Floruit in the context of "Lucrezia Di Siena"

Heraclitus (/ˌhɛrəˈklaɪtəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος Hērákleitos; fl. c. 500 BC) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, both ancient and modern, through the works of such authors as Plato, Aristotle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger.

Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, of which only fragments survive. Even in ancient times, his paradoxical philosophy, appreciation for wordplay, and cryptic, oracular epigrams earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient atomist philosopher Democritus, who was known as "the laughing philosopher".

Parmenides of Elea (/pɑːrˈmɛnɪdiːz ... ˈɛliə/; Ancient Greek: Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy).

Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea to a wealthy and illustrious family. The exact date of his birth is not known with certainty; on the one hand, according to the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius, Parmenides flourished in the period immediately preceding 500 BC, which would place his year of birth around 540 BC; on the other hand, in the dialogue Parmenides Plato portrays him as visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c. 450 BC, which, if true, suggests a potential year of birth of c. 515 BC. Parmenides is thought to have been in his prime (or "floruit") around 475 BC.

The House of Balšić (Serbian Cyrillic: Балшићи; Albanian: Balsha, Balshaj), or Balsha, were a noble family that ruled "Zeta and the coastlands" (current-day southern Montenegro and northern Albania), from 1362 to 1421, during and after the fall of the Serbian Empire. Balša, the founder, was a petty nobleman who held only one village during the rule of Emperor Dušan the Mighty (r. 1331–1355), and only after the death of the emperor, his three sons gained power in Lower Zeta after acquiring the lands of gospodin Žarko (fl. 1336–1360) under unclear circumstances, and they then expanded into Upper Zeta by murdering voivode and čelnik Đuraš Ilijić (r. 1326–1362†). Nevertheless, they were acknowledged as oblastni gospodari of Zeta in edicts of Emperor Uroš the Weak (r. 1355–1371). After the death of Uroš (1371), the family feuded with the Mrnjavčevići, who controlled Macedonia.

When the last lord of the main branch of the family, Balša III died in 1421 without an heir, his possessions were passed on to his uncle, Despot Stefan the Tall. Later that year, the Republic of Venice took advantage of Balša's death and seized the towns of Bar and Ulcinj, and some of his other territories were seized by the Ottomans and Bosnians.

Babylonia (/ˌbæbɪˈloʊniə/; Akkadian: 𒆳𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠, māt Akkadī) was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based on the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Akkadian-populated but Amorite-ruled state c. 1894 BC. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad" (māt Akkadī in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the linguistically related state of Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia, and with Elam to the east. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (fl. c. 1792–1752 BC middle chronology, or c. 1696–1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom centered around the city of Babylon.

Like Assyria, the Babylonian state retained the written Akkadian language for official use, despite its Northwest Semitic-speaking Amorite founders and Kassite successors, who spoke a language isolate. The state retained the Sumerian language in sacred texts for the Babylonian religion, but already by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been replaced by Akkadian. The earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in the descendant Babylonian culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even under its protracted periods of outside rule.

Orestes (fl. 415 AD) was a Roman state official serving as governor of the diocese of Egypt (the Augustal prefect) in 415. During his term of office, he was engaged a violent feud with the bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, and their struggle precipitated the death of the philosopher and scientist Hypatia.

The gastraphetes (Koine Greek: γαστραφέτης, lit. 'belly-releaser'), also called belly bow or belly shooter, was a hand-held crossbow used by the Ancient Greeks. It was described in the 1st century by the Greek author Heron of Alexandria in his work Belopoeica, which draws on an earlier account of the famous Greek engineer Ctesibius (fl. 285–222 BC). Heron identifies the gastraphetes as the forerunner of the later catapult, which places its invention some unknown time before c. 420 BC.

Unlike later Roman and medieval crossbows, spanning the weapon was not done by pulling up the string but by pushing down a slider mechanism.

Agariste (/æɡəˈrɪstiː/; Ancient Greek: Ἀγαρίστη) (fl. 6th century BC, around 560 BC) was the daughter, and possibly the heiress, of the tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes. Her father wanted to marry her to the "best of the Hellenes" and organized a competition whose prize was her hand in marriage. According to his declaration, all the eligible young men had to appear in Sicyon within 60 days. Twelve competitors appeared and Cleisthenes held a banquet in his guests' honour.

Cleisthenes preferred the former archon Hippocleides but, during the dinner, the suitor embarrassed himself. According to Herodotus, Hippocleides became intoxicated and began to act like a fool; at one point, he stood on his head and kicked his legs in the air, keeping time with the flute music. When Hippocleides was informed that he had "danced away his bride," his response was οὐ φροντίς Ἱπποκλείδῃ, ("Hippocleides doesn't care" or "It doesn't matter to Hippocleides"). Herodotus' description insinuates a bawdy pun: the phrase "danced the bride away" may also be read as "displayed your testicles", in reference to Hippoclides standing on his head while wearing a tunic, which would have exposed his genitals to the guests.

Tancred (fl. 1104) was the Count of Syracuse and a member of the Hauteville family. He was appointed by his relative Roger I of Sicily to govern one of the first and only feudal counties created in Sicily after the Norman conquest. His predecessor was Roger's son, Jordan. His descendant, Simon, still ruled Syracuse in the middle of the twelfth century.

Simon (fl. 1162) was the Norman Count of Syracuse and a member of the Hauteville family. He may be an illegitimate son of Roger II of Sicily, but more likely a son of Henry, Count of Paterno, the brother-in-law of Roger I. He was probably a descendant of his predecessor Tancred.

In 1162, when Frederick Barbarossa was seeking allies for a planned invasion of the Kingdom of Sicily, he made a treaty with the Republic of Genoa, offering them the entire Ligurian coast and the lands of Simon in Sicily. These lands included the cities of Syracuse and Noto and 250 knight's fees (caballariae) in the fertile plain around Noto, the Val di Noto. When the Emperor Henry VI reissued his father's charter to Genoa on 30 May 1191, he retained the promise of Simon's lands, even though Simon was by then dead.

Philocrates (Greek: Φιλοκράτης; floruit: 340s BC) was an ancient Greek politician from the Athenian deme Hagnous who first negotiated the Peace of Philocrates with Philip II of Macedonia after Philip devastated the city of Olynthos in 348 BC. The unpopularity of the treaty resulted in Philocrates being prosecuted in 343 BC by Hyperides for corruption (i.e. accepting bribes and favors from Philip II). Philocrates ultimately fled into exile and was condemned to death during his absence.

The Horns of Moses are an iconographic convention common in Latin Christianity whereby Moses was presented as having two horns on his head, later replaced by rays of light. The idea comes from a translation, or mis-translation, of a Hebrew term in Jerome's Latin Vulgate Bible, and many later vernacular translations dependent on that. Moses is said to be "horned", or radiant, or glorified, after he sees God who presents him with the tablets of the law in the Book of Exodus.

The use of the term "horned" to describe Moses in fact predates Jerome, and can be traced to the Greek Jewish scholar Aquila of Sinope (fl. 130), whose Greek translations were well known to Jerome. The Hebrew qāran may reflect an allegorical concept of "glorified", or rings of light. Horns tend to have positive associations in the Old Testament, and in ancient Middle Eastern culture more widely, but are associated with negative forces in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. These considerations may have influenced the translators in their choices, for Aquila as a positive, or for Jerome, as a negative.

Gan De (Chinese: 甘德; fl. 4th century BC), also known as the Lord Gan (Gan Gong), was an ancient Chinese astronomer and astrologer born in the State of Qi. Along with Shi Shen, he is believed to be the first in history known by name to compile a star catalogue, preceded by the anonymous authors of the early Babylonian star catalogues and followed by the Greek Hipparchus who is the first known in the Western tradition of Hellenistic astronomy to have compiled a star catalogue. He also made observations of the planets, particularly Jupiter. His writings are lost, but some of his works' titles and fragments quoted from them are known from later texts.

Gan De may have been the first to describe one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, usually invisible without the aid of telescopes. In the 20th century, a fragment of Gan's work, in a later compilation of astronomical texts, was identified by Xi Zezong as describing a naked-eye observation of either of the two largest and brightest moons, Ganymede or Callisto in summer 365 BC.

Shi Shen (Chinese: 石申; Wade–Giles: Shih Shen, fl. 4th century BC) was a Chinese astronomer and astrologer. He was a contemporary of Gan De born in the State of Wei, also known as the Shi Shenfu.

Gaius (/ˈɡeɪəs/; fl. AD 130–180) was a Roman jurist. Little is known about his personal life, including his name (Gaius or Caius being merely his personal name or praenomen). It is also difficult to ascertain the span of his life, but it is assumed he lived from AD 130 to at least AD 179, as he wrote on legislation passed within that time.

From internal evidence in his works it may be gathered that he flourished in the reigns of the emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. His works were thus composed between the years 130 and 180. After his death, however, his writings were recognized as of great authority, and the emperor Theodosius II named him in the Law of Citations, along with Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus and Paulus, as one of the five jurists whose opinions were to be followed by judicial officers in deciding cases. The works of these jurists accordingly became most important sources of Roman law.

Silanion (Ancient Greek: Σιλανίων, gen. Σιλανίωνος) was the best-known of the Greek portrait-sculptors working during the fourth century BC. Pliny gives his floruit as the 113th Olympiad, that is, around 328–325 BCE (Natural History, 34.51), and records he had no famous teacher. His idealized portrait head of Plato was commissioned by Mithridates of Persia for the Academy of Athens, c. 370 BC. Later copies of it and of an idealized portrait head of Sappho survive. Both are of simple ideal type, the Sappho not strictly a portrait, since Sappho (sixth century BC) lived before the age of portraiture. The best copy of Plato is in the Glyptothek of Munich (illustration).

Silanion also produced a "portrait" of the poet Corinna. Other "portrait" heads by Silanion evoked mythic and legendary heroes. An Achilles mentioned by Pliny was later adapted to represent Ares, and an equally idealized Theseus is mentioned by Plutarch.