Chapter 21

For the modern condition of the principality (including climate, fauna and flora), see S. Canals,Asturias: informancion sobre su presente estado(Madrid, 1900); and G. Casal,Memorias de historianatural y médica, de Asturias(Oviedo, 1900). For the history and antiquities, there is much that is valuable inAsturias monumental, epigráfica y diplomática, &c., by C.M. Vigil (Madrid, 1887)—folio, with maps and illustrations. See also F. de Aramburu y Zuloaga,Monografia de Asturias(Oviedo, 1899).

ASTYAGES,the last king of the Median empire. In the inscriptions of Nabonidus the name is written Ishtuvegu (cylinder from Abu Habba V R 64, col. 1, 32; Annals, published by Pinches,Tr. Soc. Bibl. Arch. vii. col. 2, 2). According to Herodotus, he was the son of Cyaxares and reigned thirty-five years (584-550B.C.); his wife was Aryenis, the daughter of Alyattes of Lydia (Herod, i. 74). About his reign we know little, as the narrative of Herodotus, which makes Cyrus the grandson of Astyages by his daughter Mandane, is merely a legend; the figure of Harpagus, who as general of the Median army betrays the king to Cyrus, alone seems to contain an historical element, as Harpagus and his family afterwards obtained a high position in the Persian empire. From the inscriptions of Nabonidus we learn that Cyrus, king of Anshan (Susiana), began war against him in 553B.C.; in 550, when Astyages marched against Cyrus, his troops rebelled, and he was taken prisoner. Then Cyrus occupied and plundered Ecbatana. The captive king was treated fairly by Cyrus (Herod, i. 130), and according to Ctesias (Pers. 5, cf. Justin i. 6) made satrap of Hyrcania, where he was afterwards slain by Oebares against the will of Cyrus, who gave him a splendid funeral. Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus in their excerpts from Berossus, which Eusebius (Chron. i. pp. 29 and 37) and Syncellus (p. 396) have preserved, give the name Astyages to the Median king who reigned in the time of the fall of Nineveh (606B.C.), and became father-in-law of Nebuchadrezzar. This is evidently a mistake; the name ought to be Cyaxares (in the fragments of the Jewish history of Alexander Polyhistor, in Euseb.Praep. Ev. ix. 39, the name is converted into Astibaras, who, according to the unhistorical list of Ctesias, was the father of Astyages), and there is no reason to invent an earlier king Astyages I., as some modern authors have done. The Armenian historians render the name Astyages by Ashdahak,i.e.Azhi Dahaka (Zohak), the mythical king of the Iranian epics, who has nothing whatever to do with the historical king of the Medes.

(Ed. M.)

ASTYLAR(from Gr.ἀ-, privative, andστῦλος, a column), an architectural term given to a class of design in which neither columns nor pilasters are used for decorative purposes; thus the Ricardi and Strozzi palaces in Florence are astylar in their design, in contradistinction to Palladio’s palaces at Vicenza, which are columnar.

ASUNCIÓN(Nuestra Senora de la Asunción), a city and port of Paraguay, and capital of the republic, on the left bank of the Paraguay river in 25° 16′ 04″ S., 57° 42′ 40″ W., and 970 m. above Buenos Aires. Pop. (est. in 1900) 52,000. The port is connected with Buenos Aires and Montevideo by regular lines of river steamers, which are its only means of trade communication with the outer world, and with the inland town of Villa Rica (95 m.) by a railway worked by an English company. The city faces upon a curve in the river bank forming what is called the Bay of Asunción, and is built on a low sandy plain, rising to pretty hillsides overlooking the bay and the low, wooded country of the Chaco on the opposite shore. The general elevation is only 253 ft. above sea-level. Asunción is laid out on a regular plan, the credit for which is largely due to Dictator Francia; the principal streets are paved and lighted by gas and electricity; and telephone and street-car services are maintained. The climate is hot but healthful, the mean annual temperature being about 72° F. The city is the seat of a bishopric dating from 1547, and contains a large number of religious edifices. It has a national college and public library, but no great progress in education has been made. The most prominent edifice in the city is the palace begun by the younger Lopez, which is now occupied by a bank. There are some business edifices and residences of considerable architectural merit, but the greater part are small and inconspicuous, a majority of the residences being thatched, mud-walled cabins. Considerable progress was made during the last two decades of the 19th century, however, notwithstanding misgovernment and the extreme poverty of the people. Asunción was founded by Ayolas in 1335, and is the oldest permanent Spanish settlement on the La Plata. It was for a long time the seat of Spanish rule in this region, and later the scene of a bitter struggle between the church authorities and Jesuits. Soon after the declaration of independence in 1811, the city fell under the despotic rule of Dr Francia, and then under that of the elder and younger Lopez, through which its development was greatly impeded. It was captured and plundered by the Brazilians in 1869, and has been the theatre of several revolutionary outbreaks since then, one of which (1905) resulted in a blockade of several months’ duration.

(A. J. L.)

ASVINS,in Hindu mythology, twin deities of light. After Indra, Agni and Soma, they are the most prominent divinities in the Rig-Veda, and have more than fifty entire hymns addressed to them. Their exact attributes are obscure. They appear to be the spirits of dawn, the earliest bringers of light in the morning sky; they hasten on in the clouds before Dawn and prepare the way for her. In some hymns they are called sons of the sun; in others, children of the sky; in others, offspring of the ocean. They are youngest of the gods, bright lords of lustre, honey-hued. They are inseparable. The sole purpose of one hymn is to compare them with different twin objects, such as eyes, hands, feet and wings. They have a common wife, Surya. They are physicians, protectors of the weak and old, especially of elderly unmarried women. They are the friends of lovers, and bless marriages and make them fruitful.

See A.A. Macdonell,Vedic Mythology(Strassburg, 1897).

ASYLUM(from Gr.ἀ-, privative, andσύλη, right of seizure), a place of refuge. In ancient Greece, an asylum was an “inviolable” refuge for persons fleeing from pursuit and in search of protection. In a general sense, all Greek temples and altars were inviolable, that is, it was a religious crime to remove by force any person or thing once under the protection of a deity. But it was only in the case of a small number of temples that this protecting right of a deity was recognized with common consent. Such were the sanctuaries of Zeus Lycaeus in Arcadia, of Poseidon in the island of Calauria, and of Apollo at Delos, they were, however, numerous in Asia Minor. They guaranteed absolute security to the suppliant within their limits. The right of sanctuary, originally possessed by all temples, appears to have become limited to a few in consequence of abuses of it. Asylums in this sense were peculiar to the Greeks. The asylum of Romulus (Livy i. 8), which was probably the altar of Veiovis, cannot be considered as such. Under Roman dominion, the rights of existing Greek sanctuaries were at first confirmed, but their number was considerably reduced by Tiberius. Under the Empire, the statues of the emperors and the eagles of the legions were made refuges against acts of violence. Generally speaking, the classes of persons who claimed the rights of asylum were slaves who had been maltreated by their masters, soldiers defeated and pursued by the enemy, and criminals who feared a trial or who had escaped before sentence was passed. (See treatisesDe Asylis Graecis, by Förster, 1847; Jaenisch, 1868; Barth, 1888.)

With the establishment of Christianity, the custom of asylum or sanctuary (q.v.) became attached to the church or churchyard. In modern times the word asylum has come to mean an institution providing shelter or refuge for any class of afflicted or destitute persons, such as the blind, deaf and dumb, &c., but more particularly the insane. (SeeInsanity.)

ASYLUM, RIGHT OF(Fr.droit d’asile; Ger.Asylrecht), in international law, the right which a state possesses, by virtue of the principle that every independent state is sole master within its boundaries, of allowing fugitives from another country to enter or sojourn upon its territory. Extradition (q.v.) treaties are undertakings between states curtailing the exercise of the right of asylum in respect of refugees from justice, but the conditions therein laid down invariably show that nations regard the maintenance of this right of asylum as intimately connected with their right of independent action, however weak as states they may be, on their own soil. The neutral right to grant asylum to belligerent forces is now governed by articles 57, 58and 59 of the regulations annexed to the Hague Convention of the 29th of July 1899, relating to the Laws and Customs of War on Land. (SeeWar.)

(T. Ba.)

ATACAMA,a province of northern Chile, bounded N. and S. respectively by the provinces of Antofagasta and Coquimbo, and extending from the Pacific coast E. to the Argentine boundary line. It has an area of 30,729 sq. m., lying in great part within the Atacama desert region (see below), and a population (1902) of 71,446. The silver and copper mines of the province are numerous, some of them ranking among the most productive known, but the majority are worked with limited capital and on a small scale. The silver ore was first discovered in 1832 by a shepherd at a place which bears his name, Juan Godoi. The nitrate and borax deposits are extensive and productive, and common salt is a natural product of large areas in the elevated desert regions of the Andes. The exports include copper and silver and their ores, nitrate of soda, borax, guano and other minerals in small quantities. The capital, Copiapó (est. pop. 8991 in 1902), is situated on a small river of the same name 37 m. from the coast and 51 m. south-east by rail from Caldera, the principal port of this great mining district. Before 1842, when guano began to attract notice as an exportable product, Atacama was considered as Bolivian territory, and Coquimbo the extreme northern province of Chile. In that year Chile decided to explore the desert coast, and in 1843 that part of the desert extending north to the 26th parallel was organized into the province of Atacama.

ATACAMA, DESERT OF,an arid, barren and saline region of western South America, covering the greater part of the Chilean provinces of Atacama and Antofagasta, the Argentine territory of Los Andes, and the south-western corner of the Bolivian department of Potosí. The higher elevations are known as the Puna de Atacama, which is practically a continuation southward of the greatpunaregion of Peru and Bolivia. It is a broken, mountainous region, volcanic in places, saline in others, and ranges from 7000 to 13,500 ft. in general elevation. Its culminating ridges are marked by an irregular line of peaks and extinct volcanoes extending north by east from about 28° S. into southern Bolivia. On the eastern side, occasional rainfalls occur and streams from the snow-clads peaks produce some slight displays of fertility, but the general aspect of the plateaus, which are dry and cold in winter and in summer are swept by rainstorms and covered by occasional tufts of coarse grass, is barren and forbidding. They are also broken by great saline lagoons and dry salt basins. This region forms the Argentine territory of Los Andes and is habitable in places. On the western slope the land descends gradually to the Pacific, being broken into great basins, or terraces, by mountainous ridges in its higher elevations, widening out into gently-sloping sandy plains below, famous for their nitrate deposits, and terminating on the coast with sharply-sloping bluffs, having an elevation of 800 to 1500 ft., and looking from the sea like a range of flat-topped hills. This desolate region, which is rainless and absolutely barren, and was considered worthless for three and a half centuries, is now a treasure-house of mineral wealth, abounding in copper, silver, lead, nickel, cobalt, iron, nitrates and borax. It is occupied by many mining settlements, and includes some of the most productive copper and silver mines of the world.

See L. Darapsky, “Zur Geographic der Puna de Atacama,”Zeits. Ges. Erdk. zu Berlin, 1899; G.E. Church, “South America: an Outline of its Physical Geography,”Geographical Journal, 1901; John Ball,Notes of a Naturalist in South America(London, 1887); F. O’Driscoll, “A Journey to the North of the Argentine Republic,”Geographical Journal, 1904.

(A. J. L.)

ATACAMITE,a mineral found originally in the desert of Atacama, and named by D. de Gallizen in 1801. It is a cupric oxychloride, having the formula CuCl2·3Cu(OH)2, and crystallizing in the orthorhombic system. Its hardness is about 3 and its specific gravity 3.7, while its colour presents various shades of green, usually dark. Atacamite is a comparatively rare mineral, formed in some cases by the action of sea-water on various copper-ores, and occurring also as a volcanic product on Vesuvian lavas. Some of the finest crystals have been yielded by the copper-mines of South Australia, especially at Wallaroo. It occurs also, with malachite, at Bembe, near Ambriz, in West Africa. From one of its localities in Chile, Los Remolinos, it was termed Remolinite by Brooke and Miller. Atacamite, in a pulverulent state, was formerly used as a pounce under the name of “Peruvian green sand,” and was known in Chile as arsenillo.

(F. W. R.*)

ATAHUALLPA(atahu, Lat.virtus, andallpa, sweet), “the last of the Incas” (or Yncas) of Peru, was the son of the ruler Huayna Capac, by Pacha, the daughter of the conquered sovereign of Quito. His brother Huascar succeeded Huayna Capac in 1527; for, as Atahuallpa was not descended on both sides from the line of Incas, Peruvian law considered him illegitimate. He obtained, however, the kingdom of Quito. A jealous feeling soon sprang up between him and Huascar, who insisted that Quito should be held as a dependent province of his empire. A civil war broke out between the brothers, and, about the time when the Spanish conqueror Pizarro was beginning to move inland from the town of San Miguel, Huascar had been defeated and thrown into prison, and Atahuallpa had become Inca. Pizarro set out in September 1532, and made for Caxamarca, where the Inca was. Messengers passed frequently between them, and the Spaniards on their march were hospitably received by the inhabitants. On the 15th of November, Pizarro entered Caxamarca, and sent his brother and Ferdinando de Soto to request an interview with the Inca. On the evening of the next day, Atahuallpa entered the great square of Caxamarca, accompanied by some five or six thousand men, who were either unarmed or armed only with short clubs and slings concealed under their dresses. Pizarro’s artillery and soldiers were planted in readiness in the streets opening off the square. The interview was carried on by the priest Vicente de Valverde, who addressed the Inca through an interpreter. He stated briefly and dogmatically the principal points of the Christian faith and the Roman Catholic policy, and concluded by calling upon Atahuallpa to become a Christian, obey the commands of the pope, give up the administration of his kingdom, and pay tribute to Charles V., to whom had been granted the conquest of these lands. To this extraordinary harangue, which from its own nature and the faults of the interpreter must have been completely unintelligible, the Inca at first returned a very temperate answer. He pointed out what seemed to him certain difficulties in the Christian religion, and declined to accept as monarch of his dominions this Charles, of whom he knew nothing. He then took a bible from the priest’s hands, and, after looking at it, threw it violently from him, and began a more impassioned speech, in which he exposed the designs of the Spaniards, and upbraided them with the cruelties they had perpetrated. The priest retired, and Pizarro at once gave the signal for attack. The Spaniards rushed out suddenly, and the Peruvians, astonished and defenceless, were cut down in hundreds. Pizarro himself seized the Inca, and in endeavouring to preserve him alive, received, accidentally, on his hand the only wound inflicted that day on a Spaniard. Atahuallpa, thus treacherously captured, offered an enormous sum of money as a ransom, and fulfilled his engagement; but Pizarro still detained him, until the Spaniards should have arrived in sufficient numbers to secure the country. While in captivity, Atahuallpa gave secret orders for the assassination of his brother Huascar, and also endeavoured to raise an army to expel the invaders. His plans were betrayed, and Pizarro at once brought him to trial. He was condemned to death, and, as being an idolater, to death by fire. Atahuallpa, however, professed himself a Christian, received baptism, and his sentence was then altered into death by strangulation (August 29, 1533). His body was afterwards burned, and the ashes conveyed to Quito. (See alsoPeru:History.)

ATALANTA,in Greek legend, the name of two Greek heroines, (1) The Arcadian Atalanta was the daughter of Iasius or Iasion and Clymene. At her birth, she had been exposed on a hill, her father having expected a son. At first she was suckled by a she-bear, and then saved by huntsmen, among whom she grewup to be skilled with the bow, swift, and fond of the chase, like the virgin goddess Artemis. At the Calydonian boar-hunt her arrows were the first to hit the monster, for which its head and hide were given her by Meleager. At the funeral games of Pelias, she wrestled with Peleus, and won. For a long time she remained true to Artemis and rejected all suitors, but Meilanion at last gained her love by his persistent devotion. She was the mother of Parthenopaeus, one of the Seven against Thebes (Apollodorus iii. 9; Hyginus,Fab.99). (2) The Boeotian Atalanta was the daughter of Schoeneus. She was famed for her running, and would only consent to marry a suitor who could outstrip her in a race, the consequence of failure being death. Hippomenes, before starting, had obtained from Aphrodite three golden apples, which he dropped at intervals, and Atalanta, stopping to pick them up, fell behind. Both were happy at the result; but forgetting to thank the goddess for the apples, they were led by her to a religious crime, and were transformed into lions by the goddess Cybele (Ovid,Metam.x. 560; Hyginus,Fab.185). The characteristics of these two heroines (frequently confounded) point to their being secondary forms of the Arcadian Artemis.

ATARGATIS, a Syrian deity, known to the Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Derketo (Strabo xvi. c. 785; Pliny,Nat. Hist.v. 23. 81), and as Dea Syria, or in one word Deasura (Lucian,de Dea Syria). She is generally described as the “fish-goddess.” The name is a compound of two divine names; the first part is a form of the Himyaritic’Athlar, the equivalent of the Old TestamentAshtoreth, the PhoenicianAstarte(q.v.), with the feminine ending omitted (Assyr.Ishtar); the second is a Palmyrene name’Athe(i.e. tempus opportunum), which occurs as part of many compounds. As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified with Astarte. The two deities were, no doubt, of common origin, but their cults are historically distinct. In 2 Macc. xii. 26 we find reference to an Atargateion or Atergateion (temple of Atargatis) at Carnion in Gilead (cf. 1 Macc. v. 43), but the home of the goddess was unquestionably not Palestine, but Syria proper,especiallyat Hierapolis (q.v.), where she had a great temple. From Syria her worship extended to Greece, Italy and the furthest west. Lucian and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the great cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. The wide extension of the cult is attributable largely to Syrian merchants; thus we find traces of it in the great seaport towns; at Delos especially numerous inscriptions have been found bearing witness to its importance. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, who carried it even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman empire. In many cases, however, Atargatis and Astarte are fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. This fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of Astarte at Ashtaroth-Karnaim.

Atargatis appears generally as the wife of Hadad (Baal). They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, in the capacity ofπολιοῦχος, wears a mural crown, is the ancestor of the royal house, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of generation and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems), and the inventor of useful appliances. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite. By the conjunction of these many functions, she becomes ultimately a great Nature-Goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea (seeGreat Mother of the Gods); in one aspect she typifies the function of water in producing life; in another, the universal mother-earth (Macrobius,Saturn, i. 23); in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldaean astrology), the power of destiny. The legends are numerous and of an astrological character, intended to account for the Syrian dove-worship and abstinence from fish (see the story in Athenaeus viii. 37, where Atargatis is derived fromἄτερ Γάτιδος“without Gatis,”—a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish). Thus Diodorus Siculus, using Ctesias, tells how she fell in love with a youth who was worshipping at the shrine of Aphrodite, and by him became the mother of Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, and how in shame she flung herself into a pool at Ascalon or Hierapolis and was changed into a fish (W. Robertson Smith inEng. Hist. Rev.ii., 1887). In another story she was hatched from an egg found by some fish in the Euphrates and by them thrust on the bank where it was hatched by a dove; out of gratitude she persuaded Jupiter to transfer the fish to the Zodiac (cf. Ovid,Fast.ii. 459-474,Metam.v. 331).

See articless.v.in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyk.(1897), by W. Baudissin; and Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyc.; Fr. Baethgen,Beiträge zur Semit. Religiongesch.(1888); R. Pietschmann,Gesch. der Phönizier(1889).

ATAULPHUS(the Latinized form of the Gothic Ataulf, “Father-wolf,” fromatta, father, andvulfs, wolf; mod. Germ. Adolf, Latinized as Adolphus, the form used by Gibbon for the subject of this article), king of the Goths (d. 415). On the death of Alaric (q.v.) his followers acclaimed his brother-in-law Ataulphus as king. In 412 he quitted Italy and led his army across the Alps into Gaul. Here he fought against some of the usurpers who threatened the throne of Honorius; he made some sort of compact with that emperor and, in 414, he married his sister Placidia, who had been since the siege of Rome a captive in the camp of the Goths. The ex-emperor Attalus danced at the marriage festival, which was celebrated with great pomp at Narbonne. In 415 Ataulphus crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and died at Barcelona, being assassinated by a groom. The most important fact in his history is his confession, recorded by Orosius, that he saw the inability of his countrymen to rear a civilized or abiding kingdom, and that consequently his aim should be to build on Roman foundations and blend the two nations into one.

ATAVISM(from Lat.atavus, a great-great-great-grandfather or ancestor), the term given in biology to the reproduction in a living person or animal of the characteristics of an ancestor more remote than its parents (seeHeredity). Loosely used, it connotes a reversion to an earlier type. Individuals reproduce unexpectedly the traits of earlier ancestors, and ethnologists and criminologists frequently explain by “atavism” the occurrence of degenerate species of man; but the whole subject is complicated by other possible explanations of such phenomena, included in the scientific study of normal “variation.”

ATBARA(Bahr-el-Aswad, or Black River), the most northern affluent of the river Nile, N.E. Africa. It rises in Abyssinia to the N.W. of Lake Tsana, unites its waters with a number of other rivers which also rise in the Abyssinian highlands, and flows north-west 800 m. till its junction at Ed Damer with the Nile (q.v.). The battle of the Atbara, fought near Nakheila, a place on the north bank of the river about 30 m. above Ed Damer, on the 8th of April 1898, between the khalifa’s forces under Mahmud and Sir Herbert (afterwards Lord) Kitchener’s Anglo-Egyptian army, resulted in the complete defeat of the Mahdists and the capture of their leader, and paved the way for the decisive battle of Omdurman on the 2nd of September following (seeEgypt:Military Operations).

ATCHISON, a city and the county-seat of Atchison county, Kansas, U.S.A., on the west bank of the Missouri river, which is navigable at this point but is utilized comparatively little for commerce. Pop. (1890) 13,963; (1900) 15,722, of whom 2508 were of negro descent and 1308 were foreign-born; (1910) 16,429. Atchison is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Missouri Pacific railways. The city is the seat of Midland College (Lutheran, 1887), St Benedict’s College (Roman Catholic, 1858) for boys, Mt. Scholastics Academy (Roman Catholic) for girls, and Western Theological Seminary (Evangelical-Lutheran, 1893); a state soldiers’ orphans’ home is also located here. Atchison’s situation and transportation facilities make it an important supply-centre, its trade in grains and live-stock being particularly large; it has large railway machine shops, and its principal manufactures are flour, furniture, lumber, hardware and drugs. The value of the city’s factoryproducts increased from $2,093,469 in 1900 to $4,052,274 in 1905, or 93.6%. Atchison was founded in 1854 by pro-slavery partisans, and was named in honour of their leader, David Rice Atchison, a United States senator. The city was quickly surpassed by Leavenworth in commercial importance, and during the Kansas struggle was never of great political importance. Its first city charter was granted in 1858. The AtchisonGlobe(established 1878) is one of the best-known of western papers.

ATE,in Greek mythology, the personification of criminal folly, the daughter of Zeus and Eris (Strife). She misled even Zeus to take a hasty oath, whereby Heracles became subject to Eurystheus. Zeus thereupon cast her by the hair out of Olympus, whither she did not return, but remained on earth, working evil and mischief (Iliad, xix. 91). She is followed by the Litae (Prayers), the old and crippled daughters of Zeus, who are able to repair the evil done by her (Iliad, ix. 502). In later times Ate is regarded as the avenger of sin (Sophocles,Antigone, 614, 625).

See J. Girard,Le Sentiment religieux en Grèce(1869); J.F. Scherer,De Graecorum Ates Notione atque Indole(1858); E. Berch,Bedeutung der Ate bei Aeschylos(1876); C. Lehrs,Populare Aufsatze aus dem Alterthum(1875); L. Schmidt,Die Ethik der alten Griechen(1882).

ATELLA,an ancient Oscan town of Campania, 9 m. N. of Naples and 9 m. S. of Capua, on the road between the two. It was a member of the Campanian confederation, and shared the fortunes of Capua, but remained faithful to Hannibal for a longer time; the great part of the inhabitants, when they could no longer resist the Romans, were transferred by him to Thurii, and the town was reoccupied in 211 by the Romans, who settled the exiled inhabitants of Nuceria there. The fate of Atella at the end of the war, when the latter were able to return to their own city, is unknown. Cicero was in friendly relations with it, and exerted influence that it might retain its property in Gaul, so that it is obvious that it had then recovered municipal rights. The town is mainly famous as the cradle of early Roman comedy, theFabulae Atellanae(see below). Some remains of the town still exist, including a tower of the city wall in brick.

See J. Beloch,Campanien(2nd ed., Breslau, 1890), p. 379.

ATELLANAE FABULAE(“Atellan fables”), the name of a sort of popular comedy amongst the ancient Romans. The name is derived from Atella, an Oscan town in Campania; for this reason, and from their being also calledOsci Ludi, it has been supposed that they were of Oscan origin and introduced at Rome after Campania had been deprived of its independence. It seems highly improbable that they were performed in the Oscan language. Mommsen, however, rejects their Oscan origin altogether; he regards them as purely Latin, the scene merely being laid at Atella to avoid causing offence by placing it at Rome or one of the Latin cities. These plays, or rather sketches, contained humorous descriptions of country as contrasted with town life, and found their subjects amongst the lower classes of the people. The subjects alone were decided upon before the performance began; the dialogue was improvised as it proceeded. The Atellanae contained certain stock characters, like the Italian harlequinades: Maccus (the fool), Bucco (fat-chaps), Pappus (daddy), Dossennus (sharper); monsters and bogeys like Manducus, Pytho, Lamia also made their appearance. The performers were the sons of Roman citizens, who did not lose their rights as citizens, and were allowed to serve in the army: professional actors were excluded. The simple prose dialogues were probably varied by songs in the rude Saturnian metre: the language was that of the common people, accompanied by lively gesticulation and movements. They were characterized by coarseness and obscenity. In the time of Sulla a literary form was given to the Atellanae by Pomponius of Bononia and Novius, who made them regular written comedies. Living persons seem to have been attacked, and even the doings of the gods and heroes of mythology burlesqued. From this time the Atellanae were used as after-pieces and performed by professional actors. In 46B.C.they were ousted by the mimes, but regained popularity during the reign of Tiberius (chiefly owing to a certain Mummius), until they were definitely superseded by and merged in the mimes. They held their ground in the small towns and villages of Italy during the last days of the empire; they probably lingered on into the middle ages, and were the origin of the ItalianCommedie dell’ arte.

The scanty fragments of Pomponius and Novius are collected in Ribbeck’sComicorum Romanorum Reliquiae; see also Munk,De Fabulis Atellanis(1840); and art.Latin Literature.

ATESTE(mod.Este, q.v.), an ancient town of Venetia, at the southern foot of the Euganean hills, 43 ft. above sea-level; 22 m. S.W. of Patavium (Padua). The site was occupied in very early times, as the discoveries since 1882 show. Large cemeteries have been excavated, which show three different periods from the 8th centuryB.C.down to the Roman domination. In the first period (Italic) cremation burials closely approximating to the Villanova type are found; in the second1(Venetian) the tombs are constructed of blocks of stone, andsitulae(bronze buckets), sometimes decorated with elaborate designs, are frequently used to contain the cinerary urns; in the third (Gallic), which begins during the 4th centuryB.C., though cremation continues, the tombs are much poorer, the ossuaries being of badly baked rough clay, and show traces of Gallic influence, and characteristics of the La-Tène civilization. The many important objects found in these excavations are preserved in the local museum. See G. Ghirardini inNotizie degli Scavi; Monumenti dei Lincei, ii. (1893) 161 seq., vii. (1897) 5 seq., x. (1901) 5 seq.;Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche(Rome, 1904), v. 279 seq. Inscriptions show that the national language asserted its existence even after Ateste came into the hands of the Romans. When this occurred is not known; boundary stones of 135B.C.exist, which divide the territory of Ateste from that of Patavium and of Vicetia, showing that the former extended from the middle of the Euganean hills to the Atesis (mod.Adige, from which Ateste no doubt took its name, and on which it once stood). After the battle of Actium, Augustus settled veterans from various of his legions in this territory, Ateste being thenceforth spoken of as a colony. It appears to have furnished many recruits, especially for thecohortes urbanae. It appears but little in history, though its importance is vouched for by numerous inscriptions, the majority of which belong to the early Empire.

(T. As.)

1This is by some authorities divided into two.

ATH,orAath, an ancient town of the province of Hainaut, Belgium, situated on the left bank of the Dender. Pop. (1890) 9868; (1904) 11,201. Formerly it was fortified, but after the change in the defensive system of Belgium in 1858 the fortress was dismantled and its ramparts superseded by boulevards. Owing to a fire caused by lightning its fine church of St Julien, dating from the 14th century, which had escaped serious injury during many wars, was destroyed in 1817 (since rebuilt). This left the Tour Burbant as its sole relic of the middle ages. This tower formed part of thedonjonof the fortress erected by Baldwin IV., count of Hainaut, about the year 1150. Near Ath is the fine castle of Beloeil, the ancient seat of the princely family of Ligne. Ath is famous for its gild of archers, whose butts are erected on the plain of the Esplanade in the centre of the town. The town militia has the privilege of being armed with bows and crossbows. Ath is also well known in Hainaut for its annual fête calledle jour de ducasse—ducassebeing the Walloon word for kermesse (fête). On this occasion a procession escorting figures of two giants, Goliath, called locally Goyasse, and Samson, forms the chief feature of the celebration. The emperor Joseph II. stopped it for its “idolatrous” character, but this act was one of the causes of the Brabant revolution of 1789. The procession, revived in 1790, was again stopped by the French republicans five years later, but was revived under the Empire, and has flourished ever since.

ATHABASCA(Athiapescow), orElk, a river and lake Of the province of Alberta, Canada. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains near the Yellowhead Pass in 52° 10′ N. and 117° 10′ W., and flows north-east as far as Athabasca Landing, and thence north into Lake Athabasca. It is 740 m. long and has a number of important tributaries, including the McLeod, Pembina, LesserSlave, which drains the lake of that name, and Clearwater. Athabasca lake is 195 m. long, west to east, from 20 to 32 m. wide has an area of 3085 sq. m., and is 690 ft. above the sea. It discharges its waters northward by Slave river and the Mackenzie system to the Arctic Ocean. On its north shore the country is high and rocky; on the south, sandy and barren. Shallow draught steamers navigate the lake and river, and Lesser Slave lake and river, with one interruption—at Grand Rapids near the mouth of the Clearwater river.

ATHALARIC(516-534), king of the Ostrogoths, grandson of Theodoric, became king of the Ostrogoths in Italy on his grandfather’s death (526). As he was only ten years old, the regency was assumed by his mother Amalasuntha (q.v.). The murmurs of the Gothic nobles procured for their young sovereign too early emancipation from the schoolroom. He drank heavily, and indulged in vicious excesses which ruined his constitution. He died on the 2nd of October 534.

ATHALIAH,in the Bible, the daughter of Ahab, and wife of Jehoram, king of Judah. After the death of Ahaziah, her son she usurped the throne and reigned for six years. She is said to have massacred all the members of the royal house of Judah (2 Kings xi. 1-3), but a similar atrocity is also ascribed to Jehu (2 Kings x. 12-14); with both notices contrast 2 Chron. xxi. 17. The sole survivor Joash was concealed in the temple by his aunt, Jehosheba, wife of the priest Jehoida (2 Chron. xxii. 11) These organized a revolution in favour of Joash, and caused Athaliah and her adherents to be put to death (2 Kings xi.; 2 Chron. xxii. 10-12, xxiii., xxiv. 7).

The story of Athaliah forms the subject of one of Racine’s best tragedies. It has been musically treated by Handel and Mendelssohn.

ATHAMAS,in Greek mythology, king of the Minyae in Boeotian Orchomenus, son of Aeolus, king of Thessaly, or of Minyas. His first wife was Nephele, the cloud-goddess, by whom he had two children, Phrixus and Helle (seeArgonauts). Athamas and his second wife Ino were said to have incurred the wrath of Hera, because Ino had brought up Dionysus, the son of her sister Semele, as a girl, to save his life. Athamas went mad, and slew one of his sons, Learchus; Ino, to escape the pursuit of her frenzied husband, threw herself into the sea with her other son Melicertes. Both were afterwards worshipped as marine divinities, Ino as Leucothea, Melicertes as Palaemon (Odysseyv. 333). Athamas, with the guilt of his son’s murder upon him, was obliged to flee from Boeotia. He was ordered by the oracle to settle in a place where he should receive hospitality from wild beasts. This he found at Phthiotis in Thessaly, where he surprised some wolves eating sheep; on his approach they fled, leaving him the bones. Athamas, regarding this as the fulfilment of the oracle, settled there and married a third wife, Themisto. The spot was afterwards called the Athamanian plain (Apollodorus i. 9; Hyginus,Fab. 1-5; Ovid,Metam.iv. 416,Fasti, vi. 485; Valerius Flaccus i. 277).

According to a local legend, Athamas was king of Halos in Phthiotis from the first (Schol. on Apoll. Rhodius ii. 513). After his attempt on the life of Phrixus, which was supposed to have succeeded, the Phthiots were ordered to sacrifice him to Zeus Laphystius, in order to appease the anger of the gods. As he was on the point of being put to death, Cytissorus, a son of Phrixus, suddenly arrived from Aea with the news that Phrixus was still alive. Athamas’s life was thus saved, but the wrath of the gods was unappeased, and pursued the family. It was ordained that the eldest born of the race should not enter the council-chamber; if he did so, he was liable to be seized and sacrificed if detected (Herodotus vii. 197). The legend of Athamas is probably founded on a very old custom amongst the Minyae—the sacrifice of the first-born of the race of Athamas to Zeus Laphystius. The story formed the subject of lost tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and other Greek and Latin dramatists.

ATHANAGILD(d. 547) became king of the Visigoths (in Spain) in 534, having invoked the aid of the emperor Justinian for his revolt against his predecessor Agila. Athanagild, when himself king, vainly tried to oust his late allies from the footing which they had gained in Spain, nor were the Greeks finally expelled from Spain till seventy years later. Athanagild himself is chiefly remembered for the tragic fortunes of his daughters Brunechildis and Gavleswintha, who married two Frankish brother kings, Sigebert and Chilperic. Athanagild died (“peacefully,” as the annalist remarks) in 547.

ATHANARIC(d. 381), a ruler of the Visigoths from about 366 to 380. He bore the title not of king but of judge, a title which may be compared with that of ealdorman among the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain. Athanaric waged, from 367 to 369, an unsuccessful war with the emperor Valens, and the peace by which the war was ended was ratified by the Roman and Gothic rulers meeting on a barge in mid-stream of the Danube. Athanaric was a harsh and obstinate heathen, and his short reign was chiefly famous for his brutal persecution of his Christian fellow-countrymen. In 376 he was utterly defeated by the Huns, who a few years before had burst into Europe. The bulk of the Visigothic people sought refuge within the Empire in the region now known as Bulgaria, but Athanaric seems to have fled into Transylvania. Being attacked there by two Ostrogothic chiefs he also, in 381, sought the protection of the Roman emperor. Theodosius I. received him courteously, and he was profoundly impressed by the glories of Constantinople, but on the fifteenth day after his arrival he died, and was honoured by the emperor with a magnificent funeral.

ATHANASIUS(293-373), bishop of Alexandria and saint, one of the most illustrious defenders of the Christian faith, was born probably at Alexandria. Of his family and of his early education nothing can be said to be known. According to the legend, the boy is said to have once baptized some of his playmates and thereupon to have been taken into his house by Bishop Alexander, who recognized the validity of this proceeding. It is certain that Athanasius was young when he took orders, and that he must soon have entered into close relations with his bishop, whom, after the outbreak of the Arian controversy, he accompanied as archdeacon to the council of Nicaea. In the sessions and discussions of the council he could take no part; but in unofficial conferences he took sides vigorously, according to his own evidence, against the Arians, and was certainly not without influence. He had already, before the opening of the Council, defined his personal attitude towards the dogmatic problem in two essays,Against the GentilesandOn the Incarnation, without, however, any special relation to the Arian controversy.

The essayOn the Incarnationis thelocus classicusfor the presentation of the teaching of the ancient church on the subject of salvation. In this the great idea that God himself had entered into humanity becomes dominant. The doom of death under which mankind had sighed since Adam’s fall could only then be averted, when the immortal Word of God (Λόγος) assumed a mortal body, and, by yielding this to death for the sake of all, abrogated once for all the law of death, of which the power had been spent on the body of the Lord. Thus was rendered possible the leading back of mankind to God, of which the sure pledge lies in the grace of the resurrection of Christ. Athanasius would hear of no questioning of this religious mystery. In the catchwordHomousios, which had been added to the creed at Nicaea, he too recognized the best formula for the expression of the mystery, although in his own writings he made but sparing use of it. He was in fact less concerned with the formula than with the content. Arians and Semi-Arians seemed to him to be pagans, who worship the creature, instead of the God who created all things, since they teach two gods, one having no beginning, the other having a beginning in Time and therefore of the same nature as the heathen gods, since, like them, he is a creature. Athanasius has no terms for the definition of the Persons in the one “Divine” (τὸ θεῖον), which are in their substance one; and yet he is certain that this “Divine” is not mere abstraction, but something truly personal: “They are One,” so he wrote later in hisDiscourses against the Arians. “not as though the unity were torn into two parts, which outside the unity would be nothing, nor as though the unity bore two names, so that one and the same is at one time Father and thenhis own Son, as the heretic Sabellius imagined. But they are two, for the Father is Father, and the Son is not the same, but, again, the Son is Son, and not the Father himself. But their Nature (φύσις) is one, for the Begotten is not dissimilar (ἀνόμοιος) to the Begetter, but his image, and everything that is the Father’s is also the Son’s.”

Five months after the return from the council of Nicaea Bishop Alexander died; and on the 8th of February 326 Athanasius, at the age of thirty-three, became his successor. The first years of his episcopate were tranquil; then the storms in which the remainder of his life was passed began to gather round him. The council had by no means composed the divisions in the Church which the Arian controversy had provoked. Arius himself still lived, and his friend Eusebius of Nicomedia rapidly regained influence over the emperor Constantine. The result was a demand made by the emperor that Arius should be readmitted to communion. Athanasius stood firm, but many accusers soon rose up against one who was known to be under the frown of the imperial displeasure. He was charged with cruelty, even with sorcery and murder. It was reported that a bishop of the Meletian party (seeMeletius) in the Thebaid, of the name of Arsenius, had been unlawfully put to death by him. He was easily able to clear himself of these charges; but the hatred of his enemies was not relaxed, and in the summer of 335 he was peremptorily ordered to appear at Tyre, where a council had been summoned to sit in judgment upon his conduct. There appeared plainly a predetermination to condemn him, and he fled from Tyre to Constantinople to appeal to the emperor himself. Refused at first a hearing, his perseverance was at length rewarded by the emperor’s assent to his reasonable request that his accusers should be brought face to face with him in the imperial presence. Accordingly the leaders of the council, the most conspicuous of whom were Eusebius of Nicomedia and his namesake of Caesarea, were summoned to Constantinople. Here they did not attempt to repeat their old charges, but found a more effective weapon to their hands in a new charge of a political kind—that Athanasius had threatened to stop the Alexandrian corn-ships bound for Constantinople. It is very difficult to understand how far there was truth in the persistent accusations made against the prince-bishop of Alexandria. Probably there was in the very greatness of his character and the extent of his popular influence a certain species of dominance which lent a colour of truth to some of the things said against him. On the present occasion his accusers succeeded at once in arousing the imperial jealousy. Without obtaining a hearing, he was banished at the end of 335 to Trèves in Gaul. This was the first banishment of Athanasius, which lasted about one year and a half. It was brought to a close by the death of Constantine, and the accession as emperor of the West of Constantine II., who, in June 337, allowed Athanasius to return to Alexandria.

He reached his see on the 23rd of November 337, and, as he himself has told us, “the people ran in crowds to see his face; the churches were full of rejoicing; thanksgivings were everywhere offered up; the ministers and clergy thought the day the happiest in their lives.” But this period of happiness was destined to be short-lived. His position as bishop of Alexandria placed him, not under his patron Constantine, but under Constantius, another son of the elder Constantine, who had succeeded to the throne of the East. He in his turn fell, as his father had done in later years, under the influence of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who in the latter half of 339 was transferred to the see of Constantinople, the new seat of the imperial court. A second expulsion of Athanasius was accordingly resolved upon. The old accusations against him were revived, and he was further charged with having set at naught the decision of a council. On the 18th of March 339 the exarch of Egypt suddenly confronted Athanasius with an imperial edict, by which he was deposed and a Cappadocian named Gregory was nominated bishop in his place. On the following day, after tumultuous scenes, Athanasius fled, and four days later Gregory was installed by the aid of the soldiery. On the first opportunity, Athanasius went to Rome, to “lay his case before the church.” A synod assembled at Rome in the autumn of 340, and the great council—probably that which met at Sardica in 342 or 343, where the Orientals refused to meet the representatives of the Western church—declared him guiltless. This decision, however, had no immediate effect in favour of Athanasius. Constantius continued for some time implacable, and the bold action of the Western bishops only incited the Arian party in Alexandria to fresh severities. But the death of the intruder Gregory, on the 26th of June 345, opened up a way of reconciliation. Constantius decided to yield to the importunity of his brother Constans, who had succeeded Constantine II. in the West; and the result was the restoration of Athanasius for the second time, on the 21st of October 346. Again he returned to Alexandria amid the enthusiastic demonstrations of the populace, which is described by Gregory of Nazianzus, in his panegyric on Athanasius, as streaming forth like “another Nile” to meet him afar off as he approached the city.

The six years of his residence in the West had given Athanasius the opportunity of displaying a momentous activity. He made long journeys in Italy, in Gaul, and as far as Belgium. Everywhere he laboured for the Nicene faith, and the impression made by his personality was so great that to hold fast the orthodox faith and to defend Athanasius were for many people one and the same thing. This was shown when, after the death of the emperor Constans, Constantius became sole ruler of East and West. With the help of counsellors more subtle than discerning, the emperor, with the object of uniting the various parties in the Church at any cost, sought for the most colourless possible formula of belief, which he hoped to persuade all the bishops to accept. As his efforts remained for years fruitless, he used force. “My will is your guiding-line,” he exclaimed in the summer of 355 to the bishops who had assembled at Milan in response to his orders. A series of his most defiant opponents had to go into banishment, Liberius of Rome, Hilarius of Poitiers and Hosius of Corduba, the last-named once the confidant of Constantine and the actual originator of theHomousios, and now nearly a hundred years old. At length came the turn of Athanasius, now almost the sole upholder of the banner of the Nicene creed in the East. Several attempts to expel him failed owing to the attitude of the populace. On the night of the 8th-9th of February 356, however, when the bishop was holding the Vigils, soldiers and police broke into the church of Theonas. Athanasius himself has described the scene for us: “I was seated upon my chair, the deacon was about to read the psalm, the people to answer, ‘For his mercy endureth for ever.’ The solemn act was interrupted; a panic arose.” The bishop, who was at first unwilling to save himself, until he knew that his faithful followers were in safety, succeeded in escaping, leaving the town and finding a hiding-place in the country. The solitudes of Upper Egypt, where numerous monasteries and hermitages had been planted, seem at this time to have been his chief shelter. In this case, benefit was repayed by benefit, for Athanasius during his episcopate had been a zealous promoter of asceticism and monachism. With Anthony the hermit and Pachomius the founder of monasteries, he had maintained personal relations, and the former he had commemorated in hisLife of Anthony. During his exile his time was occupied in writing on behalf of his cause, and to this period belong some of his most important works, above all the greatOrations or Discourses against the Arians, which furnish the best exposition of his theological principles.

During his absence the see of Alexandria was left without a pastor. It is true that George of Cappadocia had taken his place; but he could only maintain himself for a short while (February 357-October 358). The great majority of the population remained faithful to the exile. At length, in November 361, the way was opened to him for his return to his see by the death of Constantius. Julian, who succeeded to the imperial throne, professed himself indifferent to the contentions of the Church, and gave permission to the bishops exiled in the late reign to return home. Among others, Athanasius availed himself of this permission, and in February 362 once more seated himself uponhis throne, amid the rejoicings of the people. He had begun his episcopal labours with renewed ardour, and assembled his bishops in Alexandria to decide various important questions, when an imperial mandate again—for the fourth time—drove him from his place of power. The faithful gathered around him weeping. “Be of good heart,” he said, “it is but a cloud: it will pass.” His forecast proved true; for within a few months Julian had closed his brief career of pagan revival. As early as September 363, Athanasius was able to travel to Jovian, the new emperor, who had sent him a letter praising his Christian fidelity and encouraging him to resume his work. He returned to Alexandria on the 20th of February 364. With the emperor he continued to maintain friendly relations; but the period of repose was short. In the spring of 365, after the accession of Valens to the throne, troubles again arose. Athanasius was once more compelled to seek safety from his persecutors in concealment (October 365), which lasted, however, only for four months. In February 366 he resumed his episcopal labours, in which he henceforth remained undisturbed. On the 2nd of May 373, having consecrated one of his presbyters as his successor, he died quietly in his own house.

Athanasius was a man of action, but he also knew how to use his pen for the furtherance of his cause. He left a large number of writings, which cannot of course be compared with those of an Origen, a Basil, or a Gregory of Nyssa. Athanasius was no systematic theologian. All his treatises are occasional pieces, born of controversy and intended for controversial ends. The interest in abstract exposition of clearly formulated theological ideas is everywhere subordinate to the polemical purpose. But all these writings are instinct with a living personal faith, and serve for the defence of the cause; for it was not about words that he was contending. Even those who do not sympathize with the cause which Athanasius steadfastly defended cannot but admire his magnanimous and heroic character. If he was imperious in temper and inflexible in his conception of the Christian faith, he possessed a great heart and a great intellect, inspired with an enthusiastic devotion to Christ. As a theologian, his main distinction was his zealous advocacy of the essential divinity of Christ. Christianity in its Arian conception would have evaporated in a new polytheism. To have set a dam against this process with the whole force of a mighty personality constitutes the importance of Athanasius in the world’s history. It is with good reason that the Church honours him as the “Great,” and as the “Father of Orthodoxy.”

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