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(b Stagira, 384 bc; d Khalkis, 322 bc). Ancient Greek philosopher. Born to a physician at the Macedonian court, Aristotle travelled to Athens in his 18th year to study philosophy at Plato’s Academy. He remained for nearly twenty years until Plato’s death in 348 bc; he was then forced to leave Athens: probably he had come under suspicion because of his Macedonian connections. He went first to Assos, then to Mytilene, doing the original biological research on which his later scientific writings are based. During this period, he spent some time as tutor to the young Alexander the Great (reg 336–323 bc); the relationship does not seem to have been a warm one. Returning to Athens in 335 bc, he set up his own philosophical school, later called the Lyceum. From the colonnaded path, or peripatos, attached to the building, his followers were later called ‘Peripatetics’. Here he taught, and wrote most of his surviving works. After Alexander’s death in ...

There is sufficient evidence to confirm that the garden formed a constituent of all the ancient civilizations around the eastern half of the Mediterranean. These civilizations, supported by great rivers and seas—the Tigris, Euphrates, and the Nile, and the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Aegean—grew up in a climate ranging from hot and arid to warm and dry. The climatic variation corresponds to geographical differences, from the alluvial plains of Egypt and Mesopotamia to the higher plains and hills of Syria-Palestine, to the more mountainous and variegated landscape of the peninsulas and islands of Greece and Italy.

Over this geographical range there is a remarkable degree of similarity in the general form of the ancient garden. There is the small enclosed or courtyard garden of the Assyrians and Egyptians, the kepos of the Greeks, and the hortus of the Romans. Often directly associated with a dwelling, palace, or temple, the fundamental elements of these small gardens were an enclosure wall and rows of trees or other planting surrounding a central pool or water feature. ...

(b ?Athens, c. 429 bc; d 347 bc).

Ancient Greek philosopher. He was the son of a distinguished and wealthy Athenian family and grew up in turbulent times; the Peloponnesian War and the bitter struggles between local oligarchic and democratic factions made life unstable and justice difficult. In 399 bc the restored democracy put to death Plato’s beloved teacher Socrates (469–399 bc), reinforcing his dislike of democratic institutions. During the following years Plato travelled widely, beginning his friendship with Dion of Syracuse (409–353 bc). Around 385 bc he returned to Athens, where he remained for most of the rest of his life. He began teaching in a school that was later the first to be called an ‘Academy’, after the grove in which it stood. Plato made two further visits to Syracuse, attempting at Dion’s request, but without success, to make a philosopher of the young ruler Dionysius II (reg 367–343 bc)....

Philosophical school of ancient Greece and Rome. It was among the most influential movements of antiquity and because of its centrality in later European education, especially in the 16th–19th centuries, it exercised a profound influence on the views of virtue, mind and emotion held by many thinkers and artists. The school was named after the porch (stoa) in Athens where it met under Zeno of Citium (335–263 bc), Cleanthes (331–232 bc) and Chrysippus (280–207 bc), all of whose works survive only in fragments. Modifications of doctrine were introduced by Panaetius (185–109 bc) and Posidonius (135–50 bc). At Rome, Stoicism became the creed of many political, artistic and intellectual leaders. The most important Roman Stoic philosophers were Seneca (c. 4 bc–ad 65), Epictetus (c. ad 55–c. 135) and the emperor Marcus Aurelius (...

(b Stendal, Dec 9, 1717; d Trieste, June 8, 1768).

German art historian. His writings on the sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome redefined the history of art and provided a theoretical apologia for Neo-classicism. Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764) was a standard reference on the art of the ancient world until well into the 19th century. Winckelmann revolutionized archaeological studies by providing a framework for stylistic classification of antiquities by period of origin, whereas previous antiquarian scholars had concerned themselves almost exclusively with questions of subject-matter. His analysis of the aesthetics of Greek art and his account of the conditions that encouraged its flowering, which highlighted the importance of climate and the political freedom of the ancient Greek city states, had a major impact in the art world of his time. His scholarly celebrations of masterpieces of ancient sculpture were particularly popular and were widely quoted in travel books and artistic treatises.

The son of a cobbler, Winckelmann studied Greek and Latin, as well as theology, mathematics and medicine, at the universities of Halle and Jena. After five years as a Classics teacher in Seehausen, he was employed in ...