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conscription

(Encyclopedia)conscription, compulsory enrollment of personnel for service in the armed forces. Obligatory service in the armed forces has existed since ancient times in many cultures, including the samurai in Japa...

Prespa, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Prespa, Lake prĕsˈpä [key], Albanian Prespës, Macedonian Prespansko, 112 sq mi (290 sq km), SW North Macedonia, NW Greece, and E Albania; highest lake (alt. 2,798 ft/853 m) of the Balkans. It is c...

Olympus

(Encyclopedia)Olympus ōlĭmˈpəs [key], Gr. Ólimbos, mountain range, c.25 mi (40 km) long, N Greece, on the border of Thessaly and Macedonia, near the Aegean coast. It rises to c.9,570 ft (2,920 m) at Mt. Olympu...

orientation

(Encyclopedia)orientation, in architecture, the disposition of the parts of a building with reference to the points of the compass. From remote antiquity the traditional belief in the efficacy of religious ceremoni...

Colossus of Rhodes

(Encyclopedia)Colossus of Rhodes kəlŏsˈəs [key], large statue of Helios, the sun god, destroyed by an earthquake in antiquity. Consider one of the Seven Wonders of the World by the ancients, it was built in par...

apprenticeship

(Encyclopedia)apprenticeship, system of learning a craft or trade from one who is engaged in it and of paying for the instruction by a given number of years of work. The practice was known in ancient Babylon, Egypt...

olive oil

(Encyclopedia)olive oil, pale yellow to greenish oil obtained from the pulp of olives by separating the liquids from solids. Olive oil was used in the ancient world for lighting, in the preparation of food, and as ...

Piraiévs

(Encyclopedia)Piraiévs pīrēˈəs [key], city (1991 pop. 182,671), E central Greece, in Attica, on the Saronic Gulf; part of Greater Athens. It is the port of Athens and the chief port in Greece. A commercial cen...

clown

(Encyclopedia)clown, a comic character usually distinguished by garish makeup and costume whose antics are both humorously clumsy and acrobatic. The clown employs a broad, physical style of humor that is wordless o...

Návplion

(Encyclopedia)Návplion nôˈplēə [key], town (1991 pop. 11,897), capital of Argolís prefecture, S Greece, in the Peloponnesus, a port on the Gulf of Argolís. It is a commercial center that ships tobacco, cotto...