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SLEEP 100.00%
 
HYPNOS 100.00%

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The god of sleep. (See SLEEP.)
 
SOMNUS 90.18%
The Roman god of sleep (q.v.).
 
DEATH 53.11%
In the Homeric poems Death is called the twin brother of Sleep. In Hesiod he is barn of Night without a father, with Ker (the goddess of mortal destiny), Moros (the fatal stroke of death), Hypnos, (sleep) and the Dreams. Hesiod represents Death, the hard-hearted one, hated by the immortal gods, as dwelling with his brother Sleep in the darkness of the West, whither the sun never penetrates either at his rising or his setting. On the chest of Cypselus at Olympia is a representation of Night, holding in each hand a sleeping boy; the one in the right hand being white, and symbolizing Sleep; the other in the left hand, black, and symbolizing Death. Euripides introduces Death on the stage in his Alcestis. He has a black garment and black wings, and a knife to cut off a lock of hair as an offering to the gods below. In works of art he appears as a beautiful boy or youth, sometimes with, sometimes without, wings, and often with his brother Sleep. He is usually in slumber, and holds a torch, either lowered, or reversed and extinguished.
 
INCUCBARE 30.35%

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Specially used of sleeping in a sanctuary where oracular responses were sought through dreams or necromancy. (See ORACLES.) It was with a view to obtaining in a dream a revelation either from the god of the sanctuary, or by conjuring up the spirit of some dead person. Certain preliminaries had generally to be performed, in particular the sacrifice of some animal, on whose skin it was often customary to sleep. These incubations, which were in vogue among the Greeks from the earliest times, but were not extensively practised among the Romans until under the Empire, generally took place in the temple of Aesculapius, the god of healing.
 
DREAMS 24.74%

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According to Hesiod, Dreams are the children of Night, and brothers and sisters of Death and Sleep. Like these they are represented in the Odyssey as dwelling in the far West, near Oceanus, in the neighbourhood of the sunset and the kingdom of the dead. Deceptive dreams issue from a gate of ivory, true dreams through a gate of horn. The gods above, especially Hermes, have authority over these dream-gods, and send sometimes one, sometimes another, to mankind. On some occasions they create dream-figures themselves, or appear in person under different shapes, in the chamber of the sleeper. The spirits of the departed, too, so long as they are not in the kingdom of Hades, have the power of appearing to the sleeper in dreams. These, the ideas of the Homeric age, survived in the later popular belief. Later poets call dreams the sons of Sleep, and give them separate names. Morpheus, for instance, only appears in various human forms. Ikelos, called also Phobetor, or Terrifyer, assumes the shapes of all kinds of animals as well as that of man: Phantasos only those of inanimate objects. A god of dreams was subsequently worshipped, and represented in works of art, sometimes with Sleep, sometimes alone. He was honoured especially at the seats of dream-oracles and the health-resorts of Asclepius. (See ARTEMIDORUS, 2; INCURATIO; and MANTIC ART.)
 
CALCHAS 20.63%

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Son of Thestor of Mycenae. Calchas was the celebrated seer who accompanied the Greeks on their expedition against Troy. Homer calls him the best of soothsayers, who knew the past, the present, and the future. Before the fleet started from Aulis, Calchas predicted that the Trojan war would last ten years. His own death (so ran the prophecy) was to occur whenever he met a wiser seer than himself. After the Trojan war he came to the island of Claros, where, in the sacred precincts of Apollo, he fell in with the soothsayer Mopsus, who beat him in a match of guessing riddles. [See MOPSUS (2)]. Calchas died of grief, or, according to another story, took away his own life. A temple was erected to him in Apulia, where the votaries lay down to sleep on sheepskins, and received oracles in their sleep.
 
ECHIDNA 13.46%

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A monster and robber in Greek fable, half maiden, half snake, the daughter of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe, or, according to another story, of Tartarus and Gaaea. Her home was the country of the Arimi in Cilicia, where she brought forth to Typhoeus a number of monsters, Cerberus Chimaera, Sphinx, Scylla, the serpent of Lerna, the Nemean lion, etc. (See TYPHOEUS She was surprised in her sleep and slain by Argos. (See ARGOS, 1.)
 
ARGUS 12.69%
Son of Inachus, Agenor or Arestor; or, according to another account, an earthborn giant, who had eyes all over his body, whence be was called Panoptes, or all-seeing. Hera set him to watch 16, (q.v.) when transformed into a cow; but Hermes, at Zeus' bidding, sent all his eyes. to sleep by the magic of his wand and flute, and cut his head with a sickle-shaped sword, whence his title Argeiphontes was explained to mean " slayer of Argus." Hera set the eyes of her dead watchman in the tail of her sacred bird the peacock.
 
SARPEDON 12.36%
According to Homer, son of Zeus and Laodamia and grandson of Belleroplion; like his cousin Glaucus (q.v., 4), a prince of the Lycians and ally of Priam. At the storming of the Greek camp he, in company with Glaucus, was the first upon the enemy's wall; on his falling by the hand of Patroclus, a fearful battle arose over his body, until Apollo, by the command of Zeus, rescued the disfigured corpse from the Greeks, and, after washing it and anointing it with ambrosia, had it carried through the air to Lycia by the twin brothers Sleep and Death [Homer, xvi 419-683]. Later writers describe him as a son of Zeus and Europa, and brother of Minos; driven out by the latter, he won for himself a lordship in Lycia, and lived there by the favour of Zeus for three generations.
 
CER 12.25%
In Greek mythology, a goddess of death, especially of violent death in battle. In Hesiod she is the daughter of Nyx (night), and sister of Moros (the doom of death), Hypnos (sleep), and Dreams. The poets commonly speak of several Keres, goddesses of different kinds of death. Homer and Hesiod represent them as clothed in garments stained by human blood, and dragging the dead and wounded about on the field of battle. Every man has his allotted Doom, which overtakes him at the appointed time. Achilles alone has two, with the power to choose freely between them. In later times the Keres are represented generally as powers of destruction, and as associated with the Erinyes, goddesses of revenge and retribution.
 
PROTENS 10.96%
According to Homer [Od. iv 354-569] an old man of the sea, a subject of Poseidon, who tended the seals which are the flocks of Amphitrite. Like all marine deities, he possessed the gift of prophecy and the power of assuming any shape he pleased. He used to sleep at mid-day on the island of Pharos, near Egypt. When Menelaus, on his return from Troy, was detained by contrary winds on the island, he surprised Proteus, by the advice of his daughter Idothea, and, in spite of all his transformations, held him fast until he told him the means for returning home. According to later legends [Herodotus, ii 112, 118; Euripides, Helen], Proteus was a son of Poseidon, and was an Egyptian king living on the island of Pharos, to whom Hermes conducted Helen when she was carried off by Paris, while only a phantom followed Paris to Troy. Menelaus, as he returned from Troy, received his wife again from him.
 
ASCLEPLUS 10.67%
The Greek god of Medicine, according to the common account a son of the healing god Apollo by Coronis, daughter of a Thessalian prince Phlegyas. Coronis was killed by Artemis for unfaithfulness, and her body was about to be burnt on the pyre, when Apollo snatched the boy out of the flames, and handed him over to the wise centaur Chiron, who instructed him in the cure of all diseases. According to the local legend of Epidaurus, Coronis, having accompanied her father on a campaign to the Peloponnesus, is secretly delivered of the child, and exposes it on a mountain near that town, where it is nourished by a herd of goats. Such was the skill of Asclepius that he brought even dead men to life; so that Zeus, either for fear of his setting men altogether free from death, or at the complaint of Hades, killed him with his thunderbolt. Apollo in revenge slew all the Cyclopes who forged the thunderbolts, as a punishment for which he had to serve Admetus for a time. In Homer and Pindar, Asclepius is still but a hero, a cunning leech, and father of two heroes fighting before Troy, Machaon and Podaleirius. But he was afterwards universally worshipped as the god of healing, in groves, beside medicinal springs, and on mountains. The seats of his worship served also as laces of cure, where patients left thank-offerings and votive tablets describing their complaint and the manner of its cure. Often the cure was effected by the dreams of the patients, who were required to sleep in the sacred building, in which there sometimes stood, as might be expected, a statue of Sleep or Dreaming. His worship extended all over Greece with its islands and colonies; his temples were especially numerous in the Peloponnesus, the most famous being that of Epidaurus, where a great festival with processions and combats was held in his honour every five years. Next in estimation stood the temple at Pergamus, a colony from Epidanrus; that of Tricca in Thessaly enjoyed a reputation of long standing, and in the islands that Cos, the birthplace of the physician Hippocrates. At Rome, the worship of the deity there called Aesculapius was introduced by order of the Sibylline books, on occasion of the plague of 293 B.C., and the god was brought from Epidaurus in the shape of a snake. For in the form of a snake, the symbol of rejuvenescence and of prophecy, he was wont to reveal himself, and snakes were accordingly kept in his temples. He had a sanctuary and a much frequented sanatorium on the island in the Tiber. With him were worshipped his wife Epione ( = soother), his two sons mentioned above, and several daughters, especially Hygieia,(q.v.); also Telesphoros ( = fulness-bringer) the deity of Recovery, who was pictured as a boy. In later times Asclepius was often confounded with the Egyptian Serapis. He is among the most favourite subjects of ancient art; at several places where he was worshipped he had statues of gold and ivory. He is commonly represented with a beard, and resembling Zeus, but with a milder aspect, sometimes with Telesphoros, in a thick veil, or little Hygieia, at his side; his usual attribute is a staff with a serpent coiled round it. The cock was sacrificed to him.
 
FAUNUS 8.39%

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"The well-wisher" (from favere) [or perhaps "the speaker" (from fari)]. One of the oldest and most popular deities, who was identified with the Greek Pan on account of the similarity of their attributes. (See PAN.) As a good spirit of the forest, plains, and fields, he gave fruitfulness to the cattle, and was hence called Inuus. With all this he was also a god of prophecy, called by the name of Fatuus. He revealed the future in dreams and strange voices, communicated to his votaries while sleeping in his precincts upon the fleeces of sacrificed lambs. A goddess of like attributes, called Fauna and Fatua, was associated in his worship. She was regarded sometimes as his wife, sometimes as his daughter (see BONA DEA). Just as Pan was accompanied by the Paniskoi, or little Pans, so the existence of many Fauni was assumed besides the chief Faunus. They were imagined as merry, capricious beings, and in particular as mischievous goblins who caused night-mares. In fable Faunus appears as an old king of Latium, son of Picus, and grandson of Saturnus, father of Latinus by the nymph Marica. After his death he is raised to the position of a tutelary deity of the land, for his many services to agriculture and cattle-breeding. Two festivals, called Faunalia, were celebrated in his honour, one on the 13th of February, in the temple on the island in the Tiber, the other on the 5th of December. The peasants brought him rustic offerings and amused themselves with dancing.
 
CACUS 8.04%
A fire-spitting giant, the son of Vulcan, who lived near the place where Rome was afterwards built. When Hercules came into the neighbourbood with the cattle of Geryon, Cacus stole some of them while the hero was sleeping. He dragged them backwards into, his cave under a spur of the Aventine, so, that their footsteps gave no clue to the direction in which they had gone. He then closed the entrance to the cave with a rock, which ten pairs of oxen were unable to move. But the lowing of the cattle guided the hero, in his search, to the right track. He tore open the cave, and, after a fearful struggle, slew Cacus with his club. Upon this he built an altar on the spot to Jupiter, under the title of Pater Inventor("the discoverer"), and sacrificed one of the cattle upon it. The inhabitants paid him every honour for freeing them of the monster, and Evander, who was instructed by his mother Carmentis in the lore of prophecy, saluted him as a god. Hercules is then said to have established his own religious service, and to have instructed two noble families, the Potitii and the Pinarii, in the usages to be observed at the sacrifice. This sacrifice was to be offered on the Ara Maxima, which he himself had built on the cattle market (Forum Boatrium) where the cattle had been pastured.
 
HYMEN 7.83%

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The Greek god of marriage and of the marriage-song (named after him). He is sometimes described as the son of Apollo and amuse (either Terpsichore, Urania, or Calliope), who had vanisbed on his own wedding day, and was consequently always sought for at every wedding. He is also described as a son of the Thessalian Magnes and of the Muse Clio, and as beloved by Apollo and Thamyris; or as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, who lost his voice and life while singing the nuptial song at the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne. According to Attic tradition, he was an Argive youth who, in the disguise of a girl, followed to the feast of Demeter at Eleusis a young Athenian maiden whom he loved without winning the consent of her parents. Hymenaeus and some of the maidens who were celebrating the festival, were carried off by pirates, whom he afterwards killed in their sleep, and henceforth became the champion of all women and damsels. In art he is represented like Eros, as a beautiful, winged youth, only with a more serious expression, and carrying in his hand the marriage torch and nuptial veil. The marriage-song called Hymenaeus, which is mentioned as early as Homer, was sung by young men and maidens, to the sound of flutes, during the festal procession of the bride from the house of her parents to that of the bridegroom. In character it was partly serious and partly humorous. The several parts always ended with an invocation of Hymenaeus. (See EPITHALAMIUM) On the Roman god of weddings, see TALASSIO.
 
BEDS 7.83%

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The Greek and Latin words were applied not only to beds in the proper sense of the term, but to any kind of couch, as, for instance, to the sofas used at meals (see TRICLINIUM) or for reading and writing. The frame rested on four feet, and sometimes had no support at all, sometimes one for the head, sometimes one at each end for head and feet, sometimes one at the side. It was made of wood or bronze, and was usually richly adorned on the parts exposed to view. If of wood, these ornaments would consist of inlaid work of fine metal, ivory, tortoiseshell, amber, and rare coloured woods ; if of bronze, they would be sculptures in relief. The mattress (Gk. knephallon, tyleion, Lat. torus, culcita) was supported on girths stretched across the frame, and was stuffed with vegetable fibre, woollen flock, or feathers, and covered with linen, wool, or leather. Cushions were added to support the head or elbow (Gk. proskephalaion, Lat. pulvinus or cervical). Coverings for the sleeper were spread over the mattrass, which in wealthy houses would be dyed purple, or adorned with patterns and embroidery. If the bed was high, it would have a footstool attached. At Pompeii couches have often been found built up in the niches of the sleeping apartments. (For various forms of Greek bedsteads, see the engravings.) Cp. FULCRA.
 
HERMES 7.41%

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Son of Zeus and of the Naiad Maia, daughter of Atlas. Immediately after his birth upon the Arcadian mountain of Cyllene, he gave proof of his chief characteristics, inventiveness and versatility, united with fascination, trickery, and cunning. Born in the morning, by mid-day he had invented the lyre; in the evening he stole fifty head of cattle from his brother Apollo, which he hid so skilfully in a cave that they could not be found; after these exploits he lay down quietly in his cradle. Apollo, by means of his prophetic power, discovered the thief and took the miscreant to Zeus, who ordered the cattle to be given up. However, Hermes so delighted his brother by his playing on the lyre that, in exchange for it, he allowed him to keep the cattle, resigned to him the golden staff of fortune and of riches, with the gift of prophecy in its humbler forms, and from that time forth became his best friend. Zeus made his son herald to the gods and the guide of the dead in Hades. In this myth we have allusions to several attributes of the god. In many districts of Greece, and especially in Arcadia, the old seat of his worship, Hermes was regarded as a god who bestowed the blessing of fertility on the pastures and herds, and who was happiest spending his time among shepherds and dallying with Nymphs, by whom he had numberless children, including Pan and Daphnis. In many places he was considered the god of crops; and also as the god of mining and of digging for buried treasure, His kindliness to man is also shown in his being the god of roads. At cross-roads in particular, there were raised in his honour and called by his name, not only heaps of stones, to which every passer by added a stone, but also the quadrangular pillars known as Hermae (q.v.) At Athens these last were set up in the streets and open spaces, and also before the doors. Every unexpected find on the road was called a gift of Hermes (hermaion). Together with Athene, he escorts and protects heroes in perilous enterprises, and gives them prudent counsels. He takes special delight in men's dealings with one another, in exchange and barter, in buying and selling; also in all that is won by craft or by theft. Thus he is the patron of tradespeople and thieves, and is himself the father of Autolycus (q.v.), the greatest of all thieves. He too it is who endowed Pandora, the first woman, with the faculty of lying, and with flattering discourse and a crafty spirit. On account of his nimbleness and activity he is the messenger of Zeus, and knows how to carry out his father's commands with adroitness and cunning, as in the slaying of Argos (the guard of Io), from which he derives his epithet of Argos-Slayer, or Argeiphontes. Again, as Hermes was the sacrificial herald of the gods, it was an important part of the duty of heralds to assist at sacrifices. It was on this account that the priestly race of the Kerykes claimed him as the head of their family (see ELEUSINIA). Strength of voice and excellence of memory were supposed to be derived, from him in his capacity of herald. Owing to his vigour, dexterity, and personal charm, he was deemed the god of gymnastic-skill, which makes men strong and handsome, and the especial patron of boxing, running, and throwing the discus; in this capacity the palaestrae and gymnasia were sacred to him, and particular feasts called Hermaia were dedicated to him. He was the discoverer of music (for besides the lyre he invented the shepherd's pipe), and he was also the god of wise and clever discourse. A later age made him even the inventor of letters, figures, mathematics, and astronomy. He is, besides, the god of sleep and of dreams, with one touch of his staff he can close or open the eyes of mortals; hence the custom, before going to sleep, of offering him the last libation. As he is the guide of the living on their way, so is he also the conductor of the souls of the dead in the nether-world (Psuchopompos), and he is as much loved by the gods of those regions as he is by those above. For this reason sacrifices were offered to him in the event of deaths, Hermae, were placed on the graves, and, at oracles and incantations of the dead, he was honoured as belonging to the lower world; in general, he was accounted the intermediary between the upper and lower worlds. His worship early spread through-out the whole of Greece. As he was born in the fourth month, the number four was sacred to him. In Argos the fourth month was named after him, and in Athens he was honoured with sacrifices on the fourth of every month. His altars and images (mostly simple Hermae) were in all the streets, thoroughfares, and open spaces, and also at the entrance of the palaestra. In art he is represented in the widely varying characters which be assumed, as a shepherd with a single animal from his flock, as a mischievous little thief, as the god of gain with a purse in his hand (cp. fig. 1), with a strigil as patron of the gymnasia, at other times with a lyre but oftenest of all as the messenger of the gods. He was portrayed by the greatest sculptors, such as Phidias, Polyclitus, Scopas, and Praxiteles, whose Hermes with the infant Dionysus was discovered in 1877, in the temple of Hera, at Olympia. (See PRAXITELES, and SCULPTURE, fig. 10.) In the older works of art he appears as a bearded and strong man; in the later ones he is to be seen in a graceful and charming attitude, as a slim youth with tranquil features, indicative of intellect and good will. His usual attributes are wings on his feet, a flat, broad-brimmed hat (see PETASUS), which in later times was ornamented with wings, as was also his staff. This last (Gr. kerykeion; Lat. caduceus, fig. 2) was originally an enchanter's wand, a symbol of the power that profinces wealth and prosperity, and also an emblem of influence over the living and the dead. But even in early times it was regarded as a herald's staff and an emblem of peaceful intercourse; it consisted of three shoots, one of which formed the handle, the other two being intertwined at the top in a knot. The place of the latter was afterwards taken by serpents; and thus arose our ordinary type of herald's staff. By the Romans Hermes was identified with MERCURIUS (q.v.).
 
HOUSE 7.30%

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The Greek house (see plan, fig. 1) was divided into two chief parts, one of which was assigned to the men (andronitis) and the other to the women (gynaikonitis or gynaikeion). The women's division was situated at the back of the house, and sometimes in the upper story if there was one. The door of the house opened inwards. It was placed sometimes in a line with the facade, sometimes in a small recess called the prothyron or propylaion. In front of this there often stood an altar belonging to the house and consecrated to Apollo Agyieus, or the god of streets. In the interior, on both sides of the vestibule, were the doorkeeper's room and other chambers for work and business. The vestibule led into an open court (aule) surrounded on three sides with columns. In the middle of this was the altar of Zeus Herkeios, the patron deity of domestic life. At the sides were chambers for eating and sleeping, storerooms, and cells for slaves, which, like the front rooms, opened into the court. But the slaves sometimes lived in an upper story, co-extensive with the whole house. On the side of the court opposite the vestibule there were no columns, but two pilasters at some distance from each other marked the entrance of a hall called prostas or parastas, which measured in breadth two-thirds of the distance between the pilasters. Here the family met at their common meals and common sacrifices; here, too, in all probability stood the hearth or sanctuary of Hestia. On one side of the parastas was the thalamos or sleeping room for the master and mistress of the house. On the other side was the amphithalamos, where the daughters probably slept. In the under wall of the parastas was a door called metaulos or mesaulos, which led into the workroom of the female servants. Large houses bad a second court, peristylon, entirely surrounded by columns. The roof of the Greek house was generally, though not always, flat; the rooms were mostly lighted through the doors which opened into the court. The ancient Roman dwelling house (fig. 2) consisted of a quadrangular court called atrium (from ater, black), because the walls were blackened by the smoke from the hearth. The atrium was entered by the door of the house, and was the common meeting place for the whole family. It was lighted by an opening in the tiled roof, which was four-sided and sloped inwards. This opening was called the compluvium, and served both as a chimney for the hearth and as an inlet for the rain, which fell down into the impluvium, a tank sunk in the floor beneath. There was also, in more ancient times, a subterranean cistern (puteus) into which the rain out of the impluvium was collected. But in later times the water was carried off by pipes underground. At the back of the impluvium was the hearth with the Penates. At the side of the atrium was the room used for cooking, for meals, and for sacrifices. In the wall fronting the entrance was the marriage-bed and the master's money-chest. The mistress of the house sat in the atrium with her maids, spinning, weaving, and generally superintending the household. It was in the atrium that the family received their clients and friends, that the dead were laid out in state, and memorials of the departed were hung on the wall. Gradually it became the fashion to attach small rooms to the two sides as far as the hearth. These rooms had no light except that obtained from the atrium. But the space at the back was left quite free, and extended in its full width in two wings (aloe) behind these side chambers on right and left. In aristocratic houses the busts of the ancestors were set up in these wings. The marriagebed was also removed from the wall against which it stood; the wall was broken through, and the tablinum erected against it originally a wooden shed, which This was open at the back in summer, but closed in winter by a partition. The tablinum was used as the master's office. In later times a garden, surrounded. by side buildings and covered colonnades, was added at the back of the house. This was called peristylium, and was, as the name and the whole plan of it shows, an imitation of the Greek arrangement. The dining rooms, sleeping apartments, and living rooms (triclinium, cubiculum, dioeta) were transferred into the side buildings, as were also the entertaining room (exedra) and the hall (oecus), and above all the storerooms, hearth, and kitchen. The private chapel (sacrarium or lararium, see LARES) was also generally situated in the peristylium. The entrance into this from the atrium was through corridors (fauces) situated near the tablinum. The atrium now served merely as a state reception-room. It was splendidly decorated with pillars and other ornaments, and had a table (curtibulum) in the middle to represent the hearth. If the roof was simply supported on beams, the atrium was called tuscanicum (fig. 3); if the compluvium was supported on four columns, tetrastylum; if the roof-beams were let into the wall on one side, and supported on a column apiece on the other, it was styled corinthium. Great houses, like temples and large tombs, generally had a kind of entrance-hall or vestibalum [ve, stabulum, or an outside standing-place], raised above the street and approached by steps. This space was often adorned with arms taken in war, statues, colonnades, and flower-beds. It was here that visitors assembled for morning calls. In ordinary houses there was either no vestibulum or only an indication of one, effected by throwing the door a few steps back into the house. The door opened outwards, and generally consisted of two wings; but sometimes, if the entrance was a wide one, of several folds. It did not move on hinges, but on pegs let into the threshold above and below. The door led immediately into the ostium, a space opening directly into the atrium. At the side of the ostium was the room of the doorkeeper (ianitor,) with other rooms, which were sometimes let out as shops. The Roman house was originally calculated only for one story, but in course of time a second story became usual. As the dining-room was generally in this part of the house, all the rooms in the upper story were called cenacula. The upper story was approached by steps in the form of a ladder, and was lighted by openings which could be closed by shutters. Some of these windows were pierced in the outer wall, and some in the inner wall, carried round the roofs of the atrium and peristylium. There were three-storied houses in Rome as early as the end of the Republic. The upper stories were let to tenants, and as early as the time of Augustus it was found necessary to limit the height of the street frontage to 70 Roman feet, a maximum which was afterwards lowered to 60 feet. The roof was of tiles, and sometimes pointed and sloping on the four sides, sometimes flat, in which case it was often ornamented with flowering plants and shrubs. A flat roof of this sort was called solarium. The ancients heated their houses by means of portable fireplaces, braziers, and sometimes stoves. The Romans in the north of Italy, Gaul, and Germany used hot air for the purpose. (See BATHS.) Large lodging-houses were found both in Greek and Roman cities, the Greek name for such a house being synoikia and the Latin name insula.
 
PHAEACES 6.08%

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A fabulous people in Homer, to whom Odysseus comes in his wanderings [Od. vi-viii]. They stand as near to the gods as the Giants and Cyclopes, seeing them face to face. Originally settled in Hypereia, they were compelled by the violence of their neighbours the Cyclopes to migrate, under their king Nausithous, son of Poseidon and Periboea, daughter of Eurymedon the last king of the Giants, to the happy island of Scheria, where they built a city. On the arrival of Odysseus their ruler was Alcinous, the wise son of Nausithous; his wife was Arete, his brother's daughter, and besides many sons he was the father of the fair Nausicaa. Odysseus' preserver. Far from the turmoil of the world, the Phaeaces are described as leading a life of undisturbed happiness in the enjoyment of the goods wherewith they are richly blessed; above all Aloinous, who had the fairest of orchards and a most beautiful palace. Their business is solely with the sea, with shipping and the provision of all that belongs to it, Their ships are of wondrous sort. Without steersman or rudder, divining of themselves the wishes and thoughts of all men, and knowing all lands, they traverse the sea swift as a bird or a thought, wrapped in mist and darkness, yet have never suffered wreck or foundering. But when the ship, that brought the sleeping Odysseus in one night to Thrace, came back, Poseidon, of whose envious malice a prophecy had long ago bidden them beware, changed it to a rock in sight of harbour, and the Phaeaces were in fear that the rest of the saying would come true, and mountains rise up all round their city. Though it is obvious that the Phaeaces and their abodes, Hypereia and Scheria, are purely mythical, the kingdom of Alcinous was early identified as Corcyra <Corfu). He had a shrine there, and the harbour was named after him. Near the island was also shown the petrified ship. Hence the later Argonautic legends made even Jason and Medea touch at Corcyra on their flight from Aeetes, and, like Odysseus, find protection and help from Alcinous. (See ARGONAUTS.)
 
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