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A chariot is a type of carriage driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Russia, dated to c. 2000 BC. The critical invention that allowed the construction of light, horse-drawn chariots was the spoked wheel.
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was a giant seated figure, about 12.4 m (41 ft) tall, made by the Greek sculptor Phidias around 435 BC at the sanctuary of Olympia, Greece, and erected in the Temple of Zeus there. Zeus was the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus.
Phidias or Pheidias was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of the goddess Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, namely the Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon, and the Athena Promachos, a colossal bronze which stood between it and the Propylaea, a monumental gateway that served as the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. Phidias was the son of Charmides of Athens. The ancients believed that his masters were Hegias and Ageladas.
HieronI was the son of Deinomenes, the brother of Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily from 478 to 467 BC. In succeeding Gelon, he conspired against a third brother, Polyzelos.
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; several authors, including Pliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved with silhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist.
Gelon also known as Gelo, son of Deinomenes, was a 5th-century BC ruler of Gela and Syracuse and first of the Deinomenid rulers.
Alexander IV, sometimes erroneously called Aegus in modern times, was the son of Alexander the Great and Princess Roxana of Bactria.
Roxana was a Sogdian or a Bactrian princess whom the Macedonian king, Alexander the Great, married, after defeating Darius, the Achaemenian king, and invading Persia. The date of her birth is unknown, but she was probably in her late teens or early twenties at the time of her wedding to Alexander the Great. She died in c. 310 BC.
Olympia is a small town in Elis on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece, famous for the nearby archaeological site of the same name, which was a major Panhellenic religious sanctuary of ancient Greece, where the ancient Olympic Games were held. The Olympic Games were held every four years throughout Classical antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. They were restored on a global basis in 1894 in honor of the ideal of peaceful international contention for excellence.
Cynisca or Kyniska was a wealthy Spartan princess. She is famous for being the first woman to win at the Olympic Games, competing in the sport of chariot racing. Cynisca first entered the Olympics in 396 BC, where she won first prize competing with a team of horses she had trained herself. In 392 BC, Cynisca entered her horses in the Olympics for a second time and was awarded another victory in the same event.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was an ancient Greek temple in Olympia, Greece, dedicated to the god Zeus. The temple, built in the second quarter of the fifth century BC, was the very model of the fully developed classical Greek temple of the Doric order.
The Philippeion in the Altis of Olympia was an Ionic circular memorial in limestone and marble, a tholos, which contained chryselephantine statues of Philip's family; himself, Alexander the Great, Olympias, Amyntas III and Eurydice I. It was made by the Athenian sculptor Leochares in celebration of Philip's victory at the battle of Chaeronea. It was the only structure inside the Altis dedicated to a human.
Pyrrhus II was the son of Olympias II and Alexander II of Epirus. He was a brother of Ptolemy and Phthia of Macedon. He ruled as king of Epirus from 242 BC to 237 BC. He had two daughters: Deidamia II who was the last ruler of the Aeacid Dynasty and Nereis who married Gelon of Syracuse.
The ancient Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin. The first Olympic Games are traditionally dated to 776 BCE. They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, 2nd century BCE, until the emperor Theodosius I, who having been converted to Christianity, banned pagan festivals. He banned the Olympics in CE 394 as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the State religion of Rome. The games were held every four years, or Olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies.
Euryleonis was a celebrated woman Olympic charioteer.
Glaucias was a ruler of the Taulantian kingdom which dominated southern Illyrian affairs in the second half of the 4th century BC. Glaucias is first mentioned as bringing a considerable force to the assistance of Cleitus of Dardania, another Illyrian prince, against Alexander the Great, in the battle of Pelium 335 BC. They were, however, both defeated, and Cleitus was forced to take refuge within the Taulantian territories, whither Alexander did not pursue him, his attention being called elsewhere by the news of the revolt of Thebes.
Theagenes of Thasos was an ancient Greek Olympian, typically spelled Theogenes before the first century AD.
Orontes IV was the son of King Arsames and is recorded as ruling Armenia from inscriptions found at the historic capital of the Orontid dynasty, Armavir. He was the founder of the city of Yervandashat. In his reign the religious site of Bagaran was founded. Large bronze statues in the Hellenistic style of the gods, Zeus (Aramazd), Artemis (Anahit) and Herakles (Vahagn) were brought there and set up in temples dedicated to them. He is also said to have founded a shrine at Armavir dedicated to Apollo (Mithra), a golden statue of four horses pulling a chariot with Apollo as god of the Sun. This was later destroyed by the Sassanid Persian army in the 4th century AD.
The Hippodrome of Olympia housed the equestrian contests of the Ancient Olympic Games. According to Pausanias, it was situated to the south of the Stadium and covered a large area about 600 meters long and 200 meters wide. The hippodrome was a wide, flat, open space where the starting point and the finish line were designated with a pole and a second smaller pole called nyssa designated the turning point.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology .Missing or empty |title=(help)
