of A. though they did not deny the existence of a divinity, but only rejected the common notions of a plurality of gods. And in the Christian Church, after the doctrine of the Trinity had been fixed and defined, those that denied the divinity of Christ were not unusually branded as atheists.

The horror inspired by this name is strikingly shewn in the way it is repudiated by the adherents of pantheism (q. v.), who reject a personal god, and substitute the idealised principle of order that pervades the universe. It is hardly to be denied, however, that the idea associated with the word God has hitherto involved personality as its very essence; and except for the purpose of avoiding odium, there could be little propriety in retaining the word when the notion is so completely altered.

The view of those who, like Kant, believe it impossible to demonstrate satisfactorily the existence of God, though it must be held on other grounds, is called speculative A., in opposition to the dogmatic A. of those who attempt to disprove that existence. A'THELNEY, ISLE OF, a marsh at the junction of the rivers Tone and Parret, in the middle of Somersetshire. Here Alfred, when driven from his throne, hid from his enemies, and founded, in 888, a Benedictine abbey, now entirely gone. Among the many relics found in this spot is a ring of Alfred's, preserved in the Oxford Museum. The name Athelney means 'island of the nobles,' or 'royal

island.'

A'THELSTAN, the grandson of Alfred the Great, was born about 895 A.D., and was the first Saxon monarch who took the title of king of England, Alfred himself only assuming that of king of the Anglo-Saxons. He was crowned at Kingston-uponThames in 925, and seems to have possessed both great ambition and high talent. It is supposed that his design was to unite in subjection to his single sway the entire island of Britain. His resources, however, were not equal to the undertaking, and he had to content himself with the acquisition of portions of Cornwall and Wales. On the death of Sigtric, king of Northumbria, who had married one of his daughters, A. took possession of his dominions. This excited the alarm and animosity of the neighbouring states, and a league, composed of Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, was formed against the English king, for the purpose of placing Aulaff, the son of Sigtric, on his father's throne. A fierce and decisive battle was fought at Brunenburgh, in which the allies were utterly defeated, and which became famous in Saxon song. After this, the reputation of A. spread into the continent. His sisters were married into the royal families of France and Germany, and he himself enjoyed the greatest influence and consideration. At home, he exhibited a deep interest in the welfare of his people, improved the laws, built monasteries, and encouraged the translation of the Bible into the vernacular. He died at Gloucester on the 25th October 941, in his 47th

year.

ATHENE'UM (Gr. Athenaion), the Temple of Minerva (Gr. Athene) at Athens, which was frequented by poets, learned men, and rhetoricians, who there read aloud their works. The A. in Rome was a school or college erected, by the Emperor Hadrian, for the study of poetry and rhetoric, with a regular staff of professors. It existed for a long period. In the time of Theodosius II., it had three professors of oratory, ten of grammar, five of sophistry or dialectics, one of philosophy, and two of jurisprudence.In modern times, the name A. has been revived as an appellation for certain literary institutions, and also as a collective title for literary essays and reviews. A. is the title of two weekly journals of literature,

science, and art-one published in London, the other in Paris.

ATHEN Æ'US, a Greek rhetor and littérateur, born at Naucratis in Egypt. He lived at the close of the second and beginning of the third century. His work, entitled Deipnosophiste (Banquet of the Learned), in fifteen books, but of which we possess the first two, and parts of the third, eleventh, and fifteenth only in an abridged form, is very interesting, as it has preserved for us copious fragments of old writers, and treats, in the form of dialogue, of almost all the topics of ancient Greek manners, private and public life, arts, sciences, &c. It is not a work indicative of any high ability; the author, for the most part, appears in the character of an agreeable, well-read, epicurean gentleman, excessively fond of tit-bits, both of scandal and cookery. He tells many stories to the disadvantage of people whom history praises; but these we are by no means bound to believe, nor, indeed, is he a man whose opinions are worth much on any subject; but as a melange of literary, social, and domestic gossip, the value of the work is unrivalled. appears to have read enormously; he states that he had made extracts himself from 800 plays of the middle comedy alone. But his dialogue is prolix and lumbering; and his work is not irradiated by a single gleam of genius, and has only achieved immortality through being a store-house of miscellaneous information, that otherwise would have been lost to the vols. Strasb. 1801-1807), and Dindorf (3 vols. Leip. race. The best editions are by Schweighäuser (14 1827). There is an English translation of A. in Bohn's Classical Library (3 vols. Lond. 1854).

A.

ATHENA'GORAS, an early Christian philosopher, who taught first at Athens, and afterwards at Alexandria. He is one of the oldest of the apologetical writers, and is favourably known by his Legatio pro Christianis, which he addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the year 177 A. D. He therein defended the Christians against the monstrous accusations of the heathen, viz., that they were guilty of atheism, incest, and cannibalism. His work is written in a philosophical spirit, and is marked by great clearness and cogency of style. We likewise possess a valuable treatise of his on the resurrection of the dead.

She

ATHENA'IS, an Athenian of distinguished beauty, the daughter of Leontinos the Sophist, was born about the close of the 4th c., A. D. received from her father a superior education, being skilled in Greek and Latin literature, rhetoric, astronomy, geometry, and the science of arithmetic. After his death, she repaired to Constantinople, to obtain justice for the harsh treatment to which her brother subjected her. Here her beauty and intelligence made her the favourite of Augusta Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II., who considered that she would make an excellent wife for the emperor. In 421, A. having been baptized and named Eudocia, was married to Theodosius, and in 438, made a splendid pilgrimage to Jerusalem, bringing with her, on her return, the supposed relics of the first martyr, Stephen. Afterwards, she lost the favour of Pulcheria-the real manager of affairsand was banished from the court. She then retired to Jerusalem, where she suffered many persecutions, and died, in the odour of sanctity, 460 A.D. wrote an epic poem on the war of Theodosius against the Persians, and several other metrical works which have not been preserved.

A.

ATHENS, the capital of the ancient state of Attica, is said to have been founded by Cecrops, about 1550 B. C., and styled Cecropia; but even the ancients themselves doubted this tradition. Equally

uncertain is the story that it was first styled A., in honour of Athene, during the reign of Erichthonius. The ancient citadel was situated on the top of a square craggy rock, 150 feet high, with a flat summit, 1000 feet long, and 500 broad. Gradually, as population increased, A. extended itself over the wide and beautiful plain below. This increase is said to have been occasioned by the organisation of the twelve Attic tribes into a political confederacy or union by Theseus, the brightest figure that shines through the dark ages' of Attic history. The position of A. near the Gulf of Saronica, opposite the eastern coast of the Peloponnesus, was favourable to the acquirement of naval power. The city, which was distant four or five miles from the sea, possessed three harbours, all situated on the south-west, and connected with it by walls. The oldest of these harbours was Phalerum. It was also the nearest to the city, and accessible at all times by a dry road. The Peiræus was first used as a harbour by Themistocles. Munychia was the Acropolis of the whole rocky peninsula termed the Peiræus, and of immense importance strategetically. The two last harbours were connected with the city by the famous 'long walls,' of which we read so much in Athenian history. They were forty stadia, or nearly five miles in length. Two streams flowed in the vicinity of A.; on the east side, the Ilissus, which also washed the southern part of the city; and on the west, the Cephisus, about a mile and a half beyond the walls. To the west lay Salamis, with Eleusis on the north-west, Phyla and Decelea on the north, Marathon on the north-east, and Hymettus on the south. All along the coast rose splendid buildings. The whole of the magnificent prospect was crowned by the Acropolis, where all the most glorious monuments of A. were assembled. First rose the Parthenon (q. v.), or Temple of Minerva, a pile which even now, after the lapse of centuries, remains among the wonders of the world. The Propylæa, all built of white marble, formed the entrance to the Parthenon. Close to it, on the north side of the Acropolis, rose the Erechtheium, the most venerated of all Athenian sanctuaries, and connected with the oldest religious history of the city. The whole of it was destroyed by the Persians, but was restored during the Peloponnesian war. Its ruins still exist, and allow us to form a very correct idea of its external form and structure. In some points, it differed from all other examples of Greek temples. But it would be tedious and unprofitable to mention in detail all those magnificent buildings which were the glory of ancient Athens. It is sufficient to say, that gods were never more superbly honoured in any land. That enthusiastic love of the beautiful which animated the Athenians, turning their religion into an art, and making worship an education in æsthetics, is nowhere so clearly visible as in their religious architecture. Their mythological faith stood daily before their eyes in monumental splendour, for almost every deity had his temple or shrine in the city. Two of the finest buildings-the Temple of Theseus, and that of Jupiter Olympus-were on the outside of the city; the first to the northwest, the second to the south. The former was both a temple and a tomb, inasmuch as it held the remains of Theseus himself. It was built about 465 B. C., and was therefore older than the Parthenon. It had the privilege of an asylum for slaves, and the large space of ground which it enclosed was frequently used as a muster-ground for the Athenian soldiery. It was built of the favourite Pentelic marble, in the Doric style of architecture, and is the best preserved of all the monuments of ancient Athens. For centuries it was a Christian church, appropriately enough dedicated |

to St George, the chivalrous hero of the dark ages of Christianity, as Theseus had been of the 'dark ages' of Attic history; but is now the national museum of the city. The Temple of Jupiter, of which sixteen grand Corinthian columns are still extant, to the south-east of the Acropolis, and near the right bank of the Ilissus, in size, splendour, and beauty, excelled all other Athenian structures. Immense sums of money were expended upon it from the time when it was commenced by Peisistratus, until it was completed by Hadrian, a period of 700 years. The building of it was frequently sus pended, so that Philostratus calls it 'a struggle with time.' At the time the Persians sacked the city, it was fortunately only beginning to be built, and so escaped destruction. Aristotle speaks of it as a work of despotic grandeur, and equal to the pyramids of Egypt. The exterior was decorated by about 120 fluted columns, 61 feet in height, and more than 6 feet in diameter. It was 354 feet long, and 171 broad, and contained the celebrated statue of the Olympian Jupiter in ivory and gold, the work of Phidias.

Besides these wonders of art, the city contained places of interest of which the memory will perpetually remain-the Academy where Plato, whose estate lay near it, gave his lessons in a grove of plane-trees adorned with statues; tradition alleged it to have belonged originally to Academus. Hipparchus surrounded it with a wall, and Cimon adorned it with walks, fountains, and olive-groves. The Lyceum, the most important of the Athenian gymnasia, where Aristotle lectured; and, near to this, the Cynosarges, where Antisthenes the Cynic expounded his harsh and crabbed' doctrine; the hill of the Areiopagus, where the most venerable court of judicature was held; and the Prytaneum, or senate-house. About a quarter of a mile to the west of the Acropolis_rises a low hill, which marks the locality of the Pnyx, a place of public assembly, forming a large semicircular area, bounded at the base by a limestone wall, from which projects a pedestal, carved out of the rock, and ascended by steps. This most interesting place has been preserved almost in its integrity, and, as we look around, we are carried back to the times when some six thousand Athenian citizens were here assembled, when the orator, standing upon the pedestal, could survey the Acropolis, with all its temples, the venerable Areopagus, and beyond the city, the extended plains and villages of Attica, with corn-fields, olivegrounds, and vineyards.

A., in its most flourishing period, numbered 21,000 free citizens; from which we may calculate that it contained about 200,000 inhabitants. More than two thousand years have passed over the beautiful city, and still its remains excite the admiration of the world. The Turks surrounded it with wide irregular walls, partly built out of the ruins of the old walls, and containing many fragments of noble columns. Of the Propylæa, the right wing, or Temple of Victory, was destroyed in 1656 by the explosion of a powder-magazine. Six columns, with lofty arches, remain to mark the site of the opposite wing. The interior of the Parthenon was used for some time as a Turkish mosque. Eight columns remain on the east of the front, several colonnades at the sides; and of the back pediment, where the combat of Minerva and Neptune was sculptured, nothing remains save the head of a seahorse, and two decapitated female figures. Of the pediment in front, several figures belonging to the group representing the birth of Minerva are preserved in the British Museum, and justly regarded as master-pieces of ancient sculpture. Of all the statues which the Parthenon contained, only one,

that of Hadrian, has been preserved. Ruined as it has been, the general aspect of the Parthenon is still sublime. Of the Erechtheium (or Temple of Neptunus Erechtheius) considerable vestiges remain, especially the beautiful female figures styled Caryatides.

The situations and vast extent of the two theatres may still be traced, though grain is now grown in the arenas. All these remains belong to the Acropolis. In the city below, there are no such splendid memorials. The Horologium, or octagonal Temple of the Winds (built by Andronicus Kyrrhestes), has

been well preserved; but a few fragments found in broken walls are all that remain to tell of the splendid Gymnasium built by Ptolemæus. Beyond the city, the attention of the spectator is arrested by the sublime ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Olympus. Pedestals and inscriptions have been found here and there, sometimes buried in the earth. The sculptures on the friezes of the interior of the Temple of Theseus, representing the exploits of Theseus, have been well preserved, while the external sculptures are almost utterly destroyed. A Turkish burial-place

now occupies the hill where the Areiopagus held its sittings. The site of the Lyceum is indicated only by scattered stones, and a modern house and garden occupy the place of the Academy. Scarcely anything remains to shew the old magnificence of the harbours Peiræus, Phaleros, and Munychia.

It is probable that, in the time of Pausanias, many structures remained belonging to the period before the Persian war, as Xerxes, during his short time of mastery over A., would scarcely have been able to destroy more than the fortifications and principal public buildings. Themistocles, in his restoration of the city, had chiefly a regard to utility; Cimon paid attention to its decoration; but Pericles far exceeded them in the magnificence of his designs, which were too vast to be carried into effect in later times. The civilisation, spreading from A. as its centre, raised Macedon and other states into dangerous rivalry. The defeat at Charoneia was as fatal to the fine arts as to the liberty of the Athenians. After the works at the Peiræus had been destroyed by Sulla, the naval power, and with it the whole political importance of A., rapidly declined. It is true that the city was treated leniently by its conquerors; the temples and statues were preserved from violation, and A., with all the trophies of eight centuries of greatness, remained under the Antonines; but the free national spirit of the Athenians had departed for ever, and slowly, but surely, the fine arts shared the fate of Grecian liberty. Their treasures, which had been spared by the Roman emperors, were gradually stolen away by various thievish collectors, especially for the decoration of Byzantium, or were destroyed by irreflective Christian zeal and barbarian invasion. About 420 A. D., the ancient religion and temple-service of A. had entirely disappeared; afterwards, the schools of philosophy were closed by Justinian, and Greek mythology was gradually forgotten. St George took the place of Theseus, and the Parthenon was converted into a church. The surviving industry of A. was injured by Roger of Sicily, who removed its silk manufactures.

In 1456, A. fell into the hands of Omar, and, to consummate its degradation, under the low, sensual Turks, the city of Athene was regarded as an appanage of the harem, and governed by a black eunuch. The Venetians, having captured the city in 1687, intended to carry away as a trophy the quadriga of victory from the west front of the Parthenon, but shattered it in their attempt to remove it. In 1688, A. was again delivered into the hands of the Turks, and the work of demolition now proceeded rapidly. The grand remains of antiquity were used as quarries to supply materials for all ordinary buildings, and, in the course of another century, the city was reduced to its lowest point of degradation.

Modern A. (styled by the Turks Athina or Setines) is now the capital of the new kingdom of Greece. Previous to the Greek revolution (1821), it was a provincial city of inferior importance, the seat of a Greek metropolitan bishop, and under the jurisdiction of the Turkish governor in Euboea. In 1821, the war of liberation commenced, and the Turks surrendered Athens in the following year; but again captured it in 1826, and took the Acropolis in 1827. After this it was left in ruins until 1830, when Attica was declared united with Greece by the protocol of the London Conference. In 1834, Otho, the son of the Bavarian monarch, who had been elected to the sovereignty of the new kingdom, removed his residence from Nauplia to A. Improvements now proceeded rapidly: Turkish manners and customs disappeared; the contemptible wooden houses and crooked streets were superseded by new ones-among which the Hermes, Eolus, Athene, and New Stadion streets are conspicuous; and, in 1836, the foundation of a new palace was laid, and it was completed in 1843. The municipal affairs of A. are now regulated by a mayor (demarchos) and council elected by the citizens. Modern A. has a gymnasium, a library enriched with many donations from France and Germany, and a university, where about 52 professors and tutors are

One species, A. Presbyter, is very common on the south coast of England and on some parts of the coast of Ireland, but is rare on the east coast of Britain. In the markets of some of the southern

Atherine (Atherina Presbyter).

is

A. gene

towns of England, where the Smelt (q. v.) unknown, it is sold under that name: in Brighton and some other places, it is called Sand Smelt. Where this fish abounds, it is often taken by anglers from the shore, biting readily at almost any bait. ATHERO'MA, or fatty deposit,' is generally found in the tissues of aged persons, or those who have lived dissipated and ill-nourished lives. In appearance, it is yellow and cheesy, shewing under the microscope fatty granules and crystals of cholesterine. Its most common situation is between the middle and inner coats of arteries, and is dangerous, inasmuch as it interferes with the elasticity of the arterial tube, rendering it more liable to injury, and less able to repair itself, should any occur. rally precedes aneurism (q. v.). Cysts filled with contents resembling bread-sauce, which frequently occur in the scalp, are termed atheromatous tumours. ATHLETE (Gr. athleo, to contend), the name given to a combatant, pugilist, wrestler, or runner, in ancient Greece. Athletics were studied in Greece as a branch of art, and led to several useful rules of diet, exercise, &c., applicable to ordinary modes of life. Bodily strength and activity were so highly honoured by the Greeks, that the A. held a position in society totally different from that of the modern pugilist. When he proposed to enter the lists at the Olympic or other public games, he was examined with regard to his birth, social position, and moral character. A herald then stepped forth and called upon any one, if he knew aught disgraceful to the candidate, to state it. Even men of genius contended for the palm in athletic exercises. Chrysippus and Cleanthes, the famous philosophers, were victorious athletes, or, at least, agonista, i. e., persons who pursued gymnastic exercises, not as a profession, but for the sake of exercise, just as at the present day we have gentlemen-cricketers, amateur-pugilists, &c. The profound and eloquent Plato appeared among the wrestlers in the Isthmian games at Corinth, and also in the Pythian games at Sicyon. Even the meditative Pythagoras is said to have gained a prize at Elis, and gave instructions for athletic training to Eurymenes, who afterwards gained a prize at the same place. So great was the honour of an Olympian victor, that his native city was regarded as ennobled by his success, and he himself considered sacred. He entered the city through a special breach made in the walls; he was supported at the public expense; and when he died, was honoured with a public funeral. Euthymus, of Locri in Italy, who had, with only one exception, been regularly victorious at Elis, was honoured with a statue, to which, even during his lifetime, homage was paid by command of an oracle. Athletic sports were first witnessed at Rome 186 B. C. They were introduced by M. Fulvius at the end of the Ætolian war, and became excessively popular in the time of the emperors. At Rome, the athletes formed a corporation.

Ireland, on both sides of the Shannon, chiefly in the county of Westmeath, but partly in that of Roscommon. It is the largest town between Dublin and Galway, and lies on a commanding situation, 3 miles below Lough Ree, in a carboniferous limestone district. The chief manufactures are felt-hats, friezes, linens, and stays. A canal here, a mile long, enables large river-steamers to navigate the Shannon for 116 miles, from Killaloe to Carrickon-Shannon, uninterrupted by the river-rapids. The Shannon is crossed by a fine bow-string and lattice iron bridge of two arches, 175 and 40 feet span. Pop. in 1871, 6565. A. sends one member to parliament. A. Castle, on the Roscommon bank of the Shannon, was founded in the reign of King John, and has now been rendered one of the chief military positions in Ireland. cover 15 acres, and contain barracks for 1500 men.

The fortifications

A'THOLE (Pleasant Land), a district of 450 square miles, in the north of Perthshire. It occupies a great part of the southern slopes of the Grampian mountains, and is intersected by many narrow glens, down which flow the rapid tributaries of the Tay. It is chiefly composed of gneiss and quartz rock, with beds of primary limestone. Dr Hutton's explorations among the granite veins in Glen Tilt, were among the chief means of establishing the Plutonic theory of geology. A. was once one of the best hunting districts in Scotland. Athole deer-forest is said to contain 100,000 acres, and 10,000 head of deer, of which 100 are killed annually. In the picturesque Pass of Killiecrankie, in this district, 17 miles northvictorious over the troops of King William III. west of Dunkeld, Claverhouse fell in 1689, though

A'THOR, or ATHYR, but properly, Het-her, i. e., 'the habitation of God,' the name of an Egyptian goddess who, in the mythological system of that people, is ranked among the second class of deities. She was the daughter of Ra, the sun. By the Greeks, she was identified with Aphrodite (Venus). The cow was regarded as her symbol, and, in hieroglyphics, she generally appears with the head of that animal, bearing between her horns the figure of the sun's disk. A. is also represented as a cow itself, and as a bird with human face, horns, and the sun's disk. On the oldest monuments, she is frequently portrayed bearing a temple on her head, as in the Athor-capitals of the Ptolemaic buildings, falsely supposed to be heads of Isis. Originally, the goddess had a cosmogonic significance; later, she was called the mistress of dance and jest,' and held in her hands, as symbols of joy, the cord of love and the tambourine. Queens and princesses were often represented by the figure of A. Her worship was generally spread through Egypt. Her most sacred abode was at Denderah. After her the third month of the Egyptian year was named.

A'THOS, HA'GION O'ROS, or MONTÉ SA'NTO, i. e., the Holy Hill, the principal mountain of a chain extending, in a peninsular form, from the coast of Macedonia into the gean Sea, between the Gulfs of Contessa and Monté Santo, and connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The length of the peninsula is 40 miles; breadth, 4. According to tradition, it received its name from A., son of Neptune, or from A., a giant who battled against the gods. The highest summit in the chain, or Mount A. proper, a solitary peak at the southern extremity of the peninsula, rises 6350 feet above the sea-level. In ancient times, several towns were built on A. Herodotus mentions five. The most memorable thing in connection with A., is the canal which Xerxes cut through the isthmus, in order to escape the stormy gales which rendered the navigation round the promontory very perilous, and