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Lucania

(Encyclopedia)Lucania lo͞okāˈnēə [key], ancient region of S Italy. It was bounded on the east by the Gulf of Tarentum (now Taranto) and by Apulia, on the north by Samnium and Campania, on the west by the Tyrrh...

Pinter, Harold

(Encyclopedia)Pinter, Harold, 1930–2008, English dramatist. Born in Hackney in London's East End, the son of an English tailor of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, he studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic...

Wagner, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Wagner, Richard vägˈnər [key], 1813–83, German composer, b. Leipzig. Wagner's second wife, Cosima Wagner, 1837–1930, was the daughter of Liszt and the comtesse d'Agoult. From 1857 to 1870 sh...

dance

(Encyclopedia)dance [Old High Ger. danson=to drag, stretch], the art of precise, expressive, and graceful human movement, traditionally, but not necessarily, performed in accord with musical accompaniment. Dancing ...

classic revival

(Encyclopedia)classic revival, widely diffused phase of taste (known as neoclassic) which influenced architecture and the arts in Europe and the United States during the last years of the 18th and the first half of...

Autolycus, Greek astronomer and mathematician

(Encyclopedia)Autolycus ôtŏlˈĭkəs [key], fl. 4th cent. b.c., astronomer and mathematician of Pitane in Aeolis. Of his two extant works, that on the revolving sphere is said to be the oldest completely preserve...

Aratus, Greek statesman and general

(Encyclopedia)Aratus, d. 213 b.c., Greek statesman and general of Sicyon, prime mover and principal leader of the Second Achaean League. His objective at first was to free the Peloponnesus from Macedonian dominatio...

Timotheus , Greek poet and musician

(Encyclopedia)Timotheus tĭmōˈthēəs [key], c.450–c.357 b.c., Greek poet and musician of Miletus. An innovator in music, he added a string to the kithara. Fragments of his dithyrambs and nomes remain. Euripide...

Baphomet

(Encyclopedia)Baphomet băfˈəmĕt [key], idol or mystical figure that the Knights Templars were accused of worshiping in the 14th cent. Apparently the name was unknown before that time in Western demonology. Its ...

Erechtheum

(Encyclopedia)Erechtheum ĭrĕkˈthēəm [key] [for Erechtheus], Gr. Erechtheion, temple in Pentelic marble, on the Acropolis at Athens. One of the masterpieces of Greek architecture, it was constructed between c.4...