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Pylos

(Encyclopedia)Pylos pīˈlŏs [key], ancient harbor, Messenia, SW Greece, on a bay of the Ionian Sea. Excavations have revealed a great Mycenaean palace of the 13th cent. b.c., perhaps the dwelling of King Nestor. ...

Crashaw, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Crashaw, Richard krăshˈô [key], 1612?–1649, one of the English metaphysical poets. He was graduated from Cambridge in 1634 and remained there as a fellow at Peterhouse until the Puritan uprising,...

Everett, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Everett, Edward ĕvˈrĭt, ĕvˈərĭt [key], 1794–1865, American orator and statesman, b. Dorchester, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1811; M.A., 1814). In 1814 he became a Unitarian minister in Boston...

fable

(Encyclopedia)fable, brief allegorical narrative, in verse or prose, illustrating a moral thesis or satirizing human beings. The characters of a fable are usually animals who talk and act like people while retainin...

Plautus

(Encyclopedia)Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus) plôˈtəs [key], c.254–184 b.c., Roman writer of comedies, b. Umbria. His plays, adapted from those of Greek New Comedy, are popular and vigorous representations of ...

sphinx

(Encyclopedia)sphinx sfĭngks [key], mythical beast of ancient Egypt, frequently symbolizing the pharaoh as an incarnation of the sun god Ra. The sphinx was represented in sculpture usually in a recumbent position ...

Artaxerxes II

(Encyclopedia)Artaxerxes II, d. 358 b.c., king of ancient Persia (404–358 b.c.), son and successor of Darius II. He is sometimes called in Greek Artaxerxes Mnemon [the thoughtful]. Early in his reign Cyrus the Yo...

snake worship

(Encyclopedia)snake worship. The snake has been variously adored as a regenerative power, as a god of evil, as a god of good, as Christ (by the Gnostics), as a phallic deity, as a solar deity, and as a god of death...

Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders

(Encyclopedia)Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders pēˈtrē [key], 1853–1942, English archaeologist, a noted Egyptologist. He excavated ancient remains in Britain (1875–80), Egypt (1880–1924), and Palestine ...

Duncan, Isadora

(Encyclopedia)Duncan, Isadora ĭzˌədôrˈə dŭngˈkən [key], 1878–1927, American dancer, b. San Francisco. She had little success in the United States when she first created dances based on Greek classical ar...