Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Acca Larentia –tīˈnə [key], in Roman mythology, wife of the shepherd Faustulus and foster mother of Romulus and Remus. Her 12 sons founded the priesthood of the Arval Brothers. According to one l...

(Encyclopedia) history painting, the painting of scenes from classical and Christian history and mythology. It was taught in the academies of art, from the Renaissance to the 19th cent., as the highest form of art i...

(Encyclopedia) Hexapla hĕkˈsəplə [key] [Gr.,=sixfold], polyglot edition of the Hebrew Bible prepared by Origen (c.185–c.255). It was mainly in six columns—a Hebrew text (probably the Masoretic), a Greek tran...

(Encyclopedia) Dido dīˈdō [key], in Roman mythology, queen of Carthage, also called Elissa. She was the daughter of a king of Tyre. After her brother Pygmalion murdered her husband, she fled to Libya, where she f...

(Encyclopedia) Ochakiv əchäˈkəf [key], city, S Ukraine, on the Dnieper-Buh estuary and on the Black Sea. It is the center of an agricultural district and a seaport with fishing industries. In the 7th and 6th cen...

(Encyclopedia) acrostic əkrŏˈstĭk [key], arrangement of words or lines in which a series of initial, final, or other corresponding letters, when taken together, stand in a set order ...

(Encyclopedia) Tyrtaeus tərtēˈəs [key], fl. 7th cent. b.c. at Sparta, Greek elegiac poet. Fragments of his martial elegies in Dorian Greek, which were written to spur Spartan soldiers to victory, are extant. An ...

(Encyclopedia) Theseus thēˈsyo͞os, –sēəs [key], in Greek mythology, hero of Athens; son of either King Aegeus or Poseidon. Before Aegeus left Troezen he placed his sword and sandals beneath a huge rock and to...

(Encyclopedia) Apollonius of Perga, fl. 247–205 b.c., Greek mathematician of the Alexandrian school. He produced a treatise on conic sections that included, as well as his own work, much of the work of his predece...

(Encyclopedia) Capo d'Istria, Giovanni Antonio, Count käˈpō dēˈstrēä [key], Gr. Joannes Antonios Capodistrias or Kapodistrias, 1776–1831, Greek and Russian statesman, b. Corfu. After administrative work in ...