AESON, the father of Jason, was restored to youth by Medea.

ae'SOP, a celebrated Greek fabulist of the 6th century B.C., of whose history little is known except that he was originally a slave, manumitted by Iadmon of Samos, and put to death by the Delphians, probably for some witticism at their expense.

aeSO'PUS, a celebrated Roman actor, a friend of Pompey and Cicero.

aeSTHETICS, the science of the beautiful in nature and the fine arts.

AE'TIUS, a Roman general, who withstood the aggressions of the Barbarians for twenty years, and defeated Attila at Chalons, 451; a.s.sa.s.sinated out of jealousy by the Emperor Valentinian III., 454.

aeTO'LIA, a country of ancient Greece N. of the Gulf of Corinth.

AFFRE, archbishop of Paris, suffered death on the barricades, as, with a green bough in his hand, he bore a message of peace to the insurgents (1793-1848).

AFGHAN'ISTAN' (5,000), a country in the centre of Asia, between India on the east and Persia on the west, its length about 600 m. and its breadth about 500 m., a plateau of immense mountain ma.s.ses, and high, almost inaccessible, valleys, occupying 278,000 sq. m., with extremes of climate, and a mixed turbulent population, majority Afghans. The country, though long a bone of contention between England and Russia, is now wholly under the sphere of British influence.

AF'GHANS, THE, a fine and n.o.ble but hot-tempered race of the Mohammedan faith inhabiting Afghanistan. The Afghans proper are called PATHANS in India, and call themselves Beni Israel (sons of Israel), tracing their descent from King Saul.

AFRA'NIUS, a Latin comic poet who flourished 100 B.C.; also a Roman Consul who played a prominent part in the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey, 60 B.C.

AFRICA, one of the five great divisions of the globe, three times larger than Europe, seven-tenths of it within the torrid zone, and containing over 200,000,000 inhabitants of more or less dark-skinned races. It was long a _terra incognita_, but it is now being explored in all directions, and attempts are everywhere made to bring it within the circuit of civilisation. It is being parcelled out by European nations, chiefly Britain, France, and Germany, and with more zeal and appliance of resource by Britain than any other.

AFRICA'NUS, JULIUS, a Christian historian and chronologist of the 3rd century.

AFRIDIS, a treacherous tribe of eight clans, often at war with each other, in a mountainous region on the North-Western frontier of India W.

of Peshawar.

AFRIKAN'DER, one born in S. Africa of European parents.

AFRIT', a powerful evil spirit in the Mohammedan mythology.

AGA'DES, a once important depot of trade in the S. of the Sahara, much decayed.

AGAG, a king of the Amalekites, conquered by Saul, and hewn in pieces by order of Samuel.

AGAMEM'NON, a son of Atreus, king of Mycenae and general-in-chief of the Greeks in the Trojan war, represented as a man of stately presence and a proud spirit. On the advice of the soothsayer Calchas sacrificed his daughter IPHIGENIA (q. v.) for the success of the enterprise he conducted. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated by aegisthus and Clytaemnestra, his wife, on his return from the war. His fate and that of his house is the subject of aeschylus' trilogy "Oresteia."

AGAMOGENESIS, name given to reproduction without s.e.x, by fission, budding, &c.

AGANIPPE, a fountain in Boeotia, near Helicon, dedicated to the Muses as a source of poetic inspiration.

AG'APE, love-feasts among the primitive Christians in commemoration of the Last Supper, and in which they gave each other the kiss of peace as token of Christian brotherhood.

AGAR-AGAR, a gum extracted from a sea-weed, used in bacteriological investigations.

AGA'SIAS, a sculptor of Ephesus, famous for his statue of the "Gladiator."

AGa.s.s'IZ, a celebrated Swiss naturalist, in the department especially of ichthyology, and in connection with the glaciers; settled as a professor of zoology and geology in the United States in 1846 (1807-1873).

AG'ATHE, ST., a Sicilian virgin who suffered martyrdom at Palermo under Decius in 251; represented in art as crowned with a long veil and bearing a pair of shears, the instruments with which her breast were cut off. Festival, Feb. 5.

AGA'THIAS, a Byzantine poet and historian (536-582).

AGATH'OCLES, the tyrant of Syracuse, by the ma.s.sacre of thousands of the inhabitants, was an enemy of the Carthaginians, and fought against them; was poisoned in the end (361-289 B.C.).

AG'ATHON, an Athenian tragic poet, a rival of Euripides (447-400 B.C.).

AG'ATHON, ST., pope from 676 to 682.

AG'DE (6), a French seaport on the Herault, 3 m. from the Mediterranean.

A'GEN (21), a town on the Garonne, 84 m. above Bordeaux.

AGES, in the Greek mythology four--the Golden, self-sufficient; the Silver, self-indulgent; the Brazen, warlike; and the Iron, violent; together with the Heroic, n.o.bly aspirant, between the third and fourth.

In archeology, three--the Stone Age, the Bronze, and the Iron. In history, the Middle and Dark, between the Ancient and the Modern. In Fichte, five--of Instinct, of Law, of Rebellion, of Rationality, of Conformity to Reason. In Shakespeare, seven--Infancy, Childhood, Boyhood, Adolescence, Manhood, Age, Old Age.

AGESAN'DER, a sculptor of Rhodes of the first century, who wrought at the famous group of the Laoc.o.o.n.