chapter 22. section 1.

ARTABA, The.

See EPHAH.

ARTAXATA.

The ancient capital of Armenia, said to have been built under the superintendence of Hannibal, while a refugee in Armenia. At a later time it was called Neronia, in honor of the Roman Emperor Nero.

ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS, King of Persia, B. C. 465-425. ARTAXERXES MNEMON, King of Persia, B. C. 405-359. ARTAXERXES OCHUS, King of Persia, B. C. 359-338. ARTAXERXES, or ARDSHIR, Founder of the Sassanian monarchy.

See PERSIA: B. C. 150-A. D. 226.

ARTEMISIUM, Sea fights at.

See GREECE: B. C. 480.

ARTEMITA.

See DASTAGERD.

ARTEVELD, Jacques and Philip Van: Their rise and fall in Ghent.

See FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337, to 1382.

ARTHUR, King, and the Knights of the Round Table.

"On the difficult question, whether there was a historical Arthur or not, ... a word or two must now be devoted; ... and here one has to notice in the first place that Welsh literature never calls Arthur a gwledig or prince but emperor, and it may be inferred that his historical position, in case he had such a position, was that of one filling, after the departure of the Romans, the office which under them was that of the Comes Britanniæ or Count of Britain. The officer so called had a roving commission to defend the Province wherever his presence might be called for. The other military captains here were the Dux Britanniarum, who had charge of the forces in the north and especially on the Wall, and the Comes Littoris Saxonici [Count of the Saxon Shore], who was entrusted with the defence of the south-eastern coast of the island. The successors of both these captains seem to have been called in Welsh gwledigs or princes. So Arthur's suggested position as Comes Britanniæ would be in a sense superior to theirs, which harmonizes with his being called emperor and not gwledig. The Welsh have borrowed the Latin title of imperator, 'emperor,' and made it into 'amherawdyr,' later 'amherawdwr,' so it is not impossible, that when the Roman imperator ceased to have anything more to say to this country, the title was given to the highest officer in the island, namely the Comes Britanniæ, and that in the words 'Yr Amherawdyr Arthur,' 'the Emperor Arthur,' we have a remnant of our insular history. If this view be correct, it might be regarded as something more than an accident that Arthur's position relatively to that of the other Brythonic princes of his time is exactly given by Nennius, or whoever it was that wrote the _Historia Brittonum_ ascribed to him: there Arthur is represented fighting in company with the kings of the Brythons in defence of their common country, he being their leader in war. If, as has sometimes been argued, the uncle of Maglocunus or Maelgwn, whom the latter is accused by Gilda of having slain and superseded, was no other than Arthur, it would supply one reason why that writer called Maelgwn 'insularis draco,' 'the dragon or war-captain of the island,' and why the latter and his successors after him were called by the Welsh not gwledigs but kings, though their great ancestor Cuneda was only a gwledig. {137} On the other hand the way in which Gildas alludes to the uncle of Maelgwn without even giving his name, would seem to suggest that in his estimation at least he was no more illustrious than his predecessors in the position which he held, whatever that may have been. How then did Arthur become famous above them, and how came he to be the subject of so much story and romance? The answer, in short, which one has to give to this hard question must be to the effect, that besides a historic Arthur there was a Brythonic divinity named Arthur, after whom the man may have been called, or with whose name his, in case it was of a different origin, may have become identical in sound owing to an accident of speech; for both explanations are possible, as we shall attempt to show later. Leaving aside for a while the man Arthur, and assuming the existence of a god of that name, let us see what could be made of him. Mythologically speaking he would probably have to be regarded as a Culture Hero; for, a model king and the institutor of the Knighthood of the Round Table, he is represented as the leader of expeditions to the isles of Hades, and as one who stood in somewhat the same kind of relation to Gwalchmei as Gwydion did to ILeu. It is needless here to dwell on the character usually given to Arthur as a ruler: he with his knights around him may be compared to Conehobar, in the midst of the Champions of Emain Macha, or Woden among the Anses at Valhalla, while Arthur's Knights are called those of the Round Table, around which they are described sitting; and it would be interesting to understand the signification of the term Round Table. On the whole it is the table, probably, and not its roundness that is the fact to which to call attention, as it possibly means that Arthur's court was the first early court where those present sat at a table at all in Britain. No such thing as a common table figures at Conchobar's court or any other described in the old legends of Ireland, and the same applies, we believe, to those of the old Norsemen. The attribution to Arthur of the first use of a common table would fit in well with the character of a Culture Hero which we have ventured to ascribe to him, and it derives countenance from the pretended history of the Round Table; for the Arthurian legend traces it back to Arthur's father, Uthr Bendragon, in whom we have under one of his many names the king of Hades, the realm whence all culture was fabled to have been derived. In a wider sense the Round Table possibly signified plenty or abundance, and might be compared with the table of the Ethiopians, at which Zeus and the other gods of Greek mythology used to feast from time to time."

_J. Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, chapter 1._

See, also CUMBRIA.

ARTHUR, Chester A. Election to Vice-Presidency. Succession to the Presidency.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1880 and 1881.

ARTI OF FLORENCE.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION (American).

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777-1781, and 1783-1787.

ARTICLES OF HENRY, The.

See POLAND: A. D. 1573.

ARTOIS, The House of.

See BOURBON, THE HOUSE OF.

ARTOIS: A. D. 1529. Pretensions of the King of France to Suzerainty resigned.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

ARTYNI.

See DEMIURGI.

ARVADITES, The.

The Canaanite inhabitants of the island of Aradus, or Arvad, and who also held territory on the main land.

_F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History,