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--- hellenistic:hellenistic-period:hellenistic_period_page [2013/10/06 10:32] – [Crates of Thebes] fredmond
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 ===== Epicurus =====
+Ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters of Epicurus's 300 written works remain. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators. For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and should therefore not be feared; the gods do not reward or punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
 [[hellenistic:epicurus|Epicurus Page]]
-====== Hecataeus of Abdera ======
+===== Hecataeus of Abdera =====
+Greek historian and sceptic philosopher who flourished in the 4th century BC.
 [[hellenistic:hecataeus|Hecataeus of Abdera Page]]
 ===== Lycophron of Chalcis =====
+Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem __Alexandra__ is attributed (perhaps falsely).
 [[hellenistic:lycophron_chalcis|Lycophron of Chalcis Page]]
 ===== Manetho =====
+Egyptian historian and priest from Sebennytos (ancient Egyptian: Tjebnutjer) who lived during the Ptolemaic era, approximately during the 3rd century BC. Manetho wrote the __Aegyptiaca__ (History of Egypt). His work is of great interest to Egyptologists, and is often used as evidence for the chronology of the reigns of pharaohs. The earliest and only surviving reference to Manetho's __Aegyptiaca__ is that of the Jewish historian Josephus in his work "Against Apion".
 [[hellenistic:manetho|Manetho Page]]
 ===== Menander =====
+Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He was the author of more than a hundred comedies, and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the City Dionysia is unknown but may well have been similarly spectacular. One of the most popular writers of antiquity, his work was lost in the Middle Ages and is known in modernity in highly fragmentary form, much of which was discovered in the 20th century. Only one play, __Dyskolos__, has survived almost entirely.
 [[hellenistic:menander|Menander Page]]
 ===== Nausiphanes of Teos =====
+Attached to the philosophy of Democritus, and was a pupil of Pyrrho. He had a large number of pupils, and was particularly famous as a rhetorician. Epicurus was at one time one of his hearers, but was unsatisfied with him, and apparently abused him in his writings. He also argued that the study of natural philosophy (physics) was the best foundation for studying rhetoric or politics. There is a polemic in Philodemus' __On Rhetoric__ against Nausiphanes' view that the natural philosopher is the best orator. Epicurus may also have derived his three criteria of truth in his Canon from the Tripod of Nausiphanes.
 [[hellenistic:nausiphanes|Nausiphanes of Teos Page]]
 ===== Polybius =====
+Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, __The Histories__, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece. Polybius is also renowned for his ideas concerning the separation of powers in government, later used in Montesquieu's __The Spirit of the Laws__ and in the drafting of the United States Constitution. Polybius was born in Arcadia around 200 BC. He was the son of Lycortas, a Greek politician who became Cavalry Commander of the Achaean League. His father's opposition to Roman control of Macedonia resulted in his imprisonment. Polybius was then deported to Rome, where Lucius Aemilius Paulus employed him to tutor his two sons. Polybius had the opportunity to return to Macedonia in 152 BC; he elected to stay, however, in Rome, as by that time he had placed his allegiance in the Roman Republic. He became a close friend of the Roman military commander Scipio Aemilianus, accompanying the general to Hispania and Africa. Polybius's __The Histories__ provides a detailed account of Rome's ascent to empire and included his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC. Polybius held that historians should only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of having factual integrity in historical writing, while avoiding bias.
 [[hellenistic:polybius|Polybius Page]]
 ===== Theocritus =====
+Creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC. (A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art and music that depicts such life in an idealized manner, typically for urban audiences. A pastoral is a work of this genre. An alternative word for pastoral as a genre, both in adjectival and noun form, is bucolic, from the Greek βουκόλος, meaning a cowherd.) Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems (Idylls) commonly attributed to him have little claim to authenticity. It is clear that at a very early date two collections were made: one consisting of poems whose authorship was doubtful yet formed a corpus of bucolic poetry, the other a strict collection of those works considered to have been composed by Theocritus himself. Theocritus was from Sicily, as he refers to Polyphemus, the cyclops in the __Odyssey__, as his "countryman." He also probably lived in Alexandria for a while, where he wrote about everyday life, notably Pharmakeutria. It is also speculated that Theocritus was born in Syracuse, lived on the island of Kos, and lived in Egypt during the time of Ptolemy II.
 [[hellenistic:theocritus|Theocritus Page]]