Edward, 1737–94, English historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His childhood was sickly, and he had little formal education but read enormously and om...

Huns

(Encyclopedia)Huns, nomadic and pastoral people of unknown ethnological affinities who appeared in Europe in the 4th cent. a.d., and built up an empire there. They were organized in a predominantly military manner....

Bury, John Bagnell

(Encyclopedia)Bury, John Bagnell băgˈnəl byo͝oˈrē [key], Irish historian, an authority on the Byzantine Empire. He was professor at the Univ. of Dublin from 1893 to 1902 and at Cambridge from 1902. Bury consi...

Pontus, ancient country, Asia

(Encyclopedia)Pontus, ancient country, NE Asia Minor (now Turkey), on the Black Sea coast. On its inland side were Cappadocia and W Armenia. It was not significantly penetrated by Persian or Hellenic civilization. ...

Marsilius of Padua

(Encyclopedia)Marsilius of Padua märsĭlˈēəs, păˈdyo͞oə [key], d. c.1342, Italian political philosopher. He is satirically called Marsiglio. Little is known with certainty of his life except that he was rec...

Godfrey of Bouillon

(Encyclopedia)Godfrey of Bouillon bo͞oyôNˈ [key], c.1058–1100, Crusader, duke of Lower Lorraine. He fought for Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV against Pope Gregory VII and against Rudolf of Swabia and was rewarded...