History of Alexandria in the context of "Hero of Alexandria"

⭐ In the context of Hero of Alexandria, the History of Alexandria is most notably characterized by its role as a center for…

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⭐ Core Definition: History of Alexandria

The history of Alexandria dates back to the city's founding, by Alexander the Great, in 331 BC. Yet, before that, there were large port cities just east of Alexandria, at the western edge of what is now Abu Qir Bay. The Canopic (westernmost) branch of the Nile Delta still existed at that time, and was widely used for shipping.

After its foundation, Alexandria became the seat of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, and quickly grew to be one of the greatest cities of the Hellenistic world. Only Rome, which gained control of Egypt in 30 BC, eclipsed Alexandria in size and wealth.

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👉 History of Alexandria in the context of Hero of Alexandria

Hero of Alexandria (/ˈhɪər/; Ancient Greek: Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Hērōn hò Alexandreús, also known as Heron of Alexandria /ˈhɛrən/; probably 1st or 2nd century AD) was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in Alexandria in Egypt during the Roman era. He has been described as the greatest experimentalist of antiquity and a representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition.

Hero published a well-recognized description of a steam-powered device called an aeolipile, also known as "Hero's engine". Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land. In his work Mechanics, he described pantographs. Some of his ideas were derived from the works of Ctesibius.

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History of Alexandria in the context of Alexandrian grammarians

The Alexandrine grammarians were philologists and textual scholars who flourished in Hellenistic Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, when that city was the center of Hellenistic culture. Despite the name, the work of the Alexandrine grammarians was never confined to grammar, and in fact did not include it, since grammar in the modern sense did not exist until the first century BCE. In Hellenistic and later times, grammarian refers primarily to scholars concerned with the restoration, proper reading, explanation and interpretation of the classical texts, including literary criticism. However unlike Atticism, their goal was not to reform the Greek in their day.

The Alexandrine grammarians undertook the critical revision of the works of classical Greek literature, particularly those of Homer, and their studies were profoundly influential, marking the beginning of the Western grammatical tradition. From the beginning, a typical custom, and methodological bias of this tradition was to focus their commentary and analysis on de-contextualized sentences.

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History of Alexandria in the context of Tomb of Antony and Cleopatra

The tomb of Antony and Cleopatra is the undiscovered burial crypt of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII from 30 BC assumed to be located in Alexandria, Egypt.

According to historians Suetonius and Plutarch, the Roman leader Octavian permitted their burial together after he had defeated them. Their surviving children were taken to Rome, to be raised as Roman citizens. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities theorizes that it is within or near a temple of Taposiris Magna, southwest of Alexandria.

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History of Alexandria in the context of Ammonius Hermiae

Ammonius Hermiae (/əˈmniəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀμμώνιος ὁ Ἑρμείου, romanizedAmmōnios ho Hermeiou, lit.'Ammonius, son of Hermias'; c. 440 – between 517 and 526) was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria in the eastern Roman empire during Late Antiquity. A Neoplatonist, he was the son of the philosophers Hermias and Aedesia, the brother of Heliodorus of Alexandria and the grandson of Syrianus. Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Roman Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, having obtained a public chair in the 470s.

According to Olympiodorus of Thebes's Commentaries on Plato's Gorgias and Phaedo texts, Ammonius gave lectures on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry of Tyre, and wrote commentaries on Aristotelian works and three lost commentaries on Platonic texts. He is also the author of a text on the astrolabe published in the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, and lectured on astronomy and geometry. Ammonius taught numerous Neoplatonists, including Damascius, Olympiodorus of Thebes, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Asclepius of Tralles. Also among his pupils were the physician Gessius of Petra and the ecclesiastical historian Zacharias Rhetor, who became the bishop of Mytilene.

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History of Alexandria in the context of Late Greek

Late Greek refers to writings in the Greek language in Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period; and in other words, from about the late 2nd century AD until about the late 7th century AD. The intellectual center of Late Greek was Alexandria in Egypt. Alexandria came under Arab rule starting in the 640s AD, which is sometimes taken as the ending-point of the Late Greek period. In terms purely of linguistics and language style, writings in Late Greek were conservative, whereas style began to change during the 8th century to some extent, and hence the ending-point of Late Greek is sometimes put at the beginning of the 8th century.

Notable examples of Late Greek writers include Clement of Alexandria (died c. 215), Galen (died c. 216), Origen (died c. 254), Diophantus (died c. 290), Porphyry (died c. 305), Zosimos of Panopolis (died c. 325), and many others. See the article Byzantine literature for more.

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