Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Græco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between the culture of Classical Greece and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. Greco-Buddhism influenced the artistic (and, possibly, conceptual) development of Buddhism, and in particular Mahayana Buddhism, before it was adopted by Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century CE, ultima ...
The Indo-Greeks (or sometimes Greco-Indians) designate a series of Greek kings, who invaded and controlled parts of northwest and northern India from 180 BCE to around 10 CE. They were the successors in India of the Greco-Bactrian dynasty of Greek kings (the Euthydemids) founded by the military governor Diodotus around 250 BCE when he established the independence of his Bactrian territory from the Seleucid Empire.
During the two centuries of their rule, the Indo-Greek kings combined the Greek and Indian languages and sym ...
The Mauryan Empire was India's first great unified empire. It lasted from 321 to 185 BCE, and was ruled by the Mauryan dynasty. At its height it ruled virtually all of northern and central India, Pakistan , much of Afghanistan and a small part of Iran (Baluchistan). Archaeologically, it coincides with the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) period.
Mauryan Empire - Formative period.
When Alexander the Great conquered the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent in 326 BCE, he allied with king Ambhi of ...
Origen (ca. 182–ca. 251) was a Christian scholar and theologian and one of the most distinguished of the Fathers of the early Christian Church. He is thought to have been born at Alexandria, and died at Caesarea. His writings are important as one of the first serious intellectual attempts to describe Christianity.
Origen - Life.
Origen - Early training.
His full name was apparently Origenes Adamantius. He was educated by his father, Leonides, on the Bible ...
The Greco-Bactrians were a dynasty of Greek kings who controlled Bactria and Sogdiana, an area comprising today's northern Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, the easternmost area of the Hellenistic world, from 250 to 125 BCE. Their expansion into northern India established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 CE.
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Independence from the Seleucid Empire 250 BCE.
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was founded by the Seleucid military governor of Bactria Diodotus around ...
Gandhāra (also Ghandara, Ghandahra, Chandahara, and Persian Gandara) is the name of an ancient kingdom in eastern Afghanistan and north-west province of Pakistan. Gandhara was located mainly on southern side of Kabul River. In the east, it extended beyond Indus River and included within its boundaries parts of the valley of Kashmir (Political History of Ancient India, 1996, p 151).
Gandhara - Geography.
The Gandharas were settled since the Vedic times on the south bank of Kabul ...
The Cynics were an influential school of ancient philosophers. They rejected the social values of their time, often flouting conventions in shocking ways to prove their point. They challenged their listeners to get in touch with their "natural" animal side.
Their name is thought to be derived either from the building in Athens called Cynosarges, the earliest home of the school, or from the Greek word for a dog (kuon), in contemptuous allusion to the uncouth and aggressive manners adopted by the members of the school. Whi ...
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان, islāmī jamhūriya i pākistān), or Pakistan (Urdu: پاکستان, pākistān) is a country located in South Asia that overlaps onto the Greater Middle East and Central Asia. The country borders Iran (Persia), Afghanistan, China, India and the Arabian Sea. The name of the country "Pakistan" in Urdu and Persian means Land of the Pure. With around 163 million inhabitants, it is the sixth most populous country with the secon ...
The Colossus of Rhodes was a giant statue of the god Helios, erected on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos in the 3rd century BC. It was roughly the same size as the Statue of Liberty in New York, although it stood on a lower platform. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Colossus of Rhodes - The decision to erect the statue.
Alexander the Great died at an early age in 323 BC without having had time to put into place any plans for his succession. Infighting broke out between his ...
Events
Relics of St. Thomas are brought to Edessa from India.
Births
Porphyry (philosopher)
Deaths
Chlodomir I, king of the Sicambri, a Frankish people (traditional date)
Cao Zhi, Chinese poet
Demetrius, Patriarch of Alexandria
Category: 232
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Coele-Syria, meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Strictly speaking, it is the valley of Lebanon, but it is often used to cover the entire area south of the river Eleutherus including Judea.
Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy first occupied Coele-Syria in 318 BC. When Ptolemy joined the coalition against Antigonus the one eyed in 313 BC he, however, quickly withdrew from Coele-Syria. In 312 Seleucus I Nicator, defeated Demetrius, the son of ...
Bactria (Bactriana) was the ancient Greek name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush (Caucasus Indicus) and the Amu Darya (Oxus); its capital, Bactra (now Balkh), was located in what is now northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
Bactria was bounded on the east by the ancient region of Gandhara in the Indian subcontinent. The Bactrian language is an Iranian language of the Indo-Ir ...
Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC
Decades: 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC 260s BC
Years: 317 BC 316 BC 315 BC 314 BC 313 BC - 312 BC - 311 BC 310 BC 309 BC 308 BC 307 BC
Events
In the Wars of the Diadochi, Ptolemy meets a force under Antigonus's son Demetrius at Gaza, where they fight an inconclusive battle.
Ptolemy proceeds to invade Syria, but withdraws when Antigonus himself arrives with reinfor ...
In Christianity, Sabellianism (also known as modalism) is the second-century belief that the three persons of the Trinity are merely different modes or aspects of God, rather than three distinct persons. It is attributed to Sabellius, who taught a form of this doctrine in Rome in the second century. Hippolytus knew Sabellius personally and mentioned him in the Philosophumena. He knew Sabellius disliked Trinitarian theology, yet he called Modal Monarchism the heresy of Noetos, not that of Sabellius. Sabellianism was embraced by Christians in Cyrenaica, to whom Demetrius, Patriarch of Ale ...
The city of Acre (Hebrew עַכּוֹ, Standard Hebrew ʻAkko, Tiberian Hebrew ʻAkkô; Arabic عكّا ʻAkkā ▶ (help·info); also Accho, Acco, and St.-Jean d'Acre), is in Western Galilee in the North District, Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), at the end of 2003 the city had a total population of 45,600. It stands on a low promontory at the northern extremity of the Bay of Acr ...
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare written sometime in the mid-1590s.
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Date and sources.
It is not known exactly when A Midsummer Night's Dream was written or first performed, but it is assumed to be between 1594 and 1596. Some have theorized that the play might have been written for performance at the wedding of Sir Thomas Berkeley and Elizabeth Carey, in February, 1596.
There is no known source for the plot of A Midsumme ...
Paean, in Homer, was the Greek physician of the gods. In other writers the word is a mere epithet of Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing, but it is not known whether Paean was originally a separate Deity or merely an aspect of Apollo.
Homer leaves the question unanswered. Hesiod definitely separates the two, and in later poetry Paean is invoked independently as a health god. It is equally difficult to discover the relation between Paean or Paeon in the sense of "healer" and Paean in the sense of "song." Farnell refers to ...
Brhadrata was the last ruler of the Indian Mauryan dynasty.
It is said that his territories, centered around the capital of Pataliputra, had shrunk considerably from the time of the great Emperor Ashoka, but that he was still upholding the Buddhist faith.
He was assassinated in 185 BCE during a military parade by the commander-in-chief of his guard, the Brahmin general Pusyamitra Sunga, who then took over the throne and established the Sunga dynasty.
The assassination of Brhadrata and the rise of the Sunga empire led to a wave of persecut ...
Alexander II, king of Epirus, succeeded his father Pyrrhus in 272 BC. He attacked Antigonus Gonatas and conquered the greater part of Macedonia, but was in turn driven out of both Epirus and Macedonia by Demetrius, the son of Antigonus. He subsequently recovered his kingdom by the aid of the Acarnanians and Aetolians. He died about 260 BC.
See Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. viii.; Droysen, Hellenismus; B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedoni ...
Agathocles "the Just" was an Indo-Greek king, who reigned between around 190 and 180 BCE. He might have been a son of Demetrius and one of his sub-kings in charge of the Paropamisadae between Bactria and India. In that case, he was a grandson of Euthydemus whom he qualified as "God-King" on his coins.
Agathocles was contemporary with or a successor of king Pantaleon. He seems to have been attacked and killed by the usurper Eucratides, who took control of the Greco-Bactrian territory. Little is known about him, apart from his ex ...
