Hellenic Net

  ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ Edessa (Greek Ἔδεσσα) and Ορρα, Orrha in Greek (also Ορροα, Orrhoa) was a city in Upper Mesopotamia, founded on an earlier site by Seleucus I Nicator ca. 302 BC. It was also known as Antiochia on the Callirhoe from the 2nd century BC. It was the capital of the semi-independent kingdom of Osroene from c. 132 BC and fell under direct Roman rule in ca. 242. It became an important early centre of Syriac Christianity. It fell to the Muslim conquest in 639, was briefly re-taken by Byzantium in 1031, and became the center of the Crusader state of the County of Edessa during 1098–1144. It fell to the Turkic Zengid dynasty in 1144 and was eventually absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Map of Upper Mesopotamia and Syria in the early Christian period, with Edessa in the middle . The modern name of the city is Şanlıurfa (Syriac: ܐܘܪܗܝ‎ Urhāy, Armenian: Եդեսիա Yedesia or Armenian: Ուռհա Uṙha), in Turkey's Southeast Anatolia Region. Although the site of Urfa has been inhabited sin...

  ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον Byzántion) was an ancient Greek colony on the site that later became Constantinople, and later still Istanbul. Byzantium was colonised by the Greeks from Megara in c. 657 BC. Byzantion name is of ancient greek origins, derived from the legendary king Byzas, the leader of the Megarian colonists and founder of the city. Coinage with idealized depiction of Byzas, founder of Byzantium. Struck in Byzantium, Thrace, around the time of Marcus Aurelius (161–180 CE). The form Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name. Much later, the name Byzantium became common in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire, the "Byzantine" Empire, whose capital Constantinople stood on the site of ancient Byzantium. This usage was introduced only in 1555 by the historian Hieronymus Wolf, a century after the empire had ceased to exist. During the time of the empire, the term Byzantium was restricted to just the city, rather than the empire it ruled. Hist...

 ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ The Greek colonizations of Crete and Rhodes of the 9th century BC were shortly followed by their colonizations of Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya. The city of  Cyrene   was a Greek colony, built in the seventh century BC (631 BC) upon the oracle advice of Delphi, on one of the best verdant regions of Eastern Libya's Green Mountain, by immigrants (or refugees according to some sources) from the island of Thera (Santhorini). However, there was also a failed attempt to colonise Tripolitania under the command of Dorieus, the king of Sparta, who reached the River Cinyps (Wadi Caam), just east of Leptis Magna, in 520 BC and founded a city by that name.   Ancient marble floor The prosperity of Cyrene was founded on the silphium plant, pictured on Cyrenaican coins, where it resembles a stylised leek or a sunflower. The plant once grew only in Libya and apparently its extinction was a grievous blow to the city's economy.  History   Cyrene was founded in 63...

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ Capo Colonna (sometimes Capo Colonne or Capo della Colonne; anciently Promunturium Lacinium) is a cape of Calabria located near Crotone. A name taken from the Greek  «Κάβο-Κολώνα» In ancient times Capo Colonna (Greek :Λακίνιο Άκρο -ακρωτήριο) was the ancient Greek cape of Taranto. On the cape still stands a single column of the temple erected to Hera Lacinia, which is said to have been fairly complete in the 16th century, but to have been destroyed to build the episcopal palace at Crotone. It is a Doric column with capital, about 27 ft. in height. Remains of marble roof-tiles have been seen on the spot (Livy xlii.3) and architectural fragments were excavated in 1886-1887 by the Archaeological Institute of America. The sculptures found were mostly buried again, but a few fragments, some decorative terra-cottas and a dedicatory inscription to Hera of the 6th century BC, in private possession at Crotone, are described by F. von Duhn in Notizie degli scavi, 1897, 343 seq....