Ancient Authors
This author is associated with a genre of hymns that was written over several centuries.
Who is Homer?
The Doric frieze is characterized by these alternating panels.
What are triglyphs and metopes?
This period saw the emergence of the Greeks onto the Mediterranean world stage after the Bronze Age collapse.
What is the Archaic Period?
This was the site of one of the most important and longest operating oracles in the ancient Mediterranean and attracted international petitioners.
What is Delphi?
This is the Greek word for an initiate, like those at Eleusis.
What is mystos?
This author wrote about the conflict between the Persians and several Greek city-states in the early 5th c.
Who is Herodotus?
This word describes the elements, typically a horizontal band and a triangular pediment, that sit above the column capitals.
What is the entablature?
This period is technically dated to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, and is characterized by the spread of Greek culture.
What is the Hellenistic Period?
This initiation cult located near Athens attracted vast numbers of initiates, or mystes, every year for nearly a millennium.
What are the Eleusinian Mysteries?
This term describes an 'evil eye' device or strategy designed to literally 'turn back' evil.
What is apotropaic?
This historian wrote a complete history of Rome from the foundation of the city to his own day.
Who is Livy?
This term describes temples with double rows of columns that allow visitors to walk between the inner column and the cella wall as well as between the two colonnades.
What is dipteral?
This is the name of the Roman period between its founding in 753 and the expulsion of the kings in 509.
What is the Regal Period?
This is the sacred boundary that marks off Rome from the rest of the world, and is an aspect of Roman culture closely associated with Etruscan influence.
What is the pomerium?
This adjective describes cults that are centered on a doctrine or figure of salvation.
What is soteriological?
This Greek author writing during the Roman Empire produced a travel guide to the sites and wonders of the Mediterranean, and is our best source for many details including the dedications on display at Delphi.
Who is Pausanias?
This is the formal term for the temple floor or base on which columns are built, and is characterized by subtle curvature that makes it look perfectly flat and straight.
What is the stylobate?
This period is centered on Egypt and named after one of the successors of Alexander.
What is Ptolemaic Egypt?
This is one of the four primary Panhellenic Games, celebrated biennially in Corinth.
What are the Isthmian Games?
This word describes the part of theology or religion concerned with death, the after life, and the religiously prescribed end of the world and of humanity.
What is eschatology?
This mytho-historical Athenian lawgiver wrote poetry about his political reforms, including the ending of debt slavery.
Who is Solon?
This word describes a part of a temple that ordinary people were not allowed to enter, such as the room where the Pythia sat in Delphi.
What is the adyton?
This modern term is typically applied to the Eastern Roman Empire after the 4th or 5th c. CE, though they called themselves simple 'the Roman Empire'.
What is Byzantium?
Initiates of this cult were often buried with the golden tablets associated with this cult, which gave them instructions for reaching a better situation after death.
What are the Orphic mysteries?
This word describes the ritual abuse, including the yelling of obscenities and the making of obscene gestures, that is part of some cult practices and, at least in Greece, is often linked to the figure who made Demeter laugh when she was in deepest mourning.
What is aischrologia?