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  • Babri Mosjid (mosque, India)
    ...ambivalence within the coalition was seen with respect to events in Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh), an ancient capital and—as most orthodox Hindus believe—birthplace of the deity Rama. The Babri Masjid, a mosque erected by the Mughal emperor Bābur in Ayodhya, was said to have been built over the very site of Rama’s birthplace, where a more ancient Hindu temple, Ram Janma...
  • Babrius (fabulist)
    author of a collection of fables in Greek. Nothing is known of the author. The fables are for the most part versions of the stock stories associated with the name of Aesop. Babrius has rendered them into the scazon, or choliambic metre, which had already been adopted from the Greek by ...
  • Babson College (college, Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States)
    private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S. Business management education is emphasized at the college, which offers B.S. and M.B.A. degrees. It consists of divisions of accounting and law, arts and humanities, economics, finance, history and society, management, marketing, and math and science. Students are required...
  • Babu, Abdul Rahman Mohammed (Tanzanian politician)
    Tanzanian politician who, as left-wing champion of the anticolonial Pan-African movement of the mid-20th century, laid the ideological groundwork for the Zanzibar revolution of January 1964, which led, three months later, to Tanganyika’s uniting with Zanzibar to form Tanzania (b. Sept. 22, 1924--d. Aug. 5, 1996)....
  • Babu Chhiri Sherpa (Nepalese mountaineer)
    Nepalese mountaineer (b. June 22, 1965, Taksindu, Nepal—d. April 29, 2001, Mt. Everest), was a legendary guide who reached the summit of Mt. Everest 10 times and set two records on the world’s tallest peak; in May 1999 he survived for more than 21 hours without bottled oxygen while “camping” overnight on the 8,850-m (29,035-ft) summit, and in May 2000 he ascended from B...
  • Babudu (people)
    ...called the Bambuti, living in the Ituri Forest. Each Pygmy population is associated with a different tribe of Bantu- or Sudanic-speaking agriculturalists. The Sua are associated with the Budu (Babudu) on the western edge of the Ituri, near Wamba; and the Aka, of whom few remain, are found with the Mangbetu in the northwest. The Efe have the broadest distribution, extending across the......
  • Babuje, Lawan (ruler of Bedde)
    ...of Bedde. Dispersed about 1808 by warriors in the jihad (holy war) conducted by the Fulani, the Bade sought protection and again agreed to pay tribute in slaves to Bornu. About 1825, however, Lawan Babuje, the Bade mai (“ruler”), found the tribute too high, organized a pan-Bade federation, built the walled town of Gorgoram (27 miles southwest of Gashua) as his capital,......
  • Bābul (Iran)
    city, northern Iran, on the Bābol River, about 15 miles (24 km) south of the Caspian Sea. Bābol gained importance during the reign (1797–1834) of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, though ʿAbbās I (died 1629) had laid out a pleasure garden and summer palace there. The city has paved streets, large and crowded bazaars, well-built houses...
  • babul tree (tree)
    ...in adhesives, pharmaceuticals, inks, confections, and other products. The bark of most acacias is rich in tannin, which is used in tanning and in dyes, inks, pharmaceuticals, and other products. The babul tree (A. arabica), of tropical Africa and across Asia, yields both an inferior type of gum arabic and a tannin that is extensively used in India. Several Australian acacias are valuable...
  • Bābur (Mughal emperor)
    emperor (1526–30) and founder of the Mughal dynasty of India, a descendant of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and also of Timur (Tamerlane). He was a military adventurer and soldier of distinction and a poet and diarist of genius, as well as a statesman....
  • Bābur-nāmeh (work by Bābur)
    Bābur is also remembered for his memoirs, the Bābur-nāmeh. Written in Chagatai, then an emerging Islāmicate literary language, his work gives a lively and compelling account of the wide range of interests, tastes, and sensibilities that made him so much a counterpart of his contemporary, the Italian Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)....
  • Baburen, Dirck van (Dutch painter)
    Dutch painter who was a leading member of the Utrecht school, which was influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro style of the Italian painter Caravaggio....
  • Baburen, Theodoor (Dutch painter)
    Dutch painter who was a leading member of the Utrecht school, which was influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro style of the Italian painter Caravaggio....
  • Baburen, Theodor (Dutch painter)
    Dutch painter who was a leading member of the Utrecht school, which was influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro style of the Italian painter Caravaggio....
  • Bābur’s garden (resort, Kabul, Afghanistan)
    ...old and new buildings. Much of the old city has been torn down and rebuilt on modern lines. Kabul has many historical monuments, including the tombs of some of its rulers, and a number of gardens. Bābur’s garden, including his tomb, is near the western extremity of the old city at the base of the Sherdawaza. The Dār ol-Amān palace houses the parliament and government...
  • Babuyan Islands (island group, Philippines)
    island group of the Philippines that is a northerly extension of the Philippine archipelago. The Babuyan Islands lie in the Luzon Strait, south of the Batan Islands and Balintang Channel. They lie 20 miles (32 km) north of Luzon across the Babuyan Channel. With a total area of 230 square miles (600 square km), they comprise 24 volcanic-coralline islands, the c...
  • Baby (computer)
    ...A working model was completed late in 1947, and by June 1948 they had incorporated it in a small electronic computer that they built to prove the device’s effectiveness. The computer was called the Small Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM) or just “Baby.” It was the world’s first working stored-program computer, and the Williams tube became one of the two standard meth...
  • baby
    among humans, the period of life between birth and the acquisition of language approximately one to two years later....
  • baby battering
    the willful infliction of pain and suffering on children through physical, sexual, or emotional mistreatment. Prior to the 1970s the term child abuse normally referred to only physical mistreatment, but since then its application has expanded to include, in addition to inordinate physical violence, unjustifiable verbal abuse; the failure to furnish proper shelter, nourishment, medical...
  • Baby Bell (American company)
    ...the 20th century was the 1984 breakup of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, which left the parent company, AT&T, as a provider of long-distance service while seven regional “Baby Bell” companies provided local telephone service. Many of the original Baby Bell companies have since merged. One of the largest antitrust suits since that time was brought against ...
  • baby blue-eyes (plant)
    genus of annual herbs of the family Boraginaceae. The 11 species, most of which bear blue or white, bell-like blooms, are North American, mostly Pacific coast in origin. Baby blue-eyes (Nemophila menziesii) often blooms conspicuously along the borders of moist woodlands in California....
  • baby boom (population trend)
    For many industrialized countries, the period after World War II was marked by a “baby boom.” One group of four countries in particular—the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—experienced sustained and substantial rises in fertility from the depressed levels of the prewar period. In the United States, for example, fertility rose by two-thirds, reaching......
  • Baby Bull (Puerto Rican baseball player)
    Puerto Rican professional baseball player who became one of the first new stars to emerge when major league baseball arrived on the U.S. West Coast in 1958....
  • Baby Elephant (American athlete)
    American world-record holder in the shot put (1934–48)....
  • Baby It’s Cold Outside (song by Loesser)
    ...for Little WomenMusic Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Aaron Copland for The HeiressScoring of a Musical Picture: Roger Edens and Lennie Hayton for On the TownSong: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” from Neptune’s Daughter; music and lyrics by Frank LoesserHonorary Award: Fred Astaire, Cecil B. DeMille, Bobby Driscoll, Jean Hersholt, The ...
  • Baby Jack (American athlete)
    American world-record holder in the shot put (1934–48)....
  • Baby Mama (motion pictures)
    ...In 2008 she also won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards for her portrayal of Lemon. In addition to her work on 30 Rock, Fey continued to star in motion pictures, including Baby Mama (2008), a female buddy movie that also featured Fey’s former Saturday Night Live costar Amy Poehler. In 2008 Fey returned multiple times as a guest on ......
  • Baby Snooks (character by Brice)
    ...She appeared with such major Broadway performers as W.C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, and Will Rogers in the Follies and in other shows. In Crazy Quilt (1931), she introduced the character of Baby Snooks, a mischievous brat she had first played in vaudeville in 1912. Baby Snooks later became a Follies favourite, and in that character Brice was featured on radio from 1936 until her...
  • Baby Spice (British entertainer)
    The British pop phenomenon Spice Girls made music history in 1997 by becoming the first group to have its first four singles hit the number one spot on the British charts. The group (sometimes referred to as a cross between Madonna and the Monkees) took Great Britain, North America, and the Far East by storm in a way not seen since the Beatles, and their contrived but catchy dance-bop songs reache...
  • baby tears (plant)
    ...clusters. Pilea, a genus of creeping plants that includes the artillery plant (P. microphylla), and pellitory (Parietaria), a genus of wall plants, are grown as ornamentals. Baby tears (Helxine soleiroli), a mosslike creeping plant with round leaves, often is grown as a ground cover. The trumpet tree (Cecropia peltata), a tropical American species, has......
  • baby tooth (biology)
    ...the opposite side. The upper teeth differ from the lower and are complementary to them. Humans normally have two sets of teeth during their lifetime. The first set, known as the deciduous, milk, or primary dentition, is acquired gradually between the ages of six months and two years. As the jaws grow and expand, these teeth are replaced one by one by the teeth of the secondary set. There are......
  • baby veal (cattle)
    Veal is classified into several categories based on the ages of the animals at the time of slaughter. Baby veal (bob veal) is 2–3 days to 1 month of age and yields carcasses weighing 9 to 27 kilograms. Vealers are 4 to 12 weeks of age with carcasses weighing 36 to 68 kilograms. Calves are up to 20 weeks of age with carcasses ranging from 56 to 135 kilograms....
  • Baby Yar (novel by Kuznetsov)
    Soviet writer noted for the autobiographical novel Babi Yar, one of the most important literary works to come out of World War II....
  • Baby Yar (poem by Yevtushenko)
    ...poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergey Yesenin and reintroduced such traditions as love lyrics and personal lyrics, which had been discouraged under Stalinism. His poem Baby Yar (1961), mourning the Nazi massacre of an estimated 34,000 Ukrainian Jews, was an attack on lingering Soviet anti-Semitism....
  • Baby Yar (massacre site, Ukraine)
    large ravine on the northern edge of the city of Kiev in Ukraine, the site of a mass grave of victims, mostly Jews, whom Nazi German SS squads killed between 1941 and 1943. After the initial massacre of Jews, Baby Yar remained in use as an execution site for Soviet prisoners of war and for Roma (Gypsies) as well as for Jew...
  • Babyface (American musician and producer)
    The key producers were L.A., Babyface, and Teddy Riley, who crafted romantic songs for the dance floor. L.A. (Antonio Reid, whose nickname was derived from his allegiance to the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team) and Babyface (youthful-looking Kenneth Edmonds) had been members of the Deele, a group based in Cincinnati, Ohio, before becoming writer-producers. Their million-selling hits for Bobby......
  • Babylon (ancient city, Mesopotamia, Asia)
    one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium bc and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries bc, when it was at the height of its splendour. Its extensive ruins, on th...
  • Babylon (New York, United States)
    town (township), Suffolk county, southeastern New York, U.S. It lies on southern Long Island, along Great South Bay, east of Freeport. Established in 1872 after separation from Huntington (founded 1653), it includes the villages of Babylon (incorporated 1893), Amityville (1894), and Lindenhurst (1923) and the unincorporate...
  • Babylonia (ancient region, Mesopotamia)
    ancient cultural region occupying southeastern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern southern Iraq from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf). Because the city of Babylon was the capital of this area for so many centuries, the term Babylonia has come to refer to the entire culture that developed in the area from the time it was first settled, about 4000 bc. Before...
  • Babyloniaka (work by Berosus)
    ...second or third hand, with one exception, Berosus (b. c. 340 bc), who emigrated at an advanced age to the Aegean island of Cos, where he is said to have composed the three books of the Babylōniaka. Unfortunately, only extracts from them survive, prepared by one Alexander Polyhistor (1st century bc), who, in his turn, served as a source for the Ch...
  • Babylonian (people)
    ...second or third hand, with one exception, Berosus (b. c. 340 bc), who emigrated at an advanced age to the Aegean island of Cos, where he is said to have composed the three books of the Babylōniaka. Unfortunately, only extracts from them survive, prepared by one Alexander Polyhistor (1st century bc), who, in his turn, served as a source for the Ch...
  • Babylonian calendar (chronology)
    chronological system used in ancient Mesopotamia, based on a year of 12 synodic months; i.e., 12 complete cycles of phases of the Moon. This lunar year of about 354 days was more or less reconciled with the solar year, or year of the seasons, by the occasional intercalation of an extra month. From about 380 bc the beginning of the first month of the year, N...
  • Babylonian Captivity (Jewish history)
    the forced detention of Jews in Babylonia following the latter’s conquest of the kingdom of Judah in 598/7 and 587/6 bc. The exile formally ended in 538 bc, when the Persian conqueror of Babylonia, Cyrus the Great, gave the Jews permission to return to Palestine. Historians agree that several deportations took place (each the result of uprising...
  • Babylonian Captivity (Roman Catholicism)
    Roman Catholic papacy during the period 1309–77, when the popes took up residence at Avignon instead of at Rome, primarily because of the current political conditions....
  • Babylonian Captivity of the Church, The (work by Luther)
    Another tract, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, suggested that the sacraments themselves had been taken captive by the church. Luther even went so far as to reduce the number of the sacraments from seven—baptism, the Eucharist or mass, penance, confirmation, ordination, marriage, and......
  • Babylonian Chronicle, The (Mesopotamian literature)
    ...tax; only upon their refusal did he take military action. He seemed to move in ways that avoided direct danger to his brother, and he worked more through siege warfare than through direct action; the Babylonian Chronicle records that for three years “the war went on and there were perpetual clashes.” Elam, suffering from internal dissension, was unable to help the rebels; and......
  • Babylonian dialect (Akkadian dialect)
    ...Sumerian remained in use as the written language of sacred literature. At about the same time, the Akkadian language divided into the Assyrian dialect, spoken in northern Mesopotamia, and the Babylonian dialect, spoken in southern Mesopotamia. At first the Assyrian dialect was used more extensively, but Babylonian largely supplanted it and became the lingua franca of the Middle East by......
  • Babylonian Exile (Jewish history)
    the forced detention of Jews in Babylonia following the latter’s conquest of the kingdom of Judah in 598/7 and 587/6 bc. The exile formally ended in 538 bc, when the Persian conqueror of Babylonia, Cyrus the Great, gave the Jews permission to return to Palestine. Historians agree that several deportations took place (each the result of uprising...
  • “Babylonian Job” (Mesopotamian literature)
    in ancient Mesopotamian religious literature, a philosophical composition concerned with a man who, seemingly forsaken by the gods, speculates on the changeability of men and fate. The composition, also called the “Poem of the Righteous Sufferer” or the “Babylonian Job,” has been likened to the biblical Book of Job....
  • Babylonian language (ancient language)
    extinct Semitic language of the Northern Peripheral group, spoken in Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st millennium bc....
  • Babylonian literature (ancient literature)
    Another Babylonian epic, composed around 2000 bc, is called in Akkadian Enuma elish, after its opening words, meaning “When on high.” Its subject is not heroic but mythological. It recounts events from the beginning of the world to the establishment of the power of Marduk, the great god of Babylon. The outline of a Babylonian poem narrating the adventure of a her...
  • Babylonian Talmud (Judaism)
    one of two compilations of Jewish religious teachings and commentary that was transmitted orally for centuries prior to its compilation by Jewish scholars in Babylon about the 5th century ad. The other such compilation, produced in Palestine, is called the Palestinian Talmud, or Talmud Yerushalmi. See Talmud....
  • Babylonians, The (play by Aristophanes)
    This comedy, which is extant only in fragments, was produced at the festival of the Great Dionysia. The festival was attended by delegates of the city-states, which were theoretically “allies” but were in practice satellites of Athens. Because Babylonians (426 bc; Greek Babylōnioi) not only virulently attacked Cleon, the demagogue then in power in A...
  • “Babylonioi” (play by Aristophanes)
    This comedy, which is extant only in fragments, was produced at the festival of the Great Dionysia. The festival was attended by delegates of the city-states, which were theoretically “allies” but were in practice satellites of Athens. Because Babylonians (426 bc; Greek Babylōnioi) not only virulently attacked Cleon, the demagogue then in power in A...
  • Babylonische Wandrung (work by Döblin)
    Döblin’s subsequent books, which continue to focus on individuals destroyed by opposing social forces, include Babylonische Wandrung (1934; “Babylonian Wandering”), sometimes described as a late masterwork of German Surrealism; Pardon wird nicht gegeben (1935; Men Without Mercy); and two unsuccessful trilogies of historical novels. He also wrote ess...
  • baby’s breath (plant)
    either of two species of herbaceous plants of the genus Gypsophila, of the pink family (Caryophyllaceae), having profuse small blossoms. Both G. elegans, an annual, and G. paniculata, a perennial, are cultivated for their fine misty effect in rock gardens and flower borders and in floral arrangements. They are native to Eurasia....
  • BAC
    Because brain alcohol concentrations are difficult to measure directly, the effects of alcohol on the brain are calculated indirectly by noting the physical and mental impairments that typically arise at various levels of blood alcohol concentration, or BAC....
  • Bac, Ferdinand (French architect and illustrator)
    ...to travel, mostly in Spain, France, Italy, and Greece. During this period of extensive travel, he first came across the published works of the German-born French landscape architect and illustrator Ferdinand Bac. When Barragán returned to Guadalajara, he began to work with his brother Juan José and completed his first project in 1927. Four years later he again went to Europe,......
  • Bac Lieu (Vietnam)
    city, eastern Ca Mau Peninsula, southern Vietnam. It has a hospital and a commercial airport and is linked by highway to Ho Chi Minh City, 120 miles (195 km) to the northeast. In addition to rice growing, there is mat making, and, on the coast, salt is obtained by evaporation. There is also a fishing industry. The government has moved people into the area from Ho Chi Minh City–Cho Lon. Pop....
  • Baca-Flor, Carlos (Peruvian artist)
    By the beginning of the 20th century, the Impressionist technique had become so accepted in Latin America that it was used by stylish society painters, such as the Peruvian artists Carlos Baca-Flor and Teófilo Castillo. In his paintings, such as the small oil-on-board Couple (1900), Baca-Flor built up a heavy impasto of contrasting bright and dark pigments.......
  • Bacab (Mayan mythology)
    in Mayan mythology, any of four gods, thought to be brothers, who, with upraised arms, supported the multilayered sky from their assigned positions at the four cardinal points of the compass. (The Bacabs may also have been four manifestations of a single deity.) The four brothers were probably the offspring of Itzamná, the supreme deity, and Ixchel, the goddess of weavin...
  • Bacairi (people)
    ...language. In Brazil, however, miscegenation was less general, and some groups of indigenous peoples have remained relatively intact, forming isolated nuclei. Others, like the Bororo, Tereno, and Bacairi, constitute minorities who have adopted some aspects of Christianity and Brazilian culture but who also have retained separate tribal identities and live on the fringe of the region. A......
  • bacalhau (food)
    ...areas. In the countryside the staple diet is one of fish, vegetables, and fruit. Although Portugal’s waters abound with fresh fish, the dried salted codfish known as bacalhau, now often imported, is considered the national dish. A seafood stew known as cataplana (for the hammered copper clamshell-style ...
  • Bacall, Lauren (American actress)
    American motion-picture and stage actress known for her portrayals of provocative women who hid their soft core underneath a layer of hard-edged pragmatism....
  • Bacalov, Luis Enrique (Argentine composer)
    ...Screenplay: Emma Thompson for Sense and SensibilityCinematography: John Toll for BraveheartArt Direction: Eugenio Zanetti for RestorationOriginal Dramatic Score: Luis Enrique Bacalov for The Postman (Il postino)Original Musical or Comedy Score: Music and Orchestral Score by Alan Menken, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz for PocahontasOriginal Song:......
  • Bacan (island, Indonesia)
    island, North Maluku propinsi (province), Indonesia. One of the northern Moluccas, in the Molucca Sea, it lies just southwest of the large island of Halmahera. The islands of Kasiruta to the northwest, Mandioli to the west, and about 80 other islets compose the Bacan Island group. With an area of about 700 square miles (1,800 square km), B...
  • Bacan basin (basin, Pacific Ocean)
    ...The sea’s floor is subdivided into three zones, which serve to conduct deep water from the Pacific to the lesser seas. The deepest depression of the Molucca Sea is the 15,780-foot (4,810-metre) Batjan (Bacan) basin. This area of the Pacific often experiences earthquakes and crustal warping....
  • Bacar, Mohamed (president of Anjouan)
    ...evidence of voter intimidation, ordered the Nzwani (also known by its French name, Anjouan) government to postpone the island’s local presidential election and called for Nzwani’s president, Col. Mohamed Bacar, to step down and allow for an interim president. Bacar ignored the order and in June 2007 held an election in which he was declared the winner. The results were not recogni...
  • Bacatá (Colombia)
    capital of Colombia. It lies in central Colombia in a fertile upland basin 8,660 feet (2,640 metres) above sea level in the Cordillera Oriental of the Northern Andes Mountains....
  • Bacău (county, Romania)
    județ (county), eastern Romania, occupying an area of 2,551 square miles (6,606 square km). The Eastern Carpathians and the sub-Carpathians rise above the settlement areas that are situated in intermontane valleys and lowlands. The county is drained southeastward by the Siret River and its tributaries. It was formerly included in fe...
  • Bacău (Romania)
    city, capital of Bacău județ (county), eastern Romania, near the confluence of the Bistrița and Siret rivers, 150 miles (240 km) northeast of Bucharest. Bacău was an early customs post, where trade routes came together at a ford over the Bistrița. It was first mentioned in documents in ...
  • Bacca pipes jig (dance)
    ...the swords. The famed Scottish solo dance Gillie Callum, which is danced to a folk melody of the same name, is first mentioned only in the early 19th century. In its close relative, the English solo Bacca pipes jig, crossed clay pipes replace the swords. There are evidences that such dances formerly included swordplay. In the Scottish Argyll broadsword dance, the four performers flourish their....
  • baccalauréat (French education)
    ...have systems of higher education that are basically administered by state agencies. Entrance requirements for students are also similar in both countries. In France an examination called the baccalauréat is given at the end of secondary education. Higher education in France is free and open to all students who have passed this examination. A passing mark admits students to a......
  • baccalaureate degree (degree)
    ...certifications that they had attained the guild status of a “master.” There was originally only one degree in European higher education, that of master or doctor. The baccalaureate, or bachelor’s degree, was originally simply a stage toward mastership and was awarded to a candidate who had studied the prescribed texts in the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) for three ...
  • baccara (card game)
    casino card game resembling, but simpler than, blackjack. In basic baccarat the house is the bank. In the related game chemin de fer, or chemmy, the bank passes from player to player. In punto banco it appears to pass from player to player but is actually held by the house....
  • baccarat (card game)
    casino card game resembling, but simpler than, blackjack. In basic baccarat the house is the bank. In the related game chemin de fer, or chemmy, the bank passes from player to player. In punto banco it appears to pass from player to player but is actually held by the house....
  • baccarat banque (card game)
    casino card game resembling, but simpler than, blackjack. In basic baccarat the house is the bank. In the related game chemin de fer, or chemmy, the bank passes from player to player. In punto banco it appears to pass from player to player but is actually held by the house....
  • Baccarat glass (decorative arts)
    glassware produced by an important glasshouse founded in 1765 at Baccarat, Fr. Originally a producer of soda glass for windows, tableware, and industrial uses, Baccarat was acquired by a Belgian manufacturer of lead crystal in 1817 and since then has specialized in producing this type of glass. In 1823 the firm won its first gold medal in an international exposition for glass, ...
  • Baccha (insect)
    ...or sting. They are distinguished from other flies by a false (spurious) vein that closely parallels the fourth longitudinal wing vein. The species vary from small, elongated, and slender (e.g., Baccha) to large (bumblebee size), hairy, and yellow and black (Criorhina)....
  • Bacchae (play by Euripides)
    ...her worship; she acts solely out of personal spite. In Medea, Medea’s revenge on Jason through the slaughter of their children is so hideously unjust as to mock the very question. In the Bacchae, when the frenzied Agave tears her son, Pentheus, to pieces and marches into town with his head on a pike, the god Dionysus, who had engineered the situation, says merely that Penth...
  • Bacchanal of the Andrians, The (work by Titian)
    ...(1518–19; Prado, Madrid) was soon joined by the “Worship of Venus” (1518–19; Prado) and “Bacchus and Ariadne” (1520–23; National Gallery, London). In “The Bacchanal” Titian reveals his mastery in treating mythological subjects. The bacchants are disposed about the miraculous stream of wine that flows through an island, dancing,......
  • Bacchanalia (Greco-Roman festival)
    in Greco-Roman religion, any of the several festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus), the wine god. They probably originated as rites of fertility gods. The most famous of the Greek Dionysia were in Attica and included the Little, or Rustic, Dionysia, characterized by simple, old-fashioned rites; the Lenaea, which included a festal procession and dramatic performances;...
  • Bacchant (Greek religion)
    Orpheus himself was later killed by the women of Thrace. The motive and manner of his death vary in different accounts, but the earliest known, that of Aeschylus, says that they were Maenads urged by Dionysus to tear him to pieces in a Bacchic orgy because he preferred the worship of the rival god Apollo. His head, still singing, with his lyre, floated to Lesbos, where an oracle of Orpheus was......
  • Bacchants (work by Euripides)
    This play is regarded by many as Euripides’ masterpiece. In Bacchants (c. 406 bc; Greek Bakchai; Latin Bacchae) the god Dionysus arrives in Greece from Asia intending to introduce his orgiastic worship there. He is disguised as a charismatic young Asian holy man and is accompanied by his women votaries, who make up the play’s chorus. He expec...
  • Bacchelli, Riccardo (Italian author)
    Italian poet, playwright, literary critic, and novelist who championed the literary style of Renaissance and 19th-century masters against the innovations of Italian experimental writers....
  • Bacchi tempel (work by Bellman)
    ...characterizations in the epistlar make it unique in Swedish poetry. It was followed in 1791 by Fredmans sånger, also a varied collection, but containing mainly drinking songs. Bacchi tempel (1783), a poem in alexandrines, also contained some songs and engravings. Bellman’s other works, including plays and occasional poems, were published posthumously....
  • Bacchiadae (Greek social class)
    ...a small number of exclusive clans within cities monopolized citizenship and political control. At Corinth, for example, political control was monopolized by the adult males of a single clan, the Bacchiadae. They perhaps numbered no more than a couple of hundred. At Athens there was a general class of Eupatridae, a word that just means “People of Good Descent”—i.e.,.....
  • Bacchic Mysteries (Greco-Roman festival)
    in Greco-Roman religion, any of the several festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus), the wine god. They probably originated as rites of fertility gods. The most famous of the Greek Dionysia were in Attica and included the Little, or Rustic, Dionysia, characterized by simple, old-fashioned rites; the Lenaea, which included a festal procession and dramatic performances;...
  • Bacchus (Greek mythology)
    in Greco-Roman religion, a nature god of fruitfulness and vegetation, especially known as a god of wine and ecstasy. The occurrence of his name on a Linear B tablet (13th century bc) shows that he was already worshipped in the Mycenaean period, although it is not known where his cult originated. In all the legends of his cult he is depicted as having foreign origin...
  • Bacchus (work by Sansovino)
    ...II in the restoration of ancient statues. Back in Florence he carved the statue St. James the Elder (1511–18; Santa Maria del Fiore) and the Bacchus (c. 1514)....
  • Bacchus (work by Michelangelo)
    ...fled to Bologna; there he executed three figures for the tomb of S. Domenico and saw the powerful reliefs of Jacopo della Quercia (see photograph). By 1496 he was in Rome, where he carved a “Bacchus,” now in the Bargello, Florence. Michelangelo recaptures the antique treatment of the young male figure by the soft modulation of contours. The figure seems to be slightly......
  • Bacchus and Ariadne (painting by Titian)
    ...Two of the canvases are now in the Prado at Madrid: the Worship of Venus and The Bacchanal of the Andrians; one of the most spectacular, the Bacchus and Ariadne, is in the London National Gallery. The gaiety of mood, the spirit of pagan abandon, and the exquisite sense of humour in this interpretation of an.....
  • Bacchus Marsh (Victoria, Australia)
    town in southern Victoria, Australia. It is located 32 miles (51 km) northwest of Melbourne (to which a growing proportion of its residents commute daily) on the east bank of the Werribee River. In 1838, Captain William Henry Bacchus founded the town, and it grew as a stopping place for Cobb and Company coaches traveling from Melbourne to the Ballarat goldfields. Bacchus Marsh i...
  • Bacchus, Saint (Christian saint)
    among the earliest authenticated and most celebrated Christian martyrs, originally commemorated in the Eastern and Western churches....
  • Bacchus, Temple of (ancient temple, Baalbek, Lebanon)
    The Temple of Bacchus, almost entirely preserved, is also Corinthian, with 42 columns, 8 on each front and 15 on each flank. Its symbolic decoration shows that it was dedicated to the same agricultural gods as the great temple, but the prevalence of bacchic symbols in the interior probably indicates instead the practice of a salvational mystery religion. Other ruins include a round Temple of......
  • Bacchylides (Greek lyric poet)
    Greek lyric poet, nephew of the poet Simonides and a younger contemporary of the Boeotian poet Pindar, with whom he competed in the composition of epinician poems (odes commissioned by victors at the major athletic festivals)....
  • Bacchylides roll (manuscript)
    If this writing is made to lean to the right and to revive the 3rd-century-bce distinction between narrow and broad letters, it takes on the aspect of the “severe” style of the Bacchylides roll in the British Museum (2nd century ce). If, however, the scribe makes the verticals or obliques thicker and his horizontals thinner, the hand is called biblical unc...
  • Baccio d’Agnolo (Italian architect)
    wood-carver, sculptor, and architect who exerted an important influence on the Renaissance architecture of Florence. Between 1491 and 1502 he did much of the decorative carving in the church of Santa Maria Novella and in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. He helped restore the Palazzo Vecchio and in 1506 was commissioned to complete the drum of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore; but, because of ad...
  • Baccio della Paolo (Italian painter)
    painter who was a prominent exponent in early 16th-century Florence of the High Renaissance style....
  • Baccio della Porta (Italian painter)
    painter who was a prominent exponent in early 16th-century Florence of the High Renaissance style....
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