part 3, chapter 2.

AGEMA, The.

The royal escort of Alexander the Great.

AGEN, Origin of.

See NITIOBRIGES.

AGENDICUM OR AGEDINCUM.

See SENONES.

AGER PUBLICUS.

"Rome was always making fresh acquisitions of territory in her early history. ... Large tracts of country became Roman land, the property of the Roman state, or public domain (ager publicus), as the Romans called it. The condition of this land, the use to which it was applied, and the disputes which it caused between the two orders at Rome, are among the most curious and perplexing questions in Roman history. ... That part of newly acquired territory which was neither sold nor given remained public property, and it was occupied, according to the Roman term, by private persons, in whose hands it was a Possessio. Hyginus and Siculus Flaccus represent this occupation as being made without any order. Every Roman took what he could, and more than he could use profitably. ... We should be more inclined to believe that this public land was occupied under some regulations, in order to prevent disputes; but if such regulations existed we know nothing about them. There was no survey made of the public land which was from time to time acquired, but there were certainly general boundaries fixed for the purpose of determining what had become public property. The lands which were sold and given were of necessity surveyed and fixed by boundaries. ... There is no direct evidence that any payments to the state were originally made by the Possessors. It is certain, however, that at some early time such payments were made, or, at least, were due to the state."

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, chapter 11._

AGGER.

See CASTRA.

AGGRAVIADOS, The.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

AGHA MOHAMMED KHAN, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1795-1797.

AGHLABITE DYNASTY.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D.715-750.

AGHRIM, OR AUGHRIM, Battle of (A. D. 1691).

See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

AGILULPHUS, King of the Lombards. A. D. 590-616.

AGINCOURT, Battle of (1415).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1415.

AGINNUM.--Modern Agen.

See NITIOBRIGES.

AGNADEL, Battle of (1509).

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

AGNATI.--AGNATIC.

See GENS, ROMAN.

AGNIERS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: AGNIERS.

AGOGE, The.

The public discipline enforced in ancient Sparta; the ordinances attributed to Lycurgus, for the training of the young and for the regulating of the lives of citizens.

_G. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 1._

AGORA, The.

The market-place of an ancient Greek city was, also, the centre of its political life. "Like the gymnasium, and even earlier than this, it grew into architectural splendour with the increasing culture of the Greeks. In maritime cities it generally lay near the sea; in inland places at the foot of the hill which carried the old feudal castle. Being the oldest part of the city, it naturally became the focus not only of commercial, but also of religious and political life. Here even in Homer's time the citizens assembled in consultation, for which purpose it was supplied with seats; here were the oldest sanctuaries; here were celebrated the first festive games; here centred the roads on which the intercommunication, both religious and commercial, with neighbouring cities and states was carried on; from here started the processions which continually passed between holy places of kindred origin, though locally separated. Although originally all public transactions were carried on in these market-places, special local arrangements for contracting public business soon became necessary in large cities. At Athens, for instance, the gently rising ground of the Philopappos hill, called Pnyx, touching the Agora, was used for political consultations, while most likely, about the time of the Pisistratides, the market of Kerameikos, the oldest seat of Attic industry (lying between the foot of the Akropolis, the Areopagos and the hill of Theseus), became the agora proper, i. e., the centre of Athenian commerce. ... The description by Vitruvius of an agora evidently refers to the splendid structures of post-Alexandrine times. According to him it was quadrangular in size [? shape] and surrounded by wide double colonades. The numerous columns carried architraves of common stone or of marble, and on the roofs of the porticoes were galleries for walking purposes. This, of course, does not apply to all marketplaces, even of later date; but, upon the whole, the remaining specimens agree with the description of Vitruvius."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, translated by Hueffer, part 1, section 26._

In the Homeric time, the general assembly of freemen was called the Agora.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 1, chapter 20._

AGRÆI, The.

See AKARNANIANS.

AGRARIAN LAWS, Roman.

"Great mistakes formerly prevailed on the nature of the Roman laws familiarly termed Agrarian. It was supposed that by these laws all land was declared common property, and that at certain intervals of time the state resumed possession and made a fresh distribution to all citizens, rich and poor. It is needless to make any remarks on the nature and consequences of such a law; sufficient it will be to say, what is now known to all, that at Rome such laws never existed, never were thought of. The lands which were to be distributed by Agrarian laws were not private property, but the property of the state. They were, originally, those public lands which had been the domain of the kings, and which were increased whenever any City or people was conquered by the Romans; because it was an Italian practice to confiscate the lands of the conquered, in whole or in part."

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 8._

See ROME: B. C. 376, and B. C. 133-121.

{21}

AGRI DECUMATES, The.

"Between the Rhine and the Upper Danube there intervenes a triangular tract of land, the apex of which touches the confines of Switzerland at Basel; thus separating, as with an enormous wedge, the provinces of Gaul and Vindelicia, and presenting at its base no natural line of defence from one river to the other. This tract was, however, occupied, for the most part, by forests, and if it broke the line of the Roman defences, it might at least be considered impenetrable to an enemy. Abandoned by the warlike and predatory tribes of Germany, it was seized by wandering immigrants from Gaul, many of them Roman adventurers, before whom the original inhabitants, the Marcomanni, or men of the frontier, seem to have retreated eastward beyond the Hercynian forest. The intruders claimed or solicited Roman protection, and offered in return a tribute from the produce of the soil, whence the district itself came to be known by the title of the Agri Decumates, or Tithed Land. It was not, however, officially connected with any province of the Empire, nor was any attempt made to provide for its permanent security, till a period much later than that on which we are now engaged [the period of Augustus]."

_C. Merivale, History of the Roman, chapter 36._.

"Wurtemburg, Baden and Hohenzollern coincide with the Agri Decumates of the Roman writers."

_R G. Latham, Ethnology of Europe, chapter 8._

See, also, ALEMANNI, and SUEVI.

AGRICOLA'S CAMPAIGNS IN BRITAIN.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 78-84.

AGRIGENTUM.

Acragas, or Agrigentum, one of the youngest of the Greek colonies in Sicily, founded about B. C. 582 by the older colony of Gela, became one of the largest and most splendid cities of the age, in the fifth century B. C., as is testified by its ruins to this day. It was the scene of the notorious tyranny of Phalaris, as well as that of Theron. Agrigentum was destroyed by the Carthagenians, B. C. 405, and rebuilt by Timoleon, but never recovered its former importance and grandeur.

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 3._

See, also, PHALARIS, BRAZEN BULL OF.

Agrigentum was destroyed by the Carthagenians in 406 B. C.

See SICILY: B. C. 409-405.

Rebuilt by Timoleon, it was the scene of a great defeat of the Carthagenians by the Romans, in 262 B. C.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

AGRIPPINA AND HER SON NERO.

See ROME: A. D. 47-54, and 54-64.

AHMED KHEL, Battle of (1880).

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

AIGINA.

See ÆGINA.

AIGOSPOTAMOI, Battle of.

See GREECE: B. C. 405.

AIGUILLON, Siege of.

A notable siege in the "Hundred Years' War," A. D. 1346. An English garrison under the famous knight, Sir Walter Manny, held the great fortress of Aiguillon, near the confluence of the Garonne and the Lot, against a formidable French army.

_J. Froissart, Chronicles, volume 1, book 1, chapter 120._

AIX, Origin of.

See SALYES.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: The Capital of Charlemagne.

The favorite residence and one of the two capitals of Charlemagne was the city which the Germans call Aachen and the French have named Aix-la-Chapelle. "He ravished the ruins of the ancient world to restore the monumental arts. A new Rome arose in the depths of the forests of Austrasia--palaces, gates, bridges, baths, galleries, theatres, churches,--for the erection of which the mosaics and marbles of Italy were laid under tribute, and workmen summoned from all parts of Europe. It was there that an extensive library was gathered, there that the school of the palace was made permanent, there that foreign envoys were pompously welcomed, there that the monarch perfected his plans for the introduction of Roman letters and the improvement of music."

_P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 4, chapter 17._

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Treaty of (A. D. 803).

See VENICE: A. D. 697-810.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Treaty of (A. D. 1668).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, The Congress and Treaty which ended the War of the Austrian Succession (1748).

The War of the Austrian Succession, which raged in Europe, and on the ocean, and in India and America, from 1740 to 1748 (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, 1740-1741, and after), was brought to an end in the latter year by a Congress of all the belligerents which met at Aix-la-Chapelle, in April, and which concluded its labors on the 18th of October following. "The influence of England and Holland ... forced the peace upon Austria and Sardinia, though both were bitterly aggrieved by its conditions. France agreed to restore every conquest she had made during the war, to abandon the cause of the Stuarts, and expel the Pretender from her soil; to demolish, in accordance with earlier treaties, the fortifications of Dunkirk on the side of the sea, while retaining those on the side of the land, and to retire from the conquest without acquiring any fresh territory or any pecuniary compensation. England in like manner restored the few conquests she had made, and submitted to the somewhat humiliating condition of sending hostages to Paris as a security for the restoration of Cape Breton. ... The disputed boundary between Canada and Nova Scotia, which had been a source of constant difficulty with France, was left altogether undefined. The Assiento treaty for trade with the Spanish colonies was confirmed for the four years it had still to run; but no real compensation was obtained for a war expenditure which is said to have exceeded sixty-four millions, and which had raised the funded and unfunded debt to more than seventy-eight millions. Of the other Powers, Holland, Genoa, and the little state of Modena retained their territory as before the war, and Genoa remained mistress of the Duchy of Finale, which had been ceded to the king of Sardinia by the Treaty of Worms, and which it had been a main object of his later policy to secure. Austria obtained a recognition of the election of the Emperor, a general guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, and the restoration of everything she had lost in the Netherlands, but she gained no additional territory. She was compelled to confirm the cession of Silesia and Glatz to Prussia, to abandon her Italian conquests, and even to cede a considerable part of her former Italian dominions. To the bitter indignation of Maria Theresa, the Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastella passed to Don Philip of Spain, to revert, however, to their former possessors if Don Philip mounted the Spanish throne, or died without male issue. The King of Sardinia also obtained from Austria the territorial cessions enumerated In the Treaty of Worms [see ITALY: A. D. 1743], with the important exceptions of Placentia, which passed to Don Philip, and of Finale, which remained with the Genoese. {22} For the loss of these he obtained no compensation. Frederick [the Great, of Prussia] obtained a general guarantee for the possession of his newly acquired territory, and a long list of old treaties was formally confirmed. Thus small were the changes effected in Europe by so much bloodshed and treachery, by nearly nine years of wasteful and desolating war. The design of the dismemberment of Austria had failed, but no vexed questions had been set at rest. ... Of all the ambitious projects that had been conceived during the war, that of Frederick alone was substantially realized."

_W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century,