volume 2. chapter 26 and 28.

AMIENS, Treaty of (1801).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.

AMIN AL, Caliph, A. D. 809-813.

AMIR. An Arabian title, signifying chief or ruler.

AMISIA, The. The ancient name of the river Ems.

AMISUS, Siege of.

The siege of Amisus by Lucullus was one of the important operations of the Third Mithridatic war. The city was on the coast of the Black Sea, between the rivers Halys and Lycus; it is represented in site by the modern town of Samsoon. Amisus, which was besieged in 73 B. C. held out until the following year. Tyrannio the grammarian was among the prisoners taken and sent to Rome.

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 3, chapter 1 and 2._

AMMANN. This is the title of the Mayor or President of the Swiss Communal Council or Gemeinderath.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.

AMMON, The Temple and Oracle of.

The Ammonium or Oasis of Ammon, in the Libyan desert, which was visited by Alexander the Great, has been identified with the oasis now known as the Oasis of Siwah. "The Oasis of Siwah was first visited and described by Browne in 1792; and its identity with that of Ammon fully established by Major Rennell ('Geography of Herodotus,' pages 577-591). ... The site of the celebrated temple and oracle of Ammon was first discovered by Mr. Hamilton in 1853." "Its famous oracle was frequently visited by Greeks from Cyrene, as well as from other parts of the Hellenic world, and it vied in reputation with those of Delphi and Dodona."

_E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 8, section 1, and chapter 12, section 1, and note E._

An expedition of 50,000 men sent by Cambyses to Ammon, B. C. 525, is said to have perished in the desert, to the last man.

See EGYPT: B. C. 525-332.

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AMMONITES, The.

According to the narrative in Genesis xix: 30-39, the Ammonites were descended from Ben-Ammi, son of Lot's second daughter, as the Moabites came from Moab, the eldest daughter's son. The two people are much associated in Biblical history. "It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, while Moab was the settled and civilized half of the nation of Lot, the Bene Ammon formed its predatory and Bedouin section."

_G. Grove, Dictionary of the Bible._

See JEWS: THE EARLY HEBREW HISTORY; also, MOABITES.

AMMONITI, OR AMMONIZIONI, The.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1358.

AMNESTY PROCLAMATION.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A.D. 1863 (DECEMBER).

AMORIAN DYNASTY, The.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 820-1057.

AMORIAN WAR, The.

The Byzantine Emperor, Theophilus, in war with the Saracens, took and destroyed, with peculiar animosity, the town of Zapetra or Sozopetra, in Syria, which happened to be the birthplace of the reigning caliph, Motassem, son of Haroun Alraschid. The caliph had condescended to intercede for the place, and his enemy's conduct was personally insulting to him, as well as atrociously inhumane. To avenge the outrage he invaded Asia Minor, A. D. 838, at the head of an enormous army, with the special purpose of destroying the birthplace of Theophilus. The unfortunate town which suffered that distinction was Amorinm in Phrygia,--whence the ensuing war was called the Amorian War. Attempting to defend Amorinm in the field, the Byzantines were hopelessly defeated, and the doomed city was left to its fate. It made an heroic resistance for fifty-five days, and the siege is said to have cost the caliph 70,000 men. But he entered the place at last with a merciless sword, and left a heap of ruins for the monument of his revenge.

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 52. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

AMORITES, The.

"The Hittites and Amorites were ... mingled together in the mountains of Palestine like the two races which ethnologists tell us go to form the modern Kelt. But the Egyptian monuments teach us that they were of very different origin and character. The Hittites were a people with yellow skins and 'Mongoloid' features, whose receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws, are represented as faithfully on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies. If the Egyptians have made the Hittites ugly, it was because they were so in reality. The Amorites, on the contrary, were a tall and handsome people. They are depicted with white skins, blue eyes, and reddish hair, all the characteristics, in fact, of the white race. Mr. Petrie points out their resemblance to the Dardanians of Asia Minor, who form an intermediate link between the white-skinned tribes of the Greek seas and the fair-complexioned Libyans of Northern Africa. The latter are still found in large numbers in the mountainous regions which stretch eastward from Morocco, and are usually known among the French under the name of Kabyles. The traveller who first meets with them in Algeria cannot fail to be struck by their likeness to a certain part of the population in the British Isles. Their clear-white freckled skins, their blue eyes, their golden-red hair and tall stature, remind him of the fair Kelts of an Irish village; and when we find that their skulls, which are of the so-called dolichocephalic or 'long-headed' type, are the same as the skulls discovered in the prehistoric cromlechs of the country they still inhabit, we may conclude that they represent the modern descendants of the white-skinned Libyans of the Egyptian monuments. In Palestine also we still come across representatives of a fair-complexioned blue-eyed race in whom we may see the descendants of the ancient Amorites, just as we see in the Kabyles the descendants of the ancient Libyans. We know that the Amorite type continued to exist in Judah long after the Israelitish conquest of Canaan. The captives taken from the southern cities of Judah br Shishak in the time of Rehoboam, and depicted by him upon the walls of the great temple of Karnak, are people of Amorite origin. Their 'regular profile of sub-aquiline cast,' as Mr. Tomkins describes it, their high cheek-bones and martial expression, are the features of the Amorites, and not of the Jews. Tallness of stature has always been a distinguishing characteristic of the white race. Hence it was that the Anakim, the Amorite inhabitants of Hebron, seemed to the Hebrew spies to be as giants, while they themselves were but 'as grasshoppers' by, the side of them (Numbers xiii: 33). After the Israelitish invasion remnants of the Anakim were left in Gaza and Gath and Ashkelon (Joshua xi: 22). and in the time of David, Goliath of Gath and his gigantic family were objects of dread to their neighbors (2 Samuel xxi: 15-22). It is clear, then, that the Amorites of Canaan belonged to the same white race as the Libyans of Northern Africa, and like them preferred the mountains to the hot plains and valleys below. The Libyans themselves belonged to a race which can be traced through the peninsula of Spain and the western side of France into the British Isles. Now it is curious that wherever this particular branch of the white race has extended it has been accompanied by a particular form of cromlech, or sepulchral chamber built of large uncut stones. ... It has been necessary to enter at this length into what has been discovered concerning the Amorites by recent research, in order to show how carefully they should be distinguished from the Hittites with whom they afterwards intermingled. They must have been in possession of Palestine long before the Hittites arrived there. They extended over a much wider area."

_A. H. Sayce, The Hittites, chapter 1._

AMPHIKTYONIC COUNCIL.

"An Amphiktyonic, or, more correctly, an Amphiktionic, body was an assembly of the tribes who dwelt around any famous temple, gathered together to manage the affairs of that temple. There were other Amphiktyonic Assemblies in Greece [besides that of Delphi], amongst which that of the isle of Kalaureia, off the coast of Argolis, was a body of some celebrity. The Amphiktyons of Delphi obtained greater importance than any other Amphiktyons only because of the greater importance of the Delphic sanctuary, and because it incidentally happened that the greater part of the Greek nation had some kind of representation among them. {110} But that body could not be looked upon as a perfect representation of the Greek nation which, to postpone other objections to its constitution, found no place for so large a fraction of the Hellenic body as the Arkadians. Still the Amphiktyons of Delphi undoubtedly came nearer than any other existing body to the character of a general representation of all Greece. It is therefore easy to understand how the religious functions of such a body might incidentally assume a political character. ... Once or twice then, in the course of Grecian history, we do find the Amphiktyonic body acting with real dignity in the name of united Greece. ... Though the list of members of the Council is given with some slight variations by different authors, all agree in making the constituent members of the union tribes and not cities. The representatives of the Ionic and Doric races sat and voted as single members, side by side with the representatives of petty peoples like the Magnêsians and Phthiôtic Achaians. When the Council was first formed, Dorians and Ionians were doubtless mere tribes of northern Greece, and the prodigious development of the Doric and Ionic races in after times made no difference in its constitution. ... The Amphiktyonic Council was not exactly a diplomatic congress, but it was much more like a diplomatic congress than it was like the governing assembly of any commonwealth, kingdom, or federation. The Pylagoroi and Hieromnêmones were not exactly Ambassadors, but they were much more like Ambassadors than they were like members of a British Parliament or even an American Congress. ... The nearest approach to the Amphiktyonic Council in modern times would be if the College of Cardinals were to consist of members chosen by the several Roman Catholic nations of Europe and America."

_E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government,