The agricultural experiment stations of the United States grew up in connexion with the agricultural colleges. Several of the colleges early attempted to establish separate departments for research and practical experiments, on the plan of the German stations. The act establishing the Agricultural College of Maryland required it to conduct "a series of experiments upon the cultivation of cereals and other plants adapted to the latitude and climate of the state of Maryland.'' This was the first suggestion of an experiment station in America, but resulted in little. The first experiment station was established at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1875, partly under state aid, partly through a gift from Orange Judd, partly in connexion with the Sheffield Scientific School, which from 1863 to 1892 was the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts for the state of Connecticut, and partly under control of Wesleyan University, which contributed the use of its chemical laboratory; in 1877 it was removed to New Haven. The state of Connecticut made in 1875 an appropriation of $2800 (and in 1877 $5000 per annum) for this school—the first state appropriation of the kind. The state of North Carolina established, on the 12th of March 1877, an agricultural experiment and fertilizer control station in connexion with its state university. The Cornell University experiment station was organized by that institution in 1879. The New Jersey station was organized in 1880 and the station of the University of Tennessee in 1882. From these beginnings the experiment stations multiplied until, when Congress passed the National (or Hatch) Experiment Station Act in 1887, there were seventeen already in existence. The Hatch Experiment Station Act, so called from the fact that its leading advocate was William Henry Hatch (1833-1896) of Missouri, appropriated $15,000 a year to each agricultural college for the purpose of conducting an agricultural experiment station. The object of the stations was declared to be, "to conduct original researches or verify experiments on the physiology of plants and animals; the diseases to which they are severally subject, with the remedies for the same; the chemical composition of useful plants at their different stages of growth; the comparative advantages of rotative cropping as pursued under a varying series of crops; the capacity of new plants or trees for acclimation; the analysis of soils and water; the chemical composition of manures, natural or artificial, with experiments designed to test their comparative effects on crops of different kinds; the adaptation and value of grasses and forage plants; the composition and digestibility of the different kinds of food for domestic animals; the scientific and economic questions involved in the production of butter and cheese; and such other re-searches or experiments bearing directly on the agricultural industry of the United States as may in each case be deemed advisable, having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective states or territories.'' The stations were authorized to publish annual reports and also bulletins of progress for free distribution to farmers. The franking privilege was given to these publications. The office of experiment stations, in the Department of Agriculture, was established in 1888 to be the head office and clearing-house of these stations. Agricultural experiment stations are now in operation in all the states and territories, including Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Alabama, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York each maintain separate stations, supported wholly or in part by state funds; Louisiana has a station for sugar, and Missouri for fruit experiments. Excluding all branch stations, the total number of experiment stations in the United States is sixty, and of these fifty-five receive the national appropriation. The total income of the stations during 1904 was $1,508,820, of which $720,000 was received from the national government and the remainder was derived from societies, fees for analyses of fertilizers, sale of products, &c. The stations employed 795 persons in the work of administration and re-search; the chief classes being—directors, 71; chemists, 163; agriculturists, 47; agronomists, 41; besides numerous horticulturists, botanists, entomologists, physicists, bacteriologists, dairymen, weather observers and irrigation experts. The stations publish annual reports and bulletins, besides a large number of "press'' bulletins, which are reproduced in the agricultural and county papers. They act as bureaus of information on all farm questions, and carry on an extensive correspondence covering all conceivable questions. Their mailing lists aggregate half a million names. In addition to the experiment stations there is in nearly every state an officer or a special board whose duty is to look after its agricultural interests. Eighteen states, one territory, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands have a single official, usually called the Commissioner of Agriculture. Twenty-six states, one territory and Hawaii, have Boards of Agriculture. Information concerning the Agricultural Department of the United States will be found under AGRICULTURE, BOARD OF.

See the articles on the various sorts of crops; also CATTLE, HORSE, PIG, SHEEP, &c.; DAIRY AND DAIRY-FARMING, HORTICULTURE, FRUIT AND FLOWER-FARMING, POULTRY AND POULTRY FARMING; SOIL, GRASS AND GRASSLAND, MANURE, DRAINAGE OF LAND, IRRIGATION, SOWING, REAPING, HAY AND HAY MAKING, PLOUGH, HARROW, THRESHING.

LITERATURE.—-Besides the contemporary works cited in the text, see the article "Agricultural'' in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), and the article "Agriculture'' in J. A. Parral's Dictionnaire d'Agriculture (1885-1892); R. E. Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming (1888); sections on agriculture by W.J. Corbett, R. E. Prothero and W. E. Bear in Traill's Social England (1901-1904); J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in England from 1259 to 1793 (7 vols., 1866-1902); W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce During The Early and Middle Ages (2 vols., 1905 and 1907); D. M'Donald, Agricultural Writers from Sir Walter of Henley to Arthur Young, 1200-1800 (London, 1908); H. Rider Haggard, Rural England, 2 vols. (1902); Encyclopedia of Agriculture, ed. by C. E. Green and D. Young (Edinburgh, 1907-1908); Cyclopaedia of American Agriculture, ed. by L. H. Bailey (New Yorkand London, 1907-1908); W. S. Harwood, The New Earth (New York, 1906); T. B. Collins, The New Agriculture (New York, 1906); Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society of England and other agricultural societies. Amongst general works on practical agriculture the following may be mentioned:—Stephens's Book of the Farm, 5 vols., revised by J. Macdonald (Edinburgh, 1908).; William Fream, Elements of Agriculture (London, 1905); Rural Science Series, ed. by L. H. Bailey (New York and London, 1895, &c.); Morton's Handbooks of the Farm (London); R. Wallace, Farm Livestock of Great Britain (Edinburgh, 1907); Youatt's Complete Grazier, rewritten by W. Fream (London, 1900); E. V. Wilcox, Farm Animals (New York, 1907). (W. Fr.; R. Tr.)

1 Translation by Clement-Mullet (Paris, 1864).

2 Walter of Henley mentions six bushels per acre as a satisfactory crop.

3 This process of enclosure must be distinguished from that of enclosing the arable common fields which, though advocated by Fitzherbert in a passage quoted below, proceeded slowly until the 18th century.

4 During the 16th century wheat had risen in price, and between 1606 and 1618 never fell below 30s. a quarter. At the same time wages remained low.

5 Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 732.

6 The higher yield of wheat in the later years of the 19th century appears to be largely attributable to better grain-growing seasons. The yields in the experimental wheat-field at Rothamsted—where there is no change either of land or of treatment—indicate this. The following figures show the average yields per acre of the selected plots at Rothamsted over six 8-yearly periods from 1852 to 1899, and afford evidence that the higher yield of later years is due to the seasons:—

Bushels (of 60lb) Averages of—- per acre. 8 years 1852-1859 . . . . . . . . 28 3/8 8 years 1860-1867 . . . . . . . . 28 7/8 8 years 1868-1875 . . . . . . . . 27 1/8 8 years 1876-1883 . . . . . . . . 25 1/4 8 years 1884-1891 . . . . . . . . 29 7/8 8 years 1892-1899 . . . . . . . . 30 ————————— ———— 32 years 1852-1883 . . . . . . . . 27 3/8 16 years 1884-1899 . . . . . . . . 30 ————————— ———— 48 years 1852-1899 . . . . . . . . 28 1/4

The average of the first thirty-two years was thus 27 3/8 bushels per acre, of the last sixteen years 30 bushels, and of the whole forty-eight years 28 1/4 bushels.

7 See J.B. Lawes and J.H. Gilbert, Rothamsted Memoirs on Agricultural Chemistry and Physiology, 7 vols. (1893-1899); A. D. Hall, Books of the Rothamsted Experiments (1905).

8 including Channel islands and Isle of Man.

9 In 1903 two of the principal sources of supply of mutton shipped in excess of their exportable surplus, for which they suffered severely in 1904—hence the somewhat irregular movements after 1903.

10 Returns for only ten months were available for this year.

11 In the absence of experiments it is assumed that wheat is digested like other foods of the same class.

12 This sum was furnished out of a total of L. 693,851, forming the residue grant allocated for the purposes of education to the various county councils of England and Wales under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act 1890.

13 "Unimproved'' land includes land which has never been ploughed, mown or cropped and also land once cultivated but now overgrown with trees or shrubs.

14Includes farms operated by owners, part-owners and tenants, and managers.

15Tenants of farms rented for a share of the products.

16 The demand for horses for the British troops in South Africa affected these years.

17 Decrease due to a severe frost in the winter of 1898-1899, which destroyed the peach crop in most of the states

AGRICULTURE, BOARD OF. The Board of Agriculture andFisheries, in England, owes its foundation to the establishment of a veterinary department of the privy council in 1865, when the Country was ravaged by cattle plague. An order in council abolished the name "veterinary department'' in 1883 and substituted that of "agricultural department,'' but no alteration was effected in the work of the department, so far as it related to animals. In 1889 the Board of Agriculture (for Great Britain) was formed under an act of parliament of that year, and the immediate control of the agricultural department was transferred from the clerk of the privy council to the secretary of the Board of Agriculture, where it remains.

A minister of agriculture had for years been asked for in the interests of the agricultural community, and the functions of this Office are discharged by the president of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, whose appointment is a political one, and may or may not carry with it a seat in the cabinet. The board consists of the lord president of the council, the five principal secretaries of state, the first lord of the treasury, the chancellor of the exchequer, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and the secretary for Scotland. The establishment consists of a president, secretary, assistant secretaries, &c. The salary of the president is L. 2000 a year, and that of the secretary L. 1500 a year.

The Board of Agriculture on its establishment took over from the privy council the responsibilities of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, besides the comprehensive duties of the Land Commission. The board, through its intelligence division, collects and prepares statistics relating to agriculture and forestry, and in 1904 appointed a number of honorary agricultural correspondents throughout the country for the purpose of bringing to the notice of the board any special circumstances affecting the practice of agriculture, horticulture and forestry, or the transport of farm, garden and forrest produce in their districts. The land division of the board prepares the annual agricultural and produce returns, and the three divisions, the animals, intelligence and land, take proceedings under the following acts:—the Diseases of Animals Acts, the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts 1875 to 1800, the Merchandise Marks Acts 1887 to 1905, the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act 1893, the Tithe Acts 1836 to 1891, the Copyhold Act 1894, the Inclosure Acts 1845 to 1899, the Agricultural Holdings Acts 1883 to 1900, the Drainage and Improvement of Land Acts, the Universities and College Estates Acts 1858 to 1898, the Glebe Lands Act 1888, &c. The board also has charge of the inspection of schools (not being public elementary schools) in which technical instruction is given in agriculture or forestry, and institutes such experimental investigations as may be deemed conducive to the progress of agriculture and forestry.

The Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom is under the control of the board, as well as the arrangements for the advertisement and sale of the publications of the Geological Survey. In 1903 the powers and duties formerly vested in the commissioners of the Office of Works, relating to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, were transferred to the board. The various departments of the board are (1) chief clerk's branch and indoor branch of animals division; (2) outdoor branch of the animals division; (3) veterinary department; (4) fisheries branch; (5) intelligence department; (6) educational branch; (7) accounts branch; (8) inclosure and common branch; (9) copyhold and tithe branch; (10) statistical branch; (11) law branch; (12) survey, land improvement and land drainage branch.

In 1903, in pursuance of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Act 1903, the powers and duties of the Board of Trade under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Acts, the Sea Fisheries Regulation Acts and other acts relating to the industry of fishing, were transferred from that department to the Board of Agriculture, and its name was changed to its present form. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland covers much the same ground. The Annual report of the proceedings of the Board of Agriculture under the Tithe and other Acts for 1902 contains a full account of its powers and duties.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Demeter Hera Con- (Acragas?) Lacinia. cordia. Heracles. Zeus. Length excluding steps4 90? 125 129 1/4 220 361 Breadth 40 1/2 55 1/2 55 1/2 83 173 1/2 Length of cella .. 93 96 1/4 156 332 Breadth of cella .. 32 1/2 31 1/2 45 3/4 144 1/4 Height of columns with capital .. 21 22 33 62 1/2? Diameter of columns at bottom .. 4 1/2 4 1/2 6 1/2 14 Original number of columns .. 34 34 38 38 Class In antis. Perip- Perip- Perip- Pseudo teros teros teros Peripteros hexa- hexa- hexa- hexa- stylos. stylos. stylos. stylos. Approximate date 450 B.C. 480-440 440-420 500 B.C. 450 B.C. B.C. B.C. Unnamed Castor near Castor and and Hephae- Pollux. Pollux. scus. Asclepius. Athena. Length excluding steps (1) .. .. .. .. .. Breadth .. 67 1/4 57 1/2 30 1/2 45 Length of cella 91 .. .. .. .. Breadth of cella 33 .. .. .. .. Height of columns with capital 19 1/2 .. .. .. .. Diameter of columns at bottom 4 .. 5 3 1/3 4 2/3 Original number of columns 34 .. .. .. .. Class Perip- .. Perip- Prostylos Perip- teros teros pseudo teros hexa- hexa- perip- stylos. stylos. teros. Approximate date 338-210. .. after 338 before 210 488-472 B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C.

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 Dimensions in English feet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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