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sec. VII. Commerce and Economics.—A. Silva White, The Development of Africa, 2nd ed. (1892): K. Dove, "Grundzuge einer Wirtschaftsgeographie Afrikas,'' Geographische Zeitschrift, 1905, i-18; E. Hahn, "Die Stellung Afrikas in der Geschichte des Welthandels,'' Verhandl. 11. Deutsch. Geographentags zu Bremen (Berlin, 1896); L. de Launay, Les Richesses minerales de l'Afrique (Paris, 1903); K. Futterer, Afrika in seiner Bedeutung fur die Goldproduktion (Berlin, 1894); P. Reichard, "Das afrikan. Elfenbein und sein Handel,'' Deutsche geogr. Blatter (Bremen, 1889); Sir A. Moloney, Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa (1887); Dewevre, "Les Caoutchoucs africains,'' Ann. Soc. Sci. Bruxelles, 1895; Sir T. F. Buxton, The African Slave Trade and its Remedy (1840); C. M. A. Lavigerie, L'Esclavage africain (Paris, 1888); E. de Renty, Les chemins de fer coloniaux en Afrique, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903-1905); H. Meyer, Die Eisenbahnen im tropischen Afrika (Leipzig, 1902); G. Grenfell, "The Upper Congo as a Waterway,'' Geogr. Journ., Nov. 1902; A. St. H. Gibbons, "The Nile and Zambezi Systems as Waterways,'' Journ. R. Colon. Inst., 1901; K. Lent, "Verkehrsmittel in Ostafrika,'' Deutsches Kolonialblatt, 1894; "Trade of the United Kingdom with the African Continent in 1898-1902,'' Board of T. Journ., 1903; Diplomatic and Consular Peports, Annual Series; Colonial Reports; T. H. Parke, Guide to Health in Africa (1893); R. W. Felkin, Geographical Distribution of Tropical Diseases in Africa (1895)
The following bibliographies may also be consulted: J. Gay, Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs a l'Afrique, &c. (San Remo, 1875); P. Paulitschke, Die Afrika-Literatur von 1500 bis 1750 (Vienne, 1882); Catalogue of the Colonial Office Library, vol. 3, Africa (specially for government publications). (E. HE.)
1 Where no place of publication is given, London is to be understood.
AFRICA, ROMAN. The Romans gave the name of Africa to that part of the world which the Greeks called Libya (Aibbe.) It comprised the whole of the portion of the African continent known to the ancients, except Egypt and Ethiopia. But besides this general sense, which occurs in Pliny (iii. 3), Pomponius Mela (i. 8) and other authors, the official and administrative language used the word Africa in a narrower sense, which is noticed below. The term was certainly borrowed by the Romans from the language of the natives. In Latin literature it was employed for the first time by the poet Ennius, who wrote in the interval between the First and Second Punic Wars (Ann. vi.; Sat. iii.). By him the term was confined to the territory of Carthage and the regions composing the eastern group of the Atlas. Among the numerous conjectures which have been made as to the etymology of the term Africa ('Afrike) may be quoted that which derives it from the Semitic radical resh daleth pe ("separate''), Africa being considered, in this connexion, as a Phoenician settlement "separated'' from the mother country, Asiatic Phoenicia. It has also been held that the word Africa comes from friqi, farikia (the country of fruit). The best hypothesis in the writer's opinion is that maintained by Charles Tissot, who sees in the word "Africa'' the name of the great Berber tribe, the Aourigha (whose name would have been pronounced Afarika), the modern Aouraghen, now driven back into the Sahara, but in ancient times the principal indigenous element of the African empire of Carthage (Tissot, Geogr. comp. i. 389). Thus Africa was originally, in the eyes of the Romans and Carthaginians alike, the country inhabited by the great tribe of Berbers or Numidians called Afarik. Cyrenaica, on the east, attached to Egypt, was then excluded from it, and, similarly, Mauretania, on the west.
At the time of the Third Punic War the Africa of the Carthaginians was but a fragment of their ancient native empire. It comprised the territory bounded by a vague line running from the mouth of the Tusca (Wad el Kebir), opposite the island of Tabraca (Tabarca), as far as the town of Thenae (Tina), at the mouth of the Gulf of Gabes. The rest of Africa had passed into the hands of the kings of Numidia, who were allies of the Romans.
After the capture of Carthage by Scipio (146 B.C.) this territory was erected into a Roman province, and a trench, the fossa regia, was dug to mark the boundary of the Roman province of Africa and the dominions of the Numidian princes. There have been discovered (1907) the remains of this ditch protected by a low wall or a stone dyke; some of the boundary stones which marked its course, and inscriptions mentioning it, have also been found. From Testur on the Mejerda the fossa regia can be followed by these indications for several miles along the Jebel esh-Sheid. The ditch ran northward to Tabarca and southward to Tina. The importance of the discoveries lies in the fact that the ditch which in later times divided the provinces of Africa vetus and Africa nova was at the time of the Third Punic War the boundary of Carthaginian territory (R. Cagnat, "Le fosse des frontieres romaines'' in Melanges Boissier, 1905, p. 227; L. Poinssot in Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscript. et Belles Lettres, 1907, p. 466; Classical Review, 1907, December, p. 255). The government of the Roman province thus delimited was entrusted to a praetor or propraetor, of whom several are now known, e.g. P. Sextilius, propraetor Africae, according to coins of Hadrumetum of the year 94 B.C. The towns which had fought on the side of the Romans during the Third Punic War were declared civitates liberae, and became exceedingly prosperous. They were Utica (Bu Shatir), Hadrumetum (Susa), Thapsus (Dimas), Leptis Minor (Lemta), Achulla (Badria), Uzalis (about 11 m. from Utica) and Theudalis. Those towns, however, which had remained faithful to Carthage were destroyed, like Carthage itself.
After the Jugurthine war in 106, the whole of the regio Tripolitana, comprising Leptis Magna (Lebda), Oea (Tripoli), Sabrata, and the other towns on the littoral of the two Syrtes, appears to have been annexed to the Roman province in a more or less regular manner (Tissot ii. 21). The battle of Thapsus in 46 made the Romans definitely masters of Numidia, and the spheres of administration were clearly marked out. Numidia was converted into a new province called "Africa Nova,'' and of this province the historian Sallust was appointed proconsul and invested with the imperium. From that time the old province of Africa was known as "Africa Vetus'' or "Africa Propria.''
This state of affairs, however, lasted but a short time. In 31 B.C. Octavius gave up Numidia, or Africa Nova, to King Juba II. Five years later Augustus gave Mauretania and some Gaetulian districts to Juba, and received in exchange Numidia, which thus reverted to direct Roman control. Numidia, however, no longer formed a distinct government, but was attached to the old province of Africa. From 25 B.C. the Roman province of Africa comprised the whole of the region between the mouth of the Ampsaga (Wad Rummel, Wad el Kebir) on the west, and the two tumuli called the altars of the Philaeni, the immutable boundary between Tripolitana and Cyrenaica, on the east (Tissot ii. 261). In the partition of the government of the provinces of the Roman empire between the senate and the emperor, Africa fell to the senate, and was henceforth administered by a proconsul. Subordinate to him were the legati pro consule, who were placed at the head of districts called dioceses. At first there were only three dioceses: Carthaginiensis, Hipponiensis (headquarters Hippo Diarrhytus, now Bizerta), and Numidica (headquarters Cirta, now Constantine). At a later date the diocesis Hadrumetina was formed, and perhaps at some date unknown the diocesis Tripolitana.
The province of Africa was the only senatorial province whose governor had originally been invested with military powers. The proconsul of Africa, in fact, had command of the legio III. Augusta and the auxiliary corps. But in A.D. 37 Caligula deprived the proconsul of his military powers and gave them to the imperial legate (legatus Augusti pro praetore provinciae Africae), who was nominated directly by the emperor, and whose special duty it was to guard the frontier zone (Tacitus, Mist. iv. 48; Dio Cass. lix. 20). The headquarters of the imperial legate were originally at Cirta and afterwards at Lambaesa (Lambessa). The military posts were drawn up in echelon along the frontier of the desert, especially along the southern slopes of the Aures, as far as Ad Majores (Besseriani), and on the Tripolitan frontier as far as Cydamus (Ghadames), forming an immense arc extending from Cyrenaica to Mauretania. A network of military routes, constructed and kept in repair by the soldiers, led from Lambaesa in all directions, and stretched along the frontier as far as Leptis Magna, passing Theveste (Tebessa), Thenae and Tacape (Gabes). The powers of the proconsul, however, extended scarcely beyond the ancient Africa Vetus and the towns on the littoral. Towards 194 Septimius Severus completed the reform of Caligula by detaching from the province of Africa the greater part of Numidia to constitute a special province governed by a procurator, subordinate to the imperial legate and resident at Cirta (Tissot ii. 34). This province was called Numidia Cirtensis, as opposed to Numidia Inferior or proconsular Numidia.
In Diocletian's great reform of the administrative system of the empire, the whole of Roman Africa, with the exception of Mauretania Tingitana (which was attached to the province of Spain), constituted a single diocese subdivided into six provinces: Zeugitana (Carthage), Byzacium (Hadrumetum, now Susa), Numidia Cirtensis (Cirta, Constantine), Tripolitana (Tripolis), Mauretania Sitifensis (Sitifis, Setif), and Mauretania Caesariensis (Caesarea, now Cherchel). These provinces were administered, according to circumstances, by a praeses of senatorial rank, a legatus pro praetore, or a vir clarissimus consularis. Some changes were eventually necessitated by the wars with the Moors and the Vandals. By a treaty concluded in 476, the emperor Zeno recognized Genseric as master of all Africa. Reconquered by Belisarius in 534, Africa formed, under the name of praefectura Africae, one of the great administrative districts of the Byzantine empire. It was subdivided into six provinces, which were placed under the authority of the praetorian prefect of Africa. These provinces were Zeugitana (the former Proconsularis), Carthage, Byzacium, Tripolitana, Numidia and Mauretania. The civil government was carried on by consulares or praesides, while the military government was in the hands of four duces militum, who made strenuous efforts to drive out the barbarians. The country was studded thickly with burgi (small forts) and clausurae (long walls), the ruins of which still subsist. In 647 the Arabs penetrated into Ifrikia, which was destined to fall for ever out of the grasp of the Romans. In 697 Carthage was taken.
The bulk of the population of Roman Africa was invariably composed of three chief elements: the indigenous Berber tribes, the ancient Carthaginians of Phoenician origin and the Roman colonists. The Berber tribes, whose racial unity is attested by their common spoken language and by the comparatively numerous Berber inscriptions that have come down to us, bore in ancient times the generic names of Numidians, Gaetulians and Moors or Maurusiani. Herodotus mentions a great number of these tribes. During the Roman period, according to Pliny, there were settlements of 26 indigenous tribes extending from the Ampsaga as far as Cyrenaica. The much more detailed list of Ptolemy enumerates 39 indigenous tribes in the province of Africa and 25 in Mauretania Caesariensis. Ammianus Marcellinus, Procopius and Flavius Cresconius Corippus give still further names. Besides the Afri (Aourigha) of the territory of Carthage, the principal tribes that took part in the wars against the Romans were the Lotophagi, the Garamantes, the Maces, the Nasamones in the regions of the S.E., the Misulani or Musulamii (whence the name Mussulman), the Massyli and the Massaesyli in the E., who were neighbours of the Moors. The non-nomads of these Libyan tribes dwelt in huts made of stakes supporting plaited mats of rush or asphodel. These dwellings, which were called mapalia, are the modern gourbis. African epigraphy has revealed the names of some of their deities: deus invictus Aulisva; the god Motmanius, associated with Mercury; the god Lilleus; Baldir Augustus; Kautus pater; the goddess Gilva, identified with Tellus, and Ifru Augustus (Tissot i. 486). The Johannis of Corippus mentions three native divinities: Sinifere, Mastiman and Gurzil. There were also local divinities in all the principal districts. The rock bas-reliefs and other monuments showing native divinities are rare, and give only very summary representations. Dolmens, however, occur in great numbers in Tunisia and the province of Constantine. Tumuli, too, are found throughout northern Africa, the most celebrated being that near Cherchel, the Kubr-er-Rumia ("tomb of the Christian lady''), which was regarded by Pomponius Mela as the royal burying-place of the kings of Numidia.
During the Roman period the ancient Carthaginians of Phoenician origin and the bastard population termed by ancient authors Libyo-Phoenicians, like the modern Maltese, invariably formed the predominant population of the towns on the littoral, and retained the Punic language until the 6th century of the Christian era. The municipal magistrates took the title of suffetes in place of that of duumvirs, and in certain towns the Christian bishops were obliged to know the lingua Punica, since it was the only language that the people understood. Nevertheless, the Roman functionaries, the army and the colonists from Italy soon brought the Latin element into Africa, where it flourished with such vigour that, in the 3rd century, Carthage became the centre of a Romano-African civilization of extraordinary literary brilliancy, which numbered among its leaders such men as Apuleius, Tertullian, Arnobius, Cyprian, Augustine and many others.
Carthage regained its rank of capital of Africa under Augustus, when thousands of Roman colonists flocked to the town. Utica became a Roman colony under Hadrian, and the civitates liberae, municipia, castella, pagi and turres were peopled with Latins. The towns of the ancient province of Africa which received coloniae were very numerous: Abitensis (civitas Avittensis Bibba), Bisica Lucana (Tastour), Byzacium, Capsa (Gafsa), Carthage, Cuina, Curubis (Kurba), Hadrumetum (Susa), Hippo Diarrhytus or Zarytus (Bizerta), Leptis Magna (Lebda), Maxula (Ghades, Rades or Gades), Neapolis (Nabel, Nebeul), Oea (Tripoli), Sabrata (Zoara), colonia Scillitana (Ghasrin), Sufes (Sbiba), Tacape (Gabes), Thaenae or Thenae (Tina), Thelepte (Medinet Kedima), Thugga (Dugga), Thuburbo maius (Kasbat), Thysdrus (El Jem), Uthina (Wadna) and Vallis (Median). Of the municipia may be mentioned Gigthis or Gigthi (Bu Grara), Thibussicensium Bure (Tebursuk), Zita and the turris Tamalleni (Telmin).
The province of Numidia was at first colonized principally by the military settlements of the Romans. Cirta (Constantine) and Bulla Regia(Hammam Darraj), its chief towns, received coloniae of soldiers and veterans, as well as Theveste (Tebessa) and Thamugas (Timgad). The fine ruins which have been discovered at the last-mentioned place have earned for it the surname of the African Pompeii (see below).
Archaeology.—Roman Africa has been the subject of innumerable historical and archaeological researches, especially since the conquest of Algeria and Tunisia by the French. The country is covered with Roman and Byzantine remains. Each of these ruins has been visited by archaeologists who have copied inscriptions, described the temples, triumphal arches, porticos, mausoleums and the other monuments which are still standing, collected statues or other antiquities; and in many cases they have actually excavated. The results of all these labours have been published, from about 1850 onwards, annually, and, indeed, almost from day to day, in various scientific periodicals. Among the principal of these are:—Memoires de la Societe archeologique de Constantine, Bulletin de la Societe geographique et archeologique d'Oran, Revue africaine of Algiers, to which we should add the Revue archeologique of Paris, the Archives des missions scientifiques and the Bulletin archeologique du Comite des travaux historiques and the Melanges of the French School at Rome. In all the towns of Algeria and Tunisia museums have been founded for storing the antiquities of the region; the most important of these are the museums of St Louis, Carthage and the palace of Bardo (musee Alaoui) near Tunis, those of Susa, Constantine, Lambessa, Timgad, Tebessa, Philippeville, Cherchel and Oran. Under the title of Musees et collections archeologiques de l'Algerie et de la Tunisie, the Ministry of Public Instruction publishes from time to time illustrated descriptions of all these archaeological treasures. In this collection have already appeared descriptions of the museums of Algiers by G. Doublet; of Constantine by G. Doublet and P. Gauckler; of Oran by R. de La Blanchere; of Cherchel by P. Gauckler; of Lambessa by R. Cagnat; of Philippeville by S. Gsell and Bertrand; of the Bardo by R. de La Blanchere and P. Gauckler; of Carthage by R. P. Delattre; of Tebessa by S. Gsell; of Susa by P. Gauckler; of Timgad by R. Cagnat and A. Ballu.
The archaeological exploration of Algeria has kept pace with the expansion of French dominion. From 1846 to 1854 Delamarre published his Exploration archeologique de l'Algerie, in collaboration with the French officers. In 1850 Leon Renier was officially instructed to collect all the inscriptions in Algeria which should be found by the military expeditionary columns. This scholar examined first the ruins of Lambessa, an account of which he published in 1854 in his Melanges d'epigraphie; subsequently he made his important collection of Inscriptions romaines de l'Algerie (1855-1858) which formed the groundwork of the volume of the Corpus Inscr. Lat. of the Academy of Berlin, devoted to Roman Africa. A little later General Faidherbe published his Collection complete des inscriptions numidiques (1870). Apart from the province of Constantine, Algeria is less rich in Roman remains than Tunisia; mention must, however, be made of the excavations of Victor Waille at Cherchel, where were found fine statues in the Greek style of the time of King Juba II.; of P. Gavault at Tigzirt (Rusuccuru), and finally of those of Stephane Gsell at Tipasa (basilica of St Salsa) and throughout the district of Setif and at Khamissa (Thuburticum Numidarum). In the department of Constantine, which is peculiarly rich in Roman remains, Tebessa has been most carefully explored by M. Heron de Villefosse, who has laid bare a beautiful temple of Jupiter, a triumphal arch of Caracalla, a Byzantine basilica and the gate of the Byzantine general Solomon. But all these ruins fade into insignificance in comparison with the majestic grandeur of those of Timgad which are almost entirely laid bare; they are described in Timgad, une cite africaine sous l'empire romain, by R. Cagnat, G. Boeswillwald and A. Ballu.
In Tunisia, Carthage early became the object of archaeological investigation. Major Humbert was sent there by Napoleon in 1808 and his notes are still preserved in the museum of Leiden. Chateaubriand visited and described the ruins; the Dane Falbe, the Englishman Nathan Davis, Beule, P. de Sainte-Marie and others also have carried out researches; for more than twenty years Pere Delattre has explored the ruins of Carthage (q.v.) with extraordinary success. For the rest of Tunisia, the first explorer interested in archaeology was Victor Guerin in 1860; his results are contained in his remarkable Voyage archeologique dans la Regence de Tunis (1862, 2 vols.). A. Daux, in the years preceding 1869, explored the sites of the ancient harbours of Utica, Hadrumetum, Thapsus (Dimas). But it was the occupation of Tunisia by the French in 1881 which really gave the impetus to modern investigations in this district of ruined cities. They were put on a solid foundation by the publication of the Geographie comparee of Charles Tissot (1884). Trained scholars were sent there annually by the French government: Cagnat, Saladin, Poinssot, La Blanchere, S. Reinach, E. Babelon, Carton, Audollent, Steph. Gsell, J. Toutain, Esperandieu, Gauckler, Merlin, Homo and many others, to say nothing of German scholars, such as Willmans and Schulten, and especially of a great number of enthusiastic officers of the army of occupation, who explored all the ancient sites, and in many cases excavated with great success (for their results see the works quoted above). It would be impossible to enumerate here all the monographs describing, for example, the ruins of Carthage, those of the temple of the waters at Mount Zaghuan, the amphitheatre of El Jem (Thysdrus), the temple of Saturn, the royal tomb and the theatre of Dugga (Thugga), the bridge of Chemtu (Simitthu), the ruins and cemeteries of Tebursuk and Medeina (Althiburus), the rich villa of the Laberii at Wadna (Uthina), the sanctuary of Saturn Balcaranensis on the hill called Bu-Kornain, the ruins of the district of Enfida (Aphrodisium, Uppenna, Segermes), those of Leptis minor (Lemta), of Thenae (near Sfax), those of the island of Meninx (Jerba), of the peninsula of Zarzis, of Mactar, Sbeitla (Sufetula), Gigthis (Bu-Grara), Gafsa (Capsa), Kef (Sicca Veneria), Bulla Regia, &c.
From this accumulation of results most valuable evidence as to the history and more especially the internal administration of Africa under the Romans has been derived. In particular we know how rural life was there developed, and with what care the water necessary for the growing of cereals was everywhere provided. Sculpture throughout the district is very provincial and of minor importance; the only exceptions are certain statues found at Carthage and Cherchel, the capital of the Mauretanian kings.
AUTHORITIES.—Among general works on the subject may be mentioned: Morcelli, Africa christiana (1816); Gustave Boissiere, L'Algerie romaine (2nd ed., 1883); E. Mercier, Histoire de l'Afrique septentrionale (1888); Charles Tissot, Geographie comparee de la province romaine d'Afrique (1884-1888), with atlas; Vivien de Saint-Martin, Le Nord de l'Afrique dans l'antiquite grecque et romaine (1883); Gaston Boissier, L'Afrique romaine (1895); Cl. Pallu de Lessert, Fastes des provinces africaines (Proconsulaire, Numidie, Mauretainie) sous la domination romaine (1896-1901); R. Cagnat, L'Armee romaine d'Afrique (1892); A. Daux, Les Emporia pheniciens dans le Zeugis et le Byzacium (1869); Ludwig Muller, Numismatique de l'ancienne Afrique (1860-1862; Supplement, 1874); Ch. Diehl, L'Afrique byzantine (1896); Stephane Gsell, Recherches archeologiques en Afrique (1893); Paul Monceaux, Histoire litteraire de l'Afrique chretienne (1901-1905); J. Toutain, Les Cites romaines de la Tunisie (1895); Atlas archeologique de la Tunisie, published by the Ministry of Public Instruction (1895 foll.); Atlas archeologique de l'Algerie, published by Stephane Gsell (1900 foll.); Toulotte, Geographie de l'Afrique chretienne (1892-1894); Corpus inscriptionum latiniarum, vol. viii. and Supplement (1881). Cf. also articles CARTHAGE, NUMIDIA, &c., JUGURTHA, and articles relating to Roman History. (E. B.n)
AFRICAN LILY (Agapanthus umbellatus), a member of the natural order Liliaceae, a native of the Cape of Good Hope, whence it was introduced at the close of the 17th century. It is a handsome greenhouse plant, which is hardy in the south of England and Ireland if protected from severe frosts. It has a short stem bearing a tuft of long, narrow, arching leaves, 1/2 to 2 ft. long, and a central flower-stalk, 2 to 3 ft. high, ending in an umbel of bright blue, funnel-shaped flowers. The plants are easy to cultivate, and are generally grown in large pots or tubs which can be protected from frost in winter. During the summer they require plenty of water, and are very effective on the margins of lakes or running streams, where they thrive admirably. They increase by offsets, or may be propagated by dividing the root-stock in early spring or autumn. A number of forms are known in cultivation; such are albidus, with white flowers, aureus, with leaves striped with yellow, and variegatus, with leaves almost entirely white with a few green bands. There are also double-flowered and larger and smaller flowered forms.
AFRICANUS, SEXTUS JULIUS, a Christian traveller and historian of the 3rd century, was probably born in Libya, and may have served under Septimius Severus against the Osrhoenians in A.D. 195. Little is known of his personal history, except that he lived at Emmaus, and that he went on an embassy to the emperor Heliogabalus1 to ask for the restoration of the town, which had fallen into ruins. His mission succeeded, and Emmaus was henceforward known as Nicopolis. Dionysius bar-Salibi makes him a bishop, but probably he was not even a presbyter. He wrote a history of the world(Chronografiai, in five books) from the creation to the year A.D. 221, a period, according to his computation, of 5723 years. He calculated the period between the creation and the birth of Christ as 5499 years, and ante-dated the latter event by three years. This method of reckoning became known as the Alexandrian era, and was adopted by almost all the eastern churches. The history, which had an apologetic aim, is no longer extant, but copious extracts from it are to be found in the Chronicon of Eusebius, who used it extensively in compiling the early episcopal lists. There are also fragments in Syncellus, Cedrenus and the Paschale Chronicon. Eusebius (Hist. Ecc. i. 7, cf. vi. 31) gives some extracts from his letter to one Aristides, reconciling the apparent discrepancy between Matthew and Luke in the genealogy of Christ by a reference to the Jewish law, which compelled a man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, if the latter died without issue. His terse and pertinent letter to Origen, impugning the authority of the apocryphal book of Susanna, and Origen's wordy and uncritical answer, are both extant. The ascription to Africanus of an encyclopaedic work entitled Kestoi (embroidered girdles), treating of agriculture, natural history, military science, &c., has been needlessly disputed on account of its secular and often credulous character. Neander suggests that it was written by Africanus before he had devoted himself to religious subjects. For a new fragment of this work see Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Grenfell and Hunt), iii. 36 ff.
AUTHORITIES.—Edition in M. J. Routh, Rel. Sac. ii. 219-509; translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers (S. D. F. Salmond) vi. 125-140. See H. Gelzer, Sex. Jul. Africanus und die byzant. Chronographie, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1880-1885); G. Kruger, Early Christian Literature, 248-253; A. Harnack, Altchristl. Litt. Gesch. i. 507, ii. 70.
1 So Eusebius. Syncellus says Alexander Severus.
AFRIDI, a Pathan tribe inhabiting the mountains on the Peshawar border of the North-West Frontier province of India. The Afridis are the most powerful and independent tribe on the border, and the largest with the exception of the Waziris. Their special country is the lower and easternmost spurs of the Safed Koh range, to the west and south of the Peshawar district, including the Bazar and Bara valleys. On their east they are bounded by British districts, on the north by the Mohmands, on the west by the Shinwaris and on the south by the Orakzai and Bangash tribes. Their origin is obscure, but they are said to have Israelitish blood in their veins, and they have a decidedly Semitic cast of features. They are possibly the Aparytai of Herodotus, the names and positions being identical. If this theory is correct, they were then a powerful people, and held a large tract of country, but have been gradually driven back by the encroachments of other tribes. The tribe is divided into the following eight clans:—Kuki Khel, Malikdin Khel, Kambar Khel, Kamar Khel, Zakka Khel (the most numerous and the most turbulent), Sipah, Aka Khel and Adam Khel. The first seven clans live in the vicinity of the Khyber Pass, and migrate to Tirah in the summer months. The Adam Khel (5900 fighting men) live round the Kohat Pass, and are more settled and less migratory in their habits. In appearance the Afridi is a fine, tall, athletic highlander with a long, gaunt face, high nose and cheek-bones, and a fair complexion. On his own hillside he is one of the finest skirmishers in the world, and in the Indian army makes a first-rate soldier, but he is apt to be home-sick when removed from the air of his native mountains. In character the Afridi has obtained an evil name for ferocity, craft and treachery, but Colonel Sir Robert Warburton, who lived eighteen years in charge of the Khyber Pass and knew the Afridi better than any other Englishman, says:—"The Afridi lad from his earliest childhood is taught by the circumstances of his existence and life to distrust all mankind, and very often his near relations, heirs to his small plot of land by right of inheritance, are his deadliest enemies. Distrust of all mankind, and readiness to strike the first blow for the safety of his own life, have therefore become the maxims of the Afridi. If you can overcome this mistrust, and be kind in words to him, he will repay you by a great devotion, and he will put up with any treatment you like to give him except abuse.'' In short the Afridi has the vices and virtues of all Pathans in an enhanced degree. The fighting strength of the Afridis is said to be 27,000, but this estimate is excessive, judged by the number and size of their villages. They derive their importance from their geographical position, which gives them command of the Khyber and Kohat roads, and the history of the British connexion with them has been almost entirely with reference to these two passes.
There have been several British expeditions against the separate clans:—
(1) Expedition against the Kohat Pass Afridis under Sir Colin Campbell in 1850. The British connexion with the Adam Khel Afridis commenced immediately after the annexation of the Peshawar and Kohat districts. Following the example of all previous rulers of the country, the British agreed to pay the tribe a subsidy to protect the pass. But in 1850 a thousand Afridis attacked a body of sappers engaged in making the road, killing twelve and wounding six. It was supposed that they disliked the making of a road which would lay open their fastnesses to regular troops. An expedition of 3200 British troops was despatched, which traversed the country and punished them.
(2) Expedition against the Jowaki Afridis of the Bori villages in 1853. When the Afridis of the Kohat Pass misbehaved in 1850, the Jowaki Afridis offered the use of their route instead; but they turned out worse than the others, and in 1853 a force of 1700 British traversed their country and destroyed their stronghold at Bori. The Jowaki Afridis are a clan of the Adam Khel, who inhabit the country lying between the Kohat Pass and the river Indus.
(3) Expedition against the Aka Khel Afridis under Colonel Craigie in 1855. In 1854 the Aka Khels, not finding themselves admitted to a share of the allowances of the Kohat Pass, commenced a series of raids on the Peshawar border and attacked a British camp. An expedition of 1500 troops entered the country and inflicted severe punishment on the tribe, who made their submission and paid a fine.
(4) Expedition against the Jowaki Afridis under Colonel Mocatta in 1877. In that year the government proposed to reduce the Jowaki allowance for guarding the Kohat Pass, and the tribesmen resented this by cutting the telegraph wire and raiding into British territory. A force of 1500 troops penetrated their country in three columns, and did considerable damage by way of punishment.
(5) Expedition against the Jowaki Afridis under Brigadier-General Keyes in 1877-78. The punishment inflicted by the previous expedition did not prove sufficiently severe, the attitude of the Jowakis continued the same and their raids into British territory went on. A much stronger force, therefore, of 7400 British troops, divided into three columns, destroyed their principal villages and occupied their country for some time, until the tribe submitted and accepted government terms. The Kohat Pass was afterwards practically undisturbed.
(6) Expedition against the Zakka Khel Afridis of the Bazar Valley under Brigadier-General Tytler in 1878. At the time of the British advance into Afghanistan, during the second Afghan War, the Zakka Khel opposed the British advance and attacked their outposts. A force of 2500 British troops traversed their country, and the tribesmen made their submission.
(7) Expedition against the Zakka Khel Afridis of the Bazar Valley under Lieutenant-General Maude in 1879. After the previous expedition the Afridis of the Khyber Pass continued to give trouble during the progress of the second Afghan War, so another force of 3750 British troops traversed their country, and after suffering some loss the tribesmen made their submission. After this both the Khyber and Kohat Passes were put on a stable footing, and no further trouble of any consequence occurred in either down to the time of the frontier risings of 1897, when the Afridis attacked the Khyber Pass, which was defended by Afridi levies.
(8) For the Tirah Campaign of 1897 see TIRAH CAMPAIGN.
(9) In the February of 1908 the restlessness of the Zakka Khel again made a British expedition necessary, under Sir James Willcocks; but the campaign was speedily ended, though in the following April he had again to proceed against the Mohmands, the situation being complicated by an incursion from Afghanistan.
See also Paget and Mason's Frontier Expeditions (1884); Warburton's Eighteen Years in the Khyber (1900). (C. L.)
AFTERGLOW, a broad high arch of whitish or rosy light appearing occasionally in the sky above the highest clouds in the hour of deepening twilight, or reflected from the high snowfields in mountain regions long after sunset. The phenomenon is due to very fine particles of dust suspended in the high regions of the atmosphere that produce a scattering effect upon the component parts of white light. After the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, a remarkable series of red sunsets appeared all over the world. These were due to an enormous amount of exceedingly fine dust blown to a great height by that terrific explosion, and then universally diffused by the high atmospheric currents.
AFZELIUS, ADAM (1750-1837), Swedish botanist, was born at Larf, Vestergotland, in 1750. He was appointed teacher of oriental languages at Upsala in 1777, and in 1785 demonstrator of botany. From 1792 he spent some years on the west coast of Africa, and in 1797-1798 acted as secretary of the Swedish embassy in London. Returning to Sweden, he founded the Linnaean institute at Upsala in 1802, and in 1812 became professor of materia medica at the university. He died at Upsala in 1837. In addition to various botanical writings, he published the autobiography of Linnaeus in 1823.
His brother, JOHAN AFZELIUS (1753-1837),known as ARVIDSON, was professor of chemistry at Upsala; and another brother, PER AF (1760-1843), who became professor of medicine at Upsala in 1801, was distinguished as a medical teacher and practitioner.
AFZELIUS, ARVID AUGUST (1785-1871), Swedish pastor, poet, historian and mythologist, was born on the 8th of October 1785. From 1828 till his death on the 25th of September 1871 he was parish priest of Enkoping. He is mainly known as a collaborator with the learned historian, Erik Gustaf Geijer, in the great collection of Swedish folk-songs, Svenske folkirsor fran forntiden, 3 vols. (Stockholm, 1814-1816). He published also translations of the Samunder Edda and Herwara-Saga, and a history of Sweden to Charles XII. (of which a German translation was published in 1842), as well as original poems.
AGA, or AGHA, a word, said to be of Tatar origin, signifying a dignitary or lord. Among the Turks it is applied to the chief of the janissaries, to the commanders of the artillery, cavalry and infantry, and to the eunuchs in charge of the seraglio. It is also employed generally as a term of respect in addressing wealthy men of leisure, landowners, &c.
AGAIAMBO, or AGAUMBU, a race of dwarf marsh-dwellers in British New Guinea, now almost extinct. In his annual report for 1904 the acting administrator of British New Guinea stated that on a visit he paid to their district he saw six males and four females. The Agaiambo live in huts erected on piles in the lakes and marshes. Dwarfish in stature but broadly built, they are remarkable for the shortness of their legs. They live almost entirely in their "dug-outs'' or canoes, or actually wading in the water. Their food consists of sago, the roots of the water-lily and fish. The Agaiambo are believed to have been formerly numerous, but within the last few years have suffered from the raids of their cannibalistic Papuan neighbours. In features, colour and hair they closely resemble the true Papuans.
AGA KHAN I., HIS HIGHNESS THE (1800-1881), the title accorded by general consent to HASAN ALI SHAH (born in Persia, 1800), when, in early life, he first settled in Bombay under the protection of the British government. He was believed to have descended in direct line from Ali by his wife Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Mahomet. Ali's son, Hosain, having married a daughter of one of the rulers of Persia before the time of Mahomet, the Aga Khan traced his descent from the royal house of Persia from the most remote, almost prehistoric, times. His ancestors had also ruled in Egypt as caliphs of the Beni-Fatimites for a number of years, at a period coeval with the Crusades. Before the Aga Khan emigrated from Persia, he was appointed by the emperor Fateh Ali Shah to be governor-general of the extensive and important province of Kerman. His rule was noted for firmness, moderation and high political sagacity, and he succeeded for a long time in retaining the friendship and confidence of his master the shah, although his career was beset with political intrigues and jealousy on the part of rival and court favourites, and with internal turbulence. At last, however, the fate usual to statesmen in oriental countries overtook him, and he incurred the mortal displeasure of Fateh Ali Shah. He fled from Persia and sought protection in British territory, preferring to settle down eventually in India, making Bombay his headquarters. At that period the first Afghan War was at its height, and in crossing over from Persia through Afghanistan the Aga Khan found opportunities of rendering valuable services to the British army, and thus cast in his lot for ever with the British. A few years later he rendered similar conspicuous services in the course of the Sind campaign, when his help was utilized by Napier in the process of subduing the frontier tribes, a large number of whom acknowledged the Aga's authority as their spiritual head. Napier held his Moslem ally in great esteem, and entertained a very high opinion of his political acumen and chivalry as a leader and soldier. The Aga Khan reciprocated the British commander's confidence and friendship by giving repeated proofs of his devotion and attachment to the British government, and when he finally settled down in India, his position as the leader of the large Ismailiah section of Mahommedan British subjects was recognized by the government, and the title of His Highness was conferred on him, with a large pension. From that time until his death in 1881 the Aga Khan, while leading the life of a peaceful and peacemaking citizen, under the protection of British rule, continued to discharge his sacerdotal functions, not only among his followers in India, but towards the more numerous communities which acknowledged his religious sway in distant countries, such as Afghanistan, Khorasan, Persia, Arabia, Central Asia, and even distant Syria and Morocco. He remained throughout unflinchingly loyal to the British Raj, and by his vast and unquestioned influence among the frontier tribes on the northern borders of India he exercised a control over their unruly passions in times of trouble, which proved of invaluable service in the several expeditions led by British arms on the north-west frontier of India. He was also the means of checking the fanaticism of the more turbulent Mahommedans in British India, which in times of internal troubles and misunderstandings finds vent in the shape of religious or political riots.
He was succeeded by his eldest son, AGA KHAN II. This prince continued the traditions and work of his father in a manner that won the approbation of the local government, and earned for him the distinction of a knighthood of the Order of the Indian Empire and a seat in the legislative council of Bombay.
AGA KHAN III. (Sultan Mahommed Shah), only son of the foregoing, succeeded him on his death in 1885, and became the head of the family and its devotees. He was born in 1877, and, under the care of his mother, a daughter of the ruling house of Persia, was given not only that religious and oriental education which his position as the religious leader of the Ismailians made indispensable, but a sound European training, a boon denied to his father and grandfather. This blending of the two systems of education produced the happy result of fitting this Moslem chief in an eminent degree both for the sacerdotal functions which appertain to his spiritual position, and for those social duties of a great and enlightened leader which he was called upon to discharge by virtue of that position. He travelled in distant parts of the world to receive the homage of his followers, and with the object either of settling differences or of advancing their welfare by pecuniary help and personal advice and guidance. The distinction of a knight commander of the Indian Empire was conferred upon him by Queen Victoria in 1897, and he received like recognition for his public services from the German emperor, the sultan of Turkey, the shah of Persia and other potentates.
See Naoroji M. Dumasia, A Brief History of the Aga Khan (1903) (M. M. BH.)
AGALMATOLITE (from Gr. agalma, statue, and lithos, stone), a soft species of mineral, also called pagodite, used by the Chinese for carving, especially into grotesque figures (whence called "figure-stone'').
AGAMEDES, in Greek legend, son of Erginus, king of Orchomenus in Boeotia. He is always associated with his brother Trophonius as a wonderful architect, the constructor of underground shrines and grottos for the reception of hidden treasure. When building a treasure-house for Hyrieus, the brothers fixed one of the stones in the wall so that they could remove it whenever they pleased, and from time to time carried off some of the treasure. Hyrieus thereupon set a trap in which Agamedes was caught; Trophonius, to prevent discovery, cut off his brother's head and fled with it. He was pursued by Hyrieus, and swallowed up by the earth in the grove of Lebadeia. On this spot was the oracle of Trophonius in an underground cave; those who wished to consult it first offered the sacrifice of a ram and called upon the name of Agamedes. A similar story is told of Rhampsinitus by Herodotus (ii. 121). According to Pindar (apud Plutarch), the brothers built the temple of Apollo at Delphi; when they asked for a reward, the god promised them one in seven days; on the seventh day they died.
Pausanias ix. 37; Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium, 14; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 47.
AGAMEMNON, one of the most distinguished of the Greek heroes, was the son of Atreus (king of Mycenae) and Aerope, grandson of Pelops, great-grandson of Tantalus and brother of Menelaus. Another account makes him the son of Pleisthenes (the son or father of Atreus), who is said to have been Aerope's first husband. Atreus was murdered by Aegisthus (q.v.), who took possession of the throne of Mycenae and ruled jointly with his father Thyestes. During this period Agamemnon and Menelaus took refuge with Tyndareus, king of Sparta, whose daughters Clytaemnestra (more correctly Clytaemestra) and Helen they respectively married. By Clytaemnestra, Agamemnon had three daughters, Iphigeneia (Iphianassa), Electra (Laodice), Chrysothemis, and a son, Orestes. Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus, and Agamemnon, with his brother's assistance, drove out Aegisthus and Thyestes, and recovered his father's kingdom. He extended his dominion by conquest and became the most powerful prince in Greece. When Paris (Alexander), son of Priam, had carried off his brother's wife, he went round to the princes of the country and called upon them to unite in a war of revenge against the Trojans. He himself furnished 100 ships, and was chosen commander-in-chief of the combined forces. The fleet, numbering 1200 ships, assembled at the port of Aulis in Boeotia. But Agamemnon had offended the goddess Artemis by slaying a hind sacred to her, and boasting himself a better hunter. The army was visited by a plague, and the fleet was prevented from sailing by the total absence of wind. Calchas announced that the wrath of the goddess could only be appeased by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (q.v..) The fleet then set sail. Little is heard of Agamemnon until his quarrel with Achilles (q.v..) After the capture of Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, fell to his lot in the distribution of the prizes of war. On his return, after a stormy voyage, he landed in Argolis. His kinsman, Aegisthus, who in the interval had seduced his wife Clytaemnestra, invited him to a banquet at which he was treacherously slain, Cassandra also being put to death by Clytaemnestra. According to the account given by Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon was slain by his wife alone in a bath, a piece of cloth or a net having first been thrown over him to prevent resistance. Her wrath at the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and her jealousy of Cassandra, are said to have been the motives of her crime. The murder of Agamemnon was avenged by his son Orestes (q.v..) Although not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon is a dignified representative of kingly authority. As commander-in-chief, he summons the princes to the council and leads the army in battle. He takes the field himself, and performs many heroic deeds until he is wounded and forced to withdraw to his tent. His chief fault is his overweening haughtiness, due to an over-exalted opinion of his position, which leads him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks. But his family had been marked out for misfortune from the outset. His kingly office had come to him from Pelops through the blood-stained hands of Atreus and Thyestes, and had brought with it a certain fatality which. explained the hostile destiny which pursued him. The fortunes of Agamemnon have formed the subject of numerous tragedies, ancient and modern, the most famous being the Oresteia of Aeschylus. In the legends of Peloponnesus, Agamemnon was regarded as the highest type of a powerful monarch, and in Sparta he was worshipped under the title of Zeus Agamemnon. His tomb was pointed out among the ruins of Mycenae and at Amyclae.
In works of art there is considerable resemblance between the representations of Zeus, king of the gods, and Agamemnon, king of men. He is generally characterized by the sceptre and diadem, the usual attributes of kings.
See articles in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie and Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie.
AGAPE (Gr. agape, "Love''), the early Christian lovefeast. The word seems to be used in this sense in the epistle of Jude 12: "These are they who are hidden rocks in your lovefeasts when they banquet with you.'' But this is not certain, for in 2 Pet. ii. 13 the verse is cited, but reading apatais ("deceits'') for agapais, and the oldest MSS. hesitate. The history of the agape coincides, until the end of the 2nd century, with that of the eucharist (q.v.), and it is doubtful whether the following detailed account of the agape given in Tertullian's Apology (c. 39) is to be regarded as exclusive of an accompanying eucharist: "It is the banquet (triclinium) alone of the Christians that is criticised. Our supper (coena) shows its character by its name. It is called by a word which in Greek signifies love (i.e. agape.) Whatever it costs, it is anyhow a clear gain that it is incurred on the score of piety, seeing that we succour the poorest by such entertainments (refrigerio.) We do not lie down at table until prayer has been offered to God, as it were a first taste. We eat only to appease our hunger, we drink only so much as it is good for temperate persons to do. If we satisfy our appetites, we do so without forgetting that throughout the night we must say our prayers to God. If we converse, it is with the knowledge that the Lord is listening. After washing our hands and lighting the lamps, each is invited to sing a hymn before all to God, either taken from holy writ or of his own composition. So we prove him, and see how well he has drunk. Prayer ends, as it began, the banquet; and we break up not in bands of brigands, nor in groups of vagabonds, nor do we burst out into debauchery. . . . This meeting of Christians we admit deserves to be made illicit, if it resembles illicit acts; it deserves to be condemned, if any complain of it on the same score on which complaints are levelled at factious meetings. But to do harm to whom do we ever thus come together?''
The evidence of Tertullian is good for Africa. But in Egypt about the same time (180-210), Clement of Alexandria in his Pedagogus (ii. 1) condemns the "little suppers which were called, not without presumption, agape.'' This word, he complains, should denote the heavenly food, the reasonable feast alone, and the Lord never used it of mere junketings. Clement wished the name to be reserved for the eucharist. because the love-feasts of the church had degenerated, as Tertullian too discovered, as soon as he turned Montanist. For in his tract on fasting (ch. xvii.) he complains that the young men misbehaved with the sisters after the agapee.
Among the spurious works of Athanasius is printed a tract entitled About Virginity, ch. xiii. of which directs how the sisters after the synaxis of the ninth hour (3 P.M.) are to dine: "When you sit down at a table and come to break bread, seal it thrice with the sign of the cross and thus give thanks: 'We thank thee, our Father, for thy holy resurrection; for through Jesus thy servant thou hast shewn it unto us. And as this bread on this table was scattered, but has been brought together and become one, so may thy church be brought together into thy kingdom. For thine is the power and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen.' This prayer as you break the bread, and are about to eat, you must say. And when you lay it on the table and desire to eat it, repeat the 'Our Father' entire. But after dinner (or breakfast), and when we rise from table, we use the prayer given above, viz. 'Blessed be God, who hath pity and nourisheth us from our infancy, who giveth food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that ever having of all things a sufficiency, we may superabound in all good works, in Christ Jesus our Lord, &c.''' The writer then enjoins that, "if two or three other virgins are present, they also shall give thanks over the bread set out, and join in the prayers. But if a catechumen be found at the table, she shall not be suffered to join with the full believers in their prayers, nor shall the latter sit with her to eat the morsel'' (fiomon, used specially of the sanctified bread). "Nor shall they sit with frivolous and joking women, if they can help it, for they are sanctified to God, and their food and drink have been hallowed by the prayers and holy words used over them. . . . If a rich woman sits down with them at table, and they see a poor woman, they shall invite her also to eat with them, and not put her to shame because of the rich one.'' The last words echo 1 Cor. x., and the prayer is nearly the same as that which the teaching of the Apostles assigns for the eucharistic rite. Here, then, we have pictured as late as the 4th century a Lord's supper, which like the one described in 1 Cor. x. is agape and eucharist in one, and it is held in a private house and not in church, and the celebrants are holy women!
The historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl. v. 22) testifies to the survival in Egypt of such Lord's suppers as were love-feasts and eucharists in one. Around Alexandria and in the Thebaid, he says, they hold services on the sabbath, and unlike other Christians partake of the mysteries (i.e. sacrament). For after holding good cheer and filling themselves with meats of all kinds, they at eventide make the offering (prosfora) and partake of it. So Basil of Cappadocia (Epistle 93), about the year 350, records that in Egypt the laity, as a rule, celebrated the communion in their own houses, and partook of the sacrament by themselves whenever they chose. In the old Egyptian church order, known as the Canons of Hippolytus, there are numerous directions for the service of the agape, held on Sundays, saints' days or at commemorations of the dead. The 74th canon of the council of Trullo (A.D. 692) forbade the holding of symposia known as agapes in church. In his 54th homily (tom. v. p. 365) Chrysostom describes how after the eucharistic synaxis was over, the faithful remained in church, while the rich brought out meats and drink from their houses, and invited the poor, and furnished "common tables, common banquets, common symposia in the church itself.'' The council of Gangra (A.D. 355) anathematized the over-ascetic people who despised "the agapes based on faith.'' Only a few years later, however, the council of Laodicea forbade the holding of agapes in churches. The 42nd canon of the council of Carthage under Aurelius likewise forbade them, but these were only local councils. In the age of Chrysostom and Augustine the agape was frequent.
In the east Syrian, the Armenian and the Georgian churches, respectively Nestorian, Monophysite and Greek Orthodox in their tenets, the agape was from the first a survival, under Christian and Jewish forms, of the old sacrificial systems of a pre-Christian age. Sheep, rams, bullocks, fowls are given sacrificial salt to lick, and then sacrificed by the priest and deacon, who has the levitical portions of the victim as his perquisite. In Armenia the Greek word agape has been used ever since the 4th century to indicate these sacrificial meals, which either began or ended with a eucharistic celebration. The earlier usage of the Armenians is expressed in the two following rules recorded against them by a renegade Armenian prelate named Isaac, who in the 8th century went over to the Byzantine church: "Christ did not hand down to us the teaching to celebrate the mystery of the offering of the bread in church, but in an ordinary house, and sitting at a common table. So then let them not sacrifice the offering of bread in churches. It was after supper, when his disciples were thoroughly sated, that Christ gave them of his own body to eat. Therefore let them first eat meats and be sated, and then let them partake of the mysteries.'' These old canons are adduced by way of ridiculing the Armenians, yet they reflect old usage. They are given in the Historia Monothelitarum of Combefisius, col. 317. Older MSS. of the Greek Euchologion contain numerous prayers to be offered over animals sacrificed; and in the form of agape such sacrifices were common in Italy and Gaul on the natalis dies of a saint, and Paulinus of Nola, the friend of Augustine, in his Latin poems, describes them (c. 400) in detail. Gregory the Great sent to Mellitus, bishop of London, a written rite of sacrificing bulls for use in the English church of the early 7th century. In Augustine's work against Faustus the Manichean (xx. 4), the latter taxes the Catholics with having turned the sacrifices of the heathen into agapes, their idols into martyrs, whom they worship with similar rites. "You appease,'' he says, "the shades of the dead with wines and banquets, you celebrate the feast-days of the heathen along with them . . . in their way of living you have certainly changed nothing.'' This was true enough, but there is truth also in the remark of Prof. Sanday ("Eucharist'' in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible) that Providence even in its revolutions is conservative. The world could only be christianized on condition that old holy days and customs were continued. The early Christian agape admitted of adaptation to the older funeral and sacrificial feasts, and was so adapted. The association in the synoptics of the earliest eucharist with the paschal sacrifice provided a model, and long after the eucharist was separated with the agape on other days of the year, we still find celebrated on the evening of Maundy Thursday the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, immediately followed by an eucharist. The 41st canon of the council of Carthage enacted that the sacraments of the altar should be received fasting, except on the anniversary of the Lord's supper. It is clear that at an earlier date the agape preceded the eucharist.
Pagan Analogues.—In ancient states common meals called sussitia (sussitia) were instituted, particularly in the Doric states, e.g. in Lacaedemon and in Crete. Plato advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the Spartan community. Trade and other gilds in antiquity held subscription suppers or iranoi, similar to those of the early Corinthian church, usually to support the needs of the poorer members. These hetairiae or clubs were forbidden (except in cities formally allied to Rome) by Trajan and other emperors, as being likely to be centres of disaffection; and on this ground Pliny forbade the agape of the Bithynian churches, Christianity not being a lawful religion licensed for such gatherings. The custom which most resembles the eucharist and agape was that known as charistia described by Valerius Maximus ii. 1. 8. It was a solemn feast attended only by members of one clan, at which those who had quarrelled were at the sacrament of the table (apud sacra mensae) reconciled. It was held on the 20th of February. Ovid in his Fasti, ii. 617, alludes to it— Proxima cognati dixere charistia cari, Et venit ad socios turba propinqua deos.
AUTHORITIES.—"The Canons of Hippolytus,'' in Duchesne's Origines du culte chretien (Paris, 1898).; A. Allen, Christian Institutions (London, 1898); P. Batiffol, Etudes d'histoire (Paris, 1902 and 1905); F. X. Funk, "L'Agape,'' in the Revue de l'histoire ecclesiastique (Louvain, Jan. 1903); Ad. Harnack, "Brod und Wasser'' (Texte und Untersuch. vii. 2, Leipzig, 1891); J. F. Keating, The Agape and the Eucharist (London, 1901): F. X. Kraus, arts. "Agapes'' and "Mahle'' in the Realencycklop. d. christl. Altertumer; P. Ladeuze, "L'Eucharistie et les repas communs'' in the Revue de l'orient chretien, No. 3, 1902; Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire (London, 1894); A. Spitta, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur (Gottingen, 1893); E. von der Goltz, Das Gebet in altesten Christianheit (Leipzig, 1901); F. E. Warren; The Liturgy and Ritual of the Antenicene Church (London, 1897); T. Zahn, art. "Agapen'' in Hauck's Realencyklop.; F.. C. Conybeare, Rituale Armenorum (Oxford, 1905; it contains the oldest Latin and Greek forms), The Key of Truth (Oxford, 1898), and art. on "The Survival of Animal Sacrifices'' in the American Journal of Theology (Chicago, Jan. 1903); F. X. Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn, 1906); V. Ermoni, L'Agape (Paris, 1904); G. Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles, translated from Ethiopic and Arabic MSS. (London, 1904); Thefr. Drescher, Diss. de vet. Christianorum Agapis (Giesse, 1824); L. A. Muratori, Anecdota Graeca, "De agapis sublatis'' (Patavii, 1709); I. A. Fabricius, Bibliogr. Ant. p. 587; Muenter, Primord. Eccl. Afr. p. 111; Walafrid Strabo, De Rebus Eccles. capita 18,19; Gregory of Tours, De miraculis S. Juliani, xxxi.; Pualini Nolani Carmen xii. in S. Felicem. (F. C. C.)
AGAPEMONITES, or COMMUNITY OF THE SON OF MAN. This sect, based upon the theories of various German religious mystics, and having for its primary object the spiritualization of the matrimonial state, was founded in 1846 by the Rev. Henry James Prince, a clergyman of the Church of England (1811-1899). He studied medicine, obtained his qualifications in 1832 and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in Bath, his native city. Compelled by ill-health to abandon his profession, he entered himself in 1837 as a student at St. David's Theological College, Lampeter, where he gathered about him a band of earnest religious enthusiasts, known as the Lampeter Brethren, and was eventually ordained to the curacy of Charlinch in Somerset, where he had sole charge in the illness and absence of the rector, the Rev. Samuel Starkey. By that time he had contracted his first "spiritual marriage,'' and had persuaded himself that he had been absorbed into the personality of God and had become a visible embodiment of the Holy Spirit. During his illness Mr. Starkey read one of his curate's sermons and was not only "cured'' forthwith, but embraced his strange doctrines, and together they procured many conversions in the countryside and the neighbouring towns. In the end the rector was deprived of his living and Prince's licence withdrawn, and together with a few disciples they started the Charlinch Free Church, which had a very brief existence. Prince shortly afterwards became curate of Stoke in Suffolk, where, however, the character of his revivalist zeal caused his departure at the end of twelve months. It was now decided that Prince, Starkey (whose sister Prince had married as his second wife) and the Rev. Lewis Prince should leave the Church of England and preach their own gospel; Prince opened Adullam Chapel, Brighton, and Starkey established himself at Weymouth. The chief success lay in the latter town, and thither Prince soon migrated. A number of followers, estimated by Prince at 500, but by his critics at one-fifth of the number, were got together, and it was given out by "Beloved'' or "The Lamb''—the names by which the Agapemonites designated their leader—that his disciples must divest themselves of their possessions and throw them into the common stock. This was done, even by the poor or ill-furnished, all of whom looked forward to the speedy end of the present dispensation, and were content, for the short remainder of this world, to live in common, and, while not repudiating earthly ties, to treat them as purely spiritual. With the money thus obtained the house at Spaxton, which was to become the "Abode of Love,'' was enlarged and furnished luxuriously, and three sisters, who contributed L. 6000 each, were immediately married to three of Prince's nearest disciples. Despite the purely spiritual ideas which underlay the Agapemonite view of marriage, a son was born to one of these couples, and when the father endeavoured to carry it away an action was brought which resulted in the affirmation of the mother's right to its custody. The circumstance in which a fourth sister who joined the community was abducted by her brothers led to an inquiry in lunacy and to her final settlement at Spaxton. A few years after the establishment of the "Abode of Love,'' a peculiarly gross scandal, in which Prince and one of his female followers were involved, led to the secession of some of his most faithful friends, who were unable any longer to endure what they regarded as the amazing mixture of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance. The most prominent of those who remained received such titles as the "Anointed Ones,'' the "Angel of the Last Trumpet,'' the "Seven Witnesses'' and so forth. In 1862 "Brother Prince'' sent "to the kings and people of the earth'' letters "making known to all men that flesh is saved from death.'' At that period the Agapemonites counted their adherents at 600, and it was no doubt a grievous shock to them when their deathless founder died on the 8th of March 1899, four years after he had opened a branch church at Clapton, London, which is said to have cost L. 20.000. This church, decorated with elaborate symbolism,'was styled the "Ark of the Covenant,'' and in it the elect were to await the coming of the Lord.
On the death of "Brother'' Prince, the Rev. T. H. Smyth-Pigott, pastor of the "Ark,'' became the acknowledged head of the sect. He was born in 1852, of an old Somersetshire county family, and, after a varied career as university man, sailor before the mast, soldier, coffee-planter, curate in the Church of England and evangelist in the Salvation Army, was converted about 1897 to the views of Prince. For five years after this he was not heard of outside his own sect. On the 7th of September 1902, however, the congregation, assembled at the Ark of the Covenant for service, found the communion table replaced by a chair. In this Pigott presently seated himself and proclaimed himself as the Messiah with the words, "God is no longer there,'' pointing upwards, "but here,'' pointing to himself. This astonishing announcement was followed by an excellent sermon on Christian love. Pigott's claim was at once admitted by the members of his sect, including even his own wife, as the fulfilment of the promise of Christ to appear in due time in the "Ark.'' By the outside world the affair was greeted with mingled ridicule and indignation, and the new Messiah had to be protected by the police from the violence of an angry mob. After providing "copy'' for the newspapers for a few days, however, the whole thing was forgotten. Pigott retired to the headquarters of the sect, the "Abode of Love'' in Somerset, and all efforts to interview him or to obtain details of the life of the community were abortive. At last, in August 1905, the long and mysterious silence was broken by the announcement that a son had been born to Pigott by his "spiritual wife,'' Miss Ruth Preece, an inmate of the Agapemone. This event by no means disconcerted the believers, who saw in it only another manifestation of Pigott's divinity, and proclaimed it as "an earnest of the total redemption of man.'' The child was registered as "Glory,'' and, at the christening service in the chapel of the Abode, hymns were sung in its honour as it lay in a jewelled cradle in the chancel. Another child by Miss Preece, christened "Power,'' was born on the 20th of August 1908. The publicity given to this event renewed the scandal, and in November an attempt to "tar and feather'' Mr Pigott resulted in two men being sent to prison. Later in the month proceedings were instituted against him by the bishop of Bath and Wells under the Clergy Discipline Act.
One outcome of the disclosures connected with the Agapemone deserves passing mention, as throwing some light on the origin of the wealth of the community. Mr Charles Stokes Read, a resident at the Agapemone and director of the V. V. Bread Company, was requested by his fellow-directors to resign, on the ground that his connexion with the sect was damaging the business of the company. He denied this to be the case and refused to resign, pleading religious liberty and the large interests of Agapemonites in the concern. On the 13th of September 1905, a meeting of the shareholders of the company was held, and Read "asked them to believe that it was not in the interests of the company, but because he knew that the Lord Jesus Christ had come again and was now dwelling at the Agapemone, that he was thus cast out by his colleagues.'' The motion calling on him to resign was carried on a poll being taken by 46,770 votes to 2953. (See The Times, 14th of September 1905.)
AGAPETAE, a class of "virgins'' who, in the church of the early middle ages, lived with professedly celibate monks to whom they were said to be united by spiritual love. The practice was suppressed by the Lateran Council of 1139.
AGAPETUS, the name of two popes:—
AGAPETUS I., pope from 535 to 536. He was an enlightened pontiff and collaborated with Cassiodorus in founding at Rome a library of ecclesiastical authors. King Theodahad sent him on an embassy to Constantinople, where he died, after having deposed Anthimus, the monophysite bishop of that town, and ordained Menas his successor.
AGAPETUS II., pope from 946 to 955, at the time when Alberic, son of Marozia, was governing the independent republic of Rome under the title of "prince and senator of the Romans.'' Agapetus, a man of some force of character, did his best to put a stop to the degradation into which the papacy had fallen, the so-called "Pornocracy,'' which lasted from the accession of Sergius III. in 904 to the deposition of John XII. in 963. His appeal to Otto the Great to intervene in Rome remained without immediate effect, since Alberic's position was too strong to be attacked, but it bore fruit after his death. Agapetus died on the 8th of November 955.
AGAPETUS, a deacon of the church of St Sophia at Constantinople. He presented to the emperor Justinian, on his accession in 527, a work entitled Scheda regia sive de officio regis, which contained advice on the duties of a Christian prince. The work was often reprinted and is included in Dom Anselme Banduri's Imperium Orientale (Paris, 1711). There is an English translation by Thomas Paynell (1550) and a French translation, executed in 1612 from a Latin version by Louis XIII., with the assistance of his tutor, David Rivault.
AGARDE, ARTHUR (1540-1615), English antiquary, was born at Foston, Derbyshire, in 1540. He was trained as a lawyer, but entered the exchequer as a clerk. On the authority of Anthony a Wood it has been stated that he was appointed by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton to be deputy-chamberlain in 1570, and that he held this office for forty-five years. His patent of appointment, however, preserved in the Rolls Office, proves that he succeeded one Thomas Reve in the post on the 11th of July 1603. With his friends, Sir Robert Cotton and Camden, he was one of the original members of the Society of Antiquaries. He spent much labour in cataloguing the records and state papers, and made a special study of the Domesday Book, preparing an explanation of its more obscure terms. Thomas Hearne, in his Collection of Curious Discourses written by Eminent Antiquaries (Oxford, 1720), includes six by Agarde on such subjects as the origin of parliament, the antiquity of shires, the authority and privileges of heralds, &c. Agarde died on the 22nd of August 1615 and was buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey, on his tomb being inscribed "Recordorum regiorum hic prope depositorum diligens scrutator.'' He bequeathed to the exchequer all his papers relating to that court, and to his friend Sir Robert Cotton his other manuscripts, amounting to twenty volumes, most of which are now in the British Museum.
AGAS, RADULPH, or RALPH (c. 1540-1621), English land surveyor, was born at Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, about 1540, and entered upon the practice of his profession in 1566. Letters which he wrote to Lord Burghley, describing the methods of surveying, are extant, and a kind of advertising prospectus of his abilities, in which he describes himself as clever at arithmetic and "skilled in writing smaule, after the skantelinge & proportion of copiynge the Oulde & New Testamentes seven tymes in one skinne of partchmente without anie woorde abreviate or contracted, which maie also serve for drawinge discriptions of contries into volumes portable in verie little cases.'' He is best known for his maps of Oxford (1578), Cambridge (1592) and London. Copies of the first two are preserved in the Bodleian Library. Of the map of London and Westminster, which was probably prepared about 1591, two copies have been preserved, one by the Corporation of London and the other in the Pepysian collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The map is over six feet long, printed from wooden blocks, and gives a valuable picture of the London of Elizabeth's time. Agas died on the 26th of November 1621.
AGASIAS. There were two Greek sculptors of this name. Agasias, son of Dositheus, has signed the remarkable statue called the Borghese Warrior, in the Louvre. Agasias, son of Menophilus, is the author of another striking figure of a warrior in the museum of Athens. Both belonged to the school of Ephesus and flourished about 100 B.C.
See E. A. Gardner, Handbook Greek Sculpture, ii. p. 475.
AGASSIZ, ALEXANDER EMANUEL (1835-1910), American man of science, son of J. L. R. Agassiz, was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, on the 17th of December 1835. He came to the United States with his father in 1846; graduated at Harvard in 1855, subsequently studying engineering and chemistry, and taking the degree of bachelor of science at the Lawrence scientific school of the same institution in 1857; and in 1859 became an assistant in the United States Coast Survey. Thenceforward he became a specialist in marine ichthyology, but devoted much time to the investigation, superintendence and exploitation of mines, being superintendent of the Calumet and Hecla copper mines, Lake Superior, from 1866 to 1869, and afterwards, as a stockholder, acquiring a fortune, out of which he gave to Harvard, for the museum of comparative zoology and other purposes, some $500,000. In 1875 he surveyed Lake Titicaca, Peru, examined the copper mines of Peru and Chile, and made a collection of Peruvian antiquities for that museum, of which he was curator from 1874 to 1885. He assisted Sir Wyville Thomson in the examination and classification of the collections of the "Challenger'' exploring expedition, and wrote the Review of the Echini (2 vols., 1872-1874) in the reports. Between 1877 and 1880 he took part in the three dredging expeditions of the steamer "Blake,'' of the United States Coast Survey, and presented a full account of them in two volumes (1888). Of his other writings on marine zoology, most are contained in the bulletins and memoirs of the museum of comparative zoology; but he published in 1865 (with Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, his step-mother) Seaside Studies in Natural History, a work at once exact and stimulating, and in 1871 Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay.
AGASSIZ, JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE (1807-1873), Swiss naturalist and geologist, was the son of the Protestant pastor of the parish of Motier, on the north-eastern shore of the Lake of Morat (Murten See), and not far from the eastern extremity of the Lake of Neuchatel. Agassiz was born at this retired place on the 28th of May 1807. Educated first at home, then spending four years at the gymnasium of Bienne, he completed his elementary studies at the academy of Lausanne. Having adopted medicine as his profession, he studied successively at the universities of Zurich, Heidelberg and Munich; and he availed himself of the advantages afforded by these universities for extending his knowledge of natural history, especially of botany. After completing his academical course, he took in 1829 his degree of doctor of philosophy at Erlangen, and in 1830 that of doctor of medicine at Munich.
Up to this time he had paid no special attention to the study of ichthyology, which soon afterwards became the great occupation of his life. Agassiz always declared that he was led into ichthyological pursuits through the following circumstances:—
In 1819-1820, J. B. Spix and C. F. P. von Martius were engaged in their celebrated Brazilian tour, and on their return to Europe, amongst other collections of natural objects they brought home an important set of the freshwater fishes of Brazil, and especially of the Amazon river. Spix, who died in 1826, did not live long enough to work out the history of these fishes; and Agassiz though little more than a youth just liberated from his academic studies, was selected by Prof. Martius for this purpose. He at once threw himself into the work with that earnestness of spirit which characterized him to the end of his busy life, and the task of describing and figuring the Brazilian fishes was completed and published in 1829. This was followed by an elaborate research into the history of the fishes found in the Lake of Neuchatel. Enlarging his plans, he issued in 1830 a prospectus of a History of the Freshwater Fishes of Central Europe. It was only in 1839, however, that the first part of this publication appeared, and it was completed in 1842. In 1832 he was appointed professor of natural history in the university of Neuchatel. Having become a professed ichthyologist, it was impossible that the fossil fishes should fail to attract his attention. The rich stores furnished by the slates of Glarus and the limestones of Monte Bolca were already well known; but very little had been accomplished in the way of scientific study of them. Agassiz, as early as 1829, with his wonted enthusiasm, planned the publication of the work which, more than any other, laid the foundation of his world-wide fame. Five volumes of his Recherches sur les poissons fossiles appeared at intervals from 1833 to 1843 [1844]. They were magnificently illustrated, chiefly through the labours of Joseph Dinkel, an artist of remarkable power in delineating natural objects. In gathering materials for this great work Agassiz visited the principal museums in Europe, and meeting Cuvier in Paris, he received much encouragement and assistance from him.
Agassiz found that his palaeontological labours rendered necessary a new basis of ichthyological classification. The fossils rarely exhibited any traces of the soft tissues of fishes. They consisted chiefly of the teeth, scales and fins, even the bones being perfectly preserved in comparatively few instances. He therefore adopted his well-known classification, which divided fishes into four groups—viz. Ganoids, Placoids, Cycloids and Ctenoids, based on the nature of the scales and other dermal appendages. While Agassiz did much to place the subject on a scientific basis, his classification has not been found to meet the requirements of modern research. As remarked by Dr A. Smith Woodward, he sought to interpret the past structures by too rigorous a comparison with those of living forms. (See Catalogue of Fossil Fishes in the British Natural History Museum.)
As the important descriptive work of Agassiz proceeded, it became obvious that it would over-tax his resources, unless assistance could be afforded. The British Association came to his aid, and the earl of Ellesmere—then Lord Francis Egerton—gave him yet more efficient help. The original drawings made for the work, chiefly by Dinkel, amounted to 1290 in number. These were purchased by the Earl, and presented by him to the Geological Society of London. In 1836 the Wollaston medal was awarded by the council of that society to Agassiz for his work on fossil ichthyology; and in 1838 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society. Meanwhile the invertebrate animals engaged his attention. In 1837 he issued the "Prodrome'' of a monograph on the recent and fossil Echinodermata, the first part of which appeared in 1838; in 1839-1840 he published two quarto volumes on the fossil Echinoderms of Switzerland; and in 1840-1845 he issued his Etudes critiques sur les mollusques fossiles.
Subsequently to his first visit to England in 1834, the labours of Hugh Miller and other geologists brought to light the remarkable fishes of the Old Red Sandstone of the north-east of Scotland. The strange forms of the Pterichthys, the Coccosteus and other genera were then made known to geologists for the first time. They naturally were of intense interest to Agassiz, and formed the subject of a special monograph by him published in 1844-1845: Monographie des poissons fossiles du Vieux Gres Rouge, ou Systeme Devonien (Old Red Sandstone) des Iles Britanniques et de Russie.
The year 1836 witnessed the inauguration of a new investigation, which proved to be of the utmost importance to geological science. Previously to this date de Saussure, Venetz, Charpentier and others had made the glaciers of the Alps the subjects of special study, and Charpentier had even arrived at the conclusion that the erratic blocks of alpine rocks scattered over the slopes and summits of the Jura mountains had been conveyed thither by glaciers. The question having attracted the attention of Agassiz, he not only made successive journeys to the alpine regions in company with Charpentier, but he had a hut constructed upon one of the Aar glaciers, which for a time he made his home, in order to investigate thoroughly the structure and movements of the ice. These labours resulted in the publication of his grand work in two volumes entitled Etudes sur les glaciers, 1840. Therein he discussed the movements of the glaciers, their moraines, their influence in grooving and rounding the rocks over which they travelled, and in producing the striations and roches moutonnees with which we are now so familiar. He not only accepted Charpentier's idea that some of the alpine glaciers had extended across the wide plains and valleys drained by the Aar and the Rhone, and thus landed parts of their remains upon the uplands of the Jura, but he went still farther. He concluded that, at a period geologically recent, Switzerland had been another Greenland; that instead of a few glaciers stretching across the areas referred to, one vast sheet of ice, originating in the higher Alps, had extended over the entire valley of north-western Switzerland until it reached the southern slopes of the Jura, which, though they checked and deflected its further extension, did not prevent the ice from reaching in many places the summit of the range. The publication of this work gave a fresh impetus to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world.
Thus familiarized with the phenomena attendant on the movements of recent glaciers, Agassiz was prepared for a discovery which he made in 1840, in conjunction with William Buckland. These two savants visited the mountains of Scotland together, and found in different localities clear evidence of ancient glacial action. The discovery was announced to the Geological Society of London in successive communications from the two distinguished observers. The mountainous districts of England and Wales and Ireland were also considered to constitute centres for the dispersion of glacial debris; and Agassiz remarked "that great sheets of ice, resembling those now existing in Greenland, once covered all the countries in which unstratified gravel (boulder drift) is found; that this gravel was in general produced by the trituration of the sheets of ice upon the subjacent surface, &c.''
In 1842-1846 he issued his Nomenclator Zoologicus, a classified list, with references, of all names employed in zoology for genera and groups—a work of great labour and research. With the aid of a grant of money from the king of Prussia, Agassiz, in the autumn of 1846, crossed the Atlantic, with the twofold design of investigating the natural history and geology of the United States and delivering a course of lectures on zoology, by invitation from J. A. Lowell, at the Lowell Institute at Boston; the tempting advantages, pecuniary and scientific, presented to him in the New World induced him to settle in the United States, where he remained to the end of his life. He was appointed professor of zoology and geology in Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S., in 1847. In 1852 he accepted a medical professorship of comparative anatomy at Charlestown, but this he resigned in two years.
The transfer to a new field and the association with fresh objects of interest gave his energies an increased stimulus. Volume after volume now proceeded from his pen: some of his writings were popular, but most of them dealt with the higher departments of scientific research. His work on Lake Superior, and his four volumes of Contributions to the Natural History of the United States, 1857-1862, were of this latter character. We must not overlook the valuable service he rendered to science by the formation, for his own use, of a catalogue of scientific memoirs—an extraordinary work for a man whose hands were already so full. This catalogue, edited and materially enlarged by the late Hugh E. Strickland, was published by the Ray Society under the title of Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, in 4 vols., 1848-1854. Nor must we forget that he was building up another magnificent monument of his industry in the Museum of Natural History, which rose under his fostering care, at Cambridge. But at length the great strain on his physical powers began to tell. His early labours among the fishes of Brazil had often caused him to cast a longing glance towards that country, and he now resolved to combine the pursuit of health with the gratification of his long cherished desires. In April 1865 he started for Brazil, with his wife and class of qualified assistants. An interesting account of this expedition, entitled A Journey in Brazil (1868), was published by Mrs Agassiz and himself after they returned home in August 1866.
In 1871 he made a second excursion, visiting the southern shores of the North American continent, both on its Atlantic and its Pacific sea-boards. He had for many years yearned after the establishment of a permanent school where zoological science could be pursued amidst the haunts of the living subjects of study. The last, and possibly the most influential, of the labours of his life was the establishment of such an institution, which he was enabled to effect through the liberality of Mr John Anderson, a citizen of New York. That gentleman, in 1873, not only handed over to Agassiz the island of Penikese, in Buzzard's Bay, on the east coast, but also presented him with $50,000 wherewith permanently to endow it as a practical school of natural science, especially devoted to the study of marine zoology. Unfortunately he did not long survive the establishment of this institution. The disease with which he had struggled for some years proved fatal on the 14th of December 1873. He was buried at Mount Auburn. His monument is a boulder selected from the moraine of the glacier of the Aar near the site of the old Hotel des Neuchatelois, not far from the spot where his hut once stood; and the pine-trees which shelter his grave were sent from his old home in Switzerland. His extensive knowledge of natural history makes it somewhat remarkable to find that from first to last he steadily rejected the doctrine of evolution, and affirmed his belief in independent creations. When studying the superficial deposits of the Brazilian plains in 1865, his vivid imagination covered even that wide tropical area, as it had covered Switzerland before, with one vast glacier, extending from the Andes to the sea. This view, however, has not been generally accepted. His daring conceptions were only equalled by the unwearied industry and genuine enthusiasm with which he worked them out; and if in details his labours were somewhat defective, it was only because he had ventured to attempt what was too much for any one man to accomplish.
It may be interesting to mention that the charming verses written by Longfellow on "The fiftieth birthday of Agassiz'' were read by the author at a dinner given to Agassiz by the Saturday Club in Cambridge, Mass., in 1857.
Louis Agassiz was twice married, and by his first wife he had an only son, Alexander Agassiz (q.v.), born in 1835; in 1850, after her death, he married his second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Cary of Boston, Mass., afterwards well known as a writer and as an active promoter of educational work in connexion with Radcliffe College (see an article on Radcliffe College, by Helen Leah Reed in the New England Magazine for January 1895).
AUTHORITIES—L. Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence, 2 vols., by E. C (Mrs) Agassiz (London, 1885); Louis Agassiz, His Life and Work, by C. F. Holder (New York and London, 1893). (H. B. Wo.)
AGATE, a term applied not to a distinct mineral species, but to an aggregate of various forms of silica, chiefly Chalcedony (q.v..) According to Theophrastus the agate (achates) was named from the river Achates, now the Drillo, in Sicily, where the stone was originally found. Most agates occur as nodules in eruptive rocks, or ancient lavas, where they represent cavities originally produced by the disengagement of vapour in the molten mass, and since filled, wholly or partially, by siliceous matter deposited in regular layers upon the walls. Such agates, when cut transversely, exhibit a succession of parallel lines, often of extreme tenuity, giving a banded appearance to the section, whence such stones are known as banded agate, riband agate and striped agate. Certain agates also occur, to a limited extent, in veins, of which a notable example is the beautiful brecciated agate of Schlottwitz, near Wesenstein in Saxony—a stone mostly composed of angular fragments of agate cemented with amethystine quartz.
In the formation of an ordinary agate, it is probable that waters containing silica in solution—derived, perhaps, from the decomposition of some of the silicates in the lava itself—percolated through the rock, and deposited a siliceous coating on the interior of the vapour-vesicles. Variations in the character of the solution, or in the conditions of deposit, may have caused corresponding variation in the successive layers, so that bands . of chalcedony often alternate with layers of crystalline quartz, and occasionally of opaline silica. By movement of the lava, when originally viscous, the vesicles were in many cases drawn out and compressed, whence the mineral matter with which they became filled assumed an elongated form, having the longer axis in the direction in which the magma flowed. From the fact that these kernels are more or less almond-shaped they are called amygdales, whilst the rock which encloses them is known as an amygdaloid. Several vapour-vesicles may unite while the rock is viscous, and thus form a large cavity which may become the home of an agate of exceptional size; thus a Brazilian geode, lined with amethyst, of the weight of 35 tons, was exhibited at the Dusseldorf Exhibition of 1902.
The first deposit on the wall of a cavity, forming the "skin'' of the agate, is generally a dark greenish mineral substance, like celadonite, delessite or "green earth,'' which are hydrous silicates rich in iron, derived probably from the decomposition of the augite in the mother-rock., This green silicate may give rise by alteration to a brown oxide of iron (limonite), producing a rusty appearance on the outside of the agate-nodule. The outer surface of an agate, freed from its matrix, is often pitted and rough, apparently in consequence of the removal of the original coating. The first layer spread over the wall of the cavity has been called the "priming,'' and upon this basis zeolitic minerals may be deposited, as was pointed out by Dr M. F. Heddle. Chalcedony is generally one of the earlier deposits and crystallized quartz one of later formation. Tubular channels, usually choked with siliceous deposits, are often visible in sections of agate, and were formerly regarded, especially by L. von Buch and J. Noggerath, as inlets of infiltration, by which the siliceous solutions gained access to the interior of the amygdaloidal cavity. It seems likely, however, that the solution transuded through the walls generally, penetrating the chalcedonic layers, as Heddle maintained, by osmotic action. Much of the chalcedony in an agate is known, from the method of artificially staining the stone, to be readily permeable. It was argued by E. Reusch that the cavities were alternately filled and emptied by means of intermittent hot springs carrying silica; while G. Lange, of Idar, suggested that the tension of the confined steam might pierce an outlet through some weak point in the coating of gelatinous silica, deposited on the walls, so that the tubes would be channels of egress rather than of ingress—a view supported by Heddle, who described them as "tubes of escape.''
It sometimes happens that horizontal deposits, or strata usually opaline in character, are formed on the floor of a cavity after the walls have been lined with successive layers of chalcedony. Many agates are hollow, since deposition has not proceeded far enough to fill the cavity, and in such cases the last deposit commonly consists of quartz, often amethystine, having the apices of the crystals directed towards the free space, so as to form a crystal-lined cavity or geode.
When the deposits in an agate have been formed on a crop of crystals, or on a rugose base, the cross-section presents a zigzag pattern, rather like the plan of a fortress with salient and retiring angles, whence the stone is termed fortification agate. If the section shows concentric circles, due either to stalactitic growth or to deposition in the form of bosses and beads on the floor, the stone is known as ring agate or eye agate. A Mexican agate, showing only a single eye, has received the name of "cyclops.'' Included matter of a green colour, like fragments of "green earth,'' embedded in the chalcedony and disposed in filaments and other forms suggestive of vegetable growth, gives rise to moss agate. These inorganic enclosures in the agate have been sometimes described, even after microscopic examination, as true vegetable structures. Dendritic markings of black or brown colour, due to infiltration of oxides of manganese and iron, produce the variety of agate known as Mocha stone. Agates of exceptional beauty often pass in trade under the name of Oriental agate. Certain stones, when examined in thin sections by transmitted light, show a diffraction spectrum, due to the extreme delicacy of the successive bands, whence they are termed rainbow agates.
On the disintegration of the matrix in which the agates are embedded, they are set free, and, being by their siliceous nature extremely resistant to the action of air and water, remain as nodules in the soil and gravel, or become rolled as pebbles in the streams. Such is the origin of the "Scotch pebbles,'' used as ornamental stones. They are agates derived from the andesitic lavas of Old Red Sandstone age, chiefly in the Ochils and the Sidlaws. In like manner, the South American agates, so largely cut and polished at the present time, are found mostly as boulders in the beds of rivers. |
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