Chapter 34

Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Acts, the Sea Fisheries Regulation Acts and other acts relating to the industry of fishing, were transferred from that department to the Board of Agriculture, and its name was changed to its present form. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland covers much the same ground. The Annual report of the proceedings of the Board of Agriculture under the Tithe and other Acts for 1902 contains a full account of its powers and duties.

In the British colonies the interests of agriculture are looked after in New South Wales, by an under-secretary for mines and agriculture; in Victoria, by a member of the executive council who holds the portfolio of lands and agriculture; in Queensland, by an under-secretary for agriculture; in New Zealand, by a minister for lands and agriculture; in Canada (see, for more detail, the article Canada, Canadian Agriculture), by a minister for agriculture (the various provinces have also departments of agriculture). The government of India has a secretary of revenue and agriculture. Cape Colony has a secretary for agriculture, a member of the cabinet; in the Transvaal Colony the director of agriculture is a departmental secretary; in Natal, the minister for agriculture is a member of the executive council, and the establishment consists, in addition, of a secretary, a director of agriculture, an entomologist, a dairy expert and a conservator of forests. Cyprus has a director of agriculture.

United States--The Department of Agriculture dates its rank as an executive department from 1889. It was first established as a department in 1862, ranking as a bureau, with a commissioner in charge. In addition to the commissioner there were appointed a statistician, chemist, entomologist and superintendent of a propagatory and experimental farm. Its scope was then somewhat limited, but its work was gradually enlarged by the appointment of a botanist in 1868, a microscopist in 1871, the creation of a forestry department in 1877, a bureau of animal industry in 1884 and the establishment of agricultural experiment stations throughout the country in 1887. In 1889 the department became an executive department, the principal official being designated Secretary of Agriculture, with a seat in the president's cabinet. His salary is $8000 a year. The secretary is now charged with the supervision of all business relating to the agricultural and productive industries. The fisheries have a separate bureau, and the public lands and mining interests are cared for in the Department of the Interior; but with these exceptions, all the productive interests are looked after by the Department of Agriculture. The department now comprises (1) the weather bureau, which has charge of the forecasting of weather; the issue of storm warnings; the display of weather and flood signals for the benefit of agriculture, commerce and navigation; the gauging and reporting of rivers; the reporting of temperature and rainfall conditions for the cotton, rice, sugar and other interests; the display of frost and cold waves signals; and the distribution of meteorological information in the interest of agriculture and commerce; (2) the bureau of animal industry, which makes investigations as to the existence of contagious pleuro-pneumonia and other dangerous and communicable diseases of live stock, superintends the measures for their extirpation, makes original investigations as to the nature and prevention of such diseases, and reports on the conditions and means of improving the animal industries of the country; (3) the bureau of plant industry, which studies plant life in all its relations to agriculture. Its work is classified under the general subjects of pathological investigations, physiological investigations, taxonomic investigations, agronomic investigations, horticultural investigations and seed and plant introduction investigations; (4) the forest service, which is occupied with experiments, investigations and reports dealing with the subject of forestry, and with the dissemination of information upon forestry matters; (5) the bureau of chemistry, which investigates methods proposed for the analysis of plants, fertilizers and agricultural products, and makes such analyses as pertain in general to the interests of agriculture; (6) the bureau of soils, which is entrusted with the investigation, survey and mapping of soils; the investigation of the cause and prevention of the rise of alkali in the soil and the drainage of soils; and the investigation of the methods of growing, curing and fermentation of tobacco in the different tobacco districts; (7) the bureau of entomology, which obtains and disseminates information regarding insects injurious to vegetation; (8) the bureau of biological survey, which studies the geographic distribution of animals and plants, and maps the natural life zones of the country; it also investigates the economic relations of birds and mammals, and recommends measures for the preservation of beneficial, and the destruction of injurious, species; (9) the division of accounts and disbursements; (10) the division of publications; (11) the bureau of statistics, which collects information as to the condition, prospects and harvests of the principal crops, and of the number and status of farm animals. It records, tabulates and co-ordinates statistics of agricultural production, distribution and consumption, and issues monthly and annual crop reports for the information of producers and consumers. The section of foreign markets makes investigations and disseminates information concerning the feasibility of extending the demands of foreign markets for the agricultural products of the United States; the bureau also makes investigations of land tenures, cost of producing farm products, country life education, transportation and other lines of rural economies; (12) the library; (13) the office of experiment stations which represents the department in its relations to the experiment stations which are now in operation in all the states; it collects and disseminates general information regarding agricultural schools, colleges, stations, and publishes accounts of agricultural investigations at home and abroad; it also indicates lines of inquiry for the stations, aids in the conduct of co-operative experiments, reports upon their expenditures and work, and in general furnishes them with such advice and assistance as will best promote the purposes for which they were established; it conducts investigations relative to irrigation and drainage; (14) the office of public roads, which collects information concerning systems of road management, conducts investigations regarding the best method of road-making, and prepares publications on this subject.

In the following countries there are state departments of agriculture:---Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, (industry, agriculture and public works), Bulgaria (commerce and agriculture), Denmark, France, Norway (agriculture and public accounts), Italy, Japan (agriculture and commerce), Prussia (agriculture, woods and forests), Russia (agriculture and crown domains), Sweden.

AGRIGENTUM (Gr. `Akragas mod. Girgenti (q.v.)), an ancient city on the south coastof Sicily, 2 1/2m. from the sea. It was founded (perhaps on the site of an early Sicanian settlement) by colonists from Gela about 582 B.C., and, though the lastest city of importance founded by the Greeks in Sicily, soon acquired a position second to that of Syracuse alone, owing to its favourable situation for trade with Carthage and to the fertility of its territory. Pindar (Pyth. xii. 2) calls it kallista brotean polion. The buildings for which it is famous all belong to the first two centuries of its existence. Phalaris, who is said to have roasted his enemies to death in a brazen bull (Pindar, Pyth.. i. 184), ruled as tyrant from 570 to 554. What form of government was established after his fall is uncertain; we know only that, after a long interval, Theron became tyrant (488-473); but his son Thrasydaeus was expelled after an unsuccessful war with Hiero in 472 and a democracy established. In the struggle between Syracuse and Athens (415-413) the city remained absolutely neutral. Its prosperity continued to increase (its population is given at over 200,000) until in 405 B.C., despite the help of the Siceliot cities, it was captured and plundered by the Carthaginians, a blow from which it never entirely re-covered. It was colonized by Timoleon in 338 B.C. with settlers from Veha in Lucania, and in the time of the tyrant Phintias (289-279) it had regained some of its power. In the First Punic War, however, it was sacked by the Romans (261) and the Carthaginians (255), and finally in the Second Punic War by the Romans (210). But it still retained its importance as a trading and agricultural centre, even in the Roman period, exporting not only agricultural products but textile fabrics and sulphur. In the local museum are tiles used for stamping cakes of sulphur, which show that the mines, at any rate from the 3rd century, were imperial property leased to contractors.

The site is one of great natural strength and remarkable beauty, though quite unlike that of other Greek cities in Sicily. The northern portion of it consists of a lofty ridge with two summits, the westernmost of which is occupied by the modern town (985 ft.), while the easternmost, which is slightly higher, bears the name of Rock of Athena, owing to its identification in modern days with the acropolis of Acragas as described by Polybius, who places upon it the temple of Zeus Atabyrius (the erection of which was attributed to the half mythical Phalaris) and that of Athena.1 It must be confessed that the available space (about 70 X 20 yds.) on the eastern summit (where there are some remains of ancient buildings) is so small that there would be only room for a single temple, which must have been occupied by the two deities jointly, if the new theory is correct (see Notizie degli scavi, 1902, 387 and reff.). In the modern town, on the other hand, the remains of one temple are to be seen in the church of S. Maria dei Greci, while the other is generally supposed to have occupied the site of the cathedral, though no traces of it are visible. But whichever of these two summits was the acropolis proper2 it is certain that both were included in the circuit of the city walls. On the north both summits are defended by cliffs; on the south the ground slopes away somewhat abruptly from the eastern summit towards the plateau on which the town stood, while the western summit is separated from this plateau by a valley traversed by a branch of the Hypsas [mod. drago], the deep ravine of which forms the western boundary and defence of the city. On the east of the city is the valley of the Acragas [Fiume S. Biagio], from which the city took its name and which, though shallower than that of the Hypsas, still affords a sufficient obstacle to attack, and the two unite a little way to the south of the town; at the mouth was the ancient harbour, small and now abandoned.

The most famous remains of the ancient city are the temples, the most important of which form a row along the low cliffs at the south end of the city. All are built in the Doric style, of the local porous stone, which is of a warm red brown colour, full of fossil shells and easily corroded when exposed to the air. It should be noted that their traditional names, with the exception of that of Zeus and that of Asclepius, have no foundation in fact, while the attribution of the temple in antis, into the cella of which the church of S. Biagio has been built, is uncertain.3 They are described in R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, Die griechishen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien (Berlin, 1890), 138-184. Of all these temples the oldest is probably that of Heracles, while the best preserved are those of Hera and Concordia, which are very similar in dimensions; the latter, indeed, lacks nothing but its roof, owing its preservation to its conversion into the cathedral in 597 by Gregory II., bishop of Girgenti. Both temples belong to the best period of the Doric style and are among the finest in existence. In front of the former, as in front of those of Heracles and Zeus, stood a huge altar for burnt offerings, as long as the facade of the temple itself. The cella of the temple of Heracles underwent considerable modifications in Roman times, and the discovery in it of a statue of Asclepius seems to show that the cult of this deity superseded the original one.

In the colossal temple of Zeus the huge Atlantes (figures of Atlas), 25 ft. in height, are noticeable. They seem to have stood in the intercolumniations half-way up the outside wall and to have supported the epistyle. The collapse both of this temple and of that of Heracles must be attributed to an earthquake; many fallen blocks of the former were removed in 1756 for the construction of the harbour of Porto Empedocle. The four columns erected on the site of the temple of Castor and Pollux are a modern (and incorrect) restoration in which portions of two buildings have been used. Of that of Hephaestus only two columns remain, while of that of Asclepius, a mile to the south of the town, an anta and two pillars are preserved. It was in the latter temple that the statue of the god by Myron stood; it had probably been carried off to Carthage, was given to the temple by P. Scipio Africanus from the spoils of that city and aroused the cupidity of Verres.

The other remains within the city walls are of surprisingly small importance; near the picturesque church of S. Nicolo is the so-called Oratory of Phalaris, a shrine of the 2nd century B.C., 27 1/4 ft. long (including the porch) by 23 1/3 ft. wide; and not far off on the east is a large private house with white tesselated pavements, probably pre-Roman in origin but slightly altered in the Roman period (R. P. Jones and E. A. Gardner in JOURNAL OF HELLENIC STUDIES, xxvi., 1906, 207). Foundations of other buildings are to be seen in other parts of the site, but of little interest. The huge fishpond, spoken of by Diodorus as being 7 stadia in circumference (xi. 25), is to be seen at the south-west corner of the city; it is an enormous excavation in the rock with drains in its sides, at the bottom of which there is now a flourishing orange garden.

Demeter Hera Con- (Acragas?) Lacinia. cordia. Heracles. Zeus.

Length excluding steps4 90? 125 129 1/4 220 361 Breadth 40 1/2 55 1/2 55 1/2 83 173 1/2 Length of cella .. 93 96 1/4 156 332 Breadth of cella .. 32 1/2 31 1/2 45 3/4 144 1/4 Height of columns with capital .. 21 22 33 62 1/2? Diameter of columns at bottom .. 4 1/2 4 1/2 6 1/2 14 Original number of columns .. 34 34 38 38 Class In antis. Perip- Perip- Perip- Pseudo teros teros teros Peripteros hexa- hexa- hexa- hexa- stylos. stylos. stylos. stylos. Approximate date 450 B.C. 480-440 440-420 500 B.C. 450 B.C. B.C. B.C.

Unnamed Castor near Castor and and Hephae- Pollux. Pollux. scus. Asclepius. Athena.

Length excluding steps (1) .. .. .. .. .. Breadth .. 67 1/4 57 1/2 30 1/2 45 Length of cella 91 .. .. .. .. Breadth of cella 33 .. .. .. .. Height of columns with capital 19 1/2 .. .. .. .. Diameter of columns at bottom 4 .. 5 3 1/3 4 2/3 Original number of columns 34 .. .. .. .. Class Perip- .. Perip- Prostylos Perip- teros teros pseudo teros hexa- hexa- perip- stylos. stylos. teros. Approximate date 338-210. .. after 338 before 210 488-472 B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C.

The line of the city walls can be distinctly traced for most of the circuit, but the actual remains of them are inconsiderable. On the east and west the ravines already mentioned afforded, in the main, a sufficient protection, so that a massive wall was unnecessary, while near the south-eastern angle a breastwork was formed by the excavation of the natural rock,5 which in later times was honeycombed with tombs. E. A. Freeman attributes the southern portion of the walls to Theron (Hist. of Sic. ii. 224), but the question depends upon the date of the temple of Heracles; and if Koldewey and Puchstein are right in dating it so early as 500 B.C., it is probable that the wall was in existence by that time. Close to this temple on the west is the site of the gate known in later times as the porta aurea, through which the modern road passes, so that no traces now remain.

Tombs of the Greek period have mainly been found on the west of the town, outside the probable line of the walls, between the Hypsas and a small tributary, the latter having been spanned by a bridge, now called Ponite dei Morti, of which one massive pier, 45 ft. in width, still exists. Just outside the south wall is a Roman necropolis, with massive tombs in masonry, and a Christian catacomb, and a little farther south a tomb in two stories, a mixture of Doric and Ionic architecture, belonging probably to the 2nd century B.C., though groundlessly called the Tomb of Theron. A village of the Byzantine period has been explored at Balatizzo, immediately to the south of the modern town (Notizie degli scavi, 1900, 511-520). The walls of the dwellings are entirely cut out of the natural rock.

See J. Schubring, Historische Topographie von Akragas (Leipzig, 1570); R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, op. cit.; C. Hulsen in Pauly-Wissowa, Encyclopadie, i. 1187. (T. As.)

1 E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily (Oxford, 1891), i. 438, accepts the name ``Rock of Athena'' and yet puts the acropolis on the site of the modern town, arguing further that the cathedral hill was an acropolis within an acropolis (II. and XVII.).

2 Some writers place Kamikos, the city of the mythical Sican Kokalos, on the site of Acragas or its acropolis; but it appears to have lain to the north-west, possibly at Caltabellotta, 10m. north-east of Sciacca. We hear of it even in the Punic Wars as a fortified post of Acragas (E. A. Freeman, Hist. of Sic. i. 495).

3 The attribution to Demeter is supported by the discovery of votive terra-cottas, representing Demeter and Kore in the neighbourhood, while the conjecture that it was dedicated to the river-god Acragas rests on its position above the river, in the valley of which, indeed, a statue which may represent the deity has been discovered.

4 Dimensions in English feet.

5 Polybius ix. 27 keitai to teixos epi petras akrotomon kai perirrogos e men autofnous e de xeiropoieton.

AGRIMONY (from the Lat. agrimonia, a transformation of argemone, a word of unknown etymology), a slender perennial herb (botanical name, agrimonia eupatoria, natural order Rosaceae), 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high, growing in hedge-banks, copses and borders of fields. The leafy stem ends in spikes of small yellow flowers. The flower-stalk becomes recurved in the fruiting stage, and the fruit bears a number of hooks which enable it to cling to rough objects, such as the coat of an animal, thus ensuring distribution of the seed. The plant is common in Britain and widely spread through the north temperate region. The underground woody stem is astringent and yields a yellow dye.

The name has been unsystematically given to several other plants; for instance: bastard, Dutch, hemp or water agrimony (eupatorium cannabinum); noble or three-leaved agrimony (anemone hellalica); water agrimony (bideus); and wild agrimony (potentilla anserina.)

AGRIONIA, an ancient Greek festival, which was celebrated annually at Orchomenus in Boeotia and elsewhere, in honour of Dionysus Agrionius, by women and priests at night. The women, after playfully pretending for some time to search for the god, desisted, saying that he had hidden himself among the Muses. The tradition is that the daughters of Minyas, king of Orchomenus, having despised the rites of the god, were seized with frenzy and ate the flesh of one of their children. At this festival it was originally the custom for the priest of the god to pursue a woman of the Minyan family with a drawn sword and kill her. (Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 102, Quaest. Graecae 38.)

AGRIPPA, a sceptical philosopher, whose date cannot be accurately determined. He must have lived later than Aenesidemus, who is generally said to have been a contemporary of Cicero. To him are ascribed the five tropes pente tropoi which, according to Sextus Empiricus, summarize the attitude of the later ancient sceptics. The first trope emphasizes the disagreement of philosophers on all fundamental points; knowledge comes either from the senses or from reason. Some thinkers hold that nothing is known but the things of sense; others that the things of reason alone are known; and so on. It follows that the only wise course is to be content with an attitude of indifference, neither to affirm nor to deny. The second trope deals with the validity of proof; the proof of one so-called fact depends on another fact which itself needs demonstration, and so on ad infinitum. The third points out that the data of sense are relative to the sentient being, those of reason to the intelligent mind; that in different conditions things themselves are seen or thought to be different. Where, then, is the absolute criterion? Fourthly, if we examine things fairly, we see that in point of fact all knowledge depends on certain hypotheses, or facts taken for granted. Such knowledge is fundamentally hypothetical, and might well be accepted as such without the labour of a demonstration which is logically invalid. The fifth trope points out the impossibility of proving the sensible by the intelligible inasmuch as it remains to establish the intelligible in its turn by the sensible. Such a process is a vicious circle and has no logical validity. A comparison of these tropes with the ten tropes enumerated in the article AENESIDEMUS shows that scepticism has made an advance into the more abtruse questions of metaphysics. The first and the third include all the ideas expressed in the ten tropes, and the other three systematize the more profound difficulties which new thinkers had developed. Aenesidemus was content to attack the validity of sense-given knowledge; Agrippa goes further and impugns the possibility of all truth whatever. His reasons are those of modern scepticism, the reasons which by their very nature are not susceptible of disproof.

See Diogenes Laertius x. 88, and Zeller's Greek Philosophy. Also the articles SCEPTICISM; AENESIDEMUS.

AGRIPPA, HEROD, I. (c. 10 B.C.-A.D. 44), king of Judea, the son of Aristobulus and Berenice, and grandson of Herod the Great, was born about 10 B.C. His original name was Marcus Julius Agrippa. Josephus informs us that, after the murder of his father, Herod the Great sent him to Rome to the court of Tiberius, who conceived a great affection for him, and placed him near his son Drusus, whose favour he very soon won. On the death of Drusus, Agrippa, who had been recklessly extravagant, was obliged to leave Rome, overwhelmed with debt. After a brief seclusion, Herod the Tetrarch, his uncle, who had married Herodias, his sister, made him Agoranomos (Overseer of Markets) of Tiberias, and presented him with a large sum of money; but his uncle being unwilling to continue his support, Agrippa left Judea for Antioch and soon after returned to Rome, where he was welcomed by Tiberius and became the constant campanion of the emperor Gaius (Caligula), then a popular favourite. Agrippa being one day overheard by Eutyches, a slave whom he had made free, to express a wish for Tiberius' death and the advancement of Gaius, was betrayed to the emperor and cast into prison. In A.D. 37 Caligula, having ascended the throne, heaped wealth and favours upon Agrippa, set a royal diadem upon his head and gave him the tetrarchy of Batanaea and Trachonitis, which Philip, the son of Herod the Great, had formerly possessed. To this he added that held by Lysanias; and Agrippa returned very soon into Judea to take possession of his new kingdom. In A.D. 39 he returned to Rome and brought about the banishment of Herod Antipas, to whose tetrarchy he succeeded. On the assassination of Caligula (A.D. 41) Agrippa contributed much by his advice to maintain Claudius in possession of the imperial dignity, while he made a show of being in the interest of the senate. The emperor, in acknowledgment, gave him the government of Judea, while the kingdom of Chalcis in Lebanon was at his request given to his brother Herod. Thus Agrippa became one of the greatest princes of the east, the territory he possessed equalling in extent that held by Herod the Great. He returned to Judea and governed it to the great satisfaction of the Jews. His zeal, private and public, for Judaism is celebrated by Josephus and the rabbis; and the narrative of Acts xii. gives a typical example of it. About the feast of the Passover A.D. 44, James the elder, the son of Zebedee and brother of John the evangelist, was seized by his order and put to death. He proceeded also to lay hands on Peter and imprisoned him. After the Passover he went to Caesarea, where he had games performed in honour of Claudius, and the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon waited on him to sue for peace.. According to the story in Acts xii., Agrippa, gorgeously arrayed, received them in the theatre, and addressed them from a throne, while the audience cried out that his was the voice of a god. But ``the angel of the Lord smote him,'' and shortly afterwards he died ``eaten of worms.'' The story in Acts differs slightly from that in Josephus, who describes how in the midst of his elation he saw an owl perched over his head. During his confinement by Tiberius a like omen had been interpreted as portending his speedy release, with the warning that should he behold the same sight again he would die within' five days. He was immediately smitten with violent pains, and after a few days died. Josephus says nothing of his being ``eaten of worms,'' but the discrepancies between the two stories are of slight moment. A third account omits all the apocryphal elements in the story and says that Agrippa was assassinated by the Romans, who objected to his growing power.

See articles in Ency, Bibl. (W. J. Woodhouse), Jewish Ency. (M. Brann), with further relerences; N. S. Libowitz, Herod and Agrippa (New York, 2nd ed., 1898); Gratz, Geschchte d. Juden, iii. 318-361.

AGRIPPA, HEROD, II. (27-100), son of the preceding, and like him originally Marcus Julius Agrippa, was born about A.D. 27, and received the tetrarchy of Chalcis and the oversight of the Temple on the death of his uncle Herod, A.D. 48. In A.D. 53 he was deprived of that kingdom by Claudius, who gave him other provinces instead of it. In the war which Vespasian carried on against the Jews Herod sent him 2000 men, by which it appears that, though a Jew in religion, he was yet entirely devoted to the Romans, whose assistance indeed he required to secure the peace of his own kingdom. He died at Rome in the third year of . Trajan, A.D. 100. He was the seventh and last king of the family of Herod the Great. It was before him and his sister Berenice (q.v., B.2) that St Paul pleaded his cause at Caesarea (Acts xxvi.). He supplied Josephus with information for his history.

AGRIPPA, MARCUS VIPSANIUS (63-12 P.C.), Roman statesman and general, son-in-law and minister of the emperor Augustus, was of humble origin. He was of the same age as Octavian (as the emperor was then called), and was studying with him at Apollonia when news of Julius Caesar's assassination (44) arrived. By his advice Octavian at once set out for Rome. Agrippa played a conspicuous part in the war against Lucius, . brother of Mark Antony, which ended in the capture of Perusia (40). Two years later he put down a rising of the Aquitallians in Gaul, and crossed the Rhine to punish the aggressions of the Germans. On his return he refused a triumph but accepted the consulship (37). At this time Sextus Pompeius, with whom war was imminent, had command of the sea on the coasts of Italy. Agrippa's first care was to provide a safe harbour for his ships, which he accomplished by cutting through the strips of land which separated the Lacus Lucrinus from the sea, thus forming an outer harbour; an inner one was also made by joining the lake Avernus to the Lucrinus (Dio Cassius xlviii. 49; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 24). About this time Agrippa married Pomponia, daughter of Cicero's friend Pomponius Atticus. Having been appointed naval commander-in-chief he put his crews through a course of training, until he felt in a position to meet the fleet of Pompeius. In 36 he was victorious at Mylae and Naulochus, and received the honour of a naval crown for his services. In 33 he was chosen aedile and signalized his tenure of office by effecting great improvements in the city of Rome, restoring and building aqueducts, enlarging and cleansing the sewers, and constructing baths and porticos, and laying out gardens. He also first gave a stimulus to the public exhibition of works of art. The emperor's boast that he had found the city of brick but left it of marble (``marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset,'' Suet. Aug. 29) might with greater propriety have been uttered by Agrippa. He was again called away to take command of the fleet when the war with Antony broke out. The victory at Actium (31), which gave the mastery of Rome and the empire of the world to Octavian, was mainly due to Agrippa. As a token of signal regard Octavian bestowed upon him the hand of his niece Marcella (28). We must suppose that his wife Pomponia was either dead or divorced. In 27 Agrippa was consul for the third time, and in the following year the senate bestowed upon Octavian the emperial title of Augustus. Probably in commemoration of the battle of Actium, Agrippa built and dedicated the Pantheum still in existence as La Rotonda. The inscription on the portico states that it was erected by him during his third consulship. His friendship with Augustus seems to have been clouded by the jealousy of his father-in-law Marcellus, which was probably fomented by the intrigues of Livia, the second wife of Augustus, who feared his influence with her husband. The result was that Agrippa left Rome, ostensibly to take over the governorship of Syria --a sort of honourable exile; but as a matter of fact he only sent his legate to the East, while he himself remained at Lesbos. On the death of Marcellus, which took place within a year, he was recalled to Rome by Augustus, who found he could not dispense with his services. It is said that by the advice of Maecenas he resolved to attach Agrippa still more closely to him by making him his son-in-law. He accordingly induced him to divorce Marcella and marry his daughter Julia (21), the widow of Marcellus, equally celebrated for her beauty and abilities and her shameless profligacy. In 19 Agrippa was employed in putting down a rising of the Cantabrians in Spain. He was appointed governor of Syria a second time (17), where his just and prudent administration won him the respect and good-will of the provincials, especially the Hebrew population. His last public service was the bloodless suppression of an insurrection in Pannonia (13). He died at Campania in March of the year following his fifty-first year. Augustus honoured his memory by a magnificent funeral.

Agrippa was also known as a writer, especially on geography. Under his supervision Julius Caesar's design of having a complete survey of the empire made was carried out. From the materials at hand he constructed a circular chart, which was engraved on marble by Augustus and afterwards placed in the colonnade built by his sister Polla. Amongst his writings an autobiography, now lost, is referred to. Agrippa left several children; by Pomponia, a daughter Vipsania, who became the wife of the emperor Tiberius; by Julia three sons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar and Agrippa Postumus, and two daughters, Agrippina the elder, afterwards the wife of Germanicus, and Julia, who married Lucius Aemihus Pauilus.

See Dio Cassius xlix.-liv.; Suetonius, Augustus; Velleius Paternulus ii.; Josephus, Antiq. Jud. xv. 10, xvi. 2; Turnbull, Three Dissertations, one of the characters of Horace, Augustus and Agrippa (1740); Frandsen, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (1836); Motte, Etude sur Marcus Agrippa (1872); Nispi-Landi, Marcus Agrippa e suoi tempi (1901); D. Detlefsen, Ursprung, Einrichtung und Bedeutung der Erdkarte Agrippas (1906); V. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit, vol. i. 762 foll., ii. 432 foll.

AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, HENRY CORNELIUS (1486-1535) German writer, soldier, physician, and by common reputation a magician, belonged to a family many members of which had been in the service of the house of Habsburg, and was born at Cologne on the 14th of September 1486. The details of his early life are somewhat obscure, but he appears to have obtained a knowledge of eight languages, to have studied at the university of Cologne and to have passed some time in France. When quite young he entered the service of the German king, Maximilian I., and in 1508 was engaged in an adventurous enterprise in Catalonia. He probably served Maximilian both as soldier and as secretary, but his wonderful and varied genius was not satisfied with these occupations, and he soon began to take a lively interest in theosophy and magic. In 1509 he went to the university of Dole, where he lectured on John Reuchlin's De Verbo Mirifico, but his teaching soon caused charges of heresy to be brought against him, and he was denounced by a monk named John Catilinet in lectures delivered at Ghent. As a result Agrippa was compelled to leave Dole; proceeding to the Netherlands he took service again with Maximilian. In 1510 the king sent him on a diplomatic mission to England, where he was the guest of Colet, dean of St Paul's, and where he replied to the accusations brought against him by Catilinet. Returning to Cologne he followed Maximilian to Italy in 1511, and as a theologian attended the council of Pisa, which was called by some cardinals in opposition to a council called by Pope Julius II. He remained in Italy for seven years, partly in the service of William VI., marquis of Monferrato, and partly in that of Charles III., duke of Savoy, probably occupied in teaching theology and practising medicine.

In 1515 he lectured at the university of Pavia on the Pimander of Hermes Trismegistus, but these lectures were abruptly terminated owing to the victories of Francis I., king of France. In 1518 the efforts of one or other of his patrons secured for Agrippa the position of town advocate and orator, or syndic, at Metz. Here, as at Dole, his opinions soon brought him into collision with the monks, and his defence of a woman accused of witchcraft involved him in a dispute with the inquisitor, Nicholas Savin. The consequence of this was that in 1520 he resigned his office and returned to Cologne, where he stayed about two years. He then practised for a short time as a physician at Geneva and Freiburg, but in 1524 went to Lyons on being appointed physician to Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. In 1528 he gave up this position, and about this time was invited to take part in the dispute over the legality of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon by Henry VIII.; but he preferred an offer made by Margaret, duchess of Savoy and regent of the Netherlands, and became archivist and historiographer to the emperor Charles V. Margaret's death in 1530 weakened his position, and the publication of some of his writings about the same time aroused anew the hatred of his enemies; but after suffering a short imprisonment for debt at Brussels he lived at Cologne and Bonn, under the protection of Hermann of Wied, archbishop of Cologne. By publishing his works he brought himself into antagonism with the Inquisition, which sought to stop the printing of De occulta philosophia. He then went to France, where he was arrested by order of Francis I. for some disparaging words about the queen-mother; but he was soon released, and on the 18th of February 1535 died at Grenoble. He was married three times and had a large family. Agrippa was a man of great ability and undoubted courage, but he lacked perseverance and was himself responsible for many of his misfortunes. In spite of his inquiring nature and his delight in novelty, he remained a Catholic, and had scant sympathy with the teaching of the reformers. His memory was nevertheless long defamed in the writings of the monks, who placed a malignant inscription over his grave. Agrippa's work, De occulta philosophia, was written about 1510, partly under the influence of the author's friend, John Trithemius, abbot of Wurzburg, but its publication was delayed until 1531, when it appeared at Antwerp. It is a defence of magic, by means of which men may come to a knowledge of nature and of God, and contains Agrippa's idea of the universe with its three worlds or spheres. His other principal work, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium Atque Excellentia Verbi Dei Declamatio, was written about 1527 and published at Antwerp in 1531. This is a sarcastic attack on the existing sciences and on the pretensions of learned men. In it Agrippa denounces the accretions which had grown up around the simple doctrines of Christianity, and wishes for a return to the primitive belief of the early Christian church. He also wrote De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Deminei Sexus, dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy, De Matrimonii Sacramento and other smaller works. An edition of his works was published at Leiden in 1550 and they have been republished several times. See H. Morley, Life of H. C. Agrippa (London, 1856); A. Prost, Les Sciences at les arts occultes au xvi. Siecle: Corneille Agrippa sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1881); A. Daguet, Cornelius Agrippa (Paris, 1856).

AGRIPPINA, the ``elder,'' daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa by his third wife Julia, was the grand-daughter of Augustus and the wife of Germanicus. She accompanied her husband to Germany, when the legions on the Rhine revolted after the death of Augustus (A.D. 14). Three years later she was in the East with Germanicus (q.v.), who died at Antioch in 19, poisoned, it was said, by order of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, governor of Syria. Eager to avenge his death, she returned to Rome and boldly accused Piso of the murder of Germanicus. To avoid public infamy Piso committed suicide. Tiberius and his favourite Sejanus feared that her ambition might lead her to attempt to secure the throne for her children, and she was banished to the island of Pandataria off the coast of Campania, where she died on the 18th of October 33, starved to death by herself, or, according to some, by order of Tiberius. Two of her sons, Nero and Drusus, had already fallen victims to the machinations cf Sejanus. Agrippina had a large family by Germanicus, several of whom died young, while only two are of importance-- Agrippina the ``younger'' and Gaius Caesar, who succeeded Tiberius under the name of Caligula. It is remarkable that, although Tiberius had ordored the execution of his elder brothers, by his will he left Caligula one of the heirs of the empire. Agrippina was a woman of the highest character and exemplary morality. There is a portrait of her in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, and a bronze medal in the British Museum representing the bringing back of her ashes to Rome by order of Caligula.

See Tac. Ann. i.-vi.; Suetonius, Tiberius, 53; Dio Cassius lvii. 6, lviii. 22, lix. 3; Elizabeth Hamilton, Memoirs of the Life of Agrippina (1804): Burkhard, Agrippina, des Agrippa Tochter (1846); Stahr, Romische Kaiserfrauen (1880).

AGRIPPINA, the ``younger'' (A.D. 16-59), daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina the elder, sister of Caligula and mother of Nero, was born at Oppidum Ubiorum on the Rhine, afterwards named in her honour Colonia Agrippinae (mod. Cologne). Her life was notorious for intrigue and perfidy. By her first husband, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, she was the mother of the emperor Nero; her second husband was Passienus Crispus, whom she was accused of poisoning. Assisted by the influential freedman Tallas, she induced her uncle the emperor Claudius to marry her after the death of Messalina, and adopt the future Nero as heir to the throne in place of Britannicus. Soon afterwards she poisoned Claudius and secured the throne for her son, with the intention of practically ruling on his behalf. Being alarmed at the influence of the freedwoman Acte over Nero, sbe threatened to support the claims of the rightful heir Britannicus. Nero thereupon murdered the young prince and decided to get rid of his mother. Pretending a reconciliation, he invited her to Baiae, where an attempt was made to drown her on a vessel especially constructed to founder. As this proved a failure, he had her put to death at her country house. Agrippina wrote memoirs of her times, referred to by Tacitus (Ann. iv. 53). Her character is set forth in Racine's Britannicus.

See Tac.Ann. xii., xiii., xiv.; Dio Cassius lix.-lxi.; Suetonius, NERO, 34; Stahr, Agrippina. die Mutter Neros (1880); Raffay, Die Memoiren der Kaiserin Agrippina (1884); B. W. Henderson, The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (1903); also article NERO.

AGROTERAS THUSIA, an annual festival held at Agrae near Athens, in honour of Artemis Agrotera, in fulfilment of a vow made by the city, before the battle of Marathon, to offer in sacrifice a number of goats equal to that of the Persians slain in the conflict. The number being so great, it was decided to offer 100 goats yearly.

See Plutarch, De Malignitate Herodoti, 26; Xenophon, Anab. iii. 2. 12; Aelian, Var. Hist. ii. 25; Schol. on Aristophanes, Equites, 660.

AGUADILLA, a town and port near the northern extremity of the W. coast of Porto Rico. Pop. (1899) 6425. It has a fairly good and safe anchorage, and is the commercial outlet for a very fertile agricultural district. The town is attractively situated and well built, and is connected by railway with Mayaguez, 20 m. distant, and also with Ponce and San Juan. The neighbouring district produces sugar-cane, tobacco, cattle, cocoanuts, oranges and lemons. The bay is supposed to have been first visited by Columbus (November 1493), though the town was not founded until 1775.

AGUADO, ALEXANDRE MARIE, marquis de Las Marismas del Guadalquivir, viscount de Monte Ricco (1784-1842), Spanish banker, was born of Jewish parentage at Seville, on the 29th of June 1784. He began life as a soldier, fighting with distinction in the Spanish war of independence on the side of Joseph Bonaparte. After the battle of Baylen (1808) he entered the French army, in which he rose to be colonel and aide-de-camp to Marshal Soult. He was exiled in 1815, and immediately started business as a commission-agent in Paris, where, chiefly through his family connexions in Havana and Mexico, he acquired in a few years enough wealth to enable him to undertake banking. The Spanish government gave him full powers to negotiate the loans of 1823, 1828, 1830 and 1831; and Ferdinand VII. rewarded him with the title of marquis, the decorations of several orders and valuable mining concessions in Spain. Aguado also negotiated the Greek loan of 1834. In 1828, having become possessed of large estates in France, including the chateau Margaux, famous for its wine, he was naturalized as a French citizen. He died at Gijon in Spain on the 14th of April 1842, leaving a fortune computed at 60,000,000 francs, and a splendid collection of pictures which at his death was bought by the French government.

AGUASCALIENTES, an inland state of Mexico, bounded N., E. and W. by the state of Zacatecas, and S. by Jalisco. Pop. (est. 1900) 102,416, a gradual decrease since the census years of 1895 and 1879; area, 2970 sq. m. The state occupies an elevated plateau, extending from two spurs of the Sierra Madre, called the Sierra Fria and Sierra de Laurel, eastward to the rolling fertile plains of its eastern and south-eastern districts. It is well watered by numerous small streams and one larger river, the Aguascalientes or Rio Grande, and has a mild healthy climate with a moderate rainfall. The fertile valleys of the north and west are devoted to agriculture and the plains to stockraising. Indian corn, flour, cattle, horses, mules and hides are exported to the neighbouring states. Mining industries are still undeveloped, but considerable progress has been made in manufactures, especially of textile fabrics. The state has good railway communications and a prosperous trade. The capital, Aguascalientes, named from the medicinal hot springs near it, is a flourishing commercial and manufacturing city. Pop. (est. 1900) 35,052. It has cotton factories, smelting works, potteries. tanneries, distilleries, and wagon and tobacco factories. It is a station on the Mexican Central railway, 364 m. by rail north-west of the city of Mexico, and is connected by rail with Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico. The city is well built, has many fine churches and good public buildings, street cars and electric lights. The surrounding district is well cultivated and produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables. Other prominent towns of the state are Rincon de Romos (or Victoria de Calpulalpam), Asientos de Ibarra and Calvillo, the first having more and the others less than 5000 inhabitants.

AGUE (from Lat. acuta, sharp; sc. febris, fever), the common name given to a form or stage of malarial disease; the ague fit is the cold, shivering stage, and hence the word is also loosely used for any such paroxysm. Simple ague is of much the same type whether in temperate or tropical climates, and may take various forms (quotidian, tertian, quartan), passing into ``remittent fever.'' The symptoms are discussed, together with causation, &c., in the article MALARIA. For ``brow-ague'' see NEURALGIA.

AGUESSEAU, HENRI FRANCOIS D' (1668-1751), chancellor of France, illustrious for his virtues, learning and talents, was born at Limoges, of a family of the magistrature. His father, Henri d' Aguesseau, a hereditary councillor of the parlement of Metz, was a man of singular ability and breadth of view who, after holding successively the posts of intendant of Limousin, Guyenne and Languedoc, was in 1685 called to Paris as councillor of state, appointed director-general of commerce and manufactures in 1695, president of the council of commerce in 1700 and a member of the council of the regency for finance. By him Francois d'Aguesseau was early initiated into affairs and brought up in religious principles deeply tinged with Jansenism. He studied law under Jean Domat, whose influence is apparent in both the legal writings and legislative work of the chancellor. When little more than twenty-one years of age he was, through his father's influence with the king, appointed one of the three advocates-general to the parlement of Paris; and the eloquence and learning which he displayed in his first speech gained him a very high reputation. D'Aguesseau was in fact the first great master of forensic eloquence in France.

In 1700 he was appointed procurator-general; and in this office, which he filled for seventeen years, he gained the greatest popularity by his defence of the rights of the Gallican Church in the Quietist troubles and in those connected with the bull Unigenitus (see JANSENISM.) In February 1717 he was made chancellor by the regent Orleans; but was deprived of the seals in January of the following year and exiled to his estate of Fresnos in Brie, on account of his steady opposition to the projects of the famous John Law, which had been adopted by the regent and his ministers. In June 1720 he was recalled to satisfy public opinion; and he contributed not a little by the firmness and sagacity of his counsels to calm the public disturbance and repair the mischief which had been done. Law himself had acted as the messenger of his recall; and it is said that d'Aguesseau's consent to accept the seals from his hand greatly diminished his popularity. The parlement continuing its opposition to the registering of the bull UNIGENITUS, d'Aguesseau, fearing a schism and a religious war in France, assisted Guillaume Dubois, the favourite of the regent, in his endeavour to force the parlement to register the bull, acquiesced in the exile of the magistrates and allowed the Great Council to assume the power of registration, which legally belonged to the parlement alone. The people unjustly attributed his conduct to a base compliance with the favourite. He certainly opposed Dubois in other matters; and when Dubois became chief minister d'Aguesseau was deprived of his office (March 1, 1722).

He retired to his estate, where he passed five years of which he always spoke with delight. The Scriptures, which he read and compared in various languages, and the jurisprudence of his own and other countries, formed the subjects of his more serious studies; the rest of his time was devoted to philosophy, literature and gardening. From these occupations he was recalled to court by the advice of Cardinal Fleury in 1727, and on the 15th of August was named chancellor for the third time, but the seals were not restored to him till ten years later. During these years he endeavoured to mediate in the disputes between the court and the parlement. When he was at last reinstated in office, he completely withdrew from all political affairs, and devoted himself entirely to his duties as chancellor and to the achievement of those reforms which had long occupied his thoughts. He aimed, as others had tried before him, to draw up in a single code all the laws of France, but was unable to accomplish his task. Besides some important enactments regarding donations, testaments and successions, he introduced various regulations for improving the forms of procedure, for ascertaining the limits of jurisdictions and for effecting a greater uniformity in the execution of the laws throughout the several provinces. These reforms constitute an epoch in the history of French jurisprudence, and have placed the name of d'Aguesseau in the same rank with those of L'Hopital and Lamoignon. As a magistrate also he was so conscientious that the duc de Saint-Simon in his Memoirs complained that he spent too much time over the cases that came before him.

In 1750, when upwards of eighty-two years of age, d'Aguesseau retired from the duties without giving up the rank of chancellor. He died on the 9th of February of the following year.

His grandson, HENRI CARDIN JEAN BAPTISTE, MARQUIS D'AGUESSEAU (1746-1826), was advocate-general in the parlement of Paris and deputy in the Estates-General. Under the Consulate he became president of the court of appeal and later minister at Copenhaaen. He was elected to the French Academy in 1787.

Of d'Aguesseau's works the most complete edition is that of the eminent lawyer Jean Marie Pardessus, published in 16 vols. (1818-1820); his letters were edited separately by Rives (1823); a selection of his works, OEuvres Choisies, was issued, with a biographical notice, by E. Falconnet in 2 vols. (Paris, 1865). The far greater part of his works relate to matters connected with his profession, hut they also contain an elaborate treatise on money; several theological essays; a life of his father, which is interesting from the account which it gives of his own early education; and Metaphysical Meditations, written to prove that, independently of all revelation and all positive law, there is that in the constitution of the human mind which renders man a law to himself.

See Boullee, Histoire de la vie et les ouvrages de chancelier d'Aguesseau (Paris, 1835); Fr. Monnier, Le Chancelier d'Aguesseau (Paris, 1860; 2nd ed., 1863); Charles Butler, Mem. of Life of H. F. d'Aguesseau, &c. (1830).

AGUILAR, GRACE (1816-1847), English writer, the daughter of a Jewish merchant in London, was born in June 1816. Her works consist chiefly of religious fiction, such as The Vale of Cedars (1850) and Home Influence (1847). She also wrote, in defence of her faith and its professors, The Spirit of Judaism (1842) and other works. Her services were acknowledged gratefully by the ``women of Israel'' in a testimonial which they presented shortly before her death, which took place at Frankfort-on-the-Main on the 16th of September 1847.

AGUILAR, or AGUILAR DE LA FRONTERA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Cordova; near the small river Cabra, and on the Cordova-Malaga railway. Pop. (1900) 13,236. Aguilar ``of the Frontier'' was so named in the middle ages from its position on the border of the Moorish territories, which were defended by the castle of Anzur, now a ruin; but the spacious squares and modern houses of the existing town retain few vestiges of Moorish dominion. The olives and white wine of Aguilar are celebrated in Spain, although the wine, which somewhat resembles sherry, is known as Montilla, from the adjacent town of that name. Salt springs exist in the neighbourhood, and to the south there are two small lakes, Zonar and Rincon, which abound in fish.

AGUILAS, a seaport of south-eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia, on the Mediterranean Sea, at the terminus of a railway from Huercal-Overa. Pop. (1900) 15,868. Aguilas is built on the landward side of a small peninsula, between two bays--the Puerto Ponente, a good harbour, on the south-west, and the Puerto Levanto, which is somewhat dangerous to shipping in rough weather, on the north-east. It is the chief outlet for the Spanish trade in esparto grass, and for the iron ore and other mineral products of the neighbourhood. It has also some trade in fruit and grain. The imports consist chiefly of coal. In 1904, 296 vessels, of 238,274 tons, cleared at this port.

AGUILERA, VENTURA RUIZ (1820-1881), Spanish poet, was born in 1820 at Salamanca, where he graduated in medicine. He removed to Madrid in 1844, engaged in journalism and won considerable popularity with a collection of poems entitled Ecos Nacionales (1849). His Elegias y armonias (1863) was no less successful, but his Satiras (1874) and Estaciones del ano (1879) showed that his powers were declining. He wrote under the obvious influence of Lamartine, preaching the gospel of liberalism and Christianity in verses which, though deficient in force, leave the impression of a sincere devotion and a charming personality. He became director of the national archaeological museum at Madrid, where he died on the 1st of July 1881.

AGUILLON (AGUILONIUS), FRANCOIS D, (1566-1617), Flemish mathematician. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1586, he was successively professor of philosophy at Douai and rector of the Jesuit College at Antwerp. He wrote a treatise on optics in six books (Antwerp, 1613), notable for containing the principles of stereographic projection.

AHAB (in Heb. ``father's brother''), king of Israel, the son and successor of Omri, ascended the throne about 875 B.C. (1 Kings xvi. 29-34). He married Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Sidon, and the alliance was doubtless the means of procuring him great riches, which brought pomp and luxury in their train. We read of his building an ivory palace and founding new cities, the effect perhaps of a share in the flourishing commerce of Phoenicia.1 The material prosperity of his reign, which is comparable with that of Solomon a century before, was overshadowed by the religious changes which his marriage involved. Although he was a worshipper of Yahweh, as the names of his children prove (cp. also xxii. 5 seq.), his wife was firmly attached to the worship of the Tyrian Baal, Melkart, and led by her he gave a great impulse to this cult by building a temple in honour of Baal in Samaria. This roused the indignation of those prophets whose aim it was to purify the worship of Yahweh (see ELIJAH.) During Ahab's reign Moab, which had been conquered by his father, remained tributary; Judah, with whose king, Jehoshaphat, he was allied by marriage, was probably his vassal; only with Damascus is he said to have had strained relations. The one event mentioned by external sources is the battle at Karkar (perhaps Apamea), where Shalmaneser II. of Assyria fought a great confederation of princes from Cilicia, N. Syria, Israel, Ammon and the tribes of the Syrian desert (854 B.C..) Here Ahabbu Sir'lai (Ahab the Israelite) with Baasha, son of Ruhub (Rehob) of Ammon and nine others are allied with Bir-'idri (Ben-hadad), Ahab's contribution being reckoned at 2000 chariots and 10,000 men. The numbers are comparatively large and possibly include forces from Tyre, Judah, Edom and Moab. The Assyrian king claimed a victory, but his immediate return and subsequent expeditions in 849 and 846 against a similar but unspecified coalition seem to show that he met with no lasting success. According to the Old Testament narratives, however, Ahab with 7000 troops had previously overthrown Ben-hadad and his thirty-two kings, who had come to lay siege to Samaria, and in the following year obtained a remarkable victory over him at Aphek, probably in the plain of Sharon (1 Kings xx.) . A treaty was made whereby Ben-hadad restored the cities which his father had taken from Ahab's father (i.e. Omri, but see xv. 20, 2 Kings xiii. 25), and trading facilities between Damascus and Samaria were granted. A late popular story (xx. 35-42, akin in tone to xii. 33-xiii. 34) condemned Ahab for his leniency and foretold the destruction of the king and his land. Three years later, war broke out on the east of Jordan, and Ahab with Jehoshaphat of Judah went to recover Ramoth-Gilead and was mortally wounded (xxii.). He was succeeded by his sons (Ahaziah and Jehoram).

It is very difficult to obtain any clear idea of the order of these events (LXX. places 1 Kings xxi. immediately after xix.). How the hostile kings of Israel and Syria came to fight a common enemy, and how to correlate the Assyrian and Biblical records, are questions which have perplexed all recent writers. The reality of the difficulties will be apparent from the fact that it has been suggested that the Assyrian scribe wrote ``Ahab'' for his son ``Jehoram'' (Kamphausen, Chronol. d. hebr. Kon., Kittel), and that the very identification of the name with Ahab of Israel has been questioned (Horner, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 1898, p. 244).2 Whilst the above passages in 1 Kings view Ahab not unfavourably, there are others which give a less friendly picture. The tragic murder of Naboth (see JEZEBEL), an act of royal encroachment, stirred up popular resentment just as the new cult aroused the opposition of certain of the prophets. The latter found their champion in Elijah, whose history reflects the prophetic teaching of more than one age. (See KINGS.) His denunciation of the royal dynasty, and his emphatic insistence on the worship of Yahweh and Yahweh alone, form the keynote to a period which culminated in the accession of Jehu, an event in which Elijah's chosen disciple Elisha was the leading figure.

The allusions to the statutes and works of Omri and Ahab in Mic. vi. 16 may point to legislative measures of these kings, and the reference to the incidents at the building of Jericho (1 Kings xvi. 34) may be taken to show that foundation sacrifices, familiar in nearly all parts of the world, were not unknown in Israel at this period.3 This has in fact been confirmed by excavation in Palestine.

Another Ahab is known only as an impious prophet in the time of the Babylonian exile (Jer. xxix. 21). (S. A. C.)

1 Ahab's ivory palace found its imitators (1 Kings xxii. 39; Am. iii. 15). The ivory was probably brought by the Phoenicians from Cyprus or from one of the works on the coast of Asia Minor.

2 See the discussions by Cheyne, Ency. Bib. col. 91 seq., and by Whitehouse, Dict Bib. i. 53.

3 See Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, pp. 46 sqq.; Haddon, Study of Man, pp. 347 sqq.; P. Sartori, Zeitschr. fur Ethnologie, 1898, pp. 1 seq.

'AHAI, of Sabha, an 8th-century Talmudist of high renown. He was author of Quaestiones (Sheiltoth), a collection of homilies (at once learned and popular) on Jewish law and ethics. This is recorded to have been the first work written by a Jewish scholar after the completion of the Talmud.

AHASUERUS (the Latinized form of the Hebrew shin vav resh tsareh vav shvah shin patach heth patach aleph; in LXX. `Assoueros, once in Tobit `Asueros)), a royal Persian or Median name occurring in three of the books of the Old Testament and in one of the books of the Apocrypha. In every case the identification of the person named is a matter of controversy.

In Dan. ix. 1 Ahasuerus is the father of Darius the Mede, who ``was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans'' after the conquest of Babylon and death of Belshazzar. Who this Darius was is one of the most difficult questions in ancient history. Nabonidos (Nabunaid, Nabu-nahid) was immediately succeeded by Cyrus, who ruled the whole Persian empire. Darius may possibly have acted under Cyrus as governor of Babylon, but this view is not favoured by Dan. vi. 1, vi. 25, for Darius (v. 31) is said to have been sixty-two years old at the time (638 B.C.) . This would make him contemporary with Nebuchadrezzar, which agrees with Tob. xiv. 15, where we read ``of the destruction of Nineveh, which Nebuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus took captive.'' As a matter of fact, however, Cyaxares and Nabopolassar were the conquerors of Nineveh, and the latter was the father of Nebuchadrezzar. Cyrus did, on ascending the throne of Babylon, appoint a governor of the province, but his name was Gobryas, the son of Mardonius. The truth is, no doubt, as Prof. Sayce points out, that the book of Daniel was not meant to be strictly historical. As Prof. Driver says, ``tradition, it can hardly be doubted, has here confused persons and events in reality distinct'' (Literature of the Old Test. (6) p. 500).

In Ezra iv. 6 Ahasuerus is mentioned as a king of Persia, to whom the enemies of the Jews sent representations opposing the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. Here the sequence of the reigns in the Biblical writer and in the profane historians-- in the one, Cyrus, Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes, Darius; in the other, Cyrus, Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius--led in the past (Ewald, &c.) to the identification of Ahasuerus with Cambyses (529--522 B.C.), son of Cyrus. The name Khshayarsha, however, has been found in Persian inscriptions, and has been thought to be equivalent to the Xerxes (485-465 B.C.) of the Greeks. On Babylonian tablets both the forms Khishiarshu and Akkashiarshi occur amongst others. Modern scholars, therefore, identify the Ahasuerus of Ezra with Xerxes.

In the book of Esther the king of Persia is called Ahasuerus (rendered in LXX. ``Artaxerxes'' throughout). The identification of Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I. Longimanus, the son and successor of Xerxes, though countenanced by Josephus, deserves little consideration. Most students are agreed that he must be a monarch of the Achaemenian dynasty, earlier than Artaxerxes I.; and opinion is divided between Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes. In support of the former view it is alleged, among other things, that Darius was the first Persian king of whom it could be said, as in Esther i. 1, that he ``reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces''; and that it was also the distinction of Darius that (Esther x. 1) he laid ``a tribute upon the land and upon the isles of the sea'' (cf. Herod. iii. 89). In support of the identification with Xerxes it is alleged (1) that the Hebrew Ahashverosh is the natural equivalent of the old Persian Khshayarsha, the true name of Xerxes; (2) that there is a striking similarity of character between the Xerxes of Herodotus and the Ahasuerus of Esther; (3) that certain coincidences in dates and events corroborate this identity, as, e.g., the feast in the king's third year (cf. Esther i. 3 with Herod. vii. 8), the return of Xerxes to Susa in the seventh year of his reign and the marriage of Ahasuerus at Shushan in the same year of his. To this it may be added that the interval of four years between the divorce of Vashti and the marriage of Esther is well accounted for by the intervention of an important series of events fully occupying the monarch's thoughts, such as the invasion of Greece.

See articles ``Ahasuerus'' in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, Hastings' Dictionary, the Jewish Encyclopaedis; S. R. Driver, Introd. to the Lit. of the Old Test.; Friedrich Delitzsch in the Calwer Bibellexikon (1893).

AHAZ (Heb. for ``[Yahweh] holds''), son of Jotham, grandson of Uzziah or Azariah and king of Judah. After the death of Menahem, Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin (rather Rasun), king of Syria, allied against Assyria, invaded Judah, and laid siege to Jerusalem in the hope of setting up one of their puppets upon the throne. At the same time the Edomites recovered Elath on the Gulf of Akabah (so read in 2 Kings xvi. 6; cp. also 2 Chron. xxviii. 16 sqq.) and Judah was isolated. Notwithstanding the counsel of Isaiah (Is. vii. 1-17), Ahaz lost heart and used the temple funds to call in the aid of Tiglath-pileser IV., who after attacking the Philistines destroyed the power of Syria, taking care to exact heavy tribute from Judah, which led to further despoliation of the temple. It was as a vassal that Ahaz presented himself to the Assyrian king at Damascus, and he brought back religious innovations (2 Kings xvi. 10 sqq.; for the priest Urijah see Is. viii. 2) and new ideas to which he proceeded to give effect. His buildings are referred to in 2 Kings xx. 11, xxiii. 12; cf. perhaps Jer. xxii. 15: ``art thou a true king because thou viest with Ahaz'' (see the LXX.). Ahaz was succeeded by his son Hezekiah.

On the ritual changes which he introduced see W. R. Smith, Relig. of Semites (2), pp. 485 sqq.; and on his reign, idem, Prophets of Israel (2), pp. 415 sqq. On 2 Kings xvi. 3 (cf. 2 Chron. xxviii. 3) see Moloch. See further Isaiah and Jews.

AHAZIAH (``he whom Yahweh sustains''), the name of two kings in the Bible, one of Israel, the other of Judah. (1) Ahaziah, 8th king of Israel, was the son and successor of Ahab, and reigned for less than two years. On his accession the Moabites refused any longer to pay tribute. Ahaziah lost his life through a fall from the lattice of an upper room in his palace, and it is stated that in his illness he sent to consult the oracle of Baal-zebub at Ekron; his messengers, however, were met by Elijah, who bade them return and tell the king he must die (e Kings i. 2-17; cf. Luke ix. 54-56). (2) Ahaziah, 6th king of Judah, was the son cf Jehoram and Ahab's daughter Athaliah, and reigned one year. He is described as a wicked and idolatrous king, and was slain by Jehu, son of Nimshi. He is variously called Jehoahaz and Azariah.

AHENOBARBUS (``brazen-bearded''), the name cf a plebeian Roman family of the gens Domitia. The name was derived from the red beard and hair by which many of the family were distinguished. Amongst its members the following may be mentioned:--

GNAEUS DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, tribune of the people 104 B.C., brought forward a law (lex Domitia de Sacerdotiis) by which the priests of the superior colleges were to be elected by the people in the comitia tributa (seventeen of the tribes voting) instead of by co-optation; the law was repealed by Sulla, revived by Julius Caesar and (perhaps) again repealed by Marcus Antonius, the triumvir (Cicero, De Lege Agraria, ii. 7; Suetonius, Nero, 2). Ahenobarbus was elected pontifex maximus in 103, consul in 96 and censor in 92 with Lucius Licinius Crassus the orator, with whom he was frequently at variance. They took joint action, however, in suppressing the recently established Latin rhetorical schools, which they regarded as injurious to public morality (Aulus Gellius xv. 11).

LUCIUS DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, son of the above, husband of Porcia the sister of Cato Uticensis, friend of Cicero and enemy of Caesar, and a strong supporter of the aristocratical party. At first strongly opposed to Pompey, he afterwards sided with him against Caesar. He was consul in 54 B.C., and in 49 he was appointed by the senate to succeed Caesar as governor of Gaul. After the outbreak of the civil war he commanded the Pompeian troops at Corfinium, but was obliged to surrender. Although treated with great generosity by Caesar, he stirred up Massilia (Marseilles) to an unsuccessful resistance against him. After its surrender, he joined Pompey in Greece and was slain in the flight after the battle of Pharsalus, in which he commanded the right wing against Antony (Caesar, Bellum Civile, i., ii., iii.; Dio Cassius xxxix., xli.; Appian, B.C. ii. 82).

GNAEUS DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, son of the above, accompanied his father at Corfinium and Pharsalus, and, having been pardoned by Caesar, returned to Rome in 46. After Caesar's assassination he attached himself to Brutus and Cassius, and in 43 was condemned by the lex Pedia as having been implicated in the plot. He obtained considerable naval successes in the Ionian Sea against the triumvirate, but finally, through the mediation of Asinius Pollio, became reconciled to Antony, who made him governor of Bithynia. He took part in Antony's Parthian campaigns, and was consul in 32. When war broke out between Antony and Octavian, he at first supported Antony, but, disgusted with his intrigue with Cleopatra, went over to Octavian shortly before the battle of Actium (31). He died soon afterwards (Dio Cassius xlviii.-l; Appian, Bell. Civ. iv., v.). His son was married to Antonia, daughter of Antony, and became the grandfather of the emperor Nero.

See Drumann, Geschichte Rom., 2nd ed. by Groebe,vol. iii. pp.14 ff.

AHITHOPHEL (Heb. for ``brother of foolishness,'' i.e. foolish!), a man of Judah whose son was a member of David's bodyguard. He was possibly the grandfather of Bathsheiba (see 2 Sam. xi. 3, xxiii. 34), a view which has been thought to have some bearing on his policy. He was one of David's most trusted advisers, and his counsel was ``as though one inquired of the word of God.'' He took a leading part in Absalom's revolt, and his defection was a severe blow to the king, who prayed that God would bring his counsel to ``foolishness.''

The subsequent events are rather obscure. At Ahithophel's advice Absalom first took the precaution of asserting his claim to the throne by seizing his father's concubines (cf. ABNER.) The immediate pursuit of David was then suggested; the advice was accepted, and the sequence of events shows that the king, being warned of this, fled across the Jordan (2 Sam. xvi. 20-23, xvii. 1-4, 22). Inconsistent with this is the account of the intervention of Hushai, whose counsel of delay (in order to gather all Israel ``from Dan to Beersheba''), in spite of popular approbation, was not adopted, and with this episode is connected the tradition that the sagacious counsellor returned to his home and, having disposed of his estate, hanged himself. Instances of suicide are rare in the Old Testament (cf. SAUL), and it is noteworthy that in this case, at least, a burial was not refused. (See further ABSALOM; DAVID; SAMUEL, BOOKS OF.)

AHMAD IBN HANBAL (780-855), the founder, involuntarily and after his death, of the Hanbalite school of canon law, was born at Bagdad in A.H. 164 (A.D. 780) of parents from Merv but of Arab stock. He studied the Koran and its traditions (hadith, sunna) there and on a student journey through Mesopotamia, Arabia and Syria. After his return to Bagdad he studied under ash-Shafi'i between 195 and 198, and became, for his life, a devoted Shafi-'ite. But his position in both theology and law was more narrowly traditional than that of ash-Shafi'i; he rejected all reasoning, whether orthodox or heretical in its conclusions, and stood for acceptance on tradition (naql) only from the Fathers. (See further on this, MAHOMMEDAN RELIGION and MAHOMMEDAN LAW.) In consequence, when al-Ma'mun and, after him, al-Mo'tasim and al-Wathio tried to force upon the people the rationalistic Mo'tazihte doctrine that the Koran was created, Ibn Hanbal, the most prominent and popular theologian who stood for the old view, suffered with others grievous imprisonment and scourging. In 234, under al-Motawakkil, the Koran was finally decreed uncreated, and Ibn Hanbal, who had come through this trial better than any of the other theologians, enjoyed an immense popularity with the mass of the people as a saint, confessor and ascetic. He died at Bagdad in 241 (A.D. 855) and was buried there. There was much popular excitement at his funeral, and his tomb was known and visited until at least the 14th century A.D.

On his great work, the Musnad, a collection of some thirty thousand selected traditions, see Goldzther in ZDMG, l. 463 ff. For his life and works generally see W. M. Patten, Ahmed ibn Hanbal and the Mihna; C. Browkelmann, Geschichte der Arab. Lit. i. 181 ff.; F Wustenfeld, Schfai'iten, 55 ff.; M`G. de Slane's transl. of Ibn Khallikan, i. 44 ff.; Macdonald, Development of Muslim Theology, 110, 157, index. (D. B. MA.)

AHMAD SHAH (1724-1773), founder of the Durani dynasty in Afghanistan, was the son of Sammaun-Khan, hereditary chief of the Abdali tribe. While still a boy Ahmad fell into the hands of the hostile tribe of Ghilzais, by whom he was kept prisoner at Kandahar. In March 1738 he was rescued by Nadir Shah, who soon afterwards gave him the command of a body of cavalry composed chiefly of Abdalis. On the assassination of Nadir in 1747, Ahmad, having failed in an attempt to seize the Persian treasures, retreated to Afghanistan, where he easily persuaded the native tribes to assert their independence and accept him as their sovereign. He was crowned at Kandahar in October 1747, and about the same time he changed the name of his tribe to Durani. Two things may be said to have contributed greatly to the consolidation of his power. He interfered as little as possible with the independence of the different tribes, demanding from each only its due proportion of tribute and military service; and he kept his army constantly engaged in brilliant schemes of foreign conquest. Being possessed of the Koh-i-noor diamond, and being fortunate enough to intercept a consignment of treasure on its way to the shah of Persia, he had all the advantages which great wealth can give. He first crossed the Indus in 1748, when he took Lahore; and in 1751, after a feeble resistance on the part of the Mahommedan viceroy, he became master of the entire Punjab. In 1750 he took Nishapur, and in 1752 subdued Kashmir. His great expedition to Delhi was undertaken in 1756 in order to avenge himself on the Great Mogul for the recapture of Lahore. Ahmad entered Delhi with his army in triumph, and for more than a month the city was given over to pillage. The shah himself added to his wives a princess of the imperial family, and bestowed another upon his son Timur Shah, whom he made governor of the Punjab and Sirhind. As his viceroy in Delhi he left a Rohilla chief in whom he had all confidence, but scarcely had he crossed the Indus when the Mahommedan wazir drove the chief from the city, killed the Great Mogul and set another prince of the family, a tool of his own, upon the throne. The Mahratta chiefs availed themselves of these circumstances to endeavour to possess themselves of the whole country, and Ahmad was compelled more than once to cross the Indus in order to protect his territory from them and the Sikhs, who were constantly attacking his garrisons. In 1758 the Mahrattas obtained possession of the Punjab, but on the 6th of January 1761 they were totally routed by Ahmad in the great battle of Panipat. In a later expedition he inflicted a severe defeat upon the Sikhs, but had to hasten westward immediately afterwards in order to quell an insurrection in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the Sikhs again rose, and Ahmad was now forced to abandon all hope of retaining the command of the Punjab. After lengthened suffering from a terrible disease, said to have been cancer in the face, he died in 1773, leaving to his son Timur the kingdom he had founded.

AHMED I. (1589-1617), sultan of Turkey, was the son of Mahommed III., whom he succeeded in 1603, being the first Ottoman sultan who reached the throne before attaining his majority. He was of kindly and humane disposition, as he showed by refusing to put to death his brother Mustafa, who eventually succeeded him. In the earlier part of his reign he gave proofs of decision and vigour, which were belied by his subsequent conduct. The wars which attended his accession both in Hungary and in Persia terminated unfavourably for Turkey, and her prestige received its first check in the peace of Sitvatorok, signed in 1606, whereby the annual tribute paid by Austria was abolished. Ahmed gave himself up to pleasure during the remainder of his reign, which ended in 1617, and demoralization and corruption became as general throughout the public service as indiscipline in the ranks of the army. The use of tobacco is said to have been introduced into Turkey during Ahmed I.'s reign.

AHMED II. (1643-1695), sultan of Turkey, son of Sultan Ibrahim, succeeded his brother Suleiman II. in 1691. His chief merit was to confirm Mustafa Kuprili as grand vizier. But a few weeks after his accession Turkey sustained a crushing defeat at Slankamen from the Austrians under Prince Louis of Baden and was driven from Hungary; during the four years of his reign disaster followed on disaster, and in 1695 Ahmed died, worn out by disease and sorrow.

AHMED III. (1637-1736), sultan of Turkey, son of Mahommed IV., succeeded to the throne in 1703 on the abdication of his brother Mustafa II. He cultivated good relations with England, in view doubtless of Russia's menacing attitude. He afforded a refuge in Turkey to Charles XII. of Sweden, after his defeat at Poltava (1709). Forced against his will into war with Russia, he came nearer than any Turkish sovereign before or since to breaking the power of his northern rival, whom his Grand Vizier Baltaji Mahommed Pasha succeeded in completely surrounding near the Pruth (1711). In the treaty which Russia was compelled to sign Turkey obtained the restitution of Azov, the destruction of the forts built by Russia and the undertaking that the tsar should abstain from future interference in the affairs of the Poles or the Cossacks. Discontent at the leniency of these terms was so strong at Constantinople that it nearly brought on a renewal of the war. In 1715 the Morea was taken from the Venetians. This led to hostilities with Austria, in which Turkey was unsuccessful, and Belgrade fell into the hands of Austria (1717). Through the mediation of England and Holland the peace of Passarowitz was concluded (1718), by which Turkey retained her conquests from the Venetians, but lost Hungary. A war with Persia terminated in disaster, leading to a revolt of the janissaries, who deposed Ahmed in September 1730. He died in captivity some years later.

AHMEDABAD, or AHMADABAD, a city and district of British India in the northern division of Bombay. The city was once the handsomest and most flourishing in western India, and it still ranks next to Agra and Delhi for the beauty and extent of its architectural remains. It was founded by Ahmad Shah in A.D. 1411 on the site of several Hindu towns, which had preceded it, and was embellished by him with fine buildings of marble, brought from a distance. The Portuguese traveller Barbosa, who visited Gujarat in A.D. 1511 and 1514, described Ahmedabad as ``very rich and well embellished with good streets and squares supplied with houses of stone and cement.'' In Sir Thomas Roe's time, A.D. 1615, ``it was a goodly city as large as London.'' During the course of its history it has passed through two periods of greatness, two of decay and one of revival. From 1411 to 1511 it grew in size and wealth; from 1512 to 1572 it declined with the decay of the dynasty of Gujarat; from 1572 to 1709 it renewed its greatness under the Mogul emperors; from 1709 to 1809 it dwindled with their decline; and from 1818 onwards it has again increased under British rule.

The consequence of all these changes of dynasty was that Ahmedabad became the meeting-place of Hindu, Mahommedan and Jain architecture. Ahmad Shah pulled down Hindu temples in order to build his mosques with the material. The Jama Masjid itself, which he built in A.D. 1424, with its three hundred pillars fantastically carved, is a Hindu temple converted into a mosque (see INDIAN ARCHITECTURE, Plate III., fig. 15). One of the finest buildings is the modern Jain temple of Hathi Singh outside the Delhi gate, which was built only in 1848, and is a standing monument to the endurance of Jain architectural art The external porch, between two circular towers, is of great magnificence, most elaborately ornamented, and leads to an outer court, with sixteen cells on either side. In the centre of this court is a domed porch of the usual form with twenty pillars. The court leads to an inner porch of twenty-two pillars, two stories in height. This inner porch conducts to a triple sanctuary. James Fergusson wrote of this temple that ``each part increases in dignity to the sanctuary; and whether looked at from its courts or from outside, it possesses variety without confusion, and an appropriateness of every part to the purpose for which it was intended.'' But perhaps the most unique sight in Ahmedabad is the two windows in Sidi Said's mosque of filigree marble work. The design is an imitation of twining and interlaced branches, a marvel of delicacy and grace, and finer than anything of the kind to be found in Agra or Delhi.

The modern city of Ahmedabad is situated on the left bank of the river Sabarmati, and is still surrounded by walls enclosing an area of about 2 sq. m. Its population in 1901 was 185,889. It has a station on the Bombay and Baroda railway, 309 m. from Bombay, whence branch lines diverge into Kathiawar and Mahi Kantha, and is a great centre for both trade and manufacture. Its native bankers, shopkeepers and workers are all strongly organized in gilds. It has cotton mills for spinning and weaving, besides many handlooms, and factories for ginning and pressing cotton. Other industries include the manufacture of gold and silver thread, silk brocades, pottery, paper and shoes. The prosperity of Ahmedabad, says a native proverb, hangs on three threads--silk, gold and cotton; and though its manufactures are on a smaller scale than formerly, they are still moderately flourishing. The military cantonment, 3 m. north of the native town, is the headquarters of the northern division of the Bombay command, with an arsenal.

The DISTRICT OF AHMEDABAD lies at the head of the Gulf of Cambay, between Baroda and Kathiawar. Area 3816 sq. m. The river Sabarmati and its tributaries, flowing from north-east to south-west into the Gulf of Cambay, are the principal streams that water the district. The north-eastern portion is slightly elevated, and dotted with low hills, which gradually sink into a vast plain, subject to inundation on its western extremity. With the exception of this latter portion, the soil is very fertile, and some parts of the district are beautifully wooded. The population in 1901 was 795,967, showing a decrease of 14% in the decade, due to the effects of famine. The principal crops are millets, cotton, wheat and pulse. The district is traversed by the Bombay and Baroda railway, and has two seaports, Dholera and Gogo, the former of which has given its name to a mark of raw cotton in the Liverpool market. It suffered severely in the famine of 1899-1900.

AHMEDNAGAR, or AHMADNAGAR, a city and district of British India in the Central division of Bombay on the left bank of the river Sina. The town is of considerable antiquity, having been founded in 1494 by Ahmad Nizam Shah, on the site of a more ancient city, Bhingar. This Ahmad established a new monarchy, which lasted till its overthrow by Shah Jahan in 1636. In 1759 the Peshwa obtained possession of the place by bribing the Mahommedan commander, and in 1797 it was ceded by the Peshwa to the Mahratta chief Daulat Rao Sindhia. During the war with the Mahrattas in 1803 Ahmednagar was invested by a British force under General Wellesley and captured. It was afterwards restored to the Mahrattas, but again came into the possession of the British in 1817, according to the terms of the treaty of Poona. The town has rapidly advanced in prosperity under British rule. Several mosques and tombs have been converted to the use of British administration. The old industries of carpet-weaving and paper-making have died out; but there is a large trade in cotton and silk goods, and in copper and brass pots, and there are factories for ginning and pressing cotton. Ahmednagar is a station on the loop line of the Great Indian Peninsula railway, 218 m. from Bombay, and a military cantonment, being the headquarters of a brigade in the 6th division of the western army corps. The population in 1901 was 43,032.

The DISTRICT OF AHMEDNACAR is a comparatively barren tract with a small rainfall. The area is 6586 sq. m. The population in 1901 was 837,695, showing a decrease of 6% in the decade, due to the results of famine. The bulk of the population consists of Mahrattas and Kunbis, the latter being the agriculturists. On the north the district is watered by the Godavari and its tributaries the Prawara and the Mula; on the north-east by the Dor, another tributary of the Godavari; on the east by the Sephani, which flows through the valley below the Balaghat range; and in the extreme south by the Bhima and its tributary the Gor. The Sina river, another tributary of the Bhima, flows through the Nagar and Karjat talukas. The principal crops are millet, pulse, oil-seeds and wheat. The district suffered from drought in 1896-1897, and again in 1899-1900.

AHMED TEWFIK, PASHA (1845- ), Turkish diplomatist, was the son of Ismail Hakki Pasha. He was at first in the army, but left the service in 1862; four years later he entered the diplomatic service, being employed at various European capitals. He became minister at Athens in 1883 and ambassador in Berlin in 1884. He was appointed minister for foreign affairs (Kharijie Naziri) in 1896.

AHMED VEFIK, PASHA (1819-1891), Turkish statesman and man of letters, was born in Stambul in 1819. He was the son of Rouheddin Effendi, at one time charge d'affaires in Paris, an accomplished French scholar, who was, therefore, attached, in the capacity of secretary-interpreter, to Reshid Pasha's diplomatic mission to Paris in 1834. Reshid took Ahmed with him and placed him at school, where he remained about five years and completed his studies. He then returned to Constantinople, and was appointed to a post in the bureau de traduction of the ministry for foreign affairs. While thus employed he devoted his leisure to the translation of Moliere's plays into Turkish and to the compilation of educational books--dictionaries, historical and geographical manuals, &c.--for use in Turkish schools, with the object of promoting cultivation of the French language among the rising generation. In 1847 he brought out the first edition of the Salnameh, the official annual of the Ottoman empire. Two years later he was appointed imperial commissioner in the Danubian principalities, and held that office till early in 1851 when he was sent to Persia as ambassador--a post which suited his temperament, and in which he rendered good service to his goverment for more than four years. Recalled in 1855, he was sent on a mission to inspect the eastern frontiers, and on his return was appointed member of the Grand Council of Justice, and was entrusted with the revision of the penal code and the code of procedure. This work occupied him until the beginning of 1860, when he was sent as ambassador to Paris, for the special purpose of averting the much-dreaded intervention of France in the affairs of Syria. But Ahmed Vefik's abrupt frankness, irascibility and abhorrence of compromise unfitted him for European diplomacy. He offended the French government; his mission failed, and he was recalled in January, 1861. None the less his integrity of purpose was fully understood and appreciated in Paris. On his return he was appointed minister of the evkaj, but he only retained his seat in the cabinet for a few months. He was then for a brief period president of the Board of Audit, and subsequently inspector of the Anatolian provinces, where he was engaged for more than three years. His next appointment was that of director-general of customs, whence he was removed to the office of musteshar of the grand vizierate, and in the following year entered the cabinet of Midhat Pasha as minister of public instruction, but very soon retired to his seat in the Council of State and remained out of office until 1875, when he represented Turkey at the International Telegraphic Conference in St Petersburg. He was president of the short-lived Turkish parliament during its first session--March 19 to June 28, 1877--and at its close was appointed vali of Adrianople, where he rendered invaluable aid to the Red Cross Society. On his recall, at the beginning of 1878, he accepted the ministry of public instruction in the cabinet of Ahmed Hamdi Pasha, and on the abolition of the grand vizierate (February 5, 1878) he became prime minister and held office till about the middle of April, when he resigned. Early in the following year he was appointed vali of Brusa, where he remained nearly four years, and rendered admirable services to the province. The drainage of the pestilent marshes, the water-supply from the mountains, the numerous roads, the suppression of brigandage, the multiplication of schools, the vast development of the silk industry through the substitution of mulberry plantations for rice-fields, the opening out of the mineral springs of Chitli, the introduction of rose-trees and the production of attar of roses--all these were Ahmed Vefik's work; and he became so popular that when in 1882 he was recalled, it was thought advisable that he should be taken away secretly by night from the konak in Brusa and brought to his private residence on the Bosporus. A few days after his return he was again appointed prime minister (December 1, 1882), but Ahmed Vefik demanded, as the condition of his acceptance of office, that he should choose the other members of the cabinet, and that a number of persons in the sultan's entourage should be dismissed. Upon this, the sultan, on the 3rd of December, revoked the irade of the 1st of December, and appointed Said Pasha prime minister. For the rest of his life Ahmed Vefik, by the sultan's orders, was practically a prisoner in his own house; and eventually he died, on the 1st of April 1891, of a renal complaint from which he had long been a sufferer. Ahmed Vefik was a great linguist. He spoke and wrote French perfectly, and thoroughly understood English, German, Italian, Greek, Arabic and Persian. From all these languages he translated many books into Turkish, but wrote no original work. His splendid library of 15,000 volumes contained priceless manuscripts in many languages. In his lifetime he appreciably aided the progress of education; but, as he had no following, the effects of his labour and influence in a great measure faded away after his death. In all his social and family relations Ahmed Vefik was most exemplary. His charity knew no bounds. He was devoted to his aged mother and to his one wife and children. To his friends and acquaintances he was hospitable, courteous and obliging; his conversation was intellectual and refined, and in every act of his private life he manifested the spirit of a true gentleman. At home his habits, attire and mode of life were quite Turkish, but he was perfectly at his ease in European society; he had strong English proclivities, and numbered many English men and women amongst his intimate friends. In public life his gifts were almost sterilized by peculiarities of temperament and incompatibility with official surroundings; and his mission as ambassador to Persia and his administration of Brusa were his only thorough successes. But his intellectual powers, literary erudition and noble character made him for the last forty years of his life a conspicuous figure in eastern Europe. (E. W.*)

AHOM, or AHAM, a tribe of Shan descent inhabiting the Assam Valley, and, prior to the invasion of the Burmese at the commencement of the 19th century, the dominant race in that country. The Ahoms, together with the Shans of Burma and Eastern China and the Siamese, were members of the Tai race. The name is believed to be a corruption of the word ``A-sam,'' the latter part of which is identical with ``Shan'' (properly ``Sham'') and with ``Siam.'' Under their king Su-ka-pha they invaded Assam (q.v.) from the East in the year A.D. 1228, giving their name to the country. For a century and a half from 1228 the successors of Su-ka-pha appear to have ruled undisturbed over a small territory in Lakkimpur and Sibsagar districts. The extension of their power westward down the valley of the Brahmaputra was very gradual, and its success was by no means uniform. In the time of Aurangzeb the Ahom kings held sway over the entire Brahmaputra valley from Sadiya to near Goalpara, and from the skirts of the southern hills to the Bhutia frontier on the north. The dynasty attained the height of its power under Rudra Singh, who is said to have ascended the throne in 1695. In the following century the power of the Ahoms began to decay, alike from internal dissensions and the pressure of outside invaders. The Burmese were called in to the assistance of one of the contending factions in 1810. Having once obtained a foothold in the country, they established their power over the entire valley and ruled with merciless barbarity, until they were expelled by the British in 1824-1825. In the census of 1901 the total Ahom population in Assam was returned at 178,049.

The Ahoms retained the form of government in Assam peculiar to the Shan tribes, which may he briefly described as an organized system of personal service in lieu of taxation. Their religion was pagan, being quite distinct from Buddhism; but in Assam they gradually became Hinduized, and their kings finally adopted Hindu names and titles. They believed that there were in the beginning no heavenly bodies, air or earth, only water everywhere, over which at first hovered a formless Supreme Being called Pha. He took corporeal shape as a huge crab that lay floating, face upwards, upon the waters. In turn other animals took shape, the last being two golden spiders from whose excrement the earth gradually rose above the surrounding ocean. Pha then formed a female counterpart of himself, who laid four eggs, from which were hatched four sons. One of these was appointed to rule the earth, but died and became a spirit. His son also died and became the national household deity of the Ahoms. The origin of mankind is connected with a flood legend. The only survivors of the flood, and of the conflagration that followed it, were an old man and a pumpkin-seed. From the latter there grew a gigantic gourd. This was split open by a thunderbolt, the old man sacrificing himself to save the lives of those who were inside, and from it there issued the progenitors of the present races of men, beasts, birds, fishes and plants. The kings claimed independent divine origin.

The religion and language have both died out, being only preserved by a few priests of the old cult; but even among them the tradition of the pronunciation of the language has been lost. The Ahoms had a considerable literature, much of which is still in existence. Their historic sense was very fully developed, and many priests and nobles maintained bu-ran-jis (i.e. ``stores of instruction for the ignorant''), or chronicles, which were carefully written up from time to time. A few of these have been translated, but as yet no European scholar possesses knowledge sufficient to enable him to study these valuable documents at first hand.

The Ahom language is the oldest member of the Tai branch of the Siamese-Chinese linguistic family of which we have any record. It bears much the same relationship to Siamese and Shan that Latin does to Italian. It is more nearly related to modern Siamese than to modern ahan, but possesses many groups of consonants which have become simplified in both. It is a language of the isolating class, in which every word is a monosyllable, and may be employed either as a noun or as a verb according to its context and its position in a sentence. In the order of words, the genitive follows the norm it governs, and, as usual in such cases, the relations of time and place are indicated by prefixes, not by suffixes. The meanings of the monosyllables were differentiated, as in the other Tai languages and in Chinese, by a system of tones, but these were rarely indicated in writing, and the tradition regarding them is lost. The language had an alphabet of its own, which was clearly related to that of Burmese.

See E. A. Gait, A History of Assam (Calcutta, 1906). For the language see The Linguistis Survey of India, vol. ii. (Calcutta, 1906) (contains grammar and vocabulary); G. A. Grierson, ``Notes on Ahom,'' in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellshaft, vol. lvi., 1902, pp. 1 ff. (contains grammar and vocabulary, with specimens), and ``An Ahom Cosmogony, with a translation and a vocabulary of the Ahom language,'' in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1904, pp. 181 ff. (G. A. GR.)

AHR, a river of Germany. It is a left-bank tributary of the Rhine, into which it falls at Sinzig, rising in the Eifel mountains, and having a total length of 55 m. It flows at first through rather monotonous country, but the latter portion of its course, from the village of Altenahr, over which tower rhe ruins of the castle of Ahr, or Are (10th century), is full of romantic beauty. It is well stocked with trout, and the steep declivities of the lower valley furnish red wines of excellent quality.

AHRENS, FRANZ HEINRICH LUDOLF (1809-1881), German philologist, was born at Helmstedt on the 6th of June 1809. After studying at Gottingen (1826-1829) under K. O. Muller and Ludolf Dissen, and holding several educational appointments, in 1849 he succeeded G. F. Grotefend as director of the Lyceum at Hanover, a post which he filled with great success for thirty years. He died on the 25th of September 1881. His most important work is De Graecae Linguae Dialectis (1839-1843, new ed. by Meister, 1882-1889), which, although unfortunately incomplete, dealing only with Aeolic and Doric, and in some respects superseded by modern research, will always remain a standard treatise on the subject. He also published Bucolicorum Graecorum Reliquiae (1855-1859); studies on the dialects of Homer and the Greek lyrists; on Aeschylus; and some excellent school-books. A volume of his minor works (ed. Haberlin) was published in 1891, which also contains a complete list of his writings.

AHRIMAN (Gr. 'Areimanios in Aristotle, or in Agathias; in the Avesta, Angro Mainyush--``the Destructive Spirit''), the name of the principle of evil in the dualistic doctrine of Zoroaster. The name does not occur in the Old Persian inscriptions. In the Avesta he is called the twin-brother of the Holy Spirits, and contrasted either with the Holy Spirit of Ormazd or with Ormazd himself. He is the all destroying Satan, the source of all evil in the world and, like Ormazd, exists since the beginning of the world. Eventually, in the great world catastrophe, he will be defeated by Ormazd and disappear. The later sect of the Zervanites held that both were visible manifestations of the primeval principle Zruvan akarana (Infinite Time). (See ZOROASTER.)

AHRWEILER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the river Ahr and the Remagen-Adenau line of railway. Pop. 5000. It is a town of medieval aspect and is surrounded by ancient walls, with battlements and four gates in good repair. There is a Gothic church (dating from 1245). A convent school of the Ursuline nuns is a prominent feature On a hill to the south. The trade is almost exclusively confined to the manufacture and export of the wines of the district.

AHT, a confederacy of twenty-two tribes of North American Indians of the Wakashan stock. They are settled on the west Coast of Vancouver, British Columbia. The chief tribes included are the Nitinaht, Tlaasaht or Makah, Tlaokiwaht or Clahoquaht, Ahansaht and Ehatishaht. The confederacy numbers some 3500.

AHTENA (``ice people''), the name of an Athapascan tribe of North American Indians, in the basin of Copper River, Alaska.

See Handbook of American Indians, ed. F. W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).

AHVAZ, a town of Persia, in the province of Arabistan, on the left bank of the river Karun, 48 m. S. of Shushter, in 31 deg. 18' N., 49 deg. E. It has been identified with the Aginis of Nearchus, 500 stadia from Susa, and occupies the site of what was once an extensive and important city. Of this ancient city vast remains are left, extending several miles along the bank of the river. Among the most remarkable are the ruins of a bridge and a citadel, or palace, besides vestiges of canals and watermills, which tell of former commercial activity. There are also the ruins of a band, or stone dam of great strength, which was thrown across the river for the purposes of irrigation. The band was 1150 yds. in length and had a diameter of 24 ft. at its base. Remains of massive structure are still visible, and many single blocks in it measure from 8 to 10 ft. in thickness. Ahvaz reached the height of its prosperity in the 12th and 13th centuries and is now a collection of wretched hovels, with a small rectangular fort in a state of ruin, and an Arab population of about 400. Since the opening of the Karun to foreign commerce in October 1888, another settlement called Benderi Nassiri, in compliment to the Shah Nassir ed din (d. 1896), has been established on a slight elevation overlooking the river at the point below the rapids where steamers come to anchor, about one mile below Ahvaz. It has post and telegraph offices; and agencies of some mercantile firms, a British vice-consul (since 1904) and a Russian consular agent (since 1902) are established there. The new caravan road to Isfahan, opened for traffic in 1900, promised, if successful, to give Ahvaz greater commercial importance.

AI [Sept. 'Aggai, 'Aggai Gai, Vulg. Hai], a small royal city of the Canaanites, E. of Bethel. The meaning of the name may be ``the stone heap''; but it is not necessarily a Hebrew word. Abraham pitched his tent between Ai and Bethel (Gen. xii. 8, xiii. 3); but it is chiefly noted for its capture and destruction by Joshua (vii. 2-4. viii. 1-20). who made it ``a heap for ever, even a desolation.'' It is mentioned by Isaiah (x. 28), and also after the captivity (Ezra ii. 28; Neh. vii. 32), but then probably was not more than a village. In the later Hebrew writings the name sometimes has a feminine form, Aiath (Is. x. 28), Aija (Neh. xi. 31). The definite article is usually prefixed to the name in Hebrew. The site was known, and some scanty ruins still existed, in the time of Eusebius and Jerome (Onomast., s.v. 'Aggai.) Dr E. Robinson was unable to discover any certain traces of either name or ruins. He remarks, however (Bib. Researches, ed. 1856, i. p. 443), that it must have been close to Bethel on account of Biblical narrative (Josh. viii. 17) . A little to the south of a village called Deir Diwan, and one hour's journey south-east from Bethel, is the site of an ancient place called Khirbet Haiyan indicated by reservoirs hewn in the rock, excavated tombs and foundations of hewn stone. This may possibly be the site of Ai; it agrees with all the intimations as to its position. It has also been identified with a mound now called Et-Tell (``the heap''), but though the name of a neighbouring village, Turmus Aya, is suggestive, it is in the wrong direction from Bethel. In this view recent authorities, such as G. A. Smith, generally coincide.

See Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, 1869, p. 123; 1874, p. 62; 1878, pp. 10, 132, 194, 1881, p. 254. (R. A. S. M.)

AIBONITO, an inland town of the electoral district of Guayama, Porto Rico, on the highway between San Juan and Ponce, 25 m. E.N.E. of the latter. It is the capital of a municipal district of the same name. Pop. (1899) of the town, 2085; of the district, 8596. The town is about 2200 ft. above sea level, and owing to its cool climate and freedom from malaria it has been chosen as an acclimatizing station and sanatorium for foreigners. It is surrounded by coffee plantations, and tobacco of excellent quality is raised in the vicinity. The town was considerably damaged by the great hurricane of the 8th of August 1899.

AICARD, JEAN FRANCOIS VICTOR (1848- ), French poet and dramatist, was born at Toulon on the 4th of February 1848. His father, Jean Aicard, was a journalist of some distinction, and the son early began his career in 1867 with Les Rebellions et les apaistments (1871); Poemes de Provence (1874), and La Chanson de l'Enfant (1876), both of which were crowned by the Academy; Miette et Nore (1880), a Provencal idyll; Le Livre d'heures de l'amour (1887); Jesus (1896), &c. Of his plays the most successful was Le Pere Lebonnard (1890), which was originally produced at the Theatre Libre. Among his other works are the novels, Le Roi de Camargue (1890), L'Ame d'un enfant (1898) and Talas (1901), Benjamine (1906) and La Venus de Milo (1874), an account of the discovery of the statue from unpublished documents.

AICHINGER, GREGOR (c. 1565-1628), one of the greatest German composers of the Golden Age. He was organist to the Fugger family of Augsburg in 1584. In 1599 he went for a two years' visit to Rome. This was for musical and not for ecclesiastical reasons, though he had taken orders before his appointment under Fugger. Proske, in the preface to vol. ii. of his Musica Divina, calls him a priest of Regensburg, and is inclined to give him the palm for the devout and ingenuous mastery of his style. Certainly this impression is fully borne out by the beautiful and somewhat quaint works included in that great anthology.

AICKIN, FRANCIS (d. 1805), Irish actor, first appeared in London in 1765 as Dick Amlet in Vanbrugh's The Confederacy at Drury Lane. He acted there, and at Covent Garden, until 1792. His repertory consisted of over eighty characters, and among his best parts were the Ghost in Hamlet and Jaques in As You Like It. His success in impassioned declamatory roles obtained for him the nickname of ``Tyrant.''

His younger brother James AICHIN (d. 1803) was playing leading parts in both comedy and tragedy at the Edinburgh theatre, when he gave offence to his public by his protest against the discharge of a fellow-actor. He therefore went to London, and from 1767 to 1800 was a member of the Drury Lane Company and for some years a deputy manager. He quarrelled with John Philip Kemble, with whom, in 1792, he fought a bloodless duel.

AIDAN (d. 606), king of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, was the son of Gabran, king of Dalriada, and became king after the death of his kinsman King Conall, when he was crowned at Iona by St Columba. He refused to allow his kingdom to remain in dependence on the Irish Dairiada, but coming into collision with his southern neighbours he led a large force against AEthelfrith, king of the Northumbrians, and was defeated at a place called Daegsanstane, probablv in Liddesdale.

See Bede, Historiae Ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum, edited by O'. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); Adamnan, Vita S. Columbae, edited by J. T. Fowler (Oxford, 1894).

AIDAN, or AEDAN, first bishop of Lindisfarne, a monk of Hii (Iona), was sent by the abbot Senegi to Northumbria, at the request of King Oswald, A.D. 634-635. He restored Christianity, and in accordance with the traditions of Irish episcopacy chose the island of Lindisfarne, close to the royal city of Bamborough, as his see. Although he retained the Irish Easter, his character and energy in missionary work won him the respect of Honorius and Felix. He survived Oswald, and died shortly after the murder of his friend Oswine of Deira, on the 31st of August 651, in the 17th year of his episcopate.

See Bede, Hist. Eccl. (ed. Plummer), iii. 3, 5, 17, 25.

AIDE-DE-CAMP (Fr. for camp-assistant or, perhaps, field-assistant), an officer of the personal staff of a general, who acts as his confidential secretary in routine matters. In Great Britain the office of aide-de-camp to the king is given as a reward or an honorary distinction. In many foreign armies the word adjutant is used for an aide-de-camp, and adjutant general for a royal aide-de-camp. The common abbreviation for aide-de-camp in the British service is ``A.D.C.,'' and in the United States ``aid.'' Civil governors, such as the lord lieutenant of Ireland, have also, as a rule, officers on their staffs with the title and functions of aides-de-camp.

AIDIN. (1) A vilayet in the S.W. of Asia Minor including the ancient Lydia, Ionia, Carla and western Lycia. It derives its name from the Seljuk emir who took Tralles, and is the richest and most productive province of Asiatic Turkey. The seat of government is Smyrna. (2) The principal town of the valley of the Menderes or Maeander, about 70 m. E.S.E. of Smyrna. It is called also Guzel Hissar from the beauty of its situation on the lower slopes of Mons Messogis and along the course of the ancient Eudon. It is the capital of a sanjak. It was taken by the Seljuks, Aidin and Mentesh, late in the 13th century, and about 1390, when ruled by Isa Bey, a descendant of the first-named, acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty. In the Seljuk period it was a secondary city under the provincial capital, Tireh (q.v.) In the 17th century it came under the power of the Karasmans of Manisa and remained so till about 1820. Aidin is on the Smyrna-Dineir railway, has large tanneries and sweetmeat manufactories, and exports figs, cotton and raisins. It was greatly damaged by an earthquake in 1899. On a neighbouring height are to be seen the ruins of the ancient Tralles (q.v.), the site to which the name Guzel Hissar was particularly given by the Seljuks. Aidin is the seat of a British consular agent. As there are considerable numbers of Greeks, Armenians and Jews among the inhabitants, there are a Greek cathedral, several churches and synagogues in addition to the fine Turkish mosques. (D. G. H.)

AIDONE, a town of Sicily, in the province of Caltanisetta. From the town of Caltanisetta it is 22 m. E.S.E. direct (18 m. S.S.W. of the railway station of Raddusa, which is 41 m. W. of Catania). Pop. (1901) 8548. There are some interesting churches of the 14th century (see E. Mauceri in L'Arte, 1906, 17). On the Serra Orlando, a mountain not far off, are the extensive remains of an unknown city, the finest in eastern Sicily, but rapidly suffering destruction from the spread of cultivation and unauthorized excavations.

See P. Orsi in Atti del Congresso di Scienze Storiche, vol. v 178 Rome, 1904).

AIDS, a term of medieval finance, were part of the service due to a lord from his men, and appear to have been based upon the principle that they ought to assist him in special emergency or need. The occasions for demanding them and the amount to be demanded would thus be matters of dispute, while the loose use of the term to denote many different payments increases the difficulty of the subject.

Both in Normandy and in England, in the 12th century, the two recognized occasions on which, by custom, the lord could demand ``aid,'' were (1) the knighting of his eldest son, (2) the marriage of his eldest daughter; but while in England the third occasion was, according to Glanvill, as in Normandy, his payment of ``relief'' on his succession, it was, according to the Great Charter (1215), the lord's ransom from captivity. By its provisions, the king covenanted to exact an ``aid'' from his barons on these three occasions alone--and then only a ``reasonable'' one--except by ``the common counsel'' of his realm. Enormous importance has been attached to this provision, as establishing the principle of taxation by consent, but its scope was limited to the barons (and the city of London), and the word ``aids'' was omitted from subsequent issues of the charter. The barons, on their part, covenanted to claim from their feudal tenants only the above three customary aids. The last levy by the crown was that of James I. on the knighting of his eldest son (1609) and the marriage of his daughter (1613).

From at least the days of Henry I. the term ``aid'' was also applied (1) to the special contributions of boroughs to the king's revenue, (2) to a payment in lieu of the military service due from the crown's knights. Both these occur on the pipe roll of 1130, the latter as auxilium militum (and possibly as auxilium comitatus.) The borough ``aids'' were alternatively known as ``gifts'' (dona), resembling in this the ``benevolences'' of later days. When first met with, under Henry I., they are fixed round sums, but under Henry II. (as the Dialogue of the Exchequer explains) they were either assessed on a population basis by crown officers or were sums offered by the towns and accepted by them as sufficient. In the latter case the townsfolk were collectively responsible for the amount. The Great Charter, as stated above, extended specially to London the limitation on baronial ``aids,'' but left untouched its liability to tallage, a lower and more arbitrary form of taxation, which the towns shared with the crown's demesne manors, and which London . resisted in vain. The two exactions, although distinct, have to be studied together, and when in 1296-1297 Edward I. was forced to his great surrender, he was formerly supposed by historians to have pledged himself, under De tallagio non concedendo, to levy no tallage or aid except by common consent of his people. It is now held, however, that he limited this concession to ``aides, mises,'' and ``prises,'' retaining the right to tallage. Eventually, by a statute of 1340, it was provided that the nation should not be called upon ``to make any common aid or sustain charge'' except by consent of parliament. The aids spoken of at this period are of yet another character, namely, the grant of a certain proportion of all ``movables'' (i.e. personal property), a form of taxation introduced about 1188 and now rapidly increasing in importance. These subsidies were conveniently classed under the vague term ``aids,'' as were also the grants made by the clergy in convocation, the term covering both feudal and non-feudal levies from the higher clergy and proportions not only of ``movables'' but of ecclesiastical revenues as well.

The ``knight's aid'' of 1130 spoken of above is probably identical with auxilium exercitus spoken of in the oldest custumals of Normandy, where the phrase appears to represent what was known in England as ``scutage.'' Even in England the phrase ``quando Rex accipit auxilium de militibus'' occurs in 1166 and appears to be loosely used for scutage.

The same loose use enabled the early barons to demand ``aid'' from their tenants on various grounds, such as their indebtedness to the Jews, as is well seen in the Norfolk fragments of returns to the Inquest of Sheriffs (1170).

Sheriff's aid was a local payment of a fixed nature paid in early days to the sheriff for his service. It was the subject of a hot dispute between Henry II. and Becket in 1163.

AUTHORITIES.--Stubbs' Constitutional History and Select Charters; M'Kechnie's Magna Carta; Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law; Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond; Dialogus de Scaccario (Oxford, 1892); Madox's History of the Exchequer; Round's Feudal England and The Commune of London; The Pipe Rolls (Record Commission and Pipe Roll Society). (J. H. R.)

AIGRETTE (from the Fr. for egret, or lesser white heron), the tufted crest, or head-plumes of the egret, used for adorning a woman's head-dress, the term being also given to any similar ornament, in gems, &c. An aigrette is also worn by certain ranks of officers in the French army. By analogy the word is used in various sciences for feathery excrescences of like appearance, as for the tufts on the heads of insects, the feathery down of the dandelion, the luminous rays at the end of electrified bodies, or the luminous rays seen in solar eclipses, diverging from the moon's edge.

AIGUES-MORTES, a town of south-eastern France, in the department of Gard 25 m. S.S.W. of Nimes, on a branch line of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway. Pop. (1906) 3577. Aigues-Mortes occupies an isolated position in the marshy plain at the western extremity of the Rhone delta, 2 1/2 m. from the Golfe du Lion. It owes its celebrity to the medieval fortifications of remarkable completeness with which it is surrounded. They form a parallelogram 596 yds. long by 149 yds. broad, and consist of crenellated walls from 25 to 36 ft. in height, dominated at intervals by towers. Of these, the Tour de Constance, built by Louis IX., is the most interesting; it commands the northwestern angle of the ramparts, and contains two circular, Vaulted chambers, used as prisons for Protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The remainder of the fortifications were built in the reign of Philip III. Aigues-Mortes is the meeting-place of several canals connecting it with Beaucaire, with Cette, with the Lesser Rhone and with the Mediterranean, on which it has a small port. Fishing and the manufacture of soda are the chief industries with which the town is connected. It has trade in coal, oranges and other fruits, and in wine. In the surrounding country there are important vineyards, which are preserved from disease by periodical submersion. There is a statue in the town in memory of Louis IX. who embarked from Aigues-Mortes in 1248 and 1270 for the seventh and eighth crusades. To further the prosperity of the town a most liberal charter was granted to it, and in addition the trade of the port was artificially fostered by a decree requiring that every vessel navigating within sight of its lights should put in there. This ordinance remained in force till the reign of Louis XIV.

AIGUILLE (Fr. for needle), the sharp jagged points above the snow-line, standing upon the massif of a mountain split by frost action along joints or planes of cleavage with sides too steep for snow to rest upon them. Aiguilles are thus the forms remaining from the splitting up of the high ridges with houseroof structure into detached pinnacles.

AIGUILLETTE (Fr. diminutive of AIGUILLE, a needle; the obsolete English form is ``aglet''), originally a tag of metal, often made of precious metals and richly chased, attached to the end of a lace or ribbon, and pointed, so as to pass more easily through eyelet holes. The term was, in time, applied to any bright ornament or pendant for the dress made of metal, and is now specially used of ornamental cords and tags of gold and silver lace, worn on naval and military uniforms. The aiguillette is fastened to the shoulder, the various cords hanging down therefrom being fastened at their other end on the front of the coat.

AIGUILLON, EMMANUEL ARMAND DE WIGNEROD DU PLESSIS DE RICHELIEU, DUC D' (1720-1782), French statesman, nephew of the marechal de Richelieu, was born on the 31st of July 1720. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and at the age of nineteen was made colonel of the regiment of Brie. He served in the campaigns in Italy during the War of the Austrian Succession, was seriously wounded at the siege of Chateau-Dauphin (1744), was taken prisoner (1746) and was made marechal de camp in 1748. His marriage in 1740 with Louise Felicite de Brehan, daughter of the comte de Plelo, coupled with his connexion with the Richelieu family, gave, him an important place at court. He was a member of the so-called parti devot, the faction opposed to Madame de Pompadour, to the Jansenists and to the parlement, and his hostility to the new ideas drew upon him the anger of the pamphleteers. In 1753 he was appointed commandant (governor) of Brittany and soon became unpopular in that province, which had retained a large number of privileges called ``liberties.'' He first came into collision with the provincial estates on the question of the royal imposts (1758), but was then blamed for his inertia in the preparation of a squadron against England (1759), and finally alienated the parlement of Brittany by violating the privileges of the province (1762). In June 1764 the king, at the instance of d'Aiguillon, quashed a decree of the parlement forbidding the levying of new imposts without the consent of the estates, and refused to receive the remonstrances of the parlement against the duke. On the 11th of November 1765 La Chalotais, the procureur of the parlement, was arrested, but whether at the instigation of d'Aiguillon is not certain. The conflict between d'Aiguillon and the Bretons lasted two years. In the place of the parlement, which had resigned, d'Aiguillon organized a tribunal of more or less competent judges, who were ridiculed by the pamphleteers and ironically termed the bailliage d'Aiguillon. In 1768 the duke was forced to suppress this tribunal, and returned to court, where he resumed his intrigue with the parti devot and finally obtained the dismissal of the minister Choiseul (December 24, 1770). When Louis XV., acting on the advice of Madame Dubarry, reorganized the government with a view to suppressing the resistance of the parlements, d'Aiguillon was made minister of foreign affairs, Maupeou and the Abbe Terray (1715-1778) also obtaining places in the ministry. The new ministry, albeit one of reform, was very unpopular, and was styled the ``triumvirate.'' All the failures of the government were attributed to the mistakes of the ministers. Thus d'Aiguillon was blamed for having provoked the coup d'etat of Gustavus III., king of Sweden, in 1772, although the instructions of the comte de Vergennes, the French ambassador in Sweden, had been written by the minister, the duc de la Vrilliere. D'Aiguillon, however, could do nothing to rehabilitate French diplomacy; he acquiesced in the first division of Poland, renewed the Family Compact, and, although a supporter of the Jesuits, sanctioned the suppression of the society. After the death of Louis XV. he quarrelled with Maupeou and with the young queen, Marie Antoinette, who demanded his dismissal from the ministry (1774). He died, forgotten, in 1782. In no circumstances had he shown any special ability. He was more fitted for intrigue than for government, and his attempts to restore the status of French diplomacy met with scant success.

See Memoires du ministere du duc d'Aiguillon (3rd ed., Paris and Lyons, 1792), probably written by J. L. Soulavie. On d'Aiguillon's governorship of Brittany see Carre, La Chalotais et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1893); Marion, La Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1898); and Barthelemy Pocquet, Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais (Paris, 1901--1902). The three last have full biblioaraphies. See also Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements (Paris, 1883); Frederic Masson, Le Cardinal de Bernis (Paris, 1884).

AIGUILLON, MARIE MADELEINE DE WIGNEROD DU PONT DE COURLAY, DUCHESSE D' (1604-1675), daughter of Cardinal Richelieu's sister. In 1620 she married a nephew of the constable de Luynes, Antoine de Beauvoir du Roure, sieur de Combalet, who died in 1622. In 1625, through her influence, she was made a lady-in-waiting (dame d'atour) to Ihe queen-mother, and in 1638 was created duchess of Aiguihon. She did not marry a second time, although Richelieu wished to marry her to a prince--either to the comte de Soissons or to the king's brother. After the death of the cardinal (1642) she retained her honours and titles, but withdrew from the court, and devoted herself entirely to works of charity. She entered into relations with Saint Vincent de Paul and helped him to establish the hospital for foundlings. She also took part in organizing the General Hospital and several others in the provinces. She died on the 17th of April 1675. She was the patroness of Corneille, who in 1636 dedicated to her his tragedy of The Cid.

See E. Flechier, Oraison funebre de Mme. Marie de Wignerod, duchesse d'Aiguillon; Bonneau-Avenant, La duchesse d'Aiguillon (1879); M.emoires de Saint-Simon, ed. by A. de Boislisle (1879 et seq..)

AIGUN, or AIHUN (also Sakhalyan-ula-khoto), a town of China, province Hei-lung-kiang, in northern Manchuria, situated on the right bank of the Amur, in a fertile and populous region, 20 m. below Blagovyeshchensk, where it occupies nearly 2 m. on the bank of the river. There is a palisaded fort in the middle of the town, inside of which is the house of the fu-tu (governor). Its merchants carry on an active local trade in grain, mustard, oil and tobacco, and some of its firms supply the Russian administration with grain and flour. During the ``Boxer'' rising of 1900 it was, for a few weeks, the centre of military action directed against the Russians. The population, of some 20,000, includes a few hundred Mussulmans. The town was founded first on the left bank of the Amur, below the mouth of the Zeya, but was abandoned, and the present town was founded in 1684. It was here that Count Muraviev concluded, in May 1857, the Aihun treaty, according to which the left bank of the Amur was conceded to Russia.

AIKEN, a city and the county-seat of Aiken county, South Carolina, U.S.A., 17 m. E.N.E. of Augusta, Georgia. Pop. (1890) 2362; (1900) 3414 (2131 of negro descent); (1910) 3911. It is served by the Southern railway, and by an electric line connecting with Augusta. Aiken is a fashionable winter resort, chiefly frequented by Northerners, and is pleasantly situated about 500 ft. above sea level in the heart of the famous sand-hill and pine-forest region of the state. The dry and unusually equable temperature (mean for winter 50 deg. F., for spring 57 deg. F., and for autumn 64 deg. F.) and the balmy air laden with the fragrance of the pine forests have combined to make Aiken a health and pleasure resort; its climate is said to be especially beneficial for those afflicted with pulmonary diseases. There are fine hotels, club houses and cottages, and the Palmetto Golf Links near the city are probably the finest in the southern states; fox-hunting, polo, tennis and shooting are among the popular sports. There are some excellent drives in the vicinity. The city is the seat of the Aiken Institute (for whites) and the Schofield Normal and Industrial School (for negroes). There are lumber mills, cotton mills and cotton-gins; and cotton, farm products and artificial stone are exported. Considerable quantities of aluminium are obtained from the kaolin deposits in the vicinity. The city's water supply is obtained from artesian wells. Aiken was settled in the early part of the 19th century, but was not incorporated until 1835, when it was named in honour of William Aiken (1806-1887), governor of the state in 1844--1847, and a representative in Congress in 1851-1857.

AIKIN, ARTHUR (1773-1854), English chemist and mineralogist, was born on the 19th of May 1773, at Warrington in Lancashire. He studied chemistry under Priestley and gave attention to the practical applications of the science. To mineralogy he was likewise attracted, and he was one of the founders of the Geological Society of London, 1807, and honorary secretary, 1812-1817. To the transactions of that society he contributed papers on the Wrekin and the Shropshire coalfield, &c. Later he became secretary of the Society of Arts, and in 1841 treasurer of the Chemical Society. In early life he had been for a short time a Unitarian minister. He was highly esteemed as a man of sound judgment and wide knowledge. He died in London on the 15th of April 1854.

PUBLICATIONS.--Journal of a Tour through North Wales and part of Shropshire with observations in Mineralogy and other branches of Natural History (London, 1797); A Manual of Mineralogy (1814; ed. 2, 1815); A Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy (with his brother C. R. Aikin), 2 vols. (London, 1807, 1814).

AIKIN, JOHN (1747-1822), English doctor and writer, was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, and received his elementary education at the Noncomformist academy at Warrington, where his father was tutor. He studied medicine in the university of Edinburgh, and in London under Dr Wilham Hunter. He practised as a surgeon at Chester and Warrington. Finally, he went to Leyden, took the degree of M.D. (1780), and in 1784 established himself as a doctor in Yarmouth. In 1792 he removed to London, where he practised as a consulting physician. But he concerned himself more with the advocacy of liberty of conscience than with his professional duties, and he began at an early period to devote himself to literary pursuits. In conjunction with his sister, Mrs Barbauld (q.v.), he published a popular series of volumes entitled Evenings at Home (6 vols., 1792-1795), excellently adapted for elementary family reading, which were translated into almost every European language. In 1798 Dr Aikin retired from professional life and devoted himself with great industry to various literary undertakings, among which his General Biography (10 vols., 1799-1815) holds a conspicuous place. Besides these, he published Biog. Memoirs of Medicine (1780); Lives of John Selden and Archbishop Usher (1812) and other works. He edited the Monthly Magazine from 1796 to 1807, and conducted a paper called the Athenaeum from 1807 to 1809, when it was discontinued. Aikin died in 1822.

His daughter, LUCY AIKIN (1781-1864), born at Warrington on the 6th of November 1781, had some repute as a historical writer. After producing various books for the young, and a novel, Lorimer (1814), she published in 1818 her Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, which passed through several editions. This was followed by Memoirs of the Court of James I. (1822), Memoirs of the Court of Charles I. (1833) and a Life of Addison (1843). Miss Aikin died at Hampstead, where she had lived for forty years, on the 29th of January 1864.

See a Memoir of John Aikin, with selections of his miscellaneous pieces (1823), by his daughter; and the Memoirs, Miscellanies and Letters of William Ellery Channing, edited by P. H. Le Breton.

AIKMAN, WILLIAM (1682-1731), British portrait-painter, was born at Cairney, Forfarshire. He was intended by his father for the bar, but followed his natural bent by becoming a pupil under Sir John Medina, the leading painter of the day in Scotland. In 1707 he went to Italy, resided in Rome for three years, afterwards travelled to Constantinople and Smyrna, and in 1712 returned home. In Edinburgh, where he practised as a portrait-painter for some years, he enjoyed the patronage of the duke of Argyll; and on his removal to London in 1723 he soon obtained many important commissions. Perhaps his most successful work was the portrait of the poet Gay. He also painted portraits of himself, Fletcher of Saltoun, William Carstares and Thomson the poet. The likenesses were generally truthful and the style was modelled very closely upon that of Sir Godfrey Kneller. Aikman held a good position in literary society and counted among his personal friends Swift, Pope, Thomson, Allan Ramsay, Somervile and Mallet.

AILANTHUS (more correctly ailantus, from ailanto, an Amboyna word probably meaning ``Tree of the Gods,'' or ``Tree of Heaven''), a genus of trees belonging to the natural order Simarubaceae. The best known species, A. glandulosa, Chinese sumach or tree of heaven, is a handsome, quick-growing tree with spreading branches and large compound leaves, resembling those of the ash, and bearing numerous pairs of long pointed leaflets. The small greenish flowers are borne on branched panicles; and the male ones are characterized by having a disgusting odour. The fruits are free in clusters, and each is drawn out into a long wing with the seed in the middle. The wood is fine grained and satiny. The tree, which is a native of China and Japan, was introduced into England in 1751 and is a favourite in parks and gardens. A silk spinning moth, the ailanthus moth (Bombyx or Philosamia cynthia), lives on its leaves, and yields a silk more durable and cheaper than mulberry silk, but inferior to it in fineness and gloss. This moth is common near many towns in the eastern United States; it is about 5 in. across, with angulated wings, and in colour olive brown, with white markings. Other species of ailanthus are: A. imberbifiora and A. punctata, important Australian timber-trees; and A. excelsa, common in India.

AILLY, PIERRE D, (1350-1420), French theologian, was born at Compiegne in 1350 of a bourgeois family, and studied in Paris at the celebrated college of Navarre. He became a licentiate of arts in 1367, procurator of the French ``nation'' in 1372, bachelor of theology in 1372, and licentiate and doctor in that faculty in 1381.

Since 1378 Western Christendom, in consequence of the election of the two popes Urban VI. and Clement VII., had been divided into two obediences. In the spring of 1379 Pierre d'Ailly, in anticipation even of the decision of the university of Paris, had carried to the pope of Avignon the ``role'' of the French nation, but notwithstanding this prompt adhesion he was firm in his desire to put an end to the schism, and when, on the 20th of May 1381, the university decreed that the best means to this end was to try to gather together a general council, Pierre d'Ailly supported this motion before the king's council in the presence of the duke of Anjou. The dissatisfaction displayed shortly after by the government obliged the university to give up this scheme, and was probably the cause of Pierre d'Ailly's temporary retirement to Noyon, where he held a canonry. There he continued the struggle for his side in a humorous work, in which the partisans of the council are amusingly taken to task by the demon Leviathan.

After his return to Paris, where from 1384 onwards he filled the position of master of the college of Navarre, and took part in a violent campaign against the chancellor of Notre-Dame, he was twice entrusted with a mission to Clement VII. in 1388 to defend the doctrines of the university, and especially those concerning the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, against the preaching friar Jean de Montson, and in 1389 to petition in the name of the king for the canonization of the young cardinal Peter of Luxemburg. The success which attended his efforts on these two occasions, and the eloquence which he displayed, perhaps contributed to his choice as the king,s almoner and confessor. At the same time, by means of an exchange, he obtained to the highest dignity in the university, becoming chancellor of Notre-Dame de Paris.

When in 1394 Benedict XIII. succeeded Clement VII. at Avignon, Pierre d'Ailly was entrusted by the king with a mission of congratulation to the new pontiff. His obsequious language on this occasion, and the favours with which it was rewarded, formed a too violent contrast to the determined attitude of the university of Paris, which, tired of the schism, was even then demanding the resignation of the two pontiffs. Pierre d'Ailly himself had not long before taken part in the drawing up of a letter to the king in which the advantages of this double abdication were set forth, but since then his zeal had seemed to cool a little. None the less, on his return from Avignon, he again in the presence of the king enlarged upon the advantages offered by the way which the university commended. But the suspicions aroused by his conduct found further confirmation when he caused himself--or allowed himself--to be nominated bishop of Le Puy by Benedict XIII. (April 2, 1395 ). The great number of benefices which he held left room for some doubt as to his disinterestedness. Henceforward he was under suspicion at the university, and was excluded from the assemblies where the union was discussed.

Some time afterwards Pierre d'Ailly became bishop of Cambrai (March 19, 1397) by the favour of the pope, who had yielded no whit, and, by virtue of this position, became also a prince of the empire. In order to take possession of his new see, he had to brave the wrath of the duke of Burgundy, override the resistance of the clergy and bourgeoisie, and even withstand an armed attack on the part of several lords; but his protector, the duke of Orleans, had his investiture performed by Wenceslaus, king of the Romans. The latter, though a partisan of the pope of Rome, took the opportunity of enjoining on Pierre d'Ailly to go in his name and argue with the pope of Avignon, a move which had as its object to persuade Benedict XIII. to an abdication, the necessity of which was becoming more and more evident. However, the language of the bishop of Cambrai seems on this occasion to have been lacking in decision; however that may be, it led to no felicitous result.

France next tried to bring violent pressure to bear to conquer the obstinacy of Benedict XIII. by threatening a formal withdrawal from his obedience. Pierre d'Ailly, who, in spite of his attachment to the pope, had been carried away by the example of the kingdom, was among the first who, in 1403, after experience of what had happened, counselled and celebrated the restoration of obedience. He was sent by Charles VI. on an embassy to Benedict XIII. and seized this opportunity of lavishing on the pontiff friendly congratulations mingled with useful advice. Two years later, before the same pontiff, he preached in the city of Genoa a sermon which led to the general institution, in the countries of the obedience of Avignon, of the festival of the Holy Trinity.

At the ecclesiastical council which took place at Paris in 1406 Pierre d'Ailly made every effort to avert a new withdrawal from the obedience and, by order of the king, took the part of defender of Benedict XIII., a course which yet again exposed him to attacks from the university party. The following year he and his disciple Gerson formed part of the great embassy sent by the princes to the two pontiffs, and while in Italy he was occupied in praiseworthy but vain efforts to induce the pope of Rome to remove himself to a town on the Italian coast, in the neighbourhood of his rival, where it was hoped that the double abdication would take place. Discouraged by his failure to effect this, he returned to his diocese of Cambrai at the beginning of 1408. At this time he was still faithful to Benedict XIII., and the disinclination he felt to joining the members of the French clergy who were on the point of ratifying the royal declaration of neutrality excited the anger of Charles VI.'s government, and a mandate, which was however not executed, ordered the arrest of the bishop of Cambrai.

It was not till after the cardinals of the two colleges had led to the convocation of the general council of Uisa that Tierre d'Aiily renounced the support of Benedict XIII., and, for want of a better policy, again allied himself with the cause which he had championed in his youth. In the council lay now, to judge from his words, the only chance of salvation; and, in view of the requirements of the case, he began to argue that, in case of schism, a council could be convoked by any one of the faithful, and would have the right to judge and even to depose the rival pontiffs. This was, in fact, the procedure of the council of Pisa, in which Pierre d'Ailly took part. After the declaration of the deposition of Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. it went on to the election of Alexander V. (June 26th, 1409), This pope reigned only ten months; his successor, John XXIII., raised Pierre d'Ailly to the rank of cardinal (June 6, 1411), and furtuer, to indemnify him for the loss of the bishopric of Cambrai, conferred upon him the administration of that of Limoges (November 3, 1412), which was shortly after exchanged for the bishopric of Orange. He also nominated Pierre d'Ailly as his legate in Germany (March 18, 1413).

Forgetting these benefits, the cardinal of Cambrai was one of the most formidable adversaries of John XXIII. at the council of Constance. Convinced as he was of the necessity for union and reform, he contributed more than any one to the adoption of the principle that, since the schism had survived the council of Pisa, it was necessary again to take up the work for a fundamental union, without considering the rights of John XXIII. any more than they had those of Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. From this point of view Pierre d'Ailly, together with his compatriot Cardinal Fillastre, took the preponderating part during the first few months. Afterwards, seeing the trend of events, he showed some uneasiness and hesitation. He refused, however, to undertake the defence of John XXIII., and only appeared in the trial of this pope to make depositions against him, which were sometimes of an overwhelming character.

Among the important matters which claimed his attention at Constance may be mentioned also the condemnation of the errors of Wycliffe and the trial of John Huss. The reading in public of his two treatises De Potestate ecclesiastica and De Reformalione Ecclesiae revealed, besides ideas very peculiar to himself on the reform and constitution of the church, his design of reducing the power of the English in the council by denying them the right of forming a separate nation (October 1-November 1, 1416). By this campaign, which exposed him to the worst retaliation of the English, he inaugurated his role of ``procurator and defender of the king of France.''

When at last the question arose of giving the Christian world a new pope, this time sole and uncontested, Pierre d'Ailly defended the right of the cardinals, if not to keep the election entirely in their own hands, at any rate to share in the election, and he brought forward an ingenious system for reconciling the pretensions of the council with the rights of the Sacred College. In this way was elected Pope Martin V. (November 11, 1417), and the task of Pierre d'Ailly was at last finished.

The predominance of the Anglo-Burgundians in France having made it impossible for him to stay there, he went to Avignon to end his days in melancholy calculations arising from the calamities of which he had been the witness, and the astrological reckonings, in which he found pleasure, of the chances for and against the world coming to an end in the near future. He died on the 9th of August 1420.

Pierre d'Ailly's written works are numerous. A great part of them was published with the works of Gerson (by Elhes du Pin, Antwerp, 1706); another part appeared in the 15th century, probably at Brussels, and there are many treatises and sermons still unpublished. In philosophy he was a nominalist. Many questions in science and astrology, such as the reform of the calendar, attracted his attention. His other works consisted of theological essays, ascetic or exegetic, questions of ecclesiastical discipline and reform, and of various polemical writings called forth for the most part by the schism.

Whatever reservations may be made as to a certain interested or ambitious side of his character, Pierre d'Ailly, whose devotion to the cause of union and reform is incontestable, remains one of the leading spirits of the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--P. Tschackert, Peter van Ailli (Gotha, 1877); L. Salembier, Petrus de Alliaco (Lille, 1886); H. Denifle et Em. Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, t. iii. (Paris, 1894); N. Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme d'Occident (Paris, 4 vols., 1896-1902); and Bibliotheque de l'ecole des chartes, vol. lxv., 1904, pp. 557-574. (N. V.)

AILSA CRAIG, an island rock at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde, 10 m. W. of Girvan, Ayrshire, Scotland. It is of conoidal form, with an irregular elliptic base, and rises abruptly to a height of 1114 ft. The only side from which the rock can be ascended is the east; the other sides being for the most part perpendicular, and generally presenting lofty columnar forms, though not so regular as those of Staffa. This island is composed of micro-granite with riebeckite, of great interest on account of the rare occurrence of this type in Britain. It is comparatively fine-grained and of a greyish colour. Its essential constituents are felspar, quartz and riebeckite--a soda amphibole. The last of these minerals occurs in small irregular patches between the idiomorphic felspars which Dr J. J. H. Tean has found to be a soda orthoclase. The rock is allied to paisanite described by C. A. Osann and has been termed ailsite by Professor M. F. Heddle. It forms part of an intrusive mass which, on the south and west cliffs of the island, has a columnar arrangement and is traversed by dykes of dolerite, most of which run in a north-west direction. The age of this mass is uncertain, as its relations to other rocks are not visible in the island. As riebeckite-granophyre has been found in Skye it may be of Tertiary age. The rock is a favourite material for curling-stones, about three-fourths (according to estimate) of those in use in the countries where the game obtains being made of it. On this account curling-stones are popularly known as ``Ailsas'' or ``Ailsa Craigs.'' A columnar cave exists towards the northern side of the island, and on the eastern are the remains of a tower, with several vaulted rooms. Two springs occur and some scanty grass affords subsistence to rabbits, and, on the higher levels, to goats. The precipitous parts are frequented by large flocks of solan geese and other sea birds. The lighthouse on the southern side shows a flashing light visible for 13