The Aetolian League was a confederacy of independent tribes of Aetolia in central Greece. It was formed in the 4th century BC and expanded in the 3rd century BC to include Thrace, Epirus, Peloponnesus and Asia Minor. By 220 BC it controlled most of central Greece and was the main rival to Macedonia. The League resisted attacks from Philip V of Macedonia, but was defeated by an alliance of Antiochus of Syria and the Romans in 189 BC. The League was dissolved in 167 BC. Research Aetolian League
Ba'athism is an Arab political doctrine which combines elements of socialist thinking with pan-Arabism. This theory of Arab nationalism conceives of the 'Arab nation' as a single entity stretching from Morocco to Iraq which has been artificially divided by colonialism and imperialism.
Ba'athism originated in Syria, where the first Ba'ath Party was founded in 1953. Ba'athists have held power in Syria since 1963 and held power in Iraq from 1968 until they were overthrown in 2003 by a US led coalition of America, Britain and Australia which invaded Iraq in March 2003 under the pretence of disarming the regime of weapons of mass destruction. The Syrian and Iraqi branches of the movement were deeply divided. There have been further divisions between its civilian and military elements. While the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein employed the slogans of pan-Arabism to justify his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Ba'ath Party in Iraq was reduced to an instrument of state power. Research Ba'athism
The blind are those who want, or are deficient in, the sense of sight. Blindness may vary in degree from the slightest impairment of vision to total loss of sight; it may also be temporary or permanent. It is caused by defect, disease, or injury to the eye, to the optic nerve, or to that part of the brain connected with it. Old age is sometimes accompanied with blindness, occasioned by the drying up of the humours of the eye, or by the opacity of the cornea, the crystalline lens, etc. The blind are often distinguished for a remarkable mental activity, and a wonderful development of the intellectual powers. Their touch and hearing, particularly, become very acute.
As early as 1260 an asylum for the blind (L'hospice des Quinze-Vingts) was founded in Paris by St Louis for the relief of the Crusaders who lost their sight in Egypt and Syria; but the first institution for the instruction of the blind was the idea of Valentin Hauy, brother of the celebrated mineralogist. In 1784 he opened an institution in which the blind were instructed not only in appropriate mechanical employments, as spinning, knitting, making ropes or fringes, and working in paste-board, but also in music, in reading, writing, ciphering, geography, and the sciences. For instruction in reading he procured raised letters of metal; for writing he used particular writing-cases, in which a frame, with wires to separate the lines, could be fastened upon the paper; for ciphering there were movable figures of metal, and ciphering-boards in which the figures could be fixed; for teaching geographymaps were prepared upon which mountains, rivers, cities, and the boundaries of countries were indicated to the sense of touch in various ways, etc.
Similar institutions were soon afterwards founded in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dresden, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, Vienna, and in many towns of the United States. By 1900 there were comparatively few large cities that did not possess a school or institution of some kind for the blind.
At the start of the 20th century the attitude towards the blind was rather patronising, and one source may be quoted as saying 'the occupations in which the blind are found capable of engaging are such as the making of baskets and other kinds of wicker-work, brushmaking, rope and twine making, the making of mats and matting, knitting, netting, fancy work of various kinds, cutting fire-wood, the sewing of sacks and bags; the carving of articles in wood, etc'. However, it was also recognised that more skilled tasks could also be performed by blind persons, and the same source notes that 'Piano-tuning is also successfully carried on by some, and the cleaning of clocks and watches has even been occasionally practised by them'.
Around 1900 an impetus was given, in Britain, to the higher education of the blind by the formation of the British and Foreign Blind Association, the establishment of a college for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen at Worcester, and the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind, Upper Norwood.
Various systems were devised for the purpose of teaching the blind to read, some of which consisted in the use of the ordinary Roman alphabet, with more or less modification, and some of which employ types quite arbitrary in form. In all systems the characters rise above the surface of the paper so as to be felt by the fingers. The type adopted by Hauy was the script or italic form of the Roman letter. This was introduced into England by Sir C. Lowther, who printed the Gospel of St. Matthew in 1832 with type obtained from Paris. Before this Gall of Edinburgh made use of an embossed alphabet based on the ordinary Roman small letters, in which all curves were replaced by angular lines, and in 1834 he published the Gospel of St John in this character. Subsequently he introduced various improvements, and in particular the letters were produced with serrated surfaces, thus giving greater distinctness. Alston of Glasgow, Howe of Boston, and others also used the Roman form; but the former (who was the first to print the whole Bible, in 1840) adopted the Roman capitals, while the latter adopted the small letters, printing in this type the Bible and many other books. Of alphabets deviating entirely or nearly so from the Roman letter, one consists of a stenographic shorthand invented by Lucas of Bristol; another was a phonetic shorthand devised by Frere of London. In Dr. Moon's alphabet some of the characters are Roman, others are based on or suggested by the Roman characters. The Braille system, widely adopted by the laye 20th century, is one in which the letters are formed by a combination of dots. Dr. Moon's system from its simplicity and the size of its characters is in very general use in books for the blind. There are also systems by which the blind are enabled to write, and the writing may be either in relief so as to be read by the blind, or in characters that may be read by those who see. Research Blind
The Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, so called from its capital Byzantium or Constantinople was founded in 395 AD when Theodosius at his death divided the Roman Empire between his sons Arcadius and Honorius. In this empire the Greek language and civilization were prevalent; but the rulers claimed still to be Roman emperors, and under their sway the laws and official forms of Rome were maintained. It lasted for about a thousand years after the downfall of the Western Empire.
The Eastern Empire, then comprising Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Thrace, Moesia, Macedonia, and Crete, fell to Theodosius's elder son Arcadius, through whose weakness and that of several of his immediate successors it suffered severely from the encroachments of Huns, Goths, Bulgarians, and Persians. In 527 the celebrated Justinian succeeded,, whose reign is famous for the codification of Roman law, and the victories of his generals Belisarius and Narses over the Vandals in Africa, and the Goths in Italy, which was henceforth governed for the Eastern Empire by an exarch residing at Ravenna. But his energy could not revive the decaying strength of the empire, and Justin II his successor, a weak and avaricious prince, lost his reason by the reverses encountered in his conflicts with plundering Lombards, Avars, and Persians.
Tiberius, a captain of the guard, succeeded in 578, and in 582 Mauricius; both were men of ability. In 602 Phocas, proclaimed emperor by the army, succeeded, and produced by his incapacity tlie greatest disorder in the empire. Heraclius, son of the governor of Africa, who headed a conspiracy, conquered Constantinople, and caused Phocas to be executed in 610. He was an excellent general, and finally succeeded in repressing the Avars and recovering the provinces lost to the Persians, whose power indeed he overthrew. But a far more dangerous enemy to the Byzantine empire now appeared in the Muslim power, founded amongst the Arabians by Mohammed and the caliphs, which gradually extended its conquests over Phoenicia, the countries on the Euphrates, Judea, Syria, and Egypt from 635-641.
The empire was in sore straits when Leo the Isaurian (Leo III), general of the army of the East, mounted the throne in 716, and a new period of comparative prosperity began. Some writers date the beginning of the Byzantine Empire proper, and the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, from this era.
Numerous reforms, civil and military, were now introduced, and the worship of images was prohibited. Leo repelled the Arabians or Saracens from Constantinople, but allowed the Lombards to seize the Italian provinces, while the Arabians plundered the Eastern ones. Constantine V in 741 recovered part of Syria and Armenia from the Arabians; and the struggle was carried on not unsuccessfully by his son Leo IV. Under his grandson, Constantine VI, Irene, the ambitious mother of the latter, raised a large faction by the restoration of image worship, and, in conjunction with her paramour Stauratius, deposed her son, and had his eyes put out in 797.
A revolt of the patricians placed one of their order, Nicephorus, on the throne, who fell in the war against the Bulgarians in 811. Stauratius, Michael, Leo V and Michael II in 820 ascended the throne in rapid succession. During the reign of the latter the Arabians conquered Sicily, Lower Italy, Crete, and other countries. The long dispute as to image-worship was brought to a close in 842, when the practice was finally sanctioned at the council of Nicaea, under Michael III.
He was put to death by Basil the Macedonian, who came to the throne as Basil I in 867, and whose reign formed a period of great glory in the history of the Byzantine Empire. He founded a dynasty (the Macedonian) which lasted until 1056. Among the greatest of his successors were Nicephorus II (Phocas), and John Zimisces in 969, who carried on successful wars against the Muslims, Bulgarians, and Russians.
Basil II succeeded this prince in 976. He vanquished the Bulgarians and the Arabians. His brother, Constantine IX was succeeded by Romanus III in 1028, who married Zoe, daughter of Constantine. This dissolute but able princess caused her husband to be executed, and successively raised to the throne Michael IV, Michael V, and Constantine X. Russians and Muslims meanwhile devastated the empire. Her sister Theodora succeeded her on the throne in 1054.
After the short reign of Michael VI from 1054 until 1057 Isaac Comnenus, the first of the Comnenian dynasty, ascended the throne, but soon after became a monk. The three chief emperors of this dynasty were Alexius, John, and Manuel Comnenus. During the reign of Alexius I from 1081 to 1118 the Crusades commenced. His son, John II, and grandson, Manuel I, fought with success against the Turks, whose progress also was considerably checked by the Crusades. The Latins, the name given to the French, Venetian, etc, crusaders, now forced their way to Constantinople in 1204, conquered the city, and retained it, together with most of the European territories of the empire.
Baldwin, count of Flanders, was made emperor; Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, obtained Thessalonica as a kingdom, and the Venetians acquired a large extent of territory. Theodore Lascaris seized on the Asiatic provinces, in 1206 made Nice (Nicaea) the capital of the empire, and was at first more powerful than Baldwin. Neither Baldwin nor his successors, Henry, Peter, and Robert of Courtenay, were able to secure the tottering throne. John, emperor of Nice, conquered all the remaining Byzantine territory except Constantinople, and at last, in 1261, Michael Palaeologus, king of Nice, conquered Constantinople, and thus overthrew the Latin dynasty.
Thus again the vast but exhausted Byzantine Empire was united under Michael Palaeologus, founder of the last Byzantine dynasty. Internal disturbances and wars with the Turks disturbed the reigns of his descendants Andronicus II and Andronicus III. For a time the Cantacuzenes shared the crown with John Palasologus, son of Andronicus III; but in 1355 John again became sole emperor. In his reign the Turks first obtained a firm footing in Europe, and conquered Gallipoli in 1357. In 1361 Sultan Amurath took Adrianople. Bajazet conquered almost all the European provinces except Constantinople, and was pressing it hard when Timur's invasion of the Turkish provinces saved Constantinople for this time in 1402. Manuel then recovered his throne, and regained some of the lost provinces from the contending sons of Bajazet. To him succeeded his son John, Palaeologus II whom Amurath II stripped of all his territories except Constantinople, and laid under tribute in 1444.
To the Emperor John succeeded his brother Constantine Palaeologus. With the assistance of his general Giustiniani, a Genoese, he withstood the superior forces of the enemy with fruitless courage, and fell in the defence of Constantinople, by the conquest of which on May the 29th, 1453 Mohammed II put an end to the Greek or Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire, which thus lasted for over a thousand years, stemmed the tide of the advance of Islam and instead spread Christianity and maintained a regular system of government, law, and policy in the midst of surrounding conflicting systems. Research Byzantine Empire
The ISO (International Standards Organisation) assigns a two character code to each country name. These codes are used by Internet 'whois' databases (these two character abbreviations are the whois country codes) and also other applications.
Diocletian (C Valerius Diocletianus, surnamed Jovius) was a Dalmatian Emperor of Rome. A man of mean birth, he was proclaimed Emperor of Rome by the army in 284 AD. He defeated Carinus in Mossia in 286, conquered the Allemanni, and was generally beloved for the goodness of his disposition, but was compelled by the dangers threatening Rome to share the government with M. Aurelius Valerius Maximian. In 292 Galerius and Constantius Chlorus were also raised to a share in the empire, which was thus divided into four parts, of which Diocletian administered Thrace, Egypt, Syria, and Asia. As the result of his reconstitution of the empire there followed a period of brilliant successes in which the barbarians were driven back from all the frontiers, and Roman power restored from Britain to Egypt. In 305, in conjunction with Maximian, he resigned the imperial dignity at Nicomedia, and retired to Salona in Dalmatia, where he cultivated his garden in tranquillity until his death in 313. In the latter part of his reign he was induced to sanction a persecution of the Christians. Research Diocletian
In the first ages of Christianity numerous churches were founded by the apostles and their successors in Greek-speaking countries; in Greece itself, in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Thrace, and Macedonia. These were subsequently called Greek, in contradistinction to the churches, in which the Latintongue prevailed. The removal of the seat of empire by Constantine to Constantinople (Istanbul), and the subsequent separation of the eastern and western empires afforded the opportunity for diversities of language, modes of thinking, and customs to manifest themselves, and added political causes to the grounds of separation. During the earliest period the chief seats of influence in the Eastern Church were Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, the seat of that mystical philosophy, by which the orientalchurch was distinguished. In 341, soon after the synod of Antioch, the rivalry between the Bishop of -Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople began to assume importance, and before 400 differences of doctrine with respect to the procession of the Holy Spirit appeared. The council of Chalcedon in 451 accorded to the eastern bishop the same honours and privileges in his own diocese as those of the Bishop of Rome, and in 484 each bishop excommunicated the other.
The title of (Ecumenical Patriarch was assumed by John, Bishop of Constantinople, in 588, and in the following year the phrase 'Filioque' ('and the Son') was added by the Latins to the Nicene creed (which now read 'proceeding from the father and the son'), an addition to which the Greek Church was opposed.
In 648 PopeTheodore deposed Patriarch Paul II; but a reconciliation of the churches was effected at the Council of Rome in 680. The doctrines of the Greek Church were defined by John Damascenus in 730. The disruption was hastened by the banishment of Ignatius by Michael the Drunken and the consecration of Photius in 858. The PopeNicholas I and Photius excommunicated each other in 867. The schism was temporarily healed after the death of Photius, but Michael Cerularius reopened it by charging the Latins with heterodoxy. He was excommunicated by Leo IX in 1054, and in turn excommunicated the pope in the same year, since which the Greeks have been severed from the Roman communion, though the Russo-Greek Church was not separated until the 12th century.
The presence of the Crusaders in the East aggravated the quarrel; Latin patriarchates were established in Antioch and Jerusalem, and, though on the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders a Latin patriarchate was set up there in 1204, the schism was revived there as soon as the Latinempire fell in 1262. .Reunion was proposed in 1273 by Patriarch Joseph, and effected, with the acknowledgment of the pope as primate, at the council of Lyons in 1274. The union, however, was annulled in 1282 by Emperor Andronicus II, and in 1283 and 1285 by synods of Constantinople. It was again effected under John Palasologus at Florence in 1439, but was repudiated in 1443 by the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
In 1453, when the patriarch fled from the Turks, a schismatic Gregory Scholarius was chosen in his place. In 1575 unsuccessful negotiations were commenced with a view to union with the Lutherans, and in 1723 the English bishops even proposed that the Greek and Anglican churches should unite, a proposal revived by the Archbishop of Moscow in 1866. The claims of the czar in 1853 to the protectorate of the Greek churches in Turkey was one of the causes of the Crimean War.
The Greek Church is the only church which holds that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only; the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches deriving the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Like the Roman Catholic Church it has seven sacraments - baptism; chrism; penance, preceded by confession; the eucharisfc; ordination;
marriage; and unction. Research Greek Church
A tetrarch was originally a ruler of one of four parts of a region. Over time the word tetrarch came to lose its original meaning and was applied to minor rulers generally, especially to the princes of Syria under the Roman emperors. Research Tetrarch
The ass or donkey (Equus asinus) is a species of the horsegenus, supposed by Darwin to have sprung from the wild variety {Asinus toeniopus) found in Abyssinia; by some writers to be a descendant of the onager or wild ass, inhabiting the mountainous deserts of Tartary, etc; and by others to have descended from the kiang or djiggetai (Asinus hemionus) of southwestern Asia. Both in colour and size the ass is exceedingly variable, ranging from dark grey and reddish brown to white, and from the size of a Newfoundlanddog in North India to that of a good-sized horse. In the south-western countries of Asia and in Egypt, in some districts of Southern Europe, as in Spain, and in Kentucky and Peru, great attention has been paid to selection and interbreeding, with a result no less remarkable than in the case of the horse. Thus in Syria there appear to be four distinct breeds: a light and graceful animal used by ladies, an Arab breed reserved for the saddle, an ass of heavier build in use for ploughing and draft purposes, and the large Damascus breed. The efforts made to raise the deteriorated British breed during the 19th century were only partially successful.
The male ass is mature at two years of age, the female still earlier. The she-ass carries her young for eleven months. The teeth of the young ass follow the same order of appearance and renewal as those of the horse. The life of the ass does not usually exceed thirty years. It is in general much healthier than the horse, and is maintained in this condition by a smaller quantity and coarser quality of food; it is superior to the horse in its ability to carry heavy burdens over the most precipitous roads, and is in no respect its inferior in intelligence, despite the reputation for stupidity which it has borne from very ancient times. The ass has a keen sense of humour and mischief, and domestic ass delight in throwing riders into rivers and thorn bushes, and also tripping over the unwary.
The skin is used as parchment to cover drums, etc, and in the East is made into shagreen. The hybrid offspring of the horse and the female ass is the hinny, that of the ass and the mare is the mule; but the latter is by far the larger and more useful animal. Asses' milk, long celebrated for its sanative qualities, more closely resembles that of a woman than any other. It is very similar in taste, and throws up an equally fluid cream, which is not convertible into butter. Research Ass
Cedar is a tree which forms fine woods on the mountains of Syria and Asia Minor, the Pinus Cedrus of Linnaeus, the Cedrus Libdni of some other botanists, while by others it is referred to the genus Larix, and by others again, along with the larch, to the genus Abies. It is an evergreen, grows to a great size, and is remarkable for its durability. Of the famous cedars of Lebanon comparatively few now remain, and the tree does not grow in any other part of Palestine. Cedar timber was formerly much prized, but in modern times is not regarded as of much value, perhaps from the trees not being of sufficient age.
Some fine cedars are met with in England. The name is given also to the deodar (Cedar Deoddra), which is indeed regarded by many botanists as a mere variety of the cedar of Lebanon, and which produces excellent timber. It is a native of India, and is a large and handsome tree, growing in the Himalayas to the height of 45 meters, with a circumference of nine metres. It has wide-spreading branches, which droop a little at the extremities. The leaves are tufted or solitary, larger than those of the cedar of Lebanon and very numerous, of a dark-bluish green, and covered with a glaucous bloom. The cones are rather larger than those of the Lebanon cedar, and very resinous. The wood is well adapted for building purposes, being compact and very enduring.
The cedar was introduced into Great Britain in 1822, and is now common in lawns and parks. The MountAtlas cedar (Cedar Atlantica}, as its name implies, is a native of the mountains of North Africa. This cedar, though differing in habit and minor features, is regarded by some botanists as specifically identical with the other two. The name is also applied to many trees which have no relation to the true cedar, as the Bermuda cedar (Juniperus bermudiana), used for making pencils, the red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), the Honduras, or bastard Barbadoes cedar (Cedrela odordta) and the red cedar of Australia (Cedrela australis). Research Cedar
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Aetolian League
