Definitions

According legend, Ephesus (also Ephesos) was founded by the tribe of the Amazons, great female warriors. The name of the city is thought to have been derived from "Apasas", the name of a city in the "Kingdom of Arzawa" meaning the "city...

Literature (from the Latin Littera meaning "letters" and referring to an acquaintance with the written word) is the written work of a specific culture, sub-culture, religion, philosophy, or the...

The Battle of Chaeronea took place in 338 BCE on an early August morning outside the town of Chaeronea. Although for centuries the cities of Athens and Sparta dominated Greece, politically, militarily and economically, the...

Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BCE, also known as Assurbanipal) was the last of the great kings of Assyria. His name means "the god Ashur is creator of an heir" and he was the son of King Esarhaddon of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the Hebrew...

Sidon is the Greek name (meaning 'fishery') for the ancient Phoenician port city of Sidonia (also known as Saida) in what is, today, Lebannon (located about 25 miles south of Beirut). Along with the city of Tyre, Sidon was the most powerful...

Baalbek is an ancient Phoenician city located in what is now modern-day Lebanon, north of Beirut, in the Beqaa Valley. Inhabited as early as 9000 BCE, Baalbek grew into an important pilgrimage site in the ancient world for the worship...

Byblos was the ancient Phoenician port city of Gebal (called Byblos by the Greeks) on the coast of the Mediterranean sea in what is, today, Lebanon. According to the historian Durant, “Byblos thought itself the oldest of all cities; the...

Xenophanes of Colophon (l. c. 570 to c. 478 BCE) was a Greek philosopher born 50 miles north of Miletus, a city famed for the birth of philosophy and home to the first Western philosopher, Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE...

Anaximander of Miletus (l. c. 610 - c. 546 BCE) was one of the early Pre-Socratic Philosophers who lay the foundation for the deveopment of Western Philosophy. He was a student of Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE), recognized as the...

Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE) is regarded as the first Western philosopher and mathematician. He was born and lived in Miletus, a Greek colony in Ionia (modern Turkey) referenced as the birthplace of Greek Philosophy because...