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Amathus

Amathus or Amathous (Ἀμαθοῦς) was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about 24 mi west of Larnaca and 6 mi east of Limassol. Its ancient cult sanctuary of Aphrodite was the second most important in Cyprus, her homeland, after Paphos.

Archaeological work has recently been continued at the site and many finds are exhibited in the Limassol Museum.

Pre-history and ancient era
The pre-history of Amathus survives in both myth and archaeology. No traces of human activity was detected in the site before the earliest Iron Age, c. 1100 BC, and no town is mentioned in the space between Kition and Kourion in the list of Cypriot cities from Medinet Habu. The city's legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, who called the city after his mother Amathous. According to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb. According to Plutarch's source, Amathousians called the sacred grove where her shrine was situated the Wood of Aphrodite Ariadne. myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles, thus accounting for the fact that he was worshiped there. It was said in antiquity that the people of Amathus were autochthonous, most likely Eteocyprian or "Pelasgian". Their non-Greek language is confirmed on the site by Eteocypriot inscriptions in the Cypriot syllabary which alone in the Aegean world survived the Bronze Age collapse and continued to be used down to the 4th century BC. Amathus was built on the coastal cliffs with a natural harbour and flourished at an early date, soon requiring several cemeteries. Greeks from Euboea left their pottery at Amathus from the 10th century BC. During the post-Phoenician era of the 8th century BC, a palace was erected and a port was also constructed, which served the trade with the Greeks and the Levantines. A special burial ground for infants, a tophet served the culture of the Phoenicians. For the Hellenes, high on the cliff a temple was built, which became a worship site devoted to Aphrodite, in her particular local presence as Aphrodite Amathusia along with a bearded male Aphrodite called Aphroditos. The excavators discovered the final stage of the Temple of Aphrodite, also known as Aphrodisias, which dates approximately to the 1st century BC. According to the legend, it was where festive Adonia took place, in which athletes competed in hunting wild boars during sport competitions; they also competed in dancing and singing, all to the honour of Adonis.

The earliest remains hitherto found on the site are tombs of the early Iron Age period of Graeco-Phoenician influences (1000-600 BC). Amathus is sometimes identified with Qartiḫadasti (Phoenician "New-Town") in the Cypriote tribute-list of Esarhaddon of Assyria (668 BC) and some Phoenician inscriptions from the island, although others identify this Qartiḫadasti with Kition or a part of it. It certainly maintained strong Phoenician sympathies, for it was its refusal to join the philhellene league of Onesilos of Salamis which provoked the revolt of Cyprus from Achaemenid Persia in 500-494 BC, when Amathus was besieged unsuccessfully and avenged itself by the capture and execution of Onesilos. Herodotus reports
 * "Because he had besieged them, the Amathusians cut off Onesilos’ head and brought it to Amathous, where they hung it above the gates. As it hung there empty, a swarm of bees entered it and filled it with honeycomb. When they sought advice about this event, an oracle told them to take the head down and bury it, and to make annual sacrifice to Onesilos as a hero, saying that it would be better for them if they did this. The Amathusians did as they were told and still perform these rites in my day." (Histories 5.114)

Amathus was a rich and densely populated kingdom with a flourishing agriculture (grain and sheep) and copper mines situated very close to the northeast Kalavasos.

Hellenistic era
About 385-380 BC, the philhellene Evagoras of Salamis was similarly opposed by Amathus, allied with Citium and Soli; and even after Alexander the city resisted annexation, and was bound over to give hostages to Seleucus. Its political importance was now ended but its temple of Adonis and Aphrodite Amathusia remained famous in Roman times. The epithet Amathusia in Roman poetry often means little more than "Cypriote," but attesting to the fame of the city.

From the 4th century BC the pedestals of two sculptures donated by the last Basileus of Amathous, Androkles, representing his two sons, Orestheus and Andragoras, have survived. Their inscriptions are in both Eteocyprian and Greek languages.

The decline of Amathus is often measured by the Ptolemaic gifts to Argos, where Amathus donated only 40 drachmas in 170-160 BC, but Kition and Salamis gave 208, Kourion 172, and Paphos 100. However, this figure contradicts the archaeologic evidence of new buildings in this period including a balneion, a bath, a gymnasium, as well as fortifications of the Acropolis, including a new tower. The port of Paphos appears to have lost traffic compared to Amathus in the Ptolemaic period, an indication that Paphos, as the capital of the island, perhaps offered fewer drachmas than the other cities for different reasons, like Amathus.

Roman era
In the Roman era Amathus became the capital of one of the four administrative regions of Cyprus.

A Roman temple was built in the 1st century AD on top of the Hellenistic predecessor. The temple facilities remained so important in Roman times that 'Amathusia' was used as a synonym for 'Cypriot'.

Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Later, in the 4th century AD, Amasus became the see of a Christian bishop and continued to flourish until the Byzantine period. Of its bishops, Heliodorus was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and Alexander at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In the late 6th century, Saint Ioannis Eleimonas (John the Charitable), protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus and after 614 sent Theodorus, bishop of Amathus, to Jerusalem to ransom some slaves.

Today, Amathus is a see of the Church of Cyprus and is also listed (under the name "Amathus in Cypro", to distinguish it from "Amathus in Transjordan") as a titular see by the Catholic Church, which however, in line with the practice adopted after the Second Vatican Council, has made no appointments to the bishopric since the death of the last Latin titular bishop in 1984.

Anastasius Sinaita, the famous 7th-century prolific monk of Saint Catherine's Monastery, was born here. It is thought that he left Cyprus after the 649 Arab conquest of the island, setting out for the Holy Land, and eventually becoming a monk on Sinai.

Amathus declined and was already almost deserted when Richard Plantagenet won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The tombs were plundered and the stones from the beautiful edifices were brought to Limassol to be used for new constructions. Much later, in 1869, a great number of blocks of stone from Amathus were used for the construction of the Suez Canal. A ruined Byzantine church marks its site.

In modern times
A new settlement close to Amathus but further inland, Agios Tychonas, is named after the bishop Saint Tychon of Amathus. The site of the ruins is within the borders of this village, though the expansion of the Limassol tourist area has threatened the ruins: it is speculated that some of the hotels are on top of the Amathus necropolis.

The Swedish Cyprus Expedition
From April to may 1930 The Swedish Cyprus Expedition excavated a necropolis on both sides of Amathus'acropolis. Amathus was known and visited during the 18th century and 19th centuries by travelers and archaeologists. Earlier excavators, such as General Luigi Palma Di Cesnola, the first American consul in Cyprus, excavated the necropolis' large tombs situated north of the acropolis and the tombs in the necropolis west of the acropolis hill. Since he did not publish any plans or drawings John Lindros illustrated two of the tombs from the old excavations that were still possible to visit. The necropolis had partly been excavated by the English Expedition to Cyprus in 1893-94 and published in Excavations in Cyprus, London 1900. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition excavated around 25 tombs. The tombs excavated are shaft tombs with a dromos, which are rather rare in Cyprus. Variations of the shaft tombs occur, mostly because of the various circumstances of space and economics as well as difficulties in cutting the rock. The archaeologist identified six different styles. It is the shape of the dromos that differs the most between the different styles. Tombs 1 and 2 differ from the others in the sense of construction and quality and might have been created for wealthier people, maybe royals. Tomb 3 is more reminiscent of the other graves found in Cyprus since it is a chamber tomb. Tomb no. 26 had a large tumulus and might have been related to other Hellenistic tumuli. It contained a stone pithos with an alabastron in which a burnt skeleton was found. Around the rim of the alabastron a wreath of gilded myrtle leaves was placed. The excavator thought it might have been a Ptolemaic official who died in Amathus and was buried according to a foreign burial custom.

Otherwise, the same burial customs were observed in most of the tombs. Many were reused multiple times, in which case the burial gifts were pushed into the corner of the tomb. Later, during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Amathus was once again used for burial. These burials did not damage or alternate the earlier tombs since they were usually somewhere in the upper layers. The tombs are dated from the Cypro-Geometric I to the Roman period.

Later Excavations
The city had vanished, except for fragments of wall and of a great stone urn on the acropolis, dating from the 6th century BC of which a similar vessel was taken to the Musée du Louvre in 1867. It is 1.85 m tall and weighs 14 tons. It was made from a single piece of stone and has four curved handles carved with bulls. In the 1870s, Luigi Palma di Cesnola excavated the necropolis of Amathus, as elsewhere in Cyprus, enriching the early collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; some objects went to the British Museum. More modern archaeological joint Cypriote-French excavations started in 1980 and still continue. The Acropolis, the Temple of Aphrodite, the agora, the city's walls, the basilica and the port have all been excavated.

Further archaeological objects found during the excavations are preserved at both the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia and the Limassol District Archaeological Museum. In the agora there are marble columns decorated with spirals and a huge paved squares. On the coastal side of the city there is an Early Christian basilica with mosaic floors decorated with semi-precious stones. Further, near the terraced road leading to the Temple, situated on the top of the cliff, several houses built in a row dating to the Hellenistic period have been discovered. At the east and west extremes of the city the two acropoleis are situated where a number of tombs have been found, many of which are intact.

Two small sanctuaries, with terracotta votive offerings of Graeco-Phoenician age, lie not far off, but the location of the great shrines of Adonis and Aphrodite have not been identified (M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, i. ch.1).

title: Amathus


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Alphons

Alphons (Latinized Alphonsus, Adelphonsus, or Adefonsus) is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. In the later medieval period it became a standard name in the Hispanic and Portuguese royal families.

It is derived from a Gothic name, or a conflation of several Gothic names; from *Aþalfuns, composed of the elements aþal "noble" and funs "eager, brave, ready", and perhaps influenced by names such as *Alafuns, *Adefuns and *Hildefuns. It is recorded as Adefonsus in the 9th and 10th century, and as Adelfonsus, Adelphonsus in the 10th to 11th. The reduced form Alfonso is recorded in the late 9th century, and the Portuguese form Afonso from the early 11th and Anfós in Catalan from the 12th century until the 15th.

Variants of the name include: Alonso (Spanish), Alfonso (Spanish and Italian), Alfons (Dutch, German, Catalan, Polish, Croatian and Scandinavian), Afonso (Portuguese and Galician), Alphonse, Alfonse (French and English), etc.

Iberian royal families

 * Asturias/Leon/Castile/Spain
 * Alfonso I of Asturias (739–757)
 * Alfonso II of Asturias (791–842)
 * Alfonso III of León (866–910)
 * Alfonso Fróilaz (925–926)
 * Alfonso IV of León (925–931)
 * Alfonso V of León (999–1028)
 * Alfonso VI of León (1065–1109)
 * Alfonso VII of León (1126–1157)
 * Alfonso VIII of Castile (1158–1214)
 * Alfonso IX of León (1188–1230)
 * Alfonso X of Castile (1252–1284)
 * Alfonso XI of Castile (1312–1350)
 * Aragon & Naples
 * Alfonso I of Aragon (1104–1134), known as el Batallador (The Battler)
 * Alfonso II of Aragon (1162–1196)
 * Alfonso III of Aragon (1285–1291)
 * Alfonso IV of Aragon (1327–1336)
 * Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), also king of Naples and Sicily
 * Alfonso II of Naples (1448–1495)

Other

 * Alfonso Jordan (1103–1148)
 * Alphonse, Count of Poitiers (1220–1271)
 * Alfonso of Valladolid (c. 1270 – c. 1347), Jewish convert to Christianity, philosopher, and mathematician
 * Alphonso, Earl of Chester (1273–1284), first son of Edward I of England, named after his godfather Alfonso X of Castile; died in childhood
 * Juan Alfonso de Baena (c. 1375 – c. 1434), Castilian troubadour

Early modern period

 * Alphonse Daudet, French novelist and historian
 * Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai
 * Alphonse de Tonty, Baron de Paludy (c. 1659 – 1727)
 * Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597
 * Alfonso II, Count of Provence, second son of Alfonso II of Aragon
 * Alfonso III d'Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio (1628–44)
 * Alfonso of Castile, Prince of Asturias, figurehead of rebelling magnates against his brother King Henry IV of Castile
 * Alfonso of Hauteville, Prince of Capua
 * Alphonsus Liguori, Roman Catholic theologian (1696–1787)
 * Joseph-Alphonse Esménard (1770–1811)

Iberian/Sicilian nobility

 * Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta  (1841–1934), duke of Calabria and head of the royal house of the Two Sicilies
 * Alfonso XII of Spain (1857–1885) (ordinal numbering continues from the kings of Castile)
 * Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886–1931)
 * Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, claimant to the title of the head of House of Bourbon Two Sicilies
 * Alfonso of Spain, Prince of Asturias, heir-apparent of the throne of Spain 1907–31
 * Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1924–2003), Spanish playboy and businessman
 * Infante Alfonso of Spain, younger brother of former King Juan Carlos of Spain
 * Fadrique Alfonso of Castile, fifth illegitimate child of Alfonso XI of Castile

Alfons

 * Alfons Almi (1904–1991), Finnish opera singer and administrator
 * Alfons van Blaaderen (born 1963), Dutch physicist
 * Alfons Geleyns (1887–1914), Belgian private
 * Alfons Goppel (1905–1991), German politician
 * Alfons Gorbach (1898–1972), Austrian politician
 * Alfons Jēgers (1919–1999), Latvian football and hockey player
 * Alfons Karpiński (1875–1961), Polish painter
 * Alfons Rebane (1908–1976), Estonian military commander
 * Alfons Rissberger (born 1948), German author

Alphonse

 * Alphonse Gabriel Capone (1899–1947), Chicago gangster

Alfonso

 * Alfonso Cuarón, Mexican cinematographer
 * Alfonso Calderon (activist), Spanish born activist and advocate for gun control
 * Alfonso Calderón (poet), Chilean poet and writer
 * Alfonso Soriano, American baseball player
 * Alfonso Lizarazo, Colombian host and politician
 * Alfonso Mejia-Arias, Mexican musician, writer, social activist and politician of Roma origin (Gitano)
 * Alfonso Ribeiro, Caribbean-American actor and game show host.
 * Alfonso John Romero, American video-game designer, programmer, and developer
 * Alfonso Pérez, Spanish football (soccer) striker
 * Alfonso Oiterong, Palauan statesman, former Palau vice president 1981-1985
 * Alicia Alfonso (born 1963), Uruguayan actress
 * Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist
 * José Alfonso Belloso y Sánchez (1873–1938), Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador
 * Miguel Alfonso Pérez Aracil, Spanish football (soccer) midfielder

Alfonse

 * Alfonse D'Amato (born 1937), United States Senator from New York
 * Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), Swiss-American politician
 * Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939), Czech artist

Alphonso

 * Alphonso Davies, Canadian soccer player born in Ghana, who grew up in Edmonton

As a surname
Alphonse, Alphonso, Alfonso is occasionally seen as a surname derived from the given name, the latter descending from Asturias and Cantabria.
 * Celestino Alfonso (1916–1944), Spanish republican and volunteer fighter in the French resistance during World War II
 * Roland Alphonso (1931–1998), Jamaican saxophonist
 * Kristian Alfonso (born 1963), Puerto Rican American soap opera actress
 * Michael Lee Alfonso (1965–2007), ring name "Mike Awesome", American professional wrestler
 * Equis Alfonso, known as X-Alfonso, Cuban hip-hop and afro-rock musician
 * Ozzie Alfonso, Cuban-American TV director and producer
 * Sadda Vidda Rajapakse Palanga Pathira Ambakumarage Ranjan Leo Sylvester Alphonsu, Sri Lankan Sinhala politician, actor, singer, writer

Pseudonym

 * Bill Alfonso, ring name of William Matthew Sierra, former professional wrestling referee & manager

Stage name

 * Alfons, the stage name of Emmanuel Peterfalvi, a French comedian

Fictional characters

 * Alphonso, protagonist in Alfonso und Estrella, an opera by Franz Schubert
 * Don Alfonso, character in Mozart's opera Così fan tutte
 * Alphonso MacKenzie, fictional character in the Marvel Universe
 * Alfie Atkins, known as Alfons Åberg in Swedish, character created by Gunilla Bergström from Sweden
 * Alfonzo Dominico Jones, a dog in the Australian television series SeaChange
 * Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, character in the comic strip Dick Tracy
 * Alphonse and Gaston, French duo in a comic strip created by Frederick Burr Opper
 * Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist
 * Alfons Heiderich from Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa
 * Alphonse Mephisto, fictional character in the animated television series South Park
 * Alphonso Ali, minor character in Bloom County
 * Monsieur Alfonse, character in the BBC sitcom Allo 'Allo! played by the actor Kenneth Connor
 * The name of a number of pets and the Patlabor of Noa Izumi from the anime Patlabor
 * Oren Pierre Alfonso from Kamen Rider Gaim
 * Alfonso "French" Sosa, a main character from The OA

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Alphons


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Alfonso I

Alfonso I may refer to:

 * Alfonso I of Asturias (739–757), king of Asturias
 * Afonso I of Portugal (1094–1185), king of Portugal
 * Alfonso I of Aragon (1104–1134), known as Alfonso the Battler, king of Aragon and Navarre
 * Alfonso I, Duke of Gandia (1332–1412)
 * Alfonso V of Aragon (1396–1458), king of Naples as Alfonso I
 * Afonso I of Kongo (1456–1543), first Christian king of the Kingdom of Kongo
 * Alfonso I Piccolomini (1468–1498), duke of Amalfi
 * Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (1476–1534)
 * Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886–1941), known to French Legitimists as "Alphonse I"

title: Alfonso I


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Amati

Amati is the last name of a family of Italian violin makers who lived at Cremona from about 1538 to 1740. Their importance is considered equal to those of the Bergonzi, Guarneri, and Stradivari families. Today, violins created by Nicolò Amati are valued at around $600,000. Because of their age and rarity, Amati instruments are mostly kept in museum or private collections and are seldom played in public.

Andrea Amati
Andrea Amati (c. 1505 – 20 December 1577) designed and created the violin, viola and cello known as the "violin family". Based in Cremona, Italy, he standardized the basic form, shape, size, materials and method of construction. Makers from nearby Brescia experimented, such as Gasparo da Salò, Micheli, Zanetto and Pellegrino, but it was Andrea Amati who gave the modern violin family their definitive profile.

A claim that Andrea Amati received the first order for a violin from Lorenzo de' Medici in 1555 is invalid as Lorenzo de' Medici died in 1492. A number of Andrea Amati's instruments survived for some time, dating between 1538 (Amati made the first Cello called "The King" in 1538) and 1574. The largest number of these are from 1560, a set for an entire orchestra of 38 ordered by Catherine de Médicis the regent queen of France and bore hand painted royal French decorations in gold including the motto and coat of arms of her son Charles IX of France. Of these 38 instruments ordered, Amati created violins of two sizes, violas of two sizes and large-sized cellos. They were in use until the French revolution of 1789 and only 14 of these instruments survived. His work is marked by selection of the finest materials, great elegance in execution, soft clear amber, soft translucent varnish, and an in depth use of acoustic and geometrical principles in design.

Antonio and Girolamo Amati
Andrea Amati was succeeded by his sons Antonio Amati (c. 1537–1607) and Girolamo Amati (c. 1551–1630). "The Brothers Amati", as they were known, implemented far-reaching innovations in design, including the perfection of the shape of the f-holes. They are also thought to have pioneered the modern alto format of viola, in contrast to older tenor violas, but the widespread belief that they were the first ones to do so

Nicolò Amati
Nicolò Amati (3 December 1596 – 12 April 1684) was the son of Girolamo Amati. Often considered the most eminent violin maker of the family, he improved the model adopted by the rest of the Amatis and produced instruments capable of yielding greater power of tone. His pattern was unusually small, but he also made a wider model now known as the "Grand Amati", which have become his most sought-after violins.

Of his pupils, the most famous were Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, the first of the Guarneri family of violin makers. (There is much controversy regarding the apprenticeship of Antonio Stradivari. While the label on Stradivari's first known violin states that he was a pupil of Amati, the validity of his statement is questioned.

Girolamo Amati (Hieronymus II)
The last maker of the family was Nicolò's son, Girolamo Amati, known as Hieronymus II (26 February 1649 – 21 February 1740). He improved the arching of his father's instruments.

Extant Amati instruments
Amati instruments include some of the oldest extant examples of the violin family, dating to as far back as the mid-16th century. , they are only occasionally played in public.

United Kingdom
Instruments in the UK include Andrea Amati violins from the set delivered to Charles IX of France in 1564.
 * Amati instruments at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
 * Andrea Amati
 * Violin, 1564 (ex–French royal collection)
 * Viola
 * Amati instruments at the Royal Academy of Music Museum, London
 * Amati instrument at the Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle
 * Andrea Amati
 * Violin, 1564 (ex French royal collection)
 * Nicolò Amati
 * Double bass of 1631 played by Chi-chi Nwanoku

United States

 * Amati instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
 * Andrea Amati:
 * Violin, c. 1560
 * Nicolò Amati:
 * Violin, 1669

 * Amati instruments at the National Music Museum (University of South Dakota):
 * Andrea Amati:
 * "The King", circa 1545, the world's oldest extant cello
 * Viola, 1560
 * Violin, 1560
 * Violin, 1574
 * Girolamo Amati:
 * Double bass, 1680
 * Violin, 1604
 * Violin, 7/8-size, 1609
 * Violino piccolo, 1613
 * Nicolò Amati:
 * Violin, 1628

The Stanley Solomon Tenore ca 1536
Andrea Amati ca 1536

Originally a tenor viola, the front is of pine of slightly wavy grain of medium width. The back is one-piece of maple, slab-cut, slightly flamed but with evident circular decorations. The little scroll is later, but it matches the instrument. The varnish is golden brown.

Archivio della Liuteria Cremonese

Tarisio

The Witten, The IX Charles, The ex Collis ca 1560
Andrea Amati ca 1560

This rare viola is one of the best preserved of Andrea Amati's decorated instruments. It features gilt paintings of fleurs-de-lis and trefoils on its back, surrounding the monogram identified by Italian scholar Renato Meucci to be that of Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême. The Latin motto painted in gilt around the monogram, as well as around the ribs, is identical to that found on the Museum's Amati violin made at about the same time and may relate to the court of King Philip II of Spain. The loss of some of the mottoes' text, as well as other decorative elements painted on the back, clearly reveals that this instrument was reduced in both length and width from its original, large tenor dimensions.

Fine Strings

National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota

National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota

Tarisio

From the Charles IX Set ca 1564
Andrea Amati ca 1564

Large tenor viola with Charles IX decoration. Two-piece back of small-figured maple, bearing the royal insignia and motto. Top of pine of varying grain. Original scroll. Golden-brown varnish. Label not original: "Andrea Amadi in Cremona M. D. L. xxiiij." (1574).

Tarisio

Tarisio

Held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford
Andrea Amati ca 1564

Ashmolean Museum Oxford

The ex Wahl ca 1568
Andrea Amati ca 1568

Two-piece back with an ebony inlay of "Chinese-knot" design. Scroll not original. Label not original, dated 1568.

Strings Magazine

Tarisio

The ex Herrmann ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620

Northern Italian viola attributed to Andrea Amati. Made, in our opinion, circa 1620 by a member of the Amati school. The head by another maker. The back is from one piece of slab cut maple with faint irregular flames. The sides are from slab cut maple similar to the back. The scroll is from quarter cut maple with faint narrow flames. The top is from two pieces of spruce with medium and narrow grain. The dimensions are somewhat reduced. The varnish has a golden brown color. Labelled "ANDREAS AMATIUS CREMONA 1567".

Christie's

Featured in.

The Violetta ca 1570
Andrea Amati ca 1570

Two-piece back. The painted decoration is the coat of arms of the Spanish crown. Top with two small wings in the lower bouts. Scroll not original. Labeled "Niccolaus & Antonius Fratres Amati, Cremonem Fes...1649."

Tarisio

The Trampler ca 1580
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1580–90

This instrument was cut down in size around 1800 from an original length of about 47 cm. The ribs are painted with the inscription: "Non AEtesin Homine sed Virtus Consideramus".

Although the instrument comes with a certificate from Simone F. Sacconi attributing it to the Brothers Amati circa 1620, both Charles Beare and Jacques Francais believe it to be a work of Andrea Amati, possibly completed by the Brothers Amati, in which case its date would be closer to 1580.

Tarisio

Featured in.

The Henry IV ca 1590
Girolamo Amati ca 1590

One-piece back, covered with a painting of the armorial bearings of Henry IV supported on each side by an angel. Top of spruce with an open and well-defined grain. Scroll: of faint narrow curl. Ribs of wood similar to back, inscribed in gilt letters "Dvo Proteci Tvnvs". Red-brown varnish.

Tarisio

Featured in.

The Crocfisso, The Medecia ca 1594
Antonio & Girolamo Amati, ca 1594

Commissioned for the Medici family, known as the 'Viola Medicea' or the 'Viola del Crocifisso' after the crucifix decoration on its back.

The Strad

The Stauffer ca 1615
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1615

One-piece back of medium curl sloping from left to right. Top of distinct grain, broadening slightly towards the flanks. Scroll of wood similar to back. Ribs of wood similar to back. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled "Antonius & Hieronymus Fr. Amati Cremonen. Andreæ fil. F 1615."

Tarisio

The Zukerman, The Kashkashian ca 1617
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1617

Two-piece back. Dendrochronology report by Peter Ratcliff dates the youngest ring of bass and treble sides as 1613.

Tarisio

Held by the Cincinnati Art Museum ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619

Cincinnati Art Museum

The Medici, The Hamma ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619

Two-piece back.

Tarizio

Held by the Royal Academy of Music London ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620

One of the few surviving tenors which has not been reduced in size for modern playing. The head is particularly beautiful and well proportioned. The cheeks are flat, in the style of a cello head, although not so wide as to obstruct the player's left hand. The long and elegant pegbox tapers to a wide throat beneath the perfectly carved scroll. The volutes are hollowed and gather depth from the second through to the narrow final turn. The figured quarter-sawn maple used for the back and sides of the instrument is of a type commonly used by the Amatis. The continuous slope of the flame across the centre joint (achieved by reversing one half of the back before jointing), rather than the mirror-image pattern most commonly seen, is also a feature of their work. The front is of straight and even close-grained spruce.

Royal Academy of Music London

Tarisio

The ex Wittgenstein ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620

Two-piece back; the wax seal below the button depicts a woman's head. Top of narrow grain, widening towards the flanks. Scroll of wood similar to back. Ribs of wood similar to back. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled "Antonio & Hieronimus Fr. Amati / Cremonen Andrea F 1620."

Tarisio

Ingles & Hayday

Held in the Galleria Estense Modena ca 1625
Girolamo Amati ca 1625

Labelled "Antonius, & Hieronymus, Fr. Amati Cremonen. Andrae fil. F.1620" (not original).

Back of maple. Top of spruce with a pronounced, rather wide grain. Ribs of the same maple as the back.

The subject of the book The Girolamo Amati viola in the Galleria Estense, Treasures of Italian Violin Making Vol I, 2014

The ex Vieuxtemps
Nicolò Amati, date unknown

Tarisio

Nicolo Amati ca 1663

Two-piece spruce top of medium width grain widening to the edges, two-piece back of quarter sawn maple with faint flame of narrow width mostly horizontal, ribs and scroll of similar maple, and varnish of an orange-brown color over a golden ground. There is an original printed label inside the instrument reads "Nicolaus Amatus Cremonen. Hieronymi Fil. ac Antonij Nepos Fecit. 1663"

National Museum of American History

The Berkitz, The Romanov ca 1677
Nicolò Amati ca 1677

Tariso

The Strad Shop

The Strad Shop

The ex Waters ca 1703
Nicolò Amati ca 1703

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

The ex Francais 1708
Girolamo Amati II ca 1708

Two-piece back of small curl. Top of pine of well-defined and rather open grain. Scroll of less pronounced curl. Ribs of less pronounced curl. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled "Hieronymus Amatus Cremonen Nicolai figlius fecit 1708."

Tarisio

Other Amati violas in the Tarisio archive

 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1592
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1607
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1611
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1616
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
 * Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1628

In popular culture

 * Patrick O'Brian's fictional British sea captain Jack Aubrey is described as owning a "fiddle far above his station, an Amati no less", in The Surgeon's Mate. In the Wine-Dark Sea, book fifteen of the series, Stephen Maturin now has a Girolamo Amati and Aubrey a Guarneri.
 * In Satyajit Ray's short story Bosepukure Khoonkharapi, the fictional detective Feluda deduces that a character was murdered because he owned an Amati violin.
 * In the manga and anime series Gunslinger Girl, Henrietta carries an Amati violin case. It contains a Fabrique Nationale P90 when on a mission, otherwise it contains a real violin.
 * On the radio show, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the January 1956 episode "The Ricardo Amerigo Matter" centered on a stolen Amati violin.
 * In the 2022 Cormac McCarthy novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, Alicia Western purchases an Amati violin for more than $200,000 while she is in her mid- to late teens, paying in cash from money she inherited. In Stella Maris, she relates this to her psychiatrist while in a psychiatric hospital, describing the details of the purchase and some history of the Amati instruments. McCarthy, C., The Passenger and Stella Maris, New York: Knopf (2022).

title: Amati


text:
Alfonso II

Alfonso II may refer to:
 * Alfonso II of Asturias (791–842)
 * Alfonso II of Aragon (1162–1196)
 * Alfonso II, Count of Provence (1174–1209)
 * Afonso II of Portugal (1185–1223), "the Fat"
 * Alfonso, Count of Poitou (1220–1271), jure uxoris Alfonso II, Count of Toulouse
 * Alfonso II, Duke of Gandia (c. 1358–1422)
 * Alfonso II of Naples (1448–1495)
 * Alfonso II Piccolomini (1499–1559), Neapolitan nobleman and military leader
 * Alfonso II d'Este (1533–1597), duke of Ferrara

Liste der Herrscher namens Alfons

title: Alfonso II


text:
Alfonso III

Alfonso III (Spanish) or Afonso III (Portuguese) may refer to:

 * Alfonso III of Asturias (866–910), surnamed "the Great"
 * Afonso III of Portugal (1210–1279)
 * Alfonso III of Aragon (1285–1291)
 * Alfonso III d'Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio (1628–1644)
 * Afonso III of Kongo (1666–1667)

title: Alfonso III


text:
Alfonso IV

Alfonso IV may refer to:
 * Alfonso IV of León (924–931)
 * Afonso IV of Portugal (1291–1357)
 * Alfonso IV of Aragon (1327–1336)
 * Alfonso IV of Ribagorza (1332–1412)
 * Alfonso IV d'Este (1634–1662), Duke of Modena and Regg

title: Alfonso IV


text:
Amazons

In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών Amazōn; in Latin Amāzon, -ŏnis) are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Heracles, the Argonautica and the Iliad. They were a group of female warriors and hunters who were known for their physical agility, strength, archery, riding skills, and the arts of combat. Their society was closed to men and they only raised their daughters and returned their sons to their fathers, with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce.

Courageous and fiercely independent, the Amazons, commanded by their queen, regularly undertook extensive military expeditions into the far corners of the world, from Scythia to Thrace, Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands, reaching as far as Arabia and Egypt. Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities like Ephesos, Cyme, Smyrna, Sinope, Myrina, Magnesia, Pygela, etc.

The texts of the original myths envisioned the homeland of the Amazons at the periphery of the then-known world. Various claims to the exact place ranged from provinces in Asia Minor (Lycia, Caria, etc.) to the steppes around the Black Sea, or even Libya (Libyan Amazon). However, authors most frequently referred to Pontus in northern Anatolia, on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the independent Amazon kingdom where the Amazon queen resided at her capital Themiscyra, on the banks of the Thermodon river.

Palaephatus, who himself might have been a fictional character, attempted to rationalize the Greek myths in his work On Unbelievable Tales. He suspected that the Amazons were probably men who were mistaken for women by their enemies because they wore clothing that reached their feet, tied up their hair in headbands, and shaved their beards. Probably the first in a long line of skeptics, he rejected any real basis for them, reasoning that because they did not exist during his time, most probably they did not exist in the past either.

Decades of archaeological discoveries of burial sites of female warriors, including royalty, in the Eurasian Steppes suggest that the horse cultures of the Scythian, Sarmatian and Hittite peoples likely inspired the Amazon myth. In 2019, a grave with multiple generations of female Scythian warriors, armed and in golden headdresses, was found near Russia's Voronezh.

Etymology
The origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan- 'warriors', a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss "ἁμαζακάραν· πολεμεῖν. Πέρσαι" (": 'to make war' in Persian"), where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- 'make'.

It may alternatively be a Greek word descended from  'manless, without husbands' (alpha privative combined with a derivation from *man- cognate with Proto-Balto-Slavic *mangjá-, found in Czech muž) has been proposed, an explanation deemed "unlikely" by Hjalmar Frisk. A further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah 'virility-killing' as source.

Among the ancient Greeks, the term Amazon was popularly folk etymologized as originating from the Greek ἀμαζός, amazos ('breastless'), from -a ('without') and mazos, a variant of mastos ('breast'), connected with an etiological tradition once claimed by Marcus Justinus who alleged that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out. There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although one is frequently covered. According to Philostratus Amazon babies were not fed just with the right breast. Author Adrienne Mayor suggests that the false etymology led to the myth.

Alternative terms
Herodotus used the terms Androktones (Ἀνδροκτόνες) 'killers/slayers of men' or 'of husbands' and Androleteirai (Ἀνδρολέτειραι) 'destroyers of men, murderesses'. Amazons are called Antianeirai (Ἀντιάνειραι) 'equivalent to men' and Aeschylus used the term Styganor (Στυγάνωρ) 'those who loathe all men'.

In his work Prometheus Bound and in The Suppliants, Aeschylus referred to the Amazons as 'the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons' (...τὰς ἀνάνδρους κρεοβόρους τ᾽ Ἀμαζόνας). In the Hippolytus tragedy, Phaedra calls Hippolytus, 'the son of the horse-loving Amazon' (...τῆς φιλίππου παῖς Ἀμαζόνος βοᾷ Ἱππόλυτος...). In his Dionysiaca, Nonnus calls the Amazons of Dionysus Androphonus (Ἀνδροφόνους) 'men slaying'. Herodotus stated that in the Scythian language, the Amazons were called Oiorpata, which he explained as being from oior 'man' and pata 'to slay'.

Historiography
The ancient Greeks never had any doubts that the Amazons were, or had been, real. Not the only people enchanted by warlike women of nomadic cultures, such exciting tales also come from ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China. Greek heroes of old had encounters with the queens of their martial society and fought them. However, their original home was not exactly known, thought to be in the obscure lands beyond the civilized world. As a result, for centuries scholars believed the Amazons to be purely imaginary, although there were various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons in Greek historiography. Some authors preferred comparisons to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete. The most obvious historical candidates are Lycia and Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus. In his Histories (5th century BC) Herodotus claims that the Sauromatae (predecessors of the Sarmatians), who ruled the lands between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, arose from a union of Scythians and Amazons.

Herodotus also observed rather unusual customs among the Lycians of southwest Asia Minor. The Lycians obviously followed matrilineal rules of descent, virtue, and status. They named themselves along their maternal family line and a child's status was determined by the mother's reputation. This remarkably high esteem of women and legal regulations based on maternal lines, still in effect in the 5th century BC in the Lycian regions that Herodotus had traveled to, suggested to him the idea that these people were descendants of the mythical Amazons.

Modern historiography no longer relies exclusively on textual and artistic material, but also on the vast archaeological evidence of over a thousand nomad graves from steppe territories from the Black Sea all the way to Mongolia. Discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons (bows and arrows, quivers, and spears) prove that women warriors were not merely figments of imagination, but the product of the Scythian/Sarmatian horse-centered lifestyle.

Mythology
According to myth, Otrera, the first Amazon queen, is the offspring of a romance between Ares the god of war and the nymph Harmonia of the Akmonian Wood, and as such a demigoddess.

Early records refer to two events in which Amazons appeared prior to the Trojan War (before 1250 BC). Within the epic context, Bellerophon, Greek hero, and grandfather of the brothers and Trojan War veterans Glaukos and Sarpedon, faced Amazons during his stay in Lycia, when King Iobates sent Bellerophon to fight the Amazons, hoping they would kill him, yet Bellerophon slew them all. The youthful King Priam of Troy fought on the side of the Phrygians, who were attacked by Amazons at the Sangarios River.

Amazons in the Trojan War
There are Amazon characters in Homer's Trojan War epic poem, the Iliad, one of the oldest surviving texts in Europe (around 8th century BC). The now lost epic Aethiopis (probably by Arctinus of Miletus, 6th century BC), like the Iliad and several other epics, is one of the works that in combination form the Trojan War Epic Cycle. In one of the few references to the text, an Amazon force under queen Penthesilea, who was of Thracian birth, came to join the ranks of the Trojans after Hector's death and initially put the Greeks under serious pressure. Only after the greatest effort and the help of the reinvigorated hero Achilles, the Greeks eventually triumphed. Penthesilea died fighting the mighty Achilles in single combat. Homer himself deemed the Amazon myths to be common knowledge all over Greece, which suggests that they had already been known for some time before him. He was also convinced that the Amazons lived not at its fringes, but somewhere in or around Lycia in Asia Minor - a place well within the Greek world.

Troy is mentioned in the Iliad as the place of Myrine's death. Later identified as an Amazon queen, according to Diodorus (1st century BC), the Amazons under her rule invaded the territories of the Atlantians, defeated the army of the Atlantian city of Cerne, and razed the city to the ground.

In Scythia

The Poet Bacchylides (6th century BC) and the historian Herodotus (5th century BC) located the Amazon homeland in Pontus at the southern shores of the Black Sea, and the capital Themiscyra at the banks of the Thermodon (modern Terme river), by the modern city of Terme. Herodotus also explains how it came to be that some Amazons would eventually be living in Scythia. A Greek fleet, sailing home upon defeating the Amazons in battle at the Thermodon river, included three ships crowded with Amazon prisoners. Once out at sea, the Amazon prisoners overwhelmed and killed the small crews of the prisoner ships and, despite not having even basic navigation skills, managed to escape and safely disembark at the Scythian shore. As soon as the Amazons had caught enough horses, they easily asserted themselves in the steppe in between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and, according to Herodotus, would eventually assimilate with the Scythians, whose descendants were the Sauromatae, the predecessors of the Sarmatians.

Amazon homeland
Strabo (1st century BC) visits and confirms the original homeland of the Amazons on the plains by the Thermodon river. However, long gone and not seen again during his lifetime, the Amazons had allegedly retreated into the mountains. Strabo, however, added that other authors, among them Metrodorus of Scepsis and Hypsicrates claim that after abandoning Themiscyra, the Amazons had chosen to resettle beyond the borders of the Gargareans, an all-male tribe native to the northern foothills of the Caucasian Mountains. The Amazons and Gargareans had for many generations met in secrecy once a year during two months in spring, in order to produce children. These encounters would take place in accordance with ancient tribal customs and collective offers of sacrifices. All females were retained by the Amazons themselves, and males were returned to the Gargareans. 5th century BC poet Magnes sings of the bravery of the Lydians in a cavalry-battle against the Amazons.

Heracles myth
Hippolyte was an Amazon queen killed by Heracles, who had set out to obtain the queen's magic belt in a task he was to accomplish as one of the Labours of Heracles. Although neither side had intended to resort to lethal combat, a misunderstanding led to the fight. In the course of this, Heracles killed the queen and several other Amazons. In awe of the strong hero, the Amazons eventually handed the belt to Heracles. In another version, Heracles does not kill the queen, but exchanges her kidnapped sister Melanippe for the belt.

Theseus myth
Queen Hippolyte was abducted by Theseus, who took her to Athens, where she was married to him and bore him a son, Hippolytus. In other versions, the kidnapped Amazon is called Antiope, the sister of Hippolyte. In revenge, the Amazons invaded Greece, plundered some cities along the coast of Attica, and besieged and occupied Athens. Hippolyte, who fought on the side of Athens, according to another account was killed during the final battle along with all of the Amazons.

Amazons and Dionysus
According to Plutarch, the god Dionysus and his companions fought Amazons at Ephesus. The Amazons fled to Samos and Dionysus pursued them and killed a great number of them at a site since called Panaema (blood-soaked field). The Christian author Eusebius writes that during the reign of Oxyntes, one of the mythical kings of Athens, the Amazons burned down the temple at Ephesus.

In another myth Dionysus unites with the Amazons to fight against Cronus and the Titans. Polyaenus writes that after Dionysus has subdued the Indians, he allies with them and the Amazons and takes them into his service, who serve him in his campaign against the Bactrians. Nonnus in his Dionysiaca reports about the Amazons of Dionysus, but states that they do not come from Thermodon.

Amazons and Alexander the Great
Amazons are also mentioned by biographers of Alexander the Great, who report of Queen Thalestris bearing him a child (a story in the Alexander Romance). However, other biographers of Alexander dispute the claim, including the highly regarded Plutarch. He noted a moment when Alexander's naval commander Onesicritus read an Amazon myth passage of his Alexander History to King Lysimachus of Thrace who had taken part in the original expedition. The king smiled at him and said: "And where was I, then?"

The Talmud recounts that Alexander wanted to conquer a "kingdom of women" but reconsidered when the women told him: "If you kill us, people will say: Alexander kills women; and if we kill you, people will say: Alexander is the king whom women killed in battle."

Roman and ancient Egyptian records
Virgil's characterization of the Volsci warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid borrows from the myths of the Amazons. Philostratus, in Heroica, writes that the Mysian women fought on horses alongside the men, just as the Amazons. The leader was Hiera, wife of Telephus. The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the Island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles were deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero so terrified the horses, that they threw off and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retreat. Virgil touches on the Amazons and their queen Penthesilea in his epic Aeneid (around 20 BC).

The biographer Suetonius had Julius Caesar remark in his De vita Caesarum that the Amazons once ruled a large part of Asia. Appian provides a vivid description of Themiscyra and its fortifications in his account of Lucius Licinius Lucullus' Siege of Themiscyra in 71 BC during the Third Mithridatic War.

An Amazon myth has been partly preserved in two badly fragmented versions around historical people in 7th century BC Egypt. The Egyptian prince Petechonsis and allied Assyrian troops undertook a joint campaign into the Land of Women, to the Middle East at the border to India. Petechonsis initially fought the Amazons, but soon fell in love with their queen Sarpot and eventually allied with her against an invading Indian army. This story is said to have originated in Egypt independently of Greek influences.

Amazon queens

Sources provide names of individual Amazons, that are referred to as queens of their people, even as the head of a dynasty. Without a male companion, they are portrayed in command of their female warriors. Among the most prominent Amazon queens were:

 * Otrera, daughter of the nymph Harmonia and god of war, Ares. She is the mother of Hippolyta, Antiope, Melanippe, and Penthesilea and the mythical founder of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
 * Hippolyta, daughter of Otrera and Ares. She is part of the Theseus and Heracles myths, in which Antiope is her sister. Alcippe, the only Amazon known to have sworn a chastity oath, belongs to her entourage.
 * Penthesilea, who kills her sister Hippolyte in a hunting accident, comes to the aid of the hard-pressed Trojans with her warriors, is defeated by Achilles, who mourns her.
 * Lampedo and Marpesia, queens of the Amazons mentioned by Justin
 * Myrina, who leads a military expedition in Libya, defeats the Atlanteans, forms an alliance with the ruler of Egypt, and conquers numerous cities and islands.
 * Thalestris, the last known Amazon queen. According to legend, she meets the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Her home is the Thermodon region, or, variably, the Gates of Alexander, south of the Caspian Sea.

Quintus Smyrnaeus
Quintus Smyrnaeus, author of the Posthomerica lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea: "Clonie was there, Polemusa, Derinoe, Evandre, and Antandre, and Bremusa, Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe, Alcibie, Derimacheia, Antibrote, and Thermodosa glorying with the spear."

Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus lists twelve Amazons who challenged and died fighting Heracles during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle: Aella, Philippis, Prothoe, Eriboea, Celaeno, Eurybia, Phoebe, Deianeira, Asteria, Marpe, Tecmessa, and Alcippe. After Alcippe's death, a group attack followed. Diodorus also mentions Melanippe, whom Heracles set free after accepting her girdle and Antiope as ransom.

Diodorus lists another group with Myrina as the queen who commanded the Amazons in a military expedition in Libya, as well as her sister Mytilene, after whom she named the city of the same name. Myrina also named three more cities after the Amazons who held the most important commands under her, Cyme, Pitane, and Priene.

Justin and Paulus Orosius
Both Justin in his Epitome of Trogus Pompeius and Paulus Orosius give an account of the Amazons, citing the same names. Queens Marpesia and Lampedo shared the power during an incursion in Europe and Asia, where they were slain. Marpesia's daughter Orithyia succeeded them and was greatly admired for her skill on war. She shared power with her sister Antiope, but she was engaged in war abroad when Heracles attacked. Two of Antiope's sisters were taken prisoner, Melanippe by Heracles and Hippolyta by Theseus. Heracles latter restored Melanippe to her sister after receiving the queen's arms in exchange, though, on other accounts she was killed by Telamon. They also mention Penthesilea's role in the Trojan War.

Hyginus
Another list of Amazons' names is found in Hyginus' Fabulae. Along with Hippolyta, Otrera, Antiope and Penthesilea, it attests the following names: Ocyale, Dioxippe, Iphinome, Xanthe, Hippothoe, Laomache, Glauce, Agave, Theseis, Clymene, Polydora.

Perhaps the most important is Queen Otrera, consort of Ares and mother by him of Hippolyta and Penthesilea. She is also known for building a temple to Artemis at Ephesus.

Valerius Flaccus
Another different set of names is found in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. He mentions Euryale, Harpe, Lyce, Menippe and Thoe. Of these Lyce also appears on a fragment, preserved in the Latin Anthology where she is said to have killed the hero Clonus of Moesia, son of Doryclus, with her javelin.

Late Antiquity, Middle Age and Renaissance literature

Stephanus of Byzantium (7th-century CE) provides numerous alternative lists of the Amazons, including for those who died in combat against Heracles, describing them as the most prominent of their people. Both Stephanus and Eustathius connect these Amazons with the placename Thibais, which they claim to have been derived from the Amazon Thiba's name. Several of Stephanus' Amazons served as eponyms for cities in Asia Minor, like Cyme and Smyrna or Amastris, who was believed to lend her name to the city previously known as Kromna, although in fact it was named after the historical Amastris. The city Anaea in Caria was named after an Amazon.

In his work Getica (on the origin and history of the Goths, c. 551 CE) Jordanes asserts that the Goths' ancestors, descendants of Magog, originally lived in Scythia, at the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and Don Rivers. When the Goths were abroad campaigning against Pharaoh Vesosis, their women, on their own successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring tribe. Emboldened, the women established their own army under Marpesia, crossed the Don and invaded eastward into Asia. Marpesia's sister Lampedo remained in Europe to guard the homeland. They procreated with men once a year. These women conquered Armenia, Syria and all of Asia Minor, even reaching Ionia and Aeolis, holding this vast territory for 100 years.

In Digenes Akritas, the twelfth century medieval epic of Basil, the Greco-Syrian knight of the Byzantine frontier, the hero battles and then commits adultery with the female warrior Maximo (killing her afterwards in one version of the epic), descended from some Amazons and taken by Alexander from the Brahmans.

John Tzetzes lists in Posthomerica twenty Amazons, who fell at Troy. This list is unique in its attestation for all the names but Antianeira, Andromache and Hippothoe. Other than these three, the remaining 17 Amazons were named as Toxophone, Toxoanassa, Gortyessa, Iodoce, Pharetre, Andro, Ioxeia, Oistrophe, Androdaixa, Aspidocharme, Enchesimargos, Cnemis, Thorece, Chalcaor, Eurylophe, Hecate, and Anchimache.

Famous medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book:

"Beside the land of Chaldea is the land of Amazonia, that is the land of Feminye. And in that realm is all woman and no man; not as some may say, that men may not live there, but for because that the women will not suffer no men amongst them to be their sovereigns."

Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle-axe. This is probably related to the sagaris, an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes Aventinus.

Ariosto's Orlando Furioso contains a country of warrior women, ruled by Queen Orontea; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth, in that the women, abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful lovers, rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely reduced, to prevent them from regaining power. The Amazons and Queen Hippolyta are also referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in "The Knight's Tale".

Amazons continued to be subject of scholarly debate during the European Renaissance, and with the onset of the Age of Exploration, encounters were reported from ever more distant lands. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River, naming it after the Icamiabas, a tribe of warlike women he claimed to have encountered and fought on the Nhamundá River, a tributary of the Amazon. Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon (Amazônia in Portuguese, Amazonía in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh.

Amazons in art
Beginning around 550 BC. depictions of Amazons as daring fighters and equestrian warriors appeared on vases. After the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC the Amazon battle - Amazonomachy became popular motifs on pottery. By the sixth century BC, public and privately displayed artwork used the Amazon imagery for pediment reliefs, sarcophagi, mosaics, pottery, jewelry and even monumental sculptures, that adorned important buildings like the Parthenon in Athens. Amazon motifs remained popular until the Roman imperial period and into Late antiquity.

Apart from the artistic desire to express the passionate womanhood of the Amazons in contrast with the manhood of their enemies, some modern historians interpret the popularity of Amazon in art as indicators of societal trends, both positive and negative. Greek and Roman societies, however, utilized the Amazon mythology as a literary and artistic vehicle to unite against a commonly-held enemy. The metaphysical characteristics of Amazons were seen as personifications of both nature and religion. Roman authors like Virgil, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Pausanius advocated the greatness of the state, as Amazon myths served to discuss the creation of origin and identity for the Roman people. However, that changed over time. Amazons in Roman literature and art have many faces, such as the Trojan ally, the warrior goddess, the native Latin, the warmongering Celt, the proud Sarmatian, the hedonistic and passionate Thracian warrior queen, the subdued Asian city, and the worthy Roman foe. In Renaissance Europe, artists started to reevaluate and depict Amazons based on Christian ethics. Queen Elizabeth of England was associated with Amazon warrior qualities (the foremost ancient examples of feminism) during her reign and was indeed depicted as such. Though, as explained in Divina Virago by Winfried Schleiner, Celeste T. Wright has given a detailed account of the bad reputation Amazons had in the Renaissance. She notes that she has not found any Elizabethans comparing the Queen to an Amazon and suggests that they might have hesitated to do so because of the association of Amazons with enfranchisement of women, which was considered contemptible. Elizabeth was present at a tournament celebrating the marriage of the Earl of Warwick and Anne Russell at Westminster Palace on 11 November 1565 involving male riders dressed as Amazons. They accompanied the challengers carrying their heraldry. These riders wore crimson gowns, masks with long hair attached, and swords.

Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel depicted the Battle of the Amazons around 1598, a most dramatic baroque painting, followed by a painting of the Rococo period by Johann Georg Platzer, also titled Battle of the Amazons. In 19th-century European Romanticism German artist Anselm Feuerbach occupied himself with the Amazons as well. Of Faeurbach's painting, Gert Schiff wrote that: "It engendered all the aspirations of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion in an idealized past."

Archaeology
Speculation that the idea of Amazons contains a core of reality is based on archaeological discoveries at kurgan burial sites in the steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia. The varied war weapons artifacts found in graves of numerous high-ranking Scythian and Sarmatian warrior women have led scholars to conclude that the Amazonian legend has been inspired by the real world: About 20% of the warrior graves on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle similar to how men dress. Armed women accounted for up to 25% of Sarmatian military burials. Russian archaeologist Vera Kovalevskaya asserts that when Scythian men were abroad fighting or hunting, women would have to be able to competently defend themselves, their animals, and their pastures.

In early 20th century Minoan archeology a theory regarding Amazon origins in Minoan civilization was raised in an essay by Lewis Richard Farnell and John Myres. According to Myres, the tradition interpreted in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan culture.

Modern legacy
The city of Samsun in modern-day Samsun Province, Turkey features an Amazon Village museum, to help bring attention to the legacy of the Amazons and to promote both academic interest and tourism. An annual Amazon Celebration Festival takes place in the Terme district.

During the Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani in 1826, in the battle of Diros the women of Mani defeated the Ottoman army and for this were given the name of 'The Amazons of Diros'.

From 1936 to 1939, annual propaganda events, called Night of the Amazons (Nacht der Amazonen) were performed in Nazi Germany at the Nymphenburg Palace Park in Munich. Announced as evening highlights of the International Horse Racing Week Munich-Riem, bare-breasted variety show girls of the SS-Cavalry, 2,500 participants and international guests performed at the open-air revue. These revues served to promote an allegedly emancipated female role and a cosmopolitan and foreigner-friendly Nazi regime.

Literature

 * Amazon Queen Hippolyta appears in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream and also in The Two Noble Kinsmen, which Shakespeare co-wrote with John Fletcher.
 * The Amazon queen Penthesilea, and her sexual frenzy, are at the center of the drama Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist in 1808.
 * Steven Pressfield's 2002 novel Last of the Amazons is a mythopoeia of Plutarch's texts, that surround Theseus' abduction of Queen Antiope and the Amazons' attack on Athens. An accurate and detailed portrayal of the Archaic Greek world, its life, people, weapons etc. dramatized as real as the sky.
 * William Moulton Marston, alongside his wife Elizabeth Holloway and their lover Olive Byrne, created their rendition of the mythical Amazons, whose members included the superheroine Wonder Woman, for DC Comics. Marston's Amazons are noteworthy for not just being physically superior to mortal men but also technologically superior, being able to create healing rays and undetectable jet planes that can be controlled through brain waves alone, although this element of Amazon society is applied inconsistently in appearances written after Marston's death.
 * In Rick Riordan's The Heroes of Olympus, the Amazons appear in The Son of Neptune and The Blood of Olympus. They are the founders and owners of the Amazon corporation.
 * In Philip Armstrong's historical-fantasy series, The Chronicles of Tupiluliuma, the Amazons appear as the Am'azzi.
 * In the Stieg Larsson novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, the Amazons appear as the transitional topics between sections of the book.
 * Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo created the fictional queen Calafia, who ruled over a kingdom of black women, living in the style of Amazons, on the mythical Island of California.
 * Amazon Gazonga is a short comic series created by the Waltrip brothers in 1995. The comic centres around on a young amazon named Gazonga living in the Amazon rainforest.
 * GastroPhobia is a webcomic by Daisy McGuire, about the adventures of an exiled Amazon warrior and her son living in Ancient Greece, roughly 3408 years ago.

Film and television

 * The Kazakhstani film studio "Kazakhfilm" released the film Томирис (Tomyris) in late 2019. She is portrayed by Almira Tursyn. Girls of her tribe in order to get permissions to marry, in the film, has to bring few enemies heads.
 * Franchises involving several Tarzan releases, that have featured Amazon tribes (Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle)
 * In the animated series The Mysterious Cities of Gold, a tribe of Amazons appeared in two episodes.
 * Frank Hart, portraying a misogynist, is kidnapped by Amazons in the 1980 film 9 to 5.
 * Amazons appear in the movies The Loves of Hercules (1960), Battle of the Amazons (1970), War Goddess (1973), Hundra (1983), Amazons (1986), Deathstalker II (1987), Ronal the Barbarian (2011), Hercules (2014) and DC Extended Universe films: Wonder Woman (2017), Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).
 * Amazons in television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Young Hercules, and Xena: Warrior Princess, The Legend of the Hidden City and Huntik: Secrets & Seekers and Supernatural.

Games
Amazons are featured in the following roleplay - and video games: Diablo, Heroes Unlimited, Aliens Unlimited, Amazon: Guardians of Eden, Flight of the Amazon Queen, A Total War Saga: Troy, Rome: Total War, Final Fantasy IV, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Legend of Zelda series and Yu-Gi-Oh games.

Military units

 * Russian general and statesman Grigory Potemkin, and then favourite of Catherine the Great created an Amazons Company in 1787. Wives and daughters of the soldiers of the Greek Battalion of Balaklava were enlisted and formed this unit.
 * The Mino, or Minon, (Our Mothers) were a late 19th to early 20th-century all-female official military regiment of the former Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin). Since the early 18th-century women contingents had already joined the army, usually during deployment, in order to inflate the army size. However, women proved themselves courageous and effective in active combat, and a regular unit was established. Western observers, who had allegedly perceived certain Amazon-like physical and mental qualities in these women, came up with the trivial epithet Dahomey Amazons.

Social and religious activism

 * During the period 1905–1913, members of the militant Suffragette movement were frequently referred to as "Amazons" in books and newspaper articles.
 * In Ukraine Katerina Tarnovska leads a group called the Asgarda which claims to be a new tribe of Amazons. Tarnovska believes that the Amazons are the direct ancestors of Ukrainian women, and she has created an all-female martial art for her group, based on another form of fighting called Combat Hopak, but with a special emphasis on self-defense.

Science
The Neptune trojans, asteroids 60° ahead or beyond Neptune on its orbit, are individually named after mythological Amazons.

Other languages

 * Bergmann, F. G. Les Amazones dans l'histoire et dans la fable (1853)
 * Klugmann, A. Die Amazonen in der attischen Literatur und Kunst (1875)
 * Krause, H. L. Die Amazonensage (1893)
 * Lacour, F. Les Amazones (1901)
 * Mordtmann, Andreas David. Die Amazonen (Hanover, 1862)
 * Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft
 * Roscher, W. H., Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
 * Santos, Theobaldo Miranda. Lendas e mitos do Brasil (Companhia Editora Nacional, 1979)
 * Stricker, W. Die Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte (1868)

title: Amazons


text:
Alfonso V

Alfonso V (Spanish), Afonso V (Portuguese), Alfons V (Catalan) or Alphonse V (French) may refer to:

 * Alfonso V of León (999–1028)
 * Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), The Magnanimous
 * Afonso V of Portugal ((r. 1438 – 1481)), The African
 * Afonso V of Kongo ((r. 1785 – 1787))

title: Alfonso V


text:
Ambergris

Ambergris ( or ; ambra grisea; ambre gris), ambergrease, or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of isopropyl alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.

Ambergris has been highly valued by perfume makers as a fixative that allows the scent to last much longer, although it has been mostly replaced by synthetic ambroxide. Dogs are attracted to the smell of ambergris and are sometimes used by ambergris searchers.

Etymology
The English word amber derives from the Arabic word ʿanbar (عنبر; ultimately from Middle Persian ambar, also ambergris), via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre. The word "amber", in its sense of "ambergris", was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century.

The word "ambergris" comes from the Old French ambre gris or "grey amber". The addition of "grey" came about when, in the Romance languages, the sense of the word "amber" was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin), as white or yellow amber (ambre jaune), from as early as the late 13th century. This fossilized resin subsequently became the dominant (and now exclusive) sense of "amber", leaving "ambergris" as the word for the whale secretion.

The archaic alternate spelling "ambergrease" arose as an eggcorn from the phonetic pronunciation of "ambergris," encouraged by the substance's waxy texture.

Formation
Ambergris is formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of the sperm whale, and can be found floating on the sea or washed up on coastlines. It is sometimes found in the abdomens of dead sperm whales. Because the beaks of giant squids have been discovered within lumps of ambergris, scientists have theorized that the substance is produced by the whale's gastrointestinal tract to ease the passage of hard, sharp objects that it may have eaten.

Ambergris is passed like fecal matter. It is speculated that an ambergris mass too large to be passed through the intestines is expelled via the mouth, but this remains under debate. Another theory states that an ambergris mass is formed when the colon of a whale is enlarged by a blockage from intestinal worms and cephalopod parts resulting in the death of the whale and the mass being excreted into the sea. Ambergris takes years to form. Christopher Kemp, the author of Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris, says that it is only produced by sperm whales, and only by an estimated one percent of them. Ambergris is rare; once expelled by a whale, it often floats for years before making landfall. The slim chances of finding ambergris and the legal ambiguity involved led perfume makers away from ambergris, and led chemists on a quest to find viable alternatives.

Ambergris is found primarily in the Atlantic Ocean and on the coasts of South Africa; Brazil; Madagascar; the East Indies; The Maldives; China; Japan; India; Australia; New Zealand; and the Molucca Islands. Most commercially collected ambergris comes from the Bahamas in the Atlantic, particularly New Providence. In 2021, fishermen found a 127 kg (280-pound) piece of ambergris off the coast of Yemen, valued at US$1.5 million. Fossilised ambergris from 1.75 million years ago has also been found.

Physical properties
Ambergris is found in lumps of various shapes and sizes, usually weighing from 15 g to 50 kg or more. When initially expelled by or removed from the whale, the fatty precursor of ambergris is pale white in color (sometimes streaked with black), soft, with a strong fecal smell. Following months to years of photodegradation and oxidation in the ocean, this precursor gradually hardens, developing a dark grey or black color, a crusty and waxy texture, and a peculiar odor that is at once sweet, earthy, marine, and animalic. Its scent has been generally described as a vastly richer and smoother version of isopropanol without its stinging harshness. In this developed condition, ambergris has a specific gravity ranging from 0.780 to 0.926 (meaning it floats in water). It melts at about 62 C to a fatty, yellow resinous liquid; and at 100 C it is volatilised into a white vapor. It is soluble in ether, and in volatile and fixed oils.

Chemical properties
Ambergris is relatively nonreactive to acid. White crystals of a terpenoid known as ambrein, discovered by Leopold Ružička and Fernand Lardon in 1946,  can be separated from ambergris by heating raw ambergris in alcohol, then allowing the resulting solution to cool. Breakdown of the relatively scentless ambrein through oxidation produces ambroxide and ambrinol, the main odor components of ambergris.

Ambroxide is now produced synthetically and used extensively in the perfume industry.

Applications
Ambergris has been mostly known for its use in creating perfume and fragrance much like musk. Perfumes based on ambergris still exist. Ambergris has historically been used in food and drink. A serving of eggs and ambergris was reportedly King Charles II of England's favorite dish. A recipe for Rum Shrub liqueur from the mid 19th century called for a thread of ambergris to be added to rum, almonds, cloves, cassia, and the peel of oranges in making a cocktail from The English and Australian Cookery Book. It has been used as a flavoring agent in Turkish coffee and in hot chocolate in 18th century Europe. The substance is considered an aphrodisiac in some cultures.

Ancient Egyptians burned ambergris as incense, while in modern Egypt ambergris is used for scenting cigarettes. The ancient Chinese called the substance "dragon's spittle fragrance". During the Black Death in Europe, people believed that carrying a ball of ambergris could help prevent them from contracting plague. This was because the fragrance covered the smell of the air which was believed to be a cause of plague.

During the Middle Ages, Europeans used ambergris as a medication for headaches, colds, epilepsy, and other ailments.

Legality
From the 18th to the mid-19th century, the whaling industry prospered. By some reports, nearly 50,000 whales, including sperm whales, were killed each year. Throughout the 19th century, "millions of whales were killed for their oil, whalebone, and ambergris" to fuel profits, and they soon became endangered as a species as a result. Due to studies showing that the whale populations were being threatened, the International Whaling Commission instituted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. Although ambergris is not harvested from whales, many countries also ban the trade of ambergris as part of the more general ban on the hunting and exploitation of whales.

Urine, faeces, and ambergris (that has been naturally excreted by a sperm whale) are waste products not considered parts or derivatives of a CITES species and are therefore not covered by the provisions of the convention.

Countries where ambergris trade is illegal include:
 * Australia – Under federal law, the export and import of ambergris for commercial purposes is banned by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The various states and territories have additional laws regarding ambergris.
 * United States – The possession and trade of ambergris is prohibited by the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
 * India – Sale or possession is illegal under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.

Countries where trade of ambergris is legal include:
 * United Kingdom
 * France
 * Switzerland
 * Maldives

title: Ambergris


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Ambiorix

Ambiorix (Gaulish "king of the surroundings", or "king-protector") ( 54–53 BC) was, together with Cativolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of north-eastern Gaul (Gallia Belgica), where modern Belgium is located. In the nineteenth century Ambiorix became a Belgian national hero because of his resistance against Julius Caesar, as written in Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico.

Name
It is generally accepted that Ambiorix is a Gaulish personal name formed with the prefix ambio- attached to rix ('king'), but the meaning of the first element is debated. Some scholars translate Ambiorix as the 'king of the surroundings' or 'king of the enclosure', by interpreting ambio- as a thematized form of ambi- ('around, on both sides') meaning 'surroundings' or else 'enclosure' (cf. Old Irish imbe 'enclosure'). Alternatively, Fredrik Otto Lindeman renders Ambiorix as the 'protector-king', by deriving ambio- from the Proto-Indo-European compound ('protector'; cf. Old Indic adhi-pá- 'protector, ruler, master, king').

Early history
In 57 BC Julius Caesar conquered parts of Gaul and also Belgica (Belgium, modern-day Northern France, Luxembourg, part of present-day Netherlands below the Rhine River; and the north-western portion of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). There were several tribes in the country who fought against each other frequently. The Eburones were ruled by Ambiorix and Catuvolcus. In 54 BC Caesar's troops urgently needed more food, and so the local tribes were forced to give up part of their harvest, which had not been good that year. Understandably the starving Eburones were reluctant to do so and Caesar ordered that camps be built near the Eburones' villages. Each centurion was ordered to make sure the food supplies were delivered to the Roman soldiers. This created resentment among the Eburones.

Although Julius Caesar had freed him from paying tribute to the Atuatuci, Ambiorix joined Catuvolcus in the winter of 54 BC in an uprising against the Roman forces under Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta.

Resisting the Romans
Because a drought had disrupted his grain supply, Caesar was forced to winter his legions among the rebellious Belgic tribes. Roman troops led by Sabinus and Cotta were wintering among the Eburones when they were attacked by them, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Ambiorix deceived the Romans, telling them the attack was made without his consent, and further advised them to flee as a large Germanic force was preparing to cross the Rhine. Trusting Ambiorix, Sabinus and Cotta's troops left the next morning. A short distance from their camp, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Eburones and massacred.

Elsewhere, another Roman force under Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of the orator Marcus, were wintering amongst the Nervii. Leading a coalition of rebellious Belgic tribes, Ambiorix surrounded Cicero's camp. After a long while, a Roman messenger was finally able to slip through the Belgic lines and get word of the uprising to Caesar. Mobilizing his legions, Caesar immediately marched to Cicero's aid. As they approached the besieged Roman camp, the Belgae moved to engage Caesar's troops. Vastly outnumbered, Caesar ordered his troops to appear confused and frightened, and they successfully lured the Belgae to attack them on ground favourable to the Romans. Caesar's forces launched a fierce counterattack, and soon put the Belgae to flight. Later, Caesar's troops entered Cicero's camp to find most of the men wounded.

Meanwhile, Indutiomarus, a leader of the Treveri, began to harass Labienus's camp daily, eventually provoking Labienus to send out his cavalry with specific orders to kill Indutiomarus. They did so, and routed the remnants of Indutiomarus's army. Caesar personally remained in Gaul for the remainder of winter due to the renewed Gallic threat.

Caesar's revenge
When the Roman senate heard what had happened, Caesar swore to destroy all the Belgic tribes. Ambiorix had killed fifteen cohorts. A Belgic attack on Cicero, then stationed with a legion in the territory of the Nervii, failed due to the timely appearance of Caesar. The Roman campaigns against the Belgae took a few years, but eventually the tribes were slaughtered or driven out and their fields burned. The Eburones disappeared from history after this genocidal event. According to the writer Florus, Ambiorix and his men succeeded in escaping across the Rhine and vanished from history.

Legacy
Caesar wrote about Ambiorix in his commentary about his battles against the Gauls, De Bello Gallico. In this text he also famously wrote: "Of these [three regions], the Belgae are the bravest." ("... Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae ...").

Ambiorix remained a relatively obscure figure until the nineteenth century. The independence of Belgium in 1830 spurred a search for national heroes. In Caesar's De Bello Gallico, Ambiorix and his deeds were rediscovered. In 1841, the Belgian poet Joannes Nolet de Brauwere Van Steeland wrote a lyrical epic about Ambiorix. Furthermore, on September 5, 1866, a statue of Ambiorix was erected on the main market square in Tongeren, Belgium, referred to by Caesar as Atuatuca, i.e. Atuatuca Tungrorum.

Today, Ambiorix is one of the most famous characters in Belgian history. Many companies, bars and friteries have named themselves after him, and in many Belgian comics such as Suske en Wiske and Jommeke he plays a guest role. There was also a short-lived comic called Ambionix, which featured a scientist teleporting a Belgic chief, loosely based on Ambiorix, to modern-day Belgium.

In the French comic Asterix, in the album Asterix in Belgium, Asterix, Obelix, Dogmatix and Vitalstatistix go to Belgium because they are angry with Caesar about his remark that the Belgians are the bravest of all the Gauls.

In popular culture

 * Ambiorix leads the Gallic civilization in the New Frontier season pass of the 4X video game Civilization VI.

title: Ambiorix


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August Wilhelm Ambros

August Wilhelm Ambros (17 November 1816 – 28 June 1876) was an Austrian composer and music historian of Czech descent.

Life
He was born in Mýto, Rokycany District, Bohemia. His father was a cultured man, and his mother was the sister of Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773–1850), the musical archaeologist and collector. Ambros studied at the University of Prague and was well-educated in music and the arts, which were his abiding passion. He was, however, destined for the law and an official career in the Austrian civil service, and from 1839 he occupied various important posts under the ministry of justice, music being an avocation.

From 1850 onwards, he became well known as a critic and essay-writer, and in 1860 he began working on his magnum opus, his History of Music, which was published at intervals from 1862 in five volumes, the last two (1878, 1882) being edited and completed by Otto Kade and Wilhelm Langhans.

Ambros was a professor of the history of music at Prague from 1869 to 1871. Also in Prague, he sat on the board of governors in the Prague Royal Conservatory. By 1872, he was living in Vienna and was employed by the Department of Justice as an officer and by Prince Rudolf's family as his tutor. Through his work in Vienna, he was given a leave of absence for half the year in order to let him travel the world to collect musical information to include in his History of Music book. He was an excellent pianist, and the author of numerous compositions reminiscent of Felix Mendelssohn.

Ambros died at Vienna in 1876, aged 59.

title: August Wilhelm Ambros